the holy new martyrs of eastern russia - Coptic Orthodox teaching

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Once when he was between ten and twelve years old, his mother and his
aunt went in fulfilment of a promise to the relics of St. Sergius in Sergiev
Posad, taking Nicholas and his cousin with them. When they came up to the
shrine, a monk standing at the feet of the saint turned to Nicholas. Taking
some coins that were lying on the broad shelf of the coffin as if from the hand
of the saint himself, he gave them to Nicholas and told him to buy two books
with them - one for himself, and the other for his cousin; for himself - the
famous Indication of the Way into the Kingdom of Heaven by St. Innocent,
metropolitan of Moscow, and for his cousin - the well-known speech of
Professor Klyuchevsky on the occasion of the 600th anniversary of the day of
the repose of St. Sergius.
The monk's action seemed strange and significant. The way in which he
specially turned to him and insisted on his buying the book, his mother's
acquiescence and the blessing as if from the saint itself - all this struck
Nicholas. He bought the book and forgot about it.
"Not because I was disobedient," he recalled later, "but simply because the
time had not yet come for God's will to be fulfilled and for my soul to respond
to the voice of God Who was calling me. Later the monk's action seemed to
me to be prophetic."
While he was preparing for a competitive examination, he was rummaging
among his books and came upon the above-mentioned brochure by
Metropolitan Innocent, which had lain there for almost 10 years. He began to
read it, and everything he read there was completely contrary to the path in
life he was intending to take. He was intending to build material houses, but
there it was written that "people were not created to live only here, on the
earth, like animals which disappear after their death, but exclusively in order
to live with God and in God, and to live not 100 or 1000 years, but eternally."
The words of the ascetic hierarch promised that "if a person who seeks with
all his heart to go along the path to the Kingdom of Heaven, for every piece of
work, and every sorrow, and every victory over himself and every restraint of
himself, for every deed and even every good intention and desire, he will be
rewarded seventy times seven in this life; while it is impossible to speak about
or imagine what awaits him there. And so, brethren, follow Him, hurry and
do not delay; go while the doors of the Kingdom of Heaven are not yet closed
for you."
The grace of God did its work, and immediately after the examination, in
the summer of 1909, he made his way first to Sarov and then to Optina desert.
In Optina he met the great elder Barsanuphius. Two Nicholas Belyaevs came
to the elder at about this time. The one, the future elder and hieromartyr
Nicon had already been taken on as the elder's secretary. To the other's
request the elder thought a little and then said:
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