The most precious shrine for a person. Holy places of the world

To places of religious and historical memory is one of the forms of external expression of faith. The tradition of revering sacred places that are memorable to the heart dates back to times.

So, Patriarch Jacob, seeing in a dream a mysterious staircase leading to and standing on it, waking up, not only marked this sacred place with a memorial stone, but also poured oil on it (). According to the word of God, the place of the miraculous transition of the sons of Israel across the Jordan was marked with memorial stones: twelve stones were taken from the bottom of the river and laid on the bank (), and twelve others in the middle of the Jordan, where the feet of the priests were located during the transition ().

There were many similar memorial sites in Palestine. All of them together reminded the sons of Israel of Divine goodness, served as evidence of His mercy and philanthropy, and contributed to strengthening.

Since ancient times, Christians have revered places associated with the service of the Lord (Bethlehem, Mount Tabor, Gethsemane, Golgotha). And it was pleasing to the Creator. So, for example, the glory of the place of the birth of the Messiah, the city of Bethlehem, was announced several centuries before this event by the prophet Micah (), and the universal glory of Jerusalem, again, in connection with the ministry of the Savior, was proclaimed by the prophet Isaiah ().

Meanwhile, for all the importance of such a pious tradition as the tradition of pilgrimage, a huge number of names of glorious ascetics are known who, having devoted their lives to monastic exploits, leaving worldly temptations and fuss, not only did not have the habit of pilgrimage, but also, escaping in seclusions, did not leave the territory of the monasteries , cells, caves.

Therefore, a reverently performed pilgrimage, although pleasing to the Creator, is not a necessary condition.

Is a shrine a source of grace?

Quite often, by shrines we mean either special geographical places (for example, consecrated at the feet of Christ, sprinkled with the blood of martyrs), or special objects (for example, associated with worship, such as: icons, images of the Life-giving Cross ...). The range of these items may also include personal items that belonged to the famous.

The role of shrines in the life of believers can hardly be overestimated. On the one hand, the introduction of a person to shrines (as part of a pilgrimage to holy places, through reverent touching of sacred objects) can affect him subjectively, contributing to charitable inspiration, the formation of a good religious mood.

On the other hand, shrines serve as special instruments of Divine Providence, means of transmitting the Divine. This should be seen as an objective factor in the influence of shrines on the lives of believers. Unfortunately, sometimes this provision is interpreted in such a way that the shrines themselves exude Divine grace, as if they are saints almost in and of themselves.

In order not to become a victim of such illusions, it is necessary to remember that the Source of grace, in the exact meaning of the word, is not an object, but the Lord. And it is He (in this case indirectly) who teaches it to believers.

A typical instructive example is the case of Elisha, an Old Testament prophet, a disciple of Elijah.

Shortly before the taking of Elijah, Elisha became a witness. When he and Elijah were to cross the Jordan, Elijah took off his mantle and struck the waters of the river, causing them to part (). This miracle enabled them to cross the Jordan on dry land. After Elijah was taken up in a fiery chariot, Elisha was left alone, but at the same time he got the mantle of a teacher ().

Elisha saw that after Elijah struck with his mantle, the waters parted on the smooth surface of the river. Returning, he decided to repeat this action. The mantle of the teacher was in his hands, but when he hit the water with it, the miracle did not happen again: the waters did not part () (this is not reported in the Synodal version of the Bible; see the Church Slavonic version).

Not having received the expected result, Elisha prayed to God: “Where is God Eliin Affo?” (). Then he struck the water with the mantle again. This time the waters parted, after which he was able to cross the Jordan along the exposed bottom.

This case is explained as follows. Elisha rightly associated the miracle performed by Elijah with mantle. However, it is believed that he connected the miraculous power itself with it. But although God, for the first time, was pleased to reveal a miracle through mantle, it was He who was the Creator of the miracle. And so that Elisha did not have even the slightest doubt on this score, He parted the waters only after he had prayed ().

As can be seen from the example, there is a connection between a miracle and mercy. At the same time, it is obvious that the mantle is not in itself, but God, through the prayer of its owner, revealed miraculous power through it.

The education of Soviet patriotism is one of the most important components of the education of citizenship and the formation of a moral outlook. The feeling of Soviet patriotism is based on the fusion of the feeling of national pride with the feeling of socialist internationalism: pride in the achievements of all peoples - the USSR, a deep understanding of the great role that our country plays in world history, in the modern world.

Let us dwell on only a few fragments of the work on educating students in a sense of Soviet patriotism and consider what V.A. wrote on this topic. Sukhomlinsky.

The people are great and immortal, eternal patriot. He is the creator and custodian of the idea of ​​great power. This idea sounds simple and majestic: our priceless treasure is the Fatherland - the land of our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers, the land that gives us our daily bread and keeps the ashes of our ancestors. Many invaders have visited our land, but no one has succeeded in breaking the soul of the people, killing its shrines in the heart of the people, conquering its spirit, sowing indifference to the "smoke of the Fatherland" and to the ashes of their ancestors.

This idea has lived for centuries, and lives today. It burns with an eternal fire, from which the flame of human deeds ignites - some of them go down in history forever, others, having flared up as a bright star, are not written down on the pages of history, but are kept in legends for a long time and passed down from generation to generation, acquiring the beauty of a legend.

The heart of every Soviet patriot comprehends the sacred love for the Fatherland - thanks to knowledge about it, about our glorious past and heroic modern, about our great ideas and goals, about the noble spiritual image of a person of the socialist era, about the wealth, greatness and beauty of our Motherland. Without knowledge, education remains wingless: a person cannot rise to an understanding of his role in social development.

Duty to the Fatherland is the meaning and essence of human life. It depends on us, on father and mother, teacher and pioneer leader, that every young citizen understands and feels in his heart the immutable truths: Motherland is everything for me, without Motherland I am nothing; grief, misfortune of the Motherland - this is my personal grief and misfortune. Only where there is selfless and inextinguishable love for the holy and great Motherland, only there also lives hatred for the enemy, the readiness to give one’s life in the name of happiness people.

The core of a person - love for the Fatherland - is laid in childhood. The strengthening of this core is closely connected with feelings, with emotional experiences, because a child, a teenager learns the world not only with his mind, but also with his heart. In childhood and adolescence, spiritualization of the heart with goodness, moral beauty, truth is especially deep and direct. The triumph of goodness, beauty, truth - this is for him personal happiness.

The formation of the patriotic core of a person lies precisely in the fact that he comprehends this happiness. For a small person to absorb with his mind and heart the spirit of the people, everything is infinitely dear to the people. The highest truth - the truth of loyalty to the Fatherland - becomes infinitely dear to the child, dear when it made the heart beat faster, when, in a sincere impulse of the soul, the child expressed his readiness to defend, affirm this truth, fight for it, regardless of how this will affect his personal life. fate, on his personal well-being.

Affirmation in the child's heart of loyalty to the Fatherland, devotion to the working people, readiness to give their lives for the freedom, power, glory, dignity, honor and independence of our Motherland. This is the spiritual center of all educational work.

How can this shrine be affirmed in young minds and hearts? How to educate, how to create people for whom there is nothing more precious and higher than the Soviet socialist Motherland? How to achieve the ideal - so that the hearts of Alexander Matrosov and Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya beat in millions of breasts?

We come here to the holy of holies of parenting. We are talking about the touch of a father, mother, teacher to those subtlest strings of the human heart, which with marvelous music, enchanting sound - sometimes gentle and affectionate, sometimes angry and harsh - respond to every visual image, to every picture, to every event, to every word , carrying in itself a small grain, a small particle of that great and dear, whose name is the Fatherland. To educate a patriot, to affirm unwavering loyalty to the Motherland means, first of all, to know the soul of the people, to know the patriotic beauty and patriotic greatness of a citizen who has fulfilled his duty to the Fatherland. And, knowing, to reflect in itself the people's soul as a centuries-old history of the Motherland in personal destiny. The school is only in so far as a bright center of patriotic education, because in it, before the mind and heart of the pupils, the image of the Motherland is clearly revealed in living human passions, in combat, in the work of the people.

The upbringing of a citizen, a patriot is the harmony of mind, thoughts, ideas, feelings, spiritual impulses, actions. This is the education of convictions, and the education of the heart - sensitive, tender, responsive to good, to people of labor and severe, merciless, irreconcilable to evil, to the enemies of the working people. The most important and most difficult thing in our pedagogical work is the cultivation of the ability for this incomparable movement of the human spirit. Such a movement is expressed in the fulfillment of civic duty, in living, practical service to the Fatherland. Therefore, let the first thing that amazes a child in the world around him, that delights and enchants, shocks and inspires him, be the image of a Man, beautiful and majestic by what he has done. mine duty to the Fatherland.

If you want your word to touch the soul of your children, so that the most tender strings of their hearts resound with the first song of loyalty to the Fatherland, make sure that your son, your daughter, your pet see and comprehend in a living embodiment the wisest and at the same time elementary truth patriotism: the main thing in a person is duty to the Fatherland, loyalty to the Fatherland. This truth - if it makes the heart beat faster - elevates a person in his own eyes, awakens his self-esteem. Realizing himself as the heir to the patriotic glory of his ancestors, feeling himself the son of his people, a being born of a man becomes a real man.

From the grains of human joys and bitterness in the child's soul, anxiety, concern for the fate of the Fatherland is gradually postponed. We must strive to ensure that children absorb this anxiety and this concern into their hearts at every step. Tomorrow's citizen begins to live in the big world of our society when he has a wish in some way to embody their best impulses, to leave in something material, material movements of their heart. And if such a holy light has already lit up in a child's heart, care must be taken that it does not go out.

Everything in society is done so that childhood, adolescence and youth are joyful. But if the world of children is filled only with the joys of consumption, they will grow up soulless, heartless egoists, there will be nothing sacred in their hearts. The upbringing of patriotic feelings begins with the fact that tomorrow's citizen finds the joy of life in the fact that he has given something to people. it the feeling of genuine joy of being is rooted in childhood. It is in childhood, when a person inquisitively and eagerly learns about the life around him, for the first time he experiences the beauty of what he himself created for people, at first for his closest relatives. Not random words Homeland, Fatherland - half brothers of words give birth, father.

The first and main commandment of patriotic education - during the years of childhood and adolescence, every child must leave a particle in his native land of your heart be proud of what he created with his own hands for his compatriots. We must not forget that the roots of ideas and beliefs go with their subtlest branches to the depths of the heart. Therefore, the upbringing of the heart and feelings is the most important condition for the human mind and will to become sensitive, receptive to the patriotic appeal, teaching, moralizing. May the heart of every child be firmly connected with their native land, with what is being created and protected for society, for the people, for the Fatherland.

Man is given a memory that captures the life of many generations, a memory that stretches through the ages. Only because he is a man that he understands and remembers where the roots of the tree on which he grew up go, and what they eat. Knowing his people, his Fatherland, a person knows himself, comprehends his personality as a part of the people, comprehends the most tender and most severe feeling - a sense of duty and responsibility to the people, to the Fatherland.

Knowing the heroic past of his people, the young citizen feels his involvement in the shrines of the Motherland, a conviction ripens in his mind: for every Soviet person, the most precious thing in the world is honor, freedom, independence, the glory of the Fatherland.

The logic of patriotic education lies precisely in the fact that love for the Fatherland is affirmed in a person on the basis of the active manifestation of his own soul, his heart and mind. The most important thing in education is to achieve that our pet sees himself, understands who he is, what forces are hidden in his soul, what he can and should become; to him wanted to become a real person, living and acting in the name of the greatness, dignity and honor of the Fatherland.

Only when a person raises such questions, when thoughts about what he has done and not done, begins to disturb him, does the formation of civic consciousness take place.

Knowledge of the Fatherland, the formation of patriotic consciousness is a very complex and multifaceted process. The Motherland is seen through the eyes of a patriot only by one who loves it with all the strength of his soul, who has suffered through its sufferings and been ill with its pains, who feels like a part of the people. And our pupils can truly love the Motherland only if they know it deeply. Knowledge about the Motherland should not be just a certain circle of facts and conclusions that must be mastered. The young citizen must live the fate of the socialist Fatherland.

In the education of Soviet patriotism, the preservation, enrichment and transmission to new generations of the spiritual values ​​of our society is of decisive importance.

The feeling of love for the motherland is one of the deepest and most complex feelings of a person. It organically combines, merges love for their people, for their native nature, for their native village and city. From the attitude to close people, the attitude to the Fatherland begins to take shape. Duty in action, spirituality of actions by consciousness of duty - it is the most important source that nourishes the roots of human nobility. Duty helps a person understand the beauty of life for people. If there is no duty, if a person does only what comes into his head, he grows into a being who loves only himself.

Many years of experience have convinced me that the ability to treat oneself properly, to set demands for oneself, to dominate oneself, to be guided by one's conscience - all this is directly dependent on what are the sources of joy for a little person. A weak-willed egoist and self-lover can grow up with one who in childhood, adolescence and early youth knows only one thing - the consumption of goods created by elders. In order to truly know happiness, a person from childhood must find joy in creating happiness for other people, for the team, for society, for the Fatherland.

Sukhomlinsky put the soul of the people, the image of a person who fulfilled his duty to the Motherland and patriotic glory to his ancestors, as a condition for the birth and formation of a real person, a true patriot, as the basis of his idea of ​​\u200b\u200bpatriotic education.

*Marx K. To the criticism of Hegelian philosophy and law. Introduction.- Marx K., Engels F. Op. 2nd ed., Vol. I, p. 414.

leniya and especially to the enemies of the Motherland. The highest engine of human behavior is the conviction that this good is the pinnacle of moral wealth. Such conviction is the "king in the head", born of the wisdom of the people, created by the human race, the world of man. But the wisdom of the human world takes possession of consciousness only when, in addition to understanding and logical analysis of good and evil, a person has a sense of good and evil, that organic feeling that has become a personal conscience, a personal point of view. A morally educated person, seeing a woman with an unbearable burden, will feel that something bad is happening nearby, he will feel disgusting if he does not help the woman. The voice of conscience, coming from the depths of consciousness and subconsciousness, formed due to the accumulation in the memory of the personality of numerous facts from the experience of the moral approval of noble ideas, will immediately tell the mind: "Look! Act! Command!" And the mind will instantly give an order, hands will stretch out to the burden, beyond the strength of a woman. The more I thought about the prospects, the direction of the educational process into the future, the more I became convinced that moral purity, spiritual nobility, the beauty of relations between people largely depend on how strong, figuratively speaking, the red thread that connects childhood, adolescence and youth (especially childhood and adolescence) is the time of affirmation in the young heart of ideas, truths, thoughts, which are unshakable and infinitely dear shrine for the individual. I see one of the main tasks of upbringing in the fact that the vision of the world, the personal attitude of a teenager to the phenomena of the surrounding reality corresponds to his inner strengths, abilities, and possibilities. The basis of moral education, moral maturity of a teenager is the idea of ​​the Motherland. Moral education, spiritual nobility of a person in the years of adolescence are achieved by the fact that he sees the world through his duty to the Motherland; the most precious shrine for him is the honor, glory, power and independence of the Motherland. What is included in the sphere of everyday behavior (attitude towards people, helping the weak, industriousness, modesty) is determined by the attitude of a person to the shrines of the people. Our school staff, first of all, makes sure that, knowing the past and present, the life and work of the builders of communism, the teenager feels like a citizen, so that human beauty, the desire for which we awaken in every young heart, is comprehended and experienced primarily as a bright, full-fledged , spiritually rich life of a citizen. Civic thoughts, civic convictions, labor - this is the sphere of spiritual life in the years of adolescence, which becomes the basis of a noble, sensitive, self-demanding conscience - the voice of human conscience. In order for our teenager to value the highest values ​​- the shrines of the people, he must respect the citizen in himself. Civic life during adolescence is an important part of educational work. I have always strove for an organic unity of civic thoughts, feelings and activities, so that feelings and experiences find their expression in noble deeds, in work for people, for society, for the Fatherland. An extremely subtle instrument of education is praise for a good deed, encouragement of goodness, familiarization with behavior that expresses human nobility in its essence. Praise teaches the child, figuratively speaking, to read a book of elementary human culture. The approval expressed by the family, the team, raises a person in his own eyes, affirms pride in him. But when only praise brings joy to a child, there is already a danger. The real mastery of the educator lies in doing good without counting on praise. It is impossible to say without anxiety that in some schools children are excessively praised for actions that should be the norm of daily behavior (for example, a boy found a ruble and put it on the table in the teacher's room - and already they write about his honesty in the wall newspaper). This is a game of humanity. Such a game can instill moral slovenliness in a person: he will wash his hands, because people see his hands, while his feet will remain dirty, because they are hidden from human eyes with shoes ... In front of people, he strives to be decent, but in private - dishonorable. Honesty alone with oneself as an expression of duty to people, to society is an important moral trait that must be nurtured in childhood and adolescence.

DISCIPLINE AND SELF-DISCIPLINE. RESPONSIBILITY TO THE TEAM AND TO YOURSELF

FOR A MAN TO SEE HIMSELF BY THE EYES OF PEOPLE

Compliance with the norms of morality, established in society, the team, norms and rules, the violation of which is condemned by public opinion and traditions, is one of the most pressing problems of public education. Harmonious education is at the same time the education of discipline, responsibility to the team, society and to oneself - to one's own conscience. In one village in Right-Bank Ukraine, the following happened a few years ago. On a hot summer day, a young, full of strength man was sitting on the shore of the pond, catching fish. A boy was swimming nearby and suddenly began to drown. He called for help, shouted, cried, but the stony heart of the adult who watched all this remained imperturbable. Everyone turned away from this man, at meetings they walked around, his son and wife left him. A person has learned what condemnation of the team and loneliness are. He suffered and could not find the strength to return to the people - he committed suicide. Here we see how responsibility to the team merges with responsibility to one's own conscience. Where there is no responsibility to the team, a person does not know the voice of his own conscience. Feeling responsibility to himself, a person understands more sharply, experiences the norms and rules that the team puts before him. It is not easy to find criteria for evaluating the results of upbringing and self-education in our pedagogical work. The criterion consists first of all in what kind of citizens leave the school, what is the level of their political consciousness, what they assert by their work and behavior, what they fight for and against, what they love and what they hate. One of the facets of the civil, political consciousness of a person is his responsibility to his own conscience. It is also one of the criteria for upbringing. If you managed to achieve that the child is ashamed of himself alone, ashamed, ashamed of himself for his reprehensible act, if the child yearns to become better than he is, if in his mind not only lives, but also becomes a personal conviction the idea that what is better and what is worse, this means that you see the results of your educational work.

What is necessary for the mind to have such a restless, strict guardian as a sensitive conscience? How can one achieve in practice that a child blushes alone with himself, so that the desire to be the best becomes one of the strongest desires that inspire, ennoble a person, enrich relationships in a team? Kind, noble deeds are necessary, which should not be thought and experienced by the child as merit or the right to some special benefits and joys. The environment surrounding the child must materialize in itself the moral riches and values ​​created, obtained in the struggle for the liberation of man from social and spiritual oppression. The concept of environment is not something frozen and unchanging, but what is being created, updated, and improved by the pupils themselves. The materialization of moral riches and values ​​means that every step of the pupil, everything he does, everything that satisfies his needs, is reflected in other people - it brings them good, makes their life easier, makes it spiritually rich, full. To bring moral wealth into the relationship between the pupil and the outside world is at first glance a simple matter, but in reality it is very complex. It takes hard, daily work. The most organized collective will turn into a crowd, guided by instincts, if this work stops even for a week. The essence of this interesting and difficult work is that students constantly create things, wealth, values, circumstances, relationships, dependencies, goals, which are joy for people, good for people, beauty for people, happiness for people, and only because of this, joy for themselves. , good for yourself, beauty for yourself, happiness for yourself. No good will accumulate, will not be established in the mind of a person if he himself is not involved in it. Life convinces a thousand times that the preparation of a child for adolescence and youth is impossible without labor, but labor must be special - one that materializes the subtlest movements of the soul. That is why in the first part of my book there was so much talk about corners of beauty, about flowers, grapes, fruit trees, a garden for people. I strived so that, while creating joy, goodness, beauty, happiness for others and, on the basis of this, for themselves, everyone experienced a deeply individual feeling of joy of the creator, brought him to inspiration. The materialization of nobility, moral beauty in work, in relationships between members of the team is one of the most important roots of the tree that we call citizenship. It is very important that this root goes deep into childhood. Inspiration comes to a child when a thing that does not belong to him personally becomes dear to him - immeasurably more expensive than something that belongs to him personally. You will never educate these complex movements of the soul if you begin to educate them in adolescence. I considered my students ready to cross the border that separates childhood from adolescence, ready because

Among the clergy and laity of the Russian Orthodox Church there is an ambiguous opinion about pilgrimages. Opinions differ: some consider it obligatory, while others say that one should not place too high hopes on a special place for prayer... But everyone agrees on one thing: the holy places of Russia are not a panacea for growing in faith. And yet, it is worth visiting the prayerful places, famous for miracles. Especially if your goal is to feel unity with Orthodox believers, to see with your own eyes temples and monasteries with centuries of history.

Metropolitan Anthony of Surozh: There are several aspects of the pilgrimage that move us deeply. First, the feeling that we are all wanderers on earth. Russian people live in such a big country that wherever you go, the journey will be long, and with all your efforts, it will not be quick. So one gets the feeling that the journey itself, moving from place to place, is either completely devoid of meaning and meaning if the only goal is to get where you are going, or that the journey is so significant that every step, every meeting, every relationship that began in path can be extremely important.

Diveevo

• Nizhny Novgorod region, Diveevsky district.
• "The fourth lot of the Virgin on earth" - that's what they call it. The Diveevo convent is famous for its procession along the holy canal, holy springs, and the spiritual legacy of St. Seraphim of Sarov. The monastery of the end of the 18th century still receives pilgrims."Divnoe Diveevo" is a fertile place where a real miracle happened. It is believed that the feet of the Virgin left their footprints on this land, near the village of Diveevo. The Orthodox shrines of the Diveevo Monastery are unique historical monuments and evidence of the truth of the Orthodox faith. Read our article so as not to miss anything during the pilgrimage to this amazing place.When the Queen of Heaven appeared to the Monk Seraphim and ordered the founding of the Mill community, She showed him how to surround the place of this community with a ditch and rampart, and to do this without fail by the efforts of the sisters of the community. The mill was built in July 1827. In the same year, the Kanavka began to be built around the site, but three acres of land donated to the community were officially assigned to it only in the spring of 1829. At this news, the priest ordered the sisters to get together and, bypassing this land, mark it with pebbles. Then he ordered to plow the earth on these pebbles in one furrow three times. When the earth dried up, the monk ordered to cut it with a groove three arshins deep (2 m 15 cm), three arshins wide, and to fold the removed earth so that a shaft also three arshins high was formed. To strengthen the rampart, he ordered gooseberries to be planted on it.Father Seraphim said many wonderful things about this Kanavka. According to the reverend, this groove is the piles of the Mother of God. Then the Queen of Heaven Herself bypassed her, taking the monastery as her inheritance. Batiushka blessed to take clay from Kanavka - for healing. Many received relief from ailments from grass and flowers from this holy place.Permission to restore the holy Kanavka was received only six years after the restoration of the monastery began. The groove takes on the form commanded by the Queen of Heaven to Father Seraphim.

Optina Pustyn

• Kaluga region
• - a monastery that only miraculously survived to this day: ruined by rent during the reign of Peter I, destroyed almost to the ground and turned into a sawmill and a rest home during the years of theomachism, it seemed to have been destroyed forever. The strength of the prayer of the Optina Elders helped this holy place in Russia survive.Optina Pustyn is a stauropegial monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church. It is located near Kozelsk in the Kaluga region and was founded in the 4th century, but its history goes back to the Middle Ages. It is believed that the monastery was founded by the robber Opta, who repented and became a monk with the name Macarius. The brethren gathered around the former robber, he arranged the hermitage, which became the beginning of the life of the monastery.According to another legend, Optina Pustyn was founded by Prince Vladimir the Brave, who supported monasticism or one of his heirs.There is also a version that earlier both monks and nuns lived in the monastery, and in ancient times such monasteries were called Optina. Accurate data on the creation of Optina Pustyn has not been preserved. Optina Pustyn is a favorite place of pilgrimage, a monastery where the Optina Elders lived and shared their spiritual experience.

Kizhi

• Kizhi Island, Lake Onega
• Kizhi is not only a nature reserve and a rare monument of wooden architecture, but also a holy place in Russia where you can come and pray. The most prayerful place is the Kizhi churchyard with the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord, which was built without a single nail. The entire Kizhi ensemble is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. You can get to the island in summer by rocket from Petrozavodsk and in winter along the ice track from the village. Great lip.

Solovetsky Monastery

• White Sea
• This holy place of Russia is located beyond the Arctic Circle. The Solovetsky Islands are 160 kilometers from the Arctic Circle. In the 15th century, Orthodox ascetics Savvaty, Herman and Zosima chose this deserted place for prayer solitude and laid the foundation for the Solovetsky Monastery. Since then, the Solovetsky Monastery has become the center of the White Sea Territory. The complex history of the monastery and the pain of believers for the ancient monastery made the monastery a place of remembrance, quiet prayer and pilgrimage for those who seek solitude.

Trinity Sergius Lavra

• Moscow region, Sergiev Posad
• The glorified monastery of the Life-Giving Trinity was founded by St. Sergius of Radonezh in 1337. Sergei of Radonezh is one of the most revered saints in Russia. It was he who blessed Dmitry Donskoy for the battle with the invaders on the Kulikovo field and became the founder of the Moscow state. was built like a fortress, it was surrounded by a high white wall. No weariness or worries could prevent St. Sergius of Radonezh from missing the service. He himself worked in the monastery, made candles and kutya. On September 25, 1392, at the age of 78, Sergius of Radonezh reposed. When later the monks opened the coffin, the remains of the elder turned out to be incorrupt… Here you can bow to the relics of the saints, see two “prayer” icons of St. Sergius: Our Lady Hodegetria and St. Nicholas, and just enjoy the beautiful architecture.

Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery

• Moscow
• Male stauropegial monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church. Founded in 1315 by Saint Peter, Metropolitan of Kyiv, Vladimir and All Russia. The main buildings of the monastery were built in the XVII-XVIII centuries. In 1929 it was closed by the Bolsheviks. But now it is functioning again, having overcome the period of theomachism. In 2016, it was decided to renovate the most ancient buildings.
  

Balaam

• Ladoga lake
• The monastery on Lake Ladoga is a holy place in Russia, known to those who want to make a pilgrimage feat.Many Valaam temples and chapels stand on elevated places, it is not easy to get to them. From the pier, you will have to climb 66 steps to the thirty-meter Mount Tabor in order to appreciate the beautiful view of the Transfiguration Cathedral, the main monastery church.The cathedral impresses with its grandeur. The height of the bell tower is 73 m, in the dome - 42 m (the height of the spire of the St. Petersburg Admiralty is similar). Valaam is one of the few monastic Republics.

Metropolitan Pitirim (Nechaev): Valaam is a rocky island, bare rocks overgrown with forest. You won't get to it otherwise than by water. Old monks told me what difficulties they had to experience there. The nearest settlement is on the coast. And now the monk is sailing on a boat to stock up matches for the winter, a little flour, a little salt - they did not use sugar, except perhaps dried berries. A monk is floating on this boat - the wind has risen, water splashed into his boat. The salt dissolved, the flour got wet, it's too late to go back. He comes ashore with his empty traveling bag, and in the following autumn and winter months he is forced to eat what he finds in the forest, up to what he will eat tree bark. So it will last until spring. But this time will pass for him in reading church books, and most importantly, in empathy with the troubles that the world is undergoing on the coast remote from it.

Novodevichy Convent

• Moscow
• There are also holy places in Russia in the capital of our Motherland.The Novodevichy Monastery was built in 1524 by Grand Duke Vasily III on a vow in honor of the return of ancient Smolensk to the Moscow principality. And they consecrated the monastery in the name of the miraculous Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God. Chekhov, Gogol, S. T. Aksakov, I. I. Levitan rest at the monastery cemetery.

Pustozersk

• 20 km from Naryan-Mar
• Pustozersk will have to be looked for 20 km from Naryan-Mar, the only settlement closest to this place that has disappeared from the maps. He was exiled here and was burnt. Important - this is a holy place for the Old Believers. Archpriest Avvakum Petrov (1620-1682) became one of the most prominent opponents of the church reform of Patriarch Nikon and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. He wrote his own autobiography - "The Life of Archpriest Avvakum". His life became such a significant work of his time that Archpriest Avvakum was even called the "ancestor of Russian literature." The Old Believers revere Archpriest Avvakum as a holy martyr and confessor; he was burned in Pustozersk in 1682. The reform caused a church schism, which has not yet been overcome.