Rasputin Grigory Efimovich was born on January 9 (21), 1869 in a simple family of peasants in the village of Pokrovskoye located in the Tyumen district. His father was the coachman Efim Rasputin, his mother’s name was Anna Rasputina. As a child, Rasputin was a weak child and was often sick. He received no education and could not read or write.
In 1893 he made pilgrimages: he traveled to the holy places of Russia, was in the Middle East, on the Greek Mount Athos, then visited Jerusalem. He met with various spiritual people, monks. After visiting the Verkhoturye Monastery, he became a religious person.
In 1890 he married Praskovya Fedorovna. Later they had three children: Matryona, Varvara and Dimitry. Only Matryona survived; the other two children died soon after birth.
In 1903 he moved to St. Petersburg and a year later the fame of an “old man” and a “man of God” was assigned to him. Many considered him a saint, and some cited examples of his extreme cruelty.
In 1905, the “man of God” met Emperor Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra Fedorovna. They were looking for help for their son, who was sick. Rasputin soon gained the trust of Alexandra Feodorovna, curing the boy of hemophilia.
Meanwhile, various politicians and journalists used Rasputin's connection with the family of Nicholas II to undermine the dynasty's trust and push for reforms. In 1915, Rasputin was Alexandra Feodorovna's closest advisor. Government officials tried to warn her that Rasputin's undue influence was unjustified, but she continued to defend him.
On the night of December 29, 1916, Prince Dmitry Pavlovich and F. Yusupov called Rasputin to Yusupov’s house. They fed him cakes laced with cyanide and gave him poisoned wine. But the poison had no effect on Rasputin. The confused conspirators shot Rasputin, then wrapped him in a carpet and threw him into the Neva, where he was discovered three days later.
About the main years of life for 6th grade
Biography of Rasputin Grigory about the main thing
As far as we know, the healer of the royal family, Grigory Efremovich Rasputin, was born in the village of Pokrovskoye on January 9 (21), 1869. His parents Anna and Efim Rasputin were simple peasants, and Grigory became the fourth child in the family and the only one who survived. WITH early childhood, due to very poor health, the seer withdrew into himself and fell into religion, which would later affect his fate. Having matured silently, Gregory almost died from the illness that seized him, but he managed to overcome the illness, as he later stated, he was saved by the Mother of God. From that moment on, he devoted himself entirely to studying the Gospel; despite the fact that he was illiterate, he memorized prayers. At the same time, his gift for insight awakens.
At the age of 18, Gregory makes his first pilgrimage, but refuses to take the monastic vow. He decides to visit sacred places Having visited Jerusalem and Mount Athos, he makes many acquaintances with spiritual people.
Upon his arrival in the capital in 1903, Gregory already had fame as a person with a prophetic gift. In the capital, Bishop Sergius introduces him to Archimandrite Feofan, who was the spiritual mentor of the royal family.
Rasputin meets the emperor, being already famous in society as a man of God or an Elder. Gregory makes such an impression on Nicholas II that he is ready to talk with the seer for hours and days on end, which is how he earns enormous influence on the royal family. He deserves special authority from the Tsar’s wife Alexandra Feodorovna after he helps with the treatment of young Alexei, who is sick with hemophilia.
There is an opinion that for the sovereign the man of God was not only a healer, but also the main adviser, to whose opinion Nicholas II unconditionally listened. According to statements, Gregory easily read people and could see all their insidious thoughts. In addition to everything, Rasputin was a fierce opponent of Russia's entry into the world war, declaring that this would not end well for the empire, since it would only bring suffering for the people and revolution. But this protest was not part of the plans of the conspirators in favor of war, who finally decided to get rid of the seer by any means.
All attempts to crush Rasputin spiritually failed miserably. The Tsar categorically refused to listen to statements about the depraved life, witchcraft, and drunken antics of the Elder. Nicholas II believed in Gregory and trusted him in everything, continuing to discuss issues of state affairs with him. All this led to the emergence of an “anti-Rasputin” conspiracy, the main persons of which were princes Yusupov, Purishkevich and the great Nicholas the Younger, who later became the commander-in-chief of the empire.
The first attempt to kill the healer failed miserably; he was only wounded by Guseva Khionia when Grigory was in the village of Pokrovskoye. Although the wound turned out to be serious, Gregory, being on the brink, continued to influence the king and turn him against the war, which was categorically not according to the plan of the conspirators. Therefore, ill-wishers decided to bring the matter to completion.
On December 29, 1916, while in the palace of Prince Yusupov, Grigory Efremovich was poisoned potassium cyanide, however, the poison added to the treats did not produce the desired effect on the seer. Therefore, the conspirators decided to shoot him. Several shots were fired into the Elder’s back, after which he continued to fight for his life and tried to escape from the killers. Rasputin was caught up only on the Petrovsky Bridge, when the healer was unable to move further. After a prolonged beating, Gregory was tied up and thrown into the cold water of the Neva. They say the healer died after several hours in cold water.
Interesting facts and dates from life
.CHAPTER 1.
Go, wander...
Holy Righteous Simeon of Verkhoturye
appeared to Rasputin in a dream and said:
“Gregory, go, travel and save people.”
Grigory Efimovich Rasputin was born in the Ural village of Pokrovsky, Tyumen district, Tobolsk province, on January 9, 1869. The next day, in memory of St. Gregory of Nyssa, the baby was baptized with the name Gregory, which means “awake.” His parents, Efim Yakovlevich and Anna Vasilievna, already had four children, but they all died in early age. Thus, Grisha Rasputin grew up as the only child in the family. He was in poor health. He preferred solitude to playing with his peers, and this, in turn, set him up for prayer. Grisha’s mother, frightened by his isolation and detachment, tried to push her son to join his peers. But he said the same thing: “I don’t need any friends. I have God” (1).
In addition to the Lord, Grisha was very fond of His Mother, the Most Holy Theotokos, and often called upon her in his childhood prayers. One day he became seriously ill and was close to death. And so, during a severe fever, Grisha saw a tall, beautiful Woman in a dark monastic habit next to his bed, quietly calming him and promising a speedy healing. And he suddenly became healthy.
As Rasputin’s daughter Matryona wrote: “All the family subsequently had no doubt that the Mother of God had healed him - so great was Gregory’s prayerful love for the Queen of Heaven” (2).
From the age of fourteen, Gregory began to deeply comprehend the Gospel. Not being able to read, he memorized the Gospel texts that he heard at church services. Subsequently, he recalled that the words of the Holy Scripture made an indelible impression on him. Once, having heard that “The Kingdom of God is within you,” the youth Gregory rushed into the forest because he realized these words so deeply that something inexplicable began to happen to him. Rasputin later said that it was then, in the forest, during prayer, that he felt God. “As soon as he realized this, peace came over him. He saw the light... He prayed at that moment with such fervor as never before in his life.” (3) .
From then on, Gregory showed the gift of foresight. “He could sit near the stove and suddenly say: “He’s coming.” stranger" And indeed a stranger knocked on the door in search of work or a piece of bread... The guest was seated at the table next to him... Almost every evening in their house dinner was shared with strangers” (4). In his youth, Gregory was subjected to slander from the outside. The Lord seemed to be preparing him for humility and patience, so that he could worthily endure the lies and slander that would fall on him in the future.
“I had a lot of sorrows,” Rasputin recalled, “where any mistake was made, as if like me, but I had nothing to do with it. In the artels he endured various ridicule. He plowed hard and slept little, but still in his heart he thought about how to find something, how people were saved” (5).
These thoughts were noted Holy Mother of God. Rasputin’s daughter, Matryona, wrote: “One day my father was plowing and suddenly felt that the light that was always present in him was growing. He fell to his knees. Before him was a vision: the image of the Kazan Mother of God. Only when the vision disappeared did pain pierce the father. It turned out that his knees rested on sharp stones, and the blood from the cuts flowed straight onto the ground” (6).
Since then, he began to visit nearby monasteries. Changed my lifestyle. He stopped eating meat, gave up the habit of smoking and drinking wine, and began to pray fervently. “I dug a cave in my stable and prayed there for two weeks. After some time, he went wandering again. Saint Simeon of Verkhoturye commanded him to do this. He appeared to him in a dream and said: “Gregory, go, wander and save people” (7).
And Rasputin went as a pilgrim on a pilgrimage 500 miles to the Siberian settlement of Verkhoturye to venerate the righteous Simeon who appeared to him, whose relics rested in the Verkhoturye St. Nicholas Monastery.
In this monastery he found the spirit-bearing elders - monk Adrian, the founder of the Kyrtom monastery and schema-monk Elijah, who were conducting last years of his ascetic life. But Elder Macarius of Verkhoturye, who became his spiritual mentor, had a special influence on Rasputin. This old man lived in the forest, in the Oktaysky monastery. At first he carried out obedience on the farm of the Verkhoturye Monastery and was a shepherd. And he did not stop praying to the Lord. Contemporaries described his prayerful boldness as follows: “ When early in the morning he prays with raised hands, the entire herd of cows freezes, listening to his prayer. Then he marks it with a cross, and the animals independently go to pasture in the forest. They graze in the forest all day, and in the evening they return to the monastery, safe and sound” (8).
Elder Macarius of Verkhoturye had the grace-filled gift of solitary prayer, which he taught to Grigory Rasputin. This Oktay prayer book instilled in Rasputin self-abasement, patience with sorrows and constant prayerful invocation to the Lord. Gregory resorted to his spiritual advice all his life. Elder Macarius was a righteous man, whose blessing the Tsar and Queen asked for in their telegrams. And in 1909, a personal meeting of the Oktay Prayer Book with the Royal Family took place, which Rasputin arranged through Bishop Feofan (Bistrov). The diary of Princess Tatiana’s eldest daughter says: “I was terribly glad to see Father Macarius, Bishop Theophan and Gregory” (9).
In the Verkhoturye St. Nicholas Monastery, near which Elder Macarius labored, Rasputin lived for a whole year as a novice. While fasting and praying at the relics of the righteous Simeon of Verkhoturye, Rasputin was healed of the insomnia that tormented him. Righteous Simeon, who blessed Gregory for his pilgrimage, became his favorite saint and patron. It is his icon that he will present upon meeting the Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II.
The Mother of God did not leave Gregory in her care. So, during the next pilgrimage, “on the way, in one house, he met the miraculous icon of the Abalak Mother of God, which the monks carried around the villages. Gregory spent the night in the room where the icon was. At night he woke up, and the icon was crying, and he heard these words: “Gregory, I cry for human sins: go, wander, cleanse people from sins and remove passions from them.” (10) .
Rasputin, a novice of the Mother of God, continued to wander, and, removing passions, even acquired the ability to cast out demons. So in one of the monasteries he healed the nun Aquilina from this serious spiritual illness. “This nun lived in the Oktaysky monastery in the Urals, not far from Yekaterinburg. A peasant by birth, very healthy by nature, she suddenly began to suffer from seizures, which became very intensified and became periodic. In front of her frightened sisters, she either writhed in convulsions, then fell into an ecstatic delirious state, or experienced extraordinary sensations; she was considered demon-possessed. During such a fit, Rasputin appeared. He then walked around the Urals as a wanderer. One evening he asked to spend the night at the Oktay Monastery.
“He was received as a messenger of providence, and was immediately brought to the demoniac, who was having a fit. He was left alone with her, and in a few minutes he healed her with a powerful spell" (11).
Grigory Rasputin, remembering the order of the Mother of God and the righteous Simeon of Verkhoturye, traveled as a wanderer to many holy places. These are, in addition to the Verkhoturye Monastery, the Tyumen and Abalak monasteries closest to his native village and the Sedmiezerskaya Hermitage, as well as distant shrines - the Optina Hermitage and the Pochaev Lavra. Later he went on pilgrimage to Sarov, New Athos and Jerusalem, where he prayed at the Holy Sepulcher. During pilgrimages, he imposed special fasts on himself and, like secret chains, wore the same underwear for six months without washing, and, as he himself put it, “without laying hands on the body.” This was his kind of ascetic work.
The wanderer Gregory wore real chains. As he himself recalled: “I still learned to wear chains for three years” (12). About Gregory’s asceticism, his daughter wrote: “He went to the most remote monasteries on foot and barefoot. He ate sparingly, often went hungry, upon arrival at the monasteries he fasted and exhausted himself in every possible way. Quite accurate information says that at that time he wore heavy chains, which left noticeable scars on his body. He hangs out with holy fools, blessed ones, all sorts of God’s people, listens to their conversations, gets into the taste of spiritual exploits” (13). But when the chains began to cause vanity in Rasputin, he left them. I began to pray more.
Wherever he was - whether at work, while traveling, on the road or on vacation - he always found time for prayer. As he himself recalled: “I often walked for three days, eating only a little! On hot days, he imposed fasting on himself: he did not drink kvass, but worked with a day laborer..., he worked and ran away to rest and pray. When I was tending the horses, I was praying. This joy served me for everything and about everything... I also found one joy out of all the joys; I read the Gospel a little every day, but thought more” (14).
Fasting, prayer, communication with spirit-bearing elders cultivated in Gregory the ability of spiritual reasoning.
In the early 1900s, Rasputin is a spiritually mature man, an experienced wanderer, as he calls himself. A decade and a half of wanderings and spiritual searches turned him into an old man, wise by experience, capable of giving useful spiritual advice. And this attracted people to him. At first, not many peasants from the surrounding villages revered him. Later, the fame of the experienced wanderer spreads more widely. People come to him from afar, he receives everyone, arranges them for the night, listens and gives advice. Rasputin begins to read and write, masters the Holy Gospel so that he knows it almost by heart, and interprets it for everyone. This behavior of his aroused the suspicion of the church authorities, and when they began to suspect him of heresy, an investigation was ordered, which was soon stopped, but then resumed again. It was conducted by Bishop Alexy of Tobolsk. Having studied the case of Elder Gregory, he, as follows from the conclusion of the Tobolsk Spiritual Consistory, “considers the peasant Gregory the New to be an Orthodox Christian, a very intelligent, spiritually minded person, seeking the truth of Christ, able to give good advice to those who need it” (15).
Friend of the Royal Family
Rasputin was for the royal family
one of the closest people.
“Our Friend” - so the King and Queen
They called the man of God Gregory.
In 1903-1904 Grigory Efimovich decided to build a new temple in his native village. But he did not have money for construction.
Then Grigory decided to find benefactors and in 1904, with one ruble in his pocket, he left for St. Petersburg. Upon arrival in the capital, tired and hungry, the first thing he did was go to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra to venerate the holy relics. With the last five kopecks I ordered a prayer service (for 3 kopecks) and a candle (for 2 kopecks).
Having defended the prayer service, he perked up and went to an appointment with the rector of the Theological Academy, Bishop Sergius (Stargorod), who later became the Patriarch.
With him he had a letter of recommendation from the vicar of the Kazan diocese, Archimandrite Khirsanf (Shchetkovsky), who served as vicar of the Kazan diocese, and later the bishop of Kazan. He met Rasputin upon his return to Pokrovskoye from a pilgrimage to Kyiv. Grigory Efimovich stayed in Kazan and made a great impression on the “Kazan church authorities” (see paragraph 55).
“The bishop,” Rasputin recalled, “called me, saw me, and then we began to talk. Telling me about St. Petersburg, he introduced me to the streets and so on, and then to the High-Ranking People, and then it came to Father the Tsar, who showed me mercy, understood me and gave me money for the temple” (16).
Rasputin was helped to impress the most influential bishop in St. Petersburg, Bishop Sergius, by the gift of spiritual reasoning that the Lord had endowed him with. They listened to Grigory Efimovich with interest as simple people, as well as educated priests and even bishops.
As Empress Alexandra Feodorovna’s maid of honor A.A. Vyrubova wrote: “After an early mass in some monastery, having received the Holy Mysteries, pilgrims gathered around him, listening to his conversations…. A completely unlearned man, but he spoke in such a way that learned professors and priests found it interesting to listen to him” (17). .
Bishop Sergius introduced Rasputin to the confessor of the Royal Family, Archimandrite (later Archbishop) Feofan (Bistrov), who had already heard about the elder and his gift of prophecy, especially about the case of the “closing of heaven” that took place in Pokrovskoye.
“There will be no rain for three months until the Intercession itself,” Gregory once said. And what? And so it happened: there was no rain, and people were crying because of the crop failure. When news of this reached St. Petersburg, the ascetic Fr. Theophan, who was then still an inspector at the Theological Academy, said with emotion: “Here is Elijah the prophet, who closed heaven for three years and months,” and from then on he began to wait for the opportunity to see the prophet with his own eyes” (18). The personal meeting with Rasputin made a great impression on Father Feofan. At the beginning of his acquaintance, he considered him “a true man of God who came from the common people” (19).
Archimandrite Feofan introduced Rasputin as a man of God to Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich and his wife Militsa, who brought the elder together with the Royal family. The date of the first personal meeting was November 1, 1905. At the same time, Sovereign Nicholas II wrote in his diary: “We met the man of God - Gregory from Tobolsk province.” (20) .
Subsequently, in his letters, diaries and personal conversations, he will call Grigory Efimovich that way - “Man of God, elder.”
Rasputin met the Tsar during a difficult time for Russia. Political strikes swept the country. Fighting groups of revolutionaries were created, eager to overthrow the Orthodox Monarchy.
Representatives of international Jewish capital, who hated Christianity and thirsted for complete control over the finances and natural resources of Russia, were preparing an armed uprising against the Autocratic government. And representatives of the Russian intelligentsia from among the Westernized liberals supported the revolutionary movement based, as it seemed to them, on the great idea of “freedom, equality, brotherhood.”
This idea was actively introduced into the consciousness of various layers of Russian society by the Freemasons, among whom were people who sincerely believed that the embodiment of these slogans would bring great benefit to our people. Thus, the idea of a monarchy, the power of an Autocratic Tsar, began to be considered among the liberal intelligentsia as outdated and not only interfering, but also harmful to “peace, prosperity and progress” in Russia. Such sentiments penetrated even into the minds of the holders of state power, moreover, even into the Royal House of Romanov.
In the context of the retreat of the elite of the Russian state from the Orthodox monarchy, Tsar Nicholas II sought support among the people, who for the most part believed in the sacredness of the royal power of the Anointed of God.
A representative of just such a people was Grigory Efimovich Rasputin, a simple Siberian peasant endowed with the great gift of bold prayer to the Lord, thanks to which miracles were accomplished. But, at first, the Tsar and Tsarina were impressed by another gift of God that Rasputin had - the gift of spiritual reasoning, which aroused the desire of the Autocratic Sovereign Emperor to have a long conversation with a simple man.
So in 1906, in a letter to P. A. Stolypin, the Tsar wrote about his third meeting with the Siberian wanderer: “He made an extraordinary impression on Her Majesty and me, and our conversation with him lasted more than an hour instead of the planned five minutes.” (21) .
During this meeting, Rasputin presented the Tsar with the image of the righteous Simeon of Verkhoturye. The highest persons, in turn, introduced Grigory Efimovich to their children, who sincerely fell in love with him.
It is known that when Tsarevich Alexei saw Rasputin for the first time, he joyfully exclaimed: “New!”, that is, new person in the Royal Palace. This word turned out to be true in the spiritual assessment of Rasputin. After long wanderings to holy places, studying the Holy Scriptures and the lives of saints, Grigory Efimovich appeared in the palace spiritually renewed, NEW person. Subsequently, he even received official permission to change the surname Rasputin to the surname Novy.
The Tsar’s younger sister, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, described one of Rasputin’s meetings with the Tsar’s children: “I still remember how they laughed when little Alexei pretended to be a rabbit and jumped back and forth around the room and, suddenly, completely unexpectedly, Rasputin caught the boy by the hand and led him to the bedroom, and the three of us followed him.
There was such silence there, as if we were in a church. The lamps in Alexei's bedroom were not lit; the light came only from the lamps that burned in front of several beautiful icons. The child stood very quietly with this giant, whose head was bowed. I realized that my little nephew was praying with him...” (22).
This is how the Siberian elder taught the royal children the most important thing in the life of a Christian - prayer. And, thanks to him, they understand its importance. With complete trust in Rasputin, in their letters the royal children congratulate him on Orthodox holidays, ask him to pray for success in his studies, and report that they themselves are praying for him. Rasputin became one of the closest people to the royal family. “Our Friend,” is how the Tsar and Queen called the man of God Gregory. And this is no coincidence. So Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich also called the holy fool Vasily, who was his closest assistant and adviser, his Friend.
Sovereign Emperor Nicholas II decided to revive this ancient tradition through the man of God Gregory. The king wanted to have with him an old man from the common people. This is how Rasputin appeared to them - a representative of the peasantry, the largest class in Russia. He, with a developed sense of common sense, a popular understanding of usefulness and, from his everyday experience, firmly knowing what is good and what is bad, became a true Friend and advisor for the royal couple.
Gregory, for his part, sincerely loved his Sovereign. Here is what Prince N.D. Zhevakhov says about this: “Rasputin’s love for the Tsar, bordering on adoration, was truly unfeigned, and there are no contradictions in recognizing this fact. The tsar could not help but feel this love, which he appreciated doubly, because it came from someone who was in his eyes not only the embodiment of the peasantry, but also its spiritual power” (23).
Grigory Rasputin appeared to the Tsar as an elder, a man of God, continuing the traditions of Holy Rus', wise in spiritual experience, capable of giving soulful advice. Even in state affairs, overshadowed by God's grace, Rasputin turned out to be a friend, an adviser to Tsar Nicholas II, just as his friend the holy fool Vasily turned out to be an adviser to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.
Elder Gregory warned the Tsar against decisions that threatened the country with disaster, was against the last convocation of the Duma, asked not to publish Duma anti-monarchist speeches, and on the very eve February Revolution insisted on bringing food to Petrograd - bread and butter from Siberia, even came up with packaging flour and sugar to avoid queues. And he was completely right, because it was in the queues during the artificial organization of the grain crisis that the St. Petersburg unrest began, which grew into a revolution.
The former director of the police department, comrade of the Minister of Internal Affairs, General P. G. Kurlov, noted that Rasputin had the gift of delving deeply into current state affairs. The general wrote in his memoirs that he was “amazed by his innate intelligence and excellent understanding of current issues, even of a state nature” (24).
Having become a spiritual and practical assistant to the Sovereign Emperor, sincerely loving the entire royal family, Elder Gregory had special prayerful care for the heir to the throne, Tsarevich Alexei, who suffered from hemophilia, that is, the inability of blood to clot.
With this disease, even the most insignificant wound, the slightest bruise caused excruciating pain and could lead to death. The disease was incurable, and even the best doctors of that time could not help the heir. And only the prayerful intercession of Elder Gregory before the Lord not only alleviated the suffering of Tsarevich Alexei, but more than once saved him from inevitable death.
The first case of prayerful assistance to the heir occurred in 1907. The three-year-old prince, walking in the garden in Tsarskoe Selo, fell and bruised his leg. It opened up for him internal bleeding. The Tsar’s sister, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, later recalled: “The poor baby lay in terrible agony, with dark circles under his eyes, all crooked with a terribly swollen leg.
The doctors simply couldn't help. They looked more scared than any of us and whispered all the time. The doctors did not know what to do, hour after hour passed, and they lost all hope. It was late, and they persuaded me to go to my place. Then Alix [Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna] sent for Rasputin. He arrived at the palace around midnight or even later...
Early in the morning Alix called me into Alexei's room. I just couldn't believe my eyes. The baby was not only alive, he was healthy. He was sitting in his crib, the fever had passed, there was no sign of a tumor... Later I learned from Alix that Rasputin did not touch the child, he simply stood at his feet by the bed and prayed.
And, of course, many said that Rasputin’s prayers and the healing of my nephew were just a coincidence. But, firstly, any doctor will tell you that an attack of such a disease cannot be cured in a few hours. Secondly, coincidence can only explain what happens once or twice, and I can’t even count how many times it happened” (25).
Prayer book for the Tsar and Russia
The instigators of the war
and revolutionary turmoil
understood that while Rasputin
prays for the Tsar and Russia
they will not be able to carry out their plans.
It should not be assumed that Rasputin was sent by the Lord only as a healer to the heir to the throne. Miraculous healings were for the Emperor and Empress a visible sign that this was a man of God. Tsar Nicholas II believed that Gregory was sent by God as a spiritual assistant to his royal service.
It was precisely this attitude towards Rasputin that the Cheka Investigator of the Provisional Government testified to. In his official note, he said that “Their Majesties were sincerely convinced of the holiness of Rasputin, the only real representative and prayer book for the Tsar, His family and Russia before God” (26).
“Prayering before God for the Heir is only a small part of Rasputin’s service to his Sovereign,” it is written in the book “From Under the Lies.” “He was a companion of prayer to the Anointed One of God for the Russian Autocratic Kingdom, and human sophisticated cunning and devilish insidiousness, hidden from the eyes of the tsars, were often revealed to him” (27).
The elder’s prayerful intercession was so great that the Emperor admitted: “If it were not for the prayers of Grigory Efimovich, I would have been killed long ago” (28).
The elder helped a lot in royal service and practically. Thanks to the gift of insight and reasoning, he knew how to look into the human soul, knew the thoughts of the king’s closest servants, and therefore, when appointing them to high posts, the Sovereign took into account the opinion of the elder. In addition, Gregory shrewdly saw the consequences of certain government decisions.
Realizing this, the Emperor again turned to the advice of his Friend, the man of God Gregory. And he, first of all, tried to protect Russia, the Russian Kingdom from war. The elder perspicaciously saw that it would bring untold suffering to the Russian people, which would cause general discontent and provoke a revolution, which the reformers of Russia of all stripes, and especially the haters of the Orthodox autocracy, were so eager to accomplish.
The organization of a world war was part of the plans of international Jewish capital seeking domination throughout the world. To do this, it was supposed to pit the most powerful Christian powers - Russia and Germany - against each other. It was decided to implement the Jesuitically sophisticated and Jewishly Christ-hating plan by inciting a conflict between Orthodox Bosnia, Herzegovina and Austria-Hungary, which had occupied them since 1878. And in 1908, Austria-Hungary annexed these occupied territories, that is, legally annexed them. Then almost all political Russian elite insisted on declaring war on Austria-Hungary. It was believed that Russia, the guardian of universal Orthodoxy, had to help its brothers the Slavs. It would seem that what's wrong with this? However, Russia has not yet recovered from the war with Japan and internal revolutionary uprisings. Therefore, a war in the Balkans could be like death for us, since it would cause a new revolution. But the jingoistic patriots demanded that the Tsar intercede for his Slavic brothers. And he was ready to give in to them, if not for Rasputin. The elder convinced him not to enter into conflict in the Balkans.
But a year later, Montenegro asked to intervene in the current situation. Germany, in turn, sided with Austria-Hungary and declared an ultimatum to Russia that if it intervened in the conflict, Germany would declare war on Russia. And again, only thanks to Rasputin, world massacre was prevented.
But the question of starting a war on the side of the Balkan countries arose especially acutely for the Russian Tsar in 1912, when Montenegro, Serbia and Bulgaria began military operations against Turkey. Sovereign Emperor Nicholas II, wanting to liberate Constantinople from the Turks, was ready to support them, and Austria-Hungary, considering Montenegro part of its territory, was ready to go to war with Russia.
Remembering that the first attempts to unleash a world massacre failed because of Grigory Rasputin, the Freemasons decided to kill him. An assassination attempt was organized on him in Yalta. The mayor, General Dumbadze, intended to bring Rasputin to the iron castle that stood beyond Yalta above the sea, and throw him out of there. For some reason this attempt failed.
But nevertheless, the political situation was such that it seemed that the plans of the instigators of a world war were about to come true, such a war that, in the words of F. Engels, “crowns would fly into the dirt.” The Tsar was already ready to announce mobilization. But Rasputin urgently secured a meeting with him, and knelt before the sovereign, with tears in his eyes begging him not to start a war. According to the testimony of the then Prime Minister, Count S. Yu. Witte: “He [Rasputin] indicated all the disastrous results of the European fire, and the arrows of history turned differently. War was averted" (29).
The global conspiracy has failed. The Masons were defeated, the Russian revolutionaries were left with nothing. The Siberian peasant, the man of God Gregory, stood in the way of Russian and world catastrophe!
He constantly prayed that the Lord would incline Tsarevo’s heart toward peace. And the instigators of war and revolutionary unrest realized that while Rasputin was praying for the Tsar and Russia, they would not be able to carry out their plans.
And then it was decided to kill the Siberian elder. But, first of all, destroy him spiritually - slander, slander, denigrate. To create from him the image of a dissolute Grishka and a weak-willed monarch, incapable of anything, obedient to this devil. The issue of discrediting the Russian monarch through Rasputin was so important for the Freemasons that they considered it at their congress in Brussels, as evidenced by M. V. Rodzianko in his memoirs (30). In the campaign of lies and slander that fell upon Rasputin since 1910, the most vile and cynical means were used. Writer N.A. Teffi in her book “The Genuine Queen” recalls how she and other writers and journalists were invited to specially organized meetings with allegedly Rasputin. At these meetings he drank, acted in an unbridled and obscene manner. But Teffi, with her writer’s intuition, understood that these performances were organized to “do some dark, very dark things unknown to us” (31).
M.V. Rodzianko also reported about Rasputin’s double (32). And Princess Yu. A. Dan, close to the Empress, wrote: “It got to the point that Rasputin was debauched in the capital, while in fact he was in Siberia” (33). But journalists did not want to find out the truth. Tools Pages mass media, almost completely controlled by the Freemasons, were filled with “evidence” of Rasputin’s disgraceful behavior. Mounted photographs in which he was surrounded by prostitutes were printed in huge quantities.
Let us note that lies and slander fell upon Elder Gregory in the same way as in his time against the righteous John of Kronstadt, who was on friendly terms with Tsar Alexander III and who in St. Petersburg society was called with malice “Rasputin of Alexander the Third.” It is characteristic that during his lifetime this holy righteous man was accused of the same “crimes” as Elder Gregory: heresy, money-grubbing, self-interest and debauchery.
All this, both in one and in another case, was done in order to destroy the spiritual union of the Tsars and God's saints, a union that stood up as an insurmountable wall before the destroyers of the Orthodox monarchy. Throughout 1913, brutal, organized persecution of Grigory Rasputin-Novy was carried out in magazines and newspapers. And from the beginning of 1914 they began to talk about the inevitability of war with Austria. The demon of the Russian revolution, Ulyanov-Lenin, spoke about it this way: “A war between Austria and Russia would be very useful for the revolution (in all Eastern Europe piece)" (34) .
However, Rasputin again stood on the path to world carnage and revolution, who, in an interview with one Italian correspondent, declared an approaching catastrophe: “Yes, they are planning... But, God willing, there will be no war, and I will take care of it” (35).
And then the question of the murder of Elder Gregory came up on the agenda of haters of the Orthodox monarchy. Today we cannot determine how the bourgeois Khionia Guseva was involved in the attempt on his life. The elder himself believed that she was persuaded by Hieromonk Iliodor (Trufanov), who later became an employee of the Bolshevik Cheka. But the fact that there were secret powerful forces behind Iliodor and Chionia is undoubtedly because Rasputin was mortally wounded by Chionia immediately after the murder of the Austrian heir to the throne, Prince Ferdinand, in the capital of Serbia in Sarajevo. And, as you know, it was this murder that caused the outbreak of the First World War.
Gregory blesses Russia
Protopopov had a vision
in heaven Gregory, with raised hands
blesses Russia, saying,
that he keeps it.
While the seriously wounded old man was in the hospital on the verge of life and death, Austria-Hungary began fighting against Serbia. Tsar Nicholas II decided to protect the Orthodox Serbian people from the aggressor and announced mobilization. Germany issued an ultimatum that this mobilization threatened Austria-Hungary and demanded that it be cancelled. The ultimatum was rejected. Then Germany declared war on Russia. Almost all researchers of the life of Grigory Rasputin agree that if he had been next to the Tsar at that time, there would have been no war.
But what happened happened and Rasputin had no choice but to humble himself and pray for victory to be granted to the Russian army. Elder Gregory, who hated the war, began to advise the Emperor to bring it to a victorious end. With his prayers he strengthened the spirit of Tsar Nicholas II, just as St. Sergius of Radonezh strengthened the spirit of Dmitry Donskoy. The Emperor felt this and said: “I lived through all this difficult time only thanks to his prayers” (36).
On the advice of the elder, the Sovereign Emperor became the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian armies. This greatly raised the spirits of the troops. For the military campaign of the spring-summer of 1916, Russia, unlike Germany, was in full readiness. Everything indicated that the Russians would win.
Elder Gregory's prayers for Russia gave Tsar Nicholas II complete confidence in this victory. The enemies of Russia understood this and continued to do everything to destroy the union of the Tsar and the man of God. The most vile, most rabid slander was used, designed to denigrate both of them.
By 1916, slanderous myths about Rasputin, spread by the left-wing liberal and tabloid press, were doing their dirty work. The majority of the so-called “educated” society began to see Rasputin as a source of evil. The “debaucher Grishka” created by myth-makers replaced the true image of the Siberian elder in the minds of Russian people. How strong the influence of the myth-makers was is evidenced by the fact that the Queen’s own sister, Grand Duchess Elizaveta Fedorovna, believed in the image of the “debaucher.” Considering that the stage has been prepared for the physical elimination of Rasputin, high-ranking officials immediately begin organizing the murder. Among them: “Vasily Alekseevich Maklakov is a left radical, one of the leaders of Russian Freemasonry and the Cadet Party (he obtained poison and developed a murder plan); Vladimir Mitrofanovich Purishkevich is a right-wing radical, extremist, poseur and talker, one of those who, with their stupid, self-righteous activities, discredited the patriotic movement of Russia; Prince Felix Feliksovich Yusupov is a representative of the aristocratic mob, the highest ruling strata of society, a member of the Mayak Masonic society; representative of the degenerate part of the Romanovs, Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, two-faced, torn by political ambitions; representatives of the Russian intelligentsia, devoid of national consciousness, Doctor Lizavert and Lieutenant Sukhotin" (37).
Why did each of them personally need to kill Rasputin? It is unlikely that we will ever be able to find the answer to this question. But it can be argued that they all imagined themselves to be the saviors of Russia. The “monarchist” Purishkevich “saved the Tsar from the influence of a libertine,” the constitutionalist Yusupov saved Russia from the domination of the autocracy. As he himself said: “If Rasputin is killed today, in two weeks the Empress will have to be placed in a hospital for the mentally ill. And when the Emperor frees himself from the influence of Rasputin and his wife, everything will change; he will become a good constitutional monarch" (38). As for the ambitious, vain Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, he was most likely convinced that by killing Rasputin he would perpetuate his name for centuries.
But behind all of them, taken together, stood powerful Masonic forces, who understood that by killing Elder Gregory, they would deprive the Tsar of spiritual support. By killing Rasputin, they were killing a man of prayer for the Tsar and Russia.
The vile, brutal crime was committed in the morning, on December 17, 1916, in the house of Prince Yusupov. Rasputin was lured there under the pretext of helping Yusupov’s sick wife Irina. There he was treated to poisoned food. Time passed, but the poison did not work... Then Yusupov invited him to pray. There was a crucifix in the room. Rasputin approaches the crucifix, kneels down to kiss it, and at that moment Yusupov shoots him in the back. Rasputin falls. After this, the prince went into the office, where his accomplices in the crime, who were drunk by this time, were waiting for him - Purishkevich, Dmitry Pavlovich, Lizavert, Sukhotin. After some time, Yusupov went into the room where Rasputin lay. And a little later, when Purishkevich walked in the same direction, suddenly Yusupov’s hysterical cry was heard: “Purishkevich, shoot, shoot, he’s alive! He's running away! Purishkevich with a pistol rushed to catch up with the fleeing Rasputin. The first two shots miss. The third shot hit him in the back, ... the fourth shot, - Purishkevich recalls, - hit him, it seems, in the head... He fell face down into the snow like a sheaf and shook his head. I ran up to him and kicked him in the temple as hard as I could. After some time, while carrying Rasputin’s corpse, Prince Yusupov pounced on him and, with wild frenzy, began hitting him on the head with a heavy rubber weight, aiming for his temple. Blood splashed in all directions, and when Yusupov was pulled away, he was covered in blood" (39).
After brutal torture, Rasputin was thrown into an ice hole near Krestovsky Island. As it turned out later, he was thrown into the water while still alive. After the search for Rasputin began, his galoshes were found near the ice hole. After examining the ice hole, the divers found the body of the tortured old man. His arms and legs were entangled with rope; He released his right hand to cross himself already in the water, his fingers were folded into three fingers. Rasputin was buried by the Tsar and Tsarina, their daughters and A. A. Vyrubov. After the funeral service, the elder’s body, like the relics of a saint, was placed under the altar of the church being built in honor of St. Seraphim of Sarov. But even after his death, he worried the haters of the autocracy. After the February coup d'etat, the head of the Provisional Government, the freemason Kerensky, gave the order to dig up Rasputin's body and secretly bury it in the outskirts of Petrograd. But on the way, the truck “got bad” and then the old man’s body was unloaded and burned. One of the organizers of the burning of the man of God Grigory Rasputin-New, a certain N.F. Kupchinsky, subsequently wrote: “The fire flared up more and more and by its light we carefully, greedily peered into the features of the old man…. Undoubtedly, in the future these would be the relics of a saint" (40).
A month later, on the night of the martyrdom of Elder Gregory, the Minister of Internal Affairs A. A. Protopopov had a vision recorded from his words in the diary of Gofmeistrina E. A. Naryshkina: “Today, January 15, 1917, Protopopov came here to Tsarskoe Selo to tell his dream; the heavens are open, and in the heavens - Gregory, with raised hands, blesses Russia, saying that he protects it" (41).
Posthumous veneration of Elder Gregory,
like a holy martyr.
Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna deeply mourned the death of their Friend, Elder Gregory, who was revered as a righteous man during his lifetime. When they were imprisoned in Tobolsk, they kept his letters as a shrine. Handing over the box with them to Doctor Derevenko so that he could secretly take them out and hide them, the Emperor said, “The most valuable thing for us here is Gregory’s letters.”
Tsarevich Alexei said after his death: “There was a saint - Grigory Efimovich, but they killed him” (42). The king, like a great shrine, put on himself pectoral cross, taken from the murdered martyr Gregory, and the Queen and her children wore his image written on medallions. “He is a martyr,” said Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. As modern researchers of Rasputin’s life M. Smirnova and V. Smirnov write: “A month after the murder, Alexandra Fedorovna published a small brochure entitled “The New Martyr.” It outlined the biography of Grigory Efimovich and conveyed the idea that he was a man of God and, by the nature of his death, should be revered as a martyr" (43).
This life, in numerous copies, instantly spread among the common people, who treated Rasputin as a miracle worker. This is evidenced by the fact that upon learning of his death, many St. Petersburg residents rushed to the ice hole in the Neva River, where Elder Gregory was drowned. “According to police reports, there they collected water blessed by his blood and took it home as a shrine” (44). An eyewitness to this, V.M. Purishkevich, wrote that “whole lines of women, mainly women, from the very top to the bottom, began to flock to the Neva, with jugs and bottles in their hands, to stock up on water consecrated by Rasputin’s remains” (45). When Elder Gregory was buried in the altar of the St. Seraphim Church that was under construction, people came to it and collected snow around it (46).
The veneration of Rasputin as a holy righteous man intensified after the coffin with the remains of Rasputin was opened in March 1917, at the direction of the Provisional Government. Eyewitnesses of this saw that they turned out to be incorruptible and even emitted a slight fragrance. Then the people began to flock to the tomb and dismantle it into pieces in order to have at least a small particle of the last refuge of the old martyr (47).
The main reason for the veneration of Rasputin as a holy man were the numerous miracles that were performed both during his life and after his martyrdom. But before we talk about them, let us remember those special gifts that the Lord rewards his chosen ones. This is the gift of consolation, the gift of reasoning, the miraculous gift of healing, which in turn comes from the gift of prayer, and the gift of insight and prophecy. Of these gifts, God's saints are usually endowed with one or more. The man of God Gregory possessed all kinds of these gifts.
Gift of Comfort
People close to him spoke about the gift of consolation as follows:
“He is a good, simple religious Russian man. In moments of doubt and mental anxiety, I love to talk with him, and after such a conversation my soul always feels light and calm” (48). “When I have worries, doubts, or troubles, it is enough for me to talk with Gregory for five minutes to immediately feel strengthened and calmed down” (49). (Holy Tsar - Martyr Nicholas II).
“In our home he was a model of politeness and modesty... I especially appreciate in Gr. Eph. His gift of comfort. In the most difficult moments of his life, he always finds the very right word, some insignificant advice - and a way out is found” (50). (Princess I.V. Golovina).
“Like a doctor making a diagnosis of a physical illness, Rasputin skillfully approached people suffering spiritually, and immediately figured out what the person was looking for and what he was worried about. The simplicity of his manners and the kindness he showed to his interlocutors brought reassurance” (51). (Colonel D.N. Loman).
The gift of consolation that Elder Gregory possessed was always combined with extraordinary kindness and mercy. “Rasputin is an absolutely honest and kind person, always wanting to do good and willingly giving money to those in need” (52). (S. Yu. Witte, in 1905-1906 Chairman of the Council of Ministers).
“When I saw him in the nursery, I felt kindness and warmth emanating from him” (53). (Sister of St. Tsar Nicholas II, Grand Duchess Olga).
The gift of consolation especially affected the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, who was in extreme nervous exhaustion due to incurable disease heir to Tsarevich Alexei. But thanks to Rasputin depressive states passed as if by themselves.
Gift of Reasoning
The gift of reasoning did not appear in Grigory Rasputin immediately, but after a decade and a half of wanderings, conversations with spiritually wise people, with elders. During this time, he deeply studied the Holy Gospel, could interpret it and even read it by heart.
All this made him a person capable of giving spiritual advice to people. At first, peasants from surrounding villages flocked to him for instructions. Later, people from far away began to come. Tobolsk Bishop Alexy concluded that he considers him “an Orthodox Christian, a very smart, spiritually minded person, seeking the truth of Christ, who can give good advice to those who need it” (54).
Even priests and bishops listened to Grigory Efimovich with interest. So in Kazan, where he stopped on the way from a pilgrimage to Kyiv: “Kazan church authorities, including Fr. Anthony (Guriy), rector of the Kazan Theological Academy, and abbot Khirsanf (Shchetkovsky), acting vicar of the Kazan diocese... they treated Gregory as a pious and gifted layman, he was warmly received by them.” Thanks to his gift of reasoning, it was in Kazan that Rasputin gained such fame that Khirsanf gave him a recommendation to St. Petersburg to Bishop Sergius (Stargorodsky) (55).
Metropolitan Veniamin Fedchenkov also loved to talk with Elder Gregory and wrote: “He spoke absolutely witty. In general, Rasputin was a completely extraordinary person both in terms of his sharp mind and religious orientation” (56).
Vasily Rozanov, a famous philosopher, admired the gift of reasoning that Rasputin was endowed with from God. This happened after he heard his opinion about the attitude of the official Church towards Leo Tolstoy. As Rozanov recalled, Elder Gregory said: “He (Tolstoy) spoke against the Synod, against the clergy – and he was right. Moreover, he is taller, stronger and purer than them. But he didn’t speak against them, but against the words they had. And these words are from Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom. And here he himself and his works are small” (57).
Thus, Rasputin showed that, from a human perspective, Tolstoy may seem right when he speaks out against the shortcomings that specific ministers of the Church have. But since the entirety of the Church lives according to the teachings of its great teachers, it turns out that Tolstoy, teaching the Church, puts himself in their place. But the whole point is that his teaching is simply insignificant compared to their teaching.
“Grigory,” Rozanov writes, “is a brilliant man... So simply the Siberian peasant said a thought that solves everything” (58).
Former Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod, Prince N.D. Zhevakhov said about Rasputin’s gift of reasoning that he clothed “theoretical propositions [about God, about faith] in a form that allowed their experimental application, and not in the form of philosophical fogs…. His ability to popularize Divine truths, which undoubtedly presupposed a certain spiritual experience, was the secret of his influence on the masses” (59).
The miraculous gift of healings
The kind, sympathetic, merciful elder Gregory could not remain indifferent to the grief of others. He always tried to help this or that person both financially and with his gift of healing incurable diseases. There is no doubt that the miraculous gift of healings came from his bold prayerful presence before God. This boldness came to him as a result of pilgrimage in holy places and teaching from the famous Ural elders - monk Adrian and schema-monk Elijah, and especially from the holy elder Macarius of Verkhoturye.
I began to pilgrimage since my youth. And wherever he was, whether at work, on the road or on vacation, he always found time for prayer. As he himself recalled: “I often walked for three days, eating only a little! On hot days, he imposed fasting on himself: he did not drink kvass, but worked with a day laborer..., he worked and ran away to rest and pray. When I was tending the horses, I was praying. This joy served me for everything and for everything” (60).
Rasputin was an exemplary family man and always returned home from his travels. But even at home, engaged in daily peasant labor, he did not forget about his prayer work. He dug himself a cave and prayed there diligently and alone, like a monk.
In addition, he loved to perform secret prayers in the forest. He most likely learned this from his spiritual mentor Macarius of Verkhoturye, who constantly prayed in the forest.
Elder Gregory did not give up this habit even when he became acquainted with high St. Petersburg society and was accepted into the royal family. G.V. Sazonov wrote about it this way: “When we lived in the country, the children saw him in the forest, immersed in prayer...
The neighbor’s general’s wife, who could not hear his name without disgust, was not too lazy to follow the children into the forest, and indeed, although an hour had passed, she saw Rasputin, immersed in prayer” (61).
Anna Vyrubova, as a spiritual child of St. righteous Father John of Kronstadt testified that “Father John considered him a wanderer with the gift of prayer” (62).
Elder Gregory used this gift of bold prayer to help not only his neighbors, but also animals, which, like the poet Sergei Yesenin, who was close to him, Rasputin considered “our lesser brothers.”
Already in his youth, Gregory showed his gift for miraculously healing animals. From his words, his daughter Matryona wrote: “Once at dinner, my grandfather said that the horse was lame, perhaps it had sprained a tendon under its knee. Hearing this, the father silently rose from the table and went to the stable.
The grandfather followed and saw his son stand for a few seconds near the horse in concentration, then go up to the back leg and put his palm directly over the hamstring, although he had never even heard this word before. He stood with his head slightly thrown back, then, as if deciding that the healing had been accomplished, he stepped back, stroked the horse and said: “You feel better now.”
After this incident, my father became like a miracle worker veterinarian and treated all the animals on the farm. Soon this practice spread to all animals in Pokrovskoye. Then he began to treat people too. “God helped” [he said] (63).
Matryona also recorded a special case of healing, which can even be called saving a person from inevitable death. “One day, after a day spent on the road, my father asked for lodging and bread in a hut. The hostess, somewhat dejected, let him in. The reason for the woman’s concern immediately became clear. A girl was lying on a bench, under a pile of blankets. It looked like she was dying. Her father approached her. The child was unconscious, the only sign of life was barely audible breathing and sometimes a groan. The father asked to be left alone with the patient. The girl's parents came out. The father fell to his knees near the bench, put his palm on the child’s blistering forehead, closed his eyes and began to pray. He said that he did not feel the passage of time at all.
Concerned parents every now and then opened the door and looked in amazement at the man frozen in prayer. Finally the girl moved, opened her eyes and asked:
- I am alive?
A minute later she looked nothing like a dying woman” (64).
Elder Gregory showed his gift of miraculous healings on many people, but above all, he helped the heir to the throne, Tsarevich Alexei, who was suffering from an incurable disease - hemophilia, that is, the incoagulability of blood, in which every abrasion, every bruise could result in a heavy, martyr's death for the prince.
The first case of prayerful assistance to the heir occurred in 1907. The three-year-old prince, walking in the garden in Tsarskoe Selo, fell and bruised his leg. We have already written about this case in this book.
Grand Duchess Olga also confirms another case of the healing of Tsarevich Alexei, which some eyewitnesses call nothing less than a miracle of the resurrection of the heir from the dead.
The case took place in Poland, in the suburb of Warsaw – Spala. As in Tsarskoe Selo, the prince accidentally hurt his leg, and it became terribly swollen. The temperature rose above 40 degrees, the pulse was almost not palpable. A council of doctors from E. Botkin, S. Fedorov, K. Rachfuss, S. Ostrogorsky could not do anything. They had no hope of recovery. The situation was so critical that the Tsarevich’s serious illness was announced throughout Russia. Prayers began to be offered in churches for his recovery. The Empress sent an urgent telegram to Elder Gregory in the village of Pokrovskoye asking for prayerful help and soon received an answer from him:
“God heard your tears and your prayers. Don't be sad. The little one won't die. Don't let the doctors torture him for too long." As soon as this telegram was received, the recovery of the dying heir to the throne immediately began.
As Olga Alexandrovna testifies: “An hour later, my nephew was out of danger. Later that year I met Professor Fedorov, who told me that the healing was completely inexplicable from a medical point of view... Rasputin definitely had the gift of healing. There is no doubt about it. I have seen these results with my own eyes more than once. I also know that the most famous doctors of that time were forced to admit this" (65).
The healing of Anna Vyrubova, who was involved in a serious train accident, is considered a miracle of resurrection from the dead. As S.P. Beletsky, acting Director of the Police Department at that time, recalled: “A.A. Vyrubova’s position was very serious at that time, and she, being in oblivion all the time, was already admonished by silent confession and the communion of the holy mysteries. Being in a delirious, feverish state, without opening her eyes all the time, A. A. Vyrubova repeated only one phrase:
– Father Gregory, pray for me!...
Having learned about the difficult situation of A. A. Vyrubova from the words of Countess Witte... Rasputin... arrived in Tsarskoye Selo to the emergency room of the infirmary, where A. A. Vyrubova was taken...
At this time, in the room where A. A. Vyrubova was lying, there were the Emperor and Empress, A. A. Vyrubova’s father and Princess Gedrolts. Entering the ward without permission, and without greeting anyone, Rasputin approached A. A. Vyrubova, took her hand, and, looking stubbornly at her, loudly and commandingly said to her:
- Annushka, wake up, look at me!...
And, to the general amazement of all those present, she opened her eyes and, seeing Rasputin’s face bent over her, smiled and said:
– Grigory – is that you? God bless!
Then Rasputin, turning to those present, said:
“He’ll get better!” (66) .
And so it happened. Vyrubova survived and soon recovered, although, as Rasputin predicted, she remained crippled for the rest of her life.
Through the prayers of Elder Gregory, the wife of the active state councilor O.V. Lakhtin was healed. At the investigative Cheka under the leadership of Rudnev, she testified: “I saw Rasputin for the first time on November 3, 1905. I was very ill with neurasthenia of the intestines, which confined me to bed. I could only move by holding my hand to the wall... The priest Father [Roman] Bear took pity on me and brought me together with Rasputin... From the moment I appeared in Father Gregory’s house, I immediately felt healthy and since then I have been freed from my illness” (67).
Elder Gregory’s gift of healing extended not only to Orthodox Christians. There is the following testimony of the Jew Ivan Simanovich, recorded by the investigative Cheka of the Provisional Government: “From 1909 to 1910, I began to show signs nervous disease, called the dance of St. Vitus. From the time the illness was declared, I turned to doctors... Among the doctors who used me, I can point out Professor Ruzenbach and Doctor Rubinko... In 1919, Rasputin, having learned from my father about my illness, offered to bring me to his apartment... Rasputin, staying with me in the room alone, he sat me down on a chair and, sitting opposite me, looked intently into my eyes, beginning to stroke my head with his hand. At this time I experienced some special state. This session, it seems to me, lasted about ten minutes. After which, saying goodbye to me, Rasputin said: “Nothing, all this will pass!” And indeed, now I can certify that after this meeting with Rasputin, my seizures did not recur... I attribute this healing exclusively to Rasputin, since medical remedies only alleviated the form of seizures without eliminating their manifestations... Ioann Simanovich, a student of 20 years, of the Jewish religion "(68) .
There are known cases when, through Rasputin’s prayers, those possessed by demons were cured. We have already written about the cure of demonic attacks among the nun Aquilina in the Oktaysky Monastery. Elder Gregory himself spoke about his gift of healing as follows: “If you do not seek self-interest anywhere and strive to console, call on the Lord spiritually, then the demons will tremble at you, and the sick will recover” (69).
Giftinsight
The gift of clairvoyance, or, as it is also called, the gift of clairvoyance, manifested itself in Rasputin as a child.
Modern researchers of his life M. Smirnova and V. Smirnov write: “We know very little about Rasputin’s childhood years. All the more interesting are the examples of his peculiar childhood clairvoyance. He very artlessly explains why he could not afford to take someone else’s thing, no matter how attractive it was to him. Quite sincerely, he writes that this was caused not so much by disgust for theft, but by his conviction that all other people see the same thing as he does. And he saw the following: “I myself immediately saw if one of my comrades stole something, hid this thing somewhere far away” (70).
His daughter Matryona spoke about Rasputin’s clairvoyance in childhood from his words: “In his presence it was a waste of time to lie. Once a horse dealer, trying to inflate the price, praised his goods. The father took the grandfather aside and warned:
- He's lying.
Grandfather, of course, waved it off. After some time, the horse, for no apparent reason... died” (71).
Subsequently, Elder Gregory’s gift of clairvoyance developed more and more, so that he could even read the thoughts of another person.
Archbishop Tikhon (Troitsky) testifies to the following incident: “Once a group of students visited Elder Gabriel (Zyryanov)... There was also the young Bishop Tikhon (Bellavin), [the future Patriarch], and among the guests was Rasputin...
Elder Gabriel later told Vl. Tikhon that when Rasputin told him that he was going to St. Petersburg, the elder thought to himself: “You will be lost in St. Petersburg, you will be spoiled in St. Petersburg,” to which Rasputin, having read his thoughts, said out loud: “And God? And God? (72) .
Once Rasputin predicted to the students of the Moscow Theological Academy their future, which completely came true. As Bishop Feofan (Bistrov) recalled:
“To the students of the academy, whom he saw for the first time, he correctly told one that he would be a writer, to another... he pointed out his illness, and to the third he explained: “you are a simple soul, but your friends are abusing this” (73).
Prince N.D. Zhevakhov recalls an incident when Elder Grigory perspicaciously said about a certain Dobrovolsky: “Even though you say, my dear, that he is a scoundrel, you don’t even know that he is a murderer and sent his wife to the next world... Words Rasputin were literally confirmed: Dobrovolsky was soon arrested, having been convicted of poisoning his wife" (74).
An interesting incident is recalled by Her Majesty’s maid of honor Anna Vyrubova. When her friend arrived to meet the elder with a hidden bottle of wine, the following happened: “Grigory Efimovich, looking at her intently, began to tell how at one station a monk treated him to tea, hiding a bottle of wine under the table, and, calling him a saint, asked questions.
“Am I a saint? - Grigory Efimovich shouted, slamming his fist on the table, “and you’re asking me to help you, but why are you hiding a bottle of wine under the table?” The embarrassed lady turned pale and began to say goodbye in confusion” (75).
Vyrubova also testifies to another case: “I remember once in church a postal official approached him and asked him to pray for a sick woman. “Don’t ask me,” he replied, “but pray to St. Ksenia.
The official, in fear and surprise, exclaimed: “How could you know that my wife’s name is Ksenia?” Further, Anna Vyrubova writes: “I could tell hundreds of similar cases, but they, perhaps, can be explained one way or another, but what is much more surprising is that everything he said about the future came true” (76).
And here we come to the prophetic gift that Elder Gregory was endowed by God.
Prophecies
Rasputin began to prophesy from his youth. After wandering through holy places, feats of asceticism, communication with spirit-bearing elders and bold prayers to the Lord, “Gregory no longer began to speak, but to utter, thinking for a long time before giving an answer. And his answers, mysterious, abrupt, began to resemble prophecies and reading in human hearts" (77).
The first prophecy of Elder Gregory who appeared in St. Petersburg can be dated back to 1907, when one day Vyrubova asked him if she would be happy in marriage. Anna Alexandrovna was engaged to a naval lieutenant, and everyone thought that a wonderful future awaited her. However, Elder Gregory said: “The wedding will take place, but you will not have a husband.”
Subsequently, it turned out that Vyrubova’s husband was seriously ill and could not live a normal life. family life. Thus the words of the elder came true.
Vyrubova's marriage was unhappy, and she soon separated from her husband. This is what she said about this at the investigation of the Cheka of the Provisional Government:
“I met Rasputin in 1907 at Militsa Nikolaevna’s... I was very worried, especially since she said: “Ask him for whatever you want. He will pray. He can do everything with God... I, concerned about marriage, since I knew my fiancé very little, asked if I should get married. Rasputin replied that he advised getting married, but that the marriage would be unhappy... Having lived with my husband for a year and a half... I divorced, since it turned out that he was suffering mental illness" (78) .
Before the start of the Russo-Japanese War, Grigory Rasputin prophesied that the Russian fleet would soon perish in the Battle of Tsushima. And so it happened. As Bishop Feofan (Bystrov) said: “At that time, the squadron of Admiral Rozhdestvensky was sailing. So we asked Rasputin: “Will the meeting with the Japanese be successful?” Rasputin responded to this: “I feel in my heart that he will drown”... And this prediction later came true in the battle of Tsushima” (79).
The closer the revolution of 1917 approached, the darker the prophecies of Elder Gregory became. He foresaw that a riot would begin in the capital in lines for bread and therefore advised the Tsar in every possible way to supply the city with food. One of Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna’s letters to her husband said: “He [Rasputin] had something like a vision at night... it’s hard to retell, he says that all this is very serious... He suggests that wagons with flour and butter should arrive within three days and sugar. This is at the moment even more necessary than shells and meat... To do this, it is necessary to reduce passenger traffic, destroy the 4th classes for these days and instead of them attach wagons with butter and flour from Siberia... Discontent will grow if the situation does not change. People will scream and tell you that this is impossible... But this is a necessary, important measure..." (80).
Everything happened as he prophesied. It was with the shortage of bread in Petrograd that the February Revolution began.
Elder Gregory also prophesied about his death. In his diary entries about Russia on the eve of the revolution, Maurice Palaeologue wrote: “His devoted friends, Mrs. G. and Mrs. T.... were struck by his sad mood. He told them several times about his near death. So he said to Mrs. T.: “Do you know that I will soon die in terrible suffering? But what to do? God has destined for me the high feat of dying for the salvation of my dear Sovereigns and Holy Rus'” (81).
Speaking about his death, Elder Gregory prophesied that on the fortieth day after his death a severe attack of illness would occur. Archpriest Georgy Shavelsky wrote in his memoirs: “Shortly before his death, the elder predicted that... after his death the heir would become seriously ill... On February 24, 1917, after lunch, when the Emperor was visiting the guests, I, standing next to prof. Fedorov, I ask him:
– What’s new in Tsarskoe? How do they live without an elder? There are no miracles over the tomb yet.
- Don't laugh! – Fedorov remarked to me seriously.
– Have miracles really begun? – I asked again with a smile.
– You’re laughing in vain! In Moscow, where I was visiting for the holidays, they also laughed about Grigory’s prediction that Alexey Nikolaevich would fall ill on such and such a day after his death. I told them: “Wait to laugh, let the specified day pass!”
I myself interrupted the vacation given to me in order to be at the Tsar’s on this day: you never know what could happen on this day! In the morning of the day indicated by the elder, I arrive in Tsarskoe Selo and rush straight to the palace.
Thank God, the heir is completely healthy! The court scoffers, who knew the reason for my arrival, began to make fun of me: “I trusted the old man, but this time the old man missed!” And I tell them: “Wait to laugh, the Ides came, but the Ides did not pass!” When leaving the palace, I left my phone number so that if necessary, they could immediately find me, and I stayed in Tsarskoe for the whole day. In the evening they suddenly call me: “The heir is feeling bad!”
I rushed to the palace. Horror - the boy is bleeding! We barely managed to stop the bleeding... Here's the old man... You should have seen how the heir treated him! During this illness, the sailor Derevenko one day brings the heir a prosphora and says: “I prayed for you in church, and you will pray to the saints so that they will help you get well soon!” And the heir answers him: “There was Saint Gregory Efimovich, but they killed him.
Now they treat me and pray, but there is no benefit. And he used to bring me an apple, stroke me on a sore spot, and I immediately felt better. Here’s an old man for you, so laugh at miracles” (82).
Elder Gregory wrote the most terrible and, unfortunately, completely fulfilled prophecy in his suicide letter to the Emperor. In particular, it says the following: “I am writing and leaving this letter in St. Petersburg. I have a presentiment that even before the first of January I will pass away... If hired killers, Russian peasants, my brothers kill me, then you, Russian Tsar, have no one to fear. Stay on your throne and reign...
If the boyars and nobles kill me, and they shed my blood, then their hands will remain stained with my blood, and for twenty-five years they will not be able to wash their hands. They will leave Russia. Brothers will rebel against brothers and will kill each other, and within twenty-five years there will be no nobility in Russia.
Tsar of the Russian land, when you hear the ringing of bells informing you of the death of Gregory, then know: if your relatives committed the murder, then not one of your family, that is, children and relatives, will live longer than two years. They will be killed...” (83) .
Anticipating his own death, and then the death of the Royal Family, like the ascent to Golgotha, back in 1913 the elder told Tsarevich Alexei: “My dear little one! Look at God, what wounds he has. He endured it for a while, and then he became so strong and omnipotent - so are you, dear, so you too will be cheerful and we will live and visit together. See you soon". As Elder Gregory predicted, it came true. Together with the royal family, he lived in earthly life, doing only good, but for this he suffered only reproaches and slander. Just like Rasputin, the royal family was ritually killed.
Their deaths are strikingly similar from the very beginning - the murder of the elder and the royal family took place in the basement. Then a dog was thrown to the scene of the murder, and then their bloody clothes were burned. In both cases, the bodies were reburied and burned.
But the main thing is that in heaven, according to the prophecy of Elder Gregory, they saw each other, met in joy, that is, in the Kingdom of God. “To live and visit together” - this is said about their commonality of both earthly and heavenly fate. After staying on earth, they began to live together forever in heaven and pray together for the salvation of Russia.
Therefore, while we venerate the Royal Martyrs as saints, we must also venerate Elder Gregory, a man of prayer for Russia. And it is necessary to canonize the prophet and wonderworker, the man of God, the martyr Grigory Rasputin the New as soon as possible. As the righteous elder Archpriest Nikolai Guryanov said: “We are already late. Russia bears penance for Gregory. We must quickly cleanse Gregory and all our Russians from untruths...” (84) .
Veneration of Elder Gregory
Nowadays. New miracles.
Rasputin was considered a righteous man by schema-abbot Jerome (Verendyakin). When in 2001 he was asked to bless Igor Evsin’s book about Grigory Efimovich “The Slandered Elder,” he, after listening to its text, in the presence of his cell attendant Hierodeacon Ambrose (Chernichuk), gave his blessing, saying that Rasputin was a righteous man, a saint of God.
One of the first to publicly declare the elder’s righteousness was a famous priest, spiritual writer and poet, and a remarkable preacher at the end of the twentieth century. Dimitry Dudko. “Rasputin stood for Orthodoxy,” he wrote, “he was himself deeply Orthodox and called everyone to this. I was especially struck by the way he, being shot and thrown into the water, held his fingers folded into the sign of the cross. The cross, as you know, means victory over demons. In the person of Rasputin, I see the entire Russian people - defeated and shot, but preserving their faith even while dying. And he himself wins!” (85) .
Widespread veneration of the man of God Grigory Rasputin the New began with preparations for the glorification of the royal family as saints. Moreover, both among the people and among the clergy.
One of the members of the commission for the canonization of the royal martyrs, Father Georgy (Tertyshnikov), told Archpriest Valentin Asmus that when at a meeting of the Commission they talked about Rasputin and the accusations that were brought against him, the accusations fell one after another... And so, in the end, one of the commission members said with a smile: “What, it seems that we are no longer engaged in the canonization of the Royal Family, but in the canonization of Grigory Efimovich?” (86) .
Archimandrite of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra Georgy (Tertyshnikov) carefully studied materials related to Rasputin, since he had the obedience to prepare a report on the topic of whether the personality of Grigory Efimovich was an obstacle to the glorification of the Royal Family. When Metropolitan Yuvenaly of Kolomna got acquainted with this report, he remarked to Father George, “Judging by your materials, Rasputin should also be glorified!” (87) .
Alas, at the Council of Bishops in 2000, the canonization of Rasputin did not happen. However, many people's opinion about him has changed in better side. So in 2002, the former administrator of the Ivanovo and Kineshma diocese, Archbishop Ambrose (Shchurov), at the Royal Orthodox-Patriotic Readings held in Ivanovo on May 18, said: “Grigory Efimovich Rasputin was subjected to many attacks from the enemies of Russia. The press instilled in people a disgust for him, thus trying to cast a shadow on the Tsar and his August family.
Who really was Grigory Efimovich Rasputin? He wasn't a bad person. This is a peasant, a hardworking and very pious man, a great man of prayer, who travels a lot to holy places... Such a pious man as Grigory Efimovich could not, of course, do all the outrages that were attributed to him. There was a special double who deliberately caused trouble, drank in taverns, and led an immoral lifestyle. And the press inflated it" (88).
In 2008, Archbishop Vikenty of Yekaterinburg and Verkhoturye, live on the Soyuz TV channel and the Resurrection radio station, answering a listener’s question why Grigory Rasputin was near the Holy Royal Family, noted: “The Royal Family was slandered and denigrated, accused of all sorts of sins, but now we see that this is not true. Maybe something similar happened with Grigory Rasputin, because the Royal Family, the Sovereign, were very pure in life and understood the situation and people. They could not bring closer to themselves the kind of person they present to us now as Grigory Rasputin.”
Regarding the actions of the press in relation to Rasputin and the falsification of documents, the author of this book has a personal letter from Elder Archimandrite Kirill (Pavlov) to the servant of God Irina with an answer to the question of how he feels about Rasputin. Let's quote this letter verbatim:
“Reverend Irina! Your letter to me contains a question - my opinion about the personality of Rasputin G. I’ll say frankly - now it’s positive, before, under the influence of all lies and slander, I thought negatively. Having read in Yakovlev’s book about the murder of Rasputin by the Freemasons, a ritual murder, I radically changed my attitude towards him.
Our Lavra resident, Academy teacher Archimandrite Georgy (Tertyshnikov), who was on the commission for the canonization of saints, was sent to St. Petersburg to get acquainted with archival documents for the canonization of the Royal Family, says that in the press of that time and documents of that time there is nothing but lies and slander against the Tsar and his surroundings. Perhaps Rasputin also had some weaknesses and infirmities characteristic of every person, but not such as were attributed to him. At the Last Judgment of God, everything will be presented in its true form. God bless you. With uv. Arch. Kirill".
How amazingly accurately the words of the perspicacious elder Kirill (Pavlov) echo the words of another elder Grigory Rasputin-Novy, who said: “What is accused of - I am innocent, I will see you at the court of God! There the speaker will not be justified and all the tribes of the earth will not be justified.”
Will we be justified there, having still not canonized the Friend of the Holy Royal Family, Martyr Gregory?
But another elder of our time, Archpriest Nikolai Guryanov, as previously reported, said: “Poor Russia bears penance... It is imperative to cleanse the elder’s memory from slander... This is necessary for the spiritual life of the entire Russian Church” (89).
Archimandrite Kirill (Pavlov) spoke about Archpriest Nikolai Guryanov: “In our last times Elder Nikolai is a lamp similar to Seraphim of Sarov" (90).
Father Nicholas talked with the saints in his prayers. And he spiritually saw that Grigory Rasputin is a holy righteous man. As Father Nikolai himself stated, he “was informed about this from the Lord and the Royal Saints” (91). When the Council of Bishops did not canonize Rasputin, Father Nikolai, greatly upset, took action to glorify him as a holy martyr.
With the blessing of Father Nicholas, the Life of Elder Gregory and an akathist to him were written. In addition, he gave his blessing to paint his icons. He kept these icons in his cell, and gave photographs of them to hundreds of his spiritual children.
After the blessed death of Father Nicholas, admirers painted his image - in one hand the priest holds a cross, and in the other a small icon of the martyr Gregory. In September 2002, the image flowed abundantly with myrrh. Then they took a photograph of this miracle. Large drops of the world are clearly visible on it. Photos of the myrrh-streaming image were multiplied. One of them ended up in Yekaterinburg with the servants of God Elena and Vera. They greatly reverence Father Nicholas and the Martyr Gregory, and therefore began to pray in front of the image that came to them. Time passed and the paper photograph in their house became peaceful (92).
The documentary film “Martyr for Christ and for the Tsar Gregory the New” (directed by Viktor Ryzhko, 2009) captures the abundant myrrh flow of various images of Elder Gregory.
In 2004, in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, an icon with Father Nicholas, Tsarevich Alexei and Elder Gregory healed a dying man of forty years old, who, according to doctors, had only a few hours left to live (93).
Thus, the Lord Himself visibly glorified two of His Saints - the elder Nikolai (Guryanov) and the martyr Grigory Rasputin-New.
A miraculous manifestation of God’s favor to the memory of Elder Gregory is the fact that every year in December, no matter what the weather or any frost, the willow tree blooms near the burial place of Rasputin. This happens on the day the elder is killed, and the flowering lasts only fifteen minutes...
NOTES
1. Rasputin. Memories of a daughter. M. 2000. P. 25.
2. Martyr for Christ and for the Tsar, man of God Gregory. M. 2000. P. 45.
3. Rasputin. Memories of a daughter. M. 2000. pp. 23-24.
4. Ibid. P. 19.
5. Grigory Rasputin. My thoughts and reflections. M. 2001. P. 23.
6. Rasputin. Memories of a daughter. M. 2000. P. 35.
7. Martyr for Christ and for the Tsar, man of God Gregory. M. 2000. P. 54.
8. Ibid. From 54.
9. Bats Thomas. Wheat and tares. M. 1997. P. 112.
10. Ibid. T. 3. P. 17.
11. Grigory Rasputin. Collection of historical materials. T. 2. P. 167.
12. Grigory Rasputin. My thoughts and reflections. M. 2001. P. 25.
13. Rasputin. Memories of a daughter. M. 2000. S. Rasputin. Memories of a daughter. M. 2000. 41
14. Grigory Rasputin. My thoughts and reflections. M. 2001. pp. 24-25).
15. O. A. Platonov. " crown of thorns Russia. Plot of regicides. M. 1996. P.95.
16. Grigory Rasputin. My thoughts and reflections. M. 2001. P. 43.
17. A. A. Taneyeva (Vyrubova). Pages of my life. M. 2000. P. 142.
18. Grigory Rasputin. Collection of historical materials. T. 3. P. 17.
19. R. Bates. V. Marchenko “Confessor of the Royal Family.” M. 1997. P. 47.
20. M. Smirnova V. Smirnov. Rasputin. Mound. 2004. From 25
21. Ibid. P. 27.
22. Ibid. P. 42.
23. Grigory Rasputin. Collection of historical materials. T. 1. P. 503.
24. Ibid. T.2 P. 318.
25. M. Smirnova V. Smirnov. Rasputin. Mound. 2004. P. 27.
26. Note by Rudnev V.M. “The truth about the dark forces of the Russian royal family” // Russian archive. M. 1998. Cited. From “From Under the Lies.” Sovereign Nicholas II. Grigory Rasputin." St. Petersburg 2005. P. 109.
27. From under lies. Sovereign Nicholas II. Grigory Rasputin. St. Petersburg 2005. P. 110.
28. The royal bird calls to God. M. 2009. P. 127
29. From under lies. Sovereign Nicholas II. Grigory Rasputin. St. Petersburg 2005. P. 107.
30. Grigory Rasputin. Collection of historical materials. T. 1. P. 267.
31. Ibid. T. 2. P. 240.
32. Bats Thomas. Wheat and tares. M. 1997. P. 138
33. Dan Yu. A. The Genuine Queen. M. 1998. P. 95.
34. Radzinsky E. S. Rasputin. Life and death. M. 2003. P.249
35. Ibid. P.286
36. The royal bird calls out to God. M. 2009. P. 127
37. O. A. Platonov. “The crown of thorns of Russia. Plot of regicides. M. 1996. P.248.
38. A. N. Bokhanov. Rasputin. Anatomy of a myth. M. 2000. P.359
39. O. A. Platonov. “The crown of thorns of Russia. Plot of regicides. M. 1996. P.250.
40. //How I burned Rasputin’s body. Factual message from F.P. Kupchinsky. Quote according to Russian Bulletin. No. 21-23//, 2002, P. 16).
41. Diary of Chamberlain Naryshkina E.A. With the Royal Family under arrest. Last news. 1936. No. 5533. 15/28.01.1917. Quote According to Martyr for Christ and for the Tsar Gregory the New. M. 2000. P. 285.
42. Grigory Rasputin. Collection of historical materials. T. 2. P. 111.
43. M. Smirnova V. Smirnov. Rasputin. Mound. 2004. P. 86.
44. Radzinsky E. S. Rasputin. Life and death. M. 2003. P.249
45. Purishkevich V. M. Diary. "How I killed Rasputin." M. 1990. P. 135. Reprint from the Riga edition of 1924. Cited. according to Russian Bulletin. No. 21-23, 2002, p. 17.
46. //Russian Bulletin. No. 21-23.// 2002. P. 17.
47. The case of the murder of Grigory Rasputin // Russian Word 1917. March 9-22. Quote according to Russian Bulletin. No. 21-23, 2002. P. 3.
48. Grigory Rasputin. Collection of historical materials. T. 1. P. 254.
49. Tsvetkov V. G. New Friend. Nizhny Novgorod. 2004. P. 100
50. Bats Thomas. Wheat and tares. M. 1997. P. 45.
51. Ibid. P. 144.
52. O. A. Platonov. “The crown of thorns of Russia. Plot of regicides. M. 1996. P.3.
53. Bats Thomas. Wheat and tares. M. 1997. P. 41.
54. O. A. Platonov. “The crown of thorns of Russia. Plot of regicides. M. 1996. P. 95.
55. Bats Thomas. Wheat and tares. M. 1997. P. 17.
56. Metropolitan Veniamin (Fedchenkov). At the turn of two eras. M. 1999. P. 134.
57. M. Smirnova V. Smirnov. Rasputin. Mound. 2004. P. 32.
58. Ibid. P. 32.
59. Grigory Rasputin. Collection of historical materials. T. 1. P. 499.
60. Grigory Rasputin. My thoughts and reflections. M. 2001. P. 24.
61. Radzinsky E. S. Rasputin. Life and death. M. 2003. P. 249
62. Bats Thomas. Wheat and tares. M. 1997. P. 216
63. Rasputin. Memories of a daughter. M. 2000. P. 19.
64. Ibid. P. 50.
65. Bats Thomas. Wheat and tares. M. 1997. pp. 48-49.
66. Grigory Rasputin. Collection of historical materials. T. 1. P. 140.
67. Radzinsky E. S. Rasputin. Life and death. M. 1996. P. 84
68. Ibid. P. 312.
69. Platonov O. A. Crown of Thorns of Russia. Plot of regicides. M. 1996. P.23.
70. M. Smirnova V. Smirnov. Rasputin. Mound. 2004. P. 12.
71. Rasputin. Memories of a daughter. M. 2000. P. 19
72. Bats Thomas. Wheat and tares. M. 1997. P. 46
73. Radzinsky E. S. Rasputin. Life and death. M. 2003. P. 56
74. Grigory Rasputin. Collection of historical materials. T. 1. P. 459.
75. Taneyeva (Vyrubova) A.. A.. Pages of my life. M. 2000. P. 143.
76. Ibid.
77. Grigory Rasputin. Collection of historical materials. T. 3. P. 17.
78. Radzinsky E. S. Rasputin. Life and death. M. 1996. P. 95.
79. Ibid. P. 56.
80. Ibid. S. 400
81. Grigory Rasputin. Collection of historical materials. T. 2. P. 165.
82. Ibid. T. 1. P. 110.
83. Bats Thomas. Wheat and tares. M. 1997. P. 156
84. The Royal Bird calls to God. M. 2009. P. 133
85. Tsvetkov V. G. New Friend. Nizhny Novgorod. 2004. P. 116.
86. The Royal Bird calls to God. M. 2009. P. 117.
87. Ibid. P. 117
89. The Royal Bird calls out to God. M. 2009. P. 63
90. Ibid. P. 747
91. Ibid. P. 107
92. Ibid. P. 762
93. Tsvetkov V. G. New Friend. Nizhny Novgorod. 2004. P. 142.
Grigory Rasputin. Biography
Grigory Efimovich Rasputin was born in the Ural village of Pokrovsky, Tyumen district.
Tobolsk province January 9, 1869. The next day, in memory of St. Gregory of Nyssa,
the baby was baptized with the name Gregory, which means “awake.” Already from the age of fourteen
Gregory began to deeply comprehend the Gospel. Not knowing how to read, he memorized the Gospels
texts that I heard at church services. From then on, Gregory showed the gift of foresight.
He could be sitting near the stove and suddenly say: “A stranger is coming.”
Lit.: Taneyeva (Vyrubova) A, Radzinsky E, Tsvetkov V; Bats Foma, Platonov O,
Metropolitan Veniamin (Fedchenkov), Purishkevich V., M. Smirnova, Evsin I.
RUSSIAN MONARCHIST,
2011-05
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Biography, life story of Rasputin Grigory Efimovich
BirthBorn on January 9 (January 21), 1869 in the village of Pokrovskoye, Tyumen district, Tobolsk province, in the family of coachman Efim Vilkin and Anna Parshukova.
Information about Rasputin's date of birth is extremely contradictory. Sources give various dates of birth between 1864 and 1872. TSB (3rd edition) reports that he was born in 1864-1865.
Rasputin himself in his mature years did not add clarity, reporting conflicting information about his date of birth. According to biographers, he was inclined to exaggerate his true age in order to better fit the image of an “old man.”
According to the writer Edward Radzinsky, Rasputin could not have been born earlier than 1869. The surviving metric of the village of Pokrovsky reports the date of birth as January 10 (old style) 1869. This is St. Gregory's Day, which is why the baby was named that way.
Beginning of life
In his youth, Rasputin was sick a lot. After a pilgrimage to the Verkhoturye Monastery, he turned to religion. In 1893, Rasputin traveled to the holy places of Russia, visited Mount Athos in Greece, and then Jerusalem. I met and made contacts with many representatives of the clergy, monks, and wanderers.
In 1890 he married Praskovya Fedorovna Dubrovina, a fellow pilgrim-peasant, who bore him three children: Matryona, Varvara and Dimitri.
In 1900 he set off on a new journey to Kyiv. On the way back, he lived in Kazan for quite a long time, where he met Father Mikhail, who was related to the Kazan Theological Academy, and came to St. Petersburg to visit the rector of the theological academy, Bishop Sergius (Stragorodsky).
In 1903, the inspector of the St. Petersburg Academy, Archimandrite Feofan (Bistrov), met Rasputin, introducing him also to Bishop Hermogenes (Dolganov).
St. Petersburg since 1904
In 1904, Rasputin, apparently with the assistance of Archimandrite Feofan, moved to St. Petersburg, where he gained from part of high society the fame of “an “old man,” “a holy fool,” “a man of God,” which “secured the position of a “saint” in the eyes of the St. Petersburg world.” . It was Father Feofan who told about the “wanderer” to the daughters of the Montenegrin prince (later king) Nikolai Njegosh - Militsa and Anastasia. The sisters told the empress about the new religious celebrity. Several years passed before he began to clearly stand out among the crowd of “God’s men.”
CONTINUED BELOW
In December 1906, Rasputin submitted a petition to the highest name to change his surname to Rasputin-Novy, citing the fact that many of his fellow villagers had the same surname, which could cause misunderstandings. The request was granted.
G. Rasputin and the imperial family
The date of the first personal meeting with the emperor is well known - on November 1, 1905, Nicholas II wrote in his diary:
"November 1st. Tuesday. Cold windy day. It was frozen from the shore to the end of our canal and a flat strip in both directions. Been very busy all morning. Had breakfast: book. Orlov and Resin (deux.). I took a walk. At 4 o'clock we went to Sergievka. We drank tea with Militsa and Stana. We met the man of God - Gregory from Tobolsk province. In the evening I went to bed, studied a lot and spent the evening with Alix".
There are other mentions of Rasputin in the diaries of Nicholas II.
Rasputin gained influence on the imperial family and, above all, on Alexandra Feodorovna by helping her son, heir to the throne Alexei, fight hemophilia, a disease against which medicine was powerless.
Rasputin and the church
Later life writers of Rasputin (O. Platonov) tend to see in the official investigations carried out church authority in connection with the activities of Rasputin, some broader political meaning; but investigative documents (the Khlysty case and police documents) show that all cases were the subject of their investigation into very specific acts of Grigory Rasputin, which encroached on public morality and piety.
The first case of Rasputin's "Khlysty" in 1907
In 1907, following a denunciation of 1903, the Tobolsk Consistory opened a case against Rasputin, who was accused of spreading false teachings similar to Khlyst’s and forming a society of followers of his false teachings. The work began on September 6, 1907, and was completed and approved by Bishop Anthony (Karzhavin) of Tobolsk on May 7, 1908. The initial investigation was carried out by priest Nikodim Glukhovetsky. Based on the collected “facts,” Archpriest Dmitry Smirnov, a member of the Tobolsk Consistory, prepared a report to Bishop Anthony with the attachment of a review of the case under consideration by Dmitry Mikhailovich Berezkin, inspector of the Tobolsk Theological Seminary.
Covert police surveillance, Jerusalem - 1911
In 1909, the police were going to expel Rasputin from St. Petersburg, but Rasputin was ahead of them and he himself went home to the village of Pokrovskoye for some time.
In 1910, his daughters moved to St. Petersburg to join Rasputin, whom he arranged to study at the gymnasium. At the direction of the Prime Minister, Rasputin was placed under surveillance for several days.
At the beginning of 1911, Bishop Theophan suggested that the Holy Synod officially express displeasure to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna in connection with Rasputin’s behavior, and a member of the Holy Synod, Metropolitan Anthony (Vadkovsky), reported to Nicholas II about the negative influence of Rasputin.
On December 16, 1911, Rasputin had a clash with Bishop Hermogenes and Hieromonk Iliodor. Bishop Hermogenes, acting in alliance with Hieromonk Iliodor (Trufanov), invited Rasputin to his courtyard; on Vasilievsky Island, in the presence of Iliodor, he “convicted” him, striking him several times with a cross. An argument ensued between them, and then a fight.
In 1911, Rasputin voluntarily left the capital and made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
By order of the Minister of Internal Affairs Makarov on January 23, 1912, Rasputin was again placed under surveillance, which continued until his death.
The second case of Rasputin's "Khlysty" in 1912
In January 1912, the Duma declared its attitude towards Rasputin, and in February 1912, Nicholas II ordered V.K. Sabler to resume the case of the Holy Synod with the case of Rasputin’s “Khlysty” and transfer Rodzianko for a report, “ and the palace commandant Dedyulin and handed over to him the Case of the Tobolsk Spiritual Consistory, which contained the beginning of Investigative Proceedings regarding the accusation of Rasputin belonging to the Khlyst sect" On February 26, 1912, at an audience, Rodzianko suggested that the tsar expel the peasant forever. Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky) openly wrote that Rasputin is a whip and is participating in zeal.
The new (who replaced Eusebius (Grozdov)) Tobolsk Bishop Alexy (Molchanov) personally took up this matter, studied the materials, requested information from the clergy of the Intercession Church, and repeatedly talked with Rasputin himself. Based on the results of this new investigation, a conclusion of the Tobolsk Ecclesiastical Consistory was prepared and approved on November 29, 1912, which was sent to many high-ranking officials and some deputies of the State Duma. In conclusion, Rasputin-Novy is called “a Christian, a spiritually minded person who seeks the truth of Christ.” Rasputin no longer faced any official charges. But this did not mean that everyone believed in the results of the new investigation. Rasputin’s opponents believe that Bishop Alexy “helped” him in this way for selfish purposes: the disgraced bishop, exiled to Tobolsk from the Pskov See as a result of the discovery of a sectarian St. John’s monastery in the Pskov province, stayed at the Tobolsk See only until October 1913, that is, only a year and a half, after which he was appointed Exarch of Georgia and elevated to the rank of Archbishop of Kartalin and Kakheti with the title of member of the Holy Synod. This is seen as the influence of Rasputin.
However, researchers believe that the rise of Bishop Alexy in 1913 took place only thanks to his devotion to the reigning house, which is especially visible from his sermon delivered on the occasion of the 1905 manifesto. Moreover, the period in which Bishop Alexy was appointed Exarch of Georgia was a period of revolutionary ferment in Georgia.
It should also be noted that Rasputin’s opponents often forget about another elevation: Bishop Anthony of Tobolsk (Karzhavin), who brought the first case of “Khlysty” against Rasputin, was moved in 1910 from cold Siberia to the Tver See for this very reason and was elevated to the rank of archbishop on Easter. But they remember that this translation took place precisely because the first case was sent to the archives of the Synod.
Prophecies, writings and correspondence of Rasputin
During his lifetime, Rasputin published two books:
Rasputin, G. E. Life of an experienced wanderer. - May 1907.
G. E. Rasputin. My thoughts and reflections. - Petrograd, 1915..
The books are a literary record of his conversations, since the surviving notes of Rasputin testify to his illiteracy.
The eldest daughter writes about her father:
"... my father was, to put it mildly, not fully trained in reading and writing. He began taking his first writing and reading lessons in St. Petersburg".
In total there are 100 canonical prophecies of Rasputin. The most famous was the prediction of the death of the Imperial House:
"As long as I live, the dynasty will live".
Some authors believe that Rasputin is mentioned in Alexandra Feodorovna’s letters to Nicholas II. In the letters themselves, Rasputin’s surname is not mentioned, but some authors believe that Rasputin in the letters is designated by the words “Friend”, or “He” with capital letters, although this does not have documentary evidence. The letters were published in the USSR by 1927, and in the Berlin publishing house “Slovo” in 1922. The correspondence was preserved in the State Archive of the Russian Federation - Novoromanovsky Archive.
Anti-Rasputin campaign in the press
In 1910, the Tolstoyan M.A. Novoselov published several critical articles about Rasputin in Moskovskie Vedomosti (No. 49 - “Spiritual guest performer Grigory Rasputin”, No. 72 - “Something else about Grigory Rasputin”).
In 1912, Novoselov published in his publishing house the brochure “Grigory Rasputin and Mystical Debauchery,” which accused Rasputin of being a Khlysty and criticized the highest church hierarchy. The brochure was banned and confiscated from the printing house. The newspaper "Voice of Moscow" was fined for publishing excerpts from it. After this, the State Duma followed up with a request to the Ministry of Internal Affairs about the legality of punishing the editors of Voice of Moscow and Novoye Vremya.
Also in 1912, Rasputin’s acquaintance, former hieromonk Iliodor, began distributing several scandalous letters from Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and the Grand Duchesses to Rasputin.
Copies printed on a hectograph circulated around St. Petersburg. Most researchers consider these letters to be forgeries. Later, Iliodor, on the advice of Gorky, wrote a libelous book “Holy Devil” about Rasputin, which was published in 1917 during the revolution.
In 1913-1914 The Supreme Council of the All-Russian People's Republic attempted a propaganda campaign regarding Rasputin's role at court. Somewhat later, the Council made an attempt to publish a brochure directed against Rasputin, and when this attempt failed (the brochure was delayed by censorship), the Council took steps to distribute this brochure in a typed copy.
Assassination attempt by Khionia Guseva
On June 29 (July 12), 1914, an attempt was made on Rasputin in the village of Pokrovskoye. He was stabbed in the stomach and seriously wounded by Khionia Guseva, who came from Tsaritsyn. Rasputin testified that he suspected Iliodor of organizing the assassination attempt, but could not provide any evidence of this. On July 3, Rasputin was transported by ship to Tyumen for treatment. Rasputin remained in the Tyumen hospital until August 17, 1914. The investigation into the assassination attempt lasted about a year. Guseva was declared mentally ill in July 1915 and released from criminal liability, being placed in psychiatric hospital In Tomsk. On March 27, 1917, on the personal orders of A.F. Kerensky, Guseva was released.
Murder
Rasputin was killed on the night of December 17, 1916 in the Yusupov Palace on the Moika. Conspirators: F. F. Yusupov, V. M. Purishkevich, Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, British intelligence officer MI6 Oswald Rayner (the investigation did not officially classify him as murder).
Information about the murder is contradictory, it was confused both by the killers themselves and by the pressure on the investigation by the Russian, British and Soviet authorities. Yusupov changed his testimony several times: in the St. Petersburg police on December 16, 1916, in exile in Crimea in 1917, in a book in 1927, sworn to in 1934 and in 1965. Initially, Purishkevich’s memoirs were published, then Yusupov echoed his version. However, they radically diverged from the testimony of the investigation. Starting from naming the wrong color of the clothes that Rasputin was wearing according to the killers and in which he was found, and to how many and where bullets were fired. For example, forensic experts found 3 wounds, each of which was fatal: to the head, liver and kidney. (According to British researchers who studied the photograph, the control shot to the forehead was made from a British Webley .455 revolver.) After a shot in the liver, a person can live no more than 20 minutes, and is not able, as the killers said, to run down the street in half an hour or an hour. There was also no shot to the heart, which the killers unanimously claimed.
Rasputin was first lured into the basement, treated to red wine and a pie poisoned with potassium cyanide. Yusupov went upstairs and, returning, shot him in the back, causing him to fall. The conspirators went outside. Yusupov, who returned to get the cloak, checked the body; suddenly Rasputin woke up and tried to strangle the killer. The conspirators who ran in at that moment began to shoot at Rasputin. As they approached, they were surprised that he was still alive and began to beat him. According to the killers, the poisoned and shot Rasputin came to his senses, got out of the basement and tried to climb over the high wall of the garden, but was caught by the killers, who heard a dog barking. Then he was tied with ropes on his hands and feet (according to Purishkevich, first wrapped in blue cloth), taken by car to a pre-selected place near Kamenny Island and thrown from the bridge into the Neva polynya in such a way that his body ended up under the ice. However, according to the investigation materials, the discovered corpse was dressed in a fur coat, there was no fabric or ropes.
The investigation into the murder of Rasputin, led by the director of the Police Department A.T. Vasilyev, progressed quite quickly. Already the first interrogations of Rasputin’s family members and servants showed that on the night of the murder, Rasputin went to visit Prince Yusupov. Policeman Vlasyuk, who was on duty on the night of December 16-17 on the street not far from the Yusupov Palace, testified that he heard several shots at night. During a search in the courtyard of the Yusupovs' house, traces of blood were found.
On the afternoon of December 17, passers-by noticed blood stains on the parapet of the Petrovsky Bridge. After exploration by divers of the Neva, Rasputin’s body was discovered in this place. The forensic medical examination was entrusted to a famous professor Military Medical Academy D. P. Kosorotov. The original autopsy report has not been preserved; the cause of death can only be speculated.
« During the autopsy, very numerous injuries were found, many of which were inflicted posthumously. The entire right side of the head was crushed and flattened due to the bruise of the corpse when it fell from the bridge. Death resulted from heavy bleeding due to a gunshot wound to the stomach. The shot was fired, in my opinion, almost point-blank, from left to right, through the stomach and liver, with the latter being fragmented in the right half. The bleeding was very profuse. The corpse also had a gunshot wound in the back, in the spinal area, with a crushed right kidney, and another point-blank wound in the forehead, probably of someone who was already dying or had died. The chest organs were intact and were examined superficially, but there were no signs of death by drowning. The lungs were not swollen, and in respiratory tract there was no water or foamy liquid. Rasputin was thrown into the water already dead"- Conclusion of the forensic expert Professor D.N. Kosorotova.
No poison was found in Rasputin's stomach. Possible explanations for this are that the cyanide in the cakes has been neutralized by sugar or high temperature when cooking in the oven. His daughter reports that after Guseva’s assassination attempt, Rasputin suffered increased acidity and avoided sweet foods. It is reported that he was poisoned with a dose capable of killing 5 people. Some modern researchers suggest that there was no poison - this is a lie to confuse the investigation.
There are a number of nuances in determining O. Reiner's involvement. At that time, there were two MI6 officers in St. Petersburg who could have committed murder: Yusupov's school friend Oswald Rayner and Captain Stephen Alley, who was born in the Yusupov Palace. Both families were close to Yusupov, and it is difficult to say who exactly killed. The former was suspected, and Tsar Nicholas II directly mentioned that the killer was Yusupov’s school friend. Reiner was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1919, and destroyed his papers before his death in 1961. Compton's driver's log records that he brought Oswald to Yusupov (and another officer, Captain John Scale) a week before the assassination, and for the last time - on the day of the murder. Compton also directly hinted at Rayner, saying that the killer was a lawyer and was born in the same city as him. There is a letter from Alley written to Scale 8 days after the murder: “ Although not everything went according to plan, our goal was achieved... Rayner is covering his tracks and will undoubtedly contact you for instructions.“According to modern British researchers, the order to three British agents (Rayner, Alley and Scale) to eliminate Rasputin came from Mansfield Smith-Cumming (the first director of MI6).
The investigation lasted two and a half months until the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II on March 2, 1917. On this day, Kerensky became Minister of Justice in the Provisional Government. On March 4, 1917, he ordered a hasty termination of the investigation, while investigator A. T. Vasilyev (arrested during the February Revolution) was transported to the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he was interrogated by the Extraordinary Commission of Investigation until September, and later emigrated.
Version about the English conspiracy
In 2004, the BBC aired the documentary Who Killed Rasputin?, which brought new attention to the murder investigation. According to the version shown in the film, the “glory” and the idea of this murder belongs exclusively to Great Britain, the Russian conspirators were only the perpetrators, the control shot to the forehead was fired from the British officers’ Webley .455 revolver.
According to researchers motivated by the film and who published books, Rasputin was killed with the active participation of the British intelligence service Mi-6; the killers confused the investigation in order to hide the British trace. The motive for the conspiracy was the following: Great Britain feared Rasputin's influence on Russian empress, which threatened to conclude a separate peace with Germany. To eliminate the threat, the conspiracy against Rasputin that was brewing in Russia was used.
It is also stated there that the next murder the British intelligence services planned immediately after the revolution was the murder of Joseph Stalin, who most loudly sought peace with Germany.
Funeral
Rasputin's funeral service was conducted by Bishop Isidor (Kolokolov), who was well acquainted with him. In his memoirs, A.I. Spiridovich recalls that Bishop Isidore celebrated the funeral mass (which he had no right to do).
They said later that Metropolitan Pitirim, who was approached about the funeral service, rejected this request. In those days, a legend was spread that the Empress was present at the autopsy and funeral service, which reached the English Embassy. It was a typical piece of gossip directed against the Empress.
At first they wanted to bury the murdered man in his homeland, in the village of Pokrovskoye. But due to the danger of possible unrest in connection with sending the body across half the country, they buried it in the Alexander Park of Tsarskoe Selo on the territory of the Church of Seraphim of Sarov, which was being built by Anna Vyrubova.
The burial was found, and Kerensky ordered Kornilov to organize the destruction of the body. For several days the coffin with the remains stood in a special carriage. Rasputin's body was burned on the night of March 11 in the furnace of the steam boiler of the Polytechnic Institute. An official act on the burning of Rasputin's corpse was drawn up.
Three months after Rasputin's death, his grave was desecrated. At the site of the burning, two inscriptions are inscribed on a birch tree, one of which is in German: “Hier ist der Hund begraben” (“A dog is buried here”) and then “The corpse of Rasputin Grigory was burned here on the night of March 10-11, 1917.” .
Saint and devil, “man of God” and sectarian, peasant and courtier: there seemed to be no end to the definitions characterizing Rasputin. The central and dominant feature of his personality was, without a doubt, the duality of nature: the “old man” was capable of playing one role with extraordinary skill, and then its complete opposite. And it was precisely thanks to the contradictions inherent in his character that he became a great actor.
Mediumistic intuition, coupled with the cunning typical of peasants, turned Rasputin into a creature with supernatural capabilities: he always managed to discover the vulnerable side of a person and benefit from it. When the “elder” firmly established himself in the Alexander Palace, he immediately revealed the weaknesses of the imperial couple; he never flattered them, addressed them only as "you", calling them "mom" and "dad". In communicating with them, he allowed himself all sorts of familiarity and realized that his worn-out boots, peasant shirt and even unkempt beard had an irresistible attractive effect on their august patrons.
Before the empress he played the role of “elder,” which she liked most; as during a large theatrical performance, he demonstrated his talent on the stage of the Alexander Palace. It did not matter that there might be a false saint, a libertine or a sectarian in the imperial residence; All that mattered was what Alexandra Fedorovna wanted to see and hear. Everything else - as she thought - was nothing more than baseness, slander and malice of those who dreamed of alienating her from this “holy man”.
The world in which the empress lived was rather simple and limited, and Rasputin, with his intuition, quickly understood how to win her favor. Surrounded by supposedly enlightened, but in fact depraved courtiers to the core, Alexandra Feodorovna decided that in the person of this ignorant peasant she had met the only one who could bring her and the tsar closer to the people. This man, sent to her by God himself and who came from a Russian village, combined in himself a peasant and a saint; the fact that Rasputin had the gift of healing was, in the eyes of the empress, another manifestation of his holiness. All this took place away from the outside world, in a residence similar to an ancient Russian tower.
And indeed, almost only women lived in the Alexander Palace; the empress, her ubiquitous friends, four daughters, as well as a great many teachers, governesses and maids. As in the days of ancient Russian towers, women from the family of Nicholas II were not supposed to be seen by male persons, except for close relatives, church representatives and high-ranking dignitaries. Alexandra Fedorovna did not consider Rasputin’s presence to be something unacceptable, since the “elder” was a holy man for her and directly expressed the will of the Almighty.
Rasputin did not live in the Alexander Palace, but when he was received there, he was given complete freedom: he entered the rooms of the young princesses at any time of the day, kissed all the women, claiming that the apostles also did this as a sign of greeting, and always found an explanation for his behavior . Rasputin was by nature a rude, primitive and vulgar man, but when he entered the palace, he turned into an “old man” to whom Alexandra Feodorovna and her daughters turned with hope; he was their guiding star, which enlightened them and pointed them in the right direction in the complex whirlpool of life. You just need to follow his advice, Rasputin said, and he will be able to help the imperial family overcome all the troubles that have befallen it: thanks to his gift of a seer, he will take it beyond fate and divine Providence itself.
The “elder” understood perfectly well that he had become necessary for the imperial couple. In addition, he had an irresistible magnetic influence, and a variety of people had already experienced, finding themselves unable to resist, the hypnotic spell of his gaze. Perhaps this is how Rasputin stopped the little crown prince’s bleeding, although it will never be possible to accurately establish his methods of “treatment.” Everything happened in the presence of only relatives and servants, and no one - even those who knew the secret of the Romanovs - could act as a witness.
Rasputin’s role in state affairs should not be exaggerated, since in reality he did not have any specific program: the “old man” was a real devil in psychology, but a complete layman in politics. Dramatic events began during the war, when Alexandra Fedorovna herself, together with Rasputin, had to control the situation in raging Petrograd. Undoubtedly, the “elder” managed to impose on the emperor people he liked, Rasputin, to influence the appointment of new ministers: and indeed, from that moment on, ministers began to replace one another with dizzying speed, and they were all under Rasputin’s heel. However, at that time the entire state machine was in such a deplorable state, and in addition there was such a shortage of suitable people, that there is no basis for asserting that without the direct intervention of the “old man” things would have gone better. 
Rasputin's real conquest was his close relationship with the imperial couple, friendly and trusting; everything else came later, as a natural consequence of this closeness, which only he, the “Man of God,” was awarded. Rasputin - a healer or Rasputin - a political adviser to the sovereign is nothing compared to Rasputin - an “old man” devoted to the imperial family: it was he who was the real mentor for the Romanovs. Only he was able to alleviate the mental suffering of those to whom history had placed too heavy a burden on their shoulders. The phenomenon of Rasputin originated in the minds of these people themselves, and its appearance became possible precisely because weak character Nicholas II combined with the mystical exaltation of Alexandra Fedorovna. In other words, the Tsar and Tsarina themselves opened the doors to the swindler, a worthy follower of the numerous charlatans who infested the Russian court in past centuries.
This dissolute man, as such, never existed for them: Rasputin was only a projection of the imagination of two confused creatures, suppressed by the seriousness of the events taking place and by nature prone to irrationality. At all times, monarchs loved to surround themselves with flatterers and mediocre personalities, but, unlike the jesters of bygone eras, Rasputin appeared as a “saint” who also possessed supernatural power. So, Nikolai and Alexandra unconsciously joined a game that could satisfy their spiritual needs, but this home game turned into a tragedy for the entire country.
Outside the walls of the Alexander Palace, Rasputin again became himself: a drunkard, a lover of prostitutes, especially willing to resort to violence against women. Fanfare and bragging, he boasted of his successes at court and, having drunk heavily, told obscene details, sometimes invented by himself. His house was a meeting place for a variety of people: great princes, the priesthood, ladies of high society and simple peasant women came to him to get to the sovereign. And everyone, without exception, asked for royal mercy and intercession.
But no matter what Rasputin did, he always took all precautions so that in Tsarskoye Selo the image of a holy man that he managed to create would remain untarnished, which was the real secret of his success. Thanks to his resourcefulness and tenacity, this man knew how to defend the positions he had conquered; Moreover, here he did not encounter any particular difficulties, since Alexandra Fedorovna was unable to admit that he had at least one negative trait. The Empress always rejected all stories about Rasputin’s unseemly behavior, considering them fictitious and slanderous, and could not believe that “her old man” could have another face. Moreover, this illiterate man was absolutely necessary for her, since he personified the traditional triumvirate of the Russian nation: the tsar, the church and the people.
When Rasputin felt that he existed real threat his career, he relied primarily on the eternal fears and deep religiosity of Alexandra Fedorovna. He used psychological blackmail, describing the future of her and her loved ones in gloomy tones; he also convinced the queen that they could not survive without him, and these predictions sounded like the death knell for the king and his dynasty.
This man was loved by the entire royal family and hated by the educated society of Russia. Perhaps he was the only one who incurred such hatred. Rasputin was called a servant of the Antichrist. During his life and after his death, there were many rumors and gossip about him. And to this day, many people wonder: who was he anyway - a saint or an adventurer?
Grigory Efimovich Rasputin (real name - Novykh) was born into a peasant family in the village of Pokrovskoye, Tobolsk province. As his father's only assistant, he began to work early: herded cattle, was a cab driver, fished, and helped harvest crops. There was no school in Pokrovsky, and Gregory was illiterate until the beginning of his pilgrimage. In general, he did not stand out among other peasants in any way, except perhaps for his sickness, which in peasant families was assessed as inferiority and gave rise to ridicule. At the age of 19, he married a peasant woman, Praskovya Fedorovna. She bore him three children.
However, something prompted Rasputin to dramatically change his life. He began to pray often and fervently, and stopped drinking and smoking. Beginning in the mid-1890s, Rasputin began to wander around the country, earning his living by any work that came his way. He visited dozens of monasteries, visited an Orthodox monastery on the sacred Greek Mount Athos, and reached Jerusalem twice. During his wanderings, Rasputin learned a lot, but for some reason he never fully learned to read and write. He constantly wrote with gross errors in almost every word.
Repeatedly the wanderer helped the sick, even those who were considered incurable. Once, in a Ural monastery, he healed a “possessed” woman who was suffering from severe seizures.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Rasputin was already respectfully called the “old man.” They called him that not because of his age, but because of his experience and faith. It was at that time that he came to St. Petersburg. People who did not find complete consolation in state church. They visited Grigory Efimovich Rasputin, listened to his stories and instructions. The visitors were especially impressed by the old man’s eyes, as if looking into the very soul of his interlocutor.
Bishop Feofan became interested in Rasputin. He was struck by the special religious ecstasy into which the elder fell at times. Such a deep prayerful mood, the bishop said, he encountered only on rare occasions among the most prominent representatives of Russian monasticism.
1908 - thanks to the bishop, Rasputin met with Empress Alexandra Fedorovna herself. Count Vladimir Kokovtsov conveyed the content of this conversation as follows: “Rasputin began to say that it was especially difficult for her and the sovereign to live, because they could never find out the truth, since around them there were more and more flatterers and self-lovers who could not say what was needed for this.” to make it easier for people. The king and she need to be closer to the people, see them more often and trust them more, because he will not deceive the one whom he considers almost equal to God himself, and will always tell his real truth, not like ministers and officials who do not care about people's tears and to his need. These thoughts sank deeply into the empress’s soul.”
Over time, Grigory Efimovich Rasputin began to be called a “friend” of the royal couple. He treated their children, especially the hemophiliac heir Alexei. The “elder” behaved with the king and queen surprisingly freely and naturally. He simply called them “Mom” and “Dad,” and they called him Gregory. “He told them about Siberia and the needs of the peasants, about his wanderings,” wrote maid of honor Anna Vyrubova. “When he left after an hour-long conversation, he always left Their Majesties cheerful, with joyful hopes and hope in their souls.”
For more than 10 years, Rasputin was one of the closest people to the royal family. The Romanovs believed him, but at the same time they repeatedly collected information about the Siberian wanderer and especially checked the information that was very often presented to them in order to push them away from the elder.
Nicholas II sometimes consulted with Rasputin about the appointment of certain important dignitaries. And although his opinion was taken into account, it was not always decisive. The king took him into account, but made decisions on his own.
Many of the prominent officials who were looking for promotion now sought to please the Siberian peasant and curried favor with him. Along with beggars, millionaires, ministers and aristocrats frequented the old man’s apartment.
But if the monarch consulted with Gregory about the appointment of officials, then he listened to his political advice much less often. For example, in 1915–1916, the State Duma sought the right to appoint ministers. Rasputin persuaded the Tsar to bow to the demands of the time. Nicholas II agreed, but never did it.
The emperor did not welcome the frequent appearances of the “old man” in the palace. Moreover, rumors soon began to circulate in St. Petersburg about Rasputin’s extremely indecent behavior. It was rumored that, taking advantage of his enormous influence on the empress, he took bribes to promote people in their careers, although the Provisional Government commission was unable to identify any real case(but there were many rumors about this) when, according to Rasputin’s notes, a request was fulfilled that was in violation of the law.
Investigator of the Provisional Government commission V. Rudnev writes: “When examining the papers of the Minister of Internal Affairs Protopopov, several typical letters from Rasputin were discovered, which always spoke only about some interests of private individuals for whom Rasputin was working. Among Protopopov’s papers, as well as among the papers of all other high-ranking officials, not a single document was found indicating Rasputin’s influence on foreign and domestic policy.”
Many people came to Rasputin asking him to pray for their affairs, and they sent him telegrams and letters. However, most of all, of course, direct contact with him was valued. Unbiased sources testify that when meeting in person, he charmed people with some special confidence, ability to present himself, goodwill and simply kindness.
Many noted the elder’s deep insight and intuition. He could accurately describe a person immediately after meeting him. His subtle psychological instinct for people amazed many. Rasputin’s special psychological abilities also underlay his ability to cure diseases. There are a number of documented cases that confirm his gift as a healer. These cases are confirmed by the materials of the commission of the Provisional Government.
Rasputin demonstrated his ability to heal many times in his life. Rudnev established the undoubted fact of curing seizures of “St. Vitus’s dance” in the son of Rasputin’s secretary, Aron Simanovich, and all symptoms of the disease disappeared forever after two sessions. The “elder” undoubtedly possessed some kind of hypnotic gift, was able to suggest what he wanted, and was especially successful in healing women and children, who, as we know, are more easily susceptible to outside influence. As already mentioned, he showed his gift most powerfully in treating the prince who suffered from hemophilia, thereby winning the trust and deep recognition of the empress.
In addition to prayerful help and healing, people came to Rasputin with purely material requests, petitions, complaints about grievances and oppression.
A commission of the Provisional Government, which interrogated hundreds of people who visited Rasputin, found that he often received money from petitioners for satisfying their petitions. Usually, these were wealthy individuals who asked Gregory to convey their request to the Highest Name or to petition one or another ministry. They gave money of their own free will, but he did not spend it on himself, but distributed it to the same petitioners, only poorer ones.
Rasputin's apartment in Petrograd, where he spent the most time, according to eyewitnesses, was crowded with all kinds of poor people and various petitioners who, believing the rumors that he had enormous influence on the tsar, came to him with their needs.
In fact, the doors of his apartment were open to all public. Rasputin rarely refused anyone's request to help if he saw that the person was actually in need.
But along with this kind of characteristic of the activity of the “man of God” Grigory Efimovich Rasputin, there was another, absolutely opposite one. Some time after his arrival in St. Petersburg, rumors began to spread in secular society about the riotous behavior of the “elder” and the “prophet,” his communication with various rabble, and ugly revelries (for which Grigory was nicknamed Rasputin).
There was even talk about his too close relationship with the empress, which greatly undermined the authority of the king. However, society was even more outraged by the influence that this Siberian man had on the tsar in solving state issues.
All educated segments of the population felt hostility towards Grigory Efimovich Rasputin. Monarchist nobles and intelligentsia, both revolutionary and liberal, agreed on his negative role in the royal court, calling him the evil genius of the Romanovs. On September 19, 1916, Black Hundred deputy Vladimir Purishkevich made a passionate speech against Rasputin in the State Duma. He heatedly exclaimed: “The dark man should not rule Russia any longer!”
That same day, the plan to kill Rasputin was born. After listening to Purishkevich’s accusatory speech, Prince Felix Yusupov approached him with this proposal. Then several more people joined the conspiracy, including Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich.
The murder of Rasputin was scheduled for December 16, 1916. F. Yusupov invited Rasputin to his mansion. When they met, they kissed according to Russian custom. Rasputin unexpectedly exclaimed mockingly: “I hope this is not the kiss of Judas!”
They wanted to poison him with potassium cyanide. He ate several cakes with poison - and no consequences. After consulting, the conspirators decided to shoot Rasputin. Yusupov shot first. But Rasputin was only wounded. He started to run, and then Purishkevich shot him several times. The elder fell only after the fourth shot.
The killers lowered Rasputin's bound body into a hole in the ice of Malaya Nevka near Krestovsky Island. As they later found out, he was thrown under the ice while still alive. When the body was found, they discovered that the lungs were full of water: Rasputin tried to breathe and choked. Right hand he released her from the ropes, her fingers folded together to make the sign of the cross.
The names of the killers immediately became known to the police. However, they got off very lightly - Yusupov was sent to his own estate, the Grand Duke to the front, and Purishkevich was not touched at all.
Grigory Efimovich Rasputin was modestly buried in Tsarskoe Selo. But he did not rest there for long. After the February Revolution, his body was dug up and burned at the stake.
According to Pavel Miliukov, the peasants said this: “Now, for once, a man got to the tsar’s choir - to tell the tsars the truth, and the nobles killed him.”
During and after his life, attempts were made repeatedly to investigate his activities. But when covering the problem from the point of view of some political forces, almost all of them were tendentious. As the historian O. Platonov wrote in his study: “There is not a single article, let alone a book, where Rasputin’s life is examined consistently, historically, based on a critical analysis of sources. All works and articles about Rasputin that exist today are retellings – just in different combinations – of the same historical legends and anecdotes, most of which are outright fiction and falsification.”
Unfortunately, despite the thoroughness and detail of the research, Platonov’s book is also not free from bias. As you can see, it is already practically impossible, in the absence of consistent and credible evidence, to objectively characterize Grigory Efimovich Rasputin. The only thing that will remain undoubted is the mark he left in the history of Russia.
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