About the transfer of the relics of St. Makariy Kalyazinsky. Ascension church, Kalyazin History and description

29.06.2017

Good shepherd

Archpriest Leonid Beresnev, Honorary Citizen of the Kalyazinsky District, was congratulated on his double anniversary.

On June 18, the spiritual mentor of many believers, respected priest by all Kalyazin people, the rector of the church in honor of the icon of the Kazan Mother of God in the village of Krasnoe in the Kalyazinsky region, Archpriest Leonid Beresnev had a great jubilee - 80 years and 45 years of priestly service. In honor of these two important events, on the Day of the Angel of Father Leonidas, a solemn celebration of the priest took place in the Ascension Church, in which the Dean of the Kimr Deanery Archpriest Yevgeny Morkovin, Head of the Kalyazinsky District K.G. Ilyin, priests of the Kimr Deanery District of the Tver Diocese and many grateful believers who love and respect their spiritual mentor. Everyone wished dear father a long and good summer!

Father Leonid is a military pilot by civilian profession. But faith in God brought him to the Church. He graduated from the Odessa Theological Seminary and the Moscow Theological Academy. In 1971, Fr. Leonidas was ordained a deacon, and a year later - a priest. He has been the rector of the Krasnoselsky temple since 1981, and was blessed by the hierarchy in 2005 as the rector of the Vvedensky and Ascension temples. For many years, Archpriest Leonid Beresnev was the confessor of the entire Tver diocese, confessing both the laity and the priesthood.

Father put a lot of effort and prayer to restore the main large church of the Ascension of the Lord in Kalyazin. It was this temple that became the place where the relics of the patron saint of Kalyazin, Reverend Macarius, now rest.

For his zealous service to the Russian Orthodox Church, the priest has church awards, he is also an Honorary Citizen of the Kalyazin region.

I. Frolova

For many years, the confessor of the Tver diocese was Archpriest Leonid Beresnev.

Last year, Father celebrated his 80th birthday. During Great Lent in the Nilostolobenskaya Hermitage, a monastic tonsure was performed over him, and he was given the name Luke in honor of St. Luke, Archbishop of Simferopol. Hieromonk Luka (Beresnev) is the rector of the church in honor of the Entry of the Mother of God into the temple in the city of Kalyazin and the church in honor of the icon of the Mother of God "Kazan" in the village. Krasnoe of the Kalyazinsky district.

Doctors bought an icon of the 18th century at an auction and donated it to a monastery in the Tver region.

On Wednesday, April 11, a group of resuscitators of the Emergency Medicine and Air Ambulance Service "TransMedAvia" presented the museum of the Nilo-Stolobenskaya Hermitage Monastery with an icon of the 18th century, in excellent condition, which depicts the Monk Makarii Kalyazinsky, St. Dimitri of Rostov Nil and the Monk Stolobensky.

The icon was kept in a private collection and was put up for sale on the Internet. Bright Easter days filled with joy and jubilation at the monastery were marked by such a wonderful event. The donated image will complement the collection of icons of the 18th-19th centuries that are in the museum's collection, and, most importantly, many, many pilgrims of the monastery will be able to see it. The monks express their sincere gratitude to the donors and wish them abundant God's help and His all-powerful blessing.

A parishioner of the Church of St. Nicholas in the city of Torzhok Akinshina Tamara Fedorovna, born in 1937, a lawyer by education, retired from the Ministry of Internal Affairs:

In September 1944, I have to go to first grade, but there are no shoes, no clothes, no school supplies. How to be? But they began to prepare me for school: the soldier gave me a bag of cartridges - this is a briefcase. We had a lot of newspapers - we have something to write on. Mom got a pen somewhere, they screwed it to a pencil with threads - there is a pen. Mom got a ceramic inkwell somewhere, and my grandmother made ink from the knobs on the oak leaves. The primer, they said, will be one for the entire village.

Each student had to bring a deadwood log to school every day, since the school was heated only by our firewood. In the classroom, we looked after the cleanliness, as the cleaning lady was alone at the big school. Almost everyone studied at "4" and "5".

Once, having come to class, the teacher Anastasia Petrovna said:

- Children, do not offend Vasya, a funeral has come to them, they killed their father.

Everyone surrounded Vasya, and one of the children held out his hand to him, in which there was a small lump of sugar, maybe 0.5 cm, and said:

- Take it.

The other children had nothing.

A month of schooling has passed, the teacher says:

- You are now mature students - we will help the front! To do this, tomorrow you will each bring a one and a half meters long stick to school. The boys immediately perked up and began waving their arms like sabers:

- We will beat the German with sticks!

They brought everything. The teacher says:

- We will observe the blackout, for those whose curtains are not tightly closed - with a stick in this window. And until the light is visible, do not leave, as the German is still breaking through and bombing Moscow and the Moscow region.

Before the Victory Day, we performed this task.

Today I read Tatyana Grigorieva's review of the story about the Monk Makarii Kalyazinsky. I have many memories of this ancient city. I looked at the site of the Tver diocese with the hope of finding out the schedule of the Volga Religious Procession - 2011
and, lo and behold, Vladyka Victor, Archbishop of Tver and Kashinsky, blessed the transfer of the relics of the Monk Makarii to Kalyazin.

Http://tver.eparhia.ru/sobyt/news_ep/?ID=3271

On the day of commemoration of the Monk Makarii of Kalyazin, Archbishop Viktor of Tver and Kashin celebrated Divine Liturgy in the Church of the Ascension of the Lord in the city of Kalyazin
30.03.2011

On March 30, the Russian Orthodox Church commemorates (the day of repose) the Monk Macarius, Abbot of Kalyazinsky, miracle worker.

Archbishop of Tver and Kashinsky Viktor served Great Compline and Matins with Polyeleos in the White Trinity Cathedral in Tver, co-served by the cleric of the Resurrection Cathedral in Tver, Archimandrite Sergius (Shvyrkov), rector of St. John the Baptist Church in Tver, Priest Vyacheslav Dorogov ... His Eminence led the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts in the Church of the Ascension of the Lord in the city of Kalyazin. Vladyka was co-served by Archpriest Evgeny Morkovin, Dean of the Kimry District, Archpriest Leonid Beresnev, Confessor of the Diocese, and the clergy of the Kimry Deanery. During the service, Archbishop Victor awarded the cleric of the church in honor of the Entry of the Mother of God into the temple of Kalyazin, priest Roman Reshetilov, with the right to wear a pectoral cross.

The Monk Macarius, Abbot of the Trinity Kalyazin Monastery, was born in 1402, in the village of Gridtsin (Gribkovo, now Kozhino), near Kashin, in a God-loving family that strictly honors the commandments of the Lord. Parents, boyar Vasily Ananievich Kozha, who became famous for his military exploits under the Grand Duke Vasily Vasilyevich II the Dark, and his wife Irina (their memory is honored locally) from childhood raised Matthew (name in the world) in faith and worship. The youth loved to spend time reading spiritual books, and everything he read deeply sank into his heart. He was not fond of games and in his soul he incessantly lifted up prayers, psalms and spiritual chants dear to his heart, thinking at the same time how to serve God.

When he began to come to a perfect age, Matthew began to think about getting away from the vain worldly life; his parents, however, did not want him to take monasticism, and gave biblical examples of the lives of the New Testament saints who were saved in the world. The obedient son, not wanting to upset his relatives and obeying, agreed to the marriage and soon married the girl Elena Yakhontova. The young couple promised each other that if one of them dies, the widowed will take monasticism. A year after the wedding, Matthew lost his father and mother, and two more, Elena died; and the twenty-five-year-old Matthew left the temporary, in search of the eternal, and entered the nearby Nikolayevsky Klobukov monastery, where he tonsured his tonsure with the name Macarius and devoted his whole life to serving God. Miraculous was the prayer of the monk, who during his lifetime received from God the gift of healing the ailing and suffering; The Lord also rewarded the spirit-bearing elder with the gift of clairvoyance. Hegumen Kalyazinsky died in 1483 at the age of 82. Many healings of people suffering from diseases of the joints, legs, blindness came from the relics of the saint.

In 1521, the imperishable relics of the Kalyazin miracle worker were found. Until 1547, the Monk Macarius was venerated locally. But miracles and people's love contributed to the fact that at the Moscow Council in 1547 he was numbered among the saints of God, and it was decided to celebrate his memory throughout Russia.

__________________

Honoring now the memory of the Monk Macarius, Archbishop Viktor of Tver and Kashin performed a divine service in the White Trinity Cathedral in Tver, since the relics of the Kalyazin saint have been buried here since the beginning of the 90s of the last century.

BY THE DECISION OF THE DIORCHIAL COUNCIL (of 22.02.2011), ON THE INTEREST OF THE BLESSING KIMR DISTRICT, Archpriest Yevgeny Morkovin and the PRESIDENT OF THE VEDEN'S CHURCH OF THE CITY OF KALYAZINA PROTOIERE LEONID KADUESNEVA BERESNEVA MOSHCHIARIKA PREPODOBODO CROSSWAY - 2011.

OUR FRIENDLY OUR FATHER, GOD'S PRAYERS FOR US!

GLORY TO YOU GOD, GLORY TO YOU!

The fifteenth anniversary of our Temple (excerpt from the book)

The same age as the century

Our temple and our eldest son are the same age, if we count on the scale of life. On July 16, 1999, the first Divine Liturgy took place in our church and my wife Lena went to give birth to her first child. Borya was born twenty days later - to Boris and Gleb. This year marks the fifteenth anniversary of that commemorative service. During this time in the history of our temple there were several eras and two eras. We consider the ministry of a priest to be an era, no matter how long it may be, and our New era is the emergence of the village of Nikolskoye next to our church, created from scratch and now inhabited by large families of Orthodox priests and laity. In these families, children are also growing up, the same age as our church, centuries, and millennia. We want to tell the story of the construction of the temple and the first years of ministry in it for these children. The years pass very quickly, and human memory is short. I would like that at least sometimes someone remembered those people who, by their service to God, made possible church life in our most beautiful corner of the Russian land.

The first era can be considered the time when the construction of the temple was conceived, blessed and carried out. It was the time of our youth. As they say now - "dashing 90s". Someone, feeling the wind of change, rushed to amass capital, and my friends and I decided to build a church.

The sailors have a saying: "He did not pray, who did not go to sea." Based on the experience of our church building, this saying can be rephrased as follows: "He did not experience difficulties, who did not build temples." We have repeatedly encountered seemingly insurmountable obstacles. And every time they witnessed the amazing help of God, dispelling these "insurmountable difficulties" like smoke. This help came through people at those critical moments when it seemed that there was nowhere to wait for help. I told some of these stories to Father Leonid Beresnev, the confessor of the Tver diocese, and asked him: "Can I write these stories?" To which he replied: "I will tell you, if you do not write, you will sin."

Master's Blessing

The first miracle in the history of our church can be considered the blessing of Vladyka Victor, Archbishop of Tver and Kashinsky, and now the Metropolitan, to build the temple. Our village is the last in the Tver diocese. In two kilometers the Yaroslavl region already begins. Getting to us is not always easy. The spring thaw makes our road a swamp, and it is closed to all types of transport. But you don't have to close it, anyway no one will be able to drive through.

At the time when we began to build the church, the collective farm was still alive. When the spring thaw was over, a collective farmer-tractor driver found a good kind of business. He plowed up and down the road with his tractor and waited, like a hunter waiting for the game, when someone wants to drive to our village by car. "Game" drove up to a section of the road broken by a tractor and went to the tractor driver to bow. For two bottles, a collective farmer on a tractor dragged anyone who wanted to our village through the mud, and for two bottles he dragged back. This business ended unexpectedly simply.

Once, having ferried some motorist, and having drunk his fee, this tractor driver fell asleep on the move in the cab of his tractor. There was nothing on the way of the sleeping tractor driver that could stop him. A tractor with a sleeping rider fell off a cliff into the Volga in shallow water, but did not turn over, but drove further into the Volga. The collective farmer woke up up to his neck in the water in the middle of the river, turned off the engine, said that he was thinking about all this, swam to the shore and went to sleep. After that, the tractor was taken away from him. There was nothing to plow the road with, it dried up and in the summer it became a carriageway. But in the rains, in autumn and winter after snow drifts, our village remained cut off from the "Big Earth".

The fact that Vladyka Victor gave his blessing to build a church in such a place where “no one on foot can go, and a horse cannot go through” is a real miracle. After all, “the Lord rules the hearts of the Masters”. Vladyka believed that with God's help, even in such a wilderness, we would be able to build a church, and the Divine Liturgy would be celebrated in it. I must say that my spiritual father also believed in this - Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov, rector of the Orthodox St. Tikhon State University, who wrote to Vladyka a letter asking him to bless the construction of this church.

Pioneers

The discoverers of this corner of the Russian land for all of us, parishioners of the church, were the related families of Makeev and Vishnyakov. Alexander Olegovich Makeev and his entire family are geographers and travelers. He traveled with expeditions all over our country and half of the world, and chose our village of Selishchi as one of the most beautiful places in Russia, and perhaps in the world. He is the first migrant and discoverer of this new land for us. His personality can be compared with the patriarch Abraham, only not on the scale of an entire nation, but on the scale of our settlement. Struck by the amazing beauty of this corner of Russia, he began to invite relatives and friends here, proposed to create a youth camp here for the Orthodox St. Tikhon's Theological Institute, he invited us too. We came to visit him in October. At night there was the first frost and a little snow fell, and before that it was warm. We went to see the forest. I was amazed at the richness and beauty of the nature of this region. In the clear pine forest there were boletus and white boletus, ringing from the first frost, slightly dusted with snow. On the blueberry and blueberry bushes hung frozen clusters of berries, large as grapes. The little swamp was strewn with red cranberries, sweet from the frost. An unafraid hare jumped out from under his feet, and cranes were hooting in the sky.

When we decided to build a church here, the first who supported this idea and invested the savings of their families in this business were the families of Makeev and Vishnyakov. It is from these families, c their active decision to build a temple, the revival of our village began.

And in the creation of the parish of our church, the "key" figure, as they say, was Roman Nikolayevich Getmanov. Figuratively speaking, Roman Nikolaevich was caught in his net by grandfather Tuman. Everyone knows that Roman Nikolaevich is a passionate fisherman. And when he first came to see our region, they arranged a fishing trip on the Volga especially for him. Grandfather Mist gave his old homemade net for this purpose. From the very first cast, a flock of perches got into the net - about a bucket of fish. Roman Nikolaevich exclaimed in delight, looking at this wealth: “I sit all day in winter to catch at least half of this!”. And he immediately decided that he needed to buy a house in our village for his large family. Roman Nikolaevich, as a very active and sociable person, began to invite friendly large families with him. So the families of the Vishnevsky, Raushenbach, Berezhanov, Lavdansky settled in our village. We also began to call our friends and so the families of the Klochkovs, Pankovs, Meretskovs, Mukhanovs, Kurakins, Merkushenko settled in the village. All these families, most of whom had many children, began to help the church under construction as much as they could. Roman Nikolayevich Getmanov sent his brother Seryozha to the construction site, who came to the construction site every day and helped to lift heavy logs. Maxim Lavdansky, a father with many children, came himself to help roll the logs up to collect the foot of the future church. Masha Vishnevskaya, a mother of many children, helped sing at almost every service.

But our large families did not have real strength to build the temple. There was neither sufficient funds, nor energy, time, experience to do everything on our own, as it was in Russian villages before, when all the men were carpenters, and they could even build a small church “in one day”.

And then, “out of nowhere,” helpers appeared. The Lord sent people to help us, sometimes completely unknown before. And the temple was raised and prepared for the first liturgy. The following pages of our history are about these people.

Hasek

When we first conceived the construction of our church, and not a single stone had been laid in the foundation, one meeting took place. In the summer camp, we sat by a fire on the banks of the Volga and discussed the idea of ​​a temple. Two young guys came up to the fire - a tall, red-haired heroic physique and a small one with black stubble on his head. We got to know each other, got to talking and shared the idea of ​​building a church in our village. And immediately one of our acquaintances said that he was a "Satanist." And he added that although he was baptized, he had no way back, and, as proof, showed a tattoo on his chest - a cross depicted "upside down." It turned out that he did not work anywhere and did not study. And he spent his young life among "friends" - "Satanists". In our village, he came to visit his uncle and grandfather, to whom he came every summer. And, accordingly, he brought with him his present life, alcohol, drugs and a sixteen-year-old woman, with whom he already had a six-month-old child. This new acquaintance left the impression of complete gloom and creep. I began to fear that he would harm our venture with the temple, or, which seemed even more terrible, would kill me or any of us if he watched in the evening.

A year after this meeting, Vladyka Victor laid the foundation stone of the church and blessed the construction. I had to start, but there was no one to start with. Only old man Tuman from the other side sailed on oars and helped us in everything. With him, we dug ditches for the foundation and began to knead the concrete. The business was progressing very slowly, there was no sand and stone, it was necessary to carry it from the shore in wheelbarrows. There was no money to order sand either; there was barely enough only for cement. For three days Tuman and I took turns transporting sand and kneading concrete. The entire population of our village watched us with interest, but no one came to help. And here again our last year's acquaintances appeared. Their names were Denis and Hasek. Hasek called Denis Pons. Denis was a very large and plump young man, very strong in appearance and could only look like a donut in early childhood. True, his hair was the color of a crispy bread crust. And Hasek, a "Satanist", was small, puny and black. The guys walked around, looked and left, and the next day in the morning they drove up on an old cart pulled by a gelding. On a cart, they began to carry sand from the shore, while Tuman and I were kneading concrete. Things went more fun.

When almost all of the foundation strip of the church was poured into the ground, Hasek was going somewhere. Before leaving, he said that his friend “disappeared” and that he was going to deal with those who, in his opinion, were to blame for this “disappearance”. After this departure, Hasek also disappeared. They did not find either him or those to whom he had gone to meet.

In an amazing way, the Lord sent us as our helpers from whom we expected anything, but not help. In the first days of the construction of the temple, we faced the death of one of our builders. The death of any person always makes you think about your fate, about God, about the meaning of life. How to understand the death of a very young guy who voluntarily came to help build the temple? I heard from one priest that the main thing at the moment of death is the vector of the direction of the soul. Where does the soul of a person strive - to God or from Him? When Hasek came to help build the temple, he undoubtedly took a step towards Christ. And that was the end of his life.

And another priest told me that the devil at all times demands for himself human sacrifices. In particular, this misanthropic nature of his is manifested during the construction of new temples, so much he dislikes it. Then, many years later, I asked the people who built the churches what their experience was. Nowhere was it without difficulties, and often not without sacrifice.

Vasya

On the banks of the Volga, not far from our church, there is a worshiping Cross. It was installed by Father Ivan Emelyanov a year before the construction of the church began at the end of the August shift of the Orthodox youth camp. We decided to put this cross in the village as a sign that whenever a temple would be built here. On the feast of the installation of the Cross, local residents gathered and children from the camp came. Quite a lot of people gathered from the neighboring villages. The cross was ten meters high from a whole pine log. They made this cross in advance, in the village, since it would be very difficult, if not possible at all, to transport or transfer such a large cross from the forest where the camp was located. The whole village knew about this and watched with interest. It was decided to combine the installation of the Cross with the end of the camp shift. It happened on the Transfiguration.

Vasya, one of the inhabitants of our village, every day approached the Cross lying on the ground and asked: "When are we going to set it up?" At first they wanted the fourteenth of August, on the First Savior. Vasya was delighted, his vacation ended on the fifteenth. But for some reason they transferred it to the Transfiguration, to the nineteenth. And Vasya, without hesitation, took a vacation at his own expense in order to carry this Cross with everyone. This act amazed me. Vasya was not a church person. Every time, approaching the Cross, he would say, lisping a little: "I dare to carry this Cross." And he fulfilled this dream of his and left happy immediately after the installation of the Cross.

A year later, he was among those who came to help build the church frame. And a year later he died of a heart attack. He had heart problems and was overweight. With logs, he helped only on the ground, making fun of his fullness, saying that the forests would collapse under his weight. Vasya was a very lively and cheerful person. He was very fond of jokes. So many anecdotes that I heard from Vasya during the construction of the church, I have never heard in my life, and I’ll hardly hear. The rest after each log set on the blockhouse turned not into a smoke break, but into continuous laughter. Vasya was a kind person, everyone loved him. He longed for God, and this desire was expressed first in a vacation at his own expense, and then in helping to build a temple. I don't like jokes, but I miss Vasya's jokes.

Ilyich

If you ask what word "Ilyich" rhymes with, then from school years the first thing that comes to mind, thanks to Tvardovsky's famous poem, is the word "brick". Ilyich was a stove-maker and walked around the villages, asking: "Doesn't anyone need to fix the stove or put a new one down?" So he came to us. We were building our first living space, and there needed a stove. Ilyich undertook to lay it out of the old brick left over from the old destroyed Russian stove. By this time, the foundation of the church had already been poured into the ground. It was necessary to make the above-ground part of bricks. The family of Volodya Shchukin and Marina Vasilyeva wanted to donate money for the foundation. But, since the church did not have its own account, they decided to transfer this charitable payment to the Foundation for Christian Charity and Enlightenment, which at that time was headed by Vladimir Pavlovich Sukhov, a believer, honest and decent. The day after the money was transferred, the bank collapsed where this Fund held all its funds. Vladimir Pavlovich managed to scratch out only half of the amount transferred to the foundation from the management of this collapsed bank, and the rest of the money was lost forever. It was the end of the nineties.

With all the meager remaining funds, they bought as many bricks as they could. And they also needed funds for the work of a bricklayer. And then Ilyich, who was slowly putting the stove in our house, seeing our problems, offered his help. He said: "I am a bricklayer, I will lay the foundation for free, but you will supply me with bricks and knead the mortar."

Children brought the brick, the adults kneaded the mortar, and Ilyich brought out the walls of the foundation of the church along a plumb line and string. Ilyich worked very quickly and professionally, we barely kept up with him. The children joked: "Ilyich is demanding a brick again!" When the foundation was ready, Ilyich returned to the stove he had started and completed it. More than fifteen years have passed since then. The foundation stands, the church stands, and Ilyich's stove regularly heats the house and bakes pies. Having finished the stove, Ilyich decided to stay with us to help roll up the logs of the church's frame, even though he was almost eighty years old. He helped "to the last log." And then he went further through the villages, looking for work, food and shelter. Is he alive? Do not hear in the district about the stove-maker Ilyich.

Voldemar

During the construction of the foundation of the church, such an incident occurred. In order to put a log house on the foundation, it was necessary to check whether all the corners were brought out "according to the level" so that there was no distortion in the church building. No matter how funny it is, we ourselves could not do it. We have not had any construction experience yet. The small level was not suitable for this, and we did not even know about the water level. We decided that the only device that will accurately show the height of each corner is a level. But where can I get it? Suddenly, the next day, a boat sails along the Volga. A strange little boat moored to our shore and a man with a level was the first to go ashore. We to him:

"Help us measure the heights of the corners of the foundation."

"No, I can't, I have a lot of work."

The peasant refused, and two hours later he himself came to the construction site of the church and began to measure the angles.

"So, here it is exactly, but here they cut seven centimeters, it is necessary to level it."

"Thank you! Tell me, what is your name, for whom to pray? "

"No, no, I won't tell."

And he didn't take the money. And when this boat sailed from our shore, he shouted: "Voldemar, they call Voldemar."

Never again did Voldemar appear in our area with a level, only on the day when it was necessary to continue working on the church.

Gennady

The frame of the church was cut by the carpenters of the city of Kalyazin. We agreed that we will pay in parts. The Makeev and Vishnyakov families donated more than half of the money for the manufacture of the log house, our family also contributed, but the carpenters “turned down the price” and there was not enough two and a half thousand dollars. And the deadline for the final settlement was approaching. The work has already been completed - the main frame of the church has been made. The hour of reckoning was approaching. But there was no money.

Suddenly, we received a call from the Nikolo-Kuznetsk church at our home and asked my wife and me to sing the Baptismal Liturgy, saying that they could not find singers for this service. Lena and I went to sing. Arriving, we were surprised to see the choir director Vladimir Pavlovich Zaitsev and his entire large choir. Our presence as singers at this service was no longer compulsory. The call with a request to come and sing the service at all costs was a mistake. But, having arrived at the Liturgy, we decided to stay and sing in the choir of Vladimir Pavlovich.

At this Baptismal Liturgy, several babies and one adult man with the name Gennady, with a bright oriental appearance, were baptized. The Liturgy passed, Gennady and the infants were baptized and communed. After the service, everyone dispersed, but Lena and I for some reason stayed behind and were left alone in the church. Suddenly, Gennady, who had just been baptized, enters the empty church. He came up to Lena and me and said, “I want to thank the singers, I know that their salary is small ...” With these words, he gives us a package and leaves. Lena and I decided that this package should be given to Vladimir Pavlovich, the choir director who sang the service. We went to the refectory, met Vladimir Pavlovich there, gave him this parcel and sat down to dinner. A young priest, our friend, who was not at this liturgy and did not know that we were singing this service, entered the refectory. He could not contain his joy and shared with us: "We just baptized one here, he has a Volvo in the color of his jacket, he donated to the church." He took out of his pocket a tight bundle of green 100-dollar bills and, crunching them with relish, put them back into the pocket of the cassock and left. And Lena says to me: "Here is a person who could save you." I answer her: "Why are you, why on earth, I am nobody to him." And we went home.

On the evening of the next day, we were supposed to sing at the service according to the schedule, but in different churches. (The service was performed simultaneously in the Nikolsky and Trinity churches located nearby). I sang at St. Nicholas Church, and Lena reigned at Troitskoye. Suddenly, during the service (during the reading of the Six Psalms), a boy from the Lenin Choir came and handed me a note: “Come to Trinity urgently.” After the service, I went to the Trinity Church, where the service also ended. There was almost no one in the church, but at the entrance I unexpectedly ran into "face to face" with the newly-baptized Gennady. He recognized me and was the first to greet me. Then I remembered that yesterday Lena told me about him: "Here is a man who can save you." I say to him: “Hello. My wife thinks that you can save me. " And he told him that we were building a church, that the log house was ready, that in two days we could pay off, but two and a half thousand dollars were missing. " Gennady says to me: “I was supposed to meet with one person here, but he did not come. I had to give him money, just the amount that you need. But since he is not there, I will give this money for the construction of your church, and I will meet with him tomorrow and then I will take money for him. " With these words, Gennady took out a pre-prepared package, gave it to me, and then got into his "Volvo" in the color of his jacket "and drove off. I never saw him again.

Grandfather fog

Since the fall, work on the church has stopped. There was no money, no materials, no workers who could continue construction. The church had no roof. Last year, the construction of the church was supervised by Tuman's grandfather, Dmitry Tumanov. He was a friend of that very father Boris Starodubov, who brought us to the Orphanage in Uglich. Grandfather Tuman spent all his life as a peasant, was a carpenter and in his youth sat for "valiant courage." He lived on the other bank of the Volga and came to help us with the blessing of Father Boris. Under his leadership, we were able to make the foundation and lay down the frame of the future church. When it came to the roof, the material, the money ran out, Tuman said: "I am already an old man, at the height my head is spinning, I will help you on the ground, and someone else will make the roof."

Grandfather Tuman came to our children from the orphanage, taught them to work in the garden, mow hay, make stairs, plant axes and hammers, and much more we learned from our friend Tuman, a kind old peasant. He told the children wonderful stories from his life. Some of them are so wonderful that they are worth briefly retelling.

Once Father Boris saw that an Orthodox Cross had been knocked out with a tattoo on Tuman's chest since prison times, but there was no pectoral cross. Mist regretted his violent youth and repented as best he could. He was shy about his tattoos. Father Boris resolved this issue in an unusual way. "Dmitry Vasilyevich, let me consecrate this cross on you, wear it as a pectoral cross." The priest read a prayer for the consecration of the cross and sprinkled the Mist with holy water. Since then, the Mist considered his tattoo a shrine.

Once Tuman was fishing in the middle of the Volga in the spring. The day was warm, the ice was melting. When the grandfather got home and took a few steps, the ice fell under him. His wife, Nadezhda Aleksandrovna, visited the shore every spring fishing trip, looking at her grandfather, who had gone two kilometers on the ice. Seeing her old man in the hole, she raised a cry. Soon two peasants ran with their slugs to the hole. The fog had been in the icy water for more than half an hour. He could not get out on his own. They dragged him out, brought him home, drank for three and threw him on the stove. In the morning he didn't even have a cold.

The Mist had a faithful dog, Cuba. Once my grandfather went on his old boat to pick mushrooms on the other side, and in this place the Volga flood is five kilometers away. As soon as they went ashore, Cuba chased a hare and disappeared. The fog called her, called her and swam home. I thought the dog was gone. Three days later in the morning, in calm weather, he heard barking from the other side. "Cuba!" The dog heard the owner's voice, which flew five kilometers through the water, and rushed into the Volga at the call of the Fog. Two hours later she was at home and then slept for a day. The fog cried and said: "I thought he would drown."

When old man Tuman lived with us, at the table we read the book "Father Arseny" about the holy ascetic of the 20th century who spent about twenty years in Soviet camps and prisons. Father Arseny, by the power of his faith in the most difficult circumstances of life, knew how to support any person, console, and sometimes miraculously save from death and despair. Fog was in prison during the same years. He listened, listened and said: "It's all true."

The Mist died from grief. His wife Nadezhda Alexandrovna was ill for a long time and died of cancer. The fog could not live long after her death. For six months he cried for her, prayed and drank. He did not survive the winter. Rest, Lord, the soul of Thy servant, friend of our old man Fog, Dmitry Vasilyevich.

About Dmitry Vasilievich, old man Tuman, I wrote not by chance. We managed to snatch several children out of the orphanage environment. These children had life experience with their parents who either drank deeply, or died, or were in prison, or threw these children away as unnecessary things. Alyosha had been in the orphanage since birth, he did not remember either his mother or his father, whom he had never seen. Katya - from the age of three, Vanya's mother left Vanya at the station at the age of 10, his father took the Zakharovs with his mother to Ukraine, but then he went on a spree with another woman, a Ukrainian, and these “Russians” were kicked out: “Go,” he says, “to your Russia the Ukrainians are mine, and the Russians are not mine. " In Russia, their mother was imprisoned for parasitism, and they were killed in prison, and the children were sent to an orphanage. Masha and her younger brothers stole buses. The experience of living in an orphanage was no better. This is beatings of elders, debauchery, and "state support" for free, without the obligation to work, i.e. accustoming to idleness.

When the guys got into the family, they found themselves in another world. Masha Lagutina, the most talented of all, said: "When we are here, it seems that the orphanage is not there, and when we are there, it seems that you are not there." Communication with people like grandfather Tuman opened up another world for the guys, the world of real personalities, real people. The images of such people could change the vector of life of these unfortunate orphans. From the first year of our shelter's existence, we tried to attract real people so that the guys could see the beauty of their soul, see a different example, an image of a different, real kind life.

Sasha Kapitonov

In the middle of that summer, when work on the church stopped and did not move anywhere, two cyclists unexpectedly came to us. One of them began to say: “I envy you. Why wasn't I chopping down your church? I am the best carpenter in Mr. Kalyazin. I have long dreamed of building a temple. I will help you. Pay a penny - I will leave, I will never come again. " It was Sasha Kapitonov.

After some time, Sasha brought two tractors of logs, bought with his money, and soon, together with our boys, he began to build the roof of the temple. Alyosha Falin and Vanya Dadonov helped him. Alyosha Zakharov was only seven years old, he skinned logs with a hatchet. The girls were painting the gray logs with Pinotex.

Sasha was an unusual person. In 1995, a year before the foundation of our church, the fisherman Kolya Korobochkin with the guys from the St. Tikhon's Theological Institute, who were vacationing in these parts, erected a Poklonniy cross from a log eleven meters high on the monastery island near the town of Kalyazin. This place was formerly the Holy Trinity Monastery of the Monk Makarii Kalyazinsky. When they built the Uglich Dam and thought that the monastery would sink, they made a mistake in their calculations. Almost the entire city of Kalyazin was flooded, and the monastery remained on an elevated island. And then the monastery was blown up. The monastic island was chosen for meetings by lovers and the island began to be called the Island of Love. It was on this island that the fisherman Kolya Korobochkin put the Cross. Sasha saw this Cross in winter. And he was shocked. From that moment on, he began to walk on the ice to the Island once a week and prayed before the Cross. On one of these trips to the Island, Sasha saw a fisherman-monk on the ice. He was surprised that there is a monk here, because there is no monastery in the city of Kalyazin and there are no monks among the priests. When Sasha passed by, the monk spoke to him, said a few simple, kind words. Sasha answered. And he went on. Suddenly he realized that it was the Monk Makarii Kalyazinsky himself - the patron saint of these places. “But I didn't take the blessing ...” Sasha wanted to go back and take the blessing. But there was no one on the river, only a fresh hole in the ice at this place.

For Sasha, one old nun predicted his death. "You will die tomorrow," she told him. The next day was the winter Nikola on December 19. The day passed, and Sasha did not die. But this word spoken by the old nun had a strong effect on Sasha. He began to hasten to do good for God. In the two years that remained to him before his real death, he managed as much as many do not have in their entire life. On the Island of Love, which used to be a monastery island, Sasha, having sold his dacha, built a tower with a temple on top, thinking that this could begin the monastery. In the homeland of the Monk Macarius, he covered a dilapidated church with a roof and, having restored the walls, made it fit for the performance of divine services. But there were no people in this place. Sasha built a house next to this church and settled the nuns there. Now the temple is functioning, the Divine Liturgy is regularly celebrated in it. In the city of Kalyazin, Sasha began to restore the Church of the Ascension, because Vladyka Victor said that he would return the holy relics of St. Macarius to the city of Kalyazin if the large city temple, the Ascension Cathedral, was rebuilt from the ruins. Sasha threw all his strength into the restoration of this cathedral. But he helped build our church and roof the first of all the temples he built.

Sasha really died on December 19, but two years after it was predicted to him. People like Sasha are very rare. He didn't just live, he burned. “I was in a hurry to do good,” as Dr. Gaaz used to say.

Sasha organized our older boys, taught them how to skin logs, cut into a cup, make dowels, and showed them basic carpentry techniques. Under his influence, the guys chose construction specialties for further study.

Dome

If we were able to lay down the finished frame of the church ourselves with the help of the villagers and summer residents under the leadership of grandfather Tuman, Sasha Kapitonov and his team helped us to make the pediments and the roof, then we could not make the dome ourselves. This work was beyond the power of the Kalyazin carpenters, even such outstanding ones as Sasha Kapitonov. And then restorers from the Moscow Carpentry and Restoration School No. 88 (now Construction College No. 26) came to our aid. For some of our students, this school became theirs alma mater , where they, having acquired their first specialty, received a ticket to an independent life. These are Alyosha Falin, Vanya Dodonov, Alyosha Sholin. Alyosha Falin entered this school the year we started building the church. When it was necessary to install the dome, he was already completing the second course. At this time, the school was experiencing its heyday. The restoration department was headed by two Dmitrys - Dmitry Vladimirovich Sokolov and Dmitry Valerievich Tuzov. A group of enthusiasts gathered around them - teachers who loved and studied Russian wooden architecture, captivating their students - boys with this love of Russian antiquity, among whom were our pupils later. We turned to them for help, and over the winter, the students of this department, among whom were our pupils, made the dome. The beginning of summer was dry and therefore we were able to deliver the dome to our village without any problems. They could not send experienced masters from the school to install the dome, because everyone was leaving on an expedition to the north to restore the dying churches in Karelia, and two young “masters” came to us and ours - Alyosha, who passed the second year exam and Vanya who studied for only one year. The "masters" lived in our shelter, ate with us, communicated with our guys not as hired workers, but "on equal terms", as comrades. Only this "camaraderie" was very strange. The "masters" presented themselves as Sergei Markovich and Feodosiy, and I would not give them forty years for two. They were helped, as I have already said, by our Alyosha and Vanya, who were even younger.

Sergei Markovich was a good carpenter and even taught at a school, which he had just graduated from, and Feodosiy was a student in adult carpentry courses created at this school. But only Sergei Markovich made the impression of not only a non-church person, but also a person completely far from the faith, while Theodosius, on the contrary, was a believer, but only belonged to the sect of the Bespopovites. He dreamed of leaving for Siberia, gathering a community of followers for himself, and for this he went to study carpentry. When he saw that a small Orthodox community was gathering around the church, built from scratch, he said with understanding: "You have already succeeded a lot."

Theodosius, following the "best traditions" of the Bespopovites, took his own bowl and mug with him, so as not to eat from the same dish with the "heretics - Nikonians", and forgot the spoon at home. And immediately he began to ask for a new spoon, which "no one has ever eaten." We gave him such a spoon, and he did not disdain the food prepared in our "Nikonian" shelter. He did not eat meat at all, imposing a strict fast on himself.

But one day a rather curious incident happened. The person on duty in the kitchen ahead of the appointed time prepared a large pot of pasta for everyone for dinner and left somewhere, since there was still more than an hour before dinner. And then Theodosius came to the kitchen. She and Sergei Markovich worked all day on the roof of the church and were undoubtedly tired and hungry. The hungry Theodosius saw a pot of pasta, took out his bowl and spoon, which he always carried with him so that the "Nikonians" could not touch his dishes, and while no one was in the kitchen, he ate half of the pasta pan, which were prepared for everyone ... When the duty officer came and found it out, he was very indignant and told about this incident at dinner. I had to explain to Theodosius that, in spite of all the respect for his post, this should not be done. He understood, repented, and imposed on himself the punishment - "penance." He didn’t eat the next day. After that, especially for Theodosius, they began to prepare more side dishes and give him a personal loaf of bread.

Sergei Markovich had another peculiarity. He was very sociable, especially with females, and at that time we had several teenage girls at the shelter. After work, Markovich took off his shirt and half-naked walked to the girls, listening to their laughter and screeching in response to his flirting remarks. In this case, the conversation had to be held not with him, but with our girls. I strictly forbade them to answer any word, no matter what Sergei Markovich said. Deathly silence was the answer to all his antics. He could not stand even one day. He came to me and said: "You clipped my wings!" But he put on a shirt and began to behave more modestly. The girls did not say a word to him until his departure. He was impressed by this. He told me later that no one had ever "treated him so cruelly."

But they worked diligently and the dome could be installed. But only the cross on the dome was crooked. Sergei Markovich and Feodosiy tried to convince me that it was straightforward and that all the wooden buildings were “playing”, but I still had to call their boss at the carpentry school from Moscow. He looked, and, with the help of simple techniques, slightly shifted the central log and straightened the cross. Now he really stood up straight. It took a real master only half an hour.

In conclusion of the story about the dome, it must be said that the money for its manufacture was given by a person who did not know anything about our church before. He is an athlete-climber, a friend of our friend Andrey Klochkov. Andrey and my brother Yura were visiting him somehow. The conversation turned to the temple and the dome. Yevgeny, without hesitation, said that he also wanted to take part and gave the guys the entire amount for production and installation. And he saw this dome ten years later, when he himself came to visit Andrey and Yura.

Father Leonid

Father Leonid unexpectedly arrived. In an old UAZ car, in a darned old cassock ... He immediately went to the church, which still had no windows, no doors, no floor, no ceiling, only walls and a roof. Our boys sat in the woods and chopped off the moss sticking out between the logs with axes. Sasha Kapitonov taught us this.

The rumor that Father had come to us immediately spread throughout the village and several families with children came to us at once. All our guys got together. Father stood among the children, asked everyone about something, told something, and then took out a bag of sweets and treated everyone. Upon learning that Lena was pregnant, could hardly move and could not get to the working church on her own, Father promised to come the next day and give her the Holy Communion.

The next day, early in the morning, a tractor with a cart came to us, loaded to the brim with boards and the building materials we needed. The tractor driver unloaded and said: "From Father Leonid." Soon the UAZ of Leonid's father drove up and Father began to unload cement in bags from there. Unloading the cement, he took out two cans of milk and a bucket of fresh homemade cottage cheese and gave it all to us. Then he went to receive communion with my Lena.

While he was confessing and giving communion to Lena, we prepared him as a gift two chickens and a large pike, which our guys recently caught in the Volga. Father was delighted with the gifts.

- This, - he says - is mine?

- Yes, sir, yours.

- Can I do what I want with it?

- Yes, father.

- Then I bless all this to you at the table.

Communication with Father Leonidas always leaves a lasting impression of joy and light. We have been friends with Batiushka for over ten years. When something intractable happens in our shelter, I always send to Father for advice and blessing. Father does not like to give direct advice, always prays that the Lord would grant wisdom to the one who asks him about something, but sometimes he answers difficult questions very simply and clearly, as if feeling the will of God about the person who asks him. People from all over Russia come to him for advice and blessing. Father Leonid often comes to our shelter and serves in our church. Father blessed in our shelter to restore an ancient tradition - the daily rite of forgiveness. Now, every day after the evening prayer, everyone from the youngest to the eldest ask each other for forgiveness, like on the Forgiveness Resurrection before Great Lent.

This wonderful custom has greatly helped us in raising children. Quarrels and grievances that often occur in any children's team began to happen less often and quickly got rid of, because the offender always had to ask for forgiveness. Father Leonid told us that it would be nice to have this custom not only in our shelter, but in every family in general. Earlier, in ancient times, this custom was ubiquitous, not only in families, but in all Christian communities, in monasteries, and even among subordinates and bosses.

bear

Every Russian village has its own holy fool. Our holy fool was Mikhail Ivanovich Nechaev. Everyone called him just Uncle Misha or Mishka. He had "grief from the mind." Being a naturally intelligent person, and also well-read (he was a librarian for some time on the collective farm), Uncle Misha carried through his whole life a thirst for unsatisfied justice. And since he was a kind and active person, his actions, dictated by a thirst for justice and similar to fighting windmills, were always strange, funny and sad at the same time.

Uncle Misha did not go to church with us. But when Vladyka Victor sailed on a ship to perform the first divine service in our church, Mishka was the first to run out to meet him, to the pier, but for some reason not in shoes or barefoot, but ... in socks. Probably, when he heard that the ship with Vladyka was already docking, he ran away “in what he was”.

Before his death, Mishka still went to church several times. He will drink for courage, enter, stand at the door, light a candle and cry, and then quietly leave. Everlasting memory.

Oleg

Oleg's story is the story of a person who underwent a transformation. Oleg moved from the city to live in the village shortly before we met. When we first met, Oleg drank heavily, to the point that when he came to visit, he could drink perfume on the shelf in front of the washbasin mirror. His mother had a cow, and when Oleg drove or drove the cow into the barn, he accompanied it with such a multi-storey mat that even the cow's ears wilted. He sincerely said that "she (the cow) does not understand other words." Several times Oleg got so drunk that he almost died. He was previously married, but the family fell apart because of vodka.

When the guys and I, under the leadership of grandfather Tuman, began to build the church, Oleg was the first to come to help. In the first year, we were only able to assemble the log house on the foundation “on our own”. But in reality, the forces were not our own.

It was Oleg who gathered all the men from our village and together we rolled up eleven-meter logs. All winter the frame of the church stood without a roof. On Christmas Day, Oleg climbed into the frame of the future church at night, took out a paraffin candle and stood there until the candle burned out to the end. He did the same for Easter. And with him misfortunes began. First, the horse, which also “did not understand other words”, broke his leg. Oleg walked on crutches for six months, and barely recovered, he broke the same leg again when he was cutting a birch on the wood. Falling down, the trunk of the tree “played” and Oleg spent another six months on crutches. After the second fracture, he stopped drinking. Immediately and in general.

Sashka Andreev lives next door to Oleg. Sashka sat seven times and, returning after the seventh trip, settled in the village. Once, in late autumn, Sashka drank himself to a delirium tremens and began to run unconscious through the forest. Oleg ran after him, caught him, tied him up and sent him to the hospital. Sashka tied it up. And with vodka and theft. Now he takes a taxi in an UAZ to our village in any off-road.

Oleg has one distinctive feature. Whatever happens, he is the first to run to the rescue. Whether there is a fire, someone's illness, whether someone dies - Oleg will be the first to know and run to help.

I wonder how many modern parishioners give tithes to the church? There is only one such person among the parishioners of our church - this is Oleg. If Oleg brought 500 rubles, then he earned five thousand, and if a thousand, then ten thousand. Nobody else does this - neither the rich, nor the poor, nor the lonely, nor the large. I once said to him: “Oleg, I’ll spend your money, and not on the temple”. And he answers me: "Where will you spend - this is a matter of your conscience, and I did the work of my conscience - I gave the money to God."

Oleg has a herd of goats. Oleg brings every tenth liter of goat milk to the table for the inmates of our shelter. And sometimes it seems to me that there is so much milk that it is not every tenth, but every second liter of all the milk of his goats.

Oleg is a true friend. If something happens, Oleg will come to the rescue first. And on Pokrov this year he also quit smoking.

Zhorik

We met George on an old, half-sunken barge with scrap metal, and this acquaintance became fateful for him and for us. He was a vagabond. Originally from Petrozavodsk. In his family, neither father nor mother needed him, and he went to wander. Before meeting with us, he lived with some tourists on the banks of the Volga, in a hut or in a tent, helped them in fishing and gathering mushrooms, and for this he was fed and watered. He tried to help everyone and nailed himself first to one, then to another. After getting to know us and learning that we have an orphanage, he wanted to join us. At first he just came to visit us and, together with our guys, did something about the house. Georgy was a talented person, his hands grew from where they were needed, at school he loved physics and knew a little about electrics. He easily fit into the collective of our pupils. And he lived in the forest with tourists. But soon the vacation of these tourists ended, and they left, and Zhorik was left alone. He wanted to move to us. At first he was satisfied with the principles of our life, he promised not to drink. We took him on probation. George began to help build the church. He repaired the roof, made an electrician. He tried very hard to stay with us. But it would be strange to take an adult man into a family as an orphan. And Georgy and I went for a blessing. First to Father Leonid from Krasnoye. But Father Leonid did not take upon himself this blessing: “Go to Father Georgy Blinov. He is an elder, my confessor, he is wiser than me, go to him, listen to what he has to say. " Zhorik and I went to see Father George.

Father George was very old, and, judging by the photographs on the wall, a soldier and order bearer. We told him about George, how he helped in the church, how he tried to live in a good way. Only good things were said about George. Father George listened to us, and, without directly answering our naive question: "Is it possible to take him into our family?", He began to tell some story about himself, which seemed completely unrelated to our arrival. He told how in his youth he drank heavily, and once, having bought some kind of vodka, either poisoned or charmed, he drank it and became very sick, even thought that he would die. The doctors did not help, and one nun told him when it was already really bad - the whole neck, and then the whole body was covered with abscesses and ulcers and the suffering was unbearable: “This is good, the disease came out, but if it went inside, then I would die , and now you'll get better. " A scary story about poisoned vodka. He also talked about the difficulties in his church, about his health, and then, when he learned that we have an orphanage, he strictly told us: "Do not adopt anyone, just educate them as teachers." It would seem that this did not concern the question of George, but in fact it very much even concerned us and George. The elder said about George: “Let him live with you, not as a family member, but as a free worker. You help him, he will help you, and I will pray for you. God willing, I'll see you again. " The elder's words became clear only after a while. The wisdom and perspicacity of Father George were revealed to us already under tragic circumstances.

George lived with us for several months. Everything in the world is cooling down. George's desire to live with us also cooled off. And I really wanted to drink. Once George went to help one of our neighbors, but he stayed with them, then with others. When we met, he always greeted politely, as if nothing had happened. But more and more often he smelled of wine.

And then one morning an agitated neighbor in the village came running to us. In a trembling voice, he said: “Zhorik was killed. It lies behind a ravine. " We ran there and saw poor Zhorik. He lay on the grass with open eyes. Grass was squeezed in his hands, as if he wanted to grab onto a blade of grass and stay alive. The blow of the knife pierced the diaphragm, and it was generally not clear how Zhorik got over the ravine with such a wound. His last journey was shown by the crushed grass on the slope of the ravine.

The police who arrived did not show any activity in the investigation of this murder, the case could turn into an undisclosed "capercaillie", and we decided to find out for ourselves what happened to our Zhorik. Those with whom Zhorik drank that evening were silent in fear and asserted that they knew nothing and did not see anything. We began to ask all the always seeing old women. And one of them said that she saw yesterday a man who had not been in the village for many years, since he had been in prison. “Probably, he has already served time or some amnesty ...” This man was from a neighboring village, and the old woman said where to look for him. He came to our village to look for old friends, with whom he had drunk before. Zhorika brought vodka to their company ... Since all the drinking companions were silent, the old woman's story was the only thread that the investigator could grab onto. The killer confessed immediately when the police came to him. He thought that his friends "gave up". After the amnesty, he stayed free for only two days, stabbed the first one who came across and sat down again. He did not know how and did not want to live free, therefore he killed.

We took Zhorik to the funeral service to Father Leonid, and at that very time Father Georgy Blinov came to visit him, to whom Zhorik and I went. He had never been to Leonid's father before, and then he unexpectedly arrived himself, although he had not gone anywhere for a long time, as he was already very old and was ill a lot. This is how Father George and our Zhorik met again. When Zhorik was buried, Father George said that many sins would be forgiven for his violent death. Our guys, who lived together with Zhorik for several months and built a church, were all at this funeral service. Father George blessed them all, but he told us that God would bless us for these children, and already firmly and joyfully, and not with doubt and severity, as at the first meeting, he blessed us to raise orphans. This was his last trip before his death. He died a few days after Zhorik.

The guys and I dug a grave, made a wooden cross for Zhorik and buried him in our village cemetery. Now, every day during the morning rule, we pray for two Georgias, an old man and a stranger.

Nikolay Portnov

Nicholas suddenly called. Unexpected because I thought he would never call again. Nikolai is a carpenter. For fifteen years he has been helping our shelter at all our construction sites. If you remember how everything was, then you can see the traces of his hands in every corner of our large farm. Fifteen years ago, he was an assistant to Sasha Kapitonov, our friend, a carpenter, who in his bright and short life managed to build several churches and become a man - a legend. All the builders of our area and all the parishioners of the Kalyazin temples know about Sasha Kapitonov. And Kolya was in Sasha's brigade. Sasha did not allow his workers to swear, did not allow them to work on Orthodox holidays, together with them he restored churches and built houses. When Sasha died, everything that he did for the people remained unfinished. Kolya took over all the "objects". Even when Kolya worked for Sasha in the brigade, he used to drink. After Sasha's death, having become a foreman, he "sewed up" and tied up drunkenly, but continued to smoke like a steam locomotive.

The first thing that Kolya built with us was the log gables and the roof of the church. When the gables were already exposed, but not fixed, and there was no roof yet, we witnessed a real miracle. A hurricane went right through our village. He broke trees, tore off roofs, even moved one small house to another place. The gables of the temple were assembled right before the hurricane and did not even have time to secure them with jibs. They could have fallen not only from a hurricane, but also from a small breeze if it blew directly into this log sail. When the wind died down and we got out of hiding, the first thing that we saw was our unfastened and unharmed sails - pediments. Twenty meters from our church, the wind pushed a huge poplar onto the roof of our neighbor, Uncle Misha, half of the roof was ripped off on another house next to the church, and the unfastened pediments remained standing. For everyone it was a real miracle, and Kolya walked for a long time and was surprised aloud. The miracle was so obvious that some began to attribute it to the direction of the wind. The wind, they said, was blowing parallel to the pediments. But God also commands the winds.

In our church, Kolya's hands have made the roof, stairs, an extension - a bell tower, floors, an altar barrier. Together we erected the dome on the Nikolskaya chapel on the water, Kolya's team assembled the four-part Sergievskaya overhead chapel, which we are building to this day. He also helped us build workshops, a bathhouse, bedrooms, a concert hall. All of our boys learned the carpentry craft from Kolya, helping him in his work, and some of them chose the construction profession as their life's work. And those who could not learn how to cut houses, Kolya and his guys taught how to caulk, skin and decorate.

Last year Kolya fell ill and began to cough badly. They diagnosed pneumonia, treated unsuccessfully, and it turned out to be cancer. And this terrible disease showed the amazing qualities of Kolya's character.

At first, he abandoned all his construction projects and his team broke up. The operation was not done because it was useless, but they began to do the hardest chemistry. Kolya did not want to live from chemistry to chemistry without doing anything. He again gathered a brigade and offered to do something for us as long as there is strength. At the end of the summer, he insulated the top and made a staircase in our dining room. During this work, he continuously drank analgin and baralgin, and when he finished, he immediately left for another chemotherapy or to agree to an operation. He lost a lot of weight and immediately grew old. He was tormented by severe pain. I thought he would never return. And so, he called again and said that he had assembled a team again and wanted to make a gym for the guys.

The ancient saints said that if tomorrow is the end of the world, it will still be wheat. And there is also such a film directed by Akira Kurosawa - "To Live". The hero of this film, having learned about his fatal illness, decided to build a playground on an abandoned wasteland. So is Kolya. He did not read the holy fathers and hardly watched Kurosawa's movies. But Kolya's act is consonant with the thoughts of the holy fathers and the idea of ​​the great filmmaker. His call is evidence of a kind and courageous soul. We will build - we will live.

Nikolai died on December 20, the day after the winter Nikola, as if Sasha Kapitonov had given him his hand. After all, the winter day of St. Nicholas is the day of memory of Sasha Kapitonov.

Moiseich

One wanderer without a fixed abode came to our shelter under very unusual circumstances. In the fall, I had to go to the Uglich orphanage, and on my way back I sat at the station and waited for the train. A homeless man sat on a nearby bench and drank beer, eating a sausage. He probably mistook me for his because of the beard and the old jacket I was wearing.

- "Do you want a beer?" he asked me. I refused and turned the other way. He probably thought I was hungry. "Would you like a sausage?" - the pesky bum asked again. I also gave up the sausage scraps. But the bum did not calm down: “You don’t know how to get to Selishchi? And then I have already passed here several times, but I could not find the necessary station. " Then I got interested, because Selishchi is our village.

- "What do you need in Selishchi?"

- “Well, they told me that there is Alexei, who accepts our people. He has a shelter "

- “I myself am from Selishchi, but I don’t know any Alexei”

- “Well, of course, I have it written here ...” - and shows me a piece of paper with a hand-drawn diagram of how to get from the station to our house.

- "Who drew this piece of paper for you?"

- “One hard worker who worked for someone in those places. We met by chance in the suburbs "

What a hard worker, the bum did not say. We fell silent. And the homeless man again for his own: “Tell me, at least where you need to get off, at what station? To get to these settlements. And then I myself will find it according to the scheme. " This bum is seriously about to get to our house. What was to be done? I promised to show him this station. So with this fellow traveler I returned home. On the threshold of our house, a homeless person was surprised to find that the Aleksey, to whom he was traveling, turned out to be his fellow traveler. He began to ask to live with us, promised to work at the church, chop wood, remove snow, and “whatever you want,” if only they would leave him. I told him it needed a blessing.

He was an artist by profession, and was very happy to learn that we had brushes and paints. But it turned out that he painted very mediocre pictures, and he could not finish more than one. In the parishes he was taught how to caulk, cook food and wash dishes. We also needed to caulk the church, and none of us knew how. Moiseich zealously set to work. But he worked very slowly and poorly, although he managed to show some caulking techniques to our guys, and, soon, they learned to caulk no worse than him. To Moiseich's credit, it must be said that for our church he cut out and pasted paper icons for the iconostasis on boards made by our boys. These icons are in our church to this day.

When we put on a puppet show for kids, he made good decorations and missing dolls, and even played a small role.

In the spring we dug up a vegetable garden and instructed Moiseich to plant potatoes. Explained how to plant and left for the May holidays on some kind of excursion. He planted a potato, but for some reason it did not sprout. A month later, in June, not understanding why the potatoes were not sprouting, we decided to see what happened to them and dug up one of the beds. Moiseich tried so hard that he buried the potatoes in the depth of two bayonets of a shovel. Not a single potato could break through such a thickness of the earth. Everything had to be planted again in June. And the harvest was harvested not in September, but in October. It's good that the weather allowed.

Moiseich was on duty in the kitchen on a par with all the guys, but every time during his kitchen duty he mumbled a song, or a saying, “Come on, cook it. Come on - mine. Come on - cook. Come on - mine. " Or he sighed heavily and said: "Well, nothing, nothing." As if comforting himself.

He lived with us for three years, it seemed that he took root. The guys fell in love with him as a comrade, he remembered his old habits of a home person, for example, he began to wash his hands before eating and drink coffee in the morning.

Autumn has come. The birds flocked to warm lands. And Moiseich began to show concern. It can be seen that the passion for travel has awakened in him again. One day he began to complain that he had a toothache. I asked for money for treatment, went to the dentist in Uglich, and never returned. Three days later, we went to look for him, wondering if something bad had happened. Finding him was not difficult. We toured all the dental surgeries in Uglich and described to the doctors the colorful appearance of Moiseich. One doctor recalled that three days ago there was such a patient and asked how to get to Nikolskoe, where the monk John was serving. We knew about Nikolskoye that there, in a village not far from Uglich, there was an old priest John, whom some Uglich people revered as an old man. We went to Nikolskoye. Alive and healthy Moiseich was there and said that he would remain "in the monastery." Well, "freedom is free."

A little more than six months have passed. On some economic matters, we again drove in the direction where Nikolskoye was, and decided to visit our old acquaintance. But he was not at the parish, and one of the priests who served with Father John told the following story:

“Moiseich boasted that he was an artist, and he was instructed neither more nor less - to paint the altar of one of the chapels of the temple. It was difficult to paint the ceiling, and he did not think of anything better than to stand with his feet on the Holy See. They saw it and kicked him out with a bang. "

A year later, one of the Kalyazin priests told us when we met that he had seen “your artist” and gave him alms when he asked the church.

Of the numerous children in orphanages with whom we had a chance to communicate, one sold the apartment for ten thousand immediately after graduating from the orphanage, which he inherited after the death of his parents. Another boy diagnosed with cerebral palsy and schizophrenia, when out of turn, at the request of high-ranking officials, was allocated a state apartment, wrote a written refusal, not wanting to draw up the documents. Many other children could not even be put on the waiting list for an apartment, because on paper they were registered in such housing where it was really impossible to live. Who cares about their fate?

First service

By July 1999, the temple had walls, a roof and a dome, but in order to serve the first liturgy, much still had to be done.

Girls and women painted the walls with pinotex. They are Sasha Makeeva, Anya Ratay, Ira Tregubova, Masha Savina, Nastya Pereverzentseva, Katya Koroleva, Masha Lagutina, Olga Vladimirovna Panko. Sasha Kapitonov made frames for windows and doors.

According to the charter of the Church, the throne must be set on stone. We decided to make this stone from concrete. The foundation for the Throne was made by orphans from our family shelter together with children and teenagers from neighboring large families. There was no floor in the church yet, and a whole line of children with buckets was walking along the plank flooring. Children carried half a bucket of concrete solution to the place of the Altar stone and poured out the made wooden formwork. This stone, almost two meters high, was made entirely by children.

Interestingly, children even came to help from neighboring villages. The village of Malakhovo is located ten kilometers from us. For several days in a row, a mother came from there on foot with her two sons, about twelve and fourteen years old, to help in the preparation of the church for the first service.

We ordered the throne itself in the carpentry workshop, but when it was brought, it turned out that the dimensions of the height and width were confused in the workshop, and such a throne did not fit the size of the already sewn vestments that Nastya Golovina and her mother had made in advance. It was necessary to make a new Throne according to the size of the ready-made vestments. It so happened that our Throne was also made by the hands of our pupils - Alyosha and Vanya.

The day of July 16, for which the first service was scheduled, was approaching, and the temple did not even have a floor. And then, seeing the children's enthusiasm, two men came to help us - Misha and Boris. I've never met them before. Boris generally lived on the other bank of the Volga and came to our village just to see "what's what," and Misha came to visit Sashka Andreev, whose nephew Hasek helped us at the very beginning of the construction of the church. Misha and Boris worked even at night and managed to lay the floor by the beginning of the first service. People were able to enter the temple. When Father Leonid arrived, I told him about Misha and Boris, and he thanked and blessed each of them. The men were happy.

Many people gathered for the first service. It was a real long-awaited holiday. Father Leonid served, he was co-served as a deacon by Father Vyacheslav Smirnov, our old friend Ilya Krasovitsky was the choir director. Lena could no longer regent - she had to go to the hospital right after the service.

Priluki priests

The construction did not end with the beginning of the divine services, but a new era began - the era of the services of the Priluki priests. The first service in our church was Fr. Leonid, and we began to invite priests from other temples, which were not very far from our village, to other services. The closest to us functioning temple was the Church of the Nativity of Christ in Priluki. The village of Priluki is five kilometers from us, on the other bank of the Volga. You can get to this church only by water. The first priest who served in Priluki was Father Boris Starodubov. After the army, Father Boris returned home, gathered a meeting from the grandmothers, registered the parish and opened the church. He was ordained there to serve as the first priest. We met him when the Orthodox "Kalyazinsky" youth camp arose in the forest on the banks of the Volga. We sailed to the service in Priluki to see Father Boris on boats, and he sometimes served in our camp in a camping tent church, consecrated with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexei II in honor of All the saints who shone in the land of Russia. Father Boris blessed his neighbor and friend Tumanov Dmitry Vasilyevich, grandfather of Tuman, as he called himself, to help us in the camp and in the construction of the church in Selishchi. Boris's father has six children. When I once complained to him that we had no children, and envied that he had six, he took us to the Uglich orphanage. Since then, more than eighty orphans have passed through our family, and three of their own have been born. Shortly before the construction of our church in Selishchi, Father Boris opened another church near Uglich on Divnaya Gora, and he was transferred to serve there.

And in Priluki, Father Sergius Danilin was appointed to serve, who was the first of the Priluki priests to come to our village by boat and serve in our newly built church. After the transfer of Father Boris to the Divnaya Gora, the parishioners of the Priluksky church began to walk less. Only a few grandmothers came to the service of Father Sergius. There was no one to sing at all, and my mother sang mostly in a “reading room”. Fr Sergiy gladly came to serve in our church - more people came to services in comparison with Priluki. Almost all parishioners confessed and received communion at every service. Most of the services were attended by large families and children from our orphanage. And it turned out that the temple was filled with children. This was in contrast to the services in Priluki. All the priests who came to serve in our church liked to serve in the church, where most of the parishioners are children. Father Sergiy the First (Danilin) ​​served with us for three years, performing about five to six services during the summer period. He was transferred to some rural church near Rostov and we never met again.

In Priluki, Father Sergius the First was replaced by Father Sergius II (Komentsov), a young hieromonk. It was not his mother who helped him in the parish, but his mother. During the years of his ministry, people began to come to the Liturgy in the Priluki church. In our church, Father Sergius II served for seven years. We were friends with him, he often stayed with us for several days. He also loved to serve in our church. He consecrated our dwelling, wells, the first chapel built in honor of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. He baptized some of our pupils who wanted to be baptized during their stay in our orphanage. Father Sergius II was transferred from Priluki to serve in the Abraham convent in the city of Rostov the Great.

The third priest of Priluksk, who served for several years in our church, was hegumen Nikanor. It turned out that Father Superior Nikanor is my old friend Kolya. In our youth, we met with him, helping several large families with the blessing of Father Vladimir Vorobyov. He served with us for three years, then left the state, and now serves somewhere on the border of the Tver and Smolensk regions.

To the credit of all the priests from Priluki, I must say that none of them has ever refused to come and serve in our church, no matter what the weather. For the priests in Priluki, one had to sail on a motor boat. The boys from our family shelter learned how to use the old "Neptune - 23", which started up "every other time", and how to drive a motor boat. We have introduced strict rules - you can board a boat only by putting on a life jacket and taking a walkie-talkie with you. We decided to observe these rules not only when we went after priests, but during any sailing on any boat. And the observance of these rules in difficult moments has always helped us out. The usually calm water surface of the Volga with a north or south wind very quickly turned into a "stormy sea" with waves almost as tall as a person. Swimming in a storm on the Volga is always dangerous, and especially when the waves are "with lambs." If the waves are "with lambs", then no matter how hard you try, you will still swim wet from head to toe. If they went for the priest "with lambs", then before the service it was necessary to change his clothes and dry him.

And one morning, when it was necessary to sail to Priluki for Father Sergius II, fog descended on the Volga. The morning was like in a song - "hazy and gray." There was no wind, the Volga was calm, but the fog was so thick that after a hundred meters the coastline was not visible at all. We sailed out an hour before the appointed time. Priluki in the fog with difficulty found and put the priest in the boat. Meanwhile, the fog intensified. The boat did not arrive back to our shore by the appointed time of service. The crew managed to get in touch by radio. The guys and the priest got lost in the fog - instead of sailing to our bank, they swam along the fairway. Not seeing the coast, they began to change the direction of movement. After some time, they saw the coastal strip. There was no village on the shore - only a forest and a field. We had to swim several kilometers near the coast, until we saw the first residential building on the coast. We went ashore and asked where they were. It turned out that in the fog they sailed to the other side, to the village of Kadanovo. It is directly opposite us, across the Volga, only two kilometers, but to sail "blindly". All the people who came to the church at the beginning of the service prayed that the boys and father could get to us and not get lost again. We began to ring the bell. The guys swam to the sound, carried on the water for kilometers, and in a few minutes they were at home. The Divine Liturgy took place, but with an hour and a half delay.

Sometimes priests came to us from Rostov, from Kalyazin, from Moscow and served the Divine Liturgy in our church, or they concelebrated with the priests of Priluksk. Over the years, more than twenty priests and two bishops have served in our church - Metropolitan Victor, of Tver and Kashinsky, and Bishop Panteleimon, Orekhovo-Zuevsky.

In the era of the Priluki priests, the Divine Liturgy was celebrated in our church only in the summer, about once every two weeks, and then only on weekdays, since on holidays the priests served in their churches. And we went to celebratory services either in Priluki, or in Kalyazin, or in Uglich, or in Krasnoye to Father Leonid. In winter, no one served in our church, although we nevertheless built a stove in anticipation of winter services. Winter services began in a new era in the history of our church. The following story is about this era.

Wooden city or "In the village it was Popovka ..."

At the end of the eighties and in the nineties of the last century, when suddenly after the celebration of the Millennium of the Baptism of Rus, the most severe persecution against the Orthodox Church, which had lasted for more than seventy years, ceased, and the Church gained freedom and the opportunity to raise children, youth Orthodox summer camps began to be created. One of the first such camps was the community camp of the Nikolo-Kuznetsky Church in Moscow, created with the blessing of Father Vladimir Vorobyov. At first, this camp was located near the village of Bogoslovo, not far from the city of Romanov-Borisoglebsk (Tutaev). When more and more children began to come to this camp, the need arose to create another camp, already in a different place. To create this second camp, Nasi invited Alexander Olegovich Makeev to the Kalyazin land. We talked about this at the beginning of our story in the chapter "Pioneers". This is how the “Kalyazin Orthodox Camp” arose in the forest near the village of Selishchi. In the camp, the guys lived in tents, served in the Camping tent church, consecrated in honor of All Saints who shone in the Russian land and sang songs. One of the favorite songs of the inhabitants of this camp was the song "Soar the falcons with eagles!" In this song, the words "Camp - a city of linen" were always sung with special enthusiasm, and the camp itself was called that - a city of linen. Many interesting events took place in the camp, but one of them, as it turned out many years later, was directly related to the "Wooden City" that arose on an empty field near our village of Selishchi.

One night in the camp, when all the children were already asleep, only three "chiefs" of the detachments remained at the fire - three friends Katya, Nadya and Masha. Suddenly, beyond the forest, on the side of the river, they saw an ever-increasing fiery glow. “It’s probably a fire — and our help is needed there!” The “chiefs” decided and, without hesitation, got into the boat and sailed “into a clear fire”. Brave girls, already ready to "enter the burning hut," stepped out of the boat onto the shore, where the fire was blazing, and were surprised to see that it was not a house in the village that was burning, but a haystack on a completely empty field. And not a soul around. There was no one to help, they looked at the dying haystack, and swam back to the camp. And none of them then could have thought that God had shown them a place where they would live with their families, husbands and children. In this place, twenty years later, a "wooden city" arose - the village of Nikolskoye, in which Katya, Nadya and Masha and many other inhabitants of that first tent camp began to live with their families.

It happened like this:

Father Vladimir Vorobyov, who blessed the creation of the camp and the construction of our church, came several times to our village. Seeing how the temple is being built, how a small community of large families is being formed at the temple, how our family shelter "Orphans' House" is developing, the father invited Yevgeny Leonidovich to one of the services. It was one of the usual rare services of the "pre-Nicholas period" of the history of our church - a full church of children and everyone takes communion. Yevgeny Leonidovich, a father with many children himself, having attended this service, wanted to build a village for large Orthodox families on an empty field near our village (on the very one where a haystack once burned). Evgeny Leonidovich belongs to that type of people, rare in our time, whose words and ideas do not differ from their deeds. And on a completely empty field near our village, a village began to be built. Now no one remembers how difficult it was to formalize the land, lay the road, electricity, bring in building materials, workers, etc. Hundreds of people were involved in this.

In 2012, the first new settlers - large families - ventured to start settling in new, not yet fully completed houses. There were only a few of these families and they did not come for a long time. A year later, more than ten new families began to settle in new houses in Nikolskoye, and some, the most daring, were able to live here the whole summer and even planted a vegetable garden. Most of these families - the first settlers were families of priests Nikolo - Kuznetsk Church and the Orthodox St. Tikhon State University. As a joke, they began to call this village not Nikolskoye, but "the village of Popovka".

This neighborhood has changed the life of our church. A new era began in the history of our little church - Nikolskaya. In the Donikolsk era, services were rarely performed, only six or seven times during the summer, no one served in the winter. Only a few families and orphans came to the church. With the beginning of the Nikolskaya era, they began to serve often - every Sunday and all Holidays. Before that, we had never served on Sundays and holidays, because all the priests were newcomers, and on holidays they served at their place. Significantly more people came to the festive and Sunday services. In the summer of 2013, at services on Sundays and holidays, there were more than a hundred communicants alone, and of them more than seventy children. Seeing such an influx of Orthodox Christians, in the "village of Popovka" they decided to build another church, no longer wooden, but stone, and not small, but large - six-altar! - as the main cathedral of a large city. In the summer of 2013, Metropolitan Victor of Tverskoy and Kashinsky laid the foundation stone for this new cathedral.

And the first winter services took place in our church. Father Ivan Vorobyov, the son of Father Vladimir, has been coming to Nikolskoye for two years in a row during school holidays with his class (he is the class teacher at Svyato-Petrovskaya gymnasium) to go skiing with the children. And at this time he serves the night Liturgy with the children. And although this service does not coincide in numbers with the Nativity of Christ, but for our church this is a real Nativity Liturgy, the only one in the year.

Pages of history

The history of our church is part of the thousand-year history of our country. In this story, fifteen years is a small drop in a huge ocean. But a drop, having dissolved in the ocean, feels itself a part of it. The piece of Russian land where our church stands also has an ancient history. It is difficult to see this story through the years and centuries and, perhaps, even not always possible, but some pages of this story come up quite clearly for us.

The place of death of the holy prince Vasilko of Rostov.

The first page of history is from the time of the Tatar-Mongol invasion.

Once, even before the construction of our church, there was a service in the camp in the Camping Church. An old priest from Spassky, Father Nikolai Sergienko, with his son, Priest Vasily, came to serve. It started raining during the service. Towards the end of the liturgy, the rain turned into a continuous downpour, "as if from a bucket." Lilo so that it was not heard the exclamations of the priest from the altar. From the roof-shed of the tent temple, water poured like a wall. The Liturgy ended and the downpour continued unabated. Coming out from under the shed meant getting wet to the skin in a minute. It was necessary to wait for the end of the bad weather. One of the guys turned out to have a book of the lives of the saints - the Tver Patericon. To pass the time, we decided to read the Lives aloud. The first life was about Prince Vasilka of Rostov, the hero of the battle on the City River, who was captured by the Tatars and who refused to fight against the Russians in the Tatar army and accept the Tatar faith, and for this he was brutally murdered.

The chronicle brought to us the image of the young prince: "A handsome face, with bright and formidable eyes, Vasilko was brave, kind-hearted and affectionate with the boyars." He was 28 years old. In Rostov, he left a wife and two sons - Boris and Gleb. The Tatars were so struck by his courage that they did not kill the prince, but took him prisoner and for a long time tried to persuade him to go over to their side. But Vasilko was adamant. As a result, the enraged Tatars cruelly executed the young prince, and the body was thrown in the forest, as the chronicles indicate, 25 versts from Kashin. "

"Isn't this our place?" - one of the guys exclaimed, - “Look, everything fits together. Tatars walked along the roads along the rivers. If you draw a circle with a radius of twenty-five versts from Kashin, then it will intersect with the Volga about here. And our camp is located in the place where the village of Vasilevo used to be. Was it not named after Prince Vasilko? "

While we were reading, the rain stopped and the sun came out. We have not had time to read any more of the lives of this book.

Since then, we have been convinced that the prince, who died heroically, did not renounce the Orthodox faith under the threat of death and did not become a traitor to the Motherland, died in our area. Where exactly - no one knows for sure. But we can honor him as our prince - a hero who accomplished his feat in our places.

We have not yet built a chapel or a monument in honor of Prince Vasilko. But if you remember the feat of the prince and consider him our close saint who perished in our area, then over time there will be a monument and a special prayer commemoration in a church or chapel.

The road of St. Sergius.

The second page of the history of our place is associated with the name of St. Sergius of Radonezh. Everyone who travels from Moscow to our village passes the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra. A little more than a hundred kilometers from us to the Lavra is about three days of walking. As you know, the Monk Sergius did not ride a horse, but walked a lot. He could have been in our area, and that's why.

Even before the construction of the dam in Uglich, when there was still no huge lake - a reservoir that flooded almost the entire city of Kalyazin and many villages and villages, two roads went through our village. One walked along our bank towards Uglich. And from us this road went through the village of Krasnoe, where there is a stone church in honor of St. Sergius. Father Victor Badenkov serves in this church. According to legend, this temple stands on the site of a small wooden church, which was built by the Monk Sergius himself. Father Victor told this story to our priests who visited him.

If the Monk Sergius went from his Trinity monastery to build this church, then he most likely walked along the road through our village, and not through the forests, which at that time were almost impassable. One way or another, but the paths of the monk could pass through our village.

And the second road went to the other bank of the Volga to the village of Priluki, across the ford. In Priluki on the banks of the Volga there is the Church of the Nativity of Christ. Before the revolution in this village there was a courtyard of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra. Is it because this place is also connected with Saint Sergius himself? If the monk could found a church in Krasnoye, then nothing prevented him from visiting Priluki through our village on another road. Perhaps this place is also connected with his activities, otherwise how can one explain the fact that this particular village until the beginning of the twentieth century was the courtyard of the Lavra, and not some other. It is not for nothing that the first priests who served in our small church in the first years of its existence bore the name of Sergius of Radonezh - Fathers Sergius I and Sergius II.

Therefore, we decided to build one of the chapels at our church in honor of our beloved saint - Sergius of Radonezh.

Bells

The story of our bells begins with a shipwreck. When our church was still under construction, a barge carrying scrap metal sank near our village. Apparently it was such an old galosh that it had to be sent for melting together with its load. The hull began to leak, the hold began to fill with water, and the tug boat barely managed to drag it to the shallows near the coast, where the barge sank, but not completely. The old vessel ran aground, the water level was right up to the deck, and a pile of scrap metal on this deck towered over the surface of the water. The barge sank so close to the shore that only the lazy did not visit it. Gradually, the economy of the local residents began to grow with iron from the barge. In a rural economy, every piece of iron can be useful for anything. And there were rumors that one had found an old anvil there, another was a barrel for watering a garden, and a third was a reinforcement for concrete work. The pile of scrap metal gradually decreased. We also decided to go boating to this barge. After the invasion of local residents, it was difficult to find anything needed in the household among the rusty pieces of iron. The stern of the barge went completely under the water and under the water the boys saw the old casings from the engines. They began to indulge in and knock with pieces of iron in these shells. And suddenly it turned out that some casings sound in musical intervals - some in a second, others in a third, and even found sounding in a quarter. By hanging these shells on a string, a simple melody could be played. "Let's make bells out of them!" - suggested Alyosha. The idea was immediately heard, but it was difficult to get the necessary shells out of the water. It was necessary to dive, raise them to the surface, and determine by sound whether they fit or not. They even wanted to leave this venture, but then help suddenly appeared. At the side of the barge, the head of a young guy popped up and said: "Let me help you!" This is how we met Zhorik. Zhorik deftly dived for the shells, handed them up, and we determined by the sound whether or not they were suitable for the belfry. As a result, we took from this barge both the ringing blanks and Zhorik himself, who made friends with our guys and began to visit us often.

We made our first belfry from these blanks and several Valdai bells from our home collection. And they began to call every day before morning and evening prayers, and if a priest came, then before the Divine Liturgy. Separately from the belfry, they also hung a blank, into which they beat, summoning everyone for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The ringing from these blanks would have seemed wonderful to us if there was nothing to compare with. And we had records with recordings of the Rostov ringing and ringing of the Trinity - Sergius Lavra. And after comparison, it began to seem that our melodic blanks rattled like empty cans. They began to dream and pray for real bells.

First, we decided to look for them at the bottom of the Volga. In our village there is a legend that when the old church was blown up in 1939, the locals hid the bells at the bottom of the Volga. We searched everywhere. And they dived and threw the seine, and many times swam with an iron cat at the end of the rope, but the bells were not found. The Volga did not reveal its secrets. And God sent us bells in a completely different way.

In the autumn we came to Moscow for a while. And suddenly in the afternoon - a call. Lena answered the phone. “Is this a family shelter Orphanage? We would like to help you. What do you need first of all? " Lena was not at a loss, and instead of listing endless household needs, she says: “Bells. We have long dreamed of a belfry, but we are ringing blanks. Bells are a very important pedagogical tool in the upbringing of orphans. " The man on the other end of the line asked Lena a little more about our life, and without giving his name, he said goodbye and hung up without promising anything.

The next day, a Mercedes drove up to the entrance of our house and the driver and his assistant unloaded five bells from it - a real belfry. Silently, and without any questions, they raised these bells and carried them to our apartment. To all our questions, they answered one thing: "It is not ordered to speak." After a while, the mysterious stranger called again, saying that this belfry had been picked up by the main bell ringer of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, and this time he promised that another bell, the largest, would come later, when it would be cast and brought to Moscow. He said goodbye, and, again without identifying himself, hung up.

A month later - a call: “They call you from the Moscow mayor's office. You must urgently collect the bell. Come. " Arriving at the indicated address, we saw a bell, along the edge of which the inscription was made in gold ligature: "This bell was cast for the church of St. Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow from the Fomochkin family." I began to ask: "Who is Fomochkin?" "How? Do you know who Fomochkin is? This is the owner of the city hall building. Anatoly Nikolaevich is the head of all technical services of this building. Everyone here knows him. " Since I was already inside this building, which looks like an open book from the outside, having loaded the bell into the car, I did not leave, but went to look for our unknown benefactor in order to thank him for such an invaluable gift for us. And I found it. Anatoly Nikolaevich very cordially and kindly talked to me and said that he could do something else necessary for us. He really helped to do another very important thing for us - to publish a collection of our favorite songs, but that's another story.

We brought the bells to our village, and Kolya the carpenter began urgently to make a belfry at the gulbische near the church.

But this was not the end of our bell story. My elder brother Seryozha also wanted to inscribe our surname in the bell history of our church. For two years he raised money for two more bells for our church, prompting all the brothers in our family to participate in this. When the necessary funds were collected, we ordered these bells from the Anisimov Bell Foundry in the city of Voronezh. The bells were ready for the feast day of our church. But it was very difficult to deliver them to the distant village of Selishchi in the Tver region. Our old friends came to the rescue from the Voronezh Mechanical Plant. Khrunichev. The management of this plant has been helping our shelter with food and honey for several years. And then it coincided. When the bells were already ready, and we didn’t know how to bring them from Voronezh, they called us from the factory and said that they would be able to bring food again. We asked to take the bells too. Everything worked out and the bells were put into the car that was carrying food to us. But no good deed is complete without temptations. So it was this time.

On the day when the bell was to be brought to us, Vladyka Panteleimon, Bishop of Orekhovo-Zuevsky, unexpectedly came to us. We already wanted to meet Vladyka by ringing new bells. The driver called and promised to arrive early in the morning. The service began and suddenly a call: “We drove up to the church, and the church is closed, there is no one. How to be? " And in our church, the service is in full swing, the people are full of the temple, the doors and windows are open, the choir is heard throughout the whole district. “Don't hang up,” I say, “I’ll go out to see you and see your car.” I go out - nobody. I ask: "Where are you?" In bewilderment, I asked for a pipe to this watchman. “Hello, are you the keeper of the temple? Where and what? " - "As where? In the village of Selishchi, Selizharovsky district, Tver region. " It is three hundred kilometers from our village of Selishchi, Kalyazinsky District. The other end of the huge area, and the name of the village is the same. It’s good that we didn’t manage to unload it ... But everything worked out, the driver found our village on the map, lamented, and in the evening reached us.

Now we have a real belfry of eight bells. The only pity is that Vladyka did not hear our new ringing. But maybe he will come someday, and then we will hit "all bad".

When the new bells were brought in, we organized a bell ringing festival. Anyone, like Easter, could call at least the whole day. They decided to make this holiday every year and call it the birthday of the bell ringers.

Myrrh-streaming icons

Every family and every temple has its own especially revered shrines. These shrines are passed down from generation to generation, are overgrown with legends, some are glorified by miracles, with which the Lord strengthens our faith, showing that He is near. There are such shrines in our church, which is only fifteen years old.

When we were preparing for the first service and wanted to decorate our church, we began to collect reproductions of icons. The director of an Orthodox bookstore gave us paper icons for the iconostasis, and we collected icons of saints and holidays from old patriarchal calendars, postcards and magazines. Among these reproductions, we found an icon of St. Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow, after whom our church was named, and inserted it into a homemade frame where there used to be a children's drawing. Thus, at the first service, which was celebrated on July 16, on the feast day of Saint Philip, there was his icon. After the service, this reproduction, the glass and the frame were covered with droplets that had appeared from nowhere, which had a very subtle and pleasant smell. We did not notice this immediately, since no one expected that it was possible, and how these fragrant drops were formed, no one noticed. The next day, the fragrance began to disappear and new drops did not appear. Everyone saw, were surprised and were silent. Curiosity forced the children to come up to the icon all the time and look out for miraculous drops. Father mixed these drops with lamp oil and anointed everyone.

A year has passed. Again on the same day there was a service - the feast day of our church. On the analogion lay already another, also a paper clipping from the calendar with the image of St. Philip, and that first icon was installed in the iconostasis, to the right of the image of the Savior. And again everyone noticed that this new reproduction was also covered with droplets, but now these droplets did not have the subtle scent that emanated from that first icon last year.

Fifteen years have passed since then. Every year in the summer in our church once, some kind of icon was streaming myrrh. But now it was not the sixteenth of July, but on any other day, and no one knew which icon and on what day would be covered with drops of peace. And no one knew whether this miracle would happen again.

Once, while reading the Six Psalms, an unconsecrated reproduction of the Monk Ambrose of Optina burst into tears, enclosed in an ordinary file and placed on a lectern. At that moment I was reading the Six Psalms in front of the analogue and suddenly I saw a tear flow from the eye of the icon. After the service, our parishioners photographed this crying icon and even filmed it. And once the icon began to stream myrrh, not in a church, but in a hospital. Our boy Tisha fell from the church porch during the service and broke the radius of his left hand. He was urgently taken to the hospital. He managed to grab a small icon of the Monk Seraphim of Sarov with his good hand. The next morning, this icon in the hospital was covered with large oily drops. The fracture healed without a trace and with this hand Tisha is now playing the violin.

For our small church, this miraculous flow of myrrh is to some extent similar to the descent of the Holy Fire. We do not know with which icon this miracle will happen, on what day, and whether it will happen ever again. But until now it happened every year.

Last year, a cardboard icon of the Kazan Mother of God, presented to our church by Father Leonid Beresnev, the confessor of the Tver diocese, was streaming myrrh, and it was also only one day - July 21st. Father Vladimir Vorobyov, the rector of PSTGU, who served in our church that day, was a witness to this.

None of us comments on this miracle. Not "from anything", not "for anything," not "why." It's just that the Lord is near, and everyone can see it.

Will this miracle happen again sometime? But what we have witnessed is the history of our temple. And the myrrh-streaming icons are our shrines.

Crimean icon

The events that took place in Crimea and Ukraine united our entire country in an effort to help people in trouble and under the threat of terror, who felt their impunity for fascist nationalists. Everything was happening rapidly, and every next day we expected news even worse than today and yesterday. The Crimea rebelled against the self-styled and corrupt rulers of Ukraine. People were ready to fight to the death. The bandits were ready to kill. It seemed that a war in Crimea was inevitable. We watched all the news, and wanted to help the Crimeans at least in some way. But how can a small orphanage in central Russia help those who expect an attack a thousand kilometers away every day?

Not long before all these events, we read a book about the icons of the Mother of God. About how the Russian people at critical moments in their history turned to the Queen of Heaven with a request for intercession and were always heard. So it was during the invasions of khans, Poles, French, German fascists. Ours walked in the procession with the Vladimir icon from Vladimir to Moscow, with the Kazan icon went into battle with the Poles, defeated the French with the Smolensk icon, with the Tikhvin icon of the Mother of God flew around Moscow on an airplane when the Nazis stood near Moscow.

The day of the Crimean referendum was approaching, and we decided to send our icon of the Mother of God - Cover on the Waters to Crimea. We decided to write such an icon for our chapel, built on water, in the middle of the Volga River two years ago, and only in the summer Tanya Meretskova finished painting this icon, and Ilya Meretskov brought this icon to our church. In this icon, the Mother of God stands not on the clouds, but on the water and holds Her Cover over everyone who is surrounded by the waters, who floats on a ship or boat, or lives on the banks of a river or sea. Our temple and our House of Orphans are located on the very bank of the Volga, next to a huge water element, which is often unpredictable and dangerous, and therefore we wanted to paint such an icon.

The icon, painted by Tanya, was specially painted for the chapel on the water and was quite large, so that only two people could lift it. It was not possible to send such a large icon to the Crimea. Then they decided to urgently write a new icon of this size that you can take with you on the plane. There were only a few days left before the referendum. It was necessary to be in time. Ira Volkonskaya agreed to write a new icon of the Pokrov on the Waters. We have been friends with Irina for many years. When she found out that our family had organized the Orphanage, after a while Irina also adopted a boy from an orphanage with a diagnosis of cerebral palsy and became an employee of our shelter. Ira is an icon painter. She had already painted icons for our church, and when an icon was urgently needed for the Crimea, we asked Ira to paint it. She gave up all her affairs and in one night wrote Pokrov on the waters for the Crimea. But how to deliver this icon to Crimea, and be in time before the referendum?

We called Father Alexander Saltykov, dean of the icon-painting faculty of the Orthodox St. Tikhon State University, and told him about our icon for Crimea, and asked, if possible, to help send this icon to Crimea. At first, they thought to send the icon to Father Valery Boyarintsev, an old friend of Father Alexander, who serves in Crimea. But it turned out that no one could go to Father Valery. Then Father Alexander began to call all his acquaintances who could help in this matter. It became known that Father Vitaly Sergienko was going to fly to Crimea on the eve of the referendum. But Father Alexander could not get through to him - Father Vitaly's phone was disconnected. And suddenly Father Vitaly himself called Father Alexander and said that in an hour he would fly to Simferopol from Sheremetyevo and was ready to take the icon and hand it over to Father Dmitry Bondarenko, the confessor of the Black Sea Fleet. If, of course, they manage to give him this icon. Father Alexander called me back immediately. I was in Moscow, the icon I had just painted was with me, and the minute Father Alexander called me and gave me the phone number of Father Vitaly, I ran to the meeting, since it was almost impossible to make it in time. I ran all the way, along the escalator - up at the crossings, jumped at a run into the closing doors of the carriages, and half a minute before the express was sent to Sheremetyevo I managed to give the icon to Father Vitaly. He took her to the Crimea.

What I did was a small miracle, because I could not catch the express train at Sheremetyevo, or rather, I did not believe that I would be in time, but ran at random to fulfill my duty. If Father Alexander had called me half a minute later, I would not have had time.

A few days later, a real great miracle happened - Crimea reunited with Russia without a single shot.

The further fate of this icon is not known to me.

In memory of heroes, led and unknown

One of the chapels built next to our church is dedicated to the memory of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. Our young builders built it in five days - they were in a hurry for the feast day. The memory of the past is one of the most important components of our educational work. They say that an apple does not fall far from an apple tree. This is of course true. And some think about orphans that the children of alcoholics, criminals, or simply, for some reason, parents who died early, do not deserve a better fate than their parents. Refers to the strength of a genetic predisposition. Well, how do they know about a genetic predisposition? Perhaps the boy's father was an alcoholic or a thief, and his grandfather or great-grandfather were saints or heroes who laid down their lives for their faith and fatherland. How do we know? A holy great-grandfather can pray to God for his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. If only they remembered the feat of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers. In the last century in the history of our people there were two great sacrificial feats. As they said - "massive" feat. This is the feat of the New Martyrs, who did not betray their faith and the Church in the face of torment and death, and the military feat of many soldiers who gave their lives and health for our Motherland, for its freedom from fascism. These two greatest feats determined the future destiny of Russia, our destiny.

“There is no such family in Russia where its hero would not be remembered ...” - the song says. These heroes are guided and unknown to us. Among them, there are probably the ancestors of our pupils. We cannot know this for certain - with the mind, but we can find out by faith and hope. This year, the guys and I want to install two commemorative plaques next to the chapel of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. One with the names of those innocently repressed during the years of persecution of the Church, and the other with the names of the participants in the Great Patriotic War. Our guys may not know the names of their ancestors, but they can hope that there were unknown heroes among them. But we can preserve the memory of those ascetics whose names are remembered by their relatives who now live in our district.

During the war years, commemorative plaques were erected in honor of those killed at the front, in cemeteries near hospitals, where the wounded died at the front or at mass graves. After the war, monuments were erected to those who did not return from the war. In our time, it is necessary to honor the memory of all who innocently suffered for their faith and fidelity to their vocation given by God, and all who defended the Motherland in a hard time.

We decided to interview all people living in the area and find out the names of their heroic ancestors. Such work can again stir up a wave of national memory and attract people to unite, at least for a joint church commemoration of their ancestors - heroes. The unknown grandfathers and great-grandfathers of our pupils will undoubtedly be glad of this. We believe that the ancestors of our children were also heroes. This faith can play a decisive role in the fate of our orphans.

FOREWORD

June 8, 2012 on the day of commemoration of the uncovering of the relics of the Monk Makarii Kalyazinsky, Metropolitan Victor celebrated the Divine Liturgy and on the eve of the All-night Vigil in the White Trinity Cathedral in Tver, where the relics of the Monk Makarii Kalyazinsky are located.

Here is how one of the pilgrims described this event in her diary: “The White Trinity returned from the Cathedral, where the relics of St. Macarius. The All-Night Vigil in honor of the uncovering of the saint's relics (1521) was led by His Eminence Victor, Metropolitan of Tver and Kashinsky, co-served by 9 priests. Near the relics of the saint and the icon, placed in the center of the church, closer to the solea, there are luxurious bouquets of roses. I'm glad for Kalyazin - such a great holiday! "

OFFICIAL SITE OF THE VLADIMIR CHURCH OF THE TVER DIOCHY 9.06.2012. published the message "TVER SEEKS THE MONUMENT MAKARIUM OF KALYAZINSKY".

Tomorrow Tver will solemnly escort the relics of the Monk Makarii, Abbot of Kalyazinsky, miracle worker to the place of his monastic labors in Kalyazin.

Parting isn't always easy. But let us rejoice for the inhabitants of a small regional town on the Volga, who are acquiring such a relic, for all who fervently prayed for the return of the Monk Macarius, who worked for this, who would come to meet him, and who would come to see him off.

The church has established a green color for liturgical vestments on the feast days of the reverend fathers. The clergy will put on green robes. And the ground has already been embellished - fresh greenery on the trees, grass underfoot.

The visible deeds and prayerful labors of Archpriest Yevgeny Morkovin, Dean of the Kimr District, and Archpriest Leonid Beresnev, Rector of the Vvedensky Church in Kalyazin, and the efforts of the townspeople, brought the time of the return of the Kalyazin Abbot closer.

From the official website of the Tver Metropolitanate:

- June 10, 2012 Within the framework of the XIV Volga religious procession at the end of the Divine Liturgy, which was led by Metropolitan of Tver and Kashinsky Viktor in the White Trinity Cathedral in Tver, an important event took place in the life of the Tver diocese - from here began the transfer of the relics of the Monk Makarii Kalyazinsky from Tver to his homeland in the city of Tver. Kalyazin, to the temple of the Ascension of the Lord.

Many residents of the city of Tver came to venerate the Monk Makarii on this day and to escort the shrine with the holy relics along the central streets of the city to the pier of the River Station. The Volga religious procession with the relics of the Monk Makarii of Kalyazinsky and the Nizhny Novgorod shrine - the ark with a particle of the relics of the Monk Seraphim of Sarov - set off down the Volga along the established route.

GREAT EVENT IN KALYAZIN

What happened has surpassed all expectations! Probably, this is a long-awaited good miracle, which our long-suffering Kalyazin land is worthy. The reverend patron saint of these places, the miracle worker Macarius returned to our homeland with his imperishable relics!

Since 1988, they have stayed in the White Trinity Cathedral in Tver, and this year (which is the Year of History for the whole country), by decision of Metropolitan of Tver and Kashinsky Viktor, they were handed over to us at the request of believers and the Kalyazin community. Not just an event, but a great rarity, great joy!

June 14 in the early morning hour, the believers gathered in the village of Nikitskoe to meet pilgrims of the Procession during its traditional stop in this cozy corner on the banks of the Volga, which is gaining more and more spiritual strength every year. Openwork bell ringing greeted guests from the shore, who had come a long way from the source of the Volga. Shrines - particles of relics and icons of the Monk Makarii Kalyazinsky and Seraphim of Sarov were installed in front of the chapel of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, and were able to bow them during the prayer service. Among the greeters were the head of the district K.G. Ilyin with his colleagues, the head of the administration of the Alferovskoye rural settlement O.R. Kudryashova, villagers, Honorary citizens of the region, workers in various fields and children.

By an unusually important coincidence, it was on this day that the rector of the Church of the Ascension, where the relics of Macarius were transferred, Archpriest Leonid Beresnev turned 75 years old. This person, an honorary resident of the area, put so much of his work to make this event happen that such a gift became really deserved and the most dear for him. Here, at the chapel, he was congratulated by the participants of the procession, residents of Kalyazin.

Traditionally, the procession on the water continued on its way, the next stop of which was the birthplace of the Monk Makarii - the village of Kozhino, in the Kashinsky region.

He told about how they met the shrine and the guests Yaroslav Leontiev , headman of the Kashin-Kalyazin community, coordinator of the first Makariev readings in Kalyazin:

- In the village of Kozhino, pilgrims were greeted by residents of Kashin, the leadership of the Kashinsky region, the abbess of Klobukova in the Nikolaevsky monastery, mother Abbess Barbara and sisters, as well as the only resident of the village of Kozhino, mother Fomaida. A prayer service was performed at the church, after which everyone was able to venerate the relics of the Monk Macarius, who had once departed from these places on his long prayer path. It was a warm, quivering meeting.

During its journey, the 14th Volga Religious Procession covered four dioceses: Tverskaya and Kashinskaya, Rzhevskaya and Toropetskaya, Bezhetskaya and Vesyegonskaya and partially Moscow, passed through 14 districts, visited many cities and towns. And then came its final stage. By 16 o'clock in the afternoon, hundreds of Kalyazin residents, numerous guests, the clergy gathered at the pier of the Kalyazin yacht club. As soon as the boat "Fortuna", decorated with images of icons of the life of Makarii Kalyazinsky, with a shrine on board appeared in the river bay, bells rang on the Ascension Church. The joy of the meeting overwhelmed the hearts and looks of those who were waiting on the shore. "What a joy!", "Kalyazin waited!", "The relics are arriving!" - heard an enthusiastic whisper in the crowd of people. According to the old Russian tradition, the long-awaited guests were greeted with bread and salt - Vladyka Victor and the pilgrims. The relics in a portable reliquary were carried ashore and immediately, without delay, all the participants lined up for the procession. People parted to the sides. Past this long living corridor, the monk took his first steps along the Kalyazin land! Welcome back! People were baptized; many had tears in their eyes. But the stormy summer sky did not allow itself to darken this meeting with a single drop of rain ...

The path from the pier to the temple was accompanied by an incessant bell ringing, and the road to the great shrine was covered with petals of white and red roses, which were scattered by young residents of Kalyazin, walking in front of the procession. The petals were enough for the entire long journey, because several dozen children from summer camps collected them specially for the event. Everyone was united by this meeting! This was evident both during the preparation and during the mass procession, the long tail of which stretched along the entire street. The closer we got to the church, the more the feeling of tremulous joy grew - now the Monk Macarius will find himself in his church!

And the temple was simply magnificent. Fresh flowers and garlands of them are everywhere: in the canopy for relics, near the icons, on the windows, under the arches ... New iconostases and crayfish shone with fresh gilding. So much work was invested in preparing the temple for this major day. Remembering what ruins were here some fifteen years ago, I can't even believe what the church has become now.

People quickly filled the entire space of the temple, the choir did not stop singing. The relics were installed in the very center, and it began evening worship... He was headed by Metropolitan of Tver and Kashinsky Victor ... Everything was very solemn and majestic. But at the end of the service, the prayer did not stop sounding until the morning of the next day - the second day of the celebrations. Throughout the night, a prayer stand was held in the church with the reading of the akathist to the Monk Makarii of Kalyazinsky. Ten priests from the Kimr and Kalyazin regions served alternately; some came to the service with their clergy. People also changed, but the temple was not empty. Believers registered in advance in order to be assigned by the hour and to perform prayers in honor of their saint all night long. At this time, a special atmosphere reigned in the temple: the light was dimmed, candles were burning, from time to time the worshipers got down on their knees, and at the end of each service they applied to the relics.

On this bright night it was unusually quiet, the sunset over the Volga slowly turned into dawn, the first rays of the sun appeared over the Monastyrsky Island, where the Procession of the Cross will go in the coming day ... To the very heart of the lost holy monastery.

On the morning of June 15 the temple was again filled with residents of Kalyazin and guests who arrived on the main holiday; liturgy was led by Metropolitan Victor... Now there was a lot of light and jubilation here for the glory of the Russian Orthodox Church and its saints, one of whom returned to his historical homeland.

Near the temple there is a monument to Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky - the great Russian commander, defender of the Trinity Makarievsky monastery in the Time of Troubles. The residents of Kalyazin and the guests laid flowers at the monument to this young hero, and after that they moved to the monument to the Monk Macarius in the old part of the city of Kalyazin, where a solemn meeting was held dedicated to the transfer of relics and the completion of the procession.

The relics were installed in front of the monument, on both sides he was surrounded by children - all dressed in white, with white balloons in their hands. The participants in the procession stood on the bottom side of the square, the priesthood on the other.

The ceremony was opened by the head of the Kalyazinsky region Konstantin Ilyin ... On this special, historical day, he spoke about the great significance of the event for all Kalyazin people. From the bottom of his heart he expressed gratitude to Metropolitan Victor for his decision and such a gift.

Lord also addressed the large audience. He noted that 30 years ago and could not have imagined that such an event could occur. During the years of renunciation, even the priests had little hope of restoring their former spirituality in people, let alone the support of state power. But recently it has shown that Russia is strong and faith in its people is strong. The return to spiritual origins can be traced in the best way possible on the example of little Kalyazin, in which the very heart was destroyed - the Trinity Monastery - the monastery of St. Macarius. Believers, ascetics, with the support of local authorities, have done a lot here to make this city again the Orthodox center of the Upper Volga region, and the Lord showed him great mercy in returning the relics of the heavenly patron. Vladyka noted that he had fulfilled his promise; and after 23 years of waiting, the residents of Kalyazin met their dear, long-suffering shrine. He wished: "May Saint Macarius, as in ancient times, be the defender of Russia, may he not abandon all of us in his prayers and intercede for us before the throne of God!".

These sincere words deeply touched everyone who came to this sunny day for a great holiday.

Archpriest Pavel Sorochinsky addressed everyone with congratulations and summed up the results of the 14th Volga Religious Procession. The guest of the holiday, the representative of the trustees of the Religious Procession - the "KSK" company - Alexander Bulychev .

Emotionally strong and very correct was the presentation of the teacher of the city primary school in Kalyazin Irina Nikolaeva ... She said: “We live in an amazing place, consecrated by the prayers of so many great saints: Macarius Kalyazinsky, Anna Kashinsky, Sergius of Radonezh, Tsarevich Dmitry, Paisy Uglichsky, Irinarkh Zatvornik. These are holy places, holy Russia. Think about it, no country has ever been called that. Throughout history, we have not heard the words holy England, holy France, holy America ... And Russia was and remains a saint. And our ancestors confirmed this "... Irina Petrovna called this day the beginning of a new stage of spiritual revival in the life of Kalyazin and dedicated the following lines of poetry to him:

Today is a holiday in my city:

The heavenly patron has returned to us.

I think we all realize

That we need to be spiritually awakened.

Feel where is evil and where is good,

And try to live according to the commandments of God.

And realize how lucky we are all -

To live in Russia and be called Russian!

And keep the Orthodox faith,

As our ancestors bequeathed to us forever.

And only then will Russia live,

What would her enemies not plan for it?.

Then the holiday continued awards ceremony... Diocesan awards - Medals of St. Simeon - the First Bishop of Tver and Bishops' letters for diligent labors to the glory of the Holy Church were awarded to those people who made a special contribution to the revival of faith on our Kalyazin land, the restoration of churches, in particular, the Church of the Ascension and the preparation of the transfer of relics Makariy Kalyazinsky. These were donors from other cities: S.V. Zuev, A.N. Fomochkin, D.V. Yakovenko, A.M. Roitman, A.L. Nabatov, G.V. Rauschenbach, A.A. Zaikin, I.N. Gubin, and also residents of Kalyazin: K.G. Ilyin, Archpriest Leonid Beresnev, S.N. Kruglov, A.V. Zemlyakov, A.A. Kolosov, L.V. Panin. The awards were presented by the Metropolitan of Tver and Kashinsky Victor.

Triumph of the Orthodox Faith continued by those who carry it to the future - our children... To the song “One hundred holy churches” performed by the vocal ensemble “Do-mi-sol-ka”, the kids from kindergartens released white balloons into the sky as a symbol of the purity and holiness of our heavenly patron, and the motto “Makariy Kalyazinsky - the patron of the Russian land ”. Laying flowers at the foot of the monument to Macarius, the procession went to the banks of the Volga to sail on a motor ship to the Monastyrskiy Islands. The saint's relics were carried across the island and installed near the chapel tower, built here as a sign of the possible revival of the Trinity Monastery. Vladyka Victor served a prayer service. Pilgrims once again paid tribute to the memory of this sacred place, that after the Volga waters keeps in itself a rich history with all its tragic pages.

Returning from the island Procession continued the march through the city and returned the shrine to the Temple of the Ascension. From now on, she will stay in an oak shrine under the canopy in the chapel of Makariy Kalyazinsky for the joy of prayer for local believers and all pilgrims. I couldn't believe it, but it happened. Who knows, perhaps over time, the Lord will help to accomplish another miracle - the revival of the Trinity Makaryevsky Monastery.

The final point of the 14th Volga Religious Procession in Kalyazin was the traditional festival of sacred and secular music. It took place in an open area in Victory Park. Before the concert, the guests and participants of the procession laid flowers at the obelisk to the soldiers who fell during the Great Patriotic War.

During the grand opening of the festival, the head of the district K.G. Ilyin. On behalf of the Governor of the Tver Region A.V. Shevelev was greeted by A.V. Gagarin. Representative of the Sergiev Posad district of the Moscow region S. B. Tostanovsky presented to the rector of the Church of the Ascension Fr. Leonid the icon of Sergius of Radonezh. Metropolitan of Tver and Kashinsky Viktor thanked the people of Kalyazin for the warm welcome and hospitality. He reminded everyone of the words of St. Sergius of Radonezh, spoken during the Battle of Kulikovo, - "Only through unity and love will we be saved!" These words are consonant with the motto with which the current Religious Procession passed along the Verny Volga - "From peace in the soul to harmony in civil society!"

Participants of the festival - from Kalyazin, Kimr, Moscow - presented their creative performances to the audience. From Kalyazin they were: Oksana Abramova, vocal group at the regional library "Do-mi-sol-ka", Vika Fedorova, ensemble "School Years".

So these two days passed - historical for modern Kalyazin. The fate of this city reflects the fate of our entire Russia. Historically significant events took place here, decisive battles in the Time of Troubles, the names of great ancestors are associated with this corner of the Russian land. Here, as in all of Russia, during the years of the godless Troubles, temples and churches were destroyed, and the Kalyazin bell tower, which stands in the middle of the Volga, became the symbol of this desecration. The long-suffering Russian land revives with faith that unites people. The event that took place here these days is a vivid evidence of this. From now on, residents of Kalyazin must live worthy of this great mercy of God and continue their path to the Orthodox faith. It was time for us to atone for the sins of our ancestors. The monk returned to Kalyazin, which means that we received forgiveness to some extent.

Reverend our Father Macarius, pray to God for us!

Yana Sonina

Faith and Time