About us

ANNOUNCEMENT FOR READERS

GOD-LOVING READERS, DEAR BROTHERS AND SISTERS, WE ARE PLEASED TO WELCOME YOU!

Our website is opening up, owing to the need to strengthen education among Russian anti-Sergians, as well as all true Orthodox Christians living in Europe and the rest of the world. We operate with the blessing of our ruling bishop – His Eminence the Most Rev. Metropolitan Philaret, First Hierarch of Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

WE HAVE SET THE FOLLOWING TASKS AS OUR MISSION FOR THIS SITE:

1) Preserve the main heritage of the Russian people - the Holy Orthodox Faith;

2) To promote the spread of the light of Orthodoxy among the peoples of the world;

3) To do this, we must clearly understand Holy Orthodoxy - the truth and the holiest doctrine of God and life;

4) No Russian Orthodox person should be a traitor to Holy Orthodoxy due to ignorance or mistakenness;

5) The triumph of Holy Orthodoxy is the key to solving all problems – from whose wrong solutions the modern world is dying;

In order to light the HOLY FIRE OF ORTHODOXY IN THE HEARTS OF PEOPLE, we offer a way to study the primary sources of religious knowledge.

The bright future of Russia is in its religious education and upbringing of children. Therefore, we will try to educate both children and adults. In this way our ancestors, who created Holy Russia, were brought up and formed – and it is this approach which brought together one-fifth of the land on which thousands of our holy ascetics shone. One who followed this path the most brightly, ardently and consistently was Saint Seraphim of Sarov. Therefore, this path is rightly called by priest I. F. Egorov (1872-1921) – "Seraphimian" – named after St. Seraphim of Sarov, who has an accurate and complete systematization of this path.

This path of religious education and upbringing, followed by Saint Seraphim consists of:

1) daily study of the Gospel,

2) study of the whole Bible,

3) daily reading of liturgical books,

4) study of the works of the holy fathers,

5) the study of the lives of saints

6) religious ethics of personal and public life, philosophy of religion.

Prince Peter Sergeevich Lopukhin wrote about the secrets of the personality of St. Seraphim of Sarov for Orthodox-Russian man: "Every belief, every philosophy, every doctrine of man, of what suited human life, always has “its” ideal person - the bearer of faith, philosophy, doctrine – and wants to create and educate “their” person, a special psychological type, character and moral structure. One of the most beloved sons of Orthodoxy, an Orthodox righteous man, a bright representative of the "Orthodox man" – is the Rev. Seraphim of Sarov, the miracle worker. Knowing him, his life, understanding it, his feats and his thoughts – is always a modern task, because through this we can more clearly understand Orthodoxy and the Orthodox man. (...) Rev. Seraphim is the image of an Orthodox man, his moral order, worldview, and ways. For a Russian person to come to understand Reverend Seraphim, his faith and views, what he loves, and to understand what he wants from us – is to come to understand the Orthodox person, to find him- or herself and their way".

Only by following Seraphim's Way – the only saving way for the Russian people – will one be able to reach Holiness and Contact with God. Prince Peter Sergeyevich was firmly convinced of this: “Russian people, know this: if you passed by Rev. Seraphim and his image did not excite or impress you, know that your soul is asleep. If you pause for a moment and then walk away and forget, know that you are not hot or cold, you are weak, spiritually lazy and insignificant. Russian people, know: if you do not like prep. Seraphim, and spiritual communication with him did not attract you, know: you do not understand Russia, Russian history, the Russian nation, you are denationalized, you only speak Russian, but you do not know and do not understand Russia. (...) Prep. Seraphim told us most vividly in recent centuries what the essence of Christianity is. He spoke of him so that he could be most clearly understood, in words most intelligible; he could do it because he may have already known what corrupted our religious consciousness. And it is spoiled by Western Christianity, the Catholic-legal worldview. The latter evokes the following idea in people: God has established a judicial, rules-based relationship with people: if you do such and such things, then for them you will be given this and that in the other world. It is like a legal insurance agreement: you pay money every month and in case of an accident you will be paid what is right. Such a formal-legal consciousness is truly destructive for Christianity, because it destroys it at the root, it takes out of Christianity the whole soul, all the meaning and essence in it, and there is only the visible, shallow, shell, appearance and form left. Christianity is the belief in the existence of a divine world, a new graceful Godly life, created by Christ, to which man can join not sometime later, but now, in this moment. That is about it. That is what prep. Seraphim taught, and his sermon was imbued with a sense of realism of this world of Christ, in it in the icons, you feel this very living feeling of this world. He called to this world and now he calls us. "

Today, the Russian Orthodox Church is undergoing a very difficult test. But this cannot be seen as God's punishment. In his missionary letters on the holidays, Mykola Serbskiy explains that the revolution in Russia began with a great harvest of souls – but this was not a punishment of God's! He wrote: "These days, the long-suffering people of Russ fill paradise more than any other Christian nation on earth." (...) "Two things are obvious to the whole world: FIRST, that the people of Russ are burning in the fire of suffering, like once three young men in the furnace of Babylon; SECOND, that the materialist and ungodly theories that kindled this fire in Russ did not originate in the Russ Orthodox nation, but rose from people not Russian or Orthodox, EVERYTHING ELSE IS THE MYSTERY OF GOD'S CRAFT, we must not delve deeply into this terrible mystery, we can liken Russian suffering to the suffering of righteous Job, who has helped and will help many. Russia is a sign of God to all peoples to beware of materialism in theory and in practice, in thought and in deed. " (...) "We trust and believe that the Creator let a fire of suffering on the great Russian people not to punish and destroy them, but to warn and admonish other nations by this terrible example, and to glorify the Russian people forever before the earth and the sky.”

It was God's providence to place the Russian Church in the face of a faithless government, because the Russian Church was not only large in its number of members, but also places education high in importance, having numerous learned bishops, clergy and laity, compared to other local Orthodox Churches, and expresses its definitions unmistakably, detailing the correct attitude of the Church to such a state, which has as its ultimate goal a battle against God and His authority in the hearts of the people. Such conciliar definitions will have a guiding value for the whole world during the eschatological.

This is how the great hierarch and theologian of the Russian Church of Peace wrote about this task in his exegetical sketch "On the Gospel." Mikhail (Gribanovsky), Bishop of Tavria and Simferopol: "Russia will have to take advantage of its God-prepared position in the history of the militant Church on earth. It must create education, upbringing and ways of life in a strictly universal ecclesiastical spirit, in all the height and breadth of Christian ideals; it must cultivate a soil where the grace of the Holy Spirit would find all the conveniences to grow the magnificent color of Christ's life, the freedom of holy inspiration in Christ. But this freedom, this real life in Christ is possible only after a long culture in a strictly Christian spirit. Only after such a school is the existence of the New Testament people of God possible ... ".

Therefore, at the end we recall the words said calm. Archbishop Sava (Raevsky) during his entry into the Melbourne Chair (Australia) on September 19, 1934. The bishop gave three main tasks for the Russian Church Abroad:

1. "To call in the Orthodox Abroad, and through it all the donkeys of the Russian people to repentance, to the realization of sins committed, and by all means to promote this repentance."

2. "To keep clean our Orthodoxy and through it our spiritual culture and connection with the religious and cultural-historical tradition of our people. If we do not preserve Orthodoxy, we will not preserve our spiritual connection with our people, we refuse to sympathize in His sufferings, in His martyrdom. Having lost Orthodoxy, we will lose our soul, and having lost our soul, we, now scattered among different peoples, will perish as splashes and drops of water dissolve in the ocean."

3. "Our main duty is to take care of the rebirth of the human soul, of bringing it to God."

We conclude our thoughts with the call: "No one else will take our grief and bear our cross. Our Motherland is to have a mother crucified on the cross. Our duty, our task, is to ask Our Heavenly One to remove it from the cross."

Without the revival of True Orthodoxy, there is no revival of True Russia.

We will not be able to enter and forget about our holy martyrs. To do this, we will offer readers the unknown and forgotten works of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.

One of the first Russian New Martyrs, killed by atheists in 1918, glorified by the Russian Church Abroad in 1981, is the synodal missionary preacher – Hieromartyr Archpriest John Vostorgov. In his remarkable speech "Missionary", delivered on the occasion of the annual commemoration of the deceased members of the Orthodox Missionary Society on January 3, 1910, he pointed to the MISSION OF ORTHODOXY AS THE MAIN SIGNIFICANCE OF RUSSIA AND ITS LOCAL CHURCH among other peoples of the world to be: "Russia has nothing to say outside of Orthodoxy, and its existence makes no sense, and vice versa: Orthodoxy gives Russia such a high calling in the world, such a great word that it has spoken for centuries and the world - which not one other nation in history could say except Byzantium. Do they not understand that to kill missionary work in the Russian Church is to put it in a position of near-death agony, and to take the Church itself from an idle and carefree people, bury their talent in the ground and, by virtue of the Savior's formidable promise, give it to other tribes, who create fruits of God’s Kingdom, instead of turning it only for personal possession and use (Matthew 21, 43)? This is how the Lord will save us from this terrible danger!."

Hieromartyr Andronicus (Nikolsky), Archbishop of Perm in his letter to one despondent priest, writes: "You yourself rejoice along with a large number of fasters in the former fast, and even atheists exalt Easter, showing kindness in welcoming you to their homes with Easter joy. Believe, Father, all of this atheism and robbery is a hostile afront, an evil raid on Russia's good and God-fearing soul. For going back on their vows, God took away all wisdom and free will, until people will repent. Slowly, but they repent, and when they finish repenting, then at first step-by-step, and then at once, they will see everything spiritually, they will feel the power and, like Ilya Muromets, they will throw off the horror that has engulfed our whole country. So let us, with our firm, clear, confident word, reveal to people the correct attitude towards life and, above all, call for repentance, after which everything from God will return to us with interest – and foreign yoke will no longer be frightful. Maybe I will no longer be in the world, but I do not lose hope and confidence that Russia will rise with its return to God. Encourage all and reconcile the embittered with life, infuse in them the beginnings of a bright life according to the Gospel of Christ. Our task is to gather the flock of Christ, to organize the living church’s/people's forces in the parishes, so that the people here in the Church will be disappointed in all parties and find a living haven and good peace among the believers. The people's soul will rise, its body will rise again - our healthy statehood."

On October 5, 1909. Hieromartyr Methodius (Krasnoperov), Bishop of Petropavlovsk addressing those present at the service in the Ufa Cathedral, said: "Everyone is jealous of the education of our Russian people, who seek to quickly introduce compulsory study and disseminate scientific knowledge among the masses, yet we must firmly remember that one education - one knowledge, without educating the people of the faith in God, the fear of God, without strengthening in them the ideals of holy living, living "according to God", cannot make our people strong, truly educated, happy and content. RUSSIA IS HOLY. This suggests that the Russian people from the very cradle of their lives place this ideal first - the achievement of the HOLINESS of LIFE, and especially revere and adore those who lived holily, "according to God." Personal, family, public and state life was built on this ideal. From the point of view of this ideal, enlightenment, literacy, and education were also valued. Creating ourselves and building our long-suffering homeland firmly remember that "THE LIGHT OF CHRIST ENLIGHTENS ALL", that "IN THE LIGHT OF CHRIST we can see the light of life, meaning and purpose, and the minds of the peoples of the world and each of us in particular."

The liberation of Russia will take place only after her REPENTANCE, and the CROSS of the Russian person must become a weapon, and the way of victory over the atheists – PERSONAL HOLINESS. This idea of the restoration of Holy Russia by a feat of personal improvement was set forth by the Russian Foreign Episcopate during the Second All-Foreign Council of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (1/14 – 11/24 August 1938) in its message to the dispersed Russian flock: "Standing in the Orthodox faith must lie in not only the exact confession of the teachings of the Orthodox Church, but also in living according to the faith. Therefore, our paid sins and crimes, by which we have defiled ourselves, incurred the wrath of God, and we will repent of them from the heart. First of all, let us remember the sin that, as a heavy burden, lies on the whole Russian people, because it is one organism, and which is perhaps the main cause of the current disaster of Him and our expulsion from the homeland. That sin is the betrayal of the anointed of God, which was tainted by the creators and inspirers of our revolution. (...) The way to save our Motherland lies through the feat of our personal improvement. Russia's enslavers raised the banner of atheism and armed themselves with weapons of evil spirits. Our Flag is the holy life-giving Cross, and our armor must be the virtues indicated by the Word of God. The revival of our Motherland must begin with the spiritual revival of each of us individually. The struggle against the current government in the long-suffering Fatherland is a struggle of two principles, a struggle of faith and unbelief, a struggle of atheism with faith in God. To be in a state of light and truth and to do holy work, you need to be purified and reborn internally. It is impossible to fight evil in a frenzy, being internally filled with it. The Lord pointed out that the devil's race is cast out only by prayer and fasting (Matt. 17:21; Mark 9:29). Armed with these, diligently participating in worship and reading the Word of God, we will try to implement in our lives the teachings of Christ, steadily fulfilling all the precepts of the Church ... Only by seeking the Kingdom of God and its truth, can we become true fighters against the kingdom of Satan and falsehood. We will become builders of the revived Great Russia. The construction of Holy Russia is only for those who breathe the spirit of its orthodoxy and piety. Thus so, our heavenly and earthly Fatherlands are inextricably linked. Getting rich in moral life, we prepare ourselves for the future and at the same time bring closer the liberation of the Motherland. When the Russian people are overwhelmed by a wave of repentance, then salvation will come. Then the Lord will send a blessing on our deeds and intentions. The end is near. Have chastity and sobriety in prayers. Turn to the Lord with all your heart and fast, weeping and wailing, and God will have mercy on us. The Lord will be jealous for His land and will have mercy on His people. Then the favorable years will come again to our land, before seeing the Fatherland of heaven we will see our earthly Fatherland in glory. If we do not understand, we will die in sorrow, and our very name may be erased from the book of living on earth."

St. John (Maximovich), then Bishop of Shanghai, an active participant in this Consecrated Council, like a Prophet loudly called on the Russian people from all over the world to prepare themselves for the Resurrection of Holy Russia and the ascent to the New Russian Jerusalem: "Shake the dream of despair and laziness! Look at the glory of her sufferings and become pure, Wash away your sins! Be strong in the Orthodox faith, to be worthy to live in the dwelling of the Lord and to dwell in His holy mountain! Awake, awake, arise, Russia, you who drank the cup of His wrath from the hand of the Lord! When your affliction is over, your righteousness will go with you, and the glory of the LORD will be your guard. The nations shall come to thy light, and kings - to the radiance above you. Then lift up thine eyes round about, and beside thee: for thy children shall come unto thee from the west, and from the north, and from the sea, and from the east, and bless thee in Christ forever."

His Beatitude Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) of Kyiv and Halych, beloved Abba of St. John, proclaimed on behalf of the Russian (First) All-Abroad Church Council in a message to all Orthodox Russian refugees abroad: “Russian people! Do not let the great visitation of God be fruitless for you, but a great knowledge, which can be learned only by hard sufferings. Thank the Lord for them, as righteous Job did, and then His rewards will be pleasing. Not in luxury, not in the search for power, but in obedience and patience, we will seek the purpose of life, both personal and public. Until this happens, we will not find Russia in Russia itself. It is up to you, the Russian people, to your inner rebirth, to give us back the joy of our salvation. Prepare for yourself a path to a blessed country, unite in patriotic groups, mutually learn from each other the knowledge of God and your homeland, your past history and the intelligent system of our land in the future."

Remembering the words of St. ap. James: "Brethren, if any man err from the truth, and any man convert him, let him know that he hath converted the sinner from the error. He shall save his soul from death, and cover many sins" (James 5: 19-20), we hope for God's help in our work for the benefit of the Orthodox Russian Church, and we ask for your prayers for this and thank our future readers for their keen interest in preaching the word of God.

With love in the Lord, the editorial board of the Missionary Center named after Reverend Martyr Athanasius, Abbot of Brest.

For all questions of collaboration, you can contact by e-mail. address: sv.afanasiy@gmail.com