Valentin Sventsitsky where he is buried. On the eve of the end times

(1881-1931), p rotopriest, theologian, philosopher, writer, spiritual son of the Optina elder, St. Anatoly (Potapov). Father Valentine possessed an amazing gift of oral speech, he constantly preached and conducted spiritual conversations in a difficult time for the Church, so similar, in his words, to the first centuries of Christianity. During his second exile in Siberia, Father Valentin died after a long illness. After 20 days, his body was taken to Moscow and at the funeral service, with a huge crowd of people, was found incorrupt. Resting at the Moscow Vvedensky (German) cemetery.

We offer the reader a selection of instructions from the sermons of the pastor-confessor, contemporary and companion of the new martyrs and confessors of the Russian Church.

Prayer. Fast

It is possible to find the narrow path to Truth only with the help of God. And this help is given in prayer.

The most difficult and most necessary thing is always to burn in spirit, always remember the highest, always strive for salvation, always feel eternity.

In order to protect the human soul from secularization, the Lord commanded us to pray incessantly.

And we? We consider it a heroic deed if we visit the temple once a week. At home, most Orthodox Christians will not cross their foreheads. We have no time. There is time for everything - except prayer. We have forgotten that prayer should be the main work of life - the rest will follow.

How many demonic forces triumph from the fact that prayer is leaving our lives and fasting is almost gone. What a triumph over the spiritual life of man, when these two wings are clipped, lifting man over his worldly, fleshly being! Without prayer, without fasting, you cannot build your inner life.

Necessary prayer rule for everyone at home, so that the world, which all the time seeks to overwhelm our lives, was fenced off by this habit of home prayer. The strictest observance of fasts is necessary in order for this to help erect a certain worldly life the wall. Your churching should also concern your family. You must certainly feel your family as a Church, you must constantly test yourself there with the spirit of churchness.

Lenten statutes are life itself

Why such a decline in fasting, and why should there be zeal for its fulfillment? Lenten statutes are life itself. They are written in Slavic letters in the Typikon, but behind these letters are the deeds of prayer, the great spiritual life of the saints of God - a host of saints revered by the Holy Church. This unifying external charter immediately introduces church unity into our very everyday life.

In our time, it is necessary to especially zealously observe everything that sets the line between us, the faithful, and them, the unfaithful. And one of the outer, but solid, boundaries of separation from the world is the lean charter.

We must see before us the apocalyptic times of the life of the Holy Church, in order to treat with awe and reverence what she commands us to observe.

Everyone who does not fast, everyone who does not perform the prescribed prayer, everyone who breaks the rules of the Church does not confess Christ. When this will be realized by us, then faith in Christ will begin to grow in us, and this will regenerate our life.

We must fulfill not for fear, but for conscience, not before people, but before the Lord that which the Holy Church commands us: I mean fasting, I mean prayer, I mean frequent, constant communion of the Holy Mysteries. Only this path of such a churching of the soul will stand, will not be filled with the devilish worldly forces.

Fasting, praying and receiving communion - this is what is needed in order not in words, but in deeds to erect that invisible (inner) monastery, to which the Lord calls all believers on the eve of end times antichrist.

About sorrows, illnesses, grievances

The ultimate goal - the kingdom of God - puts tribulation in its proper place

For whom life is not a meaningless alternation of success and failure, pleasure and sorrow, but the great work of the Lord to achieve our salvation in the Kingdom of God, for that all sorrows have a different meaning. The ultimate goal - the Kingdom of God - puts them in their proper place, they fit in order, as if along the edges life path, and a thorny but sure road to salvation opens.

“With many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). It will light up our whole life. And a kind of miracle will happen. The feeling of longing will turn into joy. Despondency will be replaced by good spirits. A dark, hopeless despair will shine on hope.

Diseases make you look at life, make you give an account of how life has been lived. When a person recovers, they pose new tasks, as if raising him to a certain new level of inner spiritual being. They teach him to be patient, they teach him to trust in the Lord, they reveal to him, like death itself, the true meaning of life.

When a person sees the main thing in front of him, for which one must live, earthly sorrows dim and cease to torment the human soul, and it is inspired and enlightened, and truly becomes comforted.

When it is difficult to forgive an offense, remember that you also offend God with your sins every hour, but expect forgiveness from Him. When an offense seems to you unjust, remember how many of your sins justly demand retribution and go unpunished! All the insults that our loved ones inflict on us - how empty and insignificant they are in comparison with our sins before the Lord!

Death

You can stupefy yourself with daily worries, live, mired in everyday affairs, - not think about the meaning of life. But the hour will come when this question will arise. The hour of death will come. The person will look back at the life he has lived, and how unnecessary and senseless will seem to him everything that he once considered the most important. Everything that pleased his pride, pride and lust!

With bitterness, with stubbornness, with perseverance, a person renounces his immortality

There is another idol who now has power over people more than he had it in ancient times. This idol is death. With bitterness, with stubbornness, with persistence man renounces his immortality, from his highest dignity and reduces his life to the level of natural being.

When you stand at someone else's coffin and look from the outside at the decay of human nature, then it becomes so clear that you had to live only for the eternal beginning, which passed there ...

Remember that you will die and inherit the Kingdom of God, and for this you live, and for this you work, think about it. And then the worries of everyday life will appear before you in a completely different light. Then you will free yourself from everything that binds you and destroys your soul.

Cross of christ

And every person will have to, no matter how he delayed, at least until his very last hour of death, but still answer the Lord: does he want to follow Him?

If you want to enjoy here empty, unclean, worldly pleasures and give your soul for this, then do not touch the Cross of Christ, but go the easy road to destruction.

Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker "Big Cross" on Ilyinka (destroyed) - the place of the last service of Fr. Valentine.

If you want to attain eternal life and be saved, then lift up the Cross of Christ upon yourself and carry it. Carry it in your family, carry it in your ministry, carry it in public life, carry it through a hail of ridicule, through all kinds of humiliation, carry it joyfully with faith, with firm hope that you carry this Cross of Christ, following Christ, you go and carry the cross your own, going to salvation, and then the burden of this Cross will be easy for you.

Times oblige us to end our weakness of faith, because before each of us the cross is not somewhere far away, in a fog, but so close that everyone needs to be ready to bear it at any moment. Not that ordinary cross that every person carries in his life, but that most difficult and most responsible one, which is called confession.

Nothing teaches us about confession more than the lives of the saints.

The Christian path is a martyr's path. A Christian is always a martyr, always a crusader. And how could it be otherwise when a Christian walks across the worldly road, where everything is hostile to him, where everything lies in wait for him to lead his soul to destruction. And the inner life of a Christian is martyrdom, for the holy fathers call the struggle with the passions martyrdom.

The Christian path. Church. Secularization

The meaning of human life must be associated with eternity, and the meaning of world history is also associated with eternity. Only the eternal can give meaning and justification to the temporal in a separate human life, and only the eternal can give meaning and justify the entire worldly life.

Anything that tears away human life from connection with eternity, everything plunges her into the power of death

Everything that separates human life from its connection with eternity, everything plunges it into the power of death. Life can only be in God, and the world lives in so far as it lives in God: outside of God there is death, and since the world is separated from the Lord, it gives itself up to the power of death.

The further life goes, the more responsible it becomes. It's time to stop looking at the temple as a place where they are experiencing spiritual uplift - and then they go to live in the old way. It is necessary to carry this rise into life and create a temple there.

We grumble that children are leaving the Church. But aren't we ourselves to blame? Do they not see that their parents, having come from the Church, live like all unbelievers?

And if the Church does not regenerate a person, are they not right that its meaning for these people is no different from theaters, cinematographs, concerts, where they spend time idly ... God, have mercy on us sinners.

We ask where is the sky, and we ourselves look into the mud; we ask where the Angels are, and we push ourselves in the street crowd; we ask where the Son of Man is, but we ourselves are chained to everyday concerns. To see the sky, you need to raise your face from the ground, you need to raise your eyes to heaven, you need mountains e have hearts.

The devil reigns in the life of the world. He blinds people. Calls them to her. When the so-called "cultured" people come to the savages, they bring trinkets - multi-colored glasses, cheap products from factories and exchange gold for them and gems... People are also spiritual savages. And the devil exchanges for the trinkets of worldly pleasures the true gold of the human soul. For the illusory blessings of the world, people bear and give it their immortal soul.

The Lord requires so little of us! He demands that we leave unnecessary trash, and for this he promises us salvation, and eternal life, and eternal bliss.

The Lord requires from us an inner liberation from the nets of the world, an inner abandonment of all that we so sweetly experience with the flesh and so bitterly pay for it with our life.

Each gospel reading- this is a gap in another world, from where it pours on us unspeakable light Divine grace.

There is one question to which we often return when reading the lives of the saints, the understanding of which is so clearly influenced by the spirit of secularism. I mean the question of the power of demons.

It is very suspicious when the question of the otherworldly dark power... This does not mean that this force disappears from the path of a person, but this only means that a person has allowed it to stand up in relation to himself so that it becomes invisible to him, but this position in battle is very dangerous, very destructive. Our soul is constantly surrounded by demons who constantly tempt us, confuse us and lead us to destruction.

The world seeks to turn us everywhere and everywhere into atheists

Why is it so difficult for a person to repent? Why is it so hard to feel sin? Here all the same our secularization, which we hate, takes place. We have a worldly attitude towards our life, we do not feel the law of God. The world considers "everyday sins" a trifle. We absolutely do not understand the fiery Gospel words about our responsibility for every idle word (Matthew 12, 36). It is difficult for us to feel the criminality of petty sins, because this is how everyone lives around us ... and we think in the depths of our souls that we are no worse than others. All this is the same "world" that seeks to turn us everywhere and everywhere into atheists, if not according to our faith, then according to our spiritual well-being.

When the question arises of how to work and work for your inner dispensation, how pitiful it is for every hour spent on this!

And how then we impatiently await that every hour, spent on the work of our inner dispensation, will certainly immediately give us what we want to receive!

Our weak point is haste, impatience, the desire to make only one movement on the path to building up our inner world and to reap the fruits as soon as possible, giving up at any first difficulty.

Relaxation of the spirit is the result of our sinfulness.

Without observing everything that the Holy Church teaches us as a necessary condition for the churching of our life, we can have only that relaxed faith, which is our main weakness.

Thirst true faith I must certainly lead a person to the fullness of ecclesiasticality, so that there is no “I want one thing, I will not accept the other, I have no time, it doesn’t matter”. As a result, there is a universal ungodly life for both believers and unbelievers.

Times oblige to leave worldly frivolity, non-churchly attitude to life among those who call themselves "believers."

We should have a sense of the highest chosenness, for we are a special people, we are a new creature. And how shameful is any prideful feeling of human self-aggrandizement, just as great is the feeling of pride in Christ.

When you read in what language the first Christians spoke with the rulers of the world, you feel awe in front of this clear consciousness of the highest chosenness in them. We lost her in the world, we bargained with the world, wanting to adjust to it, wanting to reconcile the irreconcilable. For "what is common between Christ and Belial?" (cf. 2 Cor. 6: 14:15). The revival of spiritual life must begin with this separation of oneself from the ungodly world, lying in evil, opposing us.

From the little things our spiritual life is composed, from the little things our death is first composed.

From the little things our spiritual life is composed, from the little things, in the beginning, our destruction is also composed. The claw is stuck - the whole bird is lost. So is the worldly life. A small claw, but a man will catch on to him, and this worldly life will drag him in and will certainly destroy, will certainly swallow him.

Our worldliness goes in many ways, but all lead to one thing - to the devastation of our spirituality. Hence our constant weakness in confessing both our sins and our faith.

To be jealous of Orthodoxy means to protect yourself from the godless world. This fence must be in the firm confession of your Orthodox faith. We must be completely cured of a faint-hearted desire to be mistaken in appearance for the same atheists like themselves. We must stop being afraid of ridicule and abuse. We must stop hiding our faith, because we must recognize ourselves as the chosen people.

There, in the world, they accept death for life and do not see all the ugliness of this dead, perishable, sinful life. For us, life is service to the Lord, it is the purification of our heart, this is sacrificial love for people, this is a feat, this is prayer, this is contemplation of eternity.

Faith reveals to a person the true meaning of life. Faith makes him renounce the devilish obsessions of worldly life. Faith gives the feeling of another, heavenly world. Faith allows a person to see eternal life behind a flickering transitory life.

We must live in such a way that, having received the Eucharist, all the time there in the world, we should tremble with the joy of the mercy of God shown to us and live only to wait for us to once again be vouchsafed to the communion of the Holy Mysteries. After all, it means always to be with Christ, because it means to be in the closest, inner unity with Him. It means living in the fullness of love with one another; it means establishing the Church of Christ on earth.

To multiply your talents means to give your soul not to devastating cares, but to raise it to the Lord, prepare it for eternity and acquire your salvation with God's help.

When we die, the Lord will not ask us how we spent our carnal life here, how we ate, drank, dressed, settled down, what everyday failures or successes we had here - they will ask us there about what we did with our soul ... What to a person, “if he gains the whole world, and destroys his soul” (cf. Matthew 16:26). We not only did not multiply with our everyday worries and successes what is in our souls, but also upset, trampled in this worldly filth. The Lord will ask us how we worked for Him, what we did to account for the precious thing that He gave us.

There is a terrible sign of how little we will bring there, to the treasury of our soul - this is the emptiness felt by everyone.

The soul, like the body, has its own needs, which, in order to preserve its life, must be satisfied as well as the needs of the body. It is impossible to throw into the human soul only crumbs, which are almost unnecessary for us from our worldly affairs of filled time, and then be surprised that the soul is weak, that it does not feel the fullness of life.

In inner life a person constantly encounters that which has penetrated into his soul from the worldly element, alien, hostile to the cause of the inner spiritual order. Here he must conquer in himself the world that has penetrated there and there is doing its job of secularizing the human soul.

Now is the epoch when the Church is shaken by the worldly elements, which have always tried to swallow her up, who cannot reconcile themselves with the existence of the Kingdom of God and the Church of Christ on earth. Therefore, the Lord especially demands from us today the purity of faith, firmness of confession, standing for Orthodoxy.

We must look into the past of the Church in order to learn there true selfless service to the Lord.

We must look into the past of the Church in order to learn there true selfless service to the Lord, in order to draw strength, not faint-heartedly, to walk the true path of salvation.

Preparing for the last times - it means fearing the spirit of antichrist, it means affirming a monastic attitude towards the world, it means feeling fear of everything that secularizes the Church, it means preserving zeal for the purity of Orthodoxy and fearing any adaptation of the Church to the "world lying in evil" (cf. John 5:19).

The closer to the antichrist, to the end times, the y the path of salvation, the more difficult it will be to follow it.

The closer the Antichrist is to the world, the more the human soul will experience the coldness and horror of its loneliness and the more necessary, the more necessary will be the sacrament of the Eucharist.

We not only believe that our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified and resurrected, we also hope for His forthcoming glorious coming. This aspiration, it reveals to us the future fate of the Church, and it must constantly live in a person's heart, for it gives him the right direction in his spiritual life, shows him where to go in moments of grave and difficult doubts. Then he will cease to embarrass a lot of a person, he will cease to seduce a lot - and his whole life will be defined in a different way.

Foreword

Archpriest Valentin Sventsitsky was born in 1881 in Kazan, into a noble family. His father was a Catholic, raised in Orthodox faith owes to his maternal grandmother, Yulia Kholgonenko. Since 1895, Valentin lived with his family in Moscow, where he received a classical education, which allowed him to enter the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University.

Valentin Sventsitsky was one of the founders of the Moscow Religious and Philosophical Society in Memory of Vladimir Solovyov (as a form of legalization of the Christian Brotherhood of Struggle), which included many prominent representatives of the Moscow intelligentsia.

Even then, the oratorical gift of the future pastor began to manifest itself - his speeches were very popular and attracted many listeners.

During this period, V.P. Sventsitsky collaborated with the editors of the collections "Free Conscience" and "Questions of Religion", regularly published in the journal " New earth", Writes literary articles and works of art, in which the influence of the work of F.M.Dostoevsky is noticeable. The multifaceted talent of the young thinker did not go unnoticed by the educated circles of Moscow and St. Petersburg society.

Carried away by spiritual quests, Sventsitsky writes two philosophical novels: "The Second Crucifixion of Christ" and "Antichrist (Notes strange person) ". Bishop Anastasy (Gribanovsky) and the future hegumen John Seletsky (spiritual father of Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov) considered the novel "Antichrist" wonderful; 2 editions of the edition were sold during the year.

Experiencing an acute spiritual crisis, Sventsitsky wandered across the territory of the Russian Empire. He was able to rethink his entire previous life, overcome internal discord.

In the summer of 1914, Sventsitsky traveled to the Caucasus. Impressed by his meetings with hermit monks, he wrote in 1915 the book Citizens of Heaven. My journey to the desert dwellers of the Caucasus Mountains ”.

A real revelation for Valentin Pavlovich was his communication with the great Optina elder, hieroschemamonk Anatoly (Potapov), who since 1898 became his spiritual father. With the blessing of the elder, the future shepherd does unceasing prayer and other spiritual deeds, characteristic mainly of monasticism, and subsequently takes the priesthood and thus voluntarily takes the path of confession.

During the Civil War, Father Valentin joined the White movement, preached at the front. In 1919 he wrote brochures "The General Situation of Russia and the Tasks of the Volunteer Army" and "War and the Church", where he openly called for resistance to the evil of Bolshevism by force.

At the end of the Civil War, Father Valentin remained in ruined Russia.

An ardent supporter of Patriarch Tikhon, he throws all his strength into the fight against the Renovationist schism. After a sermon in the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross, exposing the connection between Renovationism and Soviet power, Father Valentin was exiled for several years to Central Asia, where he continued to work in the pastoral field.

At the end of 1924, he returned to Moscow and served first in the church of the schmch.

Pankraty on Sretenka, and then was transferred to the church of St. Nicholas on Ilyinka, where he became abbot. A small but strong community rallied around him. Father Valentine introduced regular individual confession, frequent communion Holy Mysteries of Christ and instructed his children on a special path spiritual improvement, which he called "a monastery in the world."

In January 1928, Father Valentin, who had fought against godless power for many years, could not recognize the declaration of the Deputy Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), and broke off canonical and prayerful communion with him.

In 1928, on charges of disloyalty to the Soviet regime, Archpriest Valentin was exiled to Siberia for settlement. It was there that he wrote the book "Dialogues", which was the crown of his pastoral and literary activity.

In 1931, terminally ill, he sent a letter of repentance to Metropolitan Sergius.

Having received forgiveness, on October 7/20, 1931, Father Valentin died in a hospital in the city of Kansk (Krasnoyarsk Territory). The coffin was transported to Moscow, and at the funeral service held on the 20th day after the death of the pastor, those present saw with awe that decay had not touched his body.

Father Valentin was buried at the Pyatnitskoye cemetery, and in 1940 his remains were transferred to Vvedenskoye, where believers come to this day to honor the memory of the shepherd and martyr.

The book "Dialogues" was reprinted several times and was popular among educated youth, including students of spiritual educational institutions... The form of dialogue chosen by the author was used already in antiquity. According to tradition, a dialogue is conducted between a sage (in in this case Confessor) and a layman (in Sventsitsky's Dialogues - Unknown). The confessor, the collective image of an Orthodox priest, answers the questions of the unbelieving intellectual Neizvestny and gradually leads him to the Orthodox faith.

Both characters - the Confessor and the Unknown - are described with great sincerity.

Father Valentin, who himself experienced a difficult experience of spiritual searches in his youth, deeply understood the tragedy of the loss of faith, and already as a good shepherd could show the way to the light of Christ.

For many years this book has helped young people, including many future clergymen, to strengthen their faith and overcome the doubts that are inevitable on the path of spiritual work. Now it can also be recommended to christians who have experienced a conflict between faith and reason after the first rapture of the neophyte.

Maria Senchukova

Dialogue one
About immortality

Unknown. I did not come to you to confess. I just need to talk to you. But maybe this is impossible?

Confessor. Why?

Unknown. Yes, you see, I want to talk about faith, but the person himself is completely unbeliever.

Confessor. Why then talk to me?

Unknown. Will you allow me to answer this question frankly?

Confessor. Yes.

Unknown. Not only do I not believe, I cannot even imagine how it is possible to believe in the present state of science. I want to understand: what, after all, is behind the beliefs of educated people who cannot be called deliberate deceivers? I decided, if you don’t refuse, to talk to you face to face and, so to speak, frankly - what's the matter?

Confessor. I do not in the least doubt the truth of my faith and am ready to defend it.

Unknown. Perfectly. But here's another thing: what can I talk to you about? Do you consider it possible to discuss all questions with an unbeliever and completely unknown to you?

Confessor. Talk about whatever you find necessary.

Unknown. First of all, I would like to talk about immortality. Give me a time when you will be free.

Confessor. Speak now.

Unknown. I'm afraid our conversation will drag on.

Confessor. Then we will continue it another time.

Unknown. Good. Just don't ask me to be consistent. I will speak as I think when I am alone ...

Immortality? What it is? Life after death. Who will live? Someone or something in me that does not disappear after the destruction of my body? If they throw me into the fire, a handful of ashes will remain from my body - brain, heart, bones. And for some reason I must believe that I will continue to exist somewhere. What are the grounds for this belief? Isn't it a simple desire to live forever and the fear of destruction? My mind refuses to imagine any existence without a material basis. I cannot see a person as a visible case in which an invisible soul is placed. The case is broken. Can you burn it, and take out the soul and put it somewhere else? And what does this other place mean? Will it take up some space? Or is this mysterious, immortal soul not only invisible, but also "spaceless"? What is she? To me, it is absolutely nonsense. And what grounds can make my mind "believe" in this nonsense? .. I will dwell on this for now.

Confessor. Before answering your question: "What are the grounds for this belief?", Let's try to consider whether this is such "absolute nonsense" for your mind, as it seems at first glance. Take a purely physical area. The thrown stone falls to the ground. Everyone can see it. And everyone knows that the reason for the fall of the stone is the attraction of the Earth. But no one sees this force, called attraction.

Unknown. What does strength have to do with the soul? For a force to act, a material environment is needed. And you think that the soul can exist without a body, that is, without any material environment.

Confessor. Quite right. I tell you that I am taking a purely physical area. Naturally, here phenomena can only be in a material environment. I want to point out to you that in the physical area it is possible various properties being - for example, forces do not have all the properties of matter, they are not visible. Only visible actions forces.

Unknown. Oh sure. The properties of forces and matter are different, but this comparison is unconvincing for the question of the possibility of the existence of the soul outside the body. Scientific experiments establish with certainty that the so-called mental life is the result of physicochemical processes, and therefore it is impossible to completely separate it from matter. And from this it follows that with the destruction of these physicochemical processes in a living organism, it must be destroyed and entire life. This means that no “soul” can remain.

Confessor. What experiments are you talking about?

Unknown. About those experiments that establish that thought is the result of certain physical and chemical processes in the brain. Artificial irritation of some glands causes certain psychological phenomena. Damage to certain cells as a result gives, as a mechanical consequence, a change in certain mental states, etc. You, of course, are familiar with this. Don't these facts prove irrefutably that all the phenomena of "psychic" life are simple consequences of those changes and processes that take place in our body?

Confessor. They prove it, but not quite that. They prove that the soul, connecting with the substance, is with it in some interaction and for its expression in the material world requires certain material conditions. This is best illustrated again by an example from the physical realm. Take ELECTRIC POWER and LIGHT BULB. When the light bulb is in order, the electrical energy gives light, the light bulb is on. But a hair burst. The current was cut off. The light went out. Does this mean that electricity does not exist and that a light bulb and electrical energy are one and the same? Electricity exists outside light bulbs. But in order to prove itself, it requires a number of material conditions. Likewise, the "energy" that we call the soul. If you damage the material apparatus that serves to express mental life - for example, this or that part of the brain - mental life will not be able to express yourself or will express itself incorrectly. But from this it does not at all follow that your brain is your soul or that your mental life is the result of physicochemical processes in your brain cells. It does not follow that an extinguished light bulb and electric energy are one and the same.

Unknown. But the existence of electric energy is proved not only by a burning light bulb, but also by many other experiments. What is the proof of the existence of the soul?

Confessor. Wait. More on that later. So far, we are only talking about whether any existence without a material basis can be considered "absolute nonsense" for reason.

Then I must ask you: is the elementary reason, which most of all hinders faith, is considered - does it count with the scientific concept of matter? Indeed, according to this scientific concept, matter is not at all what you see. Can you see the continuously moving atoms that make up matter that is motionless for the eyes? Can you see a lot of moving electrons in the bowels of these moving atoms? And can you ignore the instructions of philosophy that, comprehending the material world, you comprehend only those “subjective states of your consciousness” that depend on your external senses, and therefore you cannot know anything about the essence of the substance itself. If you had different organs of vision, other organs of hearing, touch and taste, the whole world would appear to you different. Can you completely reject the indications of philosophy and the fact that space and time are nothing but categories of your mind? Taking all this into consideration, will the question of "matter" not seem to you so complicated that it becomes completely impossible to simplify it to crude and absolutely unscientific materialism?

Unknown. I admit that this is so. But what conclusions do you draw from this?

Confessor. So far, the conclusions are very insignificant. I affirm that we know much less about the essence of matter than we think, and that absolutely certain phenomena give us grounds not to consider ordinary material being, comprehended by five external senses, the only possible form of material being in general.

Unknown. But from this it is impossible to draw a conclusion about the existence of such a being as “ soul».

Confessor. Of course. And I do not draw such a conclusion yet. Moreover, I must tell you that if even in the surrounding life there really were no signs of being without a material basis, then this alone would by no means solve the question of whether such a being could exist. We are clothed in material shape, all our organs are subject to material laws. And it is not surprising that by this we comprehend only that which has a material basis.

Unknown. Yes.

Confessor. What do you mean by the word "evidence"?

Unknown. By the word "evidence" I mean either facts or logical reasoning, generally binding for the human mind.

Confessor. Good. Regarding the issue of immortality, what evidence would you satisfy?

Unknown. First of all, of course, the facts. If from “the other world” any evidence was given about the life of the human soul, continuing after the death of the body, I would consider the issue resolved. This is not the case. There remains something else - logic. Logic, of course, is less convincing than facts, but to some extent it can replace them.

Confessor. The evidence you speak of is abundant. But this is the quality of unbelief. It always demands facts and always denies them. It is difficult to prove anything by facts when it is required that the facts themselves, in turn, be proved.

Unknown. But what can be, it is impossible to consider the stories from the lives of the saints as reliable facts?

Confessor. Of course it is possible. But I understand that now you cannot prove anything with such facts, because these facts are no less in need of proof for you than the immortality of the soul.

Unknown. Quite right.

Confessor. We will approach the issue in a different way. We will also proceed from the fact. But from a fact that is beyond doubt to you - from your own inner experience.

Unknown. I do not get you.

Confessor. Wait, you will understand. Until then, I'll ask you. Let's say you see a green tree with your own eyes, and they will prove to you by logical arguments that there really is no tree. Would you say then: “It’s not true - it is”?

Unknown. I'll tell you.

Confessor. Well. This is the path I choose in my reasoning. I take what you “see” and what you “do not doubt”. Then I conventionally take the point of view of the "denier of immortality." I prove to you that what you see and what you do not doubt is "nonsense", in fact it does not exist. Will you tell me then: “It’s not true, it exists - I know it”?

Unknown. I'll tell you.

Confessor. But then you will have to abandon my main position, conditionally admitted - the denial of immortality.

Unknown. All this is not entirely clear to me.

Confessor. It will become clear to you from what follows.

Now tell me, do you recognize free will in man?

Unknown. Of course I admit it.

Confessor. Do you recognize any moral difference in people's actions, that is, do you consider some actions good, others bad?

Unknown. Of course.

Confessor. Do you recognize any meaning in your existence?

Unknown. Yes, I admit. But I reserve the right to see this meaning in what seems to me to be meaning. For me it is in one thing, for others it can be completely in another.

Confessor. Perfectly. So, undoubtedly facts for you are free will, the difference between good and evil, and some kind of meaning in life.

Unknown. Yes.

Confessor. You "see" all this, do you doubt all this?

Unknown. No doubt.

Confessor. Now, for a while, I am becoming an unbelieving person and I do not recognize any other world except the material one. I begin to reason and come to the logically inevitable conclusion that the "undoubted" for you is in fact nonsense: there is no free will, no good, no evil, no meaning in life. And if you do not find the slightest mistake in my proofs, will you still say that I am not telling the truth, that free will exists, that there are good and evil and the meaning of life, that this is not nonsense, but an undoubted fact?

Unknown. Yes, I will.

Confessor. But, if you say this, will you not have to reject my basic premise, from which these conclusions are drawn, that is, my unbelief?

Unknown. I think, yes…

Confessor. Is the path of my reasoning clear to you now?

Unknown. Yes.

Confessor. So let's start to reason. Before us is the question of free will. What is meant by this concept? Obviously, such a beginning, the actions of which are not determined by some reason, from which they inevitably follow, but itself determines these actions, being their primary cause. The will of a person begins a series of causally conditioned phenomena, itself remaining free, that is, not due to a cause. Do you agree that I correctly define the concept of free will?

Unknown. Yes.

Confessor. Can we accept the existence of such a principle? Of course no. For us, materialists, the concept of "freedom" is an outrageous nonsense, and our mind cannot imagine any other actions, except for causal ones. After all, the world consists of a different combination of atoms and electrons. There is no existence other than material existence. Man is no exception. And he is a kind of combination of the same atoms. Human body and the human brain can be broken down into a certain amount of chemicals. In the sense of materiality, there is no difference between a living organism and a so-called inanimate thing. And the material world is subject to certain laws, of which one of the main ones is the law of causality. In this material world there are no senseless and ridiculous concepts of "free" actions. The ball rolls when we push it. And he cannot roll without this push, and he cannot but roll when the push is given. And he would be ridiculous if, having consciousness, he began to assert that he is rolling on his own free will and that the push is his free desire. It is nothing more than a ball that rolls depending on certain shocks and which, being a thing, in vain imagines itself as some kind of "free" being.

All that has been said can be enclosed in the following, logically inevitable, series: there is no other being than material existence. If this is so, then a person is only a material particle. If a person is only a material particle, then he is subject to all the laws by which the material world lives. If the world lives according to the laws of causality, then a person, as a particle of matter, lives according to the same laws. If the material world does not know free, "causeless" phenomena, then the will of a person cannot be free and must itself be causally conditioned.

So there is no free will. Do you agree that I am reasoning strictly logically?

Unknown. Yes.

Confessor. Do you agree with this conclusion?

Unknown. No, of course I do not agree. I feel my freedom.

Confessor. Let's talk further. We are faced with the question of good and bad deeds. One man gave the last piece of bread to the hungry. Another took the last piece from the hungry one. Do you recognize the moral difference between these two actions?

Unknown. I admit.

Confessor. And I argue that there is no moral difference between these actions, because in general the concepts of good and evil are sheer nonsense. We have already shown the meaninglessness of the concept of free will in the material world. We must recognize the concepts of good and evil as such nonsense. How can you talk about moral behavior a ball that moves when pushed and stops when it hits an obstacle? If every phenomenon is causally conditioned, then in the moral sense they are indifferent. The concepts of good and evil logically inevitably presuppose the concept of freedom. How can you talk about good and bad deeds, when both do not depend on the person who commits them?

Imagine an automaton that makes only those movements that are caused by a wound spring - can you say that the automaton acted morally or immorally by dropping its hand? He lowered his hand, because he could not do otherwise, because such is the spring that moves him, and therefore his mechanical actions cannot have any moral assessment.

: for the first time, more than 800 editorial changes that distorted the text in all previous editions have been eliminated in the book. In this regard, the author's relatives, the editor of his Collected Works and the copyright holder urge that the previously published version of the Dialogues not be reproduced in print, electronic or any other form as not authentic.

We also bring to your attention the official Statement of relatives:

“In connection with the study of the biography of our grandfather and great-grandfather, Fr. Valentin Sventsitsky and clarification of biographical data, we ask you not to publish information about the biography of V.P. Sventsitsky, published before 2007.

Kalinin D.V. - grandson of V.P. Sventsitsky

prot. L.D. Kalinin - great-grandson of V.P. Sventsitsky.

When Valentin was 15 years old, the Sventsitsky family moved to Moscow, where Valentin studied first at the 1st Moscow classical gymnasium, then at the Kreyman private gymnasium.

Soon he entered the Faculty of Philology of Moscow University, and also studies at the Faculty of Law and History and Philosophy of the University.

By the Providence of God, young Sventsitsky falls into the circle of thinking people, seeking the Truth of God, whose names are associated with the development of Russian religious and philosophical thought. Among his friends and close acquaintances were Vladimir Ern, Pavel Florensky, Sergei Bulgakov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Andrei Bely, Prince. Evgeny Trubetskoy.

The events of 1905 carried away V.P. Sventsitsky's ideas of Christian socialism and prompted him to organize an illegal society "Christian Brotherhood of Struggle", which also included P. Florensky, V. Ern, A. Yelchaninov.

In the same years, Sventsitsky began to speak at the “Religious and Philosophical Society in memory of Vl. Solovyov ”and the Polytechnic Museum with lectures on the topics:“ Christianity and Violence ”,“ Terror and Immortality ”,“ Atheism and Love ”, etc.

Performances collect a large number of listeners. The power of his persuasion was endearing. And in his youth, and later, V.P. Sventsitsky was able to unusually influence people with his words in lectures, and in sermons, and in private conversations.

In 1906 he wrote: “The modern church movement can be called liberal Christianity, and liberal is only semi-true. A soul partitioned into two chambers - a religious one and an everyday one - cannot completely surrender itself either to the service of God or to the service of the world.

The result is a miserable half-truth, warm-cool, liberal, in which there is neither God's truth nor human truth. Representatives of this Christianity are devoid of religious enthusiasm, among them there are no martyrs, accusers, prophets.

And the union of the “church-renewed” is not the first ray of the coming apocalyptic wife clothed in the sun, but one of many trade unions, and I am convinced that this will not be the real religious movement and it will have a completely different effect ”(Questions of Religion, 1906 . Issue 1. P. 5–8). It was these words that His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon quoted in his appeal of June 15 (28), 1923, giving a characterization of the ideology of Renovationism.

V.P. Sventsitsky collaborates in the collections "Free Conscience", "Questions of Religion", publishes articles about the works of F. M. Dostoevsky, N. Klyuev, G. Ibsen, writes stories, novellas, dramas ("Pastor Relling", "Death", "Intelligentsia »), The plot of which is based on the conflict between public and individual morality. The drama Pastor Relling was staged (and played the main role) by the famous artist Orlenev.

In intellectual Moscow Sventsitsky is already known, they are talking about him. V.P. Sventsitsky also speaks in St. Petersburg. and also collaborates in the publication of the magazine "New Earth". He writes the book "The Second Crucifixion of Christ", which tells how Christ comes to the modern city and gets into the church during Easter Matins. He sees that no one thinks about Him, everyone's thoughts are occupied with worldly concerns. On this night, someone is being taken to execution in the city. Eventually, an assembly of the highest spiritual representatives will arrest Christ. Unrecognized and unrecognized by anyone. He is judged and banished.

The book was printed, but with many omissions, replaced by dots, and was soon withdrawn altogether, and its author was sentenced to several years of imprisonment in a fortress.

In 1908, the book by V. P. Sventsitsky "Antichrist, or Notes of a Strange Man" was published. In this book, the image of two women depicts two forces in a person, fighting with each other. On the one hand, lies and sensuality, and on the other, truth and purity. The basis bad deeds for the hero of the novel, it became a pernicious thought that one who avoids temptation will not recognize holiness.

The publication of these books, complex dramas in his personal life, condemnation from close friends, expulsion from the "Religious and Philosophical Society" led V.P. Sventsitsky to a state of deep spiritual crisis, from which it was difficult to find a way out.

As a result of all these events, in 1909 Sventsitsky fled to France under an assumed name, hiding from the police, friends and relatives, trying to escape from himself.

The years spent in exile led the restless intellectual to rethink his entire previous life, became the starting point on the path to moral purification - through the pain of suffering and deep repentance.

The choice was made. Sventsitsky, abandoning all "philosophizing", completely surrenders his life to Christ and His Church.

Upon returning to Russia in the early 1910s, Valentin Pavlovich travels to the Caucasus, wishing to see hermit monks with his own eyes, to touch Orthodox holiness. He succeeds completely, and soon in 1915, under the impression of a trip to the Caucasus, he wrote the book “Citizens of Heaven. My journey to the desert dwellers of the Caucasus Mountains ", imbued with a deep understanding of the essence of Christian life and Christian exploits.

But the most important event upon his return from abroad was his acquaintance with the great Optina elder, hieroschemamonk Anatoly (Potapov), who “adopted” Valentin Sventsitsky, gave him hope for the forgiveness of sins and a complete renewal of life in Christ. Valentin Pavlovich received a blessing from the elder - to study unceasing prayer and other spiritual deeds, characteristic mainly of monasticism. These senile parting words were carefully carried by him through the whole further life, became the basis of his own "monasticism in the world" and helped many other people to gain firmness in their faith in the era of coming persecution.

The revolution of 1917 relieves V.P. Sventsitsky of the illusions of Christian socialism. He strives to serve the Church. V.P. Sventsitsky asks his spiritual father, Hieroschemamonk Anatoly, to bless him for monasticism, but the elder points him to another service. In 1917, in Petrograd, V.P. Sventsitsky was ordained. The consecration took place in the St. John Monastery, where the holy righteous Father John of Kronstadt, whom Father Valentine always deeply loved and revered, was buried. Metropolitan ordained him Petrogradskiy Veniamin(Kazansky), Russian Hieromartyr Orthodox Church, five years later executed by the Bolsheviks.

Spiritual child of the Optina elders, Fr. Valentine was a priest of fiery faith and unceasing prayer feat... Combining the spirit of the monastic " smart doing"And shepherding, he took on the cross priestly ministry in revolutionary Moscow in the 1920s. Sermons, speeches, all the spiritual heritage of Father Valentine are distinguished by the crystal purity and clarity characteristic of truly Orthodox thinking.

Soon after the ordination of Fr. Valentine took part in the civil war as a priest in the White Army.

Under the direct influence of military impressions, he published in Rostov in 1919 brochures "The General Situation of Russia and the Tasks of the Volunteer Army" and "War and", where he called for resistance to the evil of Bolshevism by force.

After the end of the civil war, he did not emigrate, but remained in Russia and came to Moscow in 1920. At first, he acted as a preacher in various churches, often co-serving with His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, whom he loved and respected very much. V.P. Sventsitsky believed that His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon was unusually faithful and correct in guiding the church ship in the most difficult and difficult conditions of the surrounding life of that time. “As long as it exists, to a certain extent, you can be calm. Maybe there were and are patriarchs more erudite and outwardly, as it were, more talented Holy Patriarch, but he is kind of gracious, quiet and very wise, ”said Fr. Valentine.

Father Valentin created a strong community in the Nikolsky Church. He introduced regular individual confession, frequent communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. In his teachings and sermons, he opened to spiritual children the path of moral and spiritual improvement in conditions of persecution against the church.

Father Valentine put forward the idea of a special path of spiritual development, which he called "a monastery in the world." This did not mean that people who embarked on such a path become secret monks and take some secret vows. It was about how to internally, spiritually erect a kind of monastery wall between your soul and the world lying in evil, not to allow his vanity, his evil to overwhelm the soul.

For this, of course, it is necessary to give up many things that can be seduced by modern life, corrupting, imbued with godlessness. This is the hard way. Outwardly, live like everyone else, work, be in an environment of atheism, in family everyday worries and troubles, and only by the power of an internal decision with God's help not to allow the pernicious spirit of the world into the soul. This secret feat, known only to the spiritual father, was what Father Valentine called on his spiritual children.

The declaration of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) of July 16/29, 1927 summoned Fr. Valentine's sharp protest. He writes a letter to Metropolitan Sergius:

“To Metropolitan Sergius.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!

Realizing my full responsibility before the Lord for my soul and for the salvation of the souls of the flock entrusted to me, with the blessing of Demetrius, Bishop of Gdov, I break off canonical and spiritual communion with you and the conference of bishops organized in your presence, which illegally appropriated the name of the Patriarchal Synod, and with all those who are in canonical communion with you, and I no longer consider you the Deputy Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal throne on the following grounds:

Your declaration of July 29, and everything that is generally known about your administration since the publication of the Declaration, clearly establishes that you are placing the Church in the same dependence on the civil authority in which the first two "renewals" wanted to put Her - in spite of St. the canons of the Church and the decrees of the civil authority itself.

In 1928, Father Valentin was again arrested and exiled to Siberia for settlement. The main reason for the expulsion was his open disagreement with the Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius of July 16/29, 1927. It was in exile that Father Valentin wrote his "Dialogues", which were sent in parts to Moscow, where they were copied by hand by his spiritual children. In exile, Father Valentin suffered the decision to return to communion with Metropolitan Sergius, with whom he broke off his canonical communion in 1927. The text of Father Valentine's penitential message to Metropolitan Sergius is known, imbued with deep humility:

“Your Eminence, Most Merciful Archpastor and Father. I'm dying. For a long time now, my conscience has troubled me that I had sinned grossly before the Saint, and in the face of death it became beyond doubt to me.

I beg you to forgive my sin and to reunite me with the saint Orthodox. I repent that I have taken pride, in spite of holy canons, not to recognize you as the legitimate first bishop, putting personal reason and personal feeling above the conciliar reason of the Church, I dared not to obey the holy canons. My guilt is especially terrible because I have involved many in this delusion. human souls... I do not need anything: neither freedom, nor a change in external conditions, for now I am awaiting my demise, but for Christ's sake accept my repentance and let me die in union with the Holy Orthodox Church.

At the same time, he writes to his family and spiritual children:

“My dear children, I have just received a letter from you. There is so much to say and so little strength to do it. You ask what I am asking for your forgiveness. In suffering, no matter how the truth is on my side, by my mistake I cause this suffering, and not only for you, for everyone. With all the sorrow that my heart is capable of, I ask this forgiveness.

I put my mind and my feelings above the conciliar mind of the Church. Human wisdom has overshadowed the eternal and the wisdom. The councils foresaw the whole history, they knew what horrors those sitting on the patriarchal thrones would create, how much struggle, cruelty, untruth, unacceptable compromises bordering on crime, and they knew what a temptation it would be for human souls like the one in which I involved you , and everything will be torn to shreds, they wisely protected human souls from temptations by the strictest canons, which can only be denied when the dogma of faith is perverted.

You will say, but before you did not know it. I knew, but that is precisely the horror of all these obsessions and their dangers. Don't you know how sometimes everything suddenly becomes different, and what was on the right becomes on the left, and what was on the left becomes on the right? At times this worm gnaws at me for about a year, but I drove it away like a temptation, and it disappeared.

How it happened that the truth was completely revealed to me is almost impossible to tell, but know that this has a direct bearing on my end, and maybe the Lord saved me before and gave me the opportunity to repent.

Do not think, for Christ's sake, that I do not understand all the dire consequences of my repentance for those around me. I understand everything, I have experienced everything, to the last point, but in this matter one cannot be guided by anything other than conscience. It’s scary — it’s beyond the power of man — conscience. Such a terrible thing. She lays such terrible burdens, but you cannot live without her.

Understand all this, do not get lost from external circumstances. and understand me to the end, as you always understood before.

Can't write anymore. The Lord is with you. "

On October 7/20, 1931, Father Valentin died in the village of Tract-Uzhet near Taishet after a serious illness, having received full forgiveness from Metropolitan Sergius.

Relatives received permission to transport the coffin with the body of Valentin's father to Moscow. For three weeks a freight car with the body of the deceased archpriest went, the car was uncoupled, attached to other trains, transferred from one track to another. The NKVD, realizing himself, sent an order to detain the car, but it was not found due to endless movements.

The coffin with the body of Father Valentine arrived in Moscow on November 6, the day of the celebration of the icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow". On November 7, in the evening, it was installed in the Trinity Church in Sheets on Sretenka. Vladyka Bartholomew (Remov) served as a panikhida. On the 8th at 6 pm, the funeral parastas began. The service took place with a huge crowd of people. After the parastas, the coffin was opened. Everyone was shocked. Father Valentine lay as if alive, with a calm, enlightened face, without the usual signs of decay.

On November 9, a funeral service and a funeral service were served. The service was headed by Bishop Pitirim (Krylov) of Dmitrovsky. Bishop Bartholomew served as a co-minister. Before the funeral service in goodbye he said: "Today we say goodbye to a wonderful truly Christian shepherd who, having traveled a difficult path, has come to us today without signs of corruption, in order to show us the strength of the spirit of unity with Orthodoxy forever and ever." During the liturgy, after the reading of the Gospel, Bishop of Dmitrov Pitirim, who headed the service, said: "On the instructions of Metropolitan Sergius, I forgive and allow all the spiritual children of the deceased Father Valentine, all of them from now on again become members of the single Russian Orthodox Church." The funeral service was long. It was attended by Fr. A. Zverev, Fr. Alexander Pyatikrestovsky, Fr. Sergiy Uspensky, Fr. Vladimir Ambartsumov, 11 priests and 5 deacons in total, among them Protodeacon Georgy Khokhlov and friend of late father Valentin Fr. Nikolay Orfenov.

The people walked in an endless stream to the tomb, and with the blessing of Vladyka Pitirim, they lifted the air from their faces for everyone, so that forgiving could be convinced of the incorruptibility of the body of their beloved shepherd.

Father Valentin was buried at the Pyatnitskoye cemetery, near the church. In 1940, his remains were transferred to the Vvedenskie Gory cemetery, as the Pyatnitskoye cemetery was going to be liquidated. The grave of Archpriest Valentin Sventsitsky at the Vvedensky (German) cemetery is still often visited by believers today.

The book "Dialogues" is the most significant work of Fr. V. Sventsitsky. The book is written in the spirit of the Orthodox Church, it is distinguished by its extraordinary persuasiveness in defending the foundations of Orthodox dogma in the dispute between the "Confessor", a representative of the Orthodox priesthood, and "Unknown", an intellectual who does not have faith and suffers from the inability to find it with the help of the arguments of a cold mind. In the course of the dispute, the "Unknown", and after him the reader, are convinced of the truth of the Christian doctrine. The book has such a power of conviction that many, many people, including many future clergymen, after reading the book in manuscript, gained faith and were strengthened in it. Like 60 years ago, it is consonant with the quests of modern people thirsting for truth, since it is based on the Orthodox faith and the unchanging laws of spiritual life as the only true, God-given path to salvation.

Deacon Leonid Kalinin

See “Acts of His Holiness Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, later documents and correspondence on the canonical succession of the highest ecclesiastical authority. 1917-19437 Comp. M.E. Gubonin. M., 1994.S. 284.

If you enter through the main gate and walk along the old alley to the pillars indicating, on the one hand, the fifth, and on the other, the seventh and eighth sections, then turn left, the path will lead to the fence of the family burial, in the center of which is a cross with the inscription “V. P. Sventsitsky ". Here lies the ever-memorable Fr. Valentine.

Year of birth

Birthday

Month of birth

Place of Birth

Speciality

Photo

LIFE PERIODS

Education

3rd Kazan gymnasium

Year of admission

Year of ending

big influence

1st Moscow Classical Gymnasium

Year of admission

Year of ending

Moscow private Kreyman gymnasium

Year of admission

Year of ending

Moscow University, Faculty of History and Philology

Year of admission

Year of ending

Places of residence

Moscow

Year of ending

future wife

Caucasus

Ordination

priest

Day

Month

A place

Petrograd, Ioannovsky monastery

Who ordained

Metropolitan of Petrograd and Gdovsk Benjamin (Kazan)

Service

Petrograd

Start year

Year of ending

Moscow

Start year

Year of ending

solemn services

Arrests

Moscow

Year of arrest

Holy Cross Monastery

Condemnations

Sentence

Places of confinement

Moscow, Butyrskaya prison

Start year

Central Asia, Tajikistan, Penjikent

Year of ending

Service

Moscow, Church of Holy Martyr Pankraty on Sretenka

Start year

Start month

Year of ending

The big cross

Moscow, the temple "Nikola Big Cross" on Ilyinka

Start year

Year of ending

Arrests

Moscow

Year of arrest

Month of arrest

Condemnations

Sentence

Places of confinement

Krasnoyarsk Territory, Trakt-Uzhet (80 km. From the Taishet station)

Start year

Year of ending

Graduation day

End month

Demise

Day

Month

A place

Krasnoyarsk Territory, Kansk, hospital

Burial place

Moscow, German cemetery "Vvedenskie Gory", section 5/7, to the left of the main entrance

Proceedings

Publications

Orthodox encyclopedia

Archpriest Valentin Sventsitsky

DIALOGUES

Archpriest Valentin Sventsitsky, an outstanding pastor-martyr of the Russian Church of the 20th century, was born in 1882 in Kazan, into a noble Orthodox Catholic family (father is Catholic, mother and children are Orthodox). Perhaps it was precisely because of the difference between the faiths of father and mother that young Valentine developed an early interest in religious issues. During his school years, the teacher of the Kazan gymnasium, priest Molchanov, had a great influence on him, a man of great erudition, who possessed excellent oratorical skills, who later became the Exarch of Georgia.

When Valentin was 15 years old, the Sventsitsky family moved to Moscow, where Valentin studied first at the 1st Moscow classical gymnasium, then at the Kreyman private gymnasium.

Soon he entered the Faculty of Philology of Moscow University, and also studies at the Faculty of Law and History and Philosophy of the University.

In the same years, Sventsitsky began to speak at the "Religious and Philosophical Society in Memory of Vladimir Solovyov" and the Polytechnic Museum with lectures on the topics: "Christianity and Violence", "Terror and Immortality", "Atheism and Love", etc.

The performances attract a large number of listeners. The power of his persuasion was endearing. And in his youth, and later, V.P. Sventsitsky was able to unusually influence people with his words in lectures, and in sermons, and in private conversations.

In 1906, he wrote: “The modern church movement can be called liberal Christianity, and liberal Christianity is only half truth. A soul, divided into two chambers - religious and everyday, can not fully surrender itself either to the service of God or to the service of the world.

The result is a miserable half-truth, warm-cool, liberal Christianity, in which there is neither God's truth nor human truth. Representatives of this Christianity are devoid of religious enthusiasm, among them there are no martyrs, accusers, prophets.

And the union of the "church-renewed" is not the first ray of the coming apocalyptic wife clothed in the sun, but one of many trade unions, and I am convinced that this will not be the real religious movement and it will have a completely different effect "(Questions of Religion, 1906 Issue 1. P. 5-8) It is these words that His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon quoted in his appeal of June 15 (28), 1923, giving a characterization of the ideology of Renovationism.

V.P. Sventsitsky collaborates in the collections "Free Conscience", "Questions of Religion", publishes articles about the work of F. M. Dostoevsky, N. Klyuev, G. Ibsen, writes stories, novellas, dramas ("Pastor Relling", "Death", "Intelligentsia "), the plot of which is based on the conflict between public and individual morality. The drama "Pastor Relling" was staged (and played the main role) by the famous artist Orlenev.

In intellectual Moscow Sventsitsky is already known, they are talking about him. V.P. Sventsitsky also speaks in St. Petersburg. and also collaborates in the publication of the magazine "Novaya Zemlya". He writes the book "The Second Crucifixion of Christ", which tells how Christ comes to the modern city and gets into the church during Easter Matins. He sees that no one thinks about Him, everyone's thoughts are occupied with worldly concerns. On this night, someone is being taken to execution in the city. Eventually, an assembly of the highest spiritual representatives will arrest Christ. Unrecognized and unrecognized by anyone. He is judged and banished.

The book was printed, but with many omissions, replaced by dots, and was soon withdrawn altogether, and its author was sentenced to several years of imprisonment in a fortress.

In 1908 V. P. Sventsitsky's book "Antichrist, or Notes of a Strange Man" was published. In this book, the image of two women depicts two forces in a person, fighting with each other. On the one hand, lies and sensuality, and on the other, truth and purity. The basis for the unseemly actions for the hero of the novel was the disastrous thought that one who avoids temptation will not recognize holiness.

As a result of all these events, in 1909 Sventsitsky fled to France under an assumed name, hiding from the police, friends and relatives, trying to escape from himself.

The choice was made. Sventsitsky, abandoning all "philosophizing", completely surrenders his life to Christ and His Church.

Upon returning to Russia in the early 1910s, Valentin Pavlovich travels to the Caucasus, wishing to see hermit monks with his own eyes, to touch Orthodox holiness. He succeeds completely, and soon in 1915, under the impression of a trip to the Caucasus, he wrote the book "Citizens of Heaven. My Journey to the Hermitages of the Caucasus Mountains", permeated with a deep understanding of the essence of Christian life and Christian exploits.

But the most important event upon his return from abroad was his acquaintance with the great Optina elder, hieroschemamonk Anatoly (Potapov), who "adopted" Valentin Sventsitsky, gave him hope for the forgiveness of sins and a complete renewal of life in Christ. Valentin Pavlovich received the blessing from the elder - to learn unceasing prayer and other spiritual deeds, which are characteristic, in the main, of monasticism. These old man's parting words were carefully carried through his entire future life, became the basis of his own "monasticism in the world" and helped many other people to gain firmness in their faith in the era of impending persecution.

The revolution of 1917 relieves V.P. Sventsitsky of the illusions of Christian socialism. He strives to serve the Church. V.P. Sventsitsky asks his spiritual father, Hieroschemamonk Anatoly, to bless him for monasticism, but the elder points him to another service. In 1917, in Petrograd, V.P. Sventsitsky was ordained. The consecration took place in the St. John Monastery, where the holy righteous Father John of Kronstadt, whom Father Valentine always deeply loved and revered, was buried. He was ordained by Metropolitan Benjamin of Petrograd (Kazan), a holy martyr of the Russian Orthodox Church, who was shot by the Bolsheviks five years later.

Spiritual child of the Optina elders, Fr. Valentine was a priest of fiery faith and unceasing devotion to prayer. Combining the spirit of monastic "clever work" and ministry, he took upon himself the cross of priestly ministry in revolutionary Moscow in the 1920s. Sermons, speeches, all the spiritual heritage of Father Valentine are distinguished by the crystal purity and clarity characteristic of truly Orthodox thinking.

Soon after the ordination of Fr. Valentine took part in the civil war as a priest in the White Army.

Under the direct influence of military impressions, he published in Rostov in 1919 the brochures "The General Situation of Russia and the Tasks of the Volunteer Army" and "War and the Church", where he called for resistance to the evil of Bolshevism by force.

After the end of the civil war, he did not emigrate, but remained in Russia and came to Moscow in 1920. At first, he acted as a preacher in various churches, often co-serving with His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, whom he loved and respected very much. V.P. Sventsitsky believed that His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon was unusually faithful and correct in guiding the church ship in the most difficult and difficult conditions of the surrounding life of that time. “As long as he exists, for the Church, to a certain extent, one can be calm. Perhaps there were and are patriarchs who were more erudite and outwardly, as it were, more talented than the Holy Patriarch, but he is somehow gracious, quiet and very wise,” said Fr. Valentine.

After preaching at the Holy Cross Monastery, where Fr. Valentin argued that the activities of the renovationists were directed by the organs of the Cheka, he was arrested and exiled to Pejikent in Central Asia. In the Pajikent exile, he writes the work "The Secret Teachings about Our Salvation" (about the Jesus Prayer) - a work addressed to spiritual children about doing prayer and overcoming numerous temptations along the way.

Returning from his first exile in 1925, Father Valentin began to serve in the Church of the Holy Martyr Pankraty in a lane on Sretenka Street and conduct regular conversations with parishioners on matters of faith and church life. Holy Scripture. His spirit children recorded these conversations and distributed them among the believers. Thus it was composed " Complete collection works of Archpriest Valentin Sventsitsky "from 9 volumes, which was distributed in church samizdat and passed from hand to hand by believers.

V Great post 1926 Father Valentine read in the church of St. Pankratia's work - "Six Readings on the Sacrament of Repentance in His History", directed against the general confession, which was then beginning to spread widely.

In 1926, Father Valentin organizes and leads pilgrimage trips to Sarov and Diveevo. There, from the blessed Maria Ivanovna, he received a prediction about the transition to another Moscow church - St. Nicholas the Wonderworker on Ilyinka, "Nikola Big Cross". And so it happened - Father Valentine became the abbot of this church.

Father Valentine put forward the idea of a special path of spiritual development, which he called "a monastery in the world." This did not mean that people who embarked on such a path become secret monks and take some secret vows. It was about internally, spiritually, to erect, as it were, a monastery wall between your soul and the world lying in evil, not to allow its vanity, its evil to overwhelm the soul.

The declaration of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) of July 16/29, 1927 summoned Fr. Valentine's sharp protest. He writes a letter to Metropolitan Sergius:

"Metropolitan Sergius.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!

Realizing my full responsibility before the Lord for my soul and for the salvation of the souls of the flock entrusted to me, with the blessing of Demetrius, Bishop of Gdovsk, I break off canonical and spiritual communion with you and the conference of bishops organized in your presence, which illegally appropriated the name of the Patriarchal Synod, and with all those who are in canonical communion with you, and I no longer consider you the Deputy Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal throne on the following grounds:

Your declaration of July 29, and everything that is generally known about your leadership of the Church since the publication of the Declaration, clearly establishes that you are placing the Church in the same dependence on the civil authority, in which you wanted to put Her in the first two "renewals" - in spite of St. the canons of the Church and the decrees of the civil authority itself.

AND " Living Church", which seized the power of the Patriarch, and Gregorianism, which seized the power of the Locum Tenens, and you, who abused his trust, - you are all doing one common, anti-church renovationist deed, and you are the creator of its most dangerous form, since, by renouncing ecclesiastical freedom, at the same time you keep the fiction of canonicity and Orthodoxy This is more than a violation of individual canons!

I do not create a new schism and do not violate the unity of the Church, but I am leaving and taking my flock out of the thin renovationist trap: "May we not lose, as they say, imperceptibly, the freedom that our Lord Jesus Christ gave us by His Blood, the liberator of all people" (from Canon 8 of the III Ecumenical Council).

Remaining a faithful and obedient son of the One Holy Orthodox Church, I recognize Metropolitan Peter as Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, and I recognize those bishops who, without arbitrarily appropriating the general Church authority, have already broken canonical ties with you, according to their testimony: ", that is, with the participation of all Orthodox bishops or until open and complete repentance before the Holy Church of the Metropolitan himself.

Moscow, 01/12/1928

Archpriest Valentin Sventsitsky ".

"Your Eminence, Most Merciful Archpastor and Father. I am dying. For a long time I have been troubled by the conscience that I have grossly sinned before the Holy Church, and in the face of death it became beyond doubt to me.

I beg you to forgive my sin and to reunite me with the holy Orthodox Church. I repent that I took pride, contrary to the holy canons, not to recognize you as the legitimate first bishop, putting personal reason and personal feeling above the conciliar reason of the Church, I dared not to obey the holy canons. My guilt is especially terrible because I have involved many human souls in this delusion. I do not need anything: neither freedom, nor a change in external conditions, for now I am awaiting my demise, but for Christ's sake accept my repentance and let me die in union with the Holy Orthodox Church.

11 / IX - 1931 Valentin Sventsitsky ".

At the same time, he writes to his family and spiritual children:

"My dear children, I have just received a letter from you. There is so much to say, and so little strength to do it. You ask what I am asking you for forgiveness. In suffering, no matter how the truth is on my side, but by my mistake I cause these sufferings, and not only for you, for all. With all the sorrow that my heart is capable of, I ask for this forgiveness.

How it happened that the truth was completely revealed to me is almost impossible to tell, but know that this has a direct bearing on my end, and maybe the Lord saved me before death and gave me the opportunity to repentance.

Understand all this, do not get lost from external circumstances. and understand me to the end, as you always understood before.

Can't write anymore. The Lord is with you. "

On October 7/20, 1931, Father Valentin died in the village of Tract-Uzhet near Taishet after a serious illness, having received full forgiveness from Metropolitan Sergius.

The coffin with the body of Father Valentine arrived in Moscow on November 6, on the day of the celebration of the icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow". On November 7, in the evening, it was installed in the Trinity Church in Sheets on Sretenka. Vladyka Bartholomew (Remov) served as a panikhida. On the 8th at 6 pm, the funeral parastas began. The service took place with a huge crowd of people. After the parastas, the coffin was opened. Everyone was shocked. Father Valentine lay as if alive, with a calm, enlightened face, without the usual signs of decay.

On November 9, a funeral service and a funeral service were served. The service was headed by Bishop Pitirim (Krylov) of Dmitrovsky. Bishop Bartholomew served as a co-minister. Before the funeral, in his farewell speech, he said: "Today we are saying goodbye to a wonderful truly Christian shepherd who, having passed a difficult path, has come to us today without signs of corruption, in order to show us the strength of the spirit of unity with Orthodoxy forever and ever." During the liturgy, after the reading of the Gospel, Bishop of Dmitrov Pitirim, who headed the service, said: "On the instructions of Metropolitan Sergius, I forgive and allow all the spiritual children of the deceased father, Father Valentine, from now on they all again become members of the single Russian Orthodox Church." The funeral service was long. It was attended by Fr. A. Zverev, Fr. Alexander Pyatikrestovsky, Fr. Sergiy Uspensky, Fr. Vladimir Ambartsumov, 11 priests and 5 deacons in total, among them Protodeacon Georgy Khokhlov and friend of late father Valentin Fr. Nikolay Orfenov.

Valentin Sventsitsky where he is buried. On the eve of the end times

Foreword

Dialogue one About immortality

Dialogue one
About immortality