On October 5 (September 22 on the Julian Calendar) we commemorate Saint Benjamin (Voskresensky), Bishop of Romanovsk, and martyr of the Communist yoke, who reposed in the Lord in 1930.
Hieromartyr Veniamin (Benjamin, in the world Vasily Konstantinovich Voskresensky) was born on January 15, 1871 in the village of Pereslavtsevo, Uglich district, Yaroslavl province, into a priest's family. Father Konstantin was gifted with great musical abilities, and his sons were gifted with the same abilities - all five of them were regents of school choirs, and one of them was the regent of the bishop's choir. In 1877, Father Konstantin founded an elementary school in the village, which, due to the lack of premises, was located in his house; his wife, Alexandra Vasilievna, became a teacher there.
Vasily received his initial education at the Rostov Theological School. From 1886 to 1892, he studied at the Yaroslavl Theological Seminary, and from 1892, at the Moscow Theological Academy. After graduating from the academy in 1896, Vasily Konstantinovich was appointed assistant inspector at the Kutaisi Theological Seminary in 1898; here he taught Russian literature and history. In 1901, he was transferred to the Tiflis Theological Seminary. Once in Tiflis, he graduated from the Tiflis Imperial Music School in music theory. In 1908, Vasily Konstantinovich was transferred to the Vyatka Theological Seminary, and a year later to the Vologda Theological Seminary. In 1911, he was appointed teacher of Holy Scripture and director of the seminary choir at the Yaroslavl Theological Seminary. At that time, the idea arose among the clergy of the Yaroslavl diocese to raise funds to establish a scholarship for seminary students, so that poverty and lack of funds could not be an obstacle to obtaining an education; the idea found many supporters and began to be successfully implemented. Vasily Konstantinovich took an active part in this and became an active donor.
Possessing great musical talent and excellent professional training, Vasily Konstantinovich took an active part in the controversy that unfolded in those years in the church press - whether the choir should consist of professional singers or strive for church chants unified for all churches of the Russian Orthodox Church or to remain local differences in chants, as having considerable independent value, since they often imprinted the piety and prayerful mood of our ancestors to a greater extent than in some works that were published in printed music collections.
Vasily Konstantinovich wrote on this subject: "The melodies of the ancients are 'correct', and the singing of later creators is also 'correct'. Local melodies are not a 'deviation', not a 'distortion' of the correct printed melodies; they are the same independent, local folk art, having the same right to exist as the art of the ancients... As often in a poor village church, in the wilderness, from an old deacon, one sometimes hears a melody that gives off such a distant time, such virginal simplicity, such a power of feeling, for which one would not exchange even the most fashionable musical melody of our time. Such a melody did not get into a printed book by chance, only because no one from those people who print books overheard it."
But the most important and essential aspect of church singing for Vasily Konstantinovich was the religious side. "The religious goal," he wrote, "is the most important in church-liturgical singing. The religious goal is the first and last goal of everything that happens in the temple. The people stand and, like an echo, echo the rushing melodies or mentally, silently follow them and, as it were, store them somewhere in their souls, collecting a stock of church songs. Over the years, this stock accumulates, eventually forming those who know all the commonly used church singing by heart. From early childhood, these melodies were heard, from year to year they were repeated, engraved in the ear, in the memory. From the totality of the sung melodies, together with the reading, with the entire church routine, with the external environment, a corresponding religious-church order of ideas, images, feelings, moods is created over the years and deeply imprinted in the consciousness, in the soul, but where everything is in its place, everything is in harmonious order, where well-trodden paths have long been laid out, leading the soul to heaven, to God."
With the implementation of profound socio-political reforms, but little understood by the peasants, with the beginning of the war of 1914, more and more problems began to arise before the people that required explanation, and above all from the religious and moral point of view. In 1915, Archbishop Agathangel (Preobrazhensky) of Yaroslavl organized a preaching circle at the Yaroslavl diocese, to which the most authoritative and talented pastors-preachers, seminary teachers, and among others Vasily Konstantinovich were invited. The participants of the circle were obliged to deliver sermons during services in various churches of the diocese.
In 1916, Vasily Konstantinovich was appointed a member of the publishing department of the diocesan educational Brotherhood of St. Demetrius, and in early 1917 he was invited to take part in the development of a draft of the Brotherhood's new charter. In addition to organizing a church choir at the seminary, Vasily Konstantinovich organized a church choir in his home village of Pereslavtsevo.
After the seminary was closed during the godless persecutions in 1918, Vasily Konstantinovich began working in a comprehensive school in the city of Yaroslavl. In 1919, a meeting of the clergy and laity of the Yaroslavl diocese elected him as a member of the Diocesan Council.
On June 4, 1921, the congress of the clergy and laity of the Tutaev district elected Vasily Konstantinovich as a candidate for the cathedra of Bishop of Tutaev. In 1921, Vasily Konstantinovich was tonsured into the mantle with the name Veniamin and consecrated as Bishop of Tutaev, Vicar of the Yaroslavl diocese, becoming one of the closest assistants of Metropolitan Agathangel. In Bishop Veniamin, the Tutaev flock found one of the most zealous bishops, who with his fervent worship, righteous life, gifts of preaching and reasoning attracted the hearts of many believers: they saw in him not so much a church administrator as a selfless ascetic, similar to the ancient Christian archpastors. However, this was a fairly common occurrence in the twenties, when the Russian Orthodox Church began to be cleansed of unworthy and cowardly people through persecution, and true servants of Christ became archpastors, who later accepted martyrdom along with their archpastoral ministry.
In June 1922, the OGPU arrested Metropolitan Agathangel of Yaroslavl in the hope that all church power would pass to the Renovationists, but the Orthodox clergy of the Yaroslavl diocese addressed a letter to Bishop Veniamin, in which they wrote that in the absence of Metropolitan Agathangel, only he would be recognized as the head of the Orthodox Church in the diocese. Following this, in the summer of the same year, Bishop Veniamin was arrested. On October 15, 1922, a meeting of the clergy and laity of Yaroslavl was held, in which about three thousand people took part. The meeting declared its loyalty to Orthodoxy, its rejection of the Renovationist Supreme Church Administration, and decided to recognize Bishop Veniamin as the ruling bishop. Bishop Veniamin was in prison at the time, and the authorities tried to accuse him of organizing the meeting, but they were unable to prove it. The bishop was accused of using the religious prejudices of the masses to overthrow the workers' and peasants' government and was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. In 1922, in connection with the 5th anniversary of Soviet power, the term of imprisonment was reduced, and in 1926 the bishop was released and returned to service. Frequently visiting rural parishes in the Tutaevsky district, he preached everywhere. In order to strengthen his preaching activity, which now, due to the lack of schools, was the focus of all church education, he took with him the most gifted preacher-priests. The OGPU, through numerous informants, kept an eye on the bishop, accumulated materials and prepared to arrest him.
Characterizing the Bishop, the OGPU employees wrote about him: "A good speaker. He often gives sermons, in which he uses every convenient opportunity for anti-Soviet agitation. Thus, on January 1, 1926, in a sermon about the Kingdom of God in the Church of Vlasiy in Yaroslavl, he touched on civil law, calling all power violence... The current government violates conscience, which was also the case in tsarist times."
On January 16, in the same church, during the all-night vigil, he said in a sermon that no revolution without Christ would be strong and that every government first tries to look after its own well-being, and only then thinks about the welfare of the people. And in general, the entire speech was pogromistic in nature, with the goal of inciting believers against the godless government. There were many worshipers, since believers generally flock to his services.
Traveling through the Yaroslavl district, Veniamin held services in the village of Davydkovo for three days in February, during which the church was full of people; speaking in sermons, he did not miss the opportunity to launch into criticism of the measures of the Soviet government, comparing the Church, as a stronghold of morality, with clubs where children are taught debauchery... The population was delighted with his sermons, treating him as a deity, comparing him with martyrs, in connection with his previous conviction...
As a result of Veniamin's tour to Rybinsk, where he also gave sermons, the Yaroslavl department of the OGPU in May received a statement from the Spassky Autonomous Community about not allowing Veniamin to come to Rybinsk again, since he was agitating the believers with his sermons, setting one movement against another, and was undermining the authority of Renovationism both from the religious and civil sides - with transparent hints at the favorable attitude of the authorities towards Renovationism, which already has a political character. And in general, throughout the entire church activity of Bishop Veniamin, the red thread runs through his struggle with the Soviet authorities in the religious arena, in which through sermons he firmly pursues his line of caustic criticism of the measures of the Soviet authorities in the religious issue, with the aim of arousing the minds of believers. He does not even particularly try to hide his struggle on this issue, officially declaring that he recognizes the Soviet authorities, "except for religious policy."
On June 11, in the city of Poshekhonye-Volodarsk, in the local cathedral, during the all-night vigil, Bishop Veniamin delivered a sermon of a pogromistic nature. The content of the sermon boiled down to sharp criticism of the Communist Party, which was introducing unbelief into the broad masses of the population. Making references to scientists... who firmly believed in and acknowledged God, and contrasting them with the Communist Party, he called the members of the latter half-witted and ignorant, allowing themselves to deny God and for this bringing suffering upon themselves and everyone around them.
On June 12, Bishop Veniamin conducted a service in the local cathedral of the city of Poshekhonye-Volodarsk with the participation of the local city clergy, as well as the clergy of the surrounding villages. In total, about 10 priests and 4 deacons participated in the service. During the service, the bishop's deacon commemorated the Tsar in the exclamations, namely: "Lord, let the Tsar rejoice in Your power and rejoice greatly in Your salvation." A significant number of worshipers were present, mostly from the bourgeoisie, kulaks, officials, several workers and a fair number of technical workers of institutions.
At the end of the mass, Bishop Veniamin addressed the people with a sermon that made a great impression on those present, especially on the women. He allowed anti-Soviet agitation in it, as he urged them not to believe "these atheists that there is no Church, the Church is within us. Be strong for the Orthodox faith, do not believe these fools, for their teaching is heretical and will lead to the destruction of our country…"
During Bishop Benjamin's stay in Poshekhonye-Volodarsk, on June 12, an honorary dinner was arranged for him in the local hotel, which was attended by all the clergy of Poshekhonye-Volodarsk, several priests from the district, as well as members of the parish councils of the city churches.
Before dinner, Bishop Veniamin was presented with an icon of the Holy Trinity and 150 rubles of money from the cathedral community. Here, former teacher of the Yaroslavl Theological Seminary Toropov greeted Veniamin.
In his response to the greeting, Benjamin compared the current situation of the country to Sodom and Gomorrah, saying that "the godless are leading us all to destruction, but if there is still an significant number of righteous people, then it is possible to avoid destruction..."
On the evening of June 12, 1927, Bishop Veniamin was arrested and imprisoned in the city of Yaroslavl. An OGPU investigator demanded that the bishop tell about his trips around the district, as well as the content of the sermons he delivered in churches and what he could answer to the various types of evidence against him that the OGPU had at its disposal.
The Bishop replied:
Around April, I decided to go to the cities of Rybinsk, Poshekhonye-Volodarsk and Mologa to hold festive services there. I arrived in Rybinsk on June 10, 1927, and on the same day I left for Poshekhonye-Volodarsk and on the evening of June 11 I served an all-night vigil, during which I preached a sermon on scientific education, that the fullness of scientific education leads to faith, and that the lack of such education leads to unbelief... I made no attacks against the Soviet government or the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) during my sermon. After the liturgy in the cathedral on June 12, I pointed out that it was a sad phenomenon that part of the public preferred the bazaar to church prayer, and I appealed to those praying to observe the holidays and to use the six days given by God for work, recalling the ancient Jewish prophet who rebuked the Jewish people for violating the Sabbath. The prophet predicted the destruction of the Jewish people for these violations. I said that violating the holidays threatens us with the same danger. I appealed to keep the church statutes, in particular, I spoke about fasts, about the religious education of children as the basis of morality, I called for all marriages to be performed with the blessing of the church, I denounced divorces.
Modern unbelief, among other reasons, is maintained not because people have become more conscious, but on the contrary, because of insufficient consciousness. In this matter, I did not single out the USSR from all other countries, and I did not speak about the decline of culture in the Soviet country. The crucifixion of Christ, which took place two thousand years ago, has continued all the time, from the first days to the present time, and will continue until the end of the world, and the struggle of the Antichrist with Christ has also been, is going on and will go on. I did not use the expression that now the Antichrists have created a persecution of the Church. I said: "The struggle of the Antichrist, sometimes rising, sometimes falling, is again intensifying in our era of the twentieth century." I am fighting unbelief, among the unbelievers there are people and authorities, therefore, in this part my struggle, of course, concerns them too, but they are not a special object of my struggle, but merge with the entire mass of unbelievers, and in this mass my struggle concerns them not as representatives of the authorities, but as private individuals. And that is why I never considered that I was fighting against Soviet power as a power.
On July 10, 1927, the investigation was completed and its materials were sent to the OGPU in Moscow for a final decision, which referred the case to a troika at the Secret Department of the OGPU. On September 23, 1927, the Special Conference of the OGPU Board sentenced Bishop Veniamin to three years of exile in Kazakhstan. Bishop Veniamin was exiled to the city of Dzhambeit in the Uralsk region. He was subsequently transferred to the city of Karatyube in the same region. While in exile, the bishop actively maintained written communications with the priests of the vicariate and with the believers. As often happens during a national trial, divisions began among the clergy and among the believers, often based on personal preferences. Such a division also occurred in Tutayev in 1926. In the spring, on the day of the celebration of the Ascension of the Lord, there is a custom in Tutayev of holding a citywide religious procession. The clergy and parishes with icons and banners went with religious processions through the city; the final destination was, as usual, the Pokrovskaya Church. But this time its rector did not come out and meet the religious procession.
Bishop Veniamin, serving in Tutayev, ordered that evening services in churches begin not at five o'clock in the evening, but at six, so that workers and merchants, who finished work at five o'clock, could get to church, but the rector of the Pokrovsky Church refused to carry out this order of the bishop, instead of arguing, saying only: "We are used to it." When in 1928, unrest began, connected with the publication of the declaration of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), the priest of the Pokrovsky Church separated from Metropolitan Sergius and called on others to do the same.
Bishop Veniamin, explaining to his flock his attitude to this act of the priest and his position regarding the declaration, wrote from exile: "The Church has canons. The canons say: it is impossible to judge the Primate of the Church without the judgment of the Church. If it is not yet there, then remain patient and hopeful, and expectant of the coming judgment; it will be either through the Council, or, if that is impossible, through consensus, which was reached regarding the Renovationists. Metropolitan Agathangel, being on the eve of death, did not dare to come out with a judgment (separation means precisely a judgment) without the judgment of the Church. I also do not dare and am afraid. I obey Metropolitan Sergius. This does not mean that I agree with the declaration... I do not agree with it, I am against it, I condemn it. I do not "reconcile" and do not "agree" with Metropolitan Sergius and consider him guilty, but simply obey. I want to be obedient to the Church and its canon: do not judge without a trial. I am afraid to make a judgment without the trial of the Church. Who acts better - I leave it to the Church's conscience to decide."
News came from everywhere about the closing of churches and the arrests of clergy. It became obvious that the enemy of Christ had set himself the goal of destroying Christianity itself on Russian soil. In anticipation of this terrible future, the bishop wrote to his spiritual children in Tutaev: "I congratulate you on the feast of the Nativity of Christ! It is likely that we will not be long to remain with faces and songs in the glitter of light and golden vestments in the churches of God. We will sing and pray more fervently to the Born Child in these, perhaps, the last days of our churches." "Gather more closely under the banner of the Church of Christ on the holy days of the Nativity holidays, as in war, armies gather under the banners of the army at decisive moments. The enemy of Christ is furiously attacking His fortresses - His churches."
On October 16, 1928, Metropolitan Agathangel (Preobrazhensky) died in Yaroslavl, during whose service only the name of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens, Metropolitan Peter, and the ruling bishop were mentioned, as a protest against the provisions of Metropolitan Sergius, which were incompatible with church principles, from the point of view of the Yaroslavl clergy, and were set out in the declaration, but at the same time Metropolitan Agathangel and his vicars declared that they were not separating from Metropolitan Sergius and were not creating a new church center.
Archbishop Pavel (Borisovsky), appointed by Metropolitan Sergius as acting administrator of the Yaroslavl diocese, arrived for the burial of Metropolitan Agathangel. At the very first service, he began to commemorate Metropolitan Sergius, which confused the Yaroslavl clergy and flock, who had already spoken out not only against Archbishop Pavel, but also against the vicar of the Yaroslavl diocese, Archbishop Varlaam (Ryashentsev), who did not object to this state of affairs. The Yaroslavl diocese once again found itself on the brink of schism.
On November 16, 1928, Bishop Veniamin wrote on this matter to Archpriest Nikolai Rozov:
So, as under Metropolitan Agathangel, so now, according to the ideology and practice of the Yaroslavl diocese, Metropolitan Sergius is the authorized representative of the highest church authority under Metropolitan Peter. Metropolitan Sergius is the legitimate authority. If Archbishop Pavel, appointed by him to Yaroslavl, is the legitimate diocesan bishop, then commemoration of him as such is canonically obligatory.
Metropolitan Sergius himself is in a different position. He is the representative of the highest church authority de facto, but not de jure. De jure, the highest church authority is Metropolitan Peter; de jure, there are no two highest authorities. Canonically, the commemoration of Metropolitan Peter is obligatory. The canon is silent about the commemoration of his assistant; the moral right not to commemorate Metropolitan Sergius is based on this silence.
Anyone who refuses to commemorate Archbishop Pavel cannot do so simply in person in his own apartment. He must justify his cessation of commemoration of Archbishop Pavel before the relevant church body, and declare his guilt. The guilt must be revealed and judged by the established body. This is the first method. In the absence of such a body, there must be a second method, which is prescribed for such a case by the 4th rule of the First Ecumenical Council (on the issue of electing a bishop). In order to separate from Archbishop Pavel outside of this order, one must also separate from Metropolitan Sergius. It is not at all easy to separate from Metropolitan Sergius; separation from Metropolitan Sergius must also be lawful. Anyone who makes such a separation on his own initiative and judgment acts according to anarchic self-will, which does not correspond to the nature of the Church, as well as according to provincial-philistine unscrupulousness. Anyone who violates the organic order of the Church, "where everything is done decently and in order" before God, the Church and conscience, is subject to accusation...
Patriarch Tikhon allowed for a time not to mention his name in church proclamations. This is "economy", which is also permissible for Metropolitan Sergius. The commemoration of Metropolitan Sergius is not canonically obligatory, but it can be said that in recognizing him, it is morally obligatory. But if his name is temporarily associated with the Declaration, dishonoring the Church, and therefore causes confusion, then not remembering him is permissible for "economy".
This is how I understand the case of Metropolitan Sergius. Here we did not separate from him and did not stop commemorating him all the time. I consider the Declaration a stain that has stained our Church and caused damage to the glory of the Orthodox Church. When the Declaration was issued, protests were heard, showing that the Church, with regard to the Declaration, is not with Metropolitan Sergius. Only a very small part approved his act, but not the whole Church, which retained its former Orthodox face. But after such an act, can Metropolitan Sergius be defended? Here, according to the canon, we demand separation from the guilty one. But can it be asserted that the Declaration contains heresy? Our Church has not yet said a word about this. There is a division on this subject: some approve or do not find anything special, others condemn, equating in certain cases the act of Metropolitan Sergius with heresy, with betrayal of Orthodoxy. Such a diversity of opinions testifies to the lack of clarity in understanding and defining the true quality of the Declaration. In most views, the Declaration constitutes a sin not in the area of dogma, but in the area of morality. The Declaration is not heresy, but rather a spiritual and moral crime. But there is no perfection on earth, there is no authority that would not sin. A person in authority also sins, some more, some less. But this sin does not destroy authority and does not constitute a factor that deprives its bearer of the right to be a member of the Church. Therefore, Metropolitan Sergius can be tolerated, especially given the circumstances of the time, especially in the absence of a clear common voice of the Church on the true spiritual nature of his act, such a view quickly took shape in the Church, for example, on renovationism. When such a clear voice of the Church can speak out, then a common judgment will follow...
If there had been a Council, Metropolitan Sergius, deprived of trust, would undoubtedly have been "replaced" by another, but one can confidently think that he would not have been deprived of church communion. There are no grounds to exclude him from church communion now, and therefore there is no ground to carry out separation. Since there is no Council, then it is possible, at least for now, to admit him as a representative of authority - here church "economy" can take place. Not separation, but rather the resignation of Metropolitan Sergius is permissible, but due to the circumstances of the time there is no structural possibility to carry out such a "resignation", and therefore the Church's economy speaks of the continuation of Metropolitan Sergius' tenure as a bearer of authority..."
The question of the attitude towards Metropolitan Sergius continued to worry the clergy of the Yaroslavl diocese, and Bishop Veniamin wrote to Archpriest Alexander Kudryavtsev:
I must remember the Metropolitan with a kind word - for speaking out against Metropolitan Sergius, who has tarnished the glory of our Orthodox Church with his Declaration. For some time now, Metropolitan Agathangel has reunited with Metropolitan Sergius - this is a step of great wisdom and peace - peace not with the Declaration, but with the Deputy. The Metropolitan realized that everything in the Church must be sacred. Metropolitan Sergius violated holiness, our Metropolitan protested. Having separated, he himself acted contrary to the canons. He saw this and was not ashamed to admit it to everyone. In this he showed great humility and obedience to the Church and Her canons. There is one reason why the Church allows separation - in the case of a Bishop's heresy, condemned by the Holy Councils. In order to separate from Metropolitan Sergius, the Declaration must be equated with this heresy. Who will equate it? Anyone who thinks it is heresy? This is not possible. After all, can every Romanov aunt be a theologian or canonist? There must be a common voice of the Church regarding the Declaration. We do not have such a common voice of the Church. The opposite is happening - a diversity of opinions. The Lord rules the Church. He will not allow the Church to fall. Our duty is to wait with hope and humility, with patience, for the general judgment and voice of the Church regarding Metropolitan Sergius and not to violate church unity and peace. Our humility, patience and expectation will not diminish the Orthodoxy of our faith. Sometimes decades passed before the church issue was clarified. Let us not hurry either, haste will cause discord and divisions, and the third will rejoice in them. The commemoration of Archbishop Pavel, if he remains, is canonically obligatory, like the commemoration of Metropolitan Peter. The commemoration of Metropolitan Sergius is not canonically obligatory. There can be talk of praying for him only on moral grounds...
From the diocese, the bishop was constantly receiving sad news about the closing of churches, so that entire cities with thousands of Orthodox people were deprived of worship.
On December 1, 1928, Bishop Veniamin wrote to Poshekhonye-Volodarsk:
I express my gratitude to you for your concern for my needs. May the Lord bless your mercy to a person living in a foreign land.
You write that life without a church is boring. Yes, sorrow has befallen you, Orthodox people. But have you done anything to obtain a church? You will not be given back two, but it may not be hopeless to obtain one. It is useless to apply with a paper application. Try a personal delegation of two people, first to Yaroslavl, and then to Moscow. Collect some money for the trip together; sacrifice your time, labor and all your resources, and ask for one church. You have three: ask for one of them. If the government will not agree to any of the churches, ask for permission to establish a prayer house. The sectarians commit clearly hostile acts against the state: they do not fulfill military service and in their teachings preach against military service, and yet they are allowed to have prayer houses. You ask too. What is a prayer house? Find a private building, adapt it for a church. Let it be small. It is possible to make peace with a small one. As long as there is an Orthodox service. You can adapt not only a house, but also a barn. The ancient Christians adapted even worse premises: underground quarries. If you are allowed, you can do better. Buy some wood and build a simple barracks - it will become your church. You have to bother. Once will not help, after some time bother another time. Work for the Church and your city. Without a church, wean yourself off the Church. In the meantime - at least occasionally visit neighboring parishes. If possible, perform all services, sacraments, prayers, memorial services, confession, Holy Communion with neighboring Orthodox priests. Do not go to the Renovationists. They only wear vestments and priestly attire, but they are not priests. An illegal wife is completely identical in appearance to a legal one. However, there is a big difference: one is a legal and God-blessed spouse, the other is a simple cohabitant and harlot, and not a wife at all. A baptized child and an unbaptized child are similar in appearance, but there is a huge difference between them: one is a Christian, blessed by God the Holy Spirit, the other is an atheist, a pagan, deprived of the sanctification of the Holy Spirit. So it is with the renovationists. In appearance, they have a cassock and a robe, and they serve in the same way. But in essence, there is a huge difference: an Orthodox priest has the grace of the priesthood, a renovationist is empty, has nothing, he is not a priest.
God bless you all!
Bishop Benjamin.
Considering it the duty of a bishop to express his ecclesiastical point of view, as he understands the questions that have arisen before the Russian Orthodox Church and require ecclesiastical resolution, Bishop Veniamin sent a letter to Archbishop Pavel on June 16, 1929, to the apartment of the dean, Archpriest Flegont Pongilsky. Archpriest Flegont handed the letter to the archbishop.
Bishop Benjamin wrote:
June 3/16, 1929.
His Eminence Bishop Paul.
I have written and tried to influence, in my personal opinion and duty as a bishop, the incorrect attitude of the Yaroslavl people towards Metropolitan Sergius and towards you, the Archbishop sent by him to the Yaroslavl cathedra. I considered and consider the correct attitude to be the condemnation of the Declaration with the Synod, and with all this - church unity with Metropolitan Sergius. Separation from Metropolitan Sergius without an ecclesiastical-formal court of the Church, or without an explicitly expressed common voice of the Church, or without the dismissal of Metropolitan Sergius by our Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Peter - separation according to one's own private understanding and initiative - I consider canonical lawlessness and lynching. Until the trial - either by the Council, or by the general voice of the Church, or by Metropolitan Peter, Metropolitan Sergius is the legitimate deputy and, no matter how his Declaration is condemned, the church unity with him should not be broken. With regard to you, as the Yaroslavl Archbishop, not elected but appointed, involved in the Declaration and the Synod, I have expressed in letters the idea that, with all the canonical and church-constructive inclination towards election, your appointment to the position cannot constitute a canonical precedent for the separation of the Yaroslavl people from Sergius and from you.
The most important thing in my letters was unity with Metropolitan Sergius. So far there is only one solution, there should be no re-decision under the current conditions that have not yet been formed for it.
Your question is already the second question in terms of its legal composition and the degree of ecclesiastical importance. Its solution allows, due to its legal insolvency, for a re-decision. The persistent and straightforward implementation of your appointment does not exclude the possibility of your return or removal in a lawful manner. Your appearance does not constitute a position of inviolability. Your position is subject to theoretical alignment in the direction of a practical agreement. Your position is not based on a theoretical basis "but is strong for the truth" (2 Cor. 13:8), but on the practical church-historical "admissibility and possibility", because there was always some impurity in them - a violation of the canon, which the Church tolerated and endured, but, suffering, endured. The Yaroslavl Church also found itself in a position of similar endurance with you. There was some canonical impurity in your appearance. You walked in an environment more suitable for the world than for the church atmosphere. And therefore, in your confirmation on the Yaroslavl cathedra, you morally should not have shown all the energy contained in the canon. In the Church, even truth creates a "kiss" with the world and truth comes to meet with "mercy". The Church spares the imperfection and weakness of man. Ideal truths and justices are hard for him, and She dissolves them with "peace" and "mercy". You had neither the full "truth" nor the "justice", therefore, and even more so, you had to take the path of kissing with "mercy" and "peace". But you went with a staff, making your way with a staff. There are cases in the Church when a pastor must act with a staff: the example of our "Chrysostom" - St. Philip and others. But that staff is indicated for vile vessels. The people of Yaroslavl, when they met you, did not represent such a "vile vessel", their desire was lawful and spiritually pure - to have as their pastor someone already known, already close to birth, already beloved by them. The One who sent you and you went ordering, demanding, extorting, secretly forcing, reinforcing your progress towards the goal with the knock of the staff, almost using violence. But not in the distance, among you, it is felt. It is not from you, but for you, it supports you, and you rely on it. This is obvious to everyone - it is obvious to you, no doubt. This force is alien to the Church; the force - the support of the sword - is a perversion of the nature of the Church. You know this. The Orthodox consciousness will never want to reconcile itself with the sword, it bears its action with difficulty, offensively, painfully. How can you be calm and bold? Understand the people of Yaroslavl, who are experiencing you so hard and sorrowfully. What circumstances are causing and requiring your persistent advancement to the Yaroslavl cathedra? You cannot point to such ecclesiastical circumstances, for they do not exist. You are from worldly calculations, not from Christ's. The circumstances that have developed point, on the contrary, in favor of your voluntary abandonment of the course you have taken "at all costs." The unrest of the Yaroslavl believing community threatened a major and sad consequence - a break in communication with Metropolitan Sergius, especially since it had recently been experienced and had not yet been completely overcome (Archbishop Seraphim). For the "meeting" and "kissing with peace and mercy", in the name of the valuable for the Church unity with the first bishop, in the name of peace you had to refuse the knocking of the staff, but you did not heed the danger threatening the Yaroslavl Church, did not look closely at the canonical instability of your position, neglected the spirit of that coercion, which was your confirmation in Yaroslavl. But violence is a property belonging to the sinful "world of this". The spirit of coercion is not characteristic of the Church - the kingdom of love, peace and freedom, about it it is said: "you do not know what kind of spirit you are." How little this spirit harmonizes with those images under which the pastoral service is often presented in the word of God: "father, shepherd, bridegroom". The participation of the modern "chief prosecutor's office" has imposed its strong colors.
You went and came; in the end, you were accepted. Perhaps there would have been rejection, and it was outlined in some features. But obedience overcame the opposing moods. Let us say: this is how it should have been. Arrival with escorts has happened in the Church more than once, and not only with us. The Church knows and remembers this well. It suffered, grieved, but reconciled itself and endured. And the Yaroslavl Church resigned itself. Your arrival has not yet gone beyond the limits of church tolerance.
You stayed, but you must think about the psychology of the Yaroslavl mood and some of the harsh statements that were part of the long and painful process of your establishment in Yaroslavl.
What prompted the Yaroslavl people to resist you? You personally. No, not because you lacked personal merit. No - the very first impressions there were favorable. Was it because the Yaroslavl people reacted negatively to your appearance that their worldly pride was affected, that their desire was not satisfied? Perhaps there was some wounded feeling - all people. But an explanation based on pride alone would be a philistine explanation. The reasons for the opposition to you were of a different, far from philistine kind, they were deeper. It was not the first time in the Russian Church, and in the Church in general, that bishops were sent by appointment, without coping with local desires, sometimes even contrary to them. That administrative persistence, that course of "at all costs" that was taken in your occupation of the cathedra was no exception. Patriarch Tikhon sent the appointed ones, Metropolitan Peter appointed them, and Metropolitan Sergius appointed them too. Until 1927, all these appointments were accepted everywhere peacefully, calmly, with complete obedience to the one who sent them. Between the head and the body of the Church, between the high priests and the Church, there was complete unity of faith, love and peace. Why has disunity followed now? First of all, the reason for such disunity was the famous Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius. The Declaration dealt a strong blow to the dignity of the Church, to church unity and peace, the body of the Church experienced a deep shock. There were unrest, protests, strife, separation, hostility. The Church stood "on guard". Trust in Metropolitan Sergius was shaken, and for many it was completely lost. His Orthodoxy was suspect, the question arose: is he worthy of standing at the head of the Church? Peace in the Church has not been restored even now, the connection between the body and the head is weakened, in disorder.
Metropolitan Sergius began an undertaking that was complex and difficult in its spiritual foundation. In order to regulate the civil status of the Church in the modern state, Metropolitan Sergius carried out an experiment unprecedented in the history of the Church - an experiment of contact between two mutually contradictory elements: the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of atheism, the Kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of the Antichrist. Metropolitan Sergius was always distinguished by the known flexibility of his mind. Here he went beyond the limit and became its victim.
The Declaration placed the Church in a relationship with the modern state that it cannot accept while remaining the Church. Our state has openly inscribed on its banner before the entire world - atheism and the fight against religion, especially against Orthodoxy. "A fight to the bitter end," until the complete death of religion. The Church can never say to such a government: "I am with our government," to a godless people: "I am with our people." The Church can never say: "The joys and successes of our civil homeland are our joys and successes, its failures are our failures." The government has come out under the banner of atheism and a systematic godless war against religion. Our Christian homeland, under the leadership of a godless government, is being systematically and quickly rebuilt, it is already new, its structure in all areas of life is godless, anti-Christian, a godless homeland is being formed. The joys and successes of its godless structure cannot be the joys of the Church. The concept of homeland is a complex concept. It includes the following terms: geographical, national, political, social, everyday, religious. Of all these terms, only one remains inviolable for us - geographical. And the latter is not quite so. Everything is sanctified by the word of God and prayer (1 Tim. 4:5), and the land can be holy and not holy, clean and defiled. Atheism defiles the land: a godless homeland is no longer a sacred homeland. For a Christian, it ceases to be a homeland. A Christian cannot call a godlessly built homeland his homeland, and even more so rejoice in its joys and successes. The joys and successes of a godless homeland reinforce the godlessness of the homeland and therefore cannot be the joys of a Christian. Having stood next to atheism and a godless government, having appropriated for himself the joys and successes of a godlessly built and godless homeland, Metropolitan Sergius "bowed" the Church of Christ under one yoke, under a foreign yoke, with the "infidels", in the communion of righteousness "with lawlessness", in the unnatural, forced agreement of Christ with Belial ( 2 Cor. 6: 14-15 ). Two thousand years after the baptism of Christ, who refused "to worship him [i.e, the devil]" (Matt. 4:9), Metropolitan Sergius, like the famous Grand Inquisitor of Spain, "bows" the neck of Christ before "him". To the call of the devil: "Fall down and worship me", Christ responded with a call to the devil: "Away with thee, Satan" (Matt. 4:9-10). Neither did Christ bow down before the tempter, nor did the devil follow Christ, but he departed from Him for a time (Luke 4:13). Two thousand years later, the Russian Grand Inquisitor undertakes a new world experiment, again brings Christ together with the Antichrist, "reconciles" them and bows them under one yoke of the "Antichrist cargo wagon of the world". A monstrous union - the union of heaven and hell. The picture is stunning! The picture is not fantastic, but from the real colors of the Declaration. The colors are literal, real, the drawing is not arbitrary. The Church was horrified by the picture. The hierarchy and the laity, with a few exceptions, rejected Metropolitan Sergius with deep emotion, with great anxiety and deprivation of their love and respect, with which they previously surrounded him. Many with loss of trust, hostility, enmity suspected in him the impurity of his Orthodoxy, ceased to see in him a representative of the Orthodox Church. Separations, lynchings, sentences, the cessation of church commemoration began. Until recently, there has been a constant murmur against Metropolitan Sergius in all church districts. This is how the Declaration was understood by the Church - the hierarchy and the laity. Metropolitan Sergius cannot complain about the incorrect understanding. The entire Church understood the document in the same way. Metropolitan Sergius cannot say that he had neither such nor similar intentions to "incline" the Church to an alliance with the atheists-fighters against God and their inspirers. The "union" was created in defiance of reality. When he uttered certain provisions, he meant by them a very limited content, more or less acceptable to everyday thinking. It turns out that many people, reading the words of the document, must not only assimilate their direct, literal meaning, but at the same time, thousands of miles away, discern the motives hidden in the soul of the author, internally connected with the words set out on paper. The sometimes possible, by the degree of logical completeness of the content, guessing the unspoken thoughts of the author is impossible with Metropolitan Sergius. His expressions are brief, definite and have no logical context that would help in guessing hidden motives. A very clear "yes" is given, and no tricks can make a "no" out of it. When a document leaves the hands of the author, it is separated from the personality of the author. The reader does not know and does not see the author, he sees the document and judges the personality of the writer by its words. Such is the literary law and the right of the reader. If we accept the justification of Metropolitan Sergius that he did not use these expressions in the literal sense, that they must imply such and such words - the words themselves mean one thing, but internally another is meant - we will have to blame him for another unseemly circumstance - the duality of his intentions. With one, obvious side he directs his speech to the government, and with the other side, completely inconsistent with the first, to the Church. The Church is not worldly diplomacy, which is often characterized by such indecent duality of language.
At its core, Metropolitan Sergius' apology asserts that he is "pure" and innocent of any alliances. One can believe him or not. Those who know him personally can believe him, but there are only a few hundred of them. There are many thousands of those who do not know him. They see the fruit, and for those who know and those who do not know, this fruit is poisoned with venom, and it does not exude the fragrance of Christ. He caused deep suffering to the Church, produced painful discord within the Church, and belittled its glory before those outside. The feeling of the sanctity of the "Church of Sergius" weakened in many, and the question arose: should we leave it? "The fruit was borne without evil intent," says Metropolitan Sergius. He knows that if there had been obvious compromise, the Church would have parted with him immediately after the fruit fell from the tree. But should one think that the absence of intent removes guilt? Without intent, great evil is often committed. The Church in such cases imposes its penance on the one who has done evil unintentionally, for a moral being has many elements of guilt even in an unintentional act. In the same way, the Church considered Metropolitan Sergius to be very guilty, allowing for "unintentionality."
They say: it is possible to separate the civil element from the religious. This is either a fallacy or a sophism. Socialism in the abstract is a purely economic system. Many therefore think that economic life can be built without touching on religion at all. In one and the same society, religion itself and economic construction itself can exist. In continuation of this thought, it will be said that one and the same person can do religious things with his right hand, and economic things with his left hand, independently of the right, and develop the purely economic sphere of life at will, according to the most diverse systems. This idea is based on another idea, that the human soul is freely divided into two spheres. In one, a person lives in God and religion, in the other - with only one world: civil, secular, earthly. In the latter part, religion is not required. Both parts live in parallel, but they can also do without each other. The idea of such two existences in the soul - religious and irreligious - is fundamentally wrong. This parallelism and separateness of two existences is in the abstraction. In reality, it does not exist and cannot exist. For a believer, for a Christian, this is impossible because Christ's demand comes to him - to love God with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his mind (Matt. 22:37), with all his strength (Mark 12:30); not a part of the soul, but the whole soul, not only the spiritual, but also the physical "whole strength" the Christian must give to God. In the soul is all life - both eternal and earthly. All life: both eternal and earthly, both spiritual and material - must be given to God. And when a Christian builds his earthly life, he will provide a religious foundation everywhere, he will provide a religious environment everywhere, he will include a religious element everywhere. Even if he deals with the most material matters and objects, the Christian says: "Everything is for the glory of God." When an unbeliever builds his life, he will not be able to take only a part of life for his purely economic structure. He will certainly strive to take all of life for a non-religious structure. Unbelieving builders are generous with promises of complete religious freedom, that is, they very talkatively promise to provide a certain part of life for any religion, so that the rest of life can be occupied exclusively with non-religious content. But such promises, firstly, are unacceptable by their very nature: irreligion, whatever it may be, is not applicable to religiosity; secondly, these promises are never fulfilled by unbelieving builders of life. The fulfillment of promises of complete freedom here too is rather possible only in the abstract. Both religion and atheism have the same property in their natures - the centrifugal force of expansion. And religion strives to embrace all of life, just as atheism, even to a greater degree, strives to seize life for itself. Atheism can succeed here much more than religion, for atheism has more means and methods for achieving its goals than religion. Religion uses only the inner force of conviction. It is contrary to religion to force religion. For atheism everything is permitted, ending with all forms of violence. Atheism always uses them for its own dissemination. Religious freedom is therefore always more represented by religious rulers than by atheists.
But let us imagine an atheistic government with ideal tolerance for religion. This changes the subject of our question little. A Christian, like a believer of any other religion, can never be satisfied and reconciled with an atheistic government. In religion, a person is not isolated from the life around him - family, social and state. Religion is not a separate cell among many other cells of the organism. A Christian, as a person, is a member of a family, society, state. When the entire organism is built irreligiously, a person's religiosity is significantly affected. He knows: "Except the Lord build the house, in vain do they labor that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, in vain does the watchman watch" (Psalm 126:1). Therefore, an irreligious mood of life, even if the most tolerant towards religion, even if with the most possible separation of the material-civil side from the religious, cannot in principle be acceptable to a Christian or a person of any other religion. The unacceptability is further increased by the fact that seemingly pure irreligiosity is in reality a real fight against God, which sets itself the goal of producing the complete destruction of religion, Christianity in particular. The imaginary separation of religion from the civil side does not change the essence of the matter in the least. This civil side, firstly, is not a side: it is the entire body of the state; and this entire body, secondly, is completely atheistic, God-fighting. From the world: from the earth, from the state, from the people, from society, from the square, from the home, from the family, even from the surface of the human body - from his neck, religion is completely swept out and locked into an individual "inner cage", into the "soul", so that it does not dare to look out "the window of the soul", into the surrounding world. Is it about this civil side, this civil "homeland" that Metropolitan Sergius can say: "we are with our government, we are with our people"? Meanwhile, Metropolitan Sergius and our government are the complete opposite. Metropolitan Sergius finds it possible to build life in such a way that one part of it will be with religion, and the other part will be without religion, a purely civil side. The government, even if there was a real possibility of a parallel structure, not only cannot build it this way, but does not want to build it this way. It takes the entire volume of life and wants to make it entirely atheistic. Ideologically and empirically, this means the expulsion of religion, especially Christianity, from the entire volume of life, the expulsion of God, Christ, His Church, for the establishment of the Antichrist, the expulsion of the God-man and the creation of a man-god. The government is not speaking diplomatically here, it is going with an open visor: down with God, down with Christ and His Church, religion. I am God. This is not just the Antichrist. This is further than the Antichrist. The Antichrist knows God and Christ. The basis of the Antichrist is pride alone. The government wants to know neither God nor Christ, only itself - a man: I am God, and to assert its intentions in the new state. Metropolitan Sergius should have formulated it somehow differently, so as not to contradict the dignity and essence of the Church, if it was necessary to begin such a difficult undertaking at all.
Our state is making the first experiment in the world. A similar process is taking place in other states at lower levels - where there is already a separation of Church and state. The atheization of humanity is growing. Its limits are unknown. The ideological outcome for Christianity in an atheistic state is to leave the world, the atheistic state. (But where to? Nowhere.) A Christian can only grieve and endure, submit to reality. He submits not ideologically - he keeps his principles as a sacred thing. In the present reality, this keeping is the idea of his life. What is the point? A Christian believes in Providence. God leads man steadily to the set goals of the universe. What has happened is not a world accident. It is an act permitted by You, wise and good. God-creating evolution awaits the keeping and protection of the Christian banner - this is a necessary link and factor in that evolution. A betrayal of the banner, a deviation to the side, a weakening of the standard-bearer in preserving the banner - threatens a retreat and exclusion from the chain of evolution, the divine-royal history of salvation. In the words of Metropolitan Sergius, a betrayal of the Christian banner sounded, which is why the Church sounded the alarm. It was horrified by the risen ghost. Horrified for the fate of Russian Orthodoxy, for its place in God's salvation.
Bishop Benjamin.
Archbishop Pavel, having read the letter, handed it over to Metropolitan Sergius, and it soon reached the OGPU and was then sent to the head of the Ural District Department of the OGPU with the following description: "It is clear from the document that Veniamin does not hide his face, but directly calls for a fight against the 'godless government.' We propose that Veniamin be thoroughly investigated for the purpose of identifying his connections among local churchmen and his counter-revolutionary work."
On July 28, 1929, after the OGPU officers had made extracts from this letter, the head of the Ural District Department of the OGPU ordered: "Begin intensive work on Veniamin, surround him with our informants, set the latter the task of identifying Veniamin's connections with the counterrevolutionary clergy... Report the results of your work."
In early September 1929, a large group of clergy led by Archbishop Varlaam (Ryashentsev) was arrested in Yaroslavl. Archbishop Pavel (Borisovsky) was also arrested, but he was soon released after agreeing to collaborate with the OGPU.
On January 3, 1930, the OGPU Collegium sentenced Archbishop Varlaam and thirty-two other people with him to various terms of imprisonment, and on February 18, 1930, the OGPU investigator ordered: "To hold Bishop Veniamin Voskresensky, who is in exile, accountable through the appropriate authorities for disseminating anti-Soviet correspondence."
The confusion among the Yaroslavl flock continued as before, and Bishop Veniamin considered it necessary to continue to explain his position concerning the church problems of recent times, prompting others to think about it.
On October 8, 1929, he wrote to priest Alexander Sokolov, who served in the bishop's homeland in the village of Pereslavskoye:
In the Church, the Church always judges, or to whom it entrusts the judgment. A judgment without the Church is a showdown. A judgment without the Church is lynching; local power during a period of revolutionary disorder is anarchy. Those who separated from Metropolitan Sergius carried out a self-proclaimed, impostor judgment, or rather lynching. My opinion on all this is that the possible formation of a common voice of the Church is necessary. This cannot be done quickly. With patience we flow to the feat that lies before us. Hence the possibility of suffering. Let us endure them with humility and obedience to the Church and with hope in the Heavenly Helmsman. The "Declaration" is subject to condemnation and judgment. The canons speak of election, but in the Church itself, throughout history, appointments have been practiced very often and appointments have never been made a reason for separation from the Church, a violation of freedom. But for two thousand years the Church has never been free. The state power constantly violated this freedom. The power acted either itself or through the Patriarchs and Synods. The Church never made these violations a reason for separation from the Patriarchs and Synods, through which the secular power carried out its violations. In this case, the Church was able to distinguish real violators from imaginary, seeming violators, and humbly endured all violations committed against it: appointments, transfers, deprivations, dismissals, expulsions, exiles, etc.
On February 20, 1930, the Bishop wrote to one of his spiritual daughters:
May the Lord help you. An unexpected thunder has struck you, a sorrow has befallen you, oppressing your mind, deeply disturbing your heart. "Woe to those who milk in those days," the Savior foretold of the end times. Of all the grieving, the Savior singled out and especially pitied mothers with infants. Even fathers, according to the Savior, will not feel morally as mothers; all the rest are even further away. Although He said of everyone: "People will say to the mountains: 'Fall on us,' and to the hills: 'Cover us.'" The sorrows of those who seek consolation in the mountains and hills are not our sorrows. We are still only in our infancy. Now we can partly imagine the sufferings of future sorrows and compare them with ours. So far, we have not yet reached these "mountains and hills."
From your letter it is clear that in the first moments you were not far from the mountains and hills, but it is also clear that you soon coped with the first attacks. The thought of "liquidating" yourself flashed through your mind. But this does not accuse you. What is the Night of Gethsemane? It is a new attack of the devil on Christ, who took upon himself the sins of mankind. What are the actions of the devil in such moments? He does not create them, but uses them, only developing their possible intensity. The natural pre-Golgotha craving of Christ's heart from the sinful burden was taken by the devil to intensify it, to bring melancholy to despair, to renunciation, to a fall, to death. In Judas this onslaught was successful for the devil. He was not even born to Christ. But people are weak, he is born to them. That is, from a thought aroused by the devil in the soul, desires arise, moods are aroused; in some they develop to the last degree. This is precisely the work of the devil: like a blacksmith, he fans the mood that has arisen in the soul with bellows and coals. And if a person succumbs, the development of the mood proceeds at a rapid pace and in intense degrees. Here "murderous" ideas and desires arise; or they are suggested by the enemy and, finding favorable soil, are willingly accepted by the soul, and by us they are strengthened and often reach their end. In others, the development of the mood is delayed by prayer, and the work of the devil is rejected. As in the first case, so equally in the second, the grace-giving power is simultaneously active. But in the first, the grace-giving power in a person succumbing to the enemy's suggestion does not find soil; in the second, it is accepted and manifests itself as an accomplice and, in turn, also strengthening the good feeling of the person struggling with the devil and helping him. With its help, a person overcomes the first attacks of overwhelming feelings and emerges victorious.
Such an invisible spiritual victory over the devil's work, which tried to use the disastrous state of your saddened soul, happened to you. Thank the Lord for helping you. Continue to listen to the voice and will of the gracious power that protected you.
The enemy's blow that has befallen you cannot be called unexpected. Two years ago it might have seemed unexpected. But it was being prepared then. With the love for the Church of Christ that you had internalized, your zeal for Her welfare, your participation in Her inner life, you could not pass unnoticed by the enemies of Christ. They were watching you and probably preparing their attack on you from behind. The blow was delivered. Ready to lose your head, you did not lose your head at the suddenness of the blow. Now it must only be revealed that your cause was hateful to the enemies of Christ and therefore was always fraught with such consequences, that is, it contained a very clear and definite possibility of all sorts of unpleasantness and blows. For you it was unexpected, because you believed in man, believed in his freedom in determining his religious convictions and therefore never stopped to think about the possibilities hidden behind all this, and did not watch yourself in this line. Hence it also happened that we probably did not compare ourselves with them (that is, with these possibilities) so carefully. Any work in technology requires certain equipment. The affairs of our souls do the same. Only the equipment here is different. The discrepancy in technology between its idea and the equipment gives surprises. It is the same in our souls. This happened to you because of trust in people and ideas. It is necessary and even useful for each of us to understand this. The Savior said: "What they have spoken in the ear in the house will be proclaimed on the housetops" (Luke 12:3). That is, what is contained in the most secret thought will certainly come out of its concealment into the worldly expanse and bring its consequences. The Savior warned his disciples in advance, sending them to preach, so that they would not think that they could hide from the enemy of Christ, pass unnoticed. Such is the property of Christ's work, like gas and its property - expansion. The disciples must be prepared in advance for the fact that their preaching will go out to the "rooftops". This is also said to all of us. The first disciples were ready. But we, in the year 2000, are far from always "ready". This is due to "our weakness". It is very typical of us.
Should we say all this after what has already happened? And is it useful to say it to ourselves? We should and it is useful. Thinking back - first of all to explain what happened in the present - well reveals the place of our personality in the accomplished matter and thereby greatly moderates the excitement of our soul. But, as they say, the past cannot be brought back. There is only one thing left to say about the past: either repent or don't repent. No matter how painful it is for you, I am sure that you do not repent of what you have done. We are shown high examples, in particular, the ancient righteous Job. But these examples are high for us. The Gospel speaks of this height. And the Apostle James repeated: "Have you heard the patience of Job?" Yes, the Apostle can say this. The Apostle himself was at this height. We are weak. But he, "having himself been tempted, is able to help those who are tempted." Such a one will speak truthfully and naturally. But each of us can think: to lose heart or not to lose heart? Not to lose heart - that is within our power. And we must do all this: let us pray to God for help - pray for help for all of us...
In March 1930, the bishop wrote to Deacon Alexander Nikolaevich Shuvalov in Rybinsk:
Dear Father Deacon,
Thank you for your commemoration. I received your letter. Forgive me for not writing to you for so long. This was not due to negligence. Even here, residents who see us sometimes turn to us: "What are you doing, you eat and then lie on your side." To find the answer to such a question, you should ask your wife - your hostess, how busy is she, how much does she lie on her side? We, peasants, not involved in the household, always think that dinner cooks itself, that all housekeeping is "trifles", worthless. And I thought so all my life, and now I saw and learned that a woman is a great worker in her work. The Lord was in the house of Lazarus. Mary sat at the feet of the Savior, listening to His teaching, Martha bustled about the house with refreshments. The Lord praised Mary's part, but did not blame Martha's part either. The Lord loved Martha, who uncomplainingly, humbly, zealously, with love for people, bears her earthly burden. But, by the way, the essence of His words is that the business burden should not absorb the whole soul and materialize it. Martha, being a busy housewife, knew the work of salvation well, followed the Lord from time to time and loved Him no less than Mary. And we, the strong, did not appreciate this (for example, me).
Until recently, four people lived in the apartment, now - three. Two rooms, two stoves. One works as a carpenter on the side, that's all he lives on, one has a heart defect. We have to do a lot of housework.
Our second occupation is letter writing. It is a very necessary occupation, people are waiting for guidance - spiritual, ecclesiastical. Sometimes the affairs of life, personal needs motivate us to be in communication - everyday or spiritual. Isolation from people is not in the Christian commandment. The Savior came to build a Church from people, that is, translated into Russian, "a gathering", a society. People are not thought of in personal isolation, but in close contact with one another. People write to me, and my great duty is to write and answer. And do you know how many addresses I have? More than a hundred. And my right hand is still weak.
I thank God for my health. I should have had a real, full blow, but only a small part of it happened. The Lord did not allow the disease to develop fully, and I exist, maintaining my ability to work...
In April 1930, Bishop Veniamin wrote to one of his spiritual daughters in the city of Petrovsk in the Yaroslavl province in response to a parcel he had received:
I received your box yesterday. I express my gratitude for your zeal: black rusks are very good. They do not know black bread here and do not know how to bake it. There is only wheat, but it is spring and very tasteless. This year, the Kirghiz have no bread at all - nothing has grown. They have grown very little millet. This is the main Kirghiz crop. Unfortunate people, they are very hungry. The Kirghiz government does not help its people at all in enduring the famine. A primitive people, and its representatives are also primitive. Their mosque is closed. Meetings for prayer have ceased. Poor people have also appeared among the Kirghiz. Religion interferes with earthly life, and religion has begun to be removed from the earth. Who of them can say that their life has become better? The Kirghiz also bring up their children in school without religion. I am walking down the street and meet a girl of about thirteen. "Is there a God?" she asks me. I answer in Kirghiz: "Bar." The girl laughs and goes on. Evil seeds are sown here and everywhere in innocent children's souls. I have not yet seen a single poor person whom I could call nice. They are all impudent, rude, speak in an impudent tone, great boasters. When there is a society where only such subjects from such spiritually wild people are, what will that society be? It is well known how strong buildings are erected. They lay a wall of hewn stones, they are adjusted to each other and fit well, they fit firmly, they make a strong wall. I have seen other buildings in the Caucasus. They laid a wall of torn, unhewn stones. Cement, like clay, bound them together, but not for long: the rains washed away the cement, the winds blew it away, the frosts produced cracks, and the wall fell apart. Ah, ragged, unhewn stones - proud, rude, selfish people. They will never form a dense, strong wall. They, like a wall, will fall apart. Julian the Apostate was a Christian, then he renounced, studied with Gregory. What evil is humanity preparing for itself, raising such girls...
On March 17, 1930, Bishop Veniamin and other exiles were summoned from Karatyube to Uralsk. "We were traveling in a convoy," wrote the bishop, "of 22 carts... 44 oxen. Both the oxen and the coachmen were hungry as wolves. We traveled for a week. They gnawed the three of us clean. We sat down to tea: we had crackers, the Kirghiz had stale meat for three days. We sat down, and then 22 hands reached out to us: "Give me nan (bread)!" There was not a single cracker left in Uralsk..."
Upon arrival in Uralsk, Bishop Veniamin was imprisoned; a total of 29 people were arrested in this case, and since he had the rank of bishop, the OGPU made him the main defendant in the case, thus honoring his rank.
On April 5, Bishop Veniamin was interrogated and, answering the investigator's questions, said:
I do not admit my guilt, I have never incited anyone against the Soviet government. Moreover, I have never met the participants you listed in person, I do not know many of them at all, therefore I mean exclusively written communications with the aforementioned persons, and these communications were regular for me and on various issues - I declare that in my letters to them I did not incite them against the Soviet government. What, in fact, does it mean to incite against the Soviet government? In the true sense, I did not seek to instill in believers the idea of overthrowing the Soviet government, but I absolutely do not agree with its policy of persecution of religion, with its anti-church, anti-religious activities ... I fight against the godlessness of the Soviet government, I complain about this godlessness, but I am convinced that this does not mean calling for the overthrow of the Soviet government as a state power. In my understanding, religion and the state are two different institutions. Complaining about atheism does not mean fighting the state. In one of my letters to Bishop Pavel of Yaroslavl, I wrote that if the fate of history is destined to produce a state change in the USSR at some point, in the sense of changing the Soviet government to another, then the Soviet government itself will bear a large share of the blame for this turn, since it incites the population against itself with its policy of atheism and does not evoke sympathy for itself. You yourself most of all incite the believing masses against yourself, precisely with your atheistic policy...
From prison he continued to write to his spiritual children and loved ones, and his peaceful state of mind was not disturbed in any way:
At one time - 17/III-30, I informed you by telegram about changing my place of residence. On 6/IV-30 I traveled by oxen to Uralsk. The latter received me into its embrace. I remain in it to this day. An indefinite period, by all accounts - quite considerable, I will continue to spend. My apartment: the city of Uralsk, isolation ward, V.V. Presented under Art. 58, paragraphs 10, 11, Art. 59, paragraphs 2, 7. This is again with localization in the city of Uralsk. We celebrated Easter in cell No. 10, where we had 74 cohabitants. Despite the fact that I am a "wanderer and stranger" in Uralsk, I broke my fast with Easter cakes, cheese and colored eggs from some Uralsk residents. "Everywhere is the Lord's land." So far so good...
On November 1, 1930, the Bishop wrote to his spiritual daughters in Tutayev:
I greet the highly respected Alexandra Ivanovna and Elena Ivanovna on the family holiday, the day of the holy martyr Alexandra. There was a time when women, old and young, were martyrs. In our time, many of them are zealous co-workers of the Church, but the Lord has not yet judged to reveal their field of modern martyrdom for the Church. Let, according to the will of God, in this case, in exchange for the feat of modern suffering of the ministers and sons of the Church, the Orthodox woman not weaken in the peaceful service of the Church. "The chariot of God is ten thousand times ten thousand" (Psalm 67). And if in this "chariot" a woman does not show her spiritual strength, then the men will be overloaded with spiritual work and, perhaps, many will become tired. Prayer, not to weaken in prayer, not to leave the House of God - this is the first service. My fellow countrymen have fallen silent. It is time, it is better this way, I thank God. He protects me. What He has in store for me, I do not know. May His will be done...
On December 9, Bishop Veniamin wrote to priest Nikolai Rozov:
I congratulate the highly respected Fr. Nikolai on St. Nicholas Day. May the Lord help you to bear the burden and honor of your pastoral ministry with the zeal of a Saint. May God grant you good health and prosperity of your spiritual powers. In the Ural prison, where I am still, God gave me the opportunity to meet sectarians and Old Believers. There are few of the former in the Ural diocese, and many of the latter. This was my first meeting with these apostates from Orthodoxy. And now the helplessness of our ordinary clergy has become clear to me, and, most importantly, the main source of this helplessness. It is in their extremely poor knowledge of the Holy Scripture. With their knowledge of it, our sectarians are helpless in logic. And if they are strong at all, it is only in their stubbornness, satanic stubbornness, ignorant stubbornness, and devilish cunning. And all this is not scary. "We are strong not against the truth, but for the truth." How guilty we are before God, before the Church and Orthodoxy for not knowing the Word of God. The seminary set us on the rails well, but we have lost these tools. Woe to us!..
On the same day, he sent a postcard to his spiritual daughter in Tutayev:
I greet the highly respected Varvara Alexandrovna on the day of the holy great martyr Varvara. Help me, Lord, to bear the burden of life with good spirit. Among everyday cares and affairs, may the Lord give place for spiritual cares and affairs for Christian service to the Church. As in the construction of any house there is an architect, foremen, privates, masons, so in the construction of the House of God - the Church of Christ, the Architect is Christ, the foremen are the hierarchy, the masons are laymen. Let each of us remember that we are not only builders of earthly life, everyday and material, but certainly masons or foremen in the Church. If we believe in God and in Christ, then masons are positive. When we do not believe - masons are negative. The state of "neither in one nor in another", the state of "irrelevant", is impossible. And we will answer for both one day. Let each of us be a mason of Christ, and to whom it is given - a foreman. May God grant you a living soul - to continue the work of this mason...
On January 5, 1931, the Bishop wrote to his brother in Moscow:
Dear Mitya! I bow to the ground to all of you... These are not empty sounds - our spiritual times and terms. They should never be left to anyone. They give invisible, but well-understood currents to souls, which the "world" never produces and is not able to produce. Christmas! How much joyful trepidation in this word was experienced during school years and at all other times! Do modern children and young people know this now? If not, then it means that the Russian world has made a huge shift towards the abyss. Christ foresaw these shifts and said: "Be bold, I have conquered the world." I am already in the 14th cell. The fourth resettlement! And there is no suitable place in prison. With letters - strange. From nowhere in response. Are my letters sent anywhere? Not in sight. While alive and well...
On January 12, the Bishop wrote to priest Alexander Sokolov in the village of Pereslavtsevo:
How do you celebrate the Nativity of Christ now? Were there many people in the church? Was the singing good? Did they sing praises in the parish? Should the latter really cease? Now the new times show us new ways of prayer. Visit your spiritual children more often and be sure to have a common home prayer with the reading of the Gospel every time. Our spiritual children have been taught very little about the Gospel. In our sermons we have expounded the Gospel little, and have been more concerned with morality. That is why parishioners know little about Christ and His House. Explain the service with a story from the Gospel (in order, in a system). This is accessible to everyone and every priest. This is what we must preach about. I am sending you the notes that accidentally ended up in prison...
On March 31, 1931, Bishop Veniamin wrote to Archpriest Alexander Purlevsky:
To dear Fr. Alexander, greetings from the state-run home... I remember your edema - I have it too. On what basis? I don't feel anything in my heart, my kidneys are still normal. Is it due to general exhaustion? No wonder. Our soup is 2 kg of millet per 90 buckets of water. But, in general, I am preparing for everything: physically and spiritually. Thank God, I feel good... Spring has begun, but not for me yet...
The investigation into the case lasted for about a year, the bishop was seriously ill during the entire investigation and was sent to a prison hospital. The doctor who diagnosed him in the hospital wrote that the bishop was ill with emphysema, myocarditis, and also suffered from the consequences of a cerebral hemorrhage, which resulted in paralysis of the right side of the body, so that he could barely use his right arm and leg, could not write, and spoke with difficulty. However, the authorities, despite the bishop's state of health, did not release him.
On September 10, 1931, a troika at the Plenipotentiary Representative of the OGPU in Kazakhstan sentenced the bishop to ten years of imprisonment in a concentration camp. This sentence could not be carried out on him - Bishop Veniamin died in a prison hospital and was buried in an unmarked grave.