Hegumen Nikon (Vorobʹev) passed away on this day in 1963 Throughout this “marathon,” there have been days when I have had many “candidates,” and it has been easy to decide what I will say. And there are days when you have no options. Today is one such day. But these are also good days. If I had a choice, I might have written about something else, but in this way, I need to venture outside my comfort zone and learn something new. In my September 4 report, I mentioned the books published in the name of the YMCA in Paris. One of those books was Pis'ma dukhovnym detiam [Letters to Spiritual Children] by Hegumen Nikon (Vorobʹev). I read it in the Soviet Union soon after the YMCA Press reprinted the book for the second time in 1988. I think we even ordered – illegally – some photocopies of the book to distribute. When working on this report, I came upon my copy of the Vestnik Russkogo Khristianskogo Studencheskogo Dvizheniia [Bulletin of the Russian Christian Student Movement] (152, 1988), which is wrapped in protective paper so that one could read the book safely on the public transit system without attracting unwanted attention. This edition is available for purchase in English translation. And one might recall that the Mansur sisters serialized these letters in their periodical Orthodox America. Fr. Nikon was born in 1894 into a customarily practicing Orthodox family. The fact that Nikolai (his secular name), having grown up in a peasant family, was admitted to the Research Institute for Psychiatry in Petrograd, says a lot about the social opportunities in Tsarist Russia. In 1915, Nikolai experienced a profound internal crisis, which resulted in his discovery of God. From that time until his death, he was a servant of Christ. In 1931, he became a monk. In 1933, he was ordained a priest and, that same year, was arrested for spreading anti-Soviet propaganda (formally, people were not arrested for their belief in God). After his release until he died in 1963, Fr. Nikon ministered to the Russian people, including Aleksei Ilʹich Osipov, a senior professor at Moscow Theological Academy. I understand that through his circle of friends, Fr. Nikon’s letters were smuggled abroad and published by the YMCA in Paris in 1971 for the first time. Here is an excerpt from one of Fr. Nikon’s letters from 1963: “My Dear… “You should not demand too much from yourself. It is better to humble yourself before God. Open yourself up to Him with all filth and say like a leper: ‘Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.’ Do not assign any deadlines to God for this. Do what you can, and God will do all necessary for your salvation. Just do not depart from God. Do not give in to the inspirations of the enemy that all your efforts are useless, that everything is lost, etc. This is the work of the devil, an eternal slanderer of God and everyone.” |
