Basil The Blessed And His Gift

Video: Basil The Blessed And His Gift

Video: Basil The Blessed And His Gift
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Basil The Blessed And His Gift
Basil The Blessed And His Gift
Anonim
Basil the Blessed and hist - Basil the Blessed, the holy fool
Basil the Blessed and hist - Basil the Blessed, the holy fool

It's believed that Basil the Blessed was born in December 1468 on the porch of the Yelokhovsky temple (now the Epiphany Cathedral in the Basmanny district of Moscow), where his mother came with a prayer for a successful birth.

Gift clairvoyance appeared at Basil the Blessed in childhood. Working as a "boy" in a shoemaker's workshop, he already then began to amaze people with his ability to guess future events. However, it must be said that all of Vasily's predictions had a somewhat veiled form.

Once a well-known merchant in the city entered a workshop to order new boots for himself. Seeing the merchant, the boy first began to laugh, and then his laughter turned into sobs. To the questions of those present, he replied that the merchant had come to order funeral boots for himself. Indeed, the customer died shortly after his visit to the shoemaker.

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After some time, Vasily lost interest in the craft of a shoemaker and fled to Moscow. It was in this crowded city, full of temptations, sins and dashing people, that Basil the Blessed decided by his example to show the ideal of morality and perform the feat of foolishness.

Literally the word "holy fool" means "ugly", "abnormal." The holy fools deliberately behaved like crazy "for Christ's sake" in order to correspond to the Christian truth spoken by the Savior: "My kingdom is not of this world." In Russia, the word “blessed” was synonymous with the word “holy fool”.

The religious feat of foolishness consists in the rejection of all goods - home, family, money, the rules of public decency and respect for people. It is known that St. Basil the Blessed walked without shoes and clothes even in winter, for which he was nicknamed Vasily Naga. He exhausted himself with strict fasting, constantly prayed and wore chains. The holy fool tried to guide his fellow citizens on the right path.

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According to the majority of those around him, he behaved more than strange: when he approached the house of a man who was known in the city for his virtuous behavior, Vasily, taking a cobblestone, with all his might launched it through the window. And vice versa: approaching the dwelling of a notorious sinner, the tramp knelt down, as in front of a shrine, and kissed the walls of this house.

Once the Blessed One overturned a tray with rolls of street vendors and spilled a jug of kvass. And then it turned out that the merchant was putting chalk mixed with flour into the rolls, and the kvass was spoiled.

For the sake of saving his neighbors, Vasily Nagoy visited drinking establishments and prisons, where he tried to see the good even in the most desolate people, to encourage them and support them.

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Soon the townspeople began to treat the holy fool with great respect, recognizing him as a fighter against sin and untruth. So much so that they even began to invite him to a feast to the king. But Vasily's behavior at the feast at Ivan the Terrible turned out to be no less eccentric.

Accepting the cup of wine brought by the king, the holy fool threw it out on the floor. This was repeated two more times, after which Ivan the Terrible, never distinguished by patience, but knowing that the actions of the holy fool always contain a secret meaning, asked him what he was doing. “I am extinguishing a fire in Novgorod,” Vasily replied.

Without hesitating for a minute, the tsar ordered a messenger to be sent to Novgorod, who returned with the answer that there really was a fire in the city, which destroyed almost half of the city's buildings.

Once, Basil the Blessed broke the icon of the Mother of God at the Barbarian Gate, noticing below, under the image of the Virgin, the image of the unclean.

Once the thieves, noticing that the saint was dressed in a good fur coat, presented to him by a certain boyar, conceived of deceiving her from him; one of them pretended to be dead, while others asked Vasily for burial. Vasily as if covered the dead with his fur coat, but seeing the deception, he said: “Fox fur coat, cunning, cover the fox's business, cunning. Wake you now dead for deceit, for it is written: let deceit be consumed. When the dashing people took off his fur coat, they saw that their friend was already dead.

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The blessed one always tried to guide the king on the right path. Once he asked Ivan the Terrible where he had been in the morning. “At a church service,” replied the monarch. “But no,” said the elder. “You were in the church with your body, and your soul was in the Sparrow Hills.” The Tsar could only be amazed: indeed, during Matins, Ivan the Terrible was thinking about the construction of new royal chambers on Vorobyovy Hills that had begun.

Basil the Blessed died in 1557 without witnessing the terror carried out in Russia during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. However, there is a legend that the ghost of the holy fool visited the tsar at a time when the Russian people suffered most from the bloody policy pursued by Ivan IV. Legend has it that, having seated Terrible at a table covered with food, the ghost of the Blessed One began to treat the tsar with all kinds of food, but suddenly they all turned into only raw meat and a jug of blood.

The tsar, in horror, began to push the cup of blood away from him, and Vasily, embracing him with one hand, pointed to the sky with the other, where the souls of innocent people, ruined by the tsar, ascended. The king covered his face with his hands, not wanting to see this, and at the same moment the terrible dishes on the table turned into wine and watermelon.

For history, it remains a mystery whether Ivan the Terrible was really pursued by such visions and whether he experienced the torment of remorse for his atrocities. But it is known that Basil the Blessed after his death was canonized. The Cathedral of the Intercession, in which the saint was buried, after thirty years it was decided to rename the Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed.

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