In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!

Today we celebrate the memory of all saints in Russian land. In saints’ lives we see people of different social position, mentality and talents. But they have one common feature: it’s their tireless spiritual thirst and noble aspiration for complete and true freedom. They all understood that freedom could be achieved through cognition of the Truth opened to us in Christ and the way to true freedom was through liberation yourself from evil, through creation inside yourself that high way of life which is called righteousness and holiness. Sainted hierarchs and illiterate “God’s fools”, saint princes and ordinary people, peasants and workers, are all embodiment of our native Slavonic nationality.

Our ancestors adopted Christianity not as an abstract teaching but as a Life, as active real communication with God, the Heaven. In the saints of Russian land there is miraculous combination of devotion to Christ-God, love to people and native land. Leaving the world for concentrating on a prayer, they didn’t ran away from everyday troubles of their native land, from their people’s needs. Living in monasteries and deserts, as if being far away from their environmental reality, the saints of the Russian Land are at the same time in the center of life of their people and the state. They guide spiritual and everyday life of people, strengthen and improve family life, make a valuable contribution to the culture of their people, explore and conquer nature, attract foreigners to Orthodox State system and Christian culture. All life of Russian land is blessed by deeds of our saints, is comprehended and penetrated by the spirit of Christ Truth.

The motive power of saints’ life was love. Love to God and to a person. The seal of love to God was entire devotion to Orthodoxy, as Christ-Apostle faith. In his will to the sons of Russia Saint Theodosius Pechersky says, “Children of God, be careful with heretics and all their talks. To praise another’s faith is to criticize your own one. If you praise your own faith and another’s one, then you practices two different religions and are near to heresy.”

But love to a person, in the name and to the glory of God, overcomes both national and confessionalian obstacles. The same saint Theodosious says, “Give alms not only to people of your faith but also to people of another faith. If you see a naked or a hungry one or the one who has got into trouble, a Jew, a Turk or a Roman Catholics, be merciful to anyone, help him, as now God Himself is merciful not only to Christians but to infidel ones.” The life of a believer must be the deed of love.

The next feature of life of our saints was unceasing prayer. A prayer is the result of love to God and a person. Is true love to a person possible without love to God? No, it’s impossible. True, clean, altruistic love to a person can’t be without love to God. A prayer is born from love, sorrow about people. “Try to be in pace with everybody and have holiness without which nobody will see the Lord”, Apostle Paul taught Jews. The saints of Russian Land say the same words to us, they teach us by their lives.

It is impossible for all of us to become fishers of human, Apostles. It is also impossible for all of us to become martyrs. It is only the one who will be favoured, who will be chosen by the Lord, who will be given a chance to suffer for the Lord. It is impossible for all of us to become Venerable ones because not all can go to a monastery. But the way to salvation is not closed for us. But living in the world we can also gain righteousness as far as possible. For achieving it we must live in such a way, that not the world but Christ possesses us, that His laws guide our thoughts, feelings, words and deeds. Everything depends on us. If we work hard and can overcome all the worldly in us for Christ, force out all evil and let God’s grace act inside us, then we will join the Kingdom of Christ, His teaching, His love, His grace which He sent to the earth, to His Church.

We must always remember that we are the new congregation of the Lord called to Heavenly life, and the Lord wants to give us this Heavenly life. Sometimes the sin surrounds us is so greatly, that we think there is nothing left but darkness. But we simply forget that the Lord loving us, is near, and all the saints of Russian land are also near us. And they love and pray for us. It is even impossible to imagine that it can be differently. If we, sinful, are capable for such love to them, then how much their holy hearts must love us and have compassion on us. And if we, already sinking, turn out for help, as Apostle Peter did, and exclaim, “O Lord, save us, we are perishing”, the Lord is ready to help us, and our saint relations by blood are sure to hear our cry. It must only be from the depth of our heart. Amen.