Church about rasputin. G

Grigory Efimovich Rasputin (after the father of Vilkin, then Novykh) was supposedly born on January 10, 1870 in the village of Pokrovsky, Tobolsk province. His parents, Yefim and Anna Vilkin, may have originally lived in Saratov. Then the family moved to the village of Pokrovskoye, 80 versts from Tyumen, south of Tobolsk, where the local peasants began to call them New. There their children were born, both Mikhail and Gregory.

He is drawn to the wanderers, the elders, who are called "God's people" - they often pass on their long journeys and through Pokrovskoye, and stay in their hut. He annoys his parents with talk that God calls him to wander the wide world. In the end, his father blesses him. On his travels, at the age of 19, he meets Praskovya Dubrovina in Alabatsk in a church on a holiday and soon marries her. However, their first-born soon dies, and this loss shocked Gregory - the Lord betrayed him!

He goes on foot to the Verkhoturevsky Monastery, four hundred kilometers northwest of Pokrovsky. There he studied literacy, the Holy Scriptures and much more from the famous hermit elder Makar in those parts. He tells him a year later that he can only find salvation in wanderings. Gregory becomes a distant wanderer.

Called by the vision of the Virgin Mary in 1893, he and his friend Dmitry Pechorkin went to Greece, to the mountains of Macedonia, to Orthodox monasteries. Returning to Russia, for three years Rasputin got acquainted with the Trinity-Sergius Lavra in Kyiv, Solovki, Valaam, Optina Hermitage, the Nilov Monastery and other holy places and miracles of the Orthodox Church. But every summer he comes to Pokrovskoye, to his wife Praskovya, leads a normal village life there. Children are born: Dmitry in 1895, Matryona in 1898, Varvara in 1900. Then he begins to heal people, to engage in healing - it turns out!

As a result, he gained a reputation as a holy man, but the local priest accused him of organizing orgies. The invited Bishop conducted an investigation, but did not find any violations. During the following wanderings, Rasputin developed the power of a healer through prayers and kneeling at the bedside of the sick.

This is where his fame begins, both loud and bad. He is accused of recreating the whiplash sect, which was banned in the 17th century by Patriarch Nikon. Rasputin's sect is expanding and strengthening. Gregory teaches his flock that the Lord loves only those who, having known sin, are cleansed of it. It suits his temperament. Another thing is coming up. Rasputin prefers to hide quietly and goes on new wanderings. First Kyiv, then Kazan, where one of the 4 spiritual academies of Russia was located. There he impresses with his knowledge, eloquence, the gift of healing and divination; on the other hand, and in Kazan he was not modest - "he rode broads", as they said later.

This was probably known to the clergy of the academy, but then they turn a blind eye to this and advise him to go to the theological academy in St. Petersburg, and give a letter of recommendation personally to Archimandrite Feofan, calling him an old man, convinced and clairvoyant. There is no doubt that all this was in Rasputin. Here is such a thirty-three-year-old old man Grigory arrives in the spring of 1903 in St. Petersburg.

In the capital, he is included in the highest aristocratic circles. On November 14, 1905, he was presented to Nicholas and Alexandra. He does not hesitate to speak to them on "you"; from now on they are for him - Dad and Mom.

Since July 1906, invitations to him from the royal family have become almost regular. On October 15, 1906, Nicholas II received Rasputin in Detskoye Selo, in his Tsarskoye Selo Palace. His wife and children are with him - for the first time, Grigory meets the children.

This is where it starts new chapter in relations between Rasputin and the royal family. Two-year-old baby Alexei is sick with hemophilia. The disease was incurable. In 1907 he was cured by Rasputin's prayers. And not once. In 1915, after an injury, the prince developed a fever, severe nosebleeds, which no one could stop. They sent for Rasputin. As soon as he entered the room, the bleeding stopped. As a healer and seer, Rasputin gained unlimited influence over the king, queen and their entourage. Then an expression of the extreme disintegration of the ruling elite of Russia appeared - "Rasputinism."

Grigory Rasputin did not doubt his abilities and it is not surprising that he had enemies. The manifestation of such abilities has always been treated with envy. In addition, Rasputin was never a tactful and prudent person. And his intervention in the reign of the Romanovs during the revolutionary hectic era further fueled hatred. In 1914, in Siberia, Rasputin was stabbed for the first time.

Within weeks, Rasputin was close to death. When he came to his senses, he learned that the king had rejected his advice not to go to war. Chaos broke out in Russia.

According to the official version, on December 29, 1916, Grigory Rasputin was killed by a group of Black Hundreds: Prince Felix Yusupov Jr., Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich Romanov and State Duma deputy Vladimir Mitrofanovich Purishkevich. In addition to them, lieutenant Alexander Sukhotin and doctor Stanislav Lazavert participated in the conspiracy. All of them were united by hatred for the "dirty, lustful and corrupt man." But what is curious is that it is still not known exactly who killed the elder and as a result of which he died.

Before his death, he wrote a letter in which he assumed that on January 1, 1917 he would not be alive. In the letter, he predicted some future of Russia - if the peasants kill him, Russia will remain a prosperous monarchy, but if the aristocrats (boyars), their hands will be stained with the blood of the victim, there will be no noble people left in Russia, and the tsar, along with his entire family, will die in for two years. And all this came true.

Historian Bernard Pare saw this letter and confirmed its authenticity. Rasputin's death is legendary. Poisoned with cyanide (although no poison was found in his body), then shot, he miraculously escaped through a locked door. They shot him again, hit him with an iron rod and threw him into an ice hole. Later, when the body was discovered, it turned out that Rasputin did not die from bullet wounds, he ... choked.

As Yusupov wrote in his memoirs, the murder was planned and carried out solely on his personal initiative. According to him, he was a victim of an obsession: “Whatever I do, no matter who I talk to, one obsessive thought, the thought of ridding Russia of its most dangerous internal enemy, tormented me. Sometimes in the middle of the night I woke up thinking all about the same and could not calm down and fall asleep for a long time.

Rasputin and the Church

In the teachings of "Elder Gregory" his instructive "I" shows through too much. He never denigrated the Church, he spoke with reverence about worship, about communion with the Holy Mysteries, he did not dare anyone from the Church, but on the contrary, he attracted. But in his actions and words, in the very position of a special, unlike any other, "old man", religious self-sufficiency was noticeable.

He needed the Church only as a source of grace-filled energies (in the sacraments), and, for all the sincerity of his humility before God, there was no humility before the Church in Rasputin. He was exhorted, he did not heed. In general, since Gregory becomes a wanderer, there is no visible human church authority over him. Thus, the moral fall of "Elder Gregory" could be God's allowance for the sake of self-denunciation and unhypocritical churching, which did not happen.

The name of Grigory Rasputin is associated with quackery, immoderation and the fall of the royal Romanov dynasty, he was a brilliant mystic and healer.

No matter how Rasputin concealed his affiliation with sectarianism, people in close contact with him, perhaps, unconsciously felt that, in addition to his own dark power, some terrible element lives and acts in him, which attracts him. This element was Khlysty with its drunken-sensual mysticism. Khlystism is all built on sexual principles and combines the crudest materialism of animal passion with faith in higher spiritual revelations.

Among the characteristic features of Khlystism, one cannot but pay attention to the exceptionally hostile (albeit outwardly disguised) attitude of the "God's people", to which Rasputin was ranked, to Orthodox clergy. “According to the whips, the clergy are black vrans, bloodthirsty beasts, evil wolves, godless Jews, evil Pharisees, and even groggy donkeys.”

All questions closely related to church life and appointments not only interested Rasputin, but touched him closely, since in this area he considered himself not only competent, but also, as it were, infallible, thereby regarding insultingly low not only individual "pastors ”, but also the whole synod together.

The extent to which Rasputin reached the level of "maltreatment" of our clergy in his "infallibility" is shown, if only by his cruel reprisals against his former friends-bishops Feofan, Hermogenes and Hieromonk Ilidor, who had treated him kindly, the rape of the nun Xenia, etc. facts.

Apparently, Rasputin found real pleasure in "dirtying", where possible, the representatives of our official church. Apparently, this was a specific task for him, included, so to speak, in his personal plans. How else to explain, for example, the fact of Rasputin's undoubted malicious, in a certain sense, non-admission of the autonomy of the theological school in general and, in particular, the St. Petersburg Theological Academy.

How else can one explain Rasputin's opposition to the restoration of the ancient rank of deaconesses in our church, about which all the members of the synod, Metropolitan Vladimir, the abbess Grand Duchess Elizabeth and a number of priests authoritative in the affairs of the church were busy?

How more the hated priests could be "annoyed" by the "infallible" Rasputin - the more categorical were his decisions when a suitable opportunity presented itself. Suffice it to recall at least his role in the question of the desirable for almost all of our clergy, in 1904-1907, the convening of an All-Russian Church Council!

“And it’s good without a cathedral, there is God’s anointed one and it’s enough; God controls his heart, what else do you need a cathedral.

By "God" Rasputin apparently meant himself personally, "controlling" the heart of the "anointed one".

“Why are they now leaving for different religions? - Rasputin asked in his book "My Thoughts and Reflections" and answered: "Because there is no spirit in the temple, and there are many letters - the temple is empty."

So, of course, only a sectarian who despised the ordinary clergy could speak like that.

Only a mockery of the Orthodox Church can explain such "appointments" of Rasputin as the presentation to the miter of the in every possible way compromised priest Vostorgov, announced by John of Kronstadt as a "mazurik", the appointment of Makariy Gnevushin as bishop, the very one whom Moscow merchants accused of criminal offenses, holding in Exarchs of Georgia, the famous bribe taker, the disgraced Bishop of Pskov Alexei, etc.

Especially characteristic of Rasputin's Khlystism was the granting of the bishopric to Barnabas, an almost illiterate gardener.

“Although the bishops will be offended that they shoved a peasant into their midst, academicians, but it’s okay, they don’t give a damn, they will reconcile,” Rasputin explained this appointment to Alexandra Fedorovna.

By the time of the war of 1914-1916, Rasputin had finally mastered the directive of the entire state and church life of Russia. The fact that in the affairs of the church Rasputin became “king and god” for the clergy can be concluded not only from V.K. facts.

In November 1915, the Metropolitan of Kyiv dies, and Rasputin prompts Alexandra Fedorovna to appoint his stubborn opponent, Metropolitan Vladimir of Petrograd, to this city as punishment. And in his place to put "pleasant in all respects", complaisant and quick-witted Bishop Pitirim (Oknov). Nicholas II agrees, and, without even asking for the consent of the prosecutor of the Holy Synod, he appoints Pitirim. It became clear to the society of the capital and the whole of Russia that Rasputin was "twisting" the Church as he pleased.

The attitude of the church towards Rasputin

In the capital in 1903 Rasputin was introduced spiritual leader Orthodoxy, Saint John of Kronstadt. The elder made a great impression on Fr. John. He takes communion and confesses Gregory, says: "My son, I felt your presence. You have a spark of true faith!" - and adds, as eyewitnesses said: "See that your name does not affect your future."

Rasputinism and its consequences

The crisis that befell the people, the church and the intelligentsia at the beginning of the 20th century alarmed progressive thought too late.

The all-round crisis found its expression in the terrible and shameful phenomenon of "Rasputinism", when the spiritual and secular authorities finally compromised themselves. The blind people, deprived of guidance, mentors and leadership, easily became the prey of anti-Christian revolutionary propaganda. This, probably, was the "secret" of the Bolsheviks' success: there was no need to conquer or overthrow anything, the country was hopelessly ill. The dark, unconscious, destructive forces lurking in the depths of the masses were set free and directed against the state, the church, and the intelligentsia.

Rasputinism... This is not just a characteristic of the pre-revolutionary era in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. The man who gave his name to this part of Russian history is still ambiguous. Who is he - the good genius of the royal family or the evil genius of the Russian autocracy? Did he have superhuman powers? If not, how did a drunkard and a lecher almost become a saint?

Of course, Rasputin was a strong sensitive. He really helped the sick Tsarevich Alexei and used other patients. But he used his powers to his advantage.

Rasputin liked to be the center of attention, his nature began to be flattered by popularity. He was unable to overcome this temptation. last years gradually became a victim of his own pride. It is not difficult to notice the consciousness of his own significance in his own words. Many times, for example, he repeated to the queen: “They will kill me, and they will kill you,” and “I” sounds here first of all.

Since the summer of 1915, the empress, G. E. Rasputin and his entourage have been increasingly interfering in the government of the country. Regarding the nature of Rasputinism, the degree of influence of the "old man" on state affairs, there are different opinions. In any case, the influence of the "dark forces" left a noticeable imprint on the work of the government machine and compromised the government, causing a sharp narrowing of its social base. The intensified struggle at the top, the clashes between Rasputin's henchmen and other members of the government, the inability of certain representatives of the top administration to cope with the most complex problems of state life generated by the war caused a "ministerial leapfrog."

During the two and a half years of the war, 4 people were in the chair of the prime minister, 6 were in the post of minister of internal affairs, 4 were ministers of agriculture, justice and the military. Constant shuffling in the ruling circles disorganized the work of the bureaucratic apparatus. His positions both in the center and in the localities were weakening in the conditions of a global war and the unprecedented problems generated by this war. The authority of the government, which did not want to cooperate with the opposition and at the same time did not dare to shut its mouth, was finally undermined.

As a result, minimally honest officials and ministers were replaced by those who, in order to get a place in the hierarchy closer to the “anointed of God”, did not shy away from pleasing the “holy elder” - in any form. Now people from the government also bowed to him. At the suggestion of Rasputin, the chairman of the Council of the Duma also changes - the Duma members are furious. The last, deadly fight begins on the carpet and under the carpet of the empire. Some of our historians point out that many of Rasputin's advice in this last year of his life on the inner and foreign policy were correct, smart, even wise. Maybe. But now all this was already useless - both for the country, and for the royal family, and for Rasputin himself.

Modern views of the church on Rasputin

How does the Church feel about the personality of Rasputin? How big is his role in the death of the state, the royal family, the emperor? He appears to the Church as a "micro-antichrist" who caused the fall of Russia and the death of all the people who trusted him - as a prototype of the end of the world, that through him demons entered the world and took possession of millions of souls. Perhaps this madness began in Russia with him - revolution, blood, the rebirth of people, the destruction of temples, the desecration of shrines ...

There is no official formulation of the attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church towards Rasputin, just as there is no official formulation of the attitude of the Church towards the overwhelming majority of historical figures. The question of Rasputin's role in the "death of the state, the royal family" is a question of a rather historical, but not at all theological and historical nature, therefore, for clarifications in this case it is better to turn to historical literature.

Nevertheless, a pamphlet compiled by I. V. Evsin was recently published in Ryazan, in which the reader is invited to look at Rasputin as a righteous man and even a saint, and to consider any negative word about him as slander. The brochure is called “Slandered Elder” (Ryazan, “Zerna”, 2001). Such a view is far from new. One of his main adherents is the historian O. A. Platonov, whose book about Rasputin “A Life for the Tsar” has already been published in more than one edition. He writes in his book: “Later, both the Bolshevik leaders and their enemies from the opposite camp branded Rasputin with equal fervor, without bothering to prove his guilt. Both of them needed the myth of Rasputin for political and ideological reasons. For the Bolsheviks, he was a symbol of the decay of tsarist Russia, its poverty and depravity, from which they saved it.When it came to the last Russian tsar, they pointed to Rasputin in confirmation of the correctness of their bloody policy, which, according to them, only one could lead the country out of the nightmare of Rasputinism and For political opponents of the Bolsheviks, Rasputin was a scapegoat, the culprit of their fall. They tried to explain their political failure, isolation from the people, the wrong line of conduct and gross mistakes before the revolution with the collapse that followed it, by the influence of dark forces headed by Rasputin.

Moreover, in church book stalls you can sometimes find the book “Martyr for the Tsar Gregory the New”, it also contains an akathist to the “old man”. in one of the temples of the city of Ryazan, a prayerful veneration of "Elder Gregory" takes place.

Three "icons" depicting the "holy elder" were painted. Even a special akathist (prayer text) was composed, addressed to the "elder" Gregory, who is called nothing more than a new prophet and a new miracle worker. However, in this case, we can talk about a certain sect that openly opposes itself to the hierarchy.

Live radio "Radonezh" priests, it happened, asked a question about Rasputin. Usually their response was negative and reasonable. However, one of the authoritative Moscow priests defends the view of Oleg Platonov. Another authoritative Moscow priest has repeatedly stated that the veneration of Rasputin is a new temptation for our Church. We see, therefore, a division. We see that this temptation is a reality. The main thing here is the harm done to the veneration of the royal martyrs.

After decision Bishops' Cathedral The Russian Orthodox Church about the canonization of Nicholas II and his family, a group of Orthodox citizens are not averse to raising the question of canonization of Grigory Rasputin.

According to the newspaper "Segodnya", members of a number of marginal near-Orthodox organizations have created a kind of informal "Rasputin club"

The Moscow Patriarchate knows nothing about such an initiative yet. It is unlikely that any of the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church will even dare to raise the question of the canonization of Rasputin. However, noteworthy is the fact that in recent times in historical and church writings, the positive aspects of Grigory Efimovich’s activities (for example, a healing gift) are increasingly noted, and all the “negativity”, including drunken brawls and debauchery, is written off as slander by Masons and other conspirators.

In the capital in 1903, Rasputin was introduced to the spiritual leader of Orthodoxy, St. John of Kronstadt. The elder made a great impression on Fr.

attitude of the church towards Grigory Rasputin

John. He takes communion and confesses Gregory, says: "My son, I felt your presence. You have a spark of true faith!" - and adds, as eyewitnesses said: "See that your name does not affect your future." www.cultworld.ru

After that, Rasputin no longer doubts his divine destiny. The spiritual fathers offer him to study at the academy and become a priest - he modestly refuses. Feigned humility hides the pride of a man who considers himself absolutely free and chosen for a great purpose. There can be no intermediaries between him and the Heavenly Father.

The people called him a "wanderer", but more often an "old man". Among his admirers as a bearer of the true faith were the Kazan Bishop Khrisanf, the rectors of the St. Petersburg Academy, Bishop Sergius, Archimandrite Feofan and many others.

In the spring of 1908, Archimandrite Feofan, the confessor of the imperial family, on behalf of the tsarina, went to Pokrovskoye to check the rumors and find out about the past of the "God's man". Feofan lives in the house of Gregory in Pokrovsky for two weeks, visits the elder Makar in Verkhoturye and decides that Rasputin is truly a saint. During their conversations, Gregory tells that he not only saw the Mother of God, but that the apostles Peter and Paul came to him when he was plowing in the field. Upon his return, Feofan draws up a detailed report on the trip and declares that the pious Grigory Rasputin is the chosen one of God and was sent to reconcile the tsar and tsarina with the Russian people. The chosen one himself, enthusiastically received in all the aristocratic salons of the capital, begins an open sermon of his teaching: God needs sin and its awareness, only this is the true path to God. An erotic-religious myth arises around him.

In 1910, the rector of the Theological Academy, Bishop Feofan, did not immediately, but quite definitely, come to the conclusion that Rasputin, implicitly, was leading a depraved life. Bringing before the "highest persons" as if "repentant" in recommending to them the once dubious righteous man, he thereby brought himself into cruel disgrace and, despite his merits, despite the fact that he had previously served as the confessor of the empress herself, he was soon after that moved, or rather exiled to the Tauride province.

Before the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry in 1917, Bishop Feofan testified: “He (Grigory Rasputin) was neither a hypocrite nor a scoundrel. He was true man God, who appeared from the common people. But, under the influence of high society, which could not understand this common man, there was a terrible spiritual catastrophe and he fell.

When Rasputin stood like a black shadow near the throne, all of Russia was indignant. The best representatives of the higher clergy raised their voices in defense of the Church and the Motherland against the encroachments of Rasputin.

the name of the court camarilla in the state apparatus, accepted in literature, is one of the brightest manifestations of the crisis of the ruling elite of the Russian Empire on the eve of the February Revolution. In the last years of the tsarist regime, the adventurer G. E. Rasputin (1864 or 1865, according to other sources, 1872-1916) enjoyed unlimited influence on Nicholas II and the imperial family, who, wandering around the monasteries, gained a reputation as a “holy old man” and “soothsayer” . In 1907 he was introduced to the imperial palace, where by that time a number of "saints", charlatans and holy fools (N. Philip, Papus, Mitya Kozelsky, and others) had already visited.

The Russian Orthodox Church refused to canonize Rasputin and Ivan the Terrible

Rasputin was able to convince Nicholas II and the Empress that only he, with his prayers, could save the terminally ill heir Alexei and provide "divine" support for the reign of Nicholas II. Gorokhovaya street, house 64, apartment 20 - the last residence of Rasputin in St. Petersburg (since May 1914), - which has become the center of attraction for swindlers of various ranks. Rasputin's influence on the emperor was used by representatives of the stock exchange and banks (I.P. Manus, A.I. Putilov, D.L. Rubinshtein), high-ranking adventurers (I.F. Manusevich-Manuilov, Prince M.M. Andronikov), the Black Hundreds and reactionary circles (Prince V.P. Meshchersky, A.N. Khvostov, P.G. Kurlov, A.D. Protopopov) and others, who used him as an intermediary in their relations with Nicholas II and the Empress, seeking to submit them to their influence. These goals were served by the appointments of prime ministers N. A. Maklakov, B. V. Stürmer, ministers P. L. Bark, D. I. Shakhovsky, Protopopov, carried out through Rasputin, as well as the “ministerial leapfrog” - from September 1916 to February 1917 3 chairmen of the Council of Ministers were replaced, 2 ministers of agriculture, 88 out of 167 governors were removed. Rasputin and his entourage were directly involved in creating disorder in the spheres of influence of departments, which deepened the economic crisis in the country, persuaded Nicholas II to accept the post of commander in chief (August 1915). In 1916, the monarchists (Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, a relative of the emperor, Prince F.F. Yusupov, and the leader of the monarchists, V.M. Purishkevich) plotted to assassinate Rasputin. On the night of December 17, 1916, Rasputin was killed in the Yusupov Palace (embankment of the Moika River, 94), the corpse was lowered under the ice of the Malaya Nevka near the Yelagin bridge. December 21, 1916 Rasputin was buried in the presence of the imperial family in Tsarskoye Selo park. In the February days of 1917, his ashes were removed from the grave and burned in the furnace of a steam boiler at the Polytechnic Institute. Having weakened the forces of the monarchy, "R." accelerated the development of revolutionary events.

the name of the court camarilla in the state apparatus, accepted in literature, is one of the brightest manifestations of the crisis of the ruling elite of the Russian Empire on the eve of the February Revolution. In the last years of the tsarist regime, the adventurer G. E. Rasputin (1864 or 1865, according to other sources, 1872-1916) enjoyed unlimited influence on Nicholas II and the imperial family, who, wandering around the monasteries, gained a reputation as a “holy old man” and “soothsayer” . In 1907 he was introduced to the imperial palace, where by that time a number of "saints", charlatans and holy fools (N. Philip, Papus, Mitya Kozelsky, and others) had already visited. Rasputin was able to convince Nicholas II and the Empress that only he, with his prayers, could save the terminally ill heir Alexei and provide "divine" support for the reign of Nicholas II. Gorokhovaya street, house 64, apartment 20 - the last residence of Rasputin in St. Petersburg (since May 1914), - which has become the center of attraction for swindlers of various ranks. Rasputin's influence on the emperor was used by representatives of the stock exchange and banks (I.P. Manus, A.I. Putilov, D.L. Rubinshtein), high-ranking adventurers (I.F. Manusevich-Manuilov, Prince M.M. Andronikov), the Black Hundreds and reactionary circles (Prince V.P. Meshchersky, A.N. Khvostov, P.G. Kurlov, A.D.

Rasputin and the Church. Firsov S. L.

Protopopov) and others, who used him as an intermediary in their relations with Nicholas II and the Empress, seeking to submit them to their influence. These goals were served by the appointments of prime ministers N. A. Maklakov, B. V. Stürmer, ministers P. L. Bark, D. I. Shakhovsky, Protopopov, carried out through Rasputin, as well as the “ministerial leapfrog” - from September 1916 to February 1917 3 chairmen of the Council of Ministers were replaced, 2 ministers of agriculture, 88 out of 167 governors were removed. Rasputin and his entourage were directly involved in creating disorder in the spheres of influence of departments, which deepened the economic crisis in the country, persuaded Nicholas II to accept the post of commander in chief (August 1915). In 1916, the monarchists (Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, a relative of the emperor, Prince F.F. Yusupov, and the leader of the monarchists, V.M. Purishkevich) plotted to assassinate Rasputin. On the night of December 17, 1916, Rasputin was killed in the Yusupov Palace (embankment of the Moika River, 94), the corpse was lowered under the ice of the Malaya Nevka near the Yelagin bridge. December 21, 1916 Rasputin was buried in the presence of the imperial family in Tsarskoye Selo park. In the February days of 1917, his ashes were removed from the grave and burned in the furnace of a steam boiler at the Polytechnic Institute. Having weakened the forces of the monarchy, "R." accelerated the development of revolutionary events.

Beware of sectarianism!

I teach church history at the Moscow Theological Academy, and students often asked me about my attitude to the era of Ivan the Terrible. I answered this question: there is the era of Metropolitan Macarius. As for the expression "the era of Ivan the Terrible", this is not an era, since an era is always something whole. And there is no need to talk about the integrity of the era in this case.

Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible - Russian sovereign. Undoubtedly, a historical study of the personality of Ivan the Terrible, his merits, etc. is necessary. But those who are in favor of his canonization do not proceed from his special ecclesiastical piety. We are talking about the canonization of the monarchy. Of course, if we talk about the possible projection of the heavenly world on earth, then in the heavenly world reigns not democracy, but a monarchy. The point of view of our Church on this issue is known, but it does not excite the "zealots". She does not excite them, because today the personality of Ivan the Terrible is undergoing an extraordinary mythological rethinking.

What myths are being created? First: it turns out that Ivan Vasilyevich has already been canonized! The main argument confirming this supposed canonization that has already taken place is that in the slope of the northeastern window of the Faceted Chamber there is an image of Ivan Vasilyevich in a halo. Since the last painting was made in 1892, this image is presented as an act of canonization. But if someone really cared about ecclesiastical science, and not about myth-making, then one could look into the synodal archive of the RGIA ... If you have been to the Faceted Chamber, you know that a number of Moscow sovereigns are depicted there in this form. The image of sovereigns in halos is a Byzantine tradition that testifies to the veneration of the sovereign as the anointed of God. But this never - neither for the Byzantines, nor for the Russians - spoke of personal holiness. The available archival data do not confirm the canonization of Grozny either in the 17th or 19th centuries.

If we talk about the problem of Ivan Vasilyevich's relationship with the Church, then I was given a lot to understand them by research on burial places Russian metropolitans. It's not an easy question. As you know, chronicle writing ceased during the oprichnina period, and we are forced to look for information about where this or that metropolitan was buried in other sources. Let me remind you that during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, the only metropolitan who died a natural death while remaining head of the Church was St. Macarius. All other metropolitans either left the throne themselves or were deposed. What kind of holiness after this can we talk about?

On January 16, 1547, the first and only Orthodox sovereign was crowned king. Metropolitan Macarius, addressing him, says that he should be an obedient son of the Holy Church, and so on. What kind of obedience can we talk about in such an attitude towards the primates of the Church? We know very little about what happened to the bishops and abbots then. But we know about the death of St. Cornelius, the wonderworker of Pskov-Pechersk. Today, those who are zealous for the canonization of the first Russian tsar are quite arbitrarily reinterpreting the words of the service, which says that the earthly tsar "sent" St. Cornelius to the heavenly tsar. They present it as something of grace, which cannot be considered otherwise than blasphemy ...

Another weak point in the talk about the canonization of Ivan Vasilyevich is his polygamy, although the press, which is fighting for his canonization, is trying to deny these facts. Equally problematic is the interpretation of the oprichnina as a kind of monastic order. If at all it is possible to speak of piety in relation to the oprichnina, then in essence this was the imposition of non-Orthodox forms of piety. Do not forget that Metropolitan Macarius opposed the oprichnina - this is stated in the 34th volume of the Russian chronicles. All these efforts to "canonize the tsar" Ivan Vasilyevich confuse ordinary believers. And we see that this situation is escalated with the help of some media.

The idea of ​​this canonization is provocative

The idea of ​​canonizing Tsar Ivan the Terrible, as far as I know, has never been seriously expressed by anyone in the past. This idea is a phenomenon of recent years. For historians, the era of Ivan the Terrible and his place in the history of Russia is an area of ​​​​research and controversy, but until recently the dispute was about assessing Ivan the Terrible solely as a historical figure. But it turns out that he is also one of the saints of God - such an extravagant thought already belongs to our time, and this is a symptom of the painful state of the religious consciousness of a part of our people.

I am reminded of an episode that sheds some light on the psychology and ideology of those who tinker with this idea. About ten years ago, in the early 1990s, I was invited to a conference by a socio-political organization to make a report on the relationship of the Church to the monarchy. In the report, I tried to be objective, avoiding any ideology, I simply tried to draw a look at this issue from history. The reaction to my speech in this society, inflamed by monarchical sentiments, was rather tolerant, but I could not please them completely. And so, to help me better understand their moods, they said: “You have your own abbot (for some reason they mistook me for a monk), whom you serve, and we want to have the same abbot-king.” I replied: "It's different areas life - the monastery and the state. In addition, the abbot knows his brethren, he has personal relations with each of the monks, and the king has millions of subjects, and no personal relations with each of them are possible for him. I was told: “This is impossible for ordinary citizens. And for those who restore the monarchy?”

In this episode, the thoughts of those who rush about with the idea of ​​canonizing Ivan the Terrible were expressed very clearly, naively and ingenuously - they want to be assistants in the restoration of the monarchy, "guardsmen", as many of them call themselves.

I remember another conversation. My interlocutor was a reader of such magazines and newspapers. He ardently supported the idea of ​​canonizing Ivan the Terrible. At the end of the dispute, when all his arguments showed their obvious inconsistency, he was forced to admit that from a strict ecclesiastical canonical point of view it is difficult to insist on the canonization of Ivan the Terrible. And then he resorted to his last argument: “How can you not appreciate such a feat of his: after all, with his own hands he drowned the Judaizers with a hook!” I said that this is certainly an expressive scene, but, firstly, it seems to me of little credibility, and besides, is this an argument for canonization, and not against it? And in the articles of some admirers of Ivan the Terrible, the anti-hierarchical idea of ​​this projected canonization clearly slips through. So, in one of the articles it was directly written that the “modern Kolychevs” are afraid of the canonization of Ivan the Terrible like fire. It is clear that the “Kolychevs” here mean the successors of the work and ministry of St. Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow. Absolutely self-revealing attack!

Of course, as His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II said, in this whole undertaking we are dealing with a provocation. For some, this is indeed a conscious anti-church provocation aimed at making it as difficult as possible for church work, creating problems that did not exist before, and exacerbating existing ones. Others who are leading this campaign believe that she should be a servant in political affairs, that she should be used for their own purposes. It seems to these people that if they could win the Church over to their side, it would be a powerful support for them. But there are also many people who are historically and theologically naive. They easily believe everything that is written. And what we should be most worried about is that confusion is being introduced into the minds of these people.

As for the idea of ​​canonizing Grigory Rasputin, I remember very well from the meetings of the Synodal Commission for the canonization of saints that it was precisely the communication of Emperor Nicholas II and the Empress with Rasputin that was the most serious problem that made it difficult to make a decision on canonization. As a result of a thorough study of this issue, the commission has developed an adequate approach to this topic. The communication of the royal martyrs with Rasputin is explained, as stated in the final conclusions of the commission, by the illness of the heir to the throne and the fact that Rasputin, as the empress saw, could help him in his sufferings. Of course, delving into all the circumstances in more detail, we cannot deny that for the Empress Rasputin also appeared to be a religiously gifted person, perhaps she considered him an old man in the proper sense of the word. But if this is so, then we are dealing with her delusion. The canonization of the empress does not at all exclude her erroneous judgments, including those of a religious nature. Martyr's blood means a lot and atones for a lot. But when today this canonization is used to include Rasputin in the holy calendar, it is clear that here we are dealing with a malicious initiative.

It seems to me that reading the notes of Rasputin himself clarifies a lot for a religiously conscious person. In them, he seems to act as a pious Orthodox person. But these notes bear the stamp of a kind of religiosity, and the image of his "eldership" is decisively different from, say, the famous and recognized Optina eldership. In particular, the notes reveal his critical attitude towards the clergy, as well as his light and tolerant attitude towards sin, as to that phenomenon without which salvation is impossible. In the spirit of the notorious folk wisdom “You will not sin, you will not repent,” it sometimes seems that the zealots of the canonization of Rasputin are seeking church sanction for sin. In any case, the image of the "old man Rasputin" is deeply alien to what is traditionally revered in the saints.

As for the church press, if it is really church, if magazines or newspapers are published with the blessing His Holiness Patriarch or diocesan bishops, then in such publications there can be no place for the propaganda of ideas, the harmfulness of which was unambiguously pointed out by the hierarchy. As for the laity who speak in the non-church press on these topics, they are responsible for all printed speeches before their conscience and God.

Alexey Beglov:

On the question of the genesis of religious sentiments underlying the veneration of Grigory Rasputin and Tsar Ivan the Terrible

Such sentiments are rooted in the anti-modernization sentiments of the Russian peasantry at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, which were a reaction to changes in its social structure and worldview that occurred as a result of the economic and social policies of the governments of the last emperors. After the great reforms of the 1860s. peasants in some areas forbade their children to go to school for longer than 1.5-2 years, so that they would not “spoil”, they refused to switch from three-field to multi-field (for God is in three Persons). From the very beginning, such isolationism had a religious character and was reinforced by eschatological premonitions, which found their embodiment in 1917: the Bolsheviks were perceived as the power of the Antichrist, and their clash with the peasant world was interpreted in terms of the cosmic struggle of the devil with God. Thus, an essential feature of this religious mindset was revealed: its deep dualism, which makes anti-Soviet eschatologism (the identification of the Bolsheviks with the power of the Antichrist) related to ancient Manichaeism or South Slavic Bogomilism.

Since the Antichrist has already come and reigns on earth, it means that the Second Coming of the Savior is not far off. These expectations were fueled by the widespread Khlystian ideas about the possibility of the direct incarnation of Christ or the Mother of God in a particular person. Since the first half of the 1920s. in the European part of the USSR, dozens of groups appeared, preaching that the Second Coming had already taken place, and who saw Christ or the Holy Spirit in the person of their leader. In the Central Chernozem region, for example, they were Johnites and Fedorovtsy, in Belarus - Ilintsy, in Ukraine - Stefanovites, in Moldova - Innokentievtsy. Almost all of them until the mid-1930s. existed within the framework of the legal parishes of the Patriarchal Church, and in the first half of the 1920s. actively fought with renovationism - as with the church, which went to cooperate with the antichrist authorities. However, most of their members did not notice the trap of anti-Soviet eschatologism: from the point of view of the Church, the Christs they expected and "revealed" were the Antichrists.

In Mordovia, these groups were joined by "loyal subjects of Nicholas II", or Nikolaevites, who revered the incarnate God in the person of the last emperor. The impetus for such veneration, obviously, was given by the Sarov celebrations of 1903. During these celebrations, the future founders of the “loyal subjects” movement saw the sovereign. Just as the inspired worship of the righteous made a strong impression on the first Johnites, who declared the pastor the incarnation of the Holy Trinity, so the Sarov celebrations were imprinted in the memory of future Nikolaevites. The next step in the direction of the notion of the "co-redemption" of the martyr tsar was taken when the adherents of these ideas learned about the execution in the Ipatiev House: as soon as Emperor Nicholas II - one of the Persons of the Holy Trinity - accepted martyrdom He is also the redeemer.

So by the early 1940s. the main ideas that guide the current admirers of Grozny and Rasputin have already been formed. During the 1940s these groups and their ideas have become far from the last part of the "catacomb" subculture, which opposed itself to traditional religious culture Patriarchal Church. The emergence of this subculture was the result of the reduction of existing churches and the general decline in the level of church life during the years of repression. Around the end of the 1940s, the "catacomb" subculture began to significantly influence the traditional religious culture of the legal Church. Moreover, the influence of the "catacomb" mythology, as a rule, did not meet with opposition. This can be partly explained by the decline in the educational level of the legal clergy, and partly by the ambivalent position of the episcopate of the Patriarchal Church, which was tolerant of illegal clergy and did not always take its “costs” seriously.

The current spread of these ideas is one of the most striking examples of the influence of a new religious subculture on the traditional church consciousness, which more than half a century ago opposed the traditional religious culture of the Russian Orthodox Church. (Among other examples of such influence are the interpretation of the introduction of TINs as signs of "end times", new Russian passports, the recent census, as well as some manifestations of the veneration of "old men", usually called "young senility.") The veneration of Grigory Rasputin logically develops the idea "co-redemption" of Nicholas II (Rasputin acts in this case as his "forerunner"), and the veneration of Tsar Ivan the Terrible follows from the described historiosophical dualism: since the struggle between dark and light forces is the main "plot" of world history, then their "incarnations" should be found at every stage.

The spread of these sentiments, which are connected in their origin with an alternative subculture, is a serious test of the strength of the catholic, conciliar consciousness of the Russian Church.

Alexander Dvorkin:

Tsar Ivan the Terrible and modern sectarianism

Fifteen years ago I defended my doctoral dissertation on the theocratic views of Ivan the Terrible, but I will not talk about the facts that Archimandrite Macarius has already described in such detail here. I will try to reveal the topic of my report in the context of sect studies - that is, those problems that I have been dealing with for the past 10 years.

I will make a reservation right away: I am not a supporter of a conspiracy theory, but it is now clear that there are forces that seek to split our Church, or at least weaken it. The examples of the study of sectarianism show how freer and more at ease sects feel, for example, in Ukraine, where the Orthodox Church is split and weakened.

As a historian I do not like to make broad generalizations, but if you take the history of the Western Church, it appears as a constant series of schisms "from the left": endless attempts at renewal, reformation, and more and more splinter groups (Lutherans, Baptists, Churches of Christ, Adventists) etc.). The history of the Eastern Church looks completely different. It is characterized by schisms "from the right" - starting, say, with the Arians, Nestorians, Monophysites and other groups that did not accept the decisions of the new councils, up to our Old Believers and Greek "Old Calendarists". In other words, in our church tradition there is good immunity from splits on the “left”, but much less resistance to split attempts on the “right”. In recent years, we have again become witnesses to this. It is no coincidence that the attempt to split the “left” in the form of neo-renovationism was quickly rejected by the church people, while the voices of the “right” are perceived as something worthy of trust, as something that needs to be heeded.

If we talk about the forces that are fighting against individual tax numbers as a seal (or “pre-print”) of the Antichrist, against new passports, a census, etc., now they have put forward a new demand: the canonization of Grigory Rasputin and Ivan the Terrible. These are very small groups, but very noisy. By constantly creating an atmosphere of scandal, they can give the impression that they express the point of view of many. In fact, their idea is that you need to hammer at the same point, maybe something will break off. It doesn't matter what the pretext is - anti-globalization ideas, the canonization of Grozny, or even the canonization of Igor Talkov, whose akathist we have already seen. By the way, on January 27, the mouthpiece of such groups, pop singer Zhanna Bichevskaya, speaking on the Voice of Russia radio, denounced the enemies of Igor Talkov, in her words, “our holy ascetic, who surpassed many of the Church Fathers with his theological wisdom.” Further, these groups will demand the canonization of Stalin - there are already such statements. There are some "research" that he allegedly was a secret Orthodox and a confessor.

It is impossible to refute all these mythologems, because more and more new ones appear. The reason for their appearance is the extremely low spiritual culture of people joining the Church, the massive influx of neophytes - completely unprepared, ready to blindly accept any statements of everyone who is one step older than them in the Church. Plus the Soviet habit of dissidence, the habit of living with a fiddle in your pocket. Habit to live double life: on the one hand, go to party meetings, and on the other hand, tell political jokes. It is with this split consciousness that people come to the Church, and they transfer these schemes of Soviet life to church reality. Therefore, they perceive the hierarchy in the same way as they once perceived Soviet government. Yes, outwardly one can read him - at the same time publishing newspaper articles written in Aesopian language and full of some hints, vilifying and scolding the hierarchies, especially since one can not be afraid of punishment for this.

Another basis of this sectarianism is nostalgia for a strong hand. Now, they say, everything is falling apart, but how good it was under Stalin or under Ivan the Terrible, when everyone trembled, and inevitable punishment awaited the enemies. This bloodthirsty nostalgia is best expressed by the same Zhanna Bichevskaya: “and there will be no more camps and prisons, all enemies of Russia will be executed ... We will overtake the enemy on his own trail and tear him to shreds, praising the Lord ...” But will the Lord Himself praise this?

So, on the one hand, there is nostalgia for a strong hand, and on the other, religious hysteria and hysterics. Hence the explosive mixture that forms the basis of pseudo-Orthodox, but in fact occultized sects. And here is the frank heresy voiced by Bichevskaya: in the song “Tsaritsa Alexandra” she calls the holy passion-bearer Empress Alexandra Feodorovna “the light of the seraphim and the hope of the Mother of God”, but according to the teachings of the Orthodox Church, the Light of the seraphim is the Lord God Himself, He is also the hope of the Most Holy Virgin Mary. I think this is called the heresy of kings. The problem is that such heretical-sectarian groups have not formally broken away from the Church yet and operate on the periphery of church life. There is, say, a certain “Brotherhood of the Tsar-Redeemer”, closely associated with an extremist semi-occult sect that has formed around the pseudo-Orthodox newspaper “Life Eternal”.

Another sectarian group, active in Moscow, has formed around one false elder - a seriously ill, paralyzed schemamonk Simon, who is wheeled by schema-nun Seraphim. He mumbles indistinctly, and she interprets it, and not shunning the area's abuse. They have, for example, a teaching that on Wednesdays you must definitely dress in green, on Fridays - in purple, and on Sundays - in red, because these colors contain a certain “energy”. And you need to be baptized with a strong blow on the shoulder from above, because we have a demon sitting on each shoulder and with three fingers we “burn” these demons. They are spreading anti-church writings, which they attribute to Pelageya of Ryazan, that theological schools, the clergy and the Patriarch are leading the church people straight to hell and so on. All this has not received a canonical assessment and operates, as it were, within the Church. Recently, at the request of the victims, I contacted a diocesan bishop about such a group, and the answer was very strange: Vladyka complained to me that he himself suffered greatly from one such group, but could not excommunicate them for fear that they would then completely leave the Church and become a sect. Strange logic! But this group even founded its own conspiratorial churches in the neighboring diocese without authorization, that is, it is already preparing a schism itself.

I note that these sects are in a different position: some are still within the Church, others are on the outskirts, and there are also completely fallen away. At the same time, they all use similar mythologemes and brawl on the same topics.

The attitude towards Ivan the Terrible is a good indicator here. In a letter that the zealots of his canonization recently sent to His Holiness the Patriarch, there is a startling argument: Ivan the Terrible is the father of two canonized saints. An apple from an apple tree, they say, does not fall far. As for Tsarevich Dimitri, it must be said that he actually did not know his father and grew up without him. The very fact of paternity, of course, does not mean much, especially since the history of early Christianity knows many examples when pagan fathers betrayed their children, Christian martyrs, to death.

Archimandrite Macarius has already touched upon the topic of Ivan the Terrible's polygamy. On this occasion, on one of the pseudo-Orthodox Internet sites, I read the following idea: only the one with whom he was married can be considered a wife. And if you are not married, then you are not a wife. And if this is not a wife, then talking about it means rummaging through the personal life of God's anointed one, and this, they say, will lead far. In fact, this argument, in addition to being anecdotal, is historically untenable: one can argue about whether Grozny was married to his fifth or sixth wife, but the fact that he had four weddings in a row is undeniable, as well as the fact that he was married to his seventh wife, the mother of St. Right-Believing Tsarevich Demetrius. After the death of his third wife, Ivan Vasilievich convened a Council, at which he argued that his third wife was poisoned by the boyars, and he needed an heir, and therefore it was necessary to marry a fourth time. Entering into this situation, the Council showed a certain, I think, cowardice, partly explained by the atmosphere of that time, and agreed with this marriage, it is true, excommunicating the king for three years from communion. But, according to contemporaries, he did not take communion until the end of his life, since even before the expiration of the penance he married again. It must be remembered that the “believing king,” as his zealots call him, did not take communion. At the same time, Ivan the Terrible was convinced that he had the right to violate any moral rules if the kingdom flourished under him, since he developed the theological theory that the anointed of God would be saved according to the fruits of his activity. By abstaining from communion, he supposedly paid the price for his sin and no longer bears responsibility for it. For the Orthodox, of course, this is a completely untenable idea. All these aspects of the life and worldview of Ivan Vasilyevich are analyzed in detail in my dissertation.

Now a few words about Grigory Rasputin. The favorite argument of his "admirers" is that Rasputin was revered by the holy martyrs Nikolai and Alexandra, and they, they say, knew him better than we did and were no more stupid than us. But the holy new martyrs led. book. Elizaveta Fedorovna, Metropolitan Vladimir of Kyiv and others had a sharply negative attitude towards Rasputin. Why do our zealots ignore their testimony? Today I brought with me a book by a certain Tatyana Groyan - the main apologetic work of the "Rasputinoslavs", with the long title "The Martyr for Christ and for the Tsar, the Man of God Gregory, the Prayer Book for Holy Russia and Her Most Bright Servant" (Moscow, 2000). Look at the illustration: the small figure of Rasputin is depicted here next to the royal martyrs, and Rasputin himself is depicted as if in the "image" of Christ. The whole color of this "icon" clearly resembles the so-called "icons" of the sect of "Mother of God" John Bereslavsky (Veniamin Yankelman). Perhaps all this is done by the same artists. There is also an image of Rasputin in the form of a winged John the Baptist, and in his hands he holds a bowl with the head of an emperor.

Many places in this very voluminous book cannot be treated otherwise than as curiosities. Here are a few examples taken almost at random. So, in this “life of the holy martyr Gregory the New” it is said that he and “Vyrubova went on a pilgrimage on the cruiser Varyag” to Verkhoturye and Tobolsk (p. 151). Elsewhere (p. 176) the gloomy basement of the “Mason Yusupov’s” house, where Rasputin was killed, is described: “... in the corner a huge skin of a polar bear, recently acquired by the owner on a trip to India and ruthlessly killed by him, was thrown in a white spot. In satanic rituals, the skin of a bear is a sign of Satan ... ”(!? - A.D.). On page 406 it says that Rasputin "understood the language of animals" and so on. This book is being actively distributed and confuses the minds of people who have recently become church members.

Of course, there are a number of secular media that are ready to pick up any such scandal, as long as it is to the detriment of the holy Church.

Of course, most of all these arguments are below any level of criticism. That is why serious scientists for a long time refrained from polemics with the bearers of ideologized and mythologized consciousness. But the lack of an answer only fueled their hysteria even more and exalted their ideas in their own eyes. Something similar happened with the research of the notorious academician Fomenko, whose "new chronology" flooded all bookstores.

That is why these people need to be answered. On the one hand, we must patiently and clearly formulate answers to the claims of unscrupulous screamers, and on the other hand, we must educate new converts, instilling in them a genuine church consciousness based on love for God and neighbor.

Deacon Andrei Kuraev:

New "zealots" and their habit of rebellion

Just the other day, in the program hosted by Zhanna Bichevskaya on Radio Russia, another portion of gossip sounded. It was said that the recently deceased elder, the archpriest, is in fact a secret schemer and, moreover, a schema-archbishop. It was also said that Grigory Rasputin was also a secret monk and a secret priest. He, they say, secretly went to Athos, and there he was secretly ordained and tonsured, and he was the confessor of the royal family in recent years.

By themselves, these messages, it would seem, have no doctrinal significance, but it is surprising with what persistence with which people and publications of this type are looking for a reason to say some kind of "their own word." In principle, the question of whether or not Archpriest Nikolai was a schemer, whether he was a secret bishop or not, for our relationship to the memory of Father Nikolai does not matter. special significance. But when messages of this kind enter the atmosphere of Zhanna Bichevskaya's circle or Russkiy vestnik and Rus Pravoslavnaya, they become another nucleus that strikes at the stronghold of the church's canonical consciousness. The principle “a drop wears away a stone” applies here.

Unfortunately, the history of the controversy around individual tax numbers has shown that most church people consider it below their dignity to stoop to the discussion of these plots. It seems that these are such marginal publications and that their rhetoric is so unsound that it simply does not make sense to react. But here one of the laws of nature comes into play: if some very small action does not meet with any opposition, then this small action can move a mountain. Something similar is happening today in the church life. We are passively watching the amazing activity of this kind of outcasts. But if sociological surveys are conducted among the parish clergy, not to mention ordinary parishioners, it turns out that a considerable number of people are already guided by their point of view. It turns out that a well-known sociological law also works in our ecclesiastical environment: one madman will always yell a whole bus. A person who is passionately embraced by some idea becomes insanely active and constantly talks about his favorite topic, with or without reason. But in our official church publications, it is believed that if they spoke on some topic and, as it were, noted, then it makes no sense to address this topic later. But those comrades did not calm down, they continue again and again, despite the statements and messages of the Patriarch, the resolutions of the Synod, because for them all this, apparently, is not important.

Unfortunately, the reaction of the Church, even at the level of the hierarchy, is very inconsistent. For example, for many years now I have been wondering why every Easter and every Christmas the Patriarch sends congratulations to the editors of Russky Vestnik. An amazing situation is emerging. For example, last year at a diocesan meeting, the Patriarch expressed the church's attitude towards the two historical figures we are talking about here. But the next issue of the Russian Messenger comes out with a portrait of Grigory Rasputin on the cover. And the next, Christmas issue, in which the congratulations of His Holiness the Patriarch are again printed. It is possible that the hands of His Holiness do not reach the point of leafing through such publications. But I think we are right to point out that his name is being used in such a destructive way.

In addition to the fact that such publications are sometimes masked by hierarchical blessings, they have a seemingly stronger argument. Say, judgments about Rasputin of the same archpriest. To be honest, everything that happened in recent years around Father Nikolai was perceived by me as something painful. Of course, I really want everything to be different in the Church than in secular life. But after much thought, I came to the following question. We know what appearances of aging and fading are in people of ordinary life who are not full of grace. We know that there is also a weakening of the mind, it happens that a person begins to live in some kind of his dreams, being unable to adequately perceive what is happening around him. It is obvious that this happens in our everyday life. Can the Lord allow something like this to happen in the life of an ascetic? Or can there be no manifestations of ordinary human old age in the life of an old man? Does the Lord protect His elect from this kind of thing? I am afraid that at least at times Father Nikolai did not escape this. In addition, we must remember that real Christians have the principle formulated by the Apostle Paul: love believes everything. Psychologically, it is quite clear to me why Father Nikolai or Father Kirill (Pavlov), whose opinion has recently been increasingly referred to, why these people, full of Christian love, with cordial readiness accept the stories that such and such "was slandered." Indeed, for a Christian, one of the greatest joys is to know that the person you have been trained to think badly about is actually different, and to be able to say: “Thank God! The number of true Christ's servants in our world was or is greater than I thought." Of course, this is a very happy feeling. I myself remember that when I first came to the Church, among those who met me at the church threshold, there were people from whom I first heard about the royal family as martyrs, about Grigory Rasputin, etc. And I had no allergy to these ideas, they were very clear to me, because then I was moving away from the Soviet ideology and was ready to say in advance that everything Soviet propaganda was talking about was not true. When they told me: you know, in fact, Soviet propaganda told a lie about these people too, for me it was only a joy to immediately agree with this. It was at the level of emotions. But a Christian, probably, even such good feelings should be checked.

We believe that history is a space for dialogue between God and people, that church history and Russian history are part of sacred history, the continuation of the biblical story. And therefore the voice of historical tradition is very significant for us. It would seem so good to say: yes, they were all good people, wonderful, saints, and one so wants to have one more prayer intercessor - and yet this desire must be verified with the voice of church tradition.

Take the same Tsar Ivan the Terrible and his attitude towards St. Philip. Indeed, in addition to various historical documents, there is a liturgical tradition of the Church. Liturgical tradition expressed itself in the service to St. Philip of Moscow, in particular in the June service, where the canon at Matins contains a very clear description of the person whose intervention in the fate of St. Philip was so tragic. This man is not called by name, but it is clear who he is talking about and who is called the “new pharaoh” and “new Herod” there.

Our "zealots" have no real experience of obedience, and in this sense their comparisons of the oprichnina with the monastery are justified. Indeed, both the monarchical structure of life and the monastic one are based on obedience. But if you have no experience of obedience in the modern church environment, how will you live if one day the monarchy in Russia is restored? I foresee that the day after the restoration of autocracy in Russia, the same zealots who are now shouting "Give us the monarchy!" Senate Square, but with the demand "the king resign!". In the extreme case, this will happen on the nearest Christmas of the year when the monarchy will be restored, because on Christmas the sovereign will send a congratulatory letter to the Queen of England, in which he will call this heretic "dear sister in Christ", and in zealous publications this will be regarded as ecumenism and disgrace.

These people have already formed dissident habits, habits of rebellion. When I talk about them, I am partly talking about myself. Because I could easily be in their ranks - all the inertia of my non-church upbringing pushes me there. It is difficult for an intellectual to be together with the authorities. It is unnatural for him to maintain power. He feels very comfortable in the dissident underground, especially if it is more or less safe: you showed them a fig and hid, but in fact no one is persecuting you. That is, psychologically, I understand why these people are there, but still, you need to grow up at least a little churchly and change churchly.

Archpriest Alexander SHARGUNOV

No matter how much time passes, we will return again and again to the greatest event in the life of our Church - the canonization of the Holy Royal Martyrs and the whole host of new martyrs and confessors of Russia.

Our participation in their glorification is necessary. Genuine knowledge about the King as a righteous man should be spread as widely as possible among all our people. We must not allow the illusion that the Tsar has been glorified, and now everything will be fine by itself. Enemies of Orthodoxy and Russia are still trying to cast a shadow on this deed of the Church, to sow doubts in society about canonization, to make it ineffective.

We are talking about the movement of admirers of G. E. Rasputin, through whom the “enemy of the human race” introduces new confusion into the Church, raising a new slander against the holy Royal Passion-Bearers in order to undermine confidence in their canonization. Again, what happened 86 years ago is repeated, when Rasputin was a tool, using which the enemies of the Church and the Throne undermined the authority of the Tsarist power among the people.

A number of publications have appeared claiming that Rasputin is a prophet, a miracle worker, a holy fool for the sake of Christ - that is, a holy saint of God. "Icons" and "akathist" have already been written. All this is sometimes sold even in church stores. An inexperienced reader may even get the impression that this person has already been canonized by the Church. By the way, let us recall that the Commission for Canonization at the Holy Synod most thoroughly investigated the life and work of Rasputin and, of course, there were no hints of his holiness even close. His Holiness the Patriarch spoke about the same recently.

We have testimonies of what Rasputin is - the testimonies of our new martyrs: the venerable martyr Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna, Hieromartyrs Metropolitan Vladimir of Kyiv and Bishop Hermogenes of Tobolsk, testimony of Archbishop Theophan of Poltava - the confessor of the Royal family, a man of crystal purity and high spiritual life.

What is the answer to those who put the supernatural abilities of the “Siberian elder” on a par with the miracles of the holy Royal Martyrs, which we are witnessing today?

BRasputin's affection for the Royal Family is greatly exaggerated. 90 percent of the publications glorifying him are actually about the Royal Martyrs. But next to them is placed, “Elder Gregory” is intertwined. He is almost a member of the August Family. Such a binding is the crowning technique of those who promote the holiness of "Elder Gregory."

The author of one of the books on this subject calls him “an equal member of the Royal Family.” The thought runs like a red thread through all the pages: whoever loves and reveres the holy Royal Martyrs must also love and revere Rasputin, the “Prophet Gregory,” whom the Royal Passion-Bearers called their own. friend.

How can one not remember that the Savior Himself sincerely calls Judas his friend(Matthew 26:50). Well, should we canonize the traitor Judas? This is how he theologised about Judas, for example, Prot. Sergius Bulgakov, but this is already a disintegration of consciousness - this contradicts the Gospel, the holy fathers, just normal common sense.

Did Rasputin truly love the Tsar and Russia? If he loved, he, seeing how the enemies of Orthodoxy and the Throne exploit the current situation, would retire from the capital into obscurity, into the desert, into the taiga, and from there (if he really is such a miracle worker) prayed for the healing of the Tsesarevich and for the salvation of Russia. But that's the point, for him the most important thing was his own self-affirmation. That which defines all false spirituality that comes from the devil.

Moreover, the holiness of the Royal Martyrs does not mean their omniscience. In the history of the Church, one can find many examples of how saints, people glorified by the Church, were wrong in assessing other people in one direction or another.

In general, there was no particular closeness. It is enough to look at the memoirs of A. BUT. Vyrubova, where she testifies that Rasputin visited Their Majesties once or twice a year, and only recently four times a year.

The tsar was really looking for communication with the common people, rapprochement with them, but he did not blindly trust Rasputin. In a letter to the Empress, the Sovereign writes: "As for Rasputin's advice, you know with what caution one must treat his advice." “I talk to him like a simple Russian peasant who wanders around holy places.”

Everything was connected with the tragic illness of the Heir, whom Rasputin really helped. The nature of this assistance will be discussed below. But how are we to understand the undoubted facts of Rasputin's clairvoyance and some miracle-working works?

PThe Orthodox miracle is always connected with the mystery of the Cross. "Who loves me, says Christ, he will keep my commandment". A person fulfills his Christian duty, no matter what it costs him. Without this there can be no holiness, no miracles will help. On the contrary, dark mysticism always seeks only earthly well-being and for this is ready to sacrifice truth, righteousness, God's commandment.

Could Rasputin's life be pleasing to God?

There are numerous hard testimonies of his unrepentant mortal sins in the last period of his life. (For some reason, his admirers call this “long-exposed slanders.” Who “exposed” this? Where is at least one study that confirms that these testimonies are false? Why, finally, do the “canonizers” themselves take descriptions of his prophecies from the same sources and miracles, omitting dozens of pages describing depravity?)

Here are the reviews of the two people who knew the "old man" most closely.

Bishop Feofan (Bystrov) was the confessor of the Royal Family. It was he who introduced Grigory Rasputin into the circle of the Royal Family as a simple pious Russian peasant. At the beginning of 1911, Bishop Feofan changed his mind about Rasputin, in accordance with the confessions that he received and which concerned Rasputin's lifestyle, and recommended the Empress to stop communicating with him. Subsequently, he wrote: “Rasputin was neither a hypocrite nor a scoundrel. He was a true man of God, coming from the common people. But under the influence of high society ... there was a terrible spiritual catastrophe, and he fell. (These words of Bishop Theophan, by the way, are made as an epigraph to one of the books of Rasputin's admirers; the words about the "terrible spiritual catastrophe" and the fall, of course, are omitted).

Most of the arguments in favor of the "holiness" of Rasputin, given in the book by T. Groyan "The Martyr for Christ and the Tsar - the Man of God Grigory", are taken from the memoirs of Rasputin's daughter Matryona, where there are absolutely other evidence. Below are the testimonies of Matryona Rasputina, whom the admirers of "Elder Gregory" call him "the most spiritually close daughter." She writes in her memoirs: "In the eyes of the whole world, the father was a sinner and, in terms of church laws, he undoubtedly sinned." “... Already in his youth, he alternated periods of extreme revelry with bouts of repentance, prayerful ecstasy and attraction to pilgrimage to holy places.”

Maybe something has changed in the last years of life? No.

At the end of 1914: “He changed a lot ... The matter was aggravated by the fact that along with his health, the ability to heal people also left his father. Trying to drown out the pain and shame, the father began to drink. This brought only temporary relief. The more he drank, the more he had to drink to drive the pain deeper.”

1916: “Father frequented the Villa Rode (hot spot, night restaurant). In response to our exhortations, he became irritated and literally groaned in response: “It's boring, they hounded me ... I smell trouble. I can’t drink what will happen next.” (Here he foretells the future while drinking. Is this sacred?)

Matrena recalls: “Father was considered a specialist in the field of love .... Of course, my father never touched on this topic in conversations with me. Although he was not a hypocrite. He sometimes uttered things that in the so-called decent houses and did not stutter. For example, he could frankly describe the dignity of the figure of this or that visitor or a lady who happened to be met on the street: “And what kind of breasts she has! So meaty!” — such remarks were still modest.

Matrena quotes the story of Rasputin himself about the healing of a child by him during his wanderings in Russia. His admirers love to cite this story in their books, omitting the following detail. The mother of the healed girl asks why he was given the gift of healing - perhaps for chastity or purity of life? Rasputin replies that he does not believe in the necessity of chastity.

The same Matryona conveys the following words of Rasputin about prayer: “How can you pray when you knock down? There is only one remedy: put aside your prayers and find a woman. Then, pray again. God won't judge. But the time will come when a woman will no longer be needed, when there will be no such thought itself, and therefore no temptation. Then the real prayer will begin.”

Matrena cites the following reasoning of her father: “It was so foreseen by God that they would know what kind of sin it is. Just know the measure! I wore chains, and humbled myself with a whip. But nothing. All the images were running in my head. Absolutely, I thought, it is necessary to castrate, or what? And then I decided: it was not for this that God gave the peasant what he gave, but the woman - the woman, ... I think, nevertheless, for measure.

Admirers of Rasputin will object that Matryona's memories and others like them could be fake. But why then do they themselves quote them abundantly, speaking of the supernatural abilities of the “old man”? Why is Matryona called "the most spiritually close" if she slanders? The answer is clear: they have nothing else to refer to.

PNew arguments also appear: it turns out that Rasputin had doubles. Judge for yourself how convincing this is. Rasputin lived at a certain address, he was closely monitored by the Okhrana. Whom did she escort to the palace - the same Rasputin, or did he begin to double? Or maybe, own daughter could not distinguish her father from a double, who also slandered him?

It's not that Rasputin had doubles but in the fact that he was two-faced. The worst thing is a lie mixed with the truth. All heresies, ancient and new, are built on this confusion. The worst thing (the word of God constantly speaks about this) is when a person calls himself a believer, but behaves like an unbeliever.

He was pious, but he fell and began to look for an excuse for his fall, to bring under it a kind of theology that justifies sin: “If you don’t sin, you won’t repent.” Rasputin does not say that there is no need to repent! He says that sin is not terrible, one can sin boldly, and only by sinning can a person know himself and the mercy of God. A person does not come to know himself by fighting sin, as Orthodox asceticism teaches, but by giving in to sin in order to find out what sin is and to bring repentance after that.

Undoubtedly, such reasoning of Rasputin is a bridge connecting with the ancient destroyers of the Church. For this heresy is not new. But it is about her that the holy fathers say that she will be the number one enemy of the Church and through her they will be revealed to all mankind. "depths of Satan" in the words of the Apocalypse.

These heretics say that a person can be so "spiritual" that sin cannot defile him. “Just as the sun, passing through wicked places, is not defiled, and gold does not become less gold from any dirt.” they preached in the ancient Church. To your own destruction they perverted, as the apostle Peter says (2 Pet. 3:16), the words of the apostle Paul that where sin abounds, there grace abounds (Rom. 5:20). And they used the grace of God, according to the expression of the holy Apostle Jude, in occasion of debauchery(Jude 1:4).

Talk about the canonization of Rasputin, who became famous for his adventures, is especially dangerous today, because there is an unprecedented propaganda of corruption and vice in society, which is increasingly penetrating even into the Church. And, of course, it is very useful for the anti-Orthodox mass media that someone in the Church is glorifying Rasputin, who has already become famous for his adventures. This only gives them an additional reason for another sling of mud at the Church and for all sorts of slander, as in the pre-revolutionary years: the same media, in the same hands, were doing the same thing.

TNow let's move on to explaining Rasputin's supernatural abilities. Even St. John Chrysostom said that the most dangerous thing is to justify lawlessness, hiding behind a miracle.

Here are a number of testimonies of healings published in the book by his daughter Matryona and repeatedly quoted by his admirers.

About the healing of the girl: “His face changed, it became like that of a dead man, yellow, waxy, motionless to the point of horror. His eyes rolled back completely, only whites were visible. He jerked me sharply by the arms and said in a hollow voice: "She will not die." His face, when he held hands, I will never forget. From the living it became the face of the dead. Trembling takes, as I remember.

About the healing of a young man from the “dance of St. Vitus”: “Rasputin went out of his room to him, sat down opposite him in an armchair, put his hands on his shoulders, directed his gaze firmly into his eyes and shook violently. The trembling gradually weakened, and Rasputin calmed down. Then he jumped up and shouted at him: “Go, boy! Go home or I'll beat you up." The boy jumped up and ran home.

In books about Rasputin, fragments of these stories are given as proof of his holiness. However, all the pathological details of these "prayers" are deliberately omitted.

Citing cases of healing, Rasputin's daughter refers to the testimony of the investigator of the Provisional Government Commission Rudnev: "Rasputin, undoubtedly, possessing some kind of incomprehensible inner strength in the sense of influencing someone else's psyche, represents a kind of hypnosis."

Everyone knows how many attempts were made in the Church to combine magic with the Christian shrine, starting with Simon the Magus and ending with the numerous so-called grandmothers, “healers”, psychics who combine prayer in front of icons with conspiracies; they say that they have the blessing of priests and bishops, etc.

At the Last Judgment, many will say: "God! Have we not prophesied in Your name? Did they not cast out demons in your name? and did they not work many miracles in your name? — and in response they will hear: “I never knew you. Depart from Me, you who do iniquity."(Matthew 7:23).

Thus, two conclusions directly follow from the veneration of Rasputin. First, “one can be holy and depraved.” Secondly, - you can mix holiness with hypnosis, dark mysticism with Christianity.

HIt is impossible not to see that the activities of the fans of Rasputin - some kind of ominous parody of the genuine process of glorifying the saints, in particular - of collecting materials for the glorification of the Royal Martyrs. By the way, all the materials that have been circulated in recent years in the church environment in defense of the canonization of the Royal Martyrs, reports of miracles through their prayers have always been strictly verified.

For example, the admirers of “Elder Gregory” try to justify their self-imposedness with a precedent: indeed, many in our Church read akathists to Blessed Xenia, St. righteous John Kronstadt Royal Passion-Bearers long before their canonization by the Moscow Patriarchate; the icons of the Tsar-Martyr were in churches even before they were glorified. But all of them had already been glorified by the Church Abroad! If they are holy in a part of the Church, then in the whole - at least, as locally venerated saints. The grace of the Church Abroad cannot be denied without the risk of falling into the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

In addition, the saints testified to the holiness of the Tsar-Martyr - St. Nicholas Velimirovich, St. Nektarios, Kuksha, Barnabas of Gethsemane, Anatoly of Optina, St. John Maksimovich and many others. Who is famous here? What Church, what saints?..

But in the books about Rasputin, there are many statements by unknown persons who speak of his “holiness”: “One spirit-bearing elder said ... One elder was asked ......”, etc. What kind of elders are they, why did the authors hesitate to give their names ? After all, the whole value of testimony, all its power lies in the fact that a person announces his name and thereby testifies to the action of Divine grace in a specific historical environment. No self-respecting authority takes anonymous letters into account.

MWe are well aware that people who are engaged in the propaganda of Rasputin's "holiness" cannot be persuaded: they will continue to repeat the same thing. But we don't write for them. We want to draw everyone's attention to the purposeful anti-church nature of the movement of Rasputin's admirers. Occurs a crime when something that is alien to it is imposed on the Church. What is put into the mouth of the Church is what she does not confess.

Before us - gross violation of church discipline when a group of people arbitrarily proclaim someone a saint, paint his icons, compose akathists for him, etc.

A new sect appears, similar to the "Mother of God Center", but inside Churches. It is especially dangerous because it tries to influence all sorts of people prone to exaltation, neophytes who are not established in faith and Orthodox sobriety.

Painful delirium is replicated on behalf of the Orthodox Church. And most importantly, this an insult to the memory of the holy Royal Family.

Yes, we believe that the appearance of this movement immediately after the canonization of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers is aimed at discrediting the Church and this grace-filled deed of the Church, in order to provoke fermentation of minds. We hope that the Hierarchy will stop this spiritual infection.

Tatyana Groyan in her book “Martyr for Christ and for the Tsar, the Man of God Gregory. The Prayer Book for Holy Russia and Her All-Blessed Child (Moscow, 2000) abundantly quotes Matrena's book Rasputin. Memoirs of a daughter ”(M., 2000) on pages: 20, 31, 37, 46, 47,48, 49, 50-51, 53-54, 66, 69-70, 83-84, 85, 87, 92 , 109, 110, 110-111, 152, 169, 171-172, 283, 284, 285-286, 303-307, 307-308, 308-309, 309-312, 315-317, 320-321, 323 -324, 335, 338-341, 356-358. If T. Groyan had not come forward with her “labor”, and most importantly, if very noisy supporters of the canonization of Rasputin had not appeared, Father Alexander Shargunov would not even have had to object to this apology of “Elder Grigory”.

Opponents Prot. Alexander Shargunov is cited as an argument for the “holiness” of Rasputin, that St. John Chrysostom was condemned, believing in slander, by some saints, for example, St. Cyril of Alexandria. However, we have evidence of other St. fathers and ascetics who lived in his time, and who spoke of the unequivocal holiness of Chrysostom (in particular, St. Isidore Pelusiot). Not a single one of his contemporary saints spoke of the holiness of Rasputin. —Note. ed.

December 30 (17) marks the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Grigory Rasputin. His very identity and the circumstances of this event are still the subject of controversy and discussion.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Grigory Efimovich Rasputin, but disputes still continue about his personality. For some, he is "a holy devil, a libertine, a whip, an evil genius of a weak king, a sign of a lost kingdom." For others - an innocently slandered, holy elder, martyr, close friend of the Royal Family. Apparently, the time has come to digress from disputes and sine ira et cura - "without anger and predilection" - to investigate the phenomenon of Rasputin, relying on reliable sources. But at the same time, one should remember the words of the famous historian A.S. Lappo-Danilevsky about the source as a product psychological activity, a mirror of someone else's animation. And above all, one must not forget the famous Cartesian "Question Everything", especially the numerous myths about Rasputin and the Royal Family.

The first myth is about a weak, weak-willed Tsar, henpecked by the German Tsarina, who endured a depraved peasant in his house at the suggestion of an exalted wife. There is no need to elaborate on how this gossip worked in the fateful days of February 1917. And note that it was developed and carried by the inhabitants of high-society salons, those who hit the Tsar in the back, and then, when he left the throne, they became confused, chickened out and either fled, or dutifully went to the Bolshevik slaughter, or intrigued in the rear of the white armies, as once in St. Petersburg salons, so that later in exile to engage in "wit on the stairs", or rather - in Parisian attics.

Let's also not forget that the Germans used this gossip with might and main during the war, scattering disgusting caricatures of Rasputin and the Royal Family over our troops from the "Zeppelins".

So the source of information is dubious and biased. And now - in essence.

Was the holy Emperor Nicholas a man of weak will, who for 23 years walked at the gunpoint of terrorists? Was this the Tsar, who by his will moved the center of economic and political development from the West of the country to the East, the builder of Port Arthur, Vladivostok and the Trans-Siberian Railway? Was this the Emperor who overcame the most difficult revolution of 1905, during which the country rapidly modernized and progressed, despite powerful revolutionary and centrifugal currents? Was this the Tsar who took responsibility for the army in the most difficult devastating days of 1915 and stopped the collapse, did not allow a large-scale military defeat and a German breakthrough to Kyiv, Moscow and Petrograd? Finally, what we know about February 1917 also gives us no reason to consider him a man of weak will. The sovereign did everything to crush the rebellion, another thing is that all his orders were sabotaged.

And the second is the myth that the Tsar knew everything about Rasputin, but tolerated him for the sake of the life of his heir - Tsarevich Alexei. Then it turns out that for the sake of the life of his son, the Emperor sacrificed principles. But how to reconcile with this the fact that in 1915-1916 the Tsar took the Tsarevich to the front, despite his severe hemophilic disease? So, was he able to risk even the health of his son for the sake of his upbringing and defense of the Fatherland? The level of moral cleanliness and spiritual purity of the Sovereign would not allow him to tolerate such a person as the newspaper Rasputin, if he considered the accusations against him justified. So, I didn't count. And he had his reasons.

And they were rooted in the fact that the accusations against Rasputin came to a fair extent from very dubious and obscure sources and from obscure faces. Here is one of the main accusers of Rasputin - Hieromonk Iliodor (Trufanov), an inveterate religious adventurer, dismissed for actions of a sectarian nature, who abroad published an openly slanderous book "The Holy Devil", where, for the amusement of American and other readers, he mixed not only Rasputin, but and the Royal Family. Characteristically, before its publication, he offered the Empress the book ... to buy it, but in such a way that everyone knew about it. According to the reasoned opinion of Oleg Platonov, the well-known informational cynic A. Amfiteatrov, the author of the play Lord Obmanov, had a hand in compiling this book. It is Iliodor and Amphitheatrov who are at the origins of the "Hollywood" version of Rasputin: a depraved man who fooled everyone, including the Tsar and Tsaritsa, - unfortunately, the most famous and most demanded by society.

An interesting story is the reports on the observation of Rasputin by the external guards, analyzed by Platonov. When the Ministry of the Interior was headed by Stolypin, the reports were calm, impartial, and no compromising evidence could be extracted from them. The extracts are supported by authentic reports. On the contrary, when Khvostov and Beletsky, well-known adventurers, were in charge of the ministry, the true reports of agents disappear somewhere, they are replaced by rather general and irresponsible extracts without names, without verification of compromising “facts”.

By the way, the opinion about Rasputin of General P.G. Kurlov, director of the police department, deputy minister of the interior: “This time I was struck only by Rasputin’s serious acquaintance with Holy Scripture and theological questions. He behaved with restraint and not only did not show a hint of boasting, but he did not say a single word about his relationship with the Royal Family. In the same way, I did not notice any signs of hypnotic power in him, and, leaving after this conversation, I could not help saying that most of the rumors circulating about his influence on those around him belonged to the field of gossip, which Petersburg is always so greedy for.

Needless to say, the attempt to convict Rasputin of the scandal in the Moscow restaurant "Yar" failed miserably? As a result of this provocation, the freemason Dzhunkovsky was dismissed in disgrace, who made up a fake that fell apart after a thorough check.

And, finally, the last fact: the Extraordinary Investigative Commission, dressed up to search for the crimes of the tsarist regime, found NOTHING in Rasputin's activities that could be presented to the revolutionary public. Cases about Khlystism, and about bribes, and about carousing and depraved activities, and about German money fell apart under the net. In general, a paradoxical situation arises in Rasputiniad: dozens of anti-Rasputin testimonies, the authors of which did not see Rasputin in the eyes (for example, Sukhomlinov, an ardent enemy of Rasputin, writes: “I saw Rasputin once, walking around the station.” Nevertheless, he was unshakably convinced that it was Rasputin who caused his resignation from the War Ministry, and not the decision of the Tsar and not his own mediocrity); dozens of anti-Rasputin articles, where the lack of measure of details shocking the public is only exceeded by lack of conscience in relation to the facts. Huge incriminating evidence, and at the heart of it - nothing. Much ado about nothing.

Ask: but something was? After all, it cannot be that all accusations of immorality are unfounded, and from different sides. Let's, dear readers, get on the legal ground, which for some reason is not always loved and respected in our country. There is a presumption of innocence, and a person can be recognized as a criminal or guilty of something only by a court decision - secular or ecclesiastical. With regard to G.E. Rasputin initiated two whole investigations. And both ended with his perfect excuse.

However, it may be objected that Rasputin was also condemned by very authoritative bishops, known for their spiritual life, such as Bishops Feofan (Bystrov), Germogen (Golubev). This is true, but even holiness does not mean sinlessness and infallibility. For example, even such holy bishops as St. Epiphanius of Cyprus allowed themselves to be drawn into the work of St. John Chrysostom. Naturally, we do not compare G.E. Rasputin with the universal teacher John Chrysostom, we only strive to show that the flow of slander and public condemnation can also affect the most deserving. The very fact that in 1912 Vladyka Hermogenes came to G.E. Rasputin, together with the aforementioned Iliodor (Trufanov), and he, in front of Vladyka Hermogenes, beat Rasputin with a cross. It is also significant that most of the bishops did not support the Sovereign and the empire in the fateful days of February and March 1917, and none of the episcopate visited the Royal Family in their captivity - neither in St. Petersburg, nor in Tobolsk, nor in Yekaterinburg.

However, I feel that the meticulous reader does not let up: there is no smoke without fire. Was there something? It was. Gossip and the hunt for Rasputin. The first large-scale action of "black PR" in the history of Russia. Is it coincidental that in the distant Siberian village of Pokrovskoye, in the homeland of Rasputin, on June 29, 1914, on the day of the assassination attempt on him by an ardent admirer of Hieromonk Iliodor Khioniya Guseva, the metropolitan correspondent Duvidzon turns out to be at the scene of the crime, accurately reproducing slanderous articles in his publications testimonies of the accused, with whom, by the way, he was deprived of the opportunity to communicate?

And it is clear that Rasputin himself was not interested in everyone. His closeness to the Royal Family was important. They aimed at him, shot at the Emperor and the Empress. And successfully.

The third myth: Rasputin ruled Russia. On his recommendation, ministers, chief prosecutors, and ruling bishops were allegedly appointed and replaced. Meanwhile, the famous historian A.N. Bokhanov cites a very revealing fact: Rasputin tried to save his son from mobilization during the war, but met with a polite refusal from Emperor Nicholas. To his request, the Tsar replied that now every man must defend his Fatherland. The maximum that Grigory Efimovich managed to achieve was to send his son to an ambulance train.

And if we wash Rasputin of Hollywood make-up, then a very interesting face will appear.

Not very literate, but very well-read, smart Siberian peasant, standing up for the people with a mountain, taking to heart the needs of both fellow villagers and ordinary Russian people in general. His original notes give the impression of a balanced, circumstantial, sober, pious person. The image of a man faithful to Orthodoxy, faithful to Russia and the Tsar emerges. The peasant "pacifism" of Rasputin is characteristic, a sober understanding that war brings death and destruction, immeasurable suffering to the people. According to Count Witte, in 1912, during the Balkan War, when serious tension arose between Russia and Austria-Hungary and the Sovereign was about to announce mobilization, Rasputin, during a personal meeting on his knees, begged him not to do this, and thereby contributed to the fact that Russia was granted two more years of peace.

The telegram that he sent to the Tsar in July 1914, before the outbreak of the First World War, is very indicative: “Dear friend, I’ll say it again, a terrible cloud on Russia’s misfortune, a lot of darkness and no light. The words are the sea and there is no measure, but blood? What will I say. There are no words, indescribable horror. I know that everyone wants war from You, even the faithful, not knowing that for the sake of death. God's punishment is hard, when the mind takes away, then the beginning of the end. You are the King, the father of the people, do not let the insane triumph and destroy themselves and the people. Here they will defeat Germany, and Russia? To think so truly was not more bitter than the sufferer, all drowning in blood, death, endless sorrow. Gregory".

If we leave aside spelling errors and folk poetic style, then this is a text that would do honor to the most profound analyst. It accurately reflects the state of society, obsessed with jingoism and hatred (remember the famous Kadet-Milyukov “Give Dardanelles!”), A “sea of ​​words”, for which you will have to pay with seas of blood, the insanity of the elite, going to the end. This is also the prediction that Germany will be defeated, but without Russia, which will drown in blood, apparently - in its own. This is the providence of the revolution - "the beginning of the end."

For this, he was hated by "cheers-patriotic circles", primarily by the Cadets, largely permeated with Masonic influence. The war for them was the prologue of the revolution. Rasputin clearly interfered with them. In many ways. Therefore, they decided to remove it.

In the second half of 1916, provocative rumors began to spread that the Tsar, under the influence of the German Empress, was preparing to conclude a separate peace, and that Rasputin was inciting Alexandra Feodorovna to do so. It's hard to think of anything more absurd. Firstly, for almost two years Emperor Nicholas worked on the reconstruction, reorganization and rearmament of the army, in order to abandon everything and surrender. By the beginning of 1917, everything was ready for a large-scale spring-summer offensive in agreement with the Allies. The army had everything - from the latest airplanes and submarines to warm uniforms in the taste of the 17th century: the famous "Budyonnovka" was originally called "heroes" and was made just in time for the onset of 1917. As for ammunition, all of Russia fought on them for another four years throughout the Civil War. Secondly, it was not in the nature of Emperor Nicholas ΙΙ to change his word and betray, all the more - it was pointless. If the 1917 campaign was successful, Russia would have received all the fruits of victory, including the east of Asia Minor, the Dardanelles, Galicia, and so on. And would become the first power in the world. In the case of a separate peace, at best, their war-ravaged lands and, after the defeat of the allies in the west, would collide with the same Germany. Thirdly, during the war, Rasputin did not engage in anti-war agitation: he did not approve of entering the war, but he believed: having entered, we must bring the matter to the end and win.

However, for some reason, they decided to accuse Rasputin of Germanophilism, receiving money from the Germans, seeking a separate peace, and kill him. An amazing tandem was formed for the murder: the Black Hundred activist Germanophile Purishkevich and the effeminate Anglophile of the "non-traditional orientation" Prince F.F. Yusupov, who, after the murder of Rasputin, suffered a purely symbolic punishment. Purishkevich left behind a diary, Yusupov - memoirs. But there is still an investigation. And here we get an amazing picture: the evidence of Purishkevich and Yusupov coincides in detail with each other, but sharply diverges from the materials of the investigation.

First, in the description of clothes. In one voice, Purishkevich and Yusupov say that Rasputin was dressed in boots, velvet trousers, a cream-colored silk shirt embroidered with silks. The prosecutor of the judicial chamber S.V. Zavadsky testifies: the victim was dressed in a blue silk shirt embroidered with golden ears of corn. He had a gold bracelet with the royal monogram on his hand, a golden cross around his neck, and although the bracelet and cross are bright and memorable details, the killers did not say a word about this. Although they unanimously say that Rasputin sat with them for two whole hours, drinking poisoned sweet wine, eating cakes stuffed with potassium cyanide. One would like to ask: what idiot instructed these unfortunate killers? An 8th grade student knows from a chemistry course that potassium cyanide is neutralized by glucose. But that's not even the point: in two hours, only a blind man could not notice what color shirt their victim was wearing. Or there was no two-hour sitting in the basement. At least the one that Yusupov and Purishkevich write about.

An even more significant discrepancy between the memoirs and the materials of the investigation file is how Grigory Efimovich was killed. Purishkevich saw that Rasputin received three gunshot wounds: Yusupov shot him in the chest, in the region of the heart, after which more than half an hour passed, and the dead man seemed to come to life, rushed into the yard, where Purishkevich shot him in the back and, as he "felt", in struck the victim's head. According to him, Yusupov did not see how Purishkevich shot in the yard, he only confirms that he killed Rasputin in the dining room with a shot in the chest, in the region of the heart.

But the original documents of the investigation completely exclude a shot in the heart, they say that Grigory Efimovich was killed by three fatal shots - in the liver (in the stomach), in the kidneys (in the back) and in the brain (in the head). Yulia Den also mentions the fatal wounds of Father Gregory, who knew about them from conversations with the Empress and A.A. Vyrubova in Tsarskoye Selo: "Grigory Efimovich was wounded in the face and side, he had a bullet hole on his back." Forensic experts argued that with the very first wound - in the liver - a person can live no more than 20 minutes, therefore, there could not be a time period from half an hour to an hour, after which the dead man "resurrected" and rushed to run, as there was no a shot to the heart in the dining room, which both participants in the murder unanimously claimed.

Here is the conclusion of the forensic expert Professor D.N. Kosorotova: “During the autopsy, very numerous injuries were found, many of which were already inflicted posthumously. The entire right side of the head was shattered, flattened due to bruising of the corpse during the fall from the bridge. Death followed from profuse bleeding due to a gunshot wound to the abdomen. The shot was fired, in my opinion, almost point-blank, from left to right, through the stomach and liver, with crushing of the latter in the right half. The bleeding was very profuse. The corpse also had a gunshot wound in the back, in the region of the spine, with crushing of the right kidney, and another wound point-blank, in the forehead, probably already dying or dead. The chest organs were intact and were examined superficially, but there were no signs of death from drowning. The lungs were not swollen and there was no water or foamy fluid in the airways. Rasputin was thrown into the water already dead» .

The testimony of Professor Kosorotov shows that Grigory Efimovich bled for a long time and painfully, but Yusupov and Purishkevich did not say a word about this colossal blood loss. There were few traces of blood, according to their memoirs.

So the ends don't add up. Moreover, we see an obvious conspiracy between Purishkevich and Yusupov, the conspiracy is obviously false. Why did they take the blame, so eager to become zits-killers? Do you want loops? Obviously, they were promised (and fulfilled) that nothing serious would happen to them. Who are the real killers?

They were agents of the British intelligence officer Oswald Reiner, a friend of Yusupov, and Dr. Lazovert. This is convincingly evidenced by the materials collected in the book by British intelligence officer Richard Cullen “Rasputin. Torture and his murder". Numerous injuries on the body, including lacerations, prove that Rasputin was tortured for a long time before his death, apparently trying to get a confession in failed separate negotiations, and not having achieved this, they shot him. Yusupov and Purishkevich were to play the role of cover. Cullen was forced to admit the groundlessness of the accusations against Rasputin. Yes, it is unlikely that the British themselves believed in them ... It is no coincidence that Reiner received an order in 1919 as an award - it is not known for what merits, and before his death in 1961 he destroyed all his papers.

Did the Emperor know the names of the real killers? Apparently - yes. The British ambassador, Sir George Buchanan, recalled that shortly after the murder of Rasputin, Nicholas II told him during an audience: a young Englishman, a friend of Yusupov at the university, was involved in this. True, the King did not call him by name. This explains why Yusupov and Purishkevich were not punished seriously: the Tsar understood their camouflage role, although, perhaps, they should have been punished much more severely for complicity. But it probably seemed unfair to the Tsar to punish accomplices without punishing the real killers. And he could not punish them: the investigation of them and the corresponding sentence would mean, in the final analysis, the collapse of the anti-German coalition. Because all connections with the British Embassy, ​​with Sir George Buchanan, who almost openly worked against the ally of his country - the Russian Tsar, would be revealed. Therefore, the Emperor had to bite the bullet and endure this atrocity against the person closest to his family. All for the sake of victory.

But it was no longer possible. Purishkevich proudly declared: "We fired the first shot of the Revolution." Indeed, the murder of Rasputin had a number of meanings. For the King: “We can do everything. Even slander and kill the person closest to you. Get out yourself before they are overthrown and killed.” For the aristocracy and "educated society": "A dog's death to a dog." It is no coincidence that Yusupov told the policeman that he ... just shot the dog. And later, over the grave of Rasputin, they wrote in German: “Wo ist Hund begraben” - “This is where the dog is buried.” But "tell me who your friend is, and I'll tell you who you are." It is no coincidence that Iliodor, back in 1912, allowed himself statements like "The dog lay down on the throne." He was arrested, put under house arrest, but he ... fled abroad to write lampoons against the Tsar and his family.

For a part of the people loyal to the Tsar: “We saw you under the bridge…” For those who hesitated: “Look, the Tsar did not protect a man from the people. And he didn’t even really punish him.” In other words: "There is no power - and our time, our will." And from here - a few steps until February 1917. It all started on Bloody Sunday, when, thanks to Gapon, the people's faith in the Tsar was shot. It ended with a shot at the peasant Rasputin. In both cases, they shot at the living moral bond between the Tsar and the people.

But the question is: why did all this matter to the British? The answer is simple: precisely because Russia was on the verge of victory. Allies too. By the end of 1916, the issue of America's entry into the war was resolved. And Russia was not needed. An undesirable competitor with whom it is necessary to share prey. Including the straits. And the British Empire - the mistress of the seas - could not allow this. So, it is necessary to withdraw Russia from the war. It is desirable not immediately, gradually, so that it works out its function completely. But she was not admitted to the victorious feast. As a result of the revolution, the first shot of which was, in the words of the near-minded Purishkevich, "a shot at Rasputin."

It turned out ... Kafkaesque paradox succeeded - to defeat both Germany and Russia. At the Versailles Conference there were flags of all the victorious countries. Even Uruguayan. There was no Russian.

As Pushkin wisely wrote:

Everyone in the world has enemies
But save us from friends, O God.

The purpose of this publication is by no means the preparation of the canonization of Rasputin. There is no need to go from one extreme to another. Serious and painstaking work is needed to find out the truth and wash Rasputin off Hollywood makeup. And the restoration of historical justice. vital in this case, because we are talking about the honor of the holy Royal Passion-Bearers. Again, tell me who your friend is and I will tell you who you are. The murder of Rasputin, at first moral, and then physical, served as a prologue to the collapse of the empire and the villainous killing of the Royal Family. This should be especially remembered now, when some gentlemen, neglecting the lessons of history, through gossip and "black PR" want to destroy the Orthodox Church and the Russian state.

This was recognized even by his enemies. See the preface by Mikhail Koltsov to the collection "Repudiation" (L., 1927).

Platonov O.A. Death of Rasputin. pp. 307-308.

Richard Callen. Rasputin. His torture and murder. London, 2009.

It would seem that almost everything has already been written about Grigory Rasputin. Both from negative positions and from positive. But now, quite recently, I. V. Evsin's book "GRIGORY RASPUTIN: insights, prophecies, miracles" was published. This book contains materials still unknown in Rasputin studies. For those who wish to familiarize themselves with these materials, we inform you that the book "GRIGORY RASPUTIN: insights, prophecies, miracles" can be purchased at the Zerna online store

On our own page today we are posting the author's preface, which will undoubtedly be of interest to everyone who treats Rasputin both positively and negatively ...

GOD'S SIGNS

My work on the study of the life of Grigory Efimovich Rasputin began in 1996, after the historian Oleg Platonov, now president of the Academy of Russian Civilization, published the documentary book The Life and Death of Grigory Rasputin. She completely turned my views on Rasputin studies. Then I was simply amazed at how much the Friend of the Royal Family was slandered. And he could not help but make his small contribution to the cleansing of his bright name from slanderous dirt. That is why I wrote my first study about Grigory Efimovich, which I called "The Slandered Elder".
However, before starting work, I asked for blessings from my spiritual mentor, the ever-memorable elder Archimandrite Abel (Makedonov). Then he told me the following:
- I know little about Rasputin. And that's more bad than good. Therefore, I cannot give blessings. But here's what I advise ... Go to Vladimir region, to the village of Velikodvorie, to the grave of Archpriest Peter Cheltsov. He was a monarchist. And most importantly, a perspicacious, spirit-bearing elder. Worked miracles with prayers. Pray at his grave, ask for enlightenment. I think that through him the Lord will help you.

I went to the indicated address, found the grave of Father Peter, now glorified as the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. She was in the cemetery near the Pyatnitsky Church. I prayed at the grave and decided to order a memorial service for Father Peter. I found the rector of the temple, the ever-memorable Archpriest Anatoly Yakovin. He inquired about the reason for my visit. I told. You should have seen how the face of Father Anatoly brightened up! “But I have been waiting, waiting for a long time for someone to start writing a good book about Elder Gregory,” he said excitedly.

His words became God's sign to me. Archpriest Anatoly Yakovin is an amazing personality in the history of the emergence of monarchism in Soviet Russia, in the USSR. Being the rector of the Pyatnitsky Church, he gathered with him the admirers of the Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II, whose name at that time was just as stained with slander as the name of his Friend Grigory Rasputin. At that time, no one even thought about the glorification of the Tsar, such a negative opinion was formed about him among the people thanks to Soviet propaganda. So, Father Anatoly told his spiritual children that the time would come and Tsar Nicholas II would be glorified as a saint. I can’t say for sure, but with all due respect to the priest, hardly anyone believed his words. I also did not believe in the glorification of the Tsar. However, under the influence of Oleg Platonov's book, I developed an extremely respectful attitude towards him.

LETTER OF THE OLD KYRIL / PAVLOV /

Upon arrival in Ryazan, I told Archimandrite Abel about my trip. He advised me to continue to come to pray at the grave of Father Pyotr Cheltsov, if possible.
- And also, Igorek, - said father Abel, - take a train around the monasteries. Go to Zadonsk, to Diveevo, to Sanaksary. Pray to the saints of God: Father Seraphim, Saint Tikhon, fall down to their relics, ask for help. I began to fulfill this obedience. Arrived in Zadonsk, in St. Tikhon's monastery. Lived there. Prayed, took communion. And somehow, after the evening service before the icon of St. Tikhon, he fell on his knees and began to ask for his admonition. When I got up, I saw that a monk was praying next to me. I was about to leave, but he suddenly asked quietly:
- You mentioned Grigory Rasputin just now?
- Yes, father, about him.
- And why?
I want to write a book about him.
- And who do you think Rasputin is?
- For the old man, father ... For the slandered old man.
- Well... Then, let's pray together again for the Lord to help you.
This was the second sign of God… Long and hard we prayed with the monk, kneeling before the icon of St. Tikhon. I left the monastery strengthened and enlightened. But ... upon arrival at the place of residence, in Ryazan, he was not honored to work on the book. Either one or the other...

And my conscience, in the words of the elder Gregory, “thumps with a hammer”, does not give rest. Then I decided to go to Diveevo, bow to Father Seraphim, ask him to give me the strength and will to fulfill my plan. He came, prayed, took communion, lived. And there, from the organizer of the pilgrimage from Ryazan to Diveevo, the ever-memorable Anatoly Bekhtin, I learned about the prophecy of Father Seraphim, who said that ""There will be a king who will glorify me ... and the Lord will magnify the king." As you know, worship Reverend Seraphim Sarovsky took place on the personal instructions of Tsar Nicholas II, who, in response to the objections of the Holy Synod, personally instructed: "Immediately glorify."

Bekhtin's story was for me the third sign of God. It was then that I believed in the future glorification of the Tsar-Martyr and the complete rehabilitation of his Friend Grigory Rasputin.
Upon arrival in Ryazan, I told Archimandrite Abel about this incident.
“Well, Igor, it remains for you to visit Sanaksary,” said Father Abel.
On the first occasion, I went to Sanaksary, to the Nativity of the Theotokos Monastery. I confessed to the monastery confessor, whom I saw for the first time. He said that I wanted to write a book about Rasputin, but I could not find the time for this. Oh, how sternly he looked at me then!
- Write without delay! he punished. - Write, and the Lord will give you time! Rasputin is a man of God, a prayer book for the Tsar, a sufferer for Russia.
This was the fourth sign of God. And how many of them there were later, and do not count. However, I want to talk about two of them.
When, with the blessing of the elder, shegumen Jerome (Verendyakin), my book “The Slandered Elder” was published, great temptations began to overtake me. Yes, such that my wife Irina was alarmed and decided that everything was due to the fact that I wrote this book. And then my missus wrote a letter. I asked him how he felt about Grigory Rasputin. Archimandrite Kirill sent a reply in which he wrote that he had a positive attitude towards him. Only after that my wife calmed down.

Fragment of a letter from Archimandrite Cyril (Pavlov) I.I. Evsina. Trinity-Sergius Lavra - Ryazan, 2002

And I myself really wanted to know the opinion of the elder Nikolai (Guryanov). I was going to visit him on Zalit Island. He was going, he was going, and he was going. Father Nicholas died. So I never met him. However, we still had a spiritual meeting. One of Elder Nikolai's admirers told me that he had received my book The Slandered Elder as a gift from him. As it turned out, the priest bought a part of the circulation of this book and gave it to pilgrims to Zalit Island.

So, three elders - Jerome (Verendyakin) and Nikolai (Guryanov) - revered Grigory Rasputin as a righteous man. But an amazing thing: of those who revere these elders, there are many who have a negative attitude towards Rasputin. Does this mean that they do not take into account the opinion of spirit-bearing elders? Do they not believe in the foresight of the above-named elders? Do they put their opinion above theirs?

DIFFERENT OPINIONS

It turns out that the anti-Rasputinites do not believe the elders. Who do they believe? Jew Aron Simanovich with Sergei Trufanov, who renounced the Lord? Pervert Felix Yusupov with satanist Zhukovskaya? To the traitor of the monarchy, Purishkevich and others like him... their name is legion. Modern pseudo-historian Radzinsky? But why not believe the modern conscientious researcher of Rasputin's life, Doctor of Historical Sciences Alexander Bokhanov? Why not believe Doctor of Philology Tatyana Mironova, who is an archival specialist? Do not believe Oleg Platonov, who worked in the declassified archives of the USSR State Security Committee and in practically inaccessible foreign archives? And how many theologians, hierarchs and priests, studying the life of Rasputin, came to the conclusion that he was slandered! For example, Metropolitan Vikenty of Tashkent, Archbishop Ambrose (Shchurov), the ever-memorable Archimandrite Georgy (Tertyshnikov) and Priest Dimitry Dudko, who suffered for his faith in Soviet prisons, Archpriest Valentin Asmus, Archpriest Artemy Vladimirov, monk of Optina Hermitage, the famous spiritual writer Lazar (Afanasiev), and many others. other priests, monks and clerics.

Of course, there are opposing opinions among some authoritative priests of the Russian Orthodox Church, and most importantly, the opinion of the ever-memorable Patriarch Alexy II. However, here it is necessary to take into account the fact that the opinion of His Holiness was formed at a time when, apart from the book of Oleg Platonov, there were no deep historical studies of the life of Grigory Rasputin yet. And yet, the Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church for the canonization of the Royal Family, studying the question of whether Grigory Efimovich is an obstacle to its glorification, was struck by the collected materials. According to the memoirs of Archpriest Valentin Asmus, one of the members of the commission, when considering a report on Grigory Efimovich, said: “It seems that we are engaged in the canonization of Rasputin!” Even the chairman of the commission, Metropolitan Yuvenaly (Poyarkov), having familiarized himself with the materials collected by Archimandrite Georgy (Tertyshnikov), remarked: “Judging by your materials, Rasputin should be glorified.”

And here's what is strange: in the final, official report of the commission, evidence of the righteousness of Grigory Rasputin somehow mysteriously disappeared ... And, on the contrary, far from indisputable facts are presented that show him from a negative side. Of course, this report contributed to the formation of a negative opinion in Patriarch Alexy II about the personality of Grigory Rasputin. Probably, some other factors contributed to this.

By and large, it is not possible to answer the question why His Holiness had a negative attitude towards Rasputin. After all, he did not cite any historical and documentary arguments in favor of his opinion. Nor did he rely on the judgments of any of the elders. Moreover, speaking of Archimandrite Kirill (Pavlov) and Archpriest Nikolai Guryanov as pillars of Orthodoxy, for some reason he went against their opinion...

Today's Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, spoke on the topic of controversial historical figures quite adequate. “If new historical data have emerged, then we need to insist on the historical rehabilitation of this person, we need to organize this process, we need to create a commission of impartial historians, researchers and try to really recreate the true appearance of this person,” His Holiness said in one of his television appearances.

Well, in our time there is a fundamental scientific and historical work by Sergei Fomin “Grigory Rasputin. Investigation". To date, there is no other such strictly documentary study of Rasputin's life. So let's have a scientific discussion about the historical rehabilitation of Rasputin, starting from this work, which analyzes all kinds of historiographic and documentary sources. But so far no one even thinks about holding such a discussion. And this despite the fact that Grigory Rasputin is revered as God's saint by a considerable part of the Orthodox laity, priesthood and monasticism. Today, more and more Orthodox Christians are beginning to consciously understand or intuitively feel that Grigory Efimovich must be revered as a martyr who endured malicious, cruel slander all his life and, in the end, was martyred for the Tsar and for Russia. To read because through prayers to Elder Gregory, more and more miracles are happening and myrrh-streaming of his images.

Why is there no interest in this on the part of the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church? Why is there no desire in the official circles of the Russian Orthodox Church, if not to glorify, then at least to rehabilitate Grigory Rasputin? It seems that, because today the rehabilitation of Rasputin is mistakenly considered as a political issue, and not a spiritual one.

Historian Oleg Zhigankov in his book “The Miracle Worker with a Staff in His Hand” noted: “I do not have enough optimism to believe that in the near future the attitude towards Rasputin will be generally revised. There is no interest in this among those who should have long passed an acquittal in the case of Rasputin and presented it to the people. There are more than enough materials for an acquittal, but Rasputin's acquittal simultaneously becomes a condemnation of all those who at one time made every effort to slander him. This will mean that the most influential people of the Russian state and the Church, willingly or unwillingly, worked on the destruction of the country - on self-destruction. Who wants to admit that?

Of course, one can agree with the opinion that Rasputin's ecclesiastical rehabilitation is impossible if this rehabilitation is given a political character. Especially in our time, when the attacks on the Orthodox Church have taken on a truly satanic scope. However, one should also take into account the fact that the question of Rasputin also has a spiritual meaning...

/TO BE CONTINUED…/

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