Metropolitan Nestor of Kamchatka missionary. Defender of holy icons, passion-bearer Nestor Murdered hieromonk Nestor

Nestor (Anisimov)- Metropolitan of Kirovograd and Nikolaev, Kamchatka missionary.

Metropolitan Nestor (in the world Nikolai Aleksandrovich Anisimov) was born on November 9, 1885 in the city of Vyatka in the family of a military official of the Sviyazhsky regiment Alexander Aleksandrovich Anisimov (state councilor) and Antonina Evlampievna, the daughter of the archpriest-rector of the Vyatka cemetery church (Akhtyrsky cemetery).

From early childhood he was deeply religious. After graduating from a real school, he becomes a novice of the Kazan Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery, and then enters missionary courses at the Kazan Theological Academy in the Kalmyk-Mongolian department.

On April 17, 1907, he took monastic vows with the name Nestor in honor of St. Nestor the Chronicler. On May 6, 1907, he was elevated to the rank of hierodeacon, and three days later, on May 9, he was ordained a hieromonk.

In June 1907, with the blessing of Fr. John of Kronstadt, went as a missionary to Kamchatka to Archbishop Eusebius of Vladivostok and Kamchatka.

In 1907-1909 Hieromonk Nestor conscientiously, often at the risk of his life, fulfills his pastoral duty, preaching the word of God and converting thousands of pagan Kamchadals to the faith of Christ. Deep respect for people, their language and traditions, constant readiness to help the sick, infirm and offended earned Hieromonk Nestor the deep love and trust of his flock in the most remote corners of the vast Kamchatka region.

In the very first years of his stay in the Kamchatka region, having become familiar with the life and way of life of the population of the Kamchatka region, Hieromonk Nestor noted that there was no spiritual mission and no missionary work in Kamchatka. But throughout the Kamchadal villages there were parishes here and there. Also, among the settled and nomadic peoples: Tungus, Chukchi, Koryak, Aleut, etc., there was no work of spiritual and cultural education; there were no schools for the children of these peoples. The population lived the life of gullible children of nature who knew nothing in the world except their Kamchatka primitive life among the harsh nature. They were exploited in a cruel, predatory manner by all sorts of traders who came there, who got rich for tinsel, for next to nothing, or for vodka and alcohol, while the population became poor. The Americans and Japanese also caused severe damage to the population of the Kamchatka-Chukotka Territory. The Americans have been robbing the population with impunity for decades, imposing all sorts of rubbish brought from America on their schooners. The Japanese, taking advantage of the insignificant protection of pre-revolutionary times - two warships of the Sea of Okhotsk and the Great Ocean, easily and with impunity caught our fish, having hundreds of steamers and schooners in Russian waters.

All these abnormal and ugly phenomena forced Fr. Nestor to pay serious attention to them, and he came to Vladivostok to his boss, Archbishop Eusebius, with the hieromonk’s project for the creation of the Kamchatka Spiritual Mission and the Kamchatka Orthodox Brotherhood, providing for the charters of these institutions to carry out extensive educational and charitable work with the opening of the Main Council of the Brotherhood under the Diocesan Bishop with branches in center of Russia, i.e. in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev and other cities with the aim of bringing the Kamchatka outskirts closer to the business center of Russia, where the rulers of the state of their remote Kamchatka-Chukchi region were completely unaware and were not interested in it, and therefore gave it to anyone for theft.

At the beginning of 1910, having received the blessing of the ruling bishop, Fr. Nestor goes to St. Petersburg with a report on the creation of the Kamchatka Spiritual Mission and the Kamchatka Orthodox Brotherhood, where he encounters the callousness and even hostility of the Synod bureaucrats and its chief prosecutor. This does not stop the young hieromonk. At the cost of great effort, he manages to attract the broad Orthodox community and deputies of the State Duma to the idea of creating the Brotherhood. However, the personal participation of Sovereign Nikolai Alexandrovich, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna played a decisive role. All questions in the State Duma and requests for the release of funds for construction in the Kamchatka region were accepted and satisfied by government agencies, i.e. State Duma and State Council.

As a result of these efforts, on September 14, 1910, the Kamchatka Charitable Brotherhood was opened in Vladivostok, and soon its branches were opened in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kyiv and other cities of Russia. Actively helped the Brotherhood of St. equal to Nicholas (Kasatkin), Archbishop of Japan, Primt. Vel.kn. Elisaveta Feodorovna, schmch. Vladimir (Epiphany), Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia. The royal family provided effective assistance. The brotherhood was given a church, utensils, money, and benefits for the transportation of goods. Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich became the official Patron of the Brotherhood.

In 1910-1917 Dozens of churches, chapels, schools, shelters, hospitals, leper colonies and outpatient clinics were built in Kamchatka using the Brotherhood's funds.

The Kamchatka Brotherhood with its metropolitan branches enriched the Kamchatka Spiritual Mission not only with funds, but also with abundant supplies for missionary churches, schools, a shelter for children of nomadic peoples of the Kamchatka region and for leper colonies. Father Nestor, using fraternal funds, organized camp pharmacies, a community of sisters of mercy, built school buildings, shelters and churches in Vladivostok, on Sedanka and, in disassembled form, floated it with Russian workers to the Kamchatka region on voluntary fleet ships.

O. Nestor improved the colony of lepers, often visiting the sick to study the conditions of their existence, and visited a large colony of lepers in the Yamburg district, then St. Petersburg province.

Having studied the Tungus (Evenki) and Koryak languages, Hieromonk Nestor translated the Divine Liturgy, partly the Gospel, into local languages, compiled a dictionary and colloquial questions and answers in the Koryak language. He translated the Lord's Prayer "Our Father...", the commandments of Moses and the Beatitudes into the Tunguz language. For this work Fr. Nestor in 1913 was elevated to the rank of abbot.

After the outbreak of the 1914 war, Fr. Nestor organized and led the “First Aid Under Fire” sanitary detachment and personally carried the wounded from the battlefield, bandaged them, consoled them and organized their transfer to hospitals. He worked with the Life Dragoon Regiment in the cavalry, himself on horseback, and rushed with the squadron into a cavalry attack. For his mercy and heroism, Abbot Nestor was awarded the highest spiritual military award - the right to wear the pectoral cross on the St. George ribbon, as well as a number of military orders.

At the end of 1915 Fr. Nestor was recalled from the front, elevated to the rank of archimandrite and continued his pastoral mission in Kamchatka.

In 1916, by resolution of the Holy All-Russian Synod, he was elected the first independent bishop of Kamchatka and Petropavlovsk, and on October 16, 1916, Fr. At the age of 31, Nestor was consecrated bishop in Vladivostok by four archpastors: Archbishop Eusebius of Primorsky and Vladivostok, Archbishop Sergius of Japan, Archbishop Evgeniy of Blagoveshchensk and Bishop Pavel of Nikolsko-Ussuriysk.

In 1917-1918, Bishop Nestor participated in the All-Russian Local Council and the elections of Holy Patriarch Tikhon. After the October events in Moscow in 1917, he participated in the work of the commission to photograph and describe the damage to the Kremlin, chaired by the Holy Martyr Veniamin, Metropolitan of Petrograd, and with the blessing of the Council, published the book “Execution of the Moscow Kremlin,” for which he was soon arrested by the Bolsheviks and was imprisoned for more than a month. After the completion of the work of the Council, Bishop Nestor, with great difficulty, through Kyiv, Odessa, Crimea, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, India and China, reaches Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, where he continues his episcopal service. Soon, however, Vladyka is expelled from Kamchatka by the Bolsheviks.

Being a special confidant of St. Patriarch Tikhon in 1919-1922. The Bishop carries out a number of his assignments in Siberia and the Far East. In 1921, Bishop Nestor founded the Kamchatka metochion in Harbin (Manchuria), and later the House of Mercy and Diligence, which saved thousands of lives of adults and children caught in the cycle of civil war. He founded orphanages for orphans of Russian and Chinese nationalities, a shelter for elderly chronicles, blind and sick cripples, a shelter for young drug addicts, a shelter for the deaf and dumb, a home for the mentally ill (insane), schools with various applied arts: painting, icon painting, handicrafts, sewing and cutting, crafts: carpentry, weaving, shoemaking; free canteens for the poor, a free outpatient clinic, a dental office in the House of Mercy. Orphans studied in gymnasiums.

Being under the jurisdiction of the Synod Abroad, the Bishop has a hard time experiencing the turmoil of the 20s and 30s, consistently defending the ideas of the unity of the suffering Mother Church. During this period, Vladyka visits a number of countries in Europe and Asia, meeting with hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad, heads of a number of local Orthodox and non-Orthodox Churches. He makes pilgrimages to the Holy Land several times.

In 1933, Bishop Nestor was elevated to the rank of archbishop.

In 1938, Archbishop Nestor visited India, where he was invited by the Hindu Catholicos Patriarch Mar-Basilius, who headed the Christian church, which dates back to the first century, from the Apostle Thomas, who preached the teachings of Christ in India and even reached China with his preaching. Six hundred thousand of these Christians, led by their Patriarch, metropolitans and the entire Patriarchate, desired to reunite with our Russian Orthodox Church, which, having studied, was considered among all Christian churches to be infallibly successive from Apostolic times, preserving the purity of Christ’s teaching. During the period of the Arian heresy, these Jacobite Christians were subjected to the widespread false teaching of Arius, but over time this heresy was completely eliminated. Their Divine Liturgy is celebrated by St. Apostle James, the first Bishop of Jerusalem.

Archbishop Nestor became acquainted with and studied them and the church-dogmatic establishment of the Church of these Christians in India. In turn, Archbishop Nestor brought them in English the regulations and canonical rules of the Ecumenical Councils for familiarization, because representatives of their hierarchy did not participate in the last four Ecumenical Councils. But there was no strictly canonical deviation in the life of their churches, and at the same time, the discipline and firmness of their faith is a good example for Christians. Formally, after meetings of Archbishop Nestor with representatives of their Church, reunification with the Russian Church was agreed upon, but the official church reunification was scheduled for 1939, in order by that time to prepare for the consecration as bishop for the Hindu Orthodox Church of our Russian Archimandrite Andronik, who lived in India and laid a good start to their reunification with our Russian Orthodox Church. Father Archimandrite Andronik (Elpidinsky), a deep ascetic and ascetic, enjoyed great authority among Hindu Christians, who themselves are distinguished by their highly moral ascetic life. But the outbreak of war between Japan and England blocked the path to India and contact with the Hindu Christian Church was lost for many years. In any case, the good beginning and relationship between these two churches brought them closer and united in a single faith in Christ the Savior.

It is worth noting the extremely significant stay of Archbishop Nestor in Ceylon, through which he lay on his way to India. In Ceylon, the bishop became seriously ill with kidney inflammation and was admitted to the dark-skinned Singaloz hospital. He gives the best review of the care and concern of all patients, and in particular of the Bishop, worthy of praise and gratitude to the entire medical staff of the hospital, which is placed at a first-class level without distinction of nationality, religion or financial status of the sick.

During the month-long stay of the Bishop in the hospital, the Bishop’s secretary, Archimandrite Nathanael, visited him daily.

One day he came to inform the bishop that an old priest who called himself an “independent Catholic” wanted to come to him. The Bishop had never heard of the existence of such Catholics before. He knew that there were only Old Catholics. With the permission of the senior doctor, Vladyka Nestor received this unknown Catholic, wondering what he wanted from him. He was an old man of 80 years old, priest Vasily Alvarets - Portuguese. He, having learned from local newspapers about the arrival of the Russian Orthodox archbishop at a meeting with his flock, came to ask to receive as a free gift his church with the entire huge estate, with palm, coconut, banana and other tropical fruits - a grove and with a clergy house, in a word all buildings with all movable property, the entire estate for which the document is presented. Father Alvarets told the bishop the reason for this gift with tears. The Portuguese Catholics were the first in Ceylon to establish a Catholic Christian church with the blessing of the Vatican. Uncle o. Vasily Alvarez was a bishop in Ceylon and 18 parishes with churches were opened by him. Many Singalese were converted to Catholicism by priests. Peaceful life was not disturbed for a long time, but on the instructions of the pope, the Jesuits arrived in Ceylon with their bishop from Rome and began to expel the Portuguese priests, trying to take away the parishes. There was a struggle. The Portuguese did not yield. As a result, the Jesuits, with their cruel methods, began to gradually poison and take the lives of the Portuguese priests using all sorts of measures. Then the latter declared themselves “independent Catholics” from the Vatican and the Pope. The Portuguese bishop, the founder of the Ceylon Catholic Church, and all the priests were also killed and poisoned in various ways. Only one old man, Alvarets, remained alive, who said that they had repeatedly tried to poison him and take away his last parish by all means. For example, taking advantage of the absence of him and the servants of his house, the Jesuits, sneaking into his estate, added poison to the cooked boiled rice for breakfast. Father Vasily, having started to eat rice, noticed in time that the rice below had a greenish color. Then he and his servant gave the dog this rice and the dog, having eaten it, soon died. “I’m tired of these criminal Jesuits,” Father Vasily said to Bishop Nestor, “my parishioners and we, having learned about your arrival, were tired and decided to turn to you through me, Russian bishop, with a tearful request to accept our church and estate as a gift.” free of charge, because we do not want to leave the Jesuits. True, I have never seen a Russian bishop to this day, nor a single Russian priest, but I have heard a lot that in the Russian Church there are no Jesuits, there are no such Christ-sellers-murderers as there are in Vatican. I am already old and will soon pass into eternity, but I cannot allow such a sin, to let our church and my flock be desecrated. We all ask you, Vladyka, to take us all under your archpastoral protection. Let us go to your services and we will study your Orthodoxy. And when we understand, we are ready to be your spiritual children, your flock.”

Archbishop Nestor replied that he was in the hospital and did not know whether he would recover. If he recovers, he will visit Father Alvarets, get to know the whole matter more closely, and then the matter will be decided by general advice and agreement, and Bishop Nestor thanked him for his trust and wished him peace. Upon leaving the hospital, Bishop Nestor, accompanied by his secretary, a Sinhalese priest of the Anglican Church, with whom the Bishop had temporary shelter, and the Sinhalese lawyer Abiratni, visited Fr. Vasily Alvarets, having examined the church and estates, the house, documents, they went to meet the convincing request of Fr. Alvarez, accept this entire gift. They drew up a deed of gratuitous gift, signed by both parties and submitted it to the District Court of Ceylon, which soon confirmed Archbishop Nestor as the full legal owner of the temple, the house and the entire estate. Alvarez's joy was indescribable. He sighed lightly and asked to live out his life under the now auspices of our Russian Orthodox Church.

On the day of the venerable chronicler Nestor and the torment. Nestor of Thessalonica (the patron saint of the bishop) in the morning, Archbishop Nestor consecrated his temple and served the first Divine Liturgy in the former church. All the “independent Catholics”, Orthodox Greeks and four Russians who then lived in Ceylon prayed.

Thus occurred the unexpected triumph of our Russian Orthodoxy, which never encroached upon Catholicism.

When Vladyka Nestor went to Harbin to his flock and left his archimandrite as rector, soon the Jesuits, with the help of bribed people, began to cause trouble for Father Alvarets, Father Nathanael, they organized all kinds of obstructions, broke the gates, threw stones, and so on. Archbishop Nestor was put on trial as an illegal usurper of Vatican property. Bishop Nestor, by telegraph from Harbin, authorized three persons to conduct the case in court. Soon the court recognized Archbishop Nestor as the legal owner. But the outbreak of war between Japan and England and America blocked communications with Ceylon and Archbishop Nestor remained in the dark about the further situation of the temple and the estate.

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the bishopric, he was awarded a diamond cross on his hood.

In 1945, Archbishop Nestor greeted the victorious Soviet Army with greetings from the believers of the city of Harbin. In the same year, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy of Moscow and All Rus' appointed him administrator of the Harbin diocese, and in 1946 he was elevated to the rank of Metropolitan of Harbin and Manchuria, Exarch for East Asia.

On June 14, 1948, he was arrested in Harbin just before leaving for Moscow to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the autocephaly of the Russian Church. The Soviet court sentenced him to 8 years in prison. He is accused of participating in the transfer of the relics of St. prpmch. Elizabeth, the organization of the Zemsky Sobor in Vladivostok in 1922, the publication of the book “Execution of the Moscow Kremlin”, the construction of the Chapel of the Crowned Martyrs, etc. He was in a concentration camp in the village of Yavas (Mordovia).

After his release in 1956, Vladyka was appointed Metropolitan of Novosibirsk and Barnaul.

In the last years of his life, Vladyka traveled a lot around the diocese, performed divine services, preached the word of God, and protested against the closure of churches by the atheistic authorities.

Metropolitan Nestor died on November 4, 1962. He was buried in the fence of the Church of the Patriarchal Compound of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra in Peredelkino.

The Bishop especially revered the Holy Dormition Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. The first visit in 1905 made an indelible impression on him and predetermined the adoption of the monastic name - Nestor. In subsequent years (in 1909-1918 and after 1956), Vladyka visited the Lavra many times and prayed at its shrines. In the difficult time preceding its closure, Vladyka made special trips to the Lavra several times to console its governor and brethren and strengthen their confidence in the inevitability of the victory of the Faith of Christ.

In - gg. Dozens of churches, chapels, schools, shelters, hospitals, leper colonies and outpatient clinics were built in Kamchatka using the Brotherhood's funds.

Metropolitan Nestor died on November 4. He was buried in the fence of the Church of the Patriarchal Compound of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra in Peredelkino.

From the Vladyka’s memoirs it is known that on the day of departure the mother of Fr. She gave Nestor the Gospel. On its flyleaf is the date “June 2, 1907.”

Popovka village, Genicheskiy district, Kherson region - December 31, Zharki village, Yuryevetsky district, Ivanovo region) - hieromonk of the Russian Orthodox Church, rector of the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin in the village of Zharki.

Biography

Graduated from school and college. In 1978-1980 he served in the army.

In 1986, young Nikolai leaves for Pochaev to look after his grandfather, a priest, Fr. Vyacheslav, who lived there in retirement. There he passed his first monastic obediences, there he feels the special prayerful help of his second grandfather, the Pochaev monk Fr. Svyatopolk.

The same year he became the headman of the church in the village of Zharki, Ivanovo region. Once in this corner of the Ivanovo diocese, he said: “If I am ever ordained, I will only ask to go to this church, there is such grace there. An extraordinary icon, a miraculous image of the Kazan Queen of Heaven, the graves of two blessed ones martyred by the Bolsheviks.”

In October 1988, in the Resurrection Cathedral in the city of Shui, he was ordained to the rank of deacon. After the sacrament, he served there for several days.

On May 31, 1989, Deacon Nikolai Savchuk was tonsured a monk with the name Nestor in honor of Nestor the Chronicler.

On September 3, 1989, he was ordained hieromonk and assigned to the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in the village of Zharki.

Father Nestor led an ascetic life, he served exceptionally, and conducted services according to the full rank. The evening party lasted 5 hours in Zharki. Soon deacon Fr. comes to Father Nestor. Victor. The temple is being restored and painted.

In the fall of 1992, Fr. Nestor travels for missionary and peacekeeping purposes to Abkhazia. He preaches, serves, confesses a lot.

In the spring of 1993, at the temple where Fr. Nestor was attacked and icons were stolen. Through enormous efforts on the part of Fr. Nestor's kidnappers were caught and arrested. In the summer of the same year they try to kill him, but Nestor miraculously manages to escape. The criminals are detained again - the same gang.

Father Nestor independently organizes Orthodox bookstores at railway stations.

U o. Nestor had a desire to organize a home for the disabled at the church, so in the winter of 1993 he went to Moscow. Before leaving, he said that he felt in his last days, that he would soon die. He returned on December 30, very joyful, saying that he was able to get money and now he could build the house he wanted.

On the morning of January 1, 1994, to a local policeman with a statement about the murder of Fr. Nestor is approached by his driver. The priest’s body was found lying in his cell in front of a large wooden cross.

They buried Fr. On the fifth day of Nestor, not the slightest smell of decay emanated from his body. His grave is located in front of the altar of the temple, where he served for four years. The cassock, soaked in the blood of the priest, was blessed by Bishop Ambrose to be kept under the throne of the Zharkinsky temple.

, Kherson region - December 31, village of Zharki, Yuryevetsky district, Ivanovo region) - hieromonk of the Russian Orthodox Church, rector of the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in the village of Zharki.

Biography

Graduated from school and college. In 1978-1980 he served in the army.

In October 1988, in the Resurrection Cathedral in the city of Shui, he was ordained to the rank of deacon. After the sacrament, he served there for several days.

On May 31, 1989, Deacon Nikolai Savchuk was tonsured a monk with the name Nestor in honor of Nestor the Chronicler.

On September 3, 1989, he was ordained hieromonk and assigned to the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in the village of Zharki.

In the fall of 1992, Fr. Nestor travels for missionary and peacekeeping purposes to Abkhazia. He preaches, serves, confesses a lot.

Father Nestor independently organizes Orthodox bookstores at railway stations.

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Excerpt characterizing Nestor (Savchuk)

Prince Andrei looked at Timokhin, who looked at his commander in fear and bewilderment. In contrast to his previous restrained silence, Prince Andrei now seemed agitated. He apparently could not resist expressing those thoughts that unexpectedly came to him.
– The battle will be won by the one who is determined to win it. Why did we lose the battle at Austerlitz? Our loss was almost equal to that of the French, but we told ourselves very early that we had lost the battle - and we lost. And we said this because we had no need to fight there: we wanted to leave the battlefield as quickly as possible. “If you lose, then run away!” - we ran. If we hadn’t said this until the evening, God knows what would have happened. And tomorrow we won’t say this. You say: our position, the left flank is weak, the right flank is stretched,” he continued, “all this is nonsense, there is none of this.” What do we have in store for tomorrow? A hundred million of the most varied contingencies that will be decided instantly by the fact that they or ours ran or will run, that they will kill this one, they will kill the other; and what is being done now is all fun. The fact is that those with whom you traveled in position not only do not contribute to the general course of affairs, but interfere with it. They are busy only with their own small interests.
- At such a moment? - Pierre said reproachfully.
“At such a moment,” repeated Prince Andrei, “for them it is only such a moment in which they can dig under the enemy and get an extra cross or ribbon.” For me, for tomorrow this is this: a hundred thousand Russian and a hundred thousand French troops came together to fight, and the fact is that these two hundred thousand are fighting, and whoever fights angrier and feels less sorry for himself will win. And if you want, I’ll tell you that, no matter what it is, no matter what is confused up there, we will win the battle tomorrow. Tomorrow, no matter what, we will win the battle!
“Here, your Excellency, the truth, the true truth,” said Timokhin. - Why feel sorry for yourself now! The soldiers in my battalion, would you believe it, didn’t drink vodka: it’s not such a day, they say. - Everyone was silent.
The officers stood up. Prince Andrei went out with them outside the barn, giving the last orders to the adjutant. When the officers left, Pierre approached Prince Andrei and was just about to start a conversation when the hooves of three horses clattered along the road not far from the barn, and, looking in this direction, Prince Andrei recognized Wolzogen and Clausewitz, accompanied by a Cossack. They drove close, continuing to talk, and Pierre and Andrey involuntarily heard the following phrases:
– Der Krieg muss im Raum verlegt werden. Der Ansicht kann ich nicht genug Preis geben, [War must be transferred to space. I cannot praise this view enough (German)] - said one.
“O ja,” said another voice, “da der Zweck ist nur den Feind zu schwachen, so kann man gewiss nicht den Verlust der Privatpersonen in Achtung nehmen.” [Oh yes, since the goal is to weaken the enemy, the losses of private individuals cannot be taken into account]
“O ja, [Oh yes (German)],” confirmed the first voice.
“Yes, im Raum verlegen, [transfer into space (German)],” Prince Andrei repeated, snorting angrily through his nose, when they passed. – Im Raum then [In space (German)] I still have a father, a son, and a sister in Bald Mountains. He doesn't care. This is what I told you - these German gentlemen will not win the battle tomorrow, but will only spoil how much their strength will be, because in his German head there are only reasonings that are not worth a damn, and in his heart there is nothing that is only and what is needed for tomorrow is what is in Timokhin. They gave all of Europe to him and came to teach us - glorious teachers! – his voice squealed again.

This article is a memory of a friend in the world, Nikolai Savchuk, a young priest, hieromonk, rector of a temple, lost in the very center of Russia, in places of amazing, tender beauty, who was killed with indescribable cruelty under circumstances that have not yet been fully clarified, and, quite possibly, will remain so forever. His second, monastic name is Nestor.

I am holding in my hands a photograph of him, which was taken on one of the ridges of the Caucasus, on the border of the Krasnodar Territory, in the autumn snowfall, when we were moving towards Abkhazia, where a war was then going on - unpredictable and absolutely merciless.

It was a peacekeeping trip. No, not an official diplomatic one, but simply a personal peacekeeping initiative of two Russian priests. Yes, there are such initiatives.

Imagine that you got together and went at your own expense and at your own risk to reconcile Chechen militants and Russian special forces, or Albanians and Serbs, or Jews and Palestinians, or Ossetians and Georgians, or... or....

You will say that this is naive, and even impossible.

Have you tried?

And he tried. Ideas that were so crazy from the point of view of the majority came to his mind...

MURDER

A very beautiful temple, standing in a remote place, was robbed three times - it preserved ancient icons of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in good condition. The tragedy of the criminal attack on churches and icons in the 90s is not even approximately realized by us.

It is clear that this was a reflection of hidden, sad processes, a sign of the times. And, perhaps, the tragic story of the death of a young man, understandable and psychologically recognizable, will help overcome our mournful insensibility. This is a very important topic... And yet this is not what the story is about.

No, this is not a sad or sentimental story. This is the story of a warrior who simply defended his temple. Like no one else, he understood that a narrow path leads to salvation, and he certainly walked it to the very end.

I knew him well and can prove that Nestor was a man of desperate, boyish courage. I saw him during the Abkhaz-Georgian war, at the famous Georgian school near the Gumista River, through which a Georgian sniper was constantly shooting. But the narrowness and uniqueness of his, Nestor’s, path is that in his Russian village, in a very specific battle, he, a monk, could not harm anyone. He couldn't hit anyone.

After the first robbery, he took the most cherished, valuable icons to his cell, clearly realizing that if they had broken into the temple before, now they would come to his house. And so it happened.

He was steaming in the bathhouse when three unknown people appeared in the church yard. Fortunately, he saw them first, and managed to lock himself in the house and tried to call the police on the radio, but no one answered.

And those three found a log, slammed it into the window frame and were already climbing into the house, clearly knowing that it was there that the Mother of God and the Savior were there, the two most ancient icons for which they had come. In their understanding, this is one thousand dollars. (This, let us remind ourselves, is happening in the poorest region and at a time in Russian history when people are receiving $10 a month.)

Having no idea how to stop them, Nestor even fired a rocket launcher over their heads. They jumped back, but then climbed up again. The young priest not so long ago (how old was he) served in an airborne reconnaissance company, but what could he do? Don’t hit him on the head with an iron and don’t shoot him in the face to kill him... I think that he would inevitably have been killed then, but he knocked out the glass in the next room with his hands and jumped out, as if he were in his underwear, badly cut, covered in blood.

The icons have disappeared.

Having bandaged his hands in a nearby village house, changed clothes and pretending to be drunk, Nestor then walked around the neighborhood and finally found a car that was waiting for those three. They, as it turned out later, were hiding in the forest and waiting. Nestor even managed to write down the car number. A little later, together with the village police, he set up an ambush on the road. The criminals broke through with shooting. A couple of hours later they were caught in another place. But they had already managed to hand over the icons to the “customers”. Those to whom they gave the icons were also caught, but again there were no icons. They left along the chain. Most likely, they are now in Europe, or maybe in America.

His Holiness Patriarch Alexy himself then awarded Nestor a cross for bravery. But courage comes in different forms. No less valuable icons still remained in the house. Nestor waited every hour for them to come for them. The thought exhausted him. He was still very young. It’s easier to be brave in the heat of battle, but it’s hard to get used to the constant thought of mortal danger...

He was tired and probably began to make mistakes. The word “sin” translated from Greek means mistake, failure. Or maybe it’s not a monk’s job to show courage when detaining bandits. In such situations, the village opera has to attract help from anyone, including local tough guys who have crossed the line within themselves. And there is an unwritten rule according to which a monk should not allow an unbeliever to get close to him.

No one will know how much he changed his mind then. I am far from being superstitious about the circumstances of his death. But, nevertheless, Nestor was killed at thirty-three years old and it happened on Friday. Not long before this, Nestor’s friends were gathering in the house, there were 13 of them and the killer was among them...

FIFTEEN YEARS WAR

Circumstances were such that, being on the other side of Russia, I still managed to come and photograph the people gathered for the funeral. And during that trip to the very first of the newest Caucasian wars, the Abkhazian war, I filmed him under fire in the Lower Eschers, and, most importantly, I filmed his sermon to the Georgian prisoners from Mkhidrioni, to whom, between us, a lot could be presented then .

One of them seemed to Nestor to be repentant. His eighty-year-old mother was waiting for him at home, and he was afraid that she would die without waiting. Nestor suddenly simply asked the Abkhaz authorities to let him go. Crazy idea. I clearly understood that in the ears of the Abkhazians this was, to put it mildly, tactlessness. It sounded so naive in my ears then, almost stupid...

But, to my great surprise, the Abkhazians did it. Who knows, maybe now the Georgian he saved will read these lines. After all, Nestor was a very simple, perhaps not so educated, but a very sincere person. And truly a believer. This was perhaps his main talent. Simple sincerity had a great effect on people.

Then in the prisoner of war camp in Abkhazia, in Gudauta in 1992, he was excited, we had returned from the front line half an hour ago, and he spoke very well. It was as if he was addressing his future killer.

When, almost 16 years later, in August 2008, with the usual delay, we received news of the attack on Tskhinvali, without hesitation, we went to film the chronicle. I, remembering that experience with Nestor, also invited a priest, Father Victor, with me. It was a long trip. Together with the Russian troops, we were only 30 km short of reaching Tbilisi.

At the same time, I sent a second film crew to Sukhumi to the Koman Monastery in the Kodori Gorge... It was clearly clear that a certain cycle had ended and the 1992 war in Abkhazia and the events of 08.08.08 One war, one event, just lasting 15 years. And perhaps it is Nestor’s personality and his tragic fate that will allow us to comprehend this event.

Already a month or two after August, the topic of Tskhinvali, of course, was not of interest to the front pages and prime time, the world works that way, but after 4 years did we understand what happened? What was it!?. Were we able to comprehend what happened? If not, “if there is no psychoanalysis of a nation, then a neurosis of continental proportions is inevitable and war is only one of its symptoms, simply the most noticeable and literary described. If not, then we are doomed to endless movement in a circle, returning time after time to the palace of shadows,” said philosopher Mirab Mamardashvili.

The Hall of Shadows is actually hell. I wouldn't want to go back there. And, therefore, we need to think through to the end so that the Tskhinvali and Sukhumi situation does not repeat itself.

What was it!? Why did the long and painful war in Iraq change almost nothing in the world, but the 7 days of the Ossetian war simply turned it upside down, created a different balance of power, revealed a different Russia?

In 1992, we filmed a story in Abkhazia together with Nestor during that very first Georgian invasion, at the very height of events, when the front line was still along Gumista, and not along Rioni. Everything was ambiguous, the fate of Abkhazia hung in the balance. It seems to us that Abkhazia 1992 and Ossetia 2008 are simply parts, milestones of one event, one play. August in Tskhinvali was its finale and now is the time for the epilogue. Therefore, short references to the Abkhaz events are probably logical. Moreover, as is known in the same August last year, Georgian commanders planned an attack on Abkhazia, but Tskhinvali did not surrender, took the blow on itself and, fortunately, it did not come to Sukhumi .

However, we still haven’t comprehended Abkhazia in 1992-93. In the early 90s, we in Russia had no time for this. Those few who were there, who began to understand the secret springs and nature of events, and even predicted the current atrocity... never spoke out, remained silent on the air, kept it to themselves, as a figure of speech. They didn’t do this, at least in memory of their fallen friends. Some were afraid, and others were too lazy to publish their thoughts. They remained an unfinished manuscript, an unedited film. But everything happened. And the figure of speech 16 years later was embodied in a terrible massacre in Tskhinvali.

CRACK

The main events of the century usually go unnoticed. One of them occurred three days before the 1992 invasion of Abkhazia. All Georgian priests went on vacation and left at the same time. If only one priest did this, it is humanly understandable and forgivable, a person is weak, not everyone is born a hero. But if everything is done at once, it means something completely different. This means that there was a command from above that they could not fail to carry out. There are no complaints about these Georgian priests. But this event, what sadness, still happened, and since the Georgians subsequently lost the war, they never returned to their churches and to their flock. Moreover, this flock was 90% Georgian (the Abkhazians did not visit churches very much before that war, but now it’s a different matter). And innumerable disasters and almost complete exodus awaited her. And there was no one to console them or even sing the funeral service. I think, this has not happened in the entire history of the Orthodox Church, at least in the last thousand years. And this, alas, is our common defeat, this is the defeat of the entire Orthodox world, not just the Georgian one.

And despite the fact that in those distant days, the Georgians, without delay, quickly and energetically landed troops from the sea, brought more than 150 armored vehicles into battle (and this is for tiny Abkhazia...). Despite the fact that the Mkhidrionites and the National Guardsmen (normal distinct bandits from the personal armies of the then Georgian ministers Iosiliani and Ketovani, both, by the way, thieves in law) immediately before the hostilities received state deeds for the land that they still had to occupy. Despite the fact that in the occupied territory they immediately began to issue weapons to the Georgian population, diligently provoking (what vileness!) national massacres and ethnic cleansing on both sides, despite all this, they could not win in Abkhazia, because there was no rightness, because their shepherds went on vacation three days before the end of the world.

Maybe that’s why 15 years later, having prepared for so long and consistently, they were unable to win in Ossetia. They wanted to be an empire in the Caucasus, but apparently empires are created differently.

This summer vacation of priests in Abkhazia in 1992 is a crack in universal Orthodoxy. And with a dark, frightening rustle, this crack opened up and NATO ships and Georgian missile boats entered it heading towards Novorossiysk, “zombie” soldiers with M-16 automatic rifles on the streets of a touchingly small Ossetian city, undaunted and unkillable until the chemical valor ends, the effect of a psychotropic injection... And an unexpected call from a mobile phone in the pocket of a killed Georgian commando, an Ossetian militia takes it... in the receiver there is a female voice from somewhere in Zugdidi or Kabuleti: “Mamuka, is that you, son?” “No, dear, it’s not Mamuka, he’s dead.” Lord, what a pain! And women and children in a cramped Tskhinvali basement without water, food or light for three days and three nights. And you have to go to a hastily made toilet and you can’t go out into the world: those who went out were put against the wall and shot, regardless of age and gender.

How everything turns out to be hanging by a thread, and how easy it is to return to a pre-Christian state. Stone Age, concrete cave, darkness and uncleanness, hunger, thirst and fear. But there is a mobile phone, and it works and you can call a friend in Russia or Georgia. And the mother can call her son to war. To the next world. God save us!

The city suddenly dropped several meters above sea level. “These Georgians put us... in the basements.” And a lot more went into that crack.

But imagine that at this very time, in this most important place, a Russian village Orthodox priest, seemingly quite by accident, appears and he calls on people not to become bitter, not to curse, to remain human, to remain within the boundaries of Orthodox behavior. He baptizes in war, performs funeral services for the dead, and consoles mothers. He is confessing a soldier, the one who killed a man in battle yesterday... It seems that he is doing the simplest thing that an ordinary priest should do. It just so happened that, unlike those clerics, he did not go on vacation, but rather asked his dean for leave, in the most remote area of the poorest subject of the Russian Federation. I took a leave of absence and went to war.

Believe me, he was definitely the first representative of Russia and Orthodoxy at that moment on that day. Later, days, months, years later, others came. But at that moment he was alone.

AMERICAN SAINT

Years go by, a lot is forgotten in the bustle, it’s clear that the memory of a friend has faded a little, but not so long ago, a few years ago, Nestor returned and reminded of himself. Moreover, he “returned” in a very roundabout way, from America, where the magazine “Russian Pilgrim” is published. I was infinitely surprised to see his face on the cover, digitized from a home movie I made for Nestor's family and friends, immediately after his death. In one of the American Orthodox churches he was canonized. We went there and met with these American Orthodox theologians. And it became clearly visible that there, in America, he was truly sincerely perceived as a saint, and you can also see with some frightening clarity how a person so familiar to you suddenly becomes an icon, an image.

If God willing, I make a film about all this, then it will be a film about what the word “saint” means and whether it applies to Father Nestor... I know that he was a young, hot-blooded man, in some sense very passionate. Or maybe it’s all really washed away in blood. He once told me that the Kingdom of Heaven cannot be won “by points,” only “outright.”

But I began to feel more keenly the living human destiny, pain, pity, fearlessness that stands behind all the other lives of Russian saints and new martyrs.

After the death of Father Nestor, nothing was destroyed in the parish. His deacon became a priest in one village. The novice and the student are in the other. In the parish, Nestor is revered as a martyr, and the pure hearts of Russian village grandmothers cannot be deceived. There is no hopelessness in this story. Nestor clearly imagined his future. Shortly before his death, he chose a place for his grave behind the temple, immediately behind the altar. Everything is in place in his destiny.

Metropolitan Nestor of Kamchatka missionary. Defender of holy icons, passion-bearer Nestor Murdered hieromonk Nestor

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