A Champion of Good: The Life of Father Ilarion
192
A Champion of Good: The Life of Father Ilarion
192Overview
Many lovers of literature are familiar, through Dostoyevsky's works, with the concept of the Russian "Staretz," or spiritual elder, and this biography offers a vivid portrayal of an authentic Staretz, Father Ilarion—a monk of the renowned Glinsk hermitage in modern-day Ukraine. Offering unique insights into the Orthodox Church in Russia during communism and in the immediate postcommunist period, this account not only chronicles Father Ilarion's journey, but also presents a vision of a simple Christian life in the contemporary world. With contributions from Father Ilarion's spiritual followers, this history also provides a glimpse into Russian culture and religious perspectives.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780884652076 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Holy Trinity Publications |
| Publication date: | 11/01/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 192 |
| File size: | 5 MB |
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A Champion of Good
The Life of Father Ilarion
By Natalia Mikhailovna Kopyttseva, Nathan K. Williams
Holy Trinity Publications
Copyright © 2011 Holy Trinity MonasteryAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-88465-207-6
CHAPTER 1
From Infancy to Monastic Rebirth
Archimandrite Ilarion (Ivan Fomich Prikhodko in the world) was born on June 24/July 7, 1924, in the village of Alenovka in the Unecha Region, to a pious peasant family and was given the name Ivan.
His father, Foma Petrovich, was a strict but fair man. His mother, Iuliana Petrovna, a simple, kind country woman, was a prudent, humble person. "Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me," her brief conversations with anyone would conclude. She spoke and acted in the spirit of the old saying, "measure twice, cut once." Before saying or doing anything, she would think for a long time, and for this reason, she was almost never mistaken. Her authority in the family was absolute, and her influence on her son's spiritual upbringing and path in life may be considered to have been decisive. As Mother Varvara of Pinsk recalled, monasticism was offered to Ivan's mother, but she declined, considering herself unworthy. Father Ilarion frequently recalled her with profound love and gratitude, both in his private conversations and his sermons.
There were three children in the family: a daughter, Efrosinia, and two sons. Dmitry, six years Ivan's senior, was killed during the Germans' retreat from Bryansk in 1944 when he was 26, leaving two children. When he was killed, the clairvoyant Mother Evlampia, who lived in a neighboring village, had a dream in which she saw him dead. She visited the family, and Ivan went to her. Their meeting proved a fateful one for him. "Happy is the mother who has such a son," she said at the time to Iuliana Petrovna, "and happy is the son who has such a mother." Later, a warning she gave him would save Ivan from death in the war.
As a child, Vanya, as they called him, was a candid, guileless boy. Once, when his sister had misbehaved, in answer to his father's stern, inquiring glance, he replied, "Papa, I would tell you today that Bronka [as they called her at home] broke the glass, but you'd get angry, so I'd better tell you tomorrow." Father remained just as childishly simplehearted to the end of his days. One could not unobtrusively complain to him of someone else in private, for he would clear up the situation on the spot without delay. "Come here for a minute!" he would say. "She says that you said [or did] such and such. Is this true?" This method of resolving a conflict at its inception permanently squelched the desire of any "do-gooders" to snitch on their neighbors.
Following the example of his parents, particularly his mother, the boy grew up to be quite pious. He prayed to God, shunned worldly vanity, and fervently visited the temple of God. Vanya was very neat and hard working. Together, he and his sister would clean the house, prepare meals, and keep the yard tidy. Later on, his cell in the Glinsk Monastery was always clean and in order, the bed neatly made without a single wrinkle, and the floor clean without a speck of dust. His cell in Bronnitsa was just as impeccable.
Vanya studied well and, from childhood, possessed an excellent memory: while his sister was still learning a poem, he would already be reciting it. All these virtues, thanks to wise guidance, would receive their future development in the monastery.
For a time, they lived well and prospered, but the new Soviet policies brought drastic changes to Alenovka and its inhabitants. The family was dispossessed, and their land and livestock were seized. Much later, in one of his sermons, Father recalled, "My father never hired anyone to work for him and exploited no one. Yet, they stripped us of everything, trimming us right to the bone, because we had something that they did not. And who were they? The proletariat of all countries, the poor who did not want to work for their daily bread — these people were only capable of devouring what belonged to others." All were driven into the collective farms. The Prikhodko family, however, did not join one of these, as Iuliana Petrovna remained categorically opposed to what she considered a godless way of treating peasant farming.
Ivan was born with a fine voice and a good ear for music, and he loved to sing. His father bought him a balalaika, which he quickly mastered and played constantly. As he grew up, he became more and more handsome and well built, with thick, wavy, pitch-black hair. The girls followed the boy, and later the young man, in droves.
Heaven looked after its chosen one, however. Ivan went to a dance hall only once. When he returned home, he told his mother, "I'll never go to a dance again. The Archangel Michael told me not to!" This was God's call, offering him the straight and narrow path of monasticism in place of dances, parties, and other adolescent pleasures. One sign of this was when, just before Nativity, the sixteen-year-old boy saw the Star of Bethlehem in the sky. That was something to think about!
Life was not easy. Ivan had to earn money for bread and to help his parents. He took any work he could find, unloading railroad cars, painting, and the like. Then, war broke out.
The Germans occupied Bryansk Region and encamped in Alenovka. They seized everything that had been left on the family's farm after the Soviet government had exacted its toll. Ivan's mother worked from morning to night, weaving and sewing. Meanwhile, he wove bast shoes, maintained the roof, and spaded and weeded the garden. The Germans nearly took the young man off to Germany. He escaped this, however, with the help of kind people who obtained a note from a local doctor, citing an allegedly injured eye. Of course, it was prayers that helped first and foremost: his own and his mother's.
Like all the young men his age, Ivan left for the front in 1943, where one of his fellow soldiers promptly "assigned himself" to him: the fellow informed on Ivan constantly, reporting that he was hiding a cross, praying on the sly, and so forth. The unit commander, however, turned out to be a decent person. He had great respect for young Ivan and supported him, although he did explain that, due to Ivan's faith, he was destined to remain a perpetual soldier. In those days, a believer could only be a private, not an officer. Within half a year of his arrival to the front, Ivan suffered a severe wound and was sent to the hospital. While there, he met two Orthodox servants of the Catacomb Church: the nuns Pavlina and Evlampia.1
War opened the young man's eyes to the horrific lie that permeated the Soviet regime, and he returned to the clear, simple truths his parents had taught him. Later, Father Ilarion recalled, "God's grace touched my heart, and my heart was inflamed by the Lord. And neither lofty words nor arguments and proofs were necessary anymore." No doubts remained as to his monastic path, although the road would not be a smooth one. Upon his return home, Mother Evlampia told the young soldier that to the end of his earthly days, he must give thanks to God that he had returned from the war alive (she had seen him on the brink of death) and that he would yet save many from the darkness of unbelief and despair.
Ivan began to pay regular visits to the Glinsk Hermitage. When he first arrived, as Mother Valentina recalled him saying, Father Gabriel told him, "You will be ours." Ivan's mother blessed him to enter the monastery and went to live there herself, working at the guesthouse for pilgrims. His father wanted very much for his beloved son to be like everyone else, to marry and give him grandchildren. To have his son enter the Glinsk Hermitage was a heavy blow. He died early, without having seen his son a monk.
CHAPTER 2At the Glinsk Hermitage: "A Monastery in the World"
For centuries, our countrymen saw the Glinsk Hermitage as the embodiment of the highest Christian asceticism and moral fortitude. The mere mention of its name spiritually invigorated men's hearts, inflaming them with zeal for salvation. Along with the Kiev Caves and Trinity-Sergius Lavra, the Glinsk Hermitage promoted the common national work of spiritual enlightenment and was a kind of university of eldership in Russia.
One circumstance that influenced the Glinsk Hermitage's particular status compared to other monasteries was the presence of the Glinsk Hermitage wonder-working icon of the Nativity of the Most-Holy Mother of God that appeared there and the many miraculous healings performed through it to the glory of the Mother of God and the strengthening of the Orthodox faith. This drew pious pilgrims from all over the great Russian land. In fact, the monastery's establishment is linked to the appearance on this spot of the wonder-working image of the Mother of God, which was found in the early sixteenth century.
People began to flock to the place of the icon's appearance, not only laymen but also monks, who labored in fasting and prayer. Thus, not far from Putivl (106 miles from Kursk), overshadowed by the wonder-working icon of the Nativity of the Most-Holy Mother of God, the Glinsk Hermitage was established in the sixteenth century. Grace-imbued help from the wonder-working image of the Glinsk Hermitage poured out on everyone and at all times until September 1922, when the Glinsk Hermitage was closed by the new government. Since then, all trace of the monastery's greatest sacred treasure has been lost amid decades of chaos.
According to the prophecies of spiritual elders, the Glinsk Hermitage's wonder-working icon of the Nativity of the Most-Holy Mother of God will appear in this holy monastery as a sign of the rebirth of the Glinsk Monastery, its subsequent prosperity, and the restoration of its significance for the spiritual life of the people. Yet, even hidden from human eyes, the grace-imbued might of the wonder-working image unquestionably continues to pour forth abundantly on all who call on the aid of the Queen of Heaven with true faith of soul and purity of heart. For, as the Holy Hierarch Ignatius (Brianchaninov) rightly stated, "icons of the Mother of God work wonders throughout all the land, preaching, testifying, and sealing with signs the truth of the teaching of Christ."
In ancient times, monasteries were to be found throughout the entire Russian land, for monasticism is the heart of Orthodoxy. By the time of Ivan Prikhodko's arrival at the Glinsk Hermitage, however, it was the only monastery open in Russia. Many, including believers, were not even aware of its existence. There were periods when its material welfare suffered and when the authorities shut down this hated "hotbed of obscurantism." The monastery's spiritual life, however, never grew cold. Located far from human eyes, separated from the world by forests and fields, the Glinsk Hermitage was the ideal place for great spiritual ascetics to lay down their life in service to God and men. Venerable Seraphim of Sarov called the Glinsk Hermitage "a great school of the spiritual life," while Archbishop Yuvenaly (Polovtsev) called it "the ideal of worship and a place of spiritual feats of labor."
Father Ilarion first came to the monastery in 1950, which we know from a certificate that Hierodeacon Ilarion was required to obtain after the hermitage was closed, while trying to determine his future spiritual path. He was unable to stay here for long, however, because his papers had been lost. In time, the Glinsk elders succeeded in resolving this issue, and he was finally accepted into the Glinsk Hermitage, by his own account, in 1955.
It should be noted that the young novice was embarking on the monastic path, choosing a path of service to the Church, at a time when a future as a cleric held nothing for him but the heavy cross of a confessor and martyr, and that he never wavered in his decision. On the contrary, he often regretted that he had not remained in the monastery, although he could not fail to realize that, apparently, such was the will of God for him to be a monk in the world, a servant of the lesser brethren. He believed that He who had laid upon him the burden of sacred service would strengthen him and set him on the right way.
The monastery opened once again in 1942, but its light shone for only nineteen years, until 1961. The war and postwar years were very hard, and the monastery lacked for everything: building materials, food, and clothing. The brethren wore bast shoes, baked bread that was half flour and half potato, and at times ate nothing but beets in place of bread.
When the future Archimandrite Ilarion arrived at the monastery, however, the hermitage was in its prime. To be sure, its outward appearance remained unsightly. There remained the eastern wall, the monastery tower, the hierarchal building containing the bishop's house, and the church, dedicated to the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord. Upon exiting the church, one immediately found oneself in a long corridor with cells located along both sides.
On the common beside the church stood a lamppost bearing a kerosene lamp or candle. A little to the west of the lamppost stood the so-called Moscow Lodge: one part of it was inhabited by the monks, another part housed a medical station, and a corner room served as the guest room for "capitol guests," Muscovites and Leningraders who were primarily doctors. When many people were visiting, the floor of the common cell was furnished with mattresses and pillows stuffed with hay.
Despite the outward poverty, however, the spiritual life in the hermitage was on such a high level that, according to an eminent Glinsk elder, Master of Theology Schema-Archimandrite Ioann (Maslov, 1991), the divine services served by its pastors "gave rebirth to the souls of sinners and turned them to God." The sentiment of those who came to pray there, according to Father Ioann, could be expressed thus: "We felt there as though we were among the saints, and we walked with fear as though in the Holy Land."
Here, a perpetual vigil lamp burned, the gleam of which beckoned like stars in the night to all those suffering and laden with sins and concerns. Pilgrims flocked from all over Russia to its perpetual light, to the monastery's God-pleasing hospitality, braving the difficult journey with its transfers and many trials. The pilgrims brought an ardent desire to help in the monastery's restoration, along with food, clothing, and other goods. All were met with joy and provided lodging. They were given three days to rest, acclimate to the long services, and confess. Then, the visitors were blessed to begin work. With the help of such benefactors, a farmyard was set up, a forge was rebuilt on the site of the previous one, a new refectory was constructed, and so forth.
The light of Christ illuminated and enlightened everyone and everything in the Glinsk Hermitage. It would become indelibly imprinted on the faces of the monastery's inhabitants, who were scattered throughout the country after its closing. It was this light that always shone in the face of our dear Father Ilarion, whose very name in Greek means quiet and joyous. This name given to him in monasticism was most appropriate to that steady, unflickering flame that always burned in his heart, as a sign of the profound dedication of this chosen one of God to the instructions of his spiritual fathers and to Glinsk Hermitage, so memorable, so dear to his heart, and so delightful.
The Glinsk elders lovingly took the young brother under their spiritual care, and one of them, Archimandrite Seraphim (Romantsov), became his spiritual father. By this time, the holy hermitage was home to several dozen brethren. (For comparison, between 1942–1952, more than one hundred and thirty people joined the hermitage, whilst between 1953–1958, forty-eight people joined.) In 1950, the monastery brethren numbered sixty-four, of whom monks over age sixty comprised seventy percent, of whom twenty-six were disabled. At the time of his entry into the monastery, Father Ilarion was thirty-one years old.
At the end of the 1940s, nearly all of the older generation of the monastery brethren had returned from exile and imprisonment. Some of them had lived in the hermitage prior to its closing in 1922. They formed a council of elders, which decided all vital issues. "Strict with himself, the pious father superior Archimandrite Seraphim keeps a sharp eye on the behavior of all the novices, and permits no one to depart in any way from the rules of the monastic life."
During Father Ilarion's time at the monastery, the nucleus of its spiritual life consisted of Archimandrite Seraphim (Amelin), Schema-Hegumen Andronik (Lukash), and Hieroschemamonk Seraphim (Romantsov). Through their labors, the Glinsk Hermitage waxed strong and prospered. Under their guidance, "a host of ascetics" grew up, many of whom, inheriting their spirit, later spread the Glinsk Hermitage traditions of eldership throughout the land.
The young, newly arrived novice was given a cell with Brother Vlasy (Vasily Mikhailovich Sumin in the world, 1897 – 1989). A brief letter of greeting from Brother Vlasy has survived. Like Father Ilarion, Brother Vlasy grew up in a peasant family. He entered the Glinsk Hermitage in 1953, after returning from twenty years' exile in the Chelyabinsk camps, and was ordained a hieromonk a year later.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from A Champion of Good by Natalia Mikhailovna Kopyttseva, Nathan K. Williams. Copyright © 2011 Holy Trinity Monastery. Excerpted by permission of Holy Trinity Publications.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Preface to the English Language Edition,From the Preface to the Russian Language Edition,
Part I: LIFE,
1. From Infancy to Monastic Rebirth,
2. At the Glinsk Hermitage: "A Monastery in the World",
3. After the Glinsk Hermitage: The Elder and the Elders in the World,
4. The Glinsk Hermitage Today: The Canonization of Its Elders,
5. His Spiritual Father, Ioann (Krestyankin), and Other Mentors,
6. The Leningrad Years,
7. At the Church of the Holy Apostle Philip in Novgorod,
8. Bronnitsa: The Birthing of Paradise,
9. Asleep in the Body, but Alive in God,
10. The Beauty of Immortality,
Part II: REMINISCENCES,
11. Alive in Death – A Lofty Spiritual Image,
12. Worship, Prayer, and Fasting,
13. A Shepherd and Minister to His Flock,
14. Sorrows and Consolation,
15. A Confessor of Souls,
16. The Patriarch and the Pilgrims,
17. Charisma,
18. In the Holy Land: The Garden of Gethsemane,
Appendix 1: Chronology,
Appendix 2: Liturgical Texts for the Glinsk Icon of the Most-Holy Mother of God,
Appendix 3: Memorial Verses,
Notes,
Index,
Photos,