Ступени пастырского служения священномученика Сергия Мечева
Keywords:
Sacrament of confession, repentance, struggle against passions, sacred hesychia, hesychasm, Sacrament of communion, spiritual guidance, spiritual father, elder, starets, prayer rule, «Ladder» of st. John of SinayAbstract
The article examines all the stages of pastoral care (confessional priest, spiritual father, starets) in connection with the circumstances of the ministry of a particular pastor — hieromartyr Sergiy Mechyov. The novelty of the work consists in the fact that these pastoral steps are compared with the steps of the spiritual ascent according to the «Ladder» of st. John of Sinay. Hieromartyr Sergiy went through an difficult path of preparation for ordination in 1919, the first years of his service as a confessional priest were accompanied by inevitable searches and attempts to implement patristic methods of pastoral care. Attention is also focused on his incessant ascetic efforts in the care of the flock, it was thanks to this feat that he ascended to the level of a spiritual father. In its entirety, his fatherly guidance of spiritual children was exposed on Maroseyka since 1923. Before his martyrdom in 1942, Fr. Sergius received the grace-filled gifts that are characteristic of starets.
