The diagnosis is disappointing – MK

They also bring here those who arrived (sometimes from afar), were admitted for treatment, are registered, are registered, but a place is not available, they have to wait until they find a stationary bed. Some are accompanied by loved ones and help carry things.

The picture is depressing, nervously monotonous. Each on his own and all together in a precarious suspended ambiguity, anxiety, not outwardly demonstrated, but palpably hovering in the air, dissolved in muffled voices, abrupt remarks, rubbing side by side and even those at a distance strike a spark of rejection (and it would seem that they should sympathy, mutual compassion arise), a general conversation does not start, does not go well, no one cares about anyone, so the desire to share, confess, listen does not arise, people (even the sick person and the person accompanying them) are buried in their mobile phones.

What kind of support are they looking for and finding in a virtual, faceless space?

A cabinet with impenetrable glass is out of sight, the books inside are barely visible: Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov, Leo Tolstoy… Worn out, probably coming from discarded regional libraries. Or brought in time immemorial by previous patients and abandoned as unnecessary? The new, apparently never opened, New Testament may have been donated by missionaries. Detective pocketbooks. The autobiography of the surgeon-priest Voino-Yasenetsky “I fell in love with suffering”, an amazing life story of an ascetic who was arrested and exiled many times, who did not compromise his conscience, who did not deviate from his religious beliefs. This saga (very compact) can introduce even the most desperate to great wisdom. But no one comes close to the closet, a discreet storehouse of healing (if not physical, then moral): the islanders, confused by a difficult life and misfortune, cut off from the mainland by everyday turnover, do not realize the possibility of consolation, or even salvation, with the help of proven methods for many generations. the truth of the volumes covered with letters (for some reason published by someone for someone else). They will be content with electronic momentary utilitarianism, worthless erudition, ersatz political and beau monde-scandalous chewing gum. A visual, literal embodiment of the fairy tale about the golden key and the magic door hidden behind a poor wall canvas. The treasure is nearby, but they don’t see it or look for it, so it remains in vain, unclaimed. Moreover, laziness, inability to expend effort on extraneous activities that seem to have no direct bearing on you. After all, reading and thinking about what you read is work. And who wants to strain?

If from childhood they had been taught, put into their heads not sloganeering platitudes, but the panacea of ​​the amazing magic of communion with the highest meaning of existence, perhaps the apostles, prophets of heavenly things would have grown up, and would not have obscured, but opened the doors of omniscience. They didn’t grow up. We formed average bionicles.

To bow to the scarecrow

Non-reading has another aspect, another hypostasis – militant, proud of its aplomb, indisputable ignorance. What is striking is the deliberate, deliberate blindness of the ardent propagandists of deliberate one-sidedness, those who have grasped the top, who have gorged themselves on tops of the garden, convinced of their vitamin properties.

It’s okay if, when welcoming the opening of the monument to Stalin, you limit yourself to a volley of praise (this is not a habit, this is a popular rumor-tradition), but if you give a detailed justification and commentary for your position, you explain why you do not shy away from this symbolic, which says a lot about the state of mind (the diagnosis is disappointing ) events, it’s not a bad idea to turn to the primary sources. Knowing little (or knowing from hearsay), I have no right to repeat: the tyrant cared about the revival of the Russian Orthodox Church. References to the sayings of Patriarch Alexy and St. Luke Voino-Yasenetsky do not convince: as if the apologists of the “father of nations” do not understand (or are they really simply naive?) – in a totalitarian state, speakers (and those dressed in a cassock too) say (sometimes) not what they think , and what is ordered, generally accepted, promises indulgence (not for you personally, but for the work of your life).

This September marks exactly 80 years since Stalin’s historic meeting in the Kremlin with the three remaining metropolitans. It is unlikely that the leader called upon the under-imprisoned and under-executed servants of the Lord, immediately seeing the light and repenting for long-term persecution; rather, he panicked: without the support of the Almighty he could not defeat the fascist hordes. (We have witnessed more than once and are still observing: frightened rulers begin to curry favor with Heaven, flirt with religion, turn to God out of extreme necessity, as a last resort and refuge.) Perhaps the Higher Powers responded to the call and pleas of the one who was diplomatic with Heaven the despot may have assisted him in organizing the Victory. But rather, they helped not the gravedigger of faith, but the long-suffering people wandering from one yoke to another (the communist one is no better than the Mongolian one). If Stalin’s impulse was not pragmatically straightforward, but emanating from the depths of a church-going soul, what prevented, with a single stroke of a pen, a single movement of a hand or an eyebrow, from returning to the flock the destroyed churches and abbots to the pre-revolutionary extent? Who would dare to object to a dictator? Molotov? Mikoyan? Beria? Zhdanov? Ridiculous to imagine! Moreover, the predatory rage subsided, there was nothing to profit from in the outlawed dioceses, everything that was subject to confiscation was scraped out, the desecrated altars no longer had any salable value. You were robbed, well, calm down, the thief’s task is completed. Let parishioners pour into the ashes and begin restoration. But such a thing is unthinkable for someone who imagines himself to be a god on earth (such a person can clinically have no rivals). For obvious reasons, the greatest linguist, a friend of athletes, did not have the power to reanimate and resurrect the executed priests (after all, not Christ, who performed miracles); he would have to bow to the Almighty again, and this is a sensitive self-humiliation for a dropout who did not graduate from the seminary.

The illiterate Khrushchev uprooted the church out of inertia, and was an atheist out of thoughtlessness. Lenin and Stalin are antichrists in their deepest essence, an example of sophisticated Herods: they fought iconoclasts, fought with unarmed monks and peaceful parishioners. Purpose: to trample, raze to the ground.

Valentin Feliksovich Voino-Yasenetsky (later named Luka Krymsky) is a multifaceted figure, his deepest philosophical study “Spirit, Soul and Body” is dedicated to proving the divine origin of the Universe, being a uniquely educated, subtle esthete, he categorically rejected Leo Tolstoy, calling him a heretic for attacks on orthodoxy churches. And Stalin – who in practice destroyed the church – according to the opinion of neo-Stalinists, was extolled?

Luke of Crimea’s adherence to the Gospel commandments is impressive in its fanatical self-denial. Throughout his long life, he remained a patriot of Russia (not blind, who knew how to distinguish good from evil), spent 11 years in exile, from where he sent petitions to the partyocrats for permission to perform his medical duty, eventually deserved to be allowed to see wounded soldiers, became a military doctor, his a book about purulent surgery was awarded the Stalin Prize – the devilish Jesuitism of a fanatic who awarded the ascetic tormented by him (by the way, who was serving exile in the same place as Joseph Vissarionovich, in the Turukhansk region). Or is it again an ostentatious wagging gesture, designed to show, including the post-war Western world, that religion is not being suppressed in the USSR? Voino-Yasenetsky obtained (thanks to his art of healing, and not the patronage of the leader) permission to keep icons in the operating room and speak at scientific conferences in a cassock. In 1946 (no longer needed?), Bishop Luke was forbidden to speak to a scientific audience in a cassock, with a cross and a panagia, and his calls to build new churches and restore demolished temples remained in vain. Is it appropriate to say after this: the leader did not sleep, did not eat, killed himself for the sake of Orthodoxy?

Voino-Yasenetsky could not forgive the executions of priests, the destruction of churches and the closure of monasteries, which he stated openly. I quote: “At the end of 1945, the Bishop and his secretary were invited to the regional executive committee to present them with medals “For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945.” After presenting the medals, the chairman said that although Voino-Yasenetsky’s work as a consultant to the evacuation hospital was completed (these hospitals left Tambov in the fall of 1944 and moved further west), he hoped that the professor would continue to share his extensive experience with the city’s doctors.

Archbishop Luke answered him as follows: “I taught and am ready to teach doctors what I know; I restored life and health to hundreds, and perhaps thousands of the wounded, and would probably have helped many more if you (he emphasized this “you”, making it clear to the listeners that he gives the word a broad meaning) had not grabbed me for nothing or anything. that they wouldn’t have been dragged around prisons and exile for eleven years. This is how much time has been lost and how many people have not been saved, not at all by my will.” These words shocked the regional authorities. For some time, a painful silence reigned in the presidium and the hall. Having somehow come to his senses, the chairman began to babble that it was time to forget the past, and that we should live for the present and the future. And then the deep voice of Bishop Luke was heard again: “Well, no, sorry, I’ll never forget!”

Printed in black and white! Is it really difficult to get acquainted with the biography of the saint and the testimonies of his contemporaries – and then, based on facts, and not desired illusions, make verdicts? I do not exclude, however, that the conclusions from what apologists of the strong hand and adherents of totalitarianism will read will be different from those implied by the author’s text of Luke Krymsky and the memoirs about him. And yet: it is more correct to build conclusions not on the basis of idle rumors, but based on specifics.