The murder of three monks in Optina Pustina on Easter 1993. The mysticism of Easter day..
Perhaps, dear reader, you have read Nina Pavlova’s book “Red Easter” or even the article “Three Smiles” by Georgy Gupalo, anyway, I want to tell you something, tell you in detail what I know about the murder of three monks of the Optina Pustyn monastery.
When this murder happened on April 18, 1993, I was still on the ship, on my first voyage I worked as a sailor on a trawler. We returned from a flight to Kaliningrad at the end of April, and I soon learned about this terrible crime. This fact did not leave me indifferent, it shocked me and shook me to the core. In July of the same year, I went to Bulgaria and met with the clairvoyant woman Vanga, and on the way back I got off the Sofia-Moscow train in Kaluga and came to Optina Pustyn for the day. I saw the fresh graves of monk Trofim, monk Ferapont and hieromonk Vasily. Then I came to Optina Pustyn from Kaliningrad in October 1993. In the monastery I got a job as a simple worker, got a temporary registration and lived with all the other pilgrims and workers in the church of St. Hilarion in the monastery until February 1994.
It must be said that the Optina Pustyn monastery is unique primarily because it was created by the repentant robber Opta. What happened to the soul of Opta's killer? What mystical and metaphysical event occurred in his soul? Why does he repent of his crimes and begin an ascetic life, founding a monastery? We don't know and will never know about it. However, some original mystical spirituality of its creator is invisibly present in the monastery.
Few people know that in the Optina Pustyn monastery before the revolution of 1917, one unique incident occurred: Some crazy student completely naked entered the Vvedensky Church during the evening service. He entered the temple completely naked through a side door. Everyone was taken aback. A naked student entered the altar area. He jumped and stood on the altar, spread his legs and arms to the sides, as in the famous drawing by Leonardo da Vinci... Imagine the picture. A naked man stands on the altar in front of the believers. Such sacrilege and blasphemy, an insult to the feelings of believers. He didn't stand like that for long. The student was pulled from the altar and arrested. The altar was re-consecrated. This was the case.
Having settled in the monastery in October 1993, I began to conduct my own investigation into the murders of three monks - monks Trophim and Ferapont, and Hieromonk Vasily. In Kozelsk, I found the house where Nikolai’s aunt Averina lived, and where the police found the killer sleeping.
After the murder in Optina Pustyn, 32-year-old Averin rushed into the forest and went to the forester’s lodge. He was excited and behaved aggressively, shot at the floor with a sawed-off shotgun, demanded clothes, leaving a couple of cartridges in return. He himself told the forester that he had killed three monks. From the forester he went to the city of Suvorov, robbed some dacha there, stole a couple of mirrors, sold them, then got to Kaluga, and then made his way to Kozelsk at night. In Kozelsk he came early in the morning to his aunt’s house and went to bed. He intended to commit suicide and end his life.
The forester reported the incident to the police. The head of the Kozelsky District Department of Internal Affairs, Lieutenant Colonel N. Zobov, and his two deputies, captains N. Gunko and Yu. Sidorchuk, drew up a verbal portrait, used the portrait to identify Averin and set up an ambush, keeping a 24-hour watch at his house in the village of Volkonsk.
When Averin fell asleep, his Aunt Vera was very scared and called Tatyana Ilyinichna Averina, the mother of the killer, in Volkonsk. Soon after this call, the police were at her house. They found Nikolai Averin sleeping and arrested him.
Averin said: “There is no God. Satan controls everything. I don’t understand how I did it. I had to kill two people. I saw another one running to find out what happened. And he also lay down.”
Here's what I learned about him: Nikolai Nikolaevich Averin was born on June 13, 1951. Since childhood, he had an inclination towards music. He graduated from a music school in the accordion class and played the guitar well. He had a kind character, loved to joke, and had many friends. In 1980, he was drafted into the army and sent to Afghanistan. He was a mortarman in a reconnaissance company. In Afghanistan, he several times found himself in situations where he was on the verge of death. Once he was nearly killed by his helicopter pilots, who mistakenly mistook their group for dushmans. Someone, thank God, managed to fire a flare in time. One day, intelligence reported incorrectly; they ran into a large group of dushmans. They showed military cunning - they ran from stone to stone, imitating the fire of a large group of fighters. The spirits believed and did not attack. No one was killed who was with him. Nikolai Averin came from Afghanistan a different person, he changed both externally and internally. His hair fell out and he grew a beard. He was unlucky in his personal life. At first he worked as a driver as a father. Then a vacancy arose in a local club, and in order to take this position, he entered the Film and Mechanical College in Kaluga. There he thinks about God, leads an ascetic life, begins to hear voices, and reads various religious literature. He even walks in Kaluga with the Gospel and tries to preach the word of God. He came to Optina Pustyn, but did not find mutual understanding among the monks. In 1988, Averin graduated from technical school and returned to his native village. He starts drinking to sleep and drown out the voices that mock him. And then he decided that it was God who was mocking him and punishing him. Satan controls everything and does good, and God torments him with his voices. He is interested in magic and reads various books on this topic. Tries to stop the heart. He decides to go to Moscow to the Ganushkin Psychological Institute. Averin stayed there for a month, they didn’t understand him there, he lied that the voices had passed, and returned home. In 1991, an incident occurred on Easter. He and his friends decided to have a drink. Averin and a friend went to a 45-year-old woman who sold moonshine. When they came to her house, it turned out that her lover was there. There was a fight. The woman wrote a statement to the police about attempted rape. His friend was imprisoned, and Nikolai Averin spent 10 months in a mental hospital in the city of Kaluga. He was released from the mental hospital. He said the voices had passed. But this was not true.
The voices told him that God was taking revenge on him. He was tormented by insomnia and nightmares. He said that if God appeared before him in the form of a man, he would empty the entire clip of his machine gun into him. He is preparing to take revenge on God, to kill the priests as servants of God. Averin withdraws into himself and prepares to commit suicide. In 1993, on Maundy Thursday, he comes to Optina Pustyn with a sawn-off shotgun, but Averin did not shoot - he felt sorry for the children. On Easter I wanted to shoot at the religious procession, but I couldn’t. He was about to leave, but a voice harshly told him: “You are not a man! You are a coward!” And then he stayed in the monastery and began to wait for an opportune moment. He hid behind a pile of bricks. The cold made his teeth hurt, and he wanted to leave again. Suddenly a bell rang...
In November 1993, the trial of Nikolai Averin took place in Kaluga for several days. During the meetings, I asked for time off and went to Kaluga. Since the forensic examination declared Nikolai Averin mentally insane, the trial took place without his presence. The materials from the Kaluga court are in the archives. At the trial, I met Nikolai Averin’s parents and brother. I went to the village of Volkonsk to visit them several times and learned a lot about the life of Nikolai Averin.
Averin himself, without assistants, prepared the murder, being for several years under the influence of “voices” from the afterlife. He decided that Satan rules the world, and God mocks him and takes revenge on him, then he decided to take revenge on God. One day he ran naked around the village and blasphemed, chopping up the Gospel with an ax. He prepared a sawn-off shotgun and made a sword, knocking out three sixes on it, in the collective farm workshop. Nikolai Averin spent the entire cold Easter night hiding in the monastery. During the religious procession, he wanted to shoot people with a sawed-off shotgun, but changed his mind. Since he was only supposed to kill monks, the voice said: “Monks are the enemies of Satan.” He was chattering his teeth from the cold and was hiding behind piles of bricks brought to build the bell tower. At six in the morning the first sounds of the bell brought him out of his stupor. It was as if another demonic entity had possessed him. The monks Trofim and Ferapont were at the belfry, ringing the bells and standing with their backs to each other. They did not notice the killer when he ran up and plunged his sword into the back, first of one and then of the second monk.
Then Averin said in an interview with reporters: “I was sick and disgusted, but I did it.” Having slaughtered the monks on the platform, the belfry, he rushed to run to the monastery wall. As he ran, he was noticed by female pilgrims. At this time, Hieromonk Vasily came out of his cell and heard the bells suddenly stop ringing. Averin said that he did not want to kill anyone else... They suddenly came face to face - Hieromonk Vasily and the Satanist Averin.
Hieromonk Vasily stood on his road and asked: “What happened?” In response, Averin pierced him with a sword. He ran further, jumped over the fence, dropped the sword with three sixes knocked out, took off and threw the stolen black peacoat.
Hieromonk Vasily bled to death and died in the ambulance, on the way to the Kozelsk hospital. The ambulance only brought his body to the hospital, but his soul had already flown away.
According to local residents, the day before the murder there was an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary over the building of the Kozelsk hospital.
I thought, why didn’t they stop him? Now, if Father Vasily had stayed even for a minute in his cell, he would have remained alive. But the past cannot be changed and it does not tolerate the subjunctive mood and the particle “would”. What happened, had to happen. Nothing happens in the monastery without blessing.
Nothing on earth passes without a trace, and this murder of the monks was a triple incomprehensible occult sacrifice.
This was decided from Above. Just as Christ was crucified with two thieves, the triple sacrifice was also offered at Easter in 1993. The lives of three monks lay on the altar.
Then I also came to Optina Pustyn, went to Volkonsk and met with Averin’s parents. Now he is under compulsory treatment in a mental hospital in the city of Sukhinichi or Kaluga. His mother feels sorry for him and sometimes comes and delivers parcels of food. Averin told her that at first, instead of voices, bells sounded deafeningly loud in his head.
In 2013, I traveled from the Russian Orthodox Church on an organized pilgrimage trip to Israel for Orthodox Easter. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The Israeli police did not allow me and many other pilgrims to enter. With numerous pilgrims, I met the Holy Fire outside the walls of the old city near the Jaffa Gate. Then I went to the Mount of Olives and a fairly large piece of red sandstone caught my eye. I brought it home with me as a reminder of the pilgrimage. One day I had a vivid dream in the morning: Hieromonk Vasily stood in front of me as if alive in the black robes of a monk. He told me: “Go to Optino, confess, take communion. Stone to Father Iliodor.”
Mystic! But such unusual dreams are not accidental.
I placed the stone from Jerusalem in a special wooden box, signed it and brought it to Optina Pustyn. In the monastery, after the evening service, I approached Hieromonk Iliodor and told him my story. I gave him the box with the stone. Father Iliodor also advised me to tell all this to the monastery commander, Father Tikhon, since he collects such non-fictional stories.
Father Iliodor kissed the stone from Mount Eleon as a shrine and gave it to his ward workers to venerate it. In confession, I told this story to Father Tikhon. He was surprised, but listened calmly to my story. He just asked me again:
- Did you want to keep the stone for yourself?
- Yes, until I saw this dream.
- Clear.
I went to Volkonsk and once again met with Tatyana Ilyinichna Averina. Averin's aunt and father had died by that time. Averin's mother still goes to see her son in a psychiatric hospital, delivers parcels and hopes that he will be released someday...
After Optina Pustyn, I went to Moscow and went to the Temple of the Descent of the Holy Spirit at the Lazarevskoye cemetery. Among other things of Orthodox ascetics, boots with the blood of Father Vasily are kept there. I prayed and bought in the Temple an icon of the Kazan Mother of God, which Hieromonk Vasily loved and revered. He wrote in his diary:
October 17, 1988 Came to the monastery. Reverend Our Father Ambrose, pray to God for me!
November 17, 1988 The icon of the Kazan Mother of God and the icon of St. Ambrose exuded myrrh. Mother of God, strengthen us! Holy Elder, intercede for the monastery!
“The greater the love, the greater the suffering of the soul; the more complete the love, the more complete the knowledge; the more ardent the love, the more ardent the prayer; the more perfect the love, the more holy the life.” Elder Silouan.
“Nothing can stop you from loving God. What must you do to have peace in your soul and body? To do this, you must love everyone as you love yourself, and be ready for death every hour.”
Hieromonk Vasily
“When a strong cold grips me, I will begin to say my prayer more intensely, and soon I will be completely warm. If hunger begins to overcome me, I will begin to call on the name of Jesus Christ more often and forget that I was hungry. When I become sick, aching will begin in my back and legs, "I will begin to listen to prayer and I will not hear pain. When someone insults me, I will only remember how delightful the Jesus Prayer is; immediately the insult and anger will pass and I will forget everything."
Candid stories of a wanderer to his spiritual father.
Igor Roslyakov, journalist, athlete - master of sports, European water polo champion, spiritual disciple of Elder John Krestyankin - Hieromonk Vasily of the Optina Pustyn Monastery.
When parishioners of the Optina Metochion in Moscow asked him a question: “Father, do you have a cherished desire?”
“Yes,” he answered. I would like to die on Easter with the bells ringing.”
From the book “Red Easter”: Entry from his diary: “April 14-19, 1988 Tbilisi. Five games. Fasting. I learned from experience the words of David: my knees were weak from fasting, and my body was deprived of fat. Lord, save and preserve!”
The spiritual path is chosen by the chosen ones. These are a few, but our world still rests on them. This was Igor Roslyakov - Hieromonk Vasily. His soul and rich inner world were dedicated and directed towards serving the Orthodox Church and Christ.
Wonderful poems:
“I didn’t sit in a circle of drunken friends,
I didn’t read Rubtsov and Blok to them.
I became sad, and with my sadness
I sat by the icons alone"
And more from his diary:
“Dark forces are angry with us because we, approaching God, condemn them. Thus, a person who does good unselfishly arouses the anger and contempt of scoundrels.”
Hegumen Melchisidek said: “Father Vasily had a certain premonition that night. He was the only one of the brethren who carried the icon of the Resurrection of Christ, and at the time of the festive Easter service he was the only one of us dressed in red clothes (we were all in white clothes), because he was performing proskomedia. When I approached him and said: “Brother! Christ is risen!" - he looked at his red clothes and answered me:
"And I have already risen" As if joking, but this phrase of his became prophetic..." Hieromonk Vasily was at the age of Christ. On December 23, 1993, he would have turned 33 years old...
On Bright Monday, April 17, 2017 - the first day after Easter at 06.00, I sat down at my laptop and immediately began typing. I woke up with words in my head: “The dark ones have taken your energy. You can’t drink.”
Mystic! You can't mean you can't.
I felt bad. My fingers on my right hand are numb - index, middle and thumb. With these fingers I make the sign of the cross. My throat and head hurt. I rubbed my right hand for a long time until my fingers began to bend normally.
At Easter there was a reunion of graduates in a cafe and an evening of bard songs... It was fun there. I relaxed, drank and even had a little too much. Now I have received a blow to my health. I got up, got dressed, ran to exercise, took a dip in the quarry, came running, took a shower and started working on this article, because YOU SHOULD ALWAYS BE READY TO RESPONSE WITH A LIGHT STAB TO A DARK STAB. The blows of demons should not remain without consequences. Crime must be followed by punishment. The threat of a light strike and inevitable punishment will make you fear dark spirits. “A thief should go to jail” The crime should not go unpunished, otherwise they will think that they can do whatever they want.
This is my spiritual experience. And I try not to cheat on him.
The bright Resurrection of Christ, Easter is the most joyful and most mystical day of the year!
Many holy people died on Easter, leaving the suffering of the flesh on a sinful earth and moving into the Kingdom of Heaven. And it is especially surprising that not only Christian saints go to Easter, but even non-Christian saints - like the Indian saint Sai Baba and other saints. How great is the Lord! This Great and joyful day is incredibly, inexplicably mystical!
This is the day of the greatest event of cosmic importance - the Resurrection of Christ, rebirth and the beginning of a new life! Day of Cosmic and earthly joy, and not only human, but angelic, archangelic and Divine joy! This Great Day, holy for all bright people, evokes impotent anger and gnashing of teeth among the dark demonic forces on earth.
We do not realize and do not know much, there is a lot of blind faith, fears, prejudices, superstitions in this area of knowledge.
Remember the immortal words of Viktor Tsoi’s song: “Wherever you are, no matter what you do, there is war between earth and sky.”
Viktor Tsoi knew that the war between light and dark forces on earth, between angels and demons continues and will continue.
In one of the books of the Living Ethics Teaching “Leaves of the Garden of Moria” there are the following words:
“My children, don’t you notice what a battle is going on around you. Dark forces are fighting secretly and openly.”
Religion is based on the Holy Scriptures, affirms this war, but symbolically, vaguely and non-specifically speaks about the age-old battle of God and Satan, the battle of the forces of light and darkness on earth. But we are immersed in the worries and problems of earthly life and our little world; we do not care about the battle of good and evil on earth.
SO IT WAS, SO IS AND SO WILL BE.
Only selected and dedicated people are able to discover the truth about this Supermundane War, such a chosen one was the artist Hieronymus Bosch, such a prophet was Dante, the author of the “Divine Comedy”, such was Emmanuel Swedenborg and our contemporary author of “The Rose of the World” Daniil Andreev.
If you want to know more about this, re-read these books, especially “Rose of the World” chapter 3 “Original Concept” part 2 “The Origin of Evil - World Laws - Karma”.
However, “The Rose of the World”, this great book - the spiritual revelation of our time, requires constant updating and adjustment, in accordance with the state of affairs in the metaphysical supermundane reality, which is still inaccessible to our minds. I don’t know of similar spiritual revelations among contemporaries.
On top of all the wars on earth there has been, is and will be one unforgettable War of Good and Evil. We know little about this, but we need to know, since in this case we do not know what we are doing, we can become unwitting accomplices of the Forces of Evil and destruction on earth in the Subtle World.
Wherever you were, whatever you did, whatever you thought about and whatever you strived for, the War was, is and will be. These words came to me on their own. Whose side are you on? In this War it is impossible to remain egoistically neutral and indifferent.
My house is on the edge, and I don’t know anything - this is not an excuse for laziness, cowardice and indifferent indifference.
When a person says in his own defense: I followed the orders of my leadership - this cannot be an excuse for personal crimes.
A person always faces a choice. He is always responsible for his actions or inactions, depending on the life situation. It has long been said that ignorance does not exempt a person from responsibility for deeds and actions.
In the spiritual battle for the soul of an individual, the forces of Light and Darkness have defeats, but there are also victories!
The person is easily suggestible. Inspire yourself and those around you with bright and kind thoughts and feelings.
We are too immersed in our earthly affairs and know almost nothing about the Mystery of the Battle. This spiritual knowledge can only be accepted by spiritual people. But they can also lift the veil a little. We know one thing for sure: the war of good and evil has been visibly and invisibly for many millennia on earth, it is going on now and will continue to go on, and the battlefield, as before, is the vector of the spirituality of each individual person and all of humanity, your heart, your consciousness and subconscious, your worldview and attitude towards yourself and people.
A terrible injustice - an occult crime - the murder of three monks of the Optina Pustyn monastery on Easter on April 18, 1993 confirms this truth.
At the end of the article I will quote lines from the book “Faces of Agni Yoga” 1972, paragraph 442:
“Mental abnormalities are people who have opened the veil and touched the Subtle World, but were unable to maintain balance. Therefore, balance comes first.”
And also the words of Father John (Krestyankin):
“Pray for the monks - they are the root of our life. And no matter how the tree of our life is cut, it will still give green shoots as long as its life-giving root lives.”
Reviews
Several times he wanted to commit a crime - he himself was connected to religion, but for some reason he may have fallen away from it...
"No one is born with hate in their heart" Nelson Mandella
It was as if he waited and waited over and over again for permission and set out on a dark matter like Raskolnikov - to decide or not to decide - and still decided...
There, one of the terrible murders of children was committed already in the 20th century by a sect of Satanists; by the way, the musician was a choir singer named Nikolai.
The Christian position is that when sacrifices are made for the devil, God prepares a crown to Heaven for the one who stood against this Devil.
If from the point of view of evil the necessary action is murder, then from the point of view of good the humble death of someone good is a greater cleansing from sins.
The daily audience of the Proza.ru portal is about 100 thousand visitors, who in total view more than half a million pages according to the traffic counter, which is located to the right of this text. Each column contains two numbers: the number of views and the number of visitors.
The opinion of the creators of the film “And Between Heaven and Earth” echoes one very interesting article.
More details here on the website of the agency "Inform-religion":
From the Editorial Board of "IR":
Some time ago, an interesting film “And Between Heaven and Earth” appeared on the Internet.
When we first watched it, it seemed ambiguous to us: the film is a journalistic investigation, in which the already known facts of the crime that occurred in 1993 in Optina Pustyn acquire new, shocking details.
We present to our readers an analysis of some of the circumstances of the mysterious murder of the Optina New Martyrs, carried out by a group of professional criminologists.
The murder of the Optina monks went far beyond the scope of banal criminality...
In the early morning of April 18, 1993, on the territory of the Optina Pustyn monastery, the monks Father Ferapont, Father Trofim and hieromonk Father Vasily were killed. The killer fled the scene of the crime and it was not possible to detain him in hot pursuit.
The incident was reported to the Kozelsky district police department at 6.25 am. Police forces blocked all access roads to the monastery and the city of Kozelsk; The posts were aimed at detaining all suspicious persons, but they failed to intercept anyone related to the crime.
On the morning of April 18, a certain Alexander Nikolaevich Kartashov, three times convicted, a homeless person, who worked in a monastery firehouse, was detained.
The murders, according to the place and time, fell apart as if into two independent acts: first, the monks Father Ferapont and Father Trofim were killed, ringing the bells on a temporary belfry built right on the ground; a few minutes later, at the Skete Gate, at the exit from the monastery, Father Vasily was seriously wounded.
The monks who found him carried him in their arms to the temple and placed him near the shrine with the relics of St. Ambrose. Despite the severity of the wound received - the killer's knife pierced the kidney and reached the lung - Fr. Vasily remained conscious and did not stop praying. All the inhabitants of the monastery and pilgrims gathered around him. About 40 minutes after the attack, an ambulance arrived and took Fr. Vasily to the hospital. Despite all the efforts of the medical staff, Father Vasily died in the car on the way to the hospital.
Witness the killer's attack on Fr. Vasily turned out to be a 13-year-old girl who reported the further route of the criminal. At first he continued his movement towards the gate, but, making sure that it was closed, he turned towards the building of the fraternal cells. There he threw off the black overcoat he was wearing and left a bloody knife on the steps - the crime weapon. Next, the criminal ran towards a huge woodpile of firewood, laid out near the fortress wall like a ladder, and climbed along it to the roof of a barn attached to the wall. From there he climbed onto the monastery wall - clearly visible traces of the fugitive's sneakers remained on the white limestone of the wall - and, jumping from it, ran away into the forest.
The knife thrown by the criminal on the porch of the building of the fraternal cells - in fact, it was a homemade wide short sword - had traces of blood and, in its geometric parameters, corresponded to the wounds received by the dead; it was recognized by examination as the crime weapon. There were engravings on both sides of the blade: three sixes on one side, and the word “Satan” on the other. The engravings were made using an instrumental method (i.e., by removing metal with a milling cutter, rather than scratching).
The monstrous nature of the crime committed on the night of Easter Resurrection, with the shedding of the blood of people who had the priestly rank ( Only Hieromonk Vasily (Roslyakov) had holy rank; Fathers Trofim and Ferapont were monks. - "IR"), the presence of satanic symbols on the crime weapon - all this immediately gave the incident the character of an extraordinary, unprecedented incident.
The criminal acted with extraordinary cynicism. Until 4.30 am, almost the entire staff of the Kozelsky District Department of Internal Affairs - 40 people - was on duty at the monastery; after the religious procession, the security was removed and the people began to disperse, but nevertheless, many dozens of people were still present both in the monastery fence and in the surrounding area. On the one hand, it was obvious that the criminal was waiting for an opportune moment for his attack, on the other hand, he did not at all try to hide or disguise it. The first victims were the monks who were ringing the bells, and the sudden cessation of this ringing immediately attracted the attention of everyone who heard it. By attacking the bell-ringers, the criminal ran a great risk of being recognized or identified in the future, but apparently this consideration did not stop him.
Interviewing witnesses - and there were many of them! - brought an amazing result: the pilgrims clearly distinguished the bell ringers in the morning twilight (fortunately, the belfry was a platform at ground level, and not a bell tower), they saw how the monks fell one after another, but no one saw the attacker. So, three pilgrims saw that someone dressed in a black naval overcoat jumped over the fence of the belfry and ran away; all three women, independently of each other, decided that the bell ringers felt ill and the man who ran would now bring the doctor. These women approached the belfry and for some time did not dare to approach the monks, deciding that their illness was caused by the severity of the Easter fast. Only when the blood flowing from the monks’ wounds became visible on the boards of the platform did the pilgrims realize that they had witnessed a crime.
The other two women observed the moment of the attack, but were also unable to give any satisfactory description of the perpetrator; According to them, what happened looked as if the monks silently fell on their own and the attacker was not visible until he ran from the belfry towards the Skete Gate. Of course, the investigation was faced with a certain curious phenomenon of subjective perception, but it should be recognized that in everything connected with the fate of the dead monks, there is a lot of mystical, rationally inexplicable.
Murder of Fr. Vasily, the eldest in the monastic hierarchy and the last to die, was observed by a 13-year-old girl. According to her story, Fr. Vasily (he was heading towards the Skete Gate in order to confess to parishioners and pilgrims in the skete) was stopped by an unknown man in a black overcoat and talked to him briefly about something; They parted ways after saying a few phrases to each other. The monk was already standing with his back to the unknown man when he unexpectedly and quickly hit him from the bottom up and ran away. The girl said that an animal was running away and this instant transformation of a person into an animal amazed her so much that she told many people about what she had seen. She was the first to run up to the fallen father. Vasily and called pilgrims to help him, so her story does not raise the slightest doubt. The deceased saw his killer and although he remained conscious for more than 3/4 of an hour, he did not want to tell his signs.
The random selection of victims was obvious. On Easter night in the Optina Pustyn Monastery, the bell ringing continues until five o'clock in the morning, led by four bell ringers. After this, every monk can ring, expressing with this ringing the delight that fills the soul. While the monastic brethren gathered in the refectory, Father Ferapont and Father Trofim ascended the belfry. This happened completely by accident; any other monk could have ended up at the belfry instead of them.
The eldest was Fr. Ferapont (in the world Pushkarev Vladimir Leonidovich), born in 1955. In the monastery he worked in a carpentry workshop.
He was a very physically strong man. It was known that Pushkarev served in the army as part of special forces. After finishing his service, he remained in the army under a contract and served in the ranks of the SA for a total of five years. The monastic old-timers remember a very remarkable incident when on Fr. Ferapont was attacked by three punk drug addicts, who in the early 90s constantly flocked to Optina Pustyn (at one time, a real community of various kinds of informal hippie punks even spontaneously formed at the monastery). This attack took place on the porch in front of the pilgrim's canteen and was witnessed by several dozen people. Father Ferapont scattered the attackers so quickly that none of those around him not only had time to intervene, but even to realize what had happened.
At the same time, he was such a quiet, meek man, who did not attract attention to himself, that when news of his death became known, not all the inhabitants of the monastery could remember who he was talking about. Some of the people who knew him well reported that the monk had a presentiment of his imminent death. So, for example, being an excellent carpenter, Fr. Before Easter, Ferapont unexpectedly distributed his best instrument to other masters; when they asked him why he was doing this, oh. Ferapont either remained silent or replied that he would not have to do any more carpentry.
Father Trofim (in the world Leonid Ivanovich Tatarnikov), who died next to him, born in 1954, was a sailor in the fishing fleet before he was tonsured.
In the monastery he was revered as a jack of all trades and took on all the household work. He handled the tractor perfectly, which was used to plow the monastery gardens. A strong, tall man, he had an iron fist. Memories remain of his remarkable physical strength. One day he tied a poker in a knot. Many who knew him recalled that Fr. Trofim easily bent the nails with his fingers; for example, he tightened a magpie nail with a ring or a screw. He did this out of frustration if the prayer did not go well. In Rus', it is not easy to surprise with physical strength - there have been many healthy men at all times - but such arm strength should still be recognized as extraordinary even by Russian standards.
It is clear that such a person as Fr. Ferapont, could provide stubborn resistance to the attacker. No matter how ferocious the killer was, such heroes as Fr. Trofim and Fr. Ferapont, it was possible to stop him. And yet they died without resistance. This contradiction at first extremely puzzled the investigation and we will have to return to its explanation below.
Hieromonk Father Vasily (in the world Roslyakov Igor Ivanovich), born in 1960, lived in Optina Pustyn for four years, took part in missionary work, and more than once went to camps to work with prisoners of a particularly strict regime.
Before joining the church, I.I. Roslyakov was a member of the USSR national water polo team, and before that, the captain of the Moscow State University team in this sport and the European champion. After graduating from the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University, he had the opportunity to make a brilliant career, but he neglected this and chose his own special path. Igor Roslyakov was among the first inhabitants of the revived Optina Monastery, those monks who raised the holy monastery from the ruins.
Like the monks in the belfry, he was suddenly attacked and did not defend himself; dying o. Vasily did not want to reveal the secret of his conversation with the killer a minute before the attack. It is possible that if this conversation had not happened, the criminal would have run past. But history does not know the subjunctive mood... With a serious wound - the criminal’s knife pierced the kidney, the diaphragm and entered the lung - the hieromonk was carried by the monks to the shrine with the relics of St. Ambrose, near which he lay praying for about 40 minutes. Doctors called to the monastery after the attack were amazed that a man with such a serious wound did not utter a groan and remained conscious for so long. Truly, life did not want to leave him...
The policemen who rushed to Optina Pustyn demonstrated extraordinary service zeal. The detective theory prescribes trying to find the criminal “hot on the trail.” Alas! - those living in Russia know too well what this rule means in its everyday application by the valiant employees of our police and prosecutor's office. Even in such high-profile criminal investigations as the cases of Chikatilo or Mikhasevich, superficial, mediocre and downright criminal investigative measures led to detentions, “exposures” and convictions of those persons who had not the slightest connection to the crimes (This topic causes an extremely nervous reaction from workers law enforcement agencies and heated objections on their part, but objective statistics - alas! - are such that as many as 14 people were wrongly convicted in the "Mikhasevich case", one of whom was shot. Almost all of these people ended up in the investigative meat grinder precisely as a result of searches "hot on the heels". In other words, they were caught in hot hand, put pressure in the "press hut" and extracted confessions within the three days allotted by law. There is no escape from these gloomy statistics - this is an objective indicator of the success of the work of our bodies law and order, evidence of their incompetence and unprofessionalism).
In this case, too, there was a hot search. When examining the naval overcoat abandoned by the killer on the porch of the pilgrim's hostel, the police discovered the passport and work book of a certain Kartashev. The inventory number sewn onto the lining indicated that the overcoat was monastic property. The fact is that such naval overcoats were received by the monastery from the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation in the form of a donation; All monks and pilgrims were dressed in them.
The police thoughtfully assumed that the criminal was one of the pilgrims. The illogicality of the killer, who went on a crime with a passport and work book in his pocket, did not bother them. Alexander Kartashev, a homeless person who worked in the monastery firehouse, was immediately arrested and, after a four-hour interrogation, hastened to confess to the murder.
One can only guess (which, in general, is not at all difficult) exactly how the zealous guardians of law and order achieved the self-incrimination of an innocent (as it soon became clear!) person. Apparently, the desire of the soldiers of the invisible front was great to quickly report on the disclosure of the scandalous crime “hot on its heels.”
Events, meanwhile, developed rapidly. By noon on April 18, 1993, an interdepartmental group (regional Department of Internal Affairs, MB and the Prosecutor's Office) began working at the crime scene, which soon received a message about the appearance of an unknown person armed with a sawed-off hunting rifle on a farmstead near the village of Orlinka. Demanding food, the man shot at the floor and then walked off into the woods.
Although Alexander Kartashov had already given his confession, none of the professional investigators seriously considered him as a murderer. By the afternoon of April 18, it became clear that the real killer had left the monastery and entered the forest. Therefore, the forester’s message was taken very seriously.
An investigative team immediately went to the forester’s farm with the goal of trying to record traces of the unknown person’s presence (if there were any), and most importantly, to create a composite sketch of him.
We should pay tribute to the efficiency and professionalism of the criminologists. An identikit and a verbal portrait of the unknown man were drawn up quickly and - most importantly! - exactly. Employees of the Kozelsky District Department of Internal Affairs identified a certain Averin Nikolai Nikolaevich, a resident of the village of Volkonsk, Kozelsky district, Kaluga region, from a photo identikit. Already on the evening of April 18, notices containing identifying information about this person were distributed to all police departments of Kaluga and neighboring regions.
Nikolai Averin, born June 13, 1961, came to the attention of law enforcement agencies in the summer of 1990, when he and a friend tried to rape an elderly woman. The case did not go to court then; it all ended with repentant apologies from the offenders with references to being “drunk.” Although, as the police precisely knew then, this attempt was far from Averin’s first act of this kind. In April 1991, just on the eve of Easter, Averin commits a new crime - and again attempted rape. The victim was severely beaten by him and there could be no talk of any “repentant” tears this time. A criminal case with a fairly simple plot and a seemingly obvious outcome was completed within a month and ended up in the Kozelsky District Court, which demanded a psychiatric examination of Averin.
By a resolution of August 8, 1991, the court released Averin from criminal punishment as a schizophrenic. The court found that the attempted rape was made by Nikolai Averin in a state of insanity, and ordered this man to undergo compulsory treatment.
Until February 1992, Averin was in the Gannushkin psychiatric hospital with the usual observation regime. He left there as a disabled person of the 3rd group.
The interviewed parents of Nikolai Averin confirmed that their son went to the monastery on Easter night. He was wearing a jacket and had a cap on his head with the visor torn off.
In the meantime, several fingerprints suitable for identification were taken from the murder weapon sent to Moscow for examination. One of them clearly corresponded to the ring finger of Nikolai Nikolaevich Averin.
Probably, many will be able to accurately predict the ending of this whole story from now on. In any case, for people who are at least a little familiar with modern methods of law enforcement agencies, this will not be difficult.
Averin showed a tendency characteristic of cycloid schizophrenics - an unconscious desire to return to a familiar calm environment. Such people feel much better among familiar objects, close to family, with a sense of rigor and orderliness in their daily schedule. It is paradoxical that Averin, who perfectly understood that they would be looking for him and tried to hide, after a successful escape found himself in a dead end; he just didn't know what to do next.
As the investigation established somewhat later, he managed to escape very far - he walked through the forests all the way to the Tula region, there he committed theft in a dacha cooperative, after which he decided to go back to Kaluga. And off he went! He went to Kaluga by long-distance bus, then moved to Kozelsk, very close to home. In Kozelsk he came to his aunt.
Any non-schizophrenic in his place could have assumed that by that time Averin’s aunt’s house and the house of Averin’s parents were already under secret surveillance. Nikolai Averin didn’t think about anything like that.
The external surveillance group did not have the command to detain the criminal. He was given time to relax; he calmly called his parents’ neighbors (what a conspirator!), asked them to tell them to pack up and go to their aunt in Kozelsk; then I ate, warmed up, and, reassured by the feeling of safety, went to bed.
And only then did the capture group enter the house, quietly take away the sawn-off shotgun of a hunting rifle standing by the bed, and instantly pounce on the snoring killer. When Averin came to his senses, he was already handcuffed.
Brought to the Kozelskoe police station, Averin immediately began to speak. He spoke about the Voice that pushed him to fight with God, about the order given from above to kill the monks (“if I had not done this, we would have lost the war with God”), that on April 13, and then on April 15 he came to a monastery with the intention of committing murder.
We can probably say that “Averin’s case” is over. This schizophrenic will never be tried in a criminal court.
The further time moves us away from the tragic events of that Easter, the clearer the scale of what happened becomes. The murder of monks went far beyond the scope of banal criminality. The martyrdom of our contemporaries entailed such a chain of various kinds of miracles and signs that it is appropriate to talk about the ideological revolution that perhaps it marks. Already on the 40th day from the moment of the murder of the monks, the first healing of a person recognized by medicine as terminally ill took place at their graves. And since then, many thousands of people have witnessed the miracles revealed to the world. Many carved about. Ferapont, the crosses began to stream myrrh over time. Exactly a year after the death of the monks, an abundant flow of myrrh was discovered from the crosses placed on their graves.
Even according to the Orthodox religious tradition - very rich in examples of miracles and signs - this seems to be an exceptional event. Numerous miracles associated with the personal belongings of dead monks have been recorded.
The miracles revealed over the past years are so numerous and so convincingly testify to Divine grace on everything connected with the Optina new martyrs, that perhaps the current generation (i.e., contemporaries of the murdered) will be able to see them canonized.
During the investigation, the investigators - as well as unchurched people in general - more than once had the question of why three strong men allowed themselves to be killed by some wimp without resistance? The short, frail Averin actually looked rather pathetic compared to the monks who, as mentioned above, had outstanding physical characteristics. Even if we make allowances for the grueling fast they endured before Easter, it must be admitted that the dead monks could have tried, not unsuccessfully, to resist the attacker. It is unlikely that their passivity can be explained solely by the surprise of an attack from behind.
Most likely, here we are dealing with the most striking expression of Christian non-resistance and trust in the Will of God. At one time, Saint John of Kronstadt prophesied that Russia would not perish as long as at least one person was alive, ready to die for the Lord God. In this aspect, the death of the monks, born in the era of total atheism, but who found the Faith and were ready to die for it without trepidation, seems optimistic in its own way. Not one person in Russia was ready to die for Christ that Easter morning, but three at once! And martyrdom was a worthy crown of life for each of them. This is exactly how believers explained the behavior of the dead to investigators.
During interrogations, Averin also emphasized the mystical nature of his deed. He directly stated that the murder of the monks was committed by him deliberately and was prepared in advance. As an incentive, he cited the commands of the inner Voice, which constantly sounded in his head for several years. This voice tormented Averin for a long time with all sorts of roars and hums, which caused terrible headaches. There was no way to fight him, and over time the Voice achieved Averin’s complete subjugation. On the orders of the Voice, the criminal committed the most unimaginable acts: ate used toilet paper, chopped up the Bible with an ax, attacked women, swore uncontrollably in public, etc. The Voice hated Orthodoxy and everything connected with Christianity, and therefore Averin himself became imbued with hatred of religion . The criminal agreed that this inner voice belongs to Satan, and that he himself - Nikolai Averin - is a conscious assistant to evil spirits.
These statements by the accused allow us to classify the crime he committed as ritual, that is, committed out of motives of religious fanaticism. In this case, the killer's religion was Satanism. It is noteworthy that modern domestic law in every possible way moves away from the concept of “ritual crime”, replacing religious motivation with political or economic one. Meanwhile, the pre-revolutionary law of Russia (i.e., before 1917) was much wiser in this regard. It is obvious that legal systems that refuse to consider religious fanaticism as a motivation for crime exhibit significant one-sidedness.<…>
Despite the fact that the criminal was captured and exposed, a number of very significant points were never clarified during the investigation. The fact that Nikolai Averin had a significant amount of money about three months before the crime was committed remained unexplained. Meanwhile, many who previously knew him as a person constantly in need of money noted with surprise that he suddenly began to easily lend money and give drink to drunkards. Averin himself did not drink, but after the New Year (in 1993) he suddenly began to easily give money for drinks to people from whom he could not expect repayment of the debt.
But this, apparently, did not bother the future murderer at all: lending money to local drunkards, lending money to colleagues, he seemed to grow in his own eyes and enjoyed the ingratiation of those around him. The investigation never established from what sources and for what merits Averin received money in the first months of 1993, although the very fact of his unexpected enrichment involuntarily suggests the existence of unidentified friends (and, possibly, like-minded people) of the Satanist killer.
The investigation did not want to consider the substance of numerous evidence that pointed (albeit indirectly!) to the possibility of the existence of an organized group of Satanists, which set itself the goal of intimidating the monks of Optina Pustyn and parishioners with the threat of terror. A number of independent sources indicate that in the early 90s of the 20th century, threats of this kind were by no means a myth.
Rumors were actively spreading that “the monks will be slaughtered on Easter.” After the tragic events of April 18, 1993, some of the parishioners reported that atheist friends tried to persuade them not to go to the monastery on Easter night, since believers would be killed there. Some friends at work asked to shave their beard so as not to look like an Orthodox believer, because in the coming days this could turn out to be unsafe. Various people recalled rumors and warnings of this kind, and there is no doubt that such rumors actually circulated among the people.
The inhabitants of the monastery are no strangers to the rudeness of demoniacs, and it would be possible not to mention this fleeting scene here if various kinds of threats were not repeated against Orthodox believers in different ways throughout Lent. The day before Easter, overshadowed by a terrible tragedy, another incident occurred that left the darkest mark in the memory of witnesses. During the liturgy, an unknown man ran into the temple and shouted at the top of his lungs: “I, too, can become a monk if I kill three monks!” Then he quickly ran out. In all such cases, the monastery security was never able to establish the identities of the bawlers. It was clear that these were not pilgrims, but strangers, unknown to anyone.
One of the Optina abbots, whose name was not made public for security reasons, received two identical anonymous letters during Great Lent in 1993, with an interval of a week. Each contained a photograph of an open, empty coffin and a short note in which they promised to kill him with a golden ramrod in the crown of the head. After the tragic events of April 18, both letters were handed over to law enforcement agencies.
It is noteworthy that Averin himself made no secret of his intentions. Literally on the eve of the murder, he appeared in a mechanical workshop at the agricultural aviation airfield, where he had recently worked, and began sharpening his sword. The workers became interested in the outlandish weapon and one of them asked the future killer: “Who are you sharpening your grudge against?” “I want to cut off the monks,” answered Averin. He didn’t even try to lie. Then, leaving the workshop into the yard, he showed the sharpened blade to other workers and eloquently talked about how they would hear about it!
The investigation was never able to establish the origin of this sword with satanic engraving. Averin testified that this cleaver was made by a master at the machine yard of the Druzhba collective farm, and that the blade was engraved in a workshop in Kaluga. But the investigation was unable to identify either the craftsman from the mechanical yard or the engraver from the workshop. Maybe because they didn't exist at all.
The investigation actually ignored the indication that Averin’s accomplices were in the monastery at the time of the murder. Two female pilgrims who witnessed the killer’s attack on the bell-ringers reported that when they screamed in horror at what they saw, two unfamiliar men standing nearby shouted at them: “Well, shut up, otherwise the same thing will happen to you!” It is noteworthy that these men were not on the list of witnesses to the crime compiled by the investigative team. In other words, these people hastened to leave the monastery, taking advantage of the turmoil that arose. This behavior is all the more strange because all the people who were in the monastery hurried to the belfry, puzzled by the unexpected break in the festive ringing.
Explaining the origin of Alexander Kartashev’s passport and work book, found in the pocket of his overcoat, Averin insisted during interrogations that he had stolen them from the pilgrims’ hostel. From there, allegedly, a few days later he stole the overcoat itself with the monastery inventory number. These thefts were committed precisely for the purpose of leaving false evidence at the crime scene and leading the investigation onto a false trail.
Meanwhile, the work and residence of pilgrims on the territory of the monastery are organized in such a way that it is very difficult to commit such theft. To successfully commit such thefts, Averin would have needed to appear at the monastery more than once. Meanwhile, neither the pilgrims, nor the work contractor, nor the monks knew him by sight. A much more plausible assumption is that the theft of Kartashev’s documents, as well as the black overcoat, was carried out by some secret accomplices of the killer, disguised as pilgrims. They handed over the stolen goods to Averin, and they themselves hastened to leave the monastery even before the crime. Alas, this version did not receive proper elaboration. It was easier for investigators to view the crime as the actions of a crazy lone killer.
And the murders of pilgrims in Optina Pustyn occurred annually throughout the 90s of the last century. Often these crimes were timed to coincide with the feast of the Holy Resurrection of Christ. They took place, however, not in the monastery itself, but in the surrounding forests, which allowed local law enforcement agencies not to consider them in any way connected with pilgrimage missions and not to consider the investigation materials in their entirety.
The specific nature of some of these murders serves as an indirect indication of the existence of a certain satanic organization that does not advertise the fact of its existence (one can assume that this completely coincides with the intentions and sentiments of the local authorities). Most likely, this organization is based in Moscow and its adherents appear intermittently in the vicinity of Optina Hermitage. The time of these visits coincides with the days of Quasimodo (the same one in whose honor the freemason V. Hugo named his freak in “Notre Dame Cathedral”). Calendar-wise, the “days of Quasimodo,” which are satanic holidays on which various kinds of sacrifices are made and Christian churches and cemeteries are insulted, are one week away from Orthodox Parental Saturdays.
However, here we are invading an area very far from criminology and investigation. I will only note that the only open source concerning this topic was the newspaper “Orthodox Petersburg”.
Most likely, no one will ever be able to reliably establish whether Averin was a member of such an organization. And therefore, can vice really be considered punished and truth triumphed?
A.I.Rakitin, 1999
Early on Easter morning, April 18, 1993, three monks passed away in Optina Pustyn.
Hieromonk Vasily - Igor Roslyakov (born 1960) arrived in Optina on October 17, 1988. On August 23, 1990, he was tonsured a monk, and 3 months later he was ordained a hieromonk.
Monk Trofim - Leonid Tatarnikov (born 1954) came to Optina in August 1990 and found here what his soul had been looking for for a long time. Six months later he was accepted into the ranks of the brethren, and on September 25, 1991 he was tonsured a monk.
Monk Ferapont - Vladimir Pushkarev (born 1955) dreamed of monasticism. He came to Optina on foot in the summer of 1990. On Kiriopascha in 1991 he was dressed in a cassock, and six months later, on the Intercession of the Virgin Mary, he was tonsured a monk.
Fourteen years ago, the jubilant Easter morning of Optina Pustyn was pierced by the cry of a young novice seething with tears: “They killed the brothers! Brothers!..” The long-suffering land was stained with blood, and the sky above the monastery was stained with blood, which many saw at that hour, not knowing about the tragedy that had occurred.
“Red Easter, the Lord's Passover,” glorified in the stichera of this feast of feasts and celebration of celebrations, became literally red. This is the title of the truly soul-shaking book “Red Easter,” which has already been published in an additional edition. It is difficult to avoid parallels here. Low bow to her for her great work.
This land is not easy. All of Russia knows the small town of Kozelsk, whose inhabitants held the line against the troops of Batu Khan for seven weeks - until the last survivor. The Tatars called Kozelsk “the evil city”. And in the XIV-XV centuries. Five kilometers from the city, Optina Pustyn arose, which by the 19th century became, in the words of the priest-scientist Pavel Florensky, “the spiritual focus of Russian life.” Lapot peasants and the most prominent people of the country flocked here for consolation and guidance. Zhukovsky and Turgenev, Tchaikovsky and Rubinstein, the Kireevsky brothers and Sergei Nilus, Count Leo Tolstoy and Grand Duke Konstantin Romanov visited here. Gogol called Optina “close to heaven”; Dostoevsky, having in mind the Venerable Ambrose of Optina, tried in The Brothers Karamazov to understand what eldership is for Russia.
The atheistic twentieth century sought to destroy the elders along with faith. Optina was mercilessly devastated, but its confessors and new martyrs, ascending to their cross, contrary to the obvious, directed their spiritual children: “You will live to see the opening of the monastery.” And when in 1988, among the barely covered ruins of Optina, the first Divine Liturgy was celebrated, Baba Ustya, who did not fully believe in it, exclaimed through tears of joy: “She made it!”
Seeing the ruins and equipment warehouse in the temple, I did not believe in the possibility of reviving the monastery, as the current mayor of Kozelsk, and then chairman of the Kirov collective farm, Ivan Bogachev, admitted to the author of these lines. Collective farm lands bordered on monastery lands. And the monks, difficultly restoring the monastery, according to Ivan Mikhailovich, “from the heart and soul” worked with their land. The result is amazing: “If on our lands we collected 25 centners per hectare, then the monastery collected fifty!”
The first years of restoration of Optina were a time of miracles. And there they were almost not surprised by the arrival of the astronauts, who, it turned out, had photographed from space the radiance rising above this marvelous point on earth. In the enlarged photograph one could distinguish the rising monastery and the monastery.
But miracles are miracles, and the monastic feat is called a feat because not many people can handle it. Many inspired “prayers” flocked to the newly opened desert; they remained, growing spiritually and strengthened together with their native monastery. The three brothers of the Optina Hermitage, whose names ten years ago became known throughout Russia - Hieromonk Vasily, Monk Ferapont and Monk Trofim - then seemed to be one of many, but turned out to be God's chosen ones.
During Holy Week, one of the Moscow priests (candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, captain of long-range aviation) reflected in his sermon that today we are all characterized by a common sin - a lack of nobility: whether in words or deeds. It has been forgotten over the past long decades that we are all of a good kind - Christian.
The three Optina brothers were distinguished by amazing nobility even in appearance. The Silent Monk, Siberian Fr. Ferapont struck with some kind of otherworldliness - either an elegant Venetian page, or, as the artists gasped, “Titian - chiseled cheekbones, bright blue eyes and golden curls on the shoulders.”
His impetuous fellow countryman, sparkling with generous joy, Fr. Trofim, who was a common favorite of the monastery, local residents and pilgrims, did everything so beautifully that people admired him against his will: “He sits on a tractor, as if taking off... He flies on a horse across a meadow. Beautiful, just like in the movies."
The artist whom Fr. Vasily asked to paint an icon of his heavenly patrons - the blessed Prince Igor of Chernigov, St. Basil the Great and St. Basil the Blessed - and mentally talked with him. “Yes, father, you have the nobility and courage of a prince. You, like Basil the Great, have been given the gift of speech. And you have been given the wisdom of the blessed one to hide all these gifts.”
All three brothers were richly gifted. Father Ferapont (in the world Vladimir Pushkarev) had a great talent for learning new things. He, a forester by training, did a lot of things in the monastery, including cutting crosses for tonsure with the figure of the Savior in such a way that the artists learned from him. Father Trofim (Leonid Tatarnikov) could do everything. He was a senior bell ringer, a sexton, a hotel attendant, a bookbinder, a painter, a baker, a blacksmith, a tractor driver...
Father Vasily (Igor Roslyakov), having successfully graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University and the Institute of Physical Education, wrote good poetry, had a wonderful voice, in the monastery, among other things, performed the obedience of a chronicler, conducted catechetical conversations in prisons, a Sunday school in Sosensky and a school for pilgrims in the monastery , was the best preacher in Optina. After his martyrdom, looking into the diaries, we discovered that we had lost a gifted spiritual writer.
And at the same time, all three were true monks - secret, without pharisaism; prayer books, strict fasters and ascetics, especially during the last period of their lives, Great Lent. And, according to testimonies, all three guessed about their imminent departure, being already prepared for it through many prayerful works and climbing a steep spiritual ladder. That is why they were chosen - no, not by a murderer, but by the Lord - to play the role of the three-numbered (in the image of the Holy Trinity) new martyrs of Optina, powerful, as it turns out, heavenly intercessors for the monastery and all of Russia...
The three monks were powerful and tall during their lifetime. Monk Ferapont studied Japanese martial arts for five years in the army and, they say, had a black belt. Monk Trofim literally tied the poker with a bow with his powerful hands. Hieromonk Vasily was an international master of sports, captain of the Moscow State University water polo team, and a member of the USSR national team.
Yes, one cultural and educational worker, Nikolai Averin, is known to the official investigation. However, on the eve of Easter, a criminal group was operating in Optina, which is confirmed by many documents recorded by the public-church commission. There was a filigree technical preparation and a psychic attack: the priests were given “anonymous letters” with coffins, and the entire district knew that the monks were going to be “cut.”
All three brothers were killed during obediences: bell ringers Fr. Trofim and Fr. Ferapont during the Easter ringing, Fr. Vasily on the way to confession at the monastery. Everything was thought out. But the killer did not take into account that great Christian love, for the sake of which three wonderful young people went to the monastery. Fr. was the first to be killed instantly. Ferapont. But then Fr. was pierced. Trofim nevertheless pulled himself up on the ropes and sounded the alarm, for a moment, with his last breath, raising the alarm of the monastery.
With the same sword engraved “Satan 666”, Father Vasily was mortally wounded in the back, just as treacherously. However, from the moment the alarm sounded, people were already running here. And the 12-year-old girl Natasha was given the opportunity to see how the suffering suddenly disappeared for a while from the priest’s face turned to the sky and he marvelously brightened up... For a whole hour the life was leaving him. All his insides were cut. In such cases, doctors say, people scream terribly in pain. Father Vasily prayed. And Optina prayed with him, bursting into tears. And in his face, as the monastery’s confessor, schema-abbot Iliy, said at the funeral service on April 18 of this year, Easter and Resurrection joy was already reflected at times...
Representatives from all over Russia gathered here, in Optina and Kozelsk, for the days of remembrance of the new martyrs of Optina. Ten years ago, an Optina priest said: “We lost three monks, but received three Angels.” Evidence of their help is multiplying almost every day: cancerous tumors disappear, drunkards and drug addicts are cured, the most difficult cases are settled, and Fr. Trofim leads the only surviving soldier out of the tightening ring of Chechen bandits.
The killers then achieved the opposite effect. The best ringers of the country came to the numb Optina, teenagers and even numerous grandmothers flocked to the bells. Trofim, whom he so joyfully looked after. And after the fortieth day, which fell on the Ascension of the Lord, many, who had not previously thought about monasticism, set out on the path of the soldiers of Christ.
In the spring of ninety-three, the terrible news of the Easter murder in Optina Hermitage of three monastery inhabitants - hieromonk Father Vasily, monk Trofim and monk Ferapont - made not only believing Russia shudder, but everyone who heard or read about this triple murder committed by the Satanist Nikolai Averintsev. But until recently, no one ever talked about what exactly preceded the appearance of these new martyrs, what happened before and after the murder in Optina itself. Perhaps because truly believing people, in principle, do not like to talk about miraculous phenomena that they witness. And what happened there on the eve of Easter was exactly what was always interpreted in religious mysticism as a sign...
According to eyewitnesses, a lot of strange things happened that Easter and before it. The whole of Optina, in particular, was shrouded in some kind of haze, from which objects trembled and doubled two steps away from the observer. The story about how children were not allowed near the site of the impending tragedy was also alarming.
Every Easter, children from the Moscow Orthodox Gymnasium came to Optina Pustyn (by then traditionally). This should have happened then, in ’93. The children were already on the bus, ready to set off, when the engine suddenly stopped. Numerous attempts to launch it not only led to nothing, but time was lost, making the trip impossible. When a car mechanic was called after Easter, the bus turned out to be in full working order, its engine started with half a turn. Such a strange Easter in Optina had happened only once before - before Chernobyl...
Finally, another absolutely incredible story happened with one of the future new martyrs - Father Trofim, who, among other things, was also the bell ringer of Optina Pustyn.
Believers know well that on Good Friday, at three o'clock in the afternoon - that is, at the hour of the Crucifixion of Christ and the removal of the Shroud - the sun will certainly fade, even for a short time, and a resounding gust of wind sweeps across the earth, lifting flocks of screaming birds into the air... The soul of the religious a person at this moment is overcome by a particularly acute, mournful melancholy...
...To say about Father Trophim that he was a believer means not to say anything about him: his faith was of such strength that only the souls of saints are capable of. You need to know this in order to understand how incredible it was what happened at the moment of the removal of the Shroud, which takes place under a special funeral bell. So: Monk Trofim, the eldest, most experienced bell-ringer of Optina, who was the first to raise his hands to the bells, at this mournful moment unexpectedly rang... Easter bells instead of funeral bells!
When he was called to explain to the governor, he only repented in confusion, unable to explain how this could happen... Everything was explained later, when the monks lifted three coffins onto their shoulders, and it was during the Easter bell that they buried the dead...
Father Trofim knew about his imminent death - as all the saints knew in advance about their death. This is what icon painter Tamara Mushketova says, who wrote it down in her diary. A year before Easter 1993, she and her sisters went to a lake located near Optina to collect pine buds for tea. There the girls encountered the monk Trofim. Standing on the shore, he looked at the lake with admiration: “What beauty,” he smiled, “you can’t stop looking at it.” And I have a year left to live...” Tamara was surprised: “Sorry, Father Trofim, but I look at life more optimistically.” As for optimism, around the same time, Father Trofim once said to a despondent pilgrim: “Lena, why are you sour? There is so little time left to live, maybe a year. There is no time to be sad anymore. Rejoice! — and gave her a bouquet of freshly picked wildflowers.
Finally, a week before his death, he gave a friend the documents of the pilgrim Nicholas R. that he kept, saying: “You will give it to him when he returns to the monastery.” Nikolai returned to Optina after the murder...
Nevertheless, despite the premonition of his imminent end, according to the testimony of absolutely everyone who knew Father Trofim, joy and kindness literally seethed in him. And in each of the three murdered there lived the conviction that sooner or later they - Father Trofim, Father Vasily, and Father Ferapont - would have to suffer for Christ.
“The brothers were killed!..”
The murder in Optina was calculated and carefully prepared - even if you do not mean the sword specially forged by Averintsev and decorated with the “Satan-666” sign. Local residents remember how before Easter the killer came to the monastery, squatted near the belfry, studying the postures of the bell ringers, inspecting the entrances and exits in a businesslike manner.
Hieromonk Michael recalls that Easter night: “At six o’clock in the morning the liturgy began in the monastery, and I noticed that Father Vasily, who was supposed to confess, was for some reason delayed. Suddenly he didn’t even enter the altar, but somehow the novice Eugene crawled up the wall and said: “Father, remember the newly deceased murdered monks Trofim and Ferapont. And pray for the health of Hieromonk Vasily. He is seriously injured." And then my hierodeacon Hilarion, swaying, begins to sag, choking on tears... He was never able to go to the service - Father Raphael married him... And only then did it dawn on me why I kept imagining something strange: on Easter night The bells of Optina were silent!..”
Around the same time, near the monastery, the laypeople of the Orthodox community, gathered at the Easter table, suddenly noticed the same thing. At the moment when the air should be humming with the bell, there is silence. Someone suddenly asked: “Why is Optina silent?” And as if in response - a desperate cry outside the windows: “They killed the brothers! They killed their brothers!..”
...A few minutes before six in the morning the monastery courtyard was empty: someone went to the early liturgy, someone to the monastery. Hegumen Alexander was the last to leave: “Turning around, I saw monk Trofim hastily descending from his cell - joyful, radiant, as always, not even walking, but running: “Father,” he said, “bless me, I’m going to call...” I looked at the empty the belfry, I ask: “How are you going to ring alone?” - “Nothing, someone will come up now!” And almost immediately the monk Ferapont appeared, both went to the belfry, not suspecting that a murderer was hiding there ... "
He stabbed both of them in the back: first the monk Ferapont, after him - Trofim... Already mortally wounded, the monk Trofim, with his last, supernatural strength, pulled himself up to the bells on ropes and struck the alarm, rocking the bells with his already dead body: and in the last seconds of his life he thought about the people he loved, even in death he rose up to defend them, warning the monastery, raising the alarm in the monastery.
Bells have their own language. Hieromonk Vasily was going to the monastery to confess at that time, but having heard the call of the alarm bell, he turned towards the bells, towards the murderer... Everything was calculated by Averintsev, except for one thing: the love of monk Trofim for people, which gave him the opportunity to ring the alarm bell in spite of death. From this moment on, witnesses to the crime appear. Three women going to the farmyard for milk: they saw how Trofim fell, how the bells fell silent, how he managed to reach them, how he fell again. They saw how a short “pilgrim” in black jumped over the picket fence of the belfry and ran away, not suspecting that they were seeing a murderer. How could the thought of murder come to mind on the first peaceful Easter morning?!
Father Vasily, who moved to the belfry to answer the alarm, met the criminal face to face. Two more pilgrims saw that some short conversation took place between them, after which Father Vasily trustingly turned his back to Averintsev... The next moment he fell, bleeding profusely.
The first to run up to him was a 12-year-old girl, Natasha Popova. Her vision is one hundred percent, but she saw something incredible: Father Vasily was falling, and a terrible black beast darted away from him, ran up a nearby woodpile of stairs, jumped over the wall and disappeared from the monastery... “Father,” the girl later asked the elder, “Why did I see a beast instead of a man?” “But the power is bestial, satanic,” answered the elder. “So the soul saw it.”
...Father Vasily, who was mortally wounded, died an hour later. Optina Pustyn froze with grief, its numb bells were silent.
Monk Ferapont, in the world Vladimir Leonidovich Pushkarev, was 37 years old at the time of his death. Behind him is military service, long-term and long-term military service, studies at a forestry technical school, and work at a forestry enterprise on Lake Baikal. I came to Optina on foot in the summer of 1990.
Monk Trofim, in the world Leonid Ivanovich Tatarnikov, was 39 years old at the time of his death. Siberian, from a large family. He entered the monastery at the age of 36.
Father Vasily, in the world Igor Ivanovich Roslyakov, died at the age of 33... The name of the athlete Igor Roslyakov was well known to all sports fans: he was a real star, he traveled halfway around the world. He studied to be a journalist, wrote poetry... Each person has his own path to God. His journey began even before Optina, where he arrived among the first - those who literally restored it from ruins in the fall of 1988.
Miracles
Member of the Union of Writers of Russia Nina Popova, who collected evidence and published a book about the blood-drenched Optina Easter of 1993, says very little about the miracles that followed the tragedy. As already mentioned, religious people prefer not to focus on this side of religion. And not only because it is the most mysterious, and therefore the most intimate, but also because the retelling of miracles and even the fact that an atheist becomes a witness to a miracle does not lead, as Jesus Christ predicted two thousand years ago, to a person to God...
You don't have to look far for examples. Over the years, millions of people have witnessed the miracle of the descent of the Holy Fire onto the Holy Sepulcher on Orthodox Easter. But how many of those who came to Jerusalem out of curiosity were led to Christianity? And finally, how many names of Catholic Christians do we know who converted to Orthodoxy after they saw with their own eyes that it is on Orthodox Easter that the Fire descends through the prayer of the Orthodox Patriarch?.. The answer is simple: none!
That is why we will give only a short list of miracles associated with the names of the Optina new martyrs. Almost immediately, miraculous healings began on the graves of the dead. The cross of Father Vasily constantly streams myrrh. While cleaning up the blood-stained bell tower, the monks were forced to carefully cut away the floor soaked in it, and in the same way they collected the blood-soaked soil at the site of the death of Father Vasily... Both this piece of land and the bloody wood chips were dismantled by parishioners of the monastery and pilgrims: they smell fragrant to this day in a variety of corners of Russia.
At the graves of those killed, those in need of healing receive it today. Here is just one incident told by nun Georgia, then simply Lyudmila Tolstikova.
“On October 24, 1998, at the Council of Optina Elders, I came to the graves of the new martyrs. Then a pilgrim comes, somehow strangely and awkwardly clutching a piece of paper to himself, asking me to collect lands from their graves. “What about yourself?” - I ask. Then I looked at his hands and immediately felt ashamed: his hands were waxy, motionless... And then he leans towards the grave of Father Vasily, presses his hands, moves them along the ground...
Suddenly he laughs: “Look, they came to life, and the doctors wanted to take them away from me!.. I look - really pink, living fingers... Tears even flowed from my eyes: “Write about your healing!..” - “Better you,” he says, “here is my address: Kaluga region, Kirovsky district, Malo-Pesochnoe village, Alexey Nikolaevich Akimov.” Later, he sent a letter and a certificate from the doctor: the diagnosis of “tissue necrosis” ruled out restoration of the hands...
This is about the Easter Joy that Orthodox Christians look forward to year after year from the main holiday of the church year. Here it is - joy born out of sorrow: the appearance of the holy new martyrs in our cruel era. With their martyrdom, the monks Trophim, Vasily and Ferapont once again defeated the skeptics, adding to the ranks of Russian saints. The best bell ringers from all over Russia then came to their burial, and the Easter ringing did not stop over Optina throughout Bright Week, as it should be. From all over Russia, from that moment to this day, the pilgrimage to their graves of those thirsting for healing and help in their troubles has not dried up. And they get it. Together with that Easter Joy that is always near us, if we ourselves are able to see and perceive it...
As for the signs, let us recall: exactly six months after Easter 1993, tanks moved towards the White House. Russia has entered a new era... How I want to believe that, after all, it is not the last!
Maria Vetrova
“I WOULD LIKE TO DIE FOR EASTER...”
Many people still, in the simplicity of their souls, believe that only ignorant, uneducated or downtrodden people become monks. As they like to define it in the West – “losers”, “losers”. However, few people know that, for example, Hieromonk Vasily, who was brutally murdered along with the monks Trofim and Ferapont, in worldly life was ... a graduate of the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University and a master of sports.
Igor Roslyakov, as he was called in the world, at one time was the captain (!) of the Moscow State University water polo team and one of the leading players of the USSR national team! Almost no one knew about this even in the monastery itself, until many years later when a yellowed issue of Izvestia was brought to Optina, where in one of the photographs Igor Roslyakov triumphantly holds the champion’s cup in his hands.
One day Hieromonk Vasily was asked about his most cherished desire. Father Vasily then replied: “I would like to die on Easter, with the bells ringing.”
RUSSIAN BOGATYRS
O. Ferapont (in the world Pushkarev Vladimir Leonidovich) worked in a carpentry workshop in the monastery. He was a man of incredible physical strength. It is known, for example, that Pushkarev served in the army as part of special forces - special forces. It was rumored that he even had a “black belt”. After finishing his service, he remained in the army under a contract and served in the ranks of the SA for a total of five years.
The monastic old-timers remember a very remarkable incident when on Fr. Ferapont was attacked by three punk drug addicts, who in the early 90s constantly flocked to Optina Pustyn (at one time, a real community of various kinds of informal hippie punks even spontaneously formed at the monastery). This attack took place on the porch in front of the pilgrim's canteen and was witnessed by several dozen people. Father Ferapont scattered the attackers so quickly that none of those around him not only had time to intervene, but even to realize what had happened.
At the same time, he was such a quiet, meek man, who did not attract attention to himself, that when news of his death became known, not all the inhabitants of the monastery could remember who he was talking about. Some of the people who knew him well reported that the monk had a presentiment of his imminent death. So, for example, being an excellent carpenter, Fr. Before Easter, Ferapont unexpectedly distributed his best instrument to other masters; when they asked him why he was doing this, oh. Ferapont either remained silent or replied that he would not have to do any more carpentry.
Father Trofim, who died next to him (in the world Aleksei Ivanovich Tatarnikov), was a sailor in the fishing fleet before he was tonsured.
In the monastery he was revered as a jack of all trades and took on all the household work. He handled the tractor perfectly, which was used to plow the monastery gardens. A strong, tall man, he had an iron fist. Memories remain of his remarkable physical strength. One day he tied a poker in a knot. Many who knew him recalled that Fr. Trofim easily bent the nails with his fingers; for example, he tightened a magpie nail with a ring or a screw. He did this out of frustration if the prayer did not go well.
In Rus', it is not easy to surprise with physical strength - there have been many healthy men at all times - but such arm strength should still be recognized as extraordinary even by Russian standards.
OMINOUS SIGNS
On that now world-famous Easter of 1993, when the blood of three Optina monks was shed: Hieromonk Vasily, Monk Trofim and Monk Ferapont, tragic signs were recorded. So, while cleaning the altar, just before Easter, when the work was just in full swing, the monk Philip’s knife with which he was cleaning a candlestick fell off, and he injured his hand. The monk, clutching his wound, ran out of the altar: not even a drop could be allowed to fall - if blood were spilled in a holy place, the altar would have to be consecrated anew. The altar boy who bandaged his hand could not resist lamenting: “What’s going on?! For Holy Week - already fourth blood on the altar. Either the copy fell off during proskomedia, or there were some other wounds. What is this – blood on the altar? For what?" Now this, alas, has become clear.
Many later recalled no less ominous omens at Easter before the Chernobyl disaster. Then the wind roared in the churches, sometimes even knocking over the chalices in the altars - the Bowls with the Holy Gifts! As the ascetic of our time, Schemamonk Simeon (Kozhukhov, reposed in 1928), wrote: “God does not speak to us in conversational language, but indicatively.”
THE INVISIBLE UNITY OF HEAVEN AND EARTH
The connection between the earthly Church, still at war with the enemy of the human race, and the Heavenly Church, already victorious and triumphant, is amazing. On Holy Saturday 1993, the day before the ritual murder of three Optina monks, pieces of the vestments of Hieromartyr Vladimir, Metropolitan of Kyiv and Galicia, were brought from Kyiv. They were distributed to the monastery brethren literally a few hours before the tragedy. In this regard, it is probably not a mere coincidence, but the Providence of God, that Hieromonk Vasily, then still a student of the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University, Igor Roslyakov, was led to the faith by a teacher at the Faculty of Journalism, Tamara Vladimirovna Chermenskaya. He entered her family as a friend somehow simply and organically.
So, Tamara Vladimirovna herself belongs to the Epiphany family - and is a distant relative... of the Hieromartyr Vladimir himself, parts of whose vestments Hieromonk Vasily received shortly before his death. It is surprising that they were handed over to him at the moment of singing the troparion “Blessed Joseph, from the tree I have taken down your most pure body...” It was this troparion, according to eyewitnesses, that the Hieromartyr Vladimir (Epiphany), who was almost outside the gates of Kiev, sang as he went to his death -The Pechersk Lavra was shot, and then, while still alive, the communists finished it off with a bayonet.
It is not just a coincidence that St. Vladimir, Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia, became the FIRST (!) martyr in a huge host of new martyrs who suffered from the Bolshevik regime. In a sense, Hieromonk Vasily of Optina, who accepted martyrdom, is also the first martyr - but of the last times of the coming Antichrist, under whom, according to prophecies, rivers of Christian blood will also flow. The murder of three Optina monks was too obviously ritualistic.
It remains to add that in the Moscow region of Korolev there has long been a temple, which was consecrated... in honor of the Holy Martyr Vladimir, Metropolitan of Kyiv and Galicia.
DEAR EGG... LAST YEAR'S EASTER
One of the novices, then still working as a journalist in St. Petersburg, upon arrival in the famous Optina Hermitage, had a conversation with the monk Trofim, one of the three monks killed on Easter 1993. The conversation took place on the very eve of that Great Holiday - directly on April 17th. Monk Trofim showed the journalist, who was still a churchgoer and did not particularly believe in miracles, a blessed Easter egg that he had saved from last year’s Easter. At the same time, the future martyr (and I think there is no doubt that sooner or later he will be glorified in this rank) very simply told her that tomorrow he would eat this egg to break the fast, and then his interlocutor would make sure that it was absolutely fresh. “Then will you believe it?” - added the monk Trofim, referring to the belief in miracles.
It so happened that just before the murder, while rushing to the belfry where the tragedy occurred, Monk Trofim managed to break his fast with that very testicle. But without a journalist. However, the latter was nevertheless notified of the miracle. The pathologist's report spoke of a FRESH (!) egg eaten by the monk before his death. And a little later, when filming the film “The Optina New Martyrs,” the cameraman, narrating with a “picture” about the last meal of the murdered monk, filmed the shell of the very egg that Monk Trofim showed to a journalist from St. Petersburg.
MIRACLES AT THE GRAVES OF NONKS
The martyrdom of our contemporaries entailed such a chain of various kinds of miracles and signs that it is appropriate to talk about the ideological revolution that perhaps it marks. Already on the 40th day from the moment of the murder of the monks, the first healing of a person recognized by medicine as terminally ill took place at their graves. And since then, many thousands of people have witnessed the miracles revealed to the world. Many carved about. Ferapont, the crosses began to stream myrrh over time. Exactly a year after the death of the monks, abundant myrrh streaming was discovered from the crosses placed on the graves themselves.
These graves mark numerous cases of healing of people suffering from incurable diseases. Although there are no canonical prayers to the new martyrs, pilgrims note the miraculous help for drug addicts that turns to Fr. Trofim; and here is a prayer appeal to Fr. Helps Vasily on the road.
Even according to the Orthodox religious tradition - very rich in examples of miracles and signs - this seems to be an exceptional event. Numerous miracles associated with the personal belongings of dead monks have been recorded. Cross o. Vasily, who passed after the division of his things to the monk Fr. Hypatia, began to flow myrrh on the 40th day after the death of the previous owner. Since 1993, cases of his myrrh streaming have been noted repeatedly and recorded both by eyewitness statements and by video recording. The fragrant ointment is collected in a plastic bag and used to anoint parishioners.
The miracles revealed over the past years are so numerous and so convincingly testify to Divine grace on everything connected with the Optina new martyrs, that perhaps the current generation (i.e., contemporaries of the murdered) will be able to see them canonized...
At one time, Saint John of Kronstadt prophesied that Russia would not perish as long as at least one person was alive, ready to die for the Lord God!
Scarlet EasterIn the late 1980s, blood was shed at the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem on Easter. And a few years later, in 1993, there was a bloody Easter here in Russia too...
Blood on the altar
In the spring of ninety-three, the terrible news of the Easter murder in Optina Hermitage of three monastery inhabitants - hieromonk Father Vasily, monk Trofim and monk Ferapont - made not only believing Russia shudder, but everyone who heard or read about this triple murder committed by the Satanist Nikolai Averintsev. But until recently, no one ever talked about what exactly preceded the appearance of these new martyrs, what happened before and after the murder in Optina itself. Perhaps because truly believing people, in principle, do not like to talk about miraculous phenomena that they witness. And what happened there on the eve of Easter was exactly what was always interpreted in religious mysticism as a sign.
There is one immutable rule in the church, rather a law: blood should not be shed on the altar. If this happens by accident - say, the priest injures his hand while preparing the sacrament, or someone's nose suddenly bleeds - the altar must be consecrated anew. For the only blood that has a place in it is the blood of Christ, mystically transformed into sacramental wine.
Then, on the eve of Easter, in the Optina church, like in any other, at this time cleaning was going on - including in the altar. One of the monks was cleaning a candlestick with a knife, the knife fell off and injured his hand. Clutching the wound, he ran out of the temple. Following him, novice Alexander Petrov came out and, having bandaged his hand, said: “I don’t understand what’s happening... During Holy Week (the last week before Easter - M.V.) there is blood in the altar for the fourth time... That’s a copy If he loses his temper at the proskomedia, then someone else will somehow get hurt... What does this mean?..”
According to eyewitnesses, a lot of strange things happened that Easter and before it. The whole of Optina, in particular, was shrouded in some kind of haze, from which objects trembled and doubled two steps away from the observer. The story about how children were not allowed near the site of the impending tragedy was also alarming.
Every Easter, children from the Moscow Orthodox Gymnasium came to Optina Pustyn (by then traditionally). This should have happened then, in ’93. The children were already on the bus, ready to set off, when the engine suddenly stopped. Numerous attempts to launch it not only led to nothing, but time was lost, making the trip impossible. When a car mechanic was called after Easter, the bus turned out to be in full working order, its engine started with half a turn. Such a strange Easter had happened in Optina only once before - before Chernobyl...
Finally, another absolutely incredible story happened with one of the future new martyrs - Father Trofim, who, among other things, was also the bell ringer of Optina Pustyn.
Believers know well that on Good Friday, at three o'clock in the afternoon - that is, at the hour of the Crucifixion of Christ and the removal of the Shroud - the sun will certainly dim, even for a short time, and a loud gust of wind sweeps across the earth, lifting flocks of screaming birds into the air... The soul of a religious person at this moment is seized by a particularly acute, sorrowful melancholy...
To say about Father Trophim that he was a believer means not to say anything about him: his faith was of such strength that only the souls of saints are capable of. You need to know this in order to understand how incredible it was what happened at the moment of the removal of the Shroud, which takes place under a special funeral bell. So: Monk Trofim, the eldest, most experienced bell-ringer of Optina, who was the first to raise his hands to the bells, at this mournful moment unexpectedly rang... Easter bells instead of funeral bells!
When he was called to explain to the governor, he only repented in confusion, unable to explain how this could happen... Everything was explained later, when the monks lifted three coffins onto their shoulders, and it was during the Easter bell that they buried the dead...
Father Trofim knew about his imminent death - as all the saints knew in advance about their death. This is what icon painter Tamara Mushketova says, who wrote it down in her diary. A year before Easter 1993, she and her sisters went to a lake located near Optina to collect pine buds for tea.
There the girls encountered the monk Trofim. Standing on the shore, he looked at the lake with admiration: “What beauty,” he smiled, “you can’t stop looking at it. And I have a year left to live...” Tamara was surprised: “Forgive me, Father Trofim, but I look at life more optimistically.” As for optimism, around the same time, Father Trofim once said to a despondent pilgrim: “Lena, why are you sour? There is so little time left to live, maybe a year. There is no time to be sad anymore. Rejoice! - and gave her a bouquet of freshly picked wildflowers.
Finally, a week before his death, he gave a friend the documents of the pilgrim Nicholas R. that he kept, saying: “You will give it to him when he returns to the monastery.” Nikolai returned to Optina after the murder...
Nevertheless, despite the premonition of his imminent end, according to the testimony of absolutely everyone who knew Father Trofim, joy and kindness literally seethed in him. And in each of the three murdered there lived the conviction that sooner or later they - Father Trofim, Father Vasily, and Father Ferapont - would have to suffer for Christ.
“The brothers were killed!..”
The murder in Optina was calculated and carefully prepared - even if you do not mean the sword specially forged by Averintsev and decorated with the “Satan-666” sign. Local residents remember how before Easter the killer came to the monastery, squatted near the belfry, studying the postures of the bell ringers, inspecting the entrances and exits in a businesslike manner.
Hieromonk Michael recalls that Easter night: “At six o’clock in the morning the liturgy began in the monastery, and I noticed that Father Vasily, who was supposed to confess, was for some reason delayed. Suddenly he didn’t even enter the altar, but somehow the novice Eugene crawled up the wall and said: “Father, remember the newly deceased murdered monks Trofim and Ferapont. And pray for the health of Hieromonk Vasily. He is seriously injured." And then my hierodeacon Hilarion, swaying, begins to sag, choking on tears... He was never able to go to the service - Father Raphael married him... And only then did it dawn on me why I kept imagining some kind of strangeness : on Easter night the bells of Optina were silent!..”
Around the same time, near the monastery, the laypeople of the Orthodox community, gathered at the Easter table, suddenly noticed the same thing. At the moment when the air should be humming with the bell, there is silence. Someone suddenly asked: “Why is Optina silent?” And as if in response - a desperate cry outside the windows: “They killed the brothers! They killed their brothers!..”
A few minutes before six in the morning, the monastery courtyard was empty: someone went to the early liturgy, someone to the monastery. Hegumen Alexander was the last to leave: “Turning around, I saw monk Trofim hastily descending from his cell - joyful, radiant, as always, not even walking, but running: “Father,” he said, “bless me, I’m going to call...” I looked to an empty belfry, I ask: “How are you going to ring alone?” - “Nothing, now someone will come!” And almost immediately the monk Ferapont appeared, both headed to the belfry, not suspecting that a killer was hiding there...”
He stabbed both of them in the back: first the monk Ferapont, after him - Trofim... Already mortally wounded, the monk Trofim, with his last, supernatural strength, pulled himself up to the bells on ropes and struck the alarm, rocking the bells with his already dead body: and in the last seconds During his life he thought about the people he loved, and in his very death he rose up to defend them, warning the monastery, raising the alarm in the monastery.
Bells have their own language. Hieromonk Vasily was going to the monastery to confess at that time, but having heard the call of the alarm bell, he turned towards the bells, towards the murderer... Everything was calculated by Averintsev, except for one thing: the love of monk Trofim for people, which gave him the opportunity to ring the alarm bell in spite of death. From this moment on, witnesses to the crime appear. Three women going to the farmyard for milk: they saw how Trofim fell, how the bells fell silent, how he managed to reach them, how he fell again. They saw how a short “pilgrim” in black jumped over the picket fence of the belfry and ran away, not suspecting that they were seeing a murderer. How could the thought of murder come to mind on the first peaceful Easter morning?!
Father Vasily, who moved to the belfry to answer the alarm, met the criminal face to face. Two more pilgrims saw that some short conversation took place between them, after which Father Vasily trustingly turned his back to Averintsev... The next moment he fell, bleeding profusely.
The first to run up to him was a 12-year-old girl, Natasha Popova. Her vision is one hundred percent, but she saw something incredible: Father Vasily was falling, and a terrible black beast darted away from him, ran up the woodpile nearby, jumped over the wall and disappeared from the monastery... “Father,” the girl later asked old man, why did I see a beast instead of a man?” “But the power is bestial, satanic,” answered the elder. “So the soul saw it.”
Father Vasily, who was mortally wounded, died an hour later. Optina Pustyn froze with grief, its numb bells were silent.
Monk Ferapont, in the world Vladimir Leonidovich Pushkarev, was 37 years old at the time of his death. Under his belt - fixed-term and long-term service in the army, study at a forestry technical school, work in a forestry enterprise on Lake Baikal. I came to Optina on foot in the summer of 1990.
Monk Trofim, in the world Leonid Ivanovich Tatarnikov, was 39 years old at the time of his death. Siberian, from a large family. He entered the monastery at the age of 36.
Father Vasily, in the world Igor Ivanovich Roslyakov, died at the age of 33... The name of the captain of the Moscow State University water polo team and member of the USSR national team Igor Roslyakov was well known to all sports fans: he was a real star, he traveled halfway around the world. He studied at the journalism department, wrote poetry... He became neither a poet nor a journalist... Each person has his own path to God. His journey began even before Optina, where he arrived among the first - those who literally restored it from ruins in the fall of 1988.
Miracles
Member of the Union of Writers of Russia Nina Popova, who collected evidence and published a book about the blood-drenched Optina Easter of 1993, says very little about the miracles that followed the tragedy. As already mentioned, religious people prefer not to focus on this side of religion. And not only because it is the most mysterious, and therefore the most intimate, but also because the retelling of miracles and even the fact that an atheist becomes a witness to a miracle does not lead, as Jesus Christ predicted two thousand years ago, to a person to God...
You don't have to look far for examples. Over the years, millions of people have witnessed the miracle of the descent of the Holy Fire onto the Holy Sepulcher on Orthodox Easter. But how many of those who came to Jerusalem out of curiosity were led to Christianity? And finally, how many names of Catholic Christians do we know who converted to Orthodoxy after they saw with their own eyes that it is on Orthodox Easter that the Fire descends through the prayer of the Orthodox Patriarch?..
The answer is simple: none.
That is why we will give only a short list of miracles associated with the names of the Optina new martyrs. Almost immediately, miraculous healings began on the graves of the dead. The cross of Father Vasily constantly streams myrrh. While cleaning up the blood-stained bell tower, the monks were forced to carefully cut away the floor that was soaked through with it, and in the same way they collected the blood-soaked soil at the site of the death of Father Vasily... Both this piece of land and the bloody wood chips were dismantled by the parishioners of the monastery and pilgrims: they smell fragrant to this day in various corners of Russia.
At the graves of those killed, those in need of healing receive it today. Here is just one incident told by nun Georgia, then simply Lyudmila Tolstikova.
“On October 24, 1998, at the Council of Optina Elders, I came to the graves of the new martyrs. Then a pilgrim comes, somehow strangely and awkwardly clutching a piece of paper to himself, asking me to collect lands from their graves. “What about yourself?” - I ask. Then I looked at his hands and immediately felt ashamed: his hands were waxy, motionless... And then he leaned towards the grave of Father Vasily, pressed his hands, moved them along the ground...
Suddenly he laughs: “Look, they came to life, and the doctors wanted to take them away from me!.. I look - really pink, living fingers... Tears even flowed from my eyes: “Write about your healing!..” - “Better you “,” he says, “here is my address: Kaluga region, Kirovsky district, p/o Malo-Pesochnoe, Akimov Alexey Nikolaevich.” Later, he sent a letter and a certificate from the doctor: the diagnosis of “tissue necrosis” excluded the restoration of hands...
This is about the question of that Easter Joy that Orthodox Christians so expect from the main holiday of the church year from year to year. Here it is - joy born out of sorrow: the appearance of the holy new martyrs in our cruel era. With their martyrdom, the monks Trophim, Vasily and Ferapont once again defeated the skeptics, adding to the ranks of Russian saints. The best bell ringers from all over Russia then came to their burial, and the Easter ringing did not stop over Optina throughout Bright Week, as it should be. From all over Russia, from that moment to this day, the pilgrimage to their graves of those thirsting for healing and help in their troubles has not dried up. And they get it. Together with that Easter Joy that is always near us, if we ourselves are able to see and perceive it...
As for the signs, let us recall: exactly six months after Easter 1993, tanks moved towards the White House. Russia has entered a new era... How I want to believe that it is not the last!
Maria VETROVA
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