Peredelkino Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord Elder. “The main thing is to live like a Christian” Elder Elijah about ISIS, the simplicity of Russian people and the correct understanding of life

Eldership in Russia, as a phenomenon, stands apart from other religious phenomena. The founder of the Russian eldership is traditionally considered to be the holy Venerable Paisius Velichkovsky (1722-1794), who labored on Mount Athos and in Moldovala, today's Romania. The heyday of eldership came in the nineteenth century, when such islands burned brightly in many monasteries in Russia - in the Vvedenskaya Optina Hermitage, on Solovki, in the Sarov, Glinskaya, Sanaksar Hermitages, the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, the Pskov-Pechersk Monastery, the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, etc. .d. Moreover, gradually the purely monastic tradition of spiritual care began to embrace the laity. The image of senile service developed by Rev. Ambrose, already meant broad instruction and people sometimes completely far from Orthodoxy.
Gradually, elders began to appear who did not belong to monasticism at all. The most famous of these elders is Fr. Alexy Mechev (1859-1923), priest of the Moscow Church of St. Nicholas in Klenniki. There is a general belief that an elder is an old wise monk or priest who, through deep personal communication with any person, easily penetrates into his inner world, immediately and accurately identifies his problems, sore spots, illuminates them with the light of his Christian love and suggests ways their solutions, while also healing. Spiritual nourishment and miracles are changing places, and if previously the gifts of seership, healing, etc. were secondary and not obligatory, now they are sometimes considered a priority even in the church environment. Well, everything is logical, when there is no faith in God, it is replaced by faith in miracles...
However, in Soviet times there were practically no elders. The picture is similar now...
Of the indisputable current single authorities, the last of the Mohicans recognized by all, there remains Schema-Archimandrite Iliy (Nozdrin), whom I managed to visit yesterday. Well, first things first...
The best biography of Father Elijah can be read at the link http://derjava-rusi.narod.ru/simplelii.html, here is also the most successful photograph of the priest - neither add nor subtract. That is what he is, old, frail, hunchbacked, but what spiritual power, what look “as one having power”, truly, as the Lord said to Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.”
Confessor of the Optina Hermitage and the Patriarchal Metochion, confessor of both patriarchs - Alexy II and the current Kirill. Getting to him is not entirely easy, but it is quite possible. Father Elijah periodically either in Optina Desert (249723, Kaluga region, Kozelsk, Optina Pustyn monastery. Website http://www.optina.ru/), or in the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord of the Patriarchal Metochion in Peredelkino (Moscow, Lazenki 7th St., 42, GPS coordinates N 55.657300° E 37.347000°, website www.spas-pr.ru).
In the age of the Internet, a person cannot disappear; there was information from friends that two weeks ago Father Elijah was seen on Mount Athos. There were two options left - Optina and Peredelkino, but this was no longer Greece, it was easier. So, as I was on my way to visit a friend in Aprelevka, and Peredelkino is not that far away, I decided to stop by for good luck... On weekdays at 7.30 a.m. the Divine Liturgy is served in the Church of the Transfiguration. Finishes around 9.15-9.30. After this, the priest has breakfast for an hour, rests, and from 10.30 receives visitors in the fraternal building - a two-story house to the left of the temple.
Like everywhere else in Russia, it’s a mess (it would be strange if it were otherwise). Admirers of the priest, like a Swedish wedge, are breaking into the narrow doors of a small room on the ground floor of the building. And here a colorful character appears on the front line - the priest’s cell attendant Georgy Bogomolov. His trumpet voice drowns out all the sounds that are careless to break in here, “the muzzled hero with a ponytail” (as one parishioner described him) begins the primary sorting by gender - women and children pass first, then men. The lucky ones are seated on both sides of a long table, gradually moving to one chair as the line moves. The rest are standing in the corridor and on the street. The priest sits at the side of the table in a low chair. The person who comes up kneels in front of him or sits on a nearby chair and tells him his problems for a few minutes, then Father Eli answers him and gives him several brochures or a book, CDs, after which the next one takes his place. People breathing down their necks and eloquent glances, coupled with a fraternal pat on the shoulder of the cell attendant George, are the main drivers of this human flow. (http://www.znamenye.ru/index.php?name=gallery&op=cat&cid=133)
While the people of God are waiting for their turn, they thoroughly learn the entire difficult biography of Georgy - the fact that he spent 11 years in Optina, and that at one time he commanded a regiment (!) of the Airborne Forces, and that he headed the gambling business of the Rossiya Hotel and several others and that he has one son in the Prosecutor General’s Office, and the other is the chief doctor of the oncology center, it was especially often repeated that he is from the Circassian Cossacks and is cool with all the “black-assed”. All this was interspersed with Christian passages about the sinfulness of all those who came in large numbers and proposals for everyone to leave the premises in connection with the necessary urgent departure to their parishes. Despite the comical nature of the situation, behind all this narcissistic cackling, his comprehensive, kind of filial love for his father was obvious. It was amazing to watch how this obese hero on tiptoe ran up to the priest in the blink of an eye when he called him and instantly carried out his instructions, communicating at the same time in a surprisingly quiet voice. One could see the condescending-loving attitude (condescending not in the sense of condescension, but precisely as condescending towards weaknesses) of the priest himself, just as sometimes a mother looks at her beloved, excessively naughty child...
With all this, George periodically gave rather mature instructions when they read aloud a spiritual book, which he gave to those who came to read “for obedience.” An amazing picture was created - a book was being read in the bustle and noise, periodically interrupted by George’s lyrical digressions, and at this time in the corner the confessor and Father Eli were whispering in each other’s ears. It’s strange, but it all seemed somehow natural, organic or something, as if it was supposed to be this way.
We heard various amazing things about Father Elijah from eyewitnesses standing in line. He told the woman standing in front to take her sick husband from their church to the fraternal building - he would be the first to receive him, and at the same time called him by name, although he had never seen either him or her. Another woman said that she and her daughter came to him for advice about marriage. The girl was over thirty and one decent and not poor, but unloved man proposed to her. She was hesitant to get married or not. Father Eli said that this was not her man and advised that they go to such and such a village to such and such a house. For a couple of days they kept discussing the wonderful order, and then (what have we got to lose!) they went. Some grandfather opened the gate, and, having heard everything, decided that they were some kind of crazy, and called the grandmother. None of them had ever heard of Father Elijah. They invited them into the house, and there were two brothers there. This girl married one of them 3 months later. Now they already have a child, she’s happy...
I only got to Father Elijah on the second day... There were too many people on the first day, I see I can’t fit in. On the second day I went already in company, apparently God so decided that I should work as a red agitator and bring Elijah and my acquaintances to Father, to whom I went...
I gave him a pre-revolutionary book with a library stamp from the Optina Monastery about the monastery charter of Nile of Sorsky (at one time he bought it on molotke.ru). Father Eli immediately opened it to the biography of the Nile and began to read to me. Then he said, I’ll read it and take it to the library in the desert, they need more there...
Perhaps the most amazing thing is not what he said that I have two children (a boy and a girl), although I did not tell him this, but precisely the feeling of some kind of extraordinary “pitying love” that embraces you, a complete stranger, whom after your confessions and to love something, by and large, for nothing... This is an amazing, incomparable feeling, this feeling of powerful energy that cannot be rationally described, emanating from this frail, sick and old man, so dear and why - then immediately beloved. This, probably, is Christ’s love... I want to sit and sit next to this amazing person and also, these unusually soft warm hands that touch your head. “Well, don’t sin anymore! Try!”..
Pray to God for us, Father Eli!!! And stay with us, we really need you and your prayers!

P.S. Georgy gave me his cell phone, but since it was already posted on the Internet, I think I won’t do anything wrong by giving a link to it (http://www.znamenye.ru/index.php?name=pages&op=page&page_id=63) , it will be possible to at least find out where the priest is, after all, driving into the unknown is not easy for everyone... Georgy is a person who loves himself and therefore is very active - he is also on Facebook

The main difference between a true confessor and others who are only trying to be like the elder is wisdom and humility. One of the most famous and mysterious representatives of the Russian clergy, who has become the symbol of the oldest monastic monastery in Russia - Optina Monastery, as well as the personal spiritual mentor of the Russian Patriarch Kirill, is Elder Eli. This man is a rare example of a light, sublime and pure state of mind. That is why hundreds of people from all over the country seek meetings with him every day.

Who are the elders?

Each person goes through life in his own way. In order not to stray from the right path, not to fall into the abyss, he needs someone who will indicate a landmark, will not let him get lost, and at the right moment will support and guide him on the right path. Since time immemorial in Rus', elders have been such helpers. They were respected and feared at the same time, because they are followers of the ancient Russian magi, who absorbed the Great Wisdom with the blood of their ancestors. Many elders possessed the gift of prediction and healing, but the main goal of a real elder is to know the revelation of God and spiritually help those in need.

Elder Eli: biography

Iliy (in the world - Alexey Afanasyevich Nozdrin) was born in 1932 into a large peasant family in the village of Stanovoy Kolodez, Oryol region. His father, Afanasy, was seriously wounded during the Patriotic War in 1942 and died in hospital. Mother, Klavdia Vasilievna, raised four children alone. After graduating from school in 1949, Alexey completed military service in the army. In 1955, he entered the Serpukhov Mechanical College, and after graduating in 1958, he was assigned to the Volgograd region to build a cotton mill in the city of Kamyshin. But not finding himself in, he decided to devote his life to God, enrolling in the Theological Seminary of the city of Saratov. In 1961, due to Khrushchev’s persecution and pressure on the church, the seminary was closed, and Alexey was forced to move to Leningrad, where he continued his studies at the Theological Academy and was tonsured as a monk with the name Ilian.

Since 1966, he served as abbot at the Pskov-Pechersk Monastery, and in 1976 he was sent to serve as obedient to the monastery of the Russian great martyr Panteleimon on Holy Mount Athos in Greece. There, the future Elder Eli lived in a mountain monastery and became a priest in the Panteleimon Monastery. At the end of the 1980s, he was recalled back to the USSR and sent to the restored Optina Pustyn, which had been deserted for the past 65 years. Here Ilian accepted the great schema, which provided for complete alienation from the world for reunification with God, and also took monastic vows with the name Eli.

Over the next 20 years, he revived the elder ministry in the monastery, which ultimately returned Optina Pustyn to its former greatness. In 2009, Elder Eli was appointed confessor to the Patriarch of All Rus' Kirill and moved to his residence in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra in the village of Peredelkino, Moscow region. In April 2010, on the Easter holiday, the elder was elevated by the Patriarch to the rank of schema-archimandrite.

History of the monastery

Optina Pustyn is an Orthodox monastery for men, located two kilometers from the city of Kozelsk in. According to ancient legend, the monastery was founded at the turn of the 14th-15th centuries by the repentant robber Opta (or Optius), who took monasticism under the name Macarius. The Optina monastery served as a haven for elders and elders, living in separate buildings of the monastery, but under the spiritual guidance of one abbot. The first mentions of this monastery can be found in the scribe books of Kozelsk dating back to the reign of Boris Godunov.

At the beginning of the 18th century, Optina Pustyn experienced difficult times due to constant taxes to the state for the war with the Swedes and the construction of St. Petersburg, and in 1724 it was completely abolished according to the Spiritual Regulations and annexed to the Transfiguration Monastery, located in the neighboring city of Belev. Two years later, the monastery was restored, and construction of new churches began on its territory, which continued until the beginning of the twentieth century.

Optina became one of the largest spiritual Orthodox centers in Russia; pilgrims and sufferers were drawn to it from all sides, some of whom settled in the skete, built in 1821. As donations came in, the monastery acquired land and a mill.

In 1918, Optina Pustyn was closed according to the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, and in 1939, on the territory of the monastery, by order of L. Beria, a concentration camp was organized for five thousand Polish soldiers, who were later shot in Katyn. From 1944 to 1945 a filtration camp for Soviet officers returning from captivity was located here.

Optina Pustyn today

Only in 1987 did the Soviet government transfer the monastery to the Russian Orthodox Church. From that moment on, active restoration of the monastery began - both material and spiritual. The ideologist and coordinator of the restoration of the Optina Monastery is Elder Eli. It was thanks to this man that the monastery regained its glory as the largest center of Orthodoxy and pilgrimage. Its unique energy and the beauty of its temples attract thousands of pilgrims and tourists from all over the world. There are 7 operating churches on the territory of the monastery:

• Vvedensky Cathedral is the main temple of the monastery;
• Church of John the Baptist and Baptist of the Lord in St. John the Baptist Skete;
• Temple of St. Hilarion the Great;
• icons of the Mother of God;
• Temple of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God;
• Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord;
• Temple of the Icon of the Mother of God “Spreader of the Loaves.”

Peredelkino

The holiday village of Peredelkino is located in the nearest railway stations - "Peredelkino" and "Michurinets". The town is famous not only for the monastery and Elder Elijah, but also for the fact that famous writers and artists lived and worked there at one time. Among them are Alexander Fadeev, Bella Akhmadulina, Valentin Kataev, Bulat Okudzhava, who also held his famous bonfires here, where Rina Zelenaya, Arkady Raikin, Sergei Obraztsov performed. The house-museums of Okudzhava, Pasternak, Chukovsky and Yevtushenko are located here.

How to get to the monastery?

Considering that Optina Pustyn is located near the Peredelkino and Kozelsk railway stations, getting to it by rail will not be difficult. Electric trains run from Kievsky Station in Moscow in the direction of Kaluga or Sukhinichi. You can also get to Kozelsk by bus from the Teply Stan metro station.

Car owners, given the current abundance of various navigation systems and maps, will also not have any particular problems finding the right path. But if getting to the monastery is not a tricky matter, then how to get to Elder Elijah for an appointment is a completely different question. Before setting off for this purpose, you should find out in advance about the daily routine at the monastery, as well as the reception schedule.

If God wills

Many people want Elder Iliy (Peredelkino) to talk to them. “How to get an appointment with the elder and will he accept?” - these are the main questions of visiting pilgrims. Of course, the schema-archimandrite will not be able to satisfy all those who suffer, but, as local monks say, if God wills it, the meeting will definitely take place. Usually Elder Elijah receives people in the refectory before lunch, where those who have arrived are seated at tables, and the line moves around these tables. If people make noise in line or argue, he will personally disperse or reconcile the guests.

Closer to 16 o'clock, the elder retires to rest, and when he returns and whether he will return on this day, only the Lord knows. The monastery has its own Internet resource (www. optina.ru), where you can find out where Elder Elijah is now and when the next reception will take place.

The Power of Prayer

It is believed to have double power because it is the prayer of an enlightened one. They say that if he prays for the repose of the soul, then the soul of a sinner can even be freed from hellish captivity. An amazing incident also occurred in Optina Pustyn. One day, a soldier who was seriously wounded in Chechnya was brought to Elijah’s monastery. The doctors did not know how to save the soldier and did not dare to operate, since he was unconscious and the bullet was a few millimeters from his heart. Elder Elijah’s prayer “May God rise again” made desperate doctors believe in a miracle - the wounded man came to his senses and opened his eyes. After the operation, the soldier began to recover.