Monk Abel the Terrible (Vasiliev)
(1757-1841)
Monk Abel is ranked by popular opinion among the most powerful Russian soothsayers. In the opinion of our people, the monk Abel is the most formidable and terrible soothsayer. He predicted the exact date of death Russian empress Catherine II. He predicted the exact date of the death of Emperor Paul the First. He predicted that in 1812 Moscow, captured by the French, would burn. He predicted a military mutiny of Russian officers in 1825. He predicted that God would severely punish Russia and the Russian people for the sins of the rulers and the Russian people. The monk Abel predicted the First World War. Monk Abel predicted that after the war the "Jewish Yoke" would come. Monk Abel predicted the terrible end of the Romanov dynasty and the terrible pogrom of the Russian Church. Monk Abel also predicted the Second World War.
He himself warned that his predictions were "very scary." Those who read his fortune-telling notebooks will be "surprised and horrified."
A lot has been written about the monk Abel for 150 years. In the USSR, of course, after 1917, any publications about the monk Abel were banned by the Jewish Communists. The Jews hated this Russian monk because he was famous, because many of his prophecies came true. The Jews especially hated and hate the Russian monk Abel because he predicted the ZhIDOVSKAYA YOKE. But most of all, the Jews hated and hate the Russian monk Abel because he predicted the LIBERATION OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE FROM THE YID'S YOG.
A lot has been written about the monk Abel, the literature about him is increasing every year, there is a lot about him on the Internet, but it is required to understand (many still do not understand) that the monk Abel is undoubtedly a real, historical person, but the monk Abel - this is a legendary, mythical person. And it is not always possible to distinguish where in his biography scientific facts, and where the facts are mythical, the facts are legendary. Not a single scientific monograph about the Russian monk Abel has yet been written. So far there are no such Russian historians in Russia who could master this difficult topic. They say that the original notebooks of the monk Abel are still stored in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI) in Moscow. But they haven't been published yet. Therefore, we will be content for the time being with what has already been published about his life.
Monk Abel (Vasily Vasilyev) was born in March 1757 in the village of Akulova in the Aleksinsky district of the Tula province into a family of serfs. His father also had the profession of horse-dresser. Konoval - this is not a flayer who "knocks down", kills and skins horses in order to get horse meat and skin. Konoval is a healer who heals horses. And it is quite acceptable to assume that Abel's father already possessed some special mental abilities, because without such abilities a good horse healer will not work. The horse's hoof severely rejects bad healers. And Abel's father, of course, tried to develop higher psychic abilities in his son as well. He probably succeeded, Abel also began to treat horses, but soon, to the chagrin of his parent, Vasily was drawn to God and monastic life. "He had more attention to the Deity and the Divine destinies." Father tried to land him. He found a wife for him in order to keep his son in the village, but at the age of 19, son Vasily ran away from his wife and home, escaped from the village of Akulova and became a pious vagabond and wanderer. He went to monasteries, prayed a lot, ended up on the island of Valaam in Lake Ladoga, where the famous Valaam Monastery was located. Here he liked it very much, he took the tonsure and became a monk Abel. He lived in the monastery for about a year, but soon this life in the monastery ceased to satisfy him, fettered him. spiritual development, and he went to the skete, in the wilderness, where he constantly prayed, hoping for the attention of God. And there, in the skete, far from people, one day, after a strong and prolonged prayer, the monk Abel fell into a "highest state of mind." Two fiery spirits came to him from God and ordered him to memorize and write down everything that they will be in his mind. different time speak in the future. And from that time on, the monk Abel became a soothsayer.
Then he again walked along the long roads of vast Russia, visited monasteries, villages and cities, and then settled in the Nikolsko-Babaevsky Monastery. The monastery was located on the right bank of the Volga, halfway from Kostroma to Yaroslavl. It was in this monastery that the monk Abel wrote his first book of predictions. "Wise-wise," in his words. In one of the predictions, he indicated the date of the death of Empress Catherine II. "Our Empress Catherine will die on November 6, 1796." She only had a few months to live. As an obedient monk, Abel handed over the notebook for review to the abbot of the monastery, Bishop Paul. The rector said that “this notebook was written by death”, and sent the notebook to the consistory, the notebook fell into the hands of the bishop, who was shocked and sent the notebook to the Provincial Administration. The governor was also in shock, at first he put the monk Abel in jail, and then, under escort, sent the monk Abel from Kostroma to St. Petersburg along with "this terrible notebook."
In St. Petersburg, Abel's notebook came to General Samoilov. Abel was sent to Peter and Paul Fortress, and began to carefully study the notebook. (Some materials of the investigative case of 1796 against the monk Abel were published only in 1992). The general did not dare to hide the contents of the notebook from Catherine, although he was very afraid to report to her about Abel's prediction. The Empress, of course, was also shocked. It was terrifying that this monk had predicted a very imminent death. She wished to take a look at the monk, and then ordered him to be sent back to the Peter and Paul Fortress. “If the prediction of this Chernorizian is correct, he will not have to sit there for very long,” the empress joked.
At the time indicated by the monk Abel (November 6, 1796), Catherine II died suddenly in her toilet.
Monk Abel would have continued to sit in the stone chamber of the Peter and Paul Fortress further, but Prince A. B. Kurakin remembered him and informed the new emperor Paul. The emperor at that time reviewed the cases of many prisoners convicted by his mother, whom he did not like very much, and released many. In addition, the emperor was very prone to mysticism. The exact prediction of the death of his mother, made by the monk, greatly struck Pavel. The emperor wished to meet the seer monk, and then, after a conversation, let him go free.
What is the emperor about Russian Empire talked to a prisoner monk? According to legend, according to rumors, according to the vague testimony of some people close to the court, they talked about the future of Russia and the future of the Romanov dynasty. This conversation is described in more detail in the book "Pavlovsky Tapestry" by Pyotr Nikolaevich Shabelsky-Borka, a monarchist officer and white émigré (1896 - 1952). Then the author published a large fragment from this book separately under the title “The Eternal Monk. Historical tale". This book was published in Berlin in the late 1920s under the pseudonym Kiribeevich. 100 years after the death of Paul the First, the monk Abel predicted, hard times await Russia and the Russian people. The "Big War" will begin, in which millions of Russian people will die. In Russia, the "ZHIDOVSKY YOKE" will be established. The last tsar of Russia will be killed. A terrible pogrom of the Russian Church will begin. Millions of Russian people will die.
Here is the prediction of the monk Abel, which he gave to Emperor Paul the First Romanov (as revised by P. N. Shabelsky-Bork) about the “Jewish yoke”:
“About the fate of the Russian State, in prayer, there was a revelation to me about three fierce yokes: Tatar, Polish and the coming one - ZhIDOVSK.”
- What? Holy Russia UNDER THE YOKE OF YIDOVSKY? This will not be forever, - Emperor Pavel Petrovich frowned angrily, - You are talking empty, Chernorizet ...
- Where are the Tatars? Your Imperial Majesty? Where are the Poles? Do not be sad about that, Father-King: CHRIST-KILLERS WILL BRING THEIR…”
Yes, “a scorpion Jew will scour the Russian Land, rob its sanctuaries, close God's churches, execute the best Russian people. This is the permission of God, the Wrath of God…”. But the Russian people will then throw off the Jewish yoke. "Great destiny is destined for Russia."
Then, for some time, the monk Abel lived in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, sometimes went to Valaam. At this time, he also wrote his second “wise-wise” notebook. In it, he predicted the date of the death of Emperor Paul. Death will come soon, our emperor will be killed. The notebook with these predictions fell into the hands of the Metropolitan, from him to the head of the secret service, from him to Pavel. What kind of king is pleased to know that he will soon be finished off? Some biographers of Abel claim that there was another meeting of an irritated Paul with a monk. By order of the emperor, the monk Abel was again sent to prison.
On the night of March 11-12, 1801, Emperor Paul was brutally murdered in the Mikhailovsky Palace.
The rumor about the great soothsayer Abel went "throughout all great Russia." Keeping the great soothsayer in the dungeon was inconvenient. And why would he sit there? In addition, Emperor Alexander the First was also prone to mysticism. At the direction of the emperor, Abel was released from the dungeon, given a passport, dress and money. He settled in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Soon he wrote the third notebook of predictions. This time again a terrible prediction. Moscow will be captured by the French. There is a huge fire in Moscow. All of Moscow is on fire. “This can't be! shouted Alexander the First angrily. - It will not happen!". By order of the king, the monk Abel was sent "under supervision" to the Solovetsky Monastery, in a separate cell. “Be there for him until his prediction comes true!” - ordered the king.
The prediction came true, as predicted by Abel in 1812. Napoleon's troops entered Moscow. There is a terrible fire in Moscow.
Then Alexander the First remembered Abel. Conscience hurt. Monk Abel, on his orders, has already stayed in Solovki for 10 years and 10 months. "I want to see him and talk to him." A letter from the office demanding that Abel be delivered to St. Petersburg arrived at Solovki in September 1812, but the local archimandrite, fearing that Abel would tell about his "dirty deeds" on Solovki, wrote to St. Petersburg that Abel was ill. Only in 1813 did the monk Abel arrive in St. Petersburg and have a conversation with Prince A.N. Golitsyn (a friend of the tsar, chief prosecutor of the Holy Synod, chief administrator of foreign confessions, later minister of public education).
Monk Abel was released, but he was forbidden to predict. He was warned that he himself would go to prison again for predictions, and those persons who made him an order for prediction would also be sent to prison. Monk Abel lived constantly under supervision, but when Nicholas the First was on the throne, the monk suddenly disappeared from the field of view of the then state security agencies. He again walked along the long roads of vast Russia, through villages and cities. Of course, he couldn't help but predict. Rumors spread among the people that in his next notebook, the monk Abel even wrote down, even under Alexander the First, that there would soon be a rebellion of Russian officers against the tsar. And the rebellion predicted by Abel really took place at the indicated time, in December 1825, on Senate Square in St. Petersburg. Emperor Nicholas demanded to find this "dangerous" monk. The Decree of the Holy Synod of August 27, 1826 followed: to find and arrest the monk Abel and isolate him from the people for life.
In the same year, 1826, agents of the secret services managed to claw the monk Abel. Monk Abel was already 65 years old, but neither the authorities nor the clergy felt sorry for him. There was also no understanding that it was impossible to treat the great people of God in this way. Monk Abel is isolated "from society" in a small prison cell for monks, which was built under Catherine II on the territory of the Suzdal Spaso-Evfimov Monastery (near the city of Vladimir). It was a long one-story building, where more than 400 prisoner monks were placed.
On May 2, 1829, Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow wrote to the vicar of the Moscow diocese, Bishop Dmitrievsky, Innokenty: “However, it would not be bad to add that Abel is already under supervision.” The secret services and the clergy were pleased. They believed naively that if the soothsayer is isolated in prison, his formidable prophecies may not come true. But by such actions, the kings, special services and churchmen only increased the degree of probability of the predicted events.
Monk Abel spent 15 years in a small prison cell. In this cell on November 29, 1841, the Russian monk Abel the Terrible (Vasily Vasiliev) after a long and serious illness and died. He was buried behind the altar of the prison church of St. Nicholas. The memory of the monk Abel is celebrated on November 29. But how many Orthodox celebrate his memory?
After the death of the monk Abel, some of his notebooks of predictions ended up in the closed archives of special services and churchmen. But contrary to the wishes of the government and the Church, numerous handwritten copies from his notebooks circulated among the people for a long time. Interest in the prophecies of the monk Abel and his personality did not weaken, and even intensified. In 1870, some predictions of the monk Abel and a story about his life were published in Berlin. In 1875, and in Russia, in the journal Russkaya Starina (vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 414–435), The Life and Sufferings of Monk Abel was first published. There were reports about Abel in the "Russian Archive", in 1873 (No. 1. P. 353 - 365) and in 1878 (No. 7. P. 959).
100 years have passed since the assassination of Emperor Paul the First Romanov. Many expected that on March 12, 1901, Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna would definitely arrive at the Gatchina Palace to open the letter with the prophecies of the monk Abel. And Nicholas II and his wife, indeed, arrived that day at the Gatchina Palace. In the book of Yu. V. Rosius "Cassandra's Syndrome", in the book of Sergei Nilus "On the Bank of God's River", in the article by A. D. Khmelevsky "Mysterious in the life of the Sovereign Emperor Nicholas 2" and others, some evidence on this topic was published. The story of Maria Feodorovna Geringer (Adelung), Ober-Kammer-Frau of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, was also published there. She said that in the Gatchina Palace, indeed, in one of the halls there was a large casket with intricate decorations. The casket was locked and sealed. A thick red silk cord is stretched around the casket on four columns with rings, blocking the access of spectators to the casket. Everyone assumed that the casket probably contained a letter from Paul with the prophecies of the monk Abel. So, on March 12, 1901, Nicholas II and his wife arrived at the palace and immediately went to the casket. They arrived at the palace "quickly, in good mood". But when the king opened the casket, took out an envelope and immediately read what was written on the sheets, his mood deteriorated. The king and queen left the palace "sad and thoughtful."
There is also the story of one witness, who on January 19, 1903 was present in the retinue of the king on the ice of the Neva. He said that when cannon shots rang out from the Peter and Paul Fortress, due to some mistakes of artillerymen, buckshot accidentally broke one window in the Winter Palace, and part of the buckshot even fell on the ice not far from the tsar. Then everyone was surprised by the absolute calmness of the king. And when asked about the reason for such calmness, he replied that "until 1918 I was not afraid of anything."
Then in Russia everything went as the monk Abel predicted. The First World War, in which more than two million Russian soldiers and officers died. In a terrible way for the Romanovs, their dynasty ended. If we consider the events in the socio-political aspect, "the power was won by the Bolsheviks" (Lenin's expression). But if we consider the events in the national aspect, and this must also be done, the power in Russia was won by the Jews. In Russia, the “Jewish yoke” began to assert itself over the Russian people. All 6 main bloody dictators of Russia were Jews (Lenin, Trotsky, Sverdlov, Kamenev, Zinoviev and Dzerzhinsky). In 1918, on the orders of the Jews Lenin and Sverdlov, Tsar Nicholas II, his wife and children were shot in a dirty basement. Millions of Russian people were destroyed. A terrible pogrom of the Russian Church and Russian Culture began.
M.F. Geringer, born Adelung, Chief Kamerfrau of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna: "In the Gatchina Palace, the permanent residence of Emperor Paul I, when he was the Heir, there was one small hall in the enfilade of the hall, and in it in the middle on a pedestal stood a rather large patterned casket with intricate decorations. The casket was locked a thick red silk cord was stretched around the casket on four columns, on rings, blocking the viewer's access to it. It was known that this casket contained something that was laid by the widow of Paul I, Empress Maria Feodorovna, and she bequeathed to open the casket and take out what was stored in it only when one hundred years have passed since the death of Emperor Paul I, and, moreover, only to the one who will occupy that year Royal Throne in Russia. Pavel Petrovich died on the night of March 11-12, 1801. Sovereign Nikolai Alexandrovich thus fell to the lot to open the mysterious casket and find out what was so carefully and mysteriously guarded in it from all, not excluding royal gazes.
On the morning of March 12, 1901<....>and the Sovereign and the Empress were very lively and cheerful, preparing to go from the Tsarskoye Selo Alexander Palace to Gatchina to reveal the age-old secret. They were preparing for this trip as if it were an interesting festive walk, which promised them uncommon entertainment. They went merry, but returned pensive and sad, and no one knows what they found in this casket.<....>didn't say anything. After this trip<...>The sovereign began to remember 1918 as a fatal year both for him personally and for the Dynasty.
In the article "Mysterious in the life of the Sovereign Emperor Nicholas II" its author A. D. Khmelevsky wrote: "To Emperor Paul I Petrovich, the prophetic monk Abel made a prediction" about the fate of the Russian state, "including his great-grandson, which was Emperor Nicholas II. This prophetic prediction was enclosed in an envelope with the imposition of the personal seal of Emperor Paul I and with his own hand the inscription: "Open to our descendant on the centennial day of my death." The document was kept in a special room of the Gatchina Palace. All the Sovereigns knew about it, but no one dared to violate the will of the ancestor. On March 11, 1901, when Emperor Nicholas II turned 100 years old according to the will with the minister of the court and the faces of the retinue, he arrived at the Gatchina Palace and, after a memorial service for Emperor Paul, opened the package, from where he learned his thorny fate. The writer of these lines knew this back in 1905. "
Information about the monk-seer Abel leads S. A. Nilus, referring to the story of Father N. in Optina Pustyn on June 26, 1909: "In the days great Catherine there lived a monk in the Solovetsky Monastery high life. His name was Abel. He was perspicacious, and distinguished by the simplest disposition, and because what was revealed to his spiritual eye, he announced publicly, not caring about the consequences. The hour came, and he began to prophesy: they say, such and such a time will pass, and the Queen will die, and he even indicated what death. No matter how far the Solovki were from St. Petersburg, Abel's word soon reached the Secret Chancellery. A request to the abbot, and the abbot, without thinking twice, Abel - in the sleigh and to St. Petersburg, and in St. Petersburg the conversation is short: they took it and put the prophet in the fortress ... When the Abel prophecy was fulfilled exactly and the new Sovereign, Pavel Petrovich, found out about him, then, soon after his accession to the Throne, he ordered to present Abel before his royal eyes. They took Abel out of the fortress and led him to the King.
Yours, says the King, came out the truth. I love you. Now tell me: what awaits me and my reign?
Your kingdom, - answered Abel, - will be like nothing: neither you will be glad, nor will they be glad to you, and you will not die your own death.
Avel's words came to the King's mind, and the monk had to sit down again directly from the palace into the fortress ... But the trace of this prophecy was preserved in the heart of the Heir to the Throne Alexander Pavlovich. When these words of Abel came true, he again had to make the same journey from the fortress to the royal palace.
I forgive you, - the Sovereign said to him, - just tell me, what will my reign be like?
The French will burn your Moscow (1), - Abel answered and again landed from the palace into the fortress ... They burned Moscow, went to Paris, indulged in fame ... Again they remembered Abel and ordered to give him freedom. Then they remembered him again, they wanted to ask about something, but Abel, wise by experience, did not leave a trace on himself: they did not find the prophet<...>
Thus ended his story about. N. about the Solovetsky monk Abel.
About the monk Abel, I have recorded the following from other sources: Monk Abel lived in the second half of the 18th century and in the first 19th. There is evidence of him in historical materials as a seer who predicted major state events of his time. By the way, ten years before the French invasion, he predicted the occupation of Moscow by them. For this prediction and for many others, the monk Abel paid with imprisonment. For all my long life, - he lived for more than 80 years, - Abel spent 21 years in prison for predictions. During the days of Alexander I, he spent more than 10 years in the Solovetsky prison. He was known: Catherine II, Paul I, Alexander I and Nicholas I. They either imprisoned him for predictions, then released him again, wanting to know the future. Abel had many admirers among his contemporary nobility. By the way, he was in correspondence with Paraskeva Andreevna Potemkina. To one of her letters with a request to open her future, Abel replied as follows: “It is said that if the monk Abel begins to prophesy aloud to people, or to whom to write on charters, then take those people as a secret and Abel himself and keep them in prisons or prisons under strong guard ..." I agreed, Abel writes further, "now it is better not to know anything, but to be free, but rather than to know, but to be in prison and under bondage." But Abel did not keep abstinence for long and prophesied something in the reign of Nikolai Pavlovich , which, as can be seen from the decree of the Holy Synod of August 27, 1826, ordered Abel to be caught and imprisoned "for humility" in the Suzdal Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery.In this monastery, it must be assumed, the seer ended his life.
In another letter to Potemkina, Abel informed her that he had composed several books for her, which he promised to send soon. “These books,” Abel writes, “I don’t have with me. They are stored in a secret place. These my books are amazing and amazing, and those my books of surprise and horror are worthy. And only those who trust in the Lord God should read them.”
They say that many ladies, revering Abel as a saint, went to him to inquire about suitors for their daughters. He answered that he was not a seer and that he only predicted what he was commanded from above.
The "Life and sufferings of the father and monk Abel" have come down to our time; it was printed somewhere in a temporary edition, but due to censorship conditions in such an abridged form that everything relating to high-ranking officials was crossed out.
According to this "Life", the monk Abel was born in 1755 in the Aleksinsky district of the Tula province. He was a horseshoe by profession, but "you pay little attention to this (about horseshoeing)." Yet his attention was fixed on the divine and on the destiny of God. The "man" Abel "was simple, without any learning, and sullen in appearance." He began to wander around Russia, and then settled in the Valaam Monastery, but lived there only for a year and then "we receive a blessing from the abbot and go to the desert," where he began "work to work and feats to feats." "Let the Lord God on him great and great temptations. A lot of dark spirits attacked the nan." Abel overcame all this, and for that "the unknown and secret Lord told him" about what would happen to the whole world. Then two certain spirits took Abel and said to him: "Be you a new Adam and an ancient father, and write if you have seen, and say if you have heard. But do not tell everyone and do not write to everyone, but only to my chosen ones and only to my saints." From that time Abel began to prophesy. He returned to the Valaam Monastery, but, having lived there for a short time, he began to move from monastery to monastery until he settled in the Nikolo-Babaevsky Monastery of the Kostroma diocese, on the Volga. There he wrote his first book, "wise and wise."
Abel showed this book to the abbot, and he, along with the book, led him to the consistory. From the consistory he was sent to the bishop, and the bishop said to Abel: "This book of yours was written by the death penalty," and sent the book with the author to the provincial government. The governor, having read the book, ordered Abel to be imprisoned. From the Kostroma jail, Abel was sent under guard to Petersburg. They reported him to the "Commander-in-Chief of the Senate", General Samoilov. He read in a book that Abel in a year predicts the sudden death of the then reigning Catherine II, hit him in the face for this and said: “How dare you, evil head, write such words on an earthly god?” Abel answered: "God taught me how to make secrets!" The general thought that before him was just a holy fool, and put him in prison, but nevertheless reported him to the Empress.
Abel spent about a year in prison until Catherine died. He would have stayed longer, but his book caught the eye of Prince Kurakin, who was amazed at the accuracy of the prediction and gave the book to Emperor Paul to read. Abel was released and taken to the Palace to the Sovereign, who asked for the blessing of the seer:
Vladyka Father, bless me and all my house, so that your blessing may be good for us.
Abel blessed. "The sovereign asked him in secret what would happen to him" "and then settled him in the Nevsky Lavra. But Abel soon left from there to the Valaam Monastery and there wrote a second book similar to the first. He showed it to the treasurer, and he sent it to the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg The Metropolitan read the book and sent it to "a secret chamber where important secrets and state documents are made." The book was reported to the Sovereign, who saw in the book a prophecy about his imminent tragic death. Abel was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress.
In the Peter and Paul Fortress, Abel sat for about a year until he died, according to the prediction. Emperor Paul. After his death, Abel was released, but not to freedom, but under supervision to the Solovetsky Monastery, by order of Emperor Alexander I.
Then Abel received complete freedom, but did not use it for long. He wrote the third book, in which he predicted that Moscow would be taken in 1812 by the French and burned. The higher authorities inquired about this prediction and put Abel in the Solovetsky prison with the following command: "To be there until his predictions come true by the very thing."
In the Solovetsky prison, in terrible conditions, Abel had to spend 10 years and 10 months.
Moscow was finally taken by Napoleon, and in September 1812, Alexander I remembered Abel and ordered Prince A.N. Golitsyn to write an order to Solovki to release Abel. It was written in the order: "If he is alive and well, then he would go to us in Petersburg; we want to see him and have something to talk with him." The letter arrived in Solovki on October 1, but the Solovetsky archimandrite, fearing that Abel would tell the Tsar about his (archimandrite's) "dirty actions", wrote that Abel was sick, although he was healthy. Only in 1813, Abel could come from Solovki to Golitsyn, who "was glad to see him to the core" and began to "question about the fate of God." And Abel said to him "all from the beginning of time to the end."
Then Abel began to walk around the monasteries again, until he was already in the reign of Nikolai Pavlovich, caught by order of the authorities and imprisoned in the Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery in Suzdal, where, in all likelihood, he died (2).
Pyotr Nikolaevich Shabelsky-Bork (1896-1952)(3) in the early 1930s, under the pseudonym Kiribeevich, he published the "historical legend" "The Prophetic Monk": "Soft light was poured in the hall. In the rays of the dying sunset, it seemed that biblical motifs on tapestries embroidered with gold and silver came to life. Gvarenghi's magnificent parquet shone with its graceful lines.. Silence and solemnity reigned around.
The gaze of Emperor Pavel Petrovich met the meek eyes of the monk Abel standing before him. They, like in a mirror, reflected love, peace and joy.
The emperor immediately fell in love with this enigmatic monk, all fanned by humility, fasting and prayer. His foresight has long been widely rumored. Both a commoner and a noble nobleman went to his cell in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, and no one left him without consolation and prophetic advice. The Emperor Pavel Petrovich was also aware of how Abel accurately predicted the day of the death of his August Parent, now the resting Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna in Bose. And yesterday, when it came to the prophetic Abel, His Majesty ordered deigned to deliberately deliver him tomorrow to the Gatchina Palace, in which the Court had a stay.
Smiling affectionately, Emperor Pavel Petrovich graciously turned to monk Abel with the question of how long ago he had taken tonsure and in which monasteries he had been.
Honest father! the Emperor said. “They talk about you, but I can see for myself that the grace of God is clearly resting on you. What do you say about my reign and my fate? What do you see with penetrating eyes about my Family in the mists of time and about the Russian State? Name my successors on the Throne of Russia by name, and predict their fate.
Oh, Father-King! Abel shook his head. -Are you forcing me to predict sadness? Your reign will be short, and I see your sinful, cruel end. On Sophronius of Jerusalem from unfaithful servants you will accept a martyr's death, in your bedchamber you will be strangled by the villains whom you warm on your royal chest. On Holy Saturday they will bury you... They, these villains, seeking to justify their great sin of regicide, will proclaim you insane, will revile your good memory... But the Russian people with their truthful soul will understand and appreciate you and will carry their sorrows to your tomb , asking for your intercession and softening of the hearts of the unrighteous and cruel. The number of your years is like the count of the letters of the saying on the pediment of your castle, in which there is truly a promise about your Royal House: "To this house befits the stronghold of the Lord in the length of days" ...
You are right about this, said Emperor Pavel Petrovich. - I received this motto in a special revelation, together with the command to erect a Cathedral in the name of the Holy Archangel Michael, where the Mikhailovsky Castle has now been erected. I dedicated both the castle and the church to the leader of the heavenly hosts...
I see your premature tomb in it, Blessed Sovereign. And as you think, it will not be the residence of your descendants. About the fate of the Russian State, in prayer, there was a revelation to me about three fierce yokes: the Tatar, the Polish, and the future one - the Jew (4).
What? Holy Russia under the yoke of the Jews? Do not be this forever! Emperor Pavel Petrovich frowned angrily. - You're talking empty, chernorizet ...
And where are the Tatars, Your Imperial Majesty? Where are the Poles? And the same will happen with the Jewish yoke. Do not be sad about that, father-King: the Christ-killers will bear their ...
What awaits my successor. Tsarevich Alexander?
The Frenchman will burn Moscow in his presence, and he will take Paris from him and call him Blessed. But the royal crown will seem heavy to him, and he will replace the feat of royal service with the feat of fasting and prayer, and he will be righteous in the eyes of God ...
And who succeeds Emperor Alexander?
Your son Nicholas...
How? Alexander will not have a son. Then Tsesarevich Konstantin...
Constantine will not want to reign, remembering your fate ... The beginning of the reign of your son Nicholas will begin with a Voltairian rebellion, and this will be a malevolent seed, a destructive seed for Russia, if not for the grace of God that covers Russia. A hundred years later, the House of the Most Holy Theotokos will become impoverished, the Russian State will turn into an abomination of desolation.
After my son Nikolai, who will be on the Russian Throne?
Your grandson, Alexander II, was destined by the Tsar-Liberator. He will fulfill your plan - he will free the peasants, and then he will beat the Turks and the Slavs will also give freedom from the yoke of the infidel. The Jews will not forgive him for his great deeds, they will start hunting for him, they will kill him in the middle of a clear day, in the capital of a loyal subject with renegade hands. Like you, he will seal the feat of his service with royal blood ...
Then will the yoke of the Jews, spoken by you, begin?
Not yet. The Tsar-Liberator is succeeded by the Tsar-Peacemaker, his son, and Your great-grandson, Alexander the Third. Glorious will be his reign. He will lay siege to the cursed sedition, he will bring peace and order.
To whom will he give the royal inheritance?
Nicholas the Second-Holy Tsar, Job the Long-suffering like (5).
He will replace the royal crown with a crown of thorns, he will be betrayed by his people; as once the Son of God. War will be Great War, world ... Through the air, people, like birds, will fly, under water, like fish, they will swim, they will begin to exterminate each other with fetid gray. Change will grow and multiply. On the eve of victory, the Tsar's Throne will collapse. Blood and tears will water the damp earth. A peasant with an ax will take power in madness, and truly the Egyptian execution will come ... The prophetic Abel sobbed bitterly and quietly continued through tears:
And then the Jew will scour the Russian Land like a scorpion, rob its Shrines, close the Churches of God, execute the best Russian people. This is the permission of God, the wrath of the Lord for the renunciation of Russia from the Holy Tsar. Scripture bears witness to Him. Psalms 19, 20 and 90 revealed to me the whole fate of him.
"Now you know that the Lord has saved His Christ, He will hear Him from His Holy Heaven, the salvation of His right hand is in power."
"Great is the glory of his salvation, glory and magnificence lay on him." "Seven are with him in affliction, I will crush him, and I will glorify him; I will fulfill him with length of days, and I will show him My salvation" (PS. 19, 7; 20, b; 90, 15-16).
Alive in the help of the Most High, He will sit on the Throne of Glory. And His royal brother - this is the one about whom it was revealed to the Prophet Daniel: "And at that time Michael will rise, the great prince, standing for the sons of your people ..." (Dan. 12.1)
Russian hopes will come true. On Sophia, in Constantinople, the Orthodox Cross will shine, Holy Russia will be filled with the smoke of incense and prayers and will flourish, like a heavenly screen ... "
In the eyes of Abel the Prophet, a prophetic fire of unearthly power burned. Here one of the setting rays of the sun fell on him, and in the disk of light his prophecy rose in immutable truth.
Emperor Pavel Petrovich thought deeply. Abel stood still. Silent invisible threads stretched between the monarch and the monk. Emperor Pavel Petrovich raised his head, and in his eyes, looking into the distance, as if through a veil of the future, deep royal feelings were reflected.
You say that the Jewish yoke will hang over my Russia in a hundred years. My great-grandfather, Peter the Great, about the fate of my rivers is the same as you. I also consider it for the good of everything that now prophesied to me about my descendant Nicholas II to forestall him, so that the Book of Fates would be opened before him. Yes, great-great-grandson knows way of the cross glory of passions and long-suffering...
Record, reverend father, what you said, put everything in writing, but I will put your prediction in a deliberate casket, put my seal, and until my great-great-grandson, your writing will be inviolably stored here, in the study of my Gatchina Palace. Go, Abel, and pray tirelessly in your cell for me, my Family and the happiness of our State.
And, putting the presented writing of Avelevo into an envelope, he deigned to write on it with his own hand:
"To open Our Descendant on the centennial day of My death."
On March 11, 1901, on the centenary of the martyrdom of his sovereign great-great-grandfather, of blessed memory, Emperor Pavel Petrovich, after a funeral liturgy in the Peter and Paul Cathedral at his tomb, Sovereign Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich, accompanied by the Minister of the Imperial Court, Adjutant General Baron Frederiks (soon granted the title of count) and other persons of the Retinue, deigned to arrive at the Gatchina Palace to fulfill the will of his ancestor in Bose.
The memorial service was touching. The Peter and Paul Cathedral was full of worshipers. Not only the sewing of uniforms sparkled here, not only dignitaries were present. There were a lot of muzhiks' sermyagas and simple scarves, and the tomb of Emperor Pavel Petrovich was all in candles and fresh flowers. These candles, these flowers were from believers in miraculous help and the intercession of the deceased Tsar for his descendants and all the Russian people. The prediction of the prophetic Abel came true that the people would especially honor the memory of the Tsar-Martyr and would flow to His Tomb, asking for intercession, asking for softening of the hearts of the unrighteous and cruel.
The Sovereign Emperor opened the casket and several times read the legend of Abel the Prophet about the fate of his own and Russia. He already knew his thorny fate, he knew that it was not for nothing that he was born on the day of Job the Long-suffering. He knew how much he would have to endure on his sovereign shoulders, he knew about the coming bloody wars nearby, the turmoil and great upheavals of the Russian State. His heart felt that damned black year when he would be deceived, betrayed and abandoned by everyone ... "
1) The well-known modern literary critic D. Urnov, in one of his books published in the series "Fiery Revolutionaries", reports that back in 1800 in the USA, engineer and painter Fulton received an order for the "Burning of Moscow" panorama. Such obsessions on the chosen victim have been known for a long time, but who should collect ... - Comp.
2) Information about the monk Abel, collected by S.A. Nilus, were recently confirmed by the publication of materials stored in "one of the central archives of Moscow" of the 1796 investigation file. in 1841 ("Lit. Russia", September 11, 1992, p. 14)
3) Officer of the Russian Imperial Army, monarchist, participant in the First World War. He participated in an attempt to free the Royal Family from Yekaterinburg imprisonment ("Ray of Light", Berlin, 1919. Book 1. P. 25), in an act of retaliation (already in exile) against Milyukov (another Freemason-Duma member V.D. Nabokov was killed - Writer's father The author of numerous historical studies on the past of Russia, mainly the reign of Paul I, about whose time he collected the richest collection of rarities (disappeared during the Second World War in Berlin, where he then lived). After the war, Petr Nikolayevich moved to Argentina and lived in Buenos Aires. - Comp.
4) folk poetry did not rule out the action of these forces as early as the period of Troubles at the beginning of the 17th century. Addressing the people of Nizhny Novgorod, Kuzma Minin said "
"We will free mother Moscow from the wicked Jews,
Wicked Jews, evil Poles!"
Archpriest Sergius Bulgakov (winter 1941-1942):"Jewishness in its lowest degeneration, predation, lust for power, conceit and all sorts of self-assertion through Bolshevism has done if - in comparison with the Tatar yoke - and short chronologically (although a quarter of a century is not short term for such torment), then the most significant in its consequences violence against Russia and especially over Holy Russia "which was an attempt to strangle her spiritually and physically. According to this objective sense, this was an attempt to spiritually kill Russia" by unsuitable means, the Lord had mercy on and saved our homeland from spiritual death. Satan, who entered alternately into the souls of the apostles closest to Christ, Judas "Peter, then the leaders of Judaism, and in their person into the soul of the entire backslidden Jewish people, is now once again trying to kill the destiny of Christ on earth - Holy Russia He seeks and finds for himself a tool in the Bolshevik-Jewish power and in its insane audacity to baptize our homeland spiritually "- Comp.
5) This and other predictions undoubtedly predetermined the behavior of Nicholas II right up to the martyrdom that he foresaw. The French ambassador to the Russian Court, Maurice Palaiologos, wrote: "It was in 1909. Once Stolypin proposes an important measure to the Sovereign domestic policy. Having thoughtfully listened to him, Nicholas II makes a skeptical, carefree movement - a movement that seems to say: "Is this, or something else, it doesn't matter ?!" Finally he says in a tone of deep sadness:
I, Pyotr Arkadyevich, do not succeed in anything that I undertake. Stolypin protests. Then the King asks him:
Have you read the lives of the Saints?
Yes, at least in part, because, if I am not mistaken, this work contains about twenty volumes.
Do you also know when my birthday is?
What is the holy day on this day?
Excuse me, sir, I don't remember!
Job the Long-suffering.
Thank God! Your Majesty's reign is ending with glory, since Job, having humbly endured the most terrible trials, was rewarded with God's blessing and prosperity.
No, believe me, Pyotr Arkadyevich, I have more than a presentiment, I have deep confidence in this: I am doomed to terrible trials; but I will not receive my reward here on earth. How many times have I applied the words of Job to myself: "For the terrible thing that I was terrified of, that also overtook me, and that which I feared, that also came to me" (Job 3:25). - Comp.
Based on the book by S. Fomin "Russia before the Second Coming".
In one of the central archives, an investigative file for 1796 "About the monk Abel and the books written by him" is stored. He predicted Catherine II and Paul I, Alexander I and Nicholas I. True, Abel had the audacity to name the day of their death, and even more so, the reason for which he spent twenty-one years in exile and prisons. So who was he - an adventurer, a madman or a real prophet?
The peasant Vasily Vasilyev was born in 1757 in the Tula province. From his youth, he set off to wander around Russia, took tonsure in one of the Novgorod monasteries. Becoming a monk and taking the name Abel, he first lived as a hermit on the Volga, then in the Solovetsky Monastery, in Valaam, where he wrote his first "very terrible books." These are two small notebooks with the chapters “The Tale of the Being, which is the Being of God and the Divine”, “The Life and Life of Our Father Dadamius”.
Abel later explained that he did not write anything, but "composed from a vision."
One morning, while it was still dark, it was as if two large books were opened to him in the sky.
There was also a vision that "the messiah expected by the Jews had already appeared on earth, namely in the Russian city of Orel under the name of Fyodor Krikov." Abel went to Orel and indeed found a Jewish merchant with that name. They talked for a long time, and Krikov appointed Abel "in the same year a meeting in Kyiv." The meeting was not destined to take place, since by that time Abel had been arrested, but it was the conversation with the “messiah” that apparently led him to a pilgrimage to Constantinople, where he moved through Orel, Sumy, Poltava and Kherson.
The bishop of Kostroma, in whose diocese Abel began to live, was puzzled by the monk's writings, seeing heresy in them. Abel was cut and had to be judged by a secular court. But since the books also talked about the empress, the bishop considered it best to give the “defrocking” to the Kostroma governorship, from where, under strict guard, he was taken to the St. Petersburg secret expedition for interrogation.
Abel was interrogated by the successor of the famous torturer Sheshkovsky Alexander Makarov.
"Question. What kind of person are you, what is your name, where were you born, who is your father, what is your education, is you married or single, and if you are married, do you have children and how many, where does your father live and what does he eat?
Answer. Baptized in the faith of the Greek confession, which he obeys all church traditions and social positions; married, children three sons; he was married against his will, and for this reason he did not live much in his village, but always wandered around different cities.
Question. When you say that you are married against your will and have been walking around different places, then where exactly and in what. Did you exercise and what kind of food did you have, and at home - allowance?
Answer. When he was still 10 years old, he began to think about the absence of his father from home in order to go somewhere in the wilderness to serve God, and moreover, hearing in the Gospel of Christ the Savior the word: “if anyone leaves his father and mother wife and children, and all of the name of My kind, with that hundred he will receive all and dwell in the kingdom of heaven, ”heeding this, he began to think about it more and looked for an opportunity to fulfill his intention. Being 17 years old, then the father forced to marry; and after some time, he began to study Russian literacy, and then he also studied carpentry.
Question. What year are you and where did the voice come from and what did it consist of?
Answer. When I was in the desert of Valaam, at the same time there was a voice from the air, as if to the God-seer Moses the prophet and allegedly said this: go and tell the northern queen Ekaterina Alekseevna, go and tell her all the truth, even if I command you. First, tell her, when her son Pavel Petrovich reigns, then the Turkish land will be subdued under his feet, and the Sultan himself will begin to pay tribute. And also to the northern queen Catherine: she will reign for 40 years.
Question. Why did you include in your book such words that concern Her Majesty, namely, Akibi na nu son will rise and so on, and how did you understand them?
Answer. To this I answer that the uprising is twofold: one thing in deed, and another in word and thought, and I affirm under death penalty that I understood rebellion in my book by word and thought; I confess frankly that I myself wrote these words because he, that is, the son, is a man of servility, like us ... "
Makarov asked a lot of questions to the monk, mainly about the empress and the heir.
The rest of the prophecies didn't bother him. The investigator was very surprised at Abel’s answer question: “Is there a God and is there a devil, and are they recognized by Makarov?”
Abel was brought to the Prosecutor General, Count Samoilov, who, furious, gave the monk three slaps in the face. Abel finally appeared and before the bright eyes of the mother empress. When she heard the year and day of her death, she was hysterical. The result of their conversation was a decree:
“Because it turned out during the Secret Expedition to investigate that the peasant Vasily Vasilyev composed a frantic book out of pride and imaginary praise from ordinary people that in the unenlightened could cause vacillation and disorder itself, and even more so that he dared to include here the most daring and most insulting words concerning the most illustrious person of Her Imperial Majesty and Her Majesty the Highest House, in which he committed his own hand
recognition, and for this boldness and violence, like a blasphemer and insulter highest authority according to state laws deserves the death penalty; but Her Imperial Majesty, easing the severity of legal regulations, deigned to indicate that Vasily Vasilyev, instead of the punishment he deserved, put him in the Shlisselburg fortress, as a result of which he was sent with a warrant to the local commandant, Colonel Kolyubyakin, for supervision, with orders to keep him under the strongest guard so so that he does not communicate with anyone, does not have any conversations; for food, to make him ten kopecks a day, and to seal the above-mentioned papers written by him with the seal of the Prosecutor General, to keep in the Secret Expedition.
These papers, despite various Russian troubles, wars, and so on, have been preserved in the archive. Including such a book - "The Life and Suffering of Father and Monk Abel."
"This father Abel was born in the northern countries, within Moscow, in the Tula province, the village of Okulovo, the parish of the church of Elijah the Prophet. The birth of this monk Abel in the summer from Adam seven thousand and two hundred and sixty and five years, and from God the Word - a thousand and seven hundred and fifty and in seven years. He was conceived and the foundation of the month of June and the month of September on the fifth day, and the image of him and the birth of the months of December and March at the very equinox, and he was given a name, like all men, on the seventh day of March. Father Abel was given by God eighty and three years and four months; and then his flesh and spirit will be renewed, and his soul will be portrayed like an angel and like an archangel ... And he will reign ... for a thousand years ... the kingdom will rise ... in and all his chosen ones and all his saints shall reign with him a thousand and fifty years, and at that time there shall be one flock in all the earth, and one shepherd among them... And he shall reign as it was said above, a thousand and fifty years; and at that time from Adam there shall be eight thousand and four 1000 years, then the dead will rise and the living will be renewed; and there will be a decision for all and a division for all: those who will rise to eternal life and immortal life, and those who will be given over to death and corruption and eternal destruction; and the rest about this in other books. And now we will not return to the first and end the life and life of Father Abel. His life is worthy of horror and wonder ... "
"Life" was written by Abel himself. Further, he tells how he lived in monasteries, how he had a vision, after which he "began to know everything and understand everything." After making simple calculations, we see that according to Abel, the end of the world, “when the dead rise and the living are renewed,” falls on the year 2892 according to the current calendar, that is, after 896 years ...
After the death of Catherine, Paul ascended the throne. The new emperor demanded from the investigative case the writings of "such a sighted seer" and, having read them, ordered the author to be brought to him.
He met Abel respectfully, even offered help in arranging life, to which Abel objected: “From my youth, my desire is to be a monk and serve God.” Then Paul asked to predict his future. What the soothsayer was talking about is unknown, but after the conversation, the emperor ordered "to clothe Abel in monasticism, to provide good food."
The restless monk spent only a year in the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, after which he went to Moscow, where he communicated with the well-known literates of those times Matvey Mudrov, Peter Strakhov. And prophesying, he collected money for a long journey. But soon a new ban followed, and he went to the Valaam monastery that he liked earlier, where he secretly composed a new book of predictions. Learned about it. And the rector wrote to the chief prosecutor: “The book was taken away from him and presented to me with a leaflet found in it, written in Russian letters, and the book was written in an unknown language.”
Fearing the consequences, Abel apparently encrypted the text.
He was again brought to St. Petersburg and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress.
Again I had to see investigator Makarov. Governments change, but investigators remain!
Bishop Ambrose visited the monk, trying to "understand this man." He wrote to the chief prosecutor: “Monk Abel, according to his note, written by him in the monastery, opened it to me. I am enclosing this discovery of his, written by himself, for your consideration. From the conversation, I did not find anything worthy of attention, except for the insanity in the mind that opens in it, hypocrisy and stories about mysteries, from which the hermits even come to fear. However, God knows."
The bishop's last words mean that the "madman" still puzzled him.
From the casemate, Abel wrote to the bishop:
"And now I have a desire to define myself in the Jewish race and teach both the knowledge of Christ God and all of our Orthodox faith and I ask you to report this to His Majesty. "Unfortunately, Abel inadvertently named the date of the death of Emperor Paul, which completely ruined himself ... He would sit and sit in the fortress ... But Alexander Pavlovich ascended the throne, and Abel was sent to Solovetsky Monastery, and then completely liberated. He spent a whole year at large (1802), wrote a new book in which he predicted that "Moscow will be taken by the enemy," and even named the date. The book reached the emperor, and Abel was ordered imprisoned in Solovetsky prison until his prophecies come true.This time he had to sit for twelve years: "... And he saw in them good and unkind, evil and good, and all and all; still such were the temptations to him in the Solovetsky prison, which cannot be described. Ten times he was under death, a hundred times he came to despair, a thousand times he was in unceasing exploits, and there were many other temptations to father Abel, a numerous number and an uncountable number.
The prediction about the capture of Moscow came true in 1812, and Alexander I remembered the disgraced monk. A letter flew to Solovki: “Monk Abel should be turned off from the number of convicts and included in the number of monks, for all complete freedom. If he is alive and well, then he would come to us in St. Petersburg: we want to see him and talk something with him.
The archimandrite of the Solovetsky Monastery, who starved Abel and treated him badly in general, got nervous and replied to the capital: “Now Father Abel is sick and cannot be with you, but next year spring."
Abel was released, provided with a passport, money and clothes. He settled in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, lived quietly, did not like to talk. Moscow ladies got into the habit of visiting him with questions about daughters and suitors, but Abel replied that he was not a seer. However, he did not stop writing. In a letter to Countess Praskovya Potemkina, he says that he composed, they say, several books for her, which he will soon send: “These books are not with me, but are stored in a secret place; Some of my books are amazing and amazing, those of my books are worthy of surprise and horror, and they should only be read by those who trust in the Lord God and in the Most Holy Mother of God. But only one should read them with great understanding and with great understanding. However, these were no longer books of prophecy, since in another letter Abel complains: “I recently received two letters from you and you write in them: to tell you prophecies this and that. Do you know what I will tell you: I am forbidden to prophesy by personal decree. So it is said: if the monk Abel begins to prophesy aloud to people or to whom to write on charters, then take those people as a secret and the monk Abel himself and keep them in prison or in prisons under strong guards; You see, Praskovya Andreevna, what is our prophecy or insight - is it better to be in prisons or in the wild, think about it. I agreed now it is better not to know anything and be free, but rather than to know and be in prison and under captivity. It is written: wake up wise like snakes and clean like doves; that is, be wise, but be silent more; it is also written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will reject the reason of the prudent, and so on; this is what they have come to with their wisdom and their understanding. So, now I relied better not to know anything, and if you know, then to be silent.
Abel's "Book of Genesis", which speaks of the origin of the Earth, the creation of the world and man, is illustrated by him with various tables and symbols. He comments on them this way: “The whole visible world is depicted and darkness and the earth, the moon and the sun, the stars and all the stars, and all the firmament and other such are depicted in it.
This world is thirty million stadia in majesty, ninety million stadia in circumference; the earth in it majesty in the entire third firmament, the sun - with the entire second firmament, darkness - with all the meta. The earth was created from debely things and in it and on it - waters and forests and other things. The sun is created from the very being. Likewise, the stars were created and the pure being itself, they are not surrounded by air; the size of the stars is not less than the moon and not less than darkness. The moon and darkness are created from air, darkness is all dark, and the moon is dark on one side and light on the other ... ”Abel divides the world into visible and invisible. The sun for him consists of the most existing being - is it not from nuclear energy?
In 1823, the monk decided to live in the Vysotsky monastery near Serpukhov, but soon left it and again went to wander. He was finally discovered in his native village and, as having left the settlement without permission, they imprisoned him for the sake of humility in the Suzdal Spaso-Evfimevsky Monastery, which at that time served as a prison for clerics.
There Abel died in 1841, having lived, as he himself predicted, exactly "eighty and three years and four months."
In the Orthodox publications of the 19th-21st centuries one can find the biography of the monk Abel (in the world of the peasant Vasily Vasiliev), who lived in late XVIII - early XIX century. In many of them, the monk Abel appears before us as a true Christian ascetic who had the gift of prophecy and suffered from the authorities for his predictions. A number of sources refer him to the ascetics of piety and even to the venerable fathers. Some authors believe that his predictions had and continue to have importance for the historical fate of Russia.
What do we really know about this person? Before trying to answer this question without considering the writings of those authors who wrote about Abel, based on various kinds of information about him, let's consider the published primary sources of information about the life of the monk Abel.
Monk Abel
1. Published primary sources of information
1) Memoirs of contemporaries of Abel
These are brief memoirs of A.P. Yermolov, recorded from his words by some of his relatives, famous poet and the hero of the war of 1812 D. Davydov, the memoirs of the famous historian M. V. Tolstoy, “Notes” by I. P. Sakharov, as well as the memoirs of L. N. Engelhardt. Separately, it is necessary to point out a brief mention of the predictions of Abel by St. Ignatius (Bryanchaninov).
2) Documents and their fragments
BUT) An article titled “Soothsayer Abel. New authentic information about his fate”, published in the journal “Russian Archive” in 1878, is, according to an anonymous author, “an extract from” the archival “Case of the peasant Vasily Vasilyev, located in the Kostroma province in the Babaevsky monastery under the name of Hieromonk Adam , and then called Abel, and about the book he composed. Started on March 17, 1796, 67 leaves.”
The article contains: 1) Extracts from the secret letter of the Governor-General Zaborovsky to the Prosecutor General Count A.N. Samoilov in connection with the arrest of the monk Abel dated February 19, 1796. 2) The protocol of the interrogation of Abel dated March 5, 1796 in the Secret Expedition. Investigator A. Makarov. 3) Judgment on the conclusion of Abel in the Shlisselburg fortress. 4) Rescript of Emperor Paul to Prosecutor General Prince A. B. Kurakin on the release of Abel from the Shlisselburg Fortress dated December 14, 1796. 5) Excerpts from Abel's letters to Emperor Paul, Prince A. B. Kurakin, Metropolitan Ambrose. 6) Excerpts from letters from Metropolitan Ambrose of St. Petersburg to Prosecutor General Obolyaninov dated March 19 and May 29, 1800, and from other letters and documents.
It should be noted that this author, outlining life path monk Abel, gives some information about him without reference to documents. The reliability of this information is problematic due to the fact that they are not always infallible. So, the author incorrectly indicates the year of the death of the monk Abel - 1841 (p. 365).
B) In another anonymous article “The Foreteller Monk Abel” in the journal “Russian Antiquity” for 1875, the following writings of the monk Abel were published: 1) “The Life and Suffering of the Father and Monk Abel” (with cuts containing “some mystical fabrications” (p. 415 –416)), written, according to the author of the article, apparently by himself. Note that the ownership of the authorship of the “Life” by Abel was not in doubt among a number of historians who wrote about Abel. 2) A fragment from the treatise “The Life and Life of Our Father Dadamius”, which is a variant of the presentation of the “Life” of the monk Abel. Dadamius is the name with which Abel sometimes signed his letters. This new name (“Dadamei”), according to Abel, was given to him by the “spirit”. According to the author of the article, in this case, he has no doubts that this work belongs to Abel. 3) An excerpt from Abel's treatise "The Book of Genesis" - an interpretation of the first book of the Bible. 4) The author points to the notebook at his disposal, which belonged to Abel, where “on 28 pages there are various symbolic circles, figures with letters Slavic alphabet and accounts, with them there is a brief interpretation. Two of this kind of symbolic tables from another similar notebook of 64 pages are published on S. 428-429, and Abel's interpretation of them is on S. 427 in a footnote.
The author also points to the treatises of Abel at his disposal: 1) “The Tale of the Being, which is the Being of God and the Divine”, 2) “Genesis book one”, 3) “Church needs of the monk Abel”, as well as 12 letters from Abel to the Countess P. A. Potemkina for 1815–1816 and Abel’s letter to V. F. Kovalev, manager of the factory of Countess P. A. Potemkina in Glushkovo. Excerpts from letters to Countess P. A. Potemkina are given.
AT) Another issue of the Russkaya Starina magazine publishes documents collected by N.P. Rozanov: 1) An exposition of the contents of the Consistory's reference to St. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow on the monk Abel, dated 1823. 2) Order of St. Philaret on the appointment of the monk Abel in the Vysotsky Monastery in Serpukhov dated October 6. 1823 3) Copies of Abel's letters to a certain Anna Tikhonovna and spiritual father Dorimedont, 1826. 4) Statement of the report on the escape of Abel from the Vysotsky Monastery and a statement of the content of other documents.
3) Publications of historians based on the analysis of documents
BUT) M. N. Gernet’s book “The History of the Tsar’s Prison” (T. 1), which contains some information about Abel, taken from “The Case of the Peasant Vasily Vasiliev, who was in the Kostroma province in the Babaevsky Monastery” (Archive of the era of feudalism and serfdom. VII . No. 2881) (p. 109) and documentary data from the archives of the Savior-Euthymius Monastery in Suzdal (p. 174).
B) Important information about the date of Abel's death is given in the work of A. S. Prugavin, who first published secret documents about the prisoners of the Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery in Suzdal.
As for unpublished documents, we will point out, in addition to the “Case of the peasant Vasily Vasilyev, who was in the Kostroma province in the Babaevsky monastery”, and excerpts from Abel’s “Book of Genesis” (Central State Archive of the October Revolution. F. 48. item 13) .
2. Arrests and predictions. documentary data
Little is known about the life of the monk Abel from published documents. According to the research of M. N. Gernet, based on the analysis of documents, “he (monk Abel) came from peasants and was a serf of Naryshkin. Having received his freedom, he took the veil as a monk, made a pilgrimage to Constantinople. He was not only literate, but also a writer of mystical religious manuscripts. During interrogation, he testified that he had a vision: he saw two books in heaven and wrote down their contents<…>In the manuscript, “copied from a heavenly book”, they found both a deviation from Orthodoxy and a crime against “majesty”. The verdict and decree of Catherine indicate that the author of the manuscript is subject to the death penalty, but, by the mercy of the empress, is sent to eternal imprisonment in the Shlisselburg fortress. From here Paul delivered him. From May 1800 to March 1801 he spent in the Peter and Paul Fortress, from where he was exiled to the Solovetsky Monastery, but in the same year (October 17, 1801) he was transferred from prisoners to monks. Finally, Nicholas I “imprisoned Abel in the Spaso-Efimevsky Monastery”. Thus, according to the data cited by Gernet, Abel was imprisoned at least three times, while his imprisonment was carried out at least twice by the highest command.
Documents related to the circumstances of Abel's first imprisonment in 1796 have been published in the most detail. Some materials of the case of 1796 that are important for us will be specially considered below. It is important to note that, according to historians, at that time there was not a single case of falsification of investigative materials by security agencies, similar to the known falsifications of the NKVD-KGB in the 20th century.
As for the subsequent conclusions, the published documentary materials concerning the causes and circumstances of these events, as well as the life of Abel in general, are very scarce. Here is what we know from the published documents in connection with the circumstances of these arrests.
Abel’s secondary conclusion in May 1800 followed the discovery in him, under scandalous circumstances, during his presence in the Valaam Monastery of a certain “book” and “leaf” written by himself (report of Metropolitan Ambrose of St. Petersburg to Prosecutor General Obolyaninov). After reading the contents of this leaflet, Obolyaninov followed the highest command (by Paul I) to imprison Abel in the Peter and Paul Fortress. As the anonymous author of the article writes in the Russian Archive, “Probably, Abel’s prediction about the death of Paul the First refers to this time.” Evidence of this prediction and information about true reasons the bringing of Abel from the Valaam Monastery to St. Petersburg and his conclusion this time are not in the published documents.
In March 1801 (after the death of Paul I and the accession of Alexander I), Abel was transferred by order of Metropolitan Ambrose to the Solovetsky Monastery for imprisonment, where no later than October 17 of the same year, by decree of the Holy Synod, he was released and became a monastic of this monastery. On the basis of published documents, it is impossible to determine either when Abel left the Solovetsky Monastery, or the circumstances of his departure. According to the same anonymous author, “released, Abel wrote the third book with a foreshadowing of the capture of Moscow by the enemy, for which he was again imprisoned for many years in the Solovetsky Monastery.” Unfortunately, the anonymous author does not support this information with any documentary references.
Further, he writes that in 1812 Abel was extracted from the Solovetsky conclusion by the chief prosecutor of the Holy Synod, Prince Golitsyn. The release of Abel followed the order of Emperor Alexander I of November 17, 1812, after which, as this anonymous author writes, he begins to lead a wandering life, “lived in the Kursk province with the well-known rich man Nikanor Ivanovich Pereverzev, then settled in Moscow, in the Sheremetyevo hospital, then at the Trinity of Sergius ".
Placed by order of St. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, in the Serpukhov Vysotsky Monastery on October 24, 1823, Abel flees from it in 1826, lives again in the world, which was the reason for his forced imprisonment in the prison of the Spaso-Efimiev Monastery “for humility” by order of Nicholas I in the same year; here the monk Abel died in 1831 (on the problem related to the date of his death, see below).
If we summarize the available published documents as a whole, then among them there are no reliable data on Abel's predictions that came true. This kind of information, however, could be withdrawn during publication in the 19th century for censorship reasons.
3. Predictions and arrests. Memoirs of contemporaries
The memoirs of contemporaries give us the following picture of the life and predictions of the monk Abel.
1) Prediction about the death of Empress Catherine II and the details of her death. First arrest
In the stories of A. P. Yermolov we read: “Once at the table with the governor Lump, Abel predicted the day and hour of the death of Empress Catherine with extraordinary fidelity.” The memoirs of D. Davydov also talk about the exact prediction (of the day and hour!) of the death of Catherine II. Davydov's text repeats word for word the text of Yermolov's stories. In the memoirs of M. V. Tolstoy we read: “After that, he (Abel) left the island of Valaam and moved to the Nikolsky Babaevsky Monastery, here he compiled and wrote his first prophetic legend: in it he predicted the death of Empress Catherine II, for which he was immediately demanded Petersburg and imprisoned in the casemate of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The prediction came true soon." We find similar information about Abel’s prediction of the death of Catherine II and about his subsequent placement in the Peter and Paul Fortress in connection with this in the memoirs of L. N. Engelhardt, with the only difference that, according to Engelhardt, the arrest occurred after a personal meeting with the empress. Nevertheless, we do not find any direct evidence of this prediction in the memoirs of contemporaries. As we will find out later, Abel, in connection with his prediction about the date of the death of Catherine II, was planted in the Shlisselburg fortress, and not in the Peter and Paul fortress. This prediction itself, as it turns out later, was false in its content and did not come true, or we are dealing with several of his predictions about the time of the death of the empress, excluding each other in content.
2) Prediction about the death of Paul I. Second arrest
In Yermolov's stories we read: “Returning to Kostroma, Abel also predicted the day and hour of the death of Emperor Paul. Conscientious and noble police officer, Lieutenant Colonel Ustin Semenovich Yarlykov<…>hastened to inform Yermolov about this. Everything predicted by Abel literally came true. Literally, we read the same thing in the memoirs of D. Davydov. In Engelhardt’s memoirs we read: then he predicted to him how long his reign would last, the sovereign at the same moment ordered him to be again imprisoned in a fortress. The circumstances of Abel's second imprisonment were completely different, as we saw above in the analysis of documentary materials. In the memoirs of M.V. Tolstoy - “At dinner at the Kostroma governor Lumpa, Abel predicted the time and details of the death of Emperor Paul. The soothsayer imprisoned in the Shlisselburg fortress was soon released with the same rights. As it turned out above from the documents, under Paul I, Abel was planted in the Peter and Paul Fortress and from there he went not to freedom with the same rights, but in conclusion to the Solovetsky Monastery, where he stayed for some more time, perhaps about six months in prison.
There are no direct eyewitness accounts of Abel's predictions in the memoirs about the circumstances of the second arrest. The contradictions between the contents of the memories with each other and with the documentary facts are obvious.
3) Prediction about the war with Napoleon. Third arrest
“A few years later, Abel again made a prophecy about the entry of the Napoleonic hordes into Russia and the burning of Moscow. For this prediction, he was imprisoned in the Solovetsky Monastery, but from there he managed to be released, using the patronage of Prince A.N. Golitsyn, the constant patron of Quakers, Illuminati, Freemasons and other mystical persons, ”wrote M.V. Tolstoy. L. N. Engelhardt: “A year before the French attack, Abel appeared before the emperor and predicted that the French would enter Russia, take Moscow and burn it. The sovereign again ordered to put him in the fortress. After the expulsion of the enemies, he was released. As follows from the documents, Abel was released in 1812 not from the fortress, but from the Solovetsky Monastery. “Monk Abel, who predicted the capture of Moscow by the French, said that the time would come when the monks would be driven to several monasteries, and other monasteries would be destroyed,” wrote St. Ignatius (Bryanchaninov). Finally, we repeat once again that, according to the anonymous author of the article, Abel predicted the capture of Moscow by the French long before the invasion, for which he was sent to Solovki for many years in prison (see above). Again, in the memoirs of contemporaries we do not find a single direct evidence of the prediction and we find contradictions in the information given and inconsistency with the facts of the information given.
4) Prediction about the death of Alexander I, the uprising on Senate Square on December 14, 1825 and the accession of Nicholas I
“He (Abel) applied for admission to the Serpukhov Vysotsky Monastery, where he entered on October 24, 1823. Soon, Abel's new prediction was spread around Moscow - about the imminent death of Alexander I, about the accession to the throne of Nikolai Pavlovich and about the riot on December 14th. This time the soothsayer was left without persecution. His last prophecy came true, like the previous ones, ”wrote M. V. Tolstoy. According to Engelhardt, “since 1820, no one has seen him (Abel) anymore, and it is not known where he went.” There is no mention of this prediction in the memoirs of Davydov and Yermolov. Again we see contradictions in the information and the absence of direct evidence.
5) Prediction about the years of the reign of Nicholas I
“Abel was in Moscow during the accession to the throne of Nicholas; he then announced about him: “The serpent will live for thirty years,” wrote D. Davydov. Other writers of memoirs do not mention this fact.
6) Prediction about one circumstance of the coronation of Nicholas I
“In the spring of 1826 he (Abel) was in Moscow. The coronation of Nicholas I was already being prepared. Countess A.P. Kamenskaya asked him; will there be a coronation and soon<…>Abel answered her: "You will not have to rejoice at the coronation." These words spread throughout Moscow, and many explained them in the sense that there would be no coronation at all. But their meaning was completely different: Countess Kamenskaya was subjected to the wrath of the Sovereign for the fact that on one of her estates the peasants were out of obedience, outraged by the cruelty of the steward, and the countess was forbidden to come to the coronation, ”wrote M. V. Tolstoy.
Finally, in the “Notes” of IP Sakharov, it is only indicated that Abel wrote down his “visions on small notebooks, of which there are a lot of walking around the world.”
Thus, among the memoirs of contemporaries, we do not find a single direct evidence of Abel's predictions. The inconsistency of the information given by Abel's contemporaries, and vice versa - their repetition of each other word for word and the inconsistency of the information with real facts indicate a low level of reliability of these sources.
Of all the predictions known from memoirs, only one, the last, had nothing to do with the fate of those in power. All of them, except for the last two, were published during crisis situations in the history of Russia: 1796 - the end of the reign of Catherine II; 1800 - the end of the reign of Paul I; the eve of Napoleon's invasion (possibly a year before the invasion, according to Engelhardt); 1823–1825 - the eve of the uprising on the Senate Square. The question is - what should such prophecies, sounded on the eve of dramatic events, contribute to appeasement in the state or sowing discord?
As we have seen from the memoirs of contemporaries and from published documents, little is reliably known about the predictions of the monk Abel and, in general, about his personality. Nevertheless, on the basis of the most detailed published materials of the case of the Secret Expedition of 1796, his writings and some other materials, one can get a fairly accurate idea of \u200b\u200bthe personality of this person.
4. True face
I'm not a thief or a spy, I'm actually a spirit.
V. Vysotsky
I am the vice-chairman Pound. I have always sat. I was imprisoned under Alexander II “The Liberator”, under Alexander III “Peacemaker”, under Nicholas II “Bloody”… I take cheap: one hundred and twenty rubles a month in freedom and two hundred in prison. One hundred percent increase in harm.
I. Ilf and E. Petrov
The materials of the memoirs testify mainly in favor of the fact that Abel was endowed with the gift of prediction and, perhaps, was a saint of God. However, his own writings and some documents paint a different picture.
1 . Devilish beauty. Abel, according to his statements, received his revelations “from above” by hearing voices or seeing visions. What kind of character were they? At the first arrest during interrogation in the Secret Expedition on May 5, 1796, Abel expressed doubts about the divinity of their nature and at the end of the interrogation even admitted that the voice that told him about the reign of Catherine II and Paul I was demonic. Thus, it can be argued that even according to him, his acceptance of the said “revelation” on faith and the prophetic predictions that he made on its basis and disseminated were, on his part, at least a manifestation of frivolity. However, for the authenticity and divinity of at least one of his "revelations" during the interrogation, he stood a mountain (see below).
However, in the “Life of the Monk Abel”, written by Abel himself, apparently much later, the attitude to the revelations in connection with which he first came under investigation, again changes to the opposite - it is argued that he wrote the book “wise and wise” , which was the reason for his first arrest and imprisonment. Note that the “revelations” received from the voice and recorded in this book were indeed the reason for the arrest.
Metropolitan Ambrose of St. Petersburg, who spoke with him on May 29, 1800, spoke about the charming nature of the “revelations” to Abel: their secret visions, from which hermits even come to fear. But God knows.”
As is known from Orthodox-ascetic literature, uncontrolled, uncritical acceptance of demonic visions and voices on faith, and even simple contacts with them, often end in insanity for the ascetic. The memorandum of Metropolitan Ambrose, quoted above, also speaks of the insanity of Abel. The abnormal behavior of Abel in the Peter and Paul Prison is indicated by the report of collegiate adviser Alexander Makarov to Prosecutor General Obolyaninov dated May 26, 1800.
Numerous published fragments of his works eloquently testify to the peculiarities of Abel's thinking - his insanity. Let's cite just a few.
1 ) A fragment from the “Life of Dadamius” is nothing more than a presentation of his biography, since the new name Dadamey, according to Abel, was given to him by a “spirit”, who also called him “the second Adam”. The presence of fantastic delusions of grandeur intertwined with heretical distortions of faith is evident. “He (Dadamy) is in all the firmaments and in all the heavens, in all the stars and in all the heights, rejoicing in the very being and reigning in them, ruling and dominating in them”<…>after that he “will reign for a thousand years”, and then “there will be one flock throughout the whole earth and one shepherd in them, then the dead will rise” ”.
2 ) We see a sad picture of a mixture of gross heresy and delusional constructions of a person who has lost sensitivity to logical contradictions in the text of Abel's interpretations of the book of Genesis (“Book of Genesis”):
“In the beginning, firmaments and firmaments, worlds and worlds, powers and powers, kingdoms and states, and then everything else was created: and doing tacos and meditating nine years of existence and two to ten and one spiritual. In the present years, think all and arrange everything, but in the spiritual years create everything and confirm everything<…>Then create man and higher than man and higher in every world of man; and the number of all created people is the same as the number of all the worlds: create the God-man in your own image and likeness. Create their husband and wife, give them a name: Gog and Magog, Adam and Eve; Gog and Adam are husbands, and Magog and Eve are his wife; Gog and Magog were first created: and then Adam and Eve were created. Gog and Magog and their seed before Adam lived on earth for three thousand and six hundred years; Gogh's land and all his generation, all old America and all new America. Adam's land and all his kind all Asia and all Europe and all Africa - this is the land<…>Gog and Magog himself lived on the earth for all the years of his belly, four hundred and two years and four months, then he died and was buried quickly. They all had a hundred and twenty and two children, male and female; and they lived on the earth all their life, as it was said above twelve thousand years: their life is simple in the likeness of cattle and beasts. The law was given to them natural, all creatures according to conscience: but only this kind will be enlightened at the end of the age by faith and piety. Then the whole race of the Gogs and the whole race of the Adams will die. And other ages and other generations will arise, and they will always and unceasingly live like this, and there will be no end to it, it’s like that. Amen". Note that, according to modern psychopathology, such texts indicate the presence of a severe, so-called paraphrenic delusional disorder of thinking.
However, judging by Abel's correspondence with Countess Potemkina and other letters, we do not find anything like that in his letters. It is possible that we are dealing with letters written in a state of remission of processes called in psychiatry fur-like, or recurrent schizophrenia. For these forms of disorders, the alternation of light intervals and periods of a rather roughly pronounced exacerbation of symptoms is typical. With a recurrent form in light intervals, a person suffering from this form of mental disorder can behave like an absolutely healthy person.
It seems that a less likely, although not excluded, explanation for the above-described features of the thinking of the monk Abel, reflected in his writings, may be an attempt to purposefully create an image of himself as a seer-holy fool. The presence of genuine foolishness is excluded by the presence of gross heretical distortions of the teachings of the Church, both in the above fragments and in his other writings.
2 . False prophecy. We have reliable evidence in favor of the fact that Abel was a false prophet, that is, he gave prophecies in the name of God that did not come true. Let's give examples.
1 ) In both versions of the autobiography - in “The Life and Sufferings of Father and Monk Abel” and in the text “Life and Life of Our Father Dadamius”, written by himself, there is an exact indication that Abel-Dadamy should live 83 years and 4 months. In the studies of the historians M. N. Gernet and A. S. Prugavin, who analyzed archival data on the prisoners of the Savior and Euthymius Suzdal Monastery, the exact date of Abel's death indicated in the documents of the monastery is 1831. Abel's date of birth is 1757. Thus, he lived for 74 years, and not 83, as he said in his prophecies.
2 ) Prosecutor General Prince Kurakin, in a letter addressed to Emperor Paul I, wrote that Metropolitan Gabriel of St. Petersburg reproached Abel for his predictions about his future bishopric.
3 ) According to the protocol of interrogation in the Secret Expedition of March 5, 1796, Abel testified that the following details of the reign of Emperor Paul I, which he was ordered to bring to the attention of the empress and which he seems to have introduced and in his prophetic book, the contents of which he distributed: “When her son (Catherine II) Pavel Petrovich reigns, then the whole Turkish land will be subdued under his feet, and the sultan himself, and all the Greeks, and they will be his tributaries; and 2nd, tell her, when this is subdued and their false faith is cut off, then there will be one faith and one shepherd over all the earth, as it is written in Holy Scripture <…>Therefore, go boldly to Pavel Petrovich and his two youths, Alexander and Konstantin, that the whole earth will be conquered under them. The purpose of writing the book was to convey the content of this "prophecy" to the empress and heir. The contradictions of its content with historical events that took place later are self-evident.
4 ) During interrogation in the Secret Expedition on March 5, 1796, it was found out that Abel predicted in writing that “the son (Paul I) will rise against the nude (Catherine II). Attempts by the defendant to prove that he wrote one thing, but meant another, did not lead to anything, the “prophet” ended up in the Shlisselburg fortress, and the “prophecy” was not fulfilled.
5 ) The protocols of the same interrogation in 1796 indicate the prophecy of Abel, the content of which was received by him “from above”; on the Divinity of this "revelation" he especially insisted even in the face of the formidable investigator of the Secret Expedition. We quote Abel: “His mother (Paul I) reigns, Ekaterina Alekseevna, our most merciful Empress for 40 years: for so God has revealed to me.” Meanwhile, the years of her reign 1762-1796 are well known - that is, a total of 34 years of reign.
Thus, we see signs of a situation that in Old Testament times was punishable by death. A prophet who dares to speak in My name what I have not commanded him to say, and who will speak in the name of other gods, put such a prophet to death. And if you say in your heart: “How can we know a word that the Lord has not spoken?” If the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, but the word does not come true and is not fulfilled, then it was not the Lord who spoke this word, but the prophet spoke this in his boldness - do not be afraid of him(Deut 18:20-22).
3 . Heresy. According to a report about Abel by Lieutenant General Zaborovsky to Count A.N. Samoilov dated February 19, 1796, “an interrogation was made to him, but without great success, except for a dark testimony about a certain Jew Theodore Krikov, whom Abel recognized as the Messiah and whom he saw in Orla". During the interrogation, carried out somewhat earlier by His Grace Paul, Bishop of Kostroma and Galich, Abel called himself “the forerunner of Gogov”. Bishop Paul also testified to Abel's faith in the coming of the Messiah expected by the Jews in the person of a certain Jew Theodore Krikov and his journey to meet with Krikov in the city of Orel. Abel's views were qualified by Bishop Paul as heresy.
Thus, on the whole, Abel's attitude towards Christianity is before us as indefinite, and some connection of his views with Judaism becomes almost obvious. Masons were known to be the conductors and distributors of quasi-Jewish ideas at that time. Note that among the creations composed by Abel, there was a table of “Planets human life”- judging by the name, it can be assumed that astrology was not alien to him. Some similarity between the views of Abel and the views of the Masons is also indicated in an article about him in the Russian Biographical Dictionary.
Obviously, his comments on the Old Testament history of the origin of mankind have a heretical character. Obviously gross damage to the dogma of original sin. The eschatological prophecies of Abel also diverge from the Orthodox tradition - there are chiliastic ideas in different options. The views of the monk Abel on the origin of the human race and the future fate of mankind are reminiscent of some Talmudic traditions.
4 . Anti-government orientation of predictions. The predictions of the monk Abel, which were widely publicized, according to the memoirs of contemporaries (see above), sounded quite rare, and at the same time they related almost exclusively to future events in the political life of the state. At the same time, the temporary th connection of the appearance of these prophecies with crisis situations in the history of Russia. The anti-government nature of his predictions, which could serve as a weapon in the psychological anti-government struggle, cannot but be evident. In 1796 or somewhat earlier, he published in samizdat in the form of a prophecy a direct political provocation against Catherine II (“on the nude (Catherine II) the son (Paul I) will rise”) and a prediction about the coming prosperity and triumph of Orthodoxy under Paul I (see . above). During interrogation in the Secret Expedition on March 5, 1796, the seditious version of the fall was discussed, as it was then believed. Peter III as a result of a conspiracy by Catherine II (“pade III Emperor from his wife”), set out in the “book” of Abel, which he distributed.
According to the memoirs of D. Davydov, in 1826 he calls Nicholas I the word “serpent”. All this suggests that Abel could be used by interested parties to create certain moods in society - whether he “prophesied” himself or purposefully spread rumors about his “prophecies” before the events or after the fact.
It was this politically oriented nature of his predictions that greatly worried the authorities. For example, during the interrogation on March 5, 1796, and even after the verdict was passed, everything related to the aforementioned provocative prediction of Abel was again discussed in detail and the question of Abel's connections with other people was repeatedly raised. The vigorous activity on the part of the Masons at that time to influence Paul I and their stake on him in political plans are well known (the Novikov case). Historians testify to the active participation of Freemasons in all political crises, during which and in connection with which Abel's predictions spread.
Biography
Abel (Vasily Vasilyev in the world) was born on March 18, 1757 in the village of Akulovo, Tula region, in the family of a cultivator and horseman Vasily and his wife Xenia. He was one of nine children.
In childhood and youth he worked as a carpenter in Kremenchug and Kherson. Survived at a young age serious illness decided to enter a monastery. However, he did not receive the blessing of his parents and secretly left the village in 1785, leaving his wife and three children. Having received a ransom from his master, Lev Naryshkin, he got to Valaam Monastery where he took the tonsure. He lived in the monastery for only a year, and then he "took a blessing from the hegumen and went to the desert." After several visions monk Abel finally left from Valaam Monastery and went around the world. After nine years of wandering, he stopped at the Nikolo-Babaevsky Monastery of the Kostroma diocese, where wrote his first prophetic book. It said that Empress Catherine II dies eight months later. The Bishop of Kostroma and Galitsky, to whom this book was shown, decided to hand over the monk into the hands of the governor, who planted Abel to prison and then sent to Petersburg.
Petersburg, afraid predictions, it was nevertheless decided to report to the empress. Catherine II took pity on the monk and instead of execution ordered to plant Abel to the Shlisselburg Fortress. Soon, however, prediction came true ascended the throne Pavel I. Subsequently monk Abel was exiled to Kostroma, where predicted the date of the death of the new emperor, for which on May 12, 1800 he was imprisoned in the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress.
After death Paul I monk Abel was exiled to Solovetsky Monastery which he was forbidden to leave. In the monastery, a monk wrote a new book in which predicted the burning of Moscow by the French.After prediction it happened Alexander I was ordered to release Abel. In the summer of 1813, the monk visited St. Petersburg, later on Mount Athos, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. After wandering Abel settled in Trinity Sergius Lavra. On October 24, 1823, he entered Serpukhov Vysotsky Monastery. Fearing persecution in June 1826, he left him, was detained in the Tula province and imprisoned by order Emperor Nicholas I to Suzdal Spaso-Evfimevsky Monastery. He died on November 29, 1841, was buried behind the altar of the monastery Nicholas Church.
There are a number of other predictions in Abel's writings: the overthrow of the monarchy in Russia, both world wars, the Civil War in Russia.
Abel's predictions: Not a single complete book of Abel has survived, only fragments and some copies.
Catherine II:"... he will reign for 40 years."
Paul I:“Your kingdom will be short, and I see your cruel end. ... from unfaithful servants you will accept a painful death, in your bedchamber you will be strangled by villains.
Alexander I:“The Frenchman will burn Moscow in his presence, and he will take Paris from him and call him Blessed. But secret grief will become unbearable for him, and the royal crown will seem heavy to him, and he will replace the feat of royal service with the feat of fasting and prayer ... ".
Nicholas I:"The beginning of the reign of Nicholas will begin with a fight, with a Voltairian rebellion ...".
Alexander II:“Destined by the Tsar-Liberator ... he will give freedom to the serfs, and after that he will beat the Turks and the Slavs will also free them from the yoke of the infidel. The rebels will not forgive him for his great deeds, they will start “hunting” for him, they will kill him in the middle of a clear day in the capital.”
Alexander III: "True peacemaker. Glorious will be his reign. He will lay siege to the cursed sedition, he will bring peace and order. But the reign will not be long.
Nicholas II:“He will have the mind of Christ, long-suffering and purity of a dove ... He will replace the royal crown with a crown of thorns ... There will be war ... Through the air, people, like birds, will fly, under water, like fish, swim, gray fetid each other will begin to destroy. On the eve of victory, the royal throne will collapse. Brother will rise against brother… the godless power will scour the Russian land…”.
All his predictions ended in 2892 (according to Abel, this will be the year of the end of the world)
Pyotr Nikolaevich Shabelsky-Bork Historical legend "Prophetic Monk" The room was filled with soft light. In the rays of the fading sunset, the biblical motifs on the tapestries embroidered with gold and silver seemed to come to life. The magnificent parquet of Guarenghi shone with its graceful lines. Silence and solemnity reigned all around. staring gaze Emperor Pavel Petrovich met the meek eyes of those who stood before him monk Abel. They, like in a mirror, reflected love, peace and joy. The emperor immediately fell in love with this enigmatic monk, all fanned by humility, fasting and prayer. His foresight has long been widely rumored. Both a commoner and a noble nobleman went to his cell in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, and no one left him without consolation and prophetic advice. It was known Emperor Pavel Petrovich and how Abel accurately predicted the day of the death of his August Parent, now resting in Bose Sovereign Empress Catherine Alekseevna. And yesterday, when it came to prophetic Abel, His Majesty commanded deigned to deliberately deliver him tomorrow to the Gatchina Palace, in which the Court had a stay. smiling affectionately, Emperor Pavel Petrovich graciously turned to monk Abel with the question of how long ago he took the tonsure and in what monasteries he was. - Honest father! said the Emperor. “They talk about you, and I can see for myself that you are obviously going to be in awe.” grace of God. What do you say about my reign and my fate? What do you see with penetrating eyes about my Family in the mists of time and about the Russian State? Name my successors on the Throne of Russia by name, and predict their fate. - Oh, Father-King! - shook his head Abel. “Why do you force me to foretell sadness? Your reign will be short, and I see your sinful, cruel end. On Sophronius of Jerusalem from unfaithful servants you will accept a martyr's death, in your bedchamber you will be strangled by the villains whom you warm on your royal chest. On Holy Saturday they will bury you... These villains, trying to justify their great sin of regicide, will proclaim you insane, will revile your good memory... But the Russian people with their truthful soul will understand and appreciate you and will carry their sorrows to your tomb, asking for your intercession and softening the hearts of the unrighteous and cruel. The number of your years is like the counting of the letters of the saying on the pediment of your castle, in which there is truly a promise about your Royal House: “To this house befits the stronghold of the Lord in the length of days” ... “You are right about this,” said Emperor Pavel Petrovich. - I received this motto in a special revelation, together with the command to erect a Cathedral in the name of the Holy Archangel Michael, where the Mikhailovsky Castle has now been erected. I dedicated both the castle and the church to the Leader of the Heavenly Hosts… — I see your premature tomb in it, Blessed Sovereign. And as you think, it will not be the residence of your descendants. About the fate of the Russian State, in prayer, there was a revelation to me about three fierce yokes: the Tatar, the Polish, and the future one - the Jew. - What? Holy Russia under the yoke of the Jews? Do not be this forever! Emperor Pavel Petrovich frowned angrily. - You are talking empty, Chernorizet ... - And where are the Tatars, Your Imperial Majesty? Where are the Poles? And the same will happen with the Jewish yoke. Do not be sad about that, father-King: the Christ-killers will suffer their own ... - What awaits my successor. Tsarevich Alexander? “The Frenchman will burn down Moscow in his presence, and he will take Paris from him and call him Blessed.” But the royal crown will seem heavy to him, and he will replace the feat of royal service with the feat of fasting and prayer, and he will be righteous in the eyes of God ... - And who will inherit Emperor Alexander? - Your son Nikolai ... - How? Alexander will not have a son. Then Tsesarevich Konstantin... - Konstantin will not desire to reign, remembering your fate... The beginning of the reign of your son Nicholas will begin with a Voltairian rebellion, and this will be a malevolent seed, a destructive seed for Russia, if it were not for the grace of God that covers Russia. A hundred years later, the House of the Most Holy Theotokos will become impoverished, the Russian State will turn into an abomination of desolation. - After my son Nikolai, who will be on the Russian Throne? - Your grandson Alexander II, Predestined by the Tsar-Liberator. Your plan will be fulfilled - the peasants will be freed, and then the Turks will be beaten and the Slavs will also be given freedom from the yoke of the infidel. The Jews will not forgive him for his great deeds, they will start hunting for him, they will kill him in the middle of a clear day, in the capital of a loyal subject with renegade hands. Like you, he will seal the feat of his service with royal blood ... - Then the yoke of the Jews, spoken by you, will begin? - Not yet. The Tsar-Liberator is succeeded by the Tsar-Peacemaker, his son, and Your great-grandson, Alexander the Third. Glorious will be his reign. He will lay siege to the cursed sedition, he will bring peace and order. To whom will he give the royal legacy? — Nicholas II- To the Holy King, Job the Long-suffering like. He will replace the royal crown with a crown of thorns, he will be betrayed by his people; as once the Son of God. There will be a war, a great war, a world war... Through the air, people will fly like birds, under the water, like fish, they will swim, they will begin to exterminate each other with foul-smelling gray. Change will grow and multiply. On the eve of victory, the Tsar's Throne will collapse. Blood and tears will water the damp earth. A man with an ax will take power in madness, and truly the Egyptian execution will come ... He sobbed bitterly prophetic Abel and quietly continued through his tears: “And then the Jew will scourge the Russian Land like a scorpion, plunder its shrines, close the Churches of God, and execute the best Russian people. This is the permission of God, the wrath of the Lord for the renunciation of Russia from the Holy Tsar. Scripture bears witness to Him. Psalms 19, 20 and 90 revealed to me the whole fate of him. “Now you know that the Lord has saved His Christ, He will hear Him from His Holy Heaven, the salvation of His right hand is in power.” “Great is the glory of his salvation, glory and magnificence lay on him.” “Seven are with him in affliction, I will crush him, and I will glorify him, I will fulfill him with length of days, and I will show him My salvation” (PS. 19:7; 20:6; Throne of Glory. And His royal brother - this is the one about whom it was revealed to the Prophet Daniel: “And at that time Michael will rise, the great prince, standing for the sons of your people ...” (Dan. 12:1) Russian hopes will come true. On Sophia, in Constantinople, the Orthodox Cross will shine, Holy Russia will be filled with the smoke of incense and prayers and will flourish, like a heavenly screen ... "In the eyes Abel the Prophet burned prophetic fire of unearthly power. Here one of the setting rays of the sun fell on him, and in the disk of light his prophecy stood up in immutable truth. Emperor Pavel Petrovich thought deeply. stood motionless Abel. Silent invisible threads stretched between the monarch and the monk. Emperor Pavel Petrovich raised his head, and in his eyes, looking into the distance, as if through a veil of the future, deep royal feelings were reflected. - You say that the yoke of the Jews will hang over my Russia in a hundred years. My great-grandfather, Peter the Great, about the fate of my rivers is the same as you. I also esteem for the good of everything that now prophesied to me about my descendant Nicholas II to forestall him, so that before him opened book of fate. May the great-great-grandson know his way of the cross, the glory of his passions and his long-suffering ... Capture, reverend father, what you have spoken, state everything in writing, but I will put prediction yours in a deliberate casket, I will put my seal, and until my great-great-grandson, your writing will be inviolably kept here, in the study of my Gatchina Palace. go Abel, and pray tirelessly in your cell for me, my Family and the happiness of our State. And, having put the presented writing of Avelevo into an envelope, he deigned to write on it with his own hand: “Open to Our Descendant on the centennial day of My death.” March 12, 1901, on the centenary of the martyrdom of his sovereign great-great-grandfather, of blessed memory Emperor Pavel Petrovich, after the funeral liturgy in the Peter and Paul Cathedral near his tomb, Sovereign Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich Accompanied by the Minister of the Imperial Court, Adjutant General Baron Frederiks (soon granted the title of count) and other persons of the Retinue, deigned to arrive at the Gatchina Palace to fulfill the will of his ancestor in the Bose. The memorial service was touching. The Peter and Paul Cathedral was full of worshipers. Not only the sewing of uniforms sparkled here, not only dignitaries were present. There were a lot of muzhiks' sermyagas and simple scarves, and the tomb of Emperor Pavel Petrovich was all in candles and fresh flowers. These candles, these flowers were from believers in the miraculous help and intercession of the deceased Tsar for his descendants and all the Russian people. The prediction of the prophetic Abel came true that the people would especially honor the memory of the Tsar-Martyr and would flow to His Tomb, asking for intercession, asking for softening of the hearts of the unrighteous and cruel. Sovereign Emperor opened the casket and read it several times legend of Abel the Prophet about the fate of his own and Russia. He already knew his thorny fate, he knew that it was not for nothing that he was born on the day of Job the Long-suffering. He knew how much he would have to endure on his sovereign shoulders, he knew about the coming bloody wars nearby, the turmoil and great upheavals of the Russian State. His heart felt that damned black year when he would be deceived, betrayed and abandoned by everyone ... Note. Pyotr Nikolaevich Shabelsky-Bork (pseud. Kiribeevich) Russian army officer, monarchist, participant in the First World War Pyotr Nikolaevich Shabelsky-Bork (1896-1952) participated in the liberation attempt royal family from Yekaterinburg imprisonment. In numerous historical studies based on unique documents he collected, which disappeared during the Second World War in Berlin, where he lived at that time, Shabelsky-Bork focused on the era of Paul the First.