Archimandrite Daniil (Sarychev). Fearless defender of Orthodoxy and traditional morality Memoirs of the spiritual children of Archimandrite Daniel

On January 14, 1912, in the Ryazan village of Zverevo (Storozhilovsky district), a son was born to Sergei Vasilyevich and Anna Valerianovna Sarychev in a peasant family. The baby was named Ivan, in honor of St. John the Baptist. Not only this family, all the residents of the village were believers, everyone strictly observed fasts, attended church, and tried to live according to God’s commandments. For a long time, the ascetic’s memory retained a vivid childhood impression of late Easter in 1923: the boy really wanted to attend the festive service, all day he helped his mother prepare for the holiday, and before going to bed he asked to be woken up for the bright morning. Mom nodded promisingly, but did not dare to wake up her son.
From the memoirs of Elder Daniel: “Mom wakes me up: “Get up, break your fast.” - “How to break the fast, and to the temple?” I am crying. She says: “Get up quickly, see how the sun plays - don’t cry.” It was just the sunrise, and I saw a huge ball, and the sun seemed to be bathing, and the reflection was in different colors on the wall, on the tables. And all the people, dressed in Easter dresses, stand on the boundary, on a hill. Everyone watches the sun play, and all the people sing: “Christ is risen from the dead!” And the children are already rolling eggs. This is indescribable! Holy Rus' is free!
One day Ivan and his comrades went into the forest to pick berries. Before picking berries, the boys prayed as usual and scattered in all directions, and when they had collected full baskets, they met. Coming out of the forest, the pious youths were rewarded with a miraculous vision. From the memoirs of Elder Daniel: “Five hundred meters from us, my comrades and I saw two hieromonks in stoles. At the boundary, in the field, they performed incense. And when I later arrived in Moscow, I already saw in reality the image of these two hieromonks, the Venerable Simeon the Stylite and Daniel the Stylite, above the gates of the Danilov Monastery, where I was soon accepted and was there until it was closed as a canonarch.”
“...My first visit was to the Simonov Monastery. Hieromonk Sebastian, gifted with the gift of spiritual vision, served there, and after that I came to Danilov Monastery...
Every day I went to the monastery for early mass, during which Archimandrite Gregory (Lebedev), who later became the rector of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra and later the Bishop, sang. I loved him very much, and he loved me too. It was he who paid attention to my voice and sent me to study with Abbot Alexy, who was the regent at the monastery. I quickly mastered the science of Father Alexy, who taught me voices and the Slavic language... As soon as I heard a chant once, I could already sing it.
I really wanted to be a canonarch, and I often prayed to the Lord about it. And when I was eleven years old, my dream came true, and I became the canonarch of the Danilov Monastery... It used to be that on holiday we sang ten stichera; So I alone canoned all ten - I walked from the right to the left choir. I wore a cassock and slightly long hair, so I looked like a girl. Sometimes, while I was walking through the temple, my pocket in my cassock was full of sweets and chocolate.”

According to contemporaries, Canonarch Ivan had a unique memory, absolute pitch, he had a strong and beautiful viola, and knew by heart many melodies of church chants. Many believers specially came to the monastery to listen to the young canonarch.
From the memoirs of Elder Daniel: “The singing in our monastery was beautiful, prayerful, solemn. On the right choir the choir was hired and consisted of about thirty people. All votes were selected. Our monastery residents, about twenty in number, sang on the left choir, under the direction of Abbot Alexy, who had a beautiful, slightly “on-the-nose” tenor. Among those who sang in the choir was Archimandrite Simeon, who had a wonderful bass voice. His lower body was paralyzed and he was carried in a wheelchair. During the revolution of 1905, with his body he shielded our rector, Vladyka Theodore, from a shot, and the bullet touched his spine. He was also a very kind man and an ascetic of the faith. In such a painful state he was arrested, and he never returned to freedom... (Archimandrite Simeon, in the world Mikhail Kholmogorov, was arrested in 1934 and died in prison - author).
In the first place in our monastic singing was churchliness... It was both solemn and softened the hearts of those praying. There must be inner prayer in the singing, then it will be spiritual and will encourage prayer. Our services in the monastery were long, especially on major holidays: all the kathismas were read, the stichera were sung in full, the service lasted from half past five and ended at half past ten. But we weren’t tired, we didn’t want to leave the temple.
In the persecution of the Church, the first to suffer in Moscow were the Kremlin monasteries and churches. Then they began to close other churches and monasteries - Simonov, Alekseevsky, Petrovsky, Donskoy, Strastnoy... His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon stood up in defense of the Church. But he was greatly harmed by the renovationists led by Vvedensky. Renovationists captured the Cathedrals of Christ the Savior, St. Pimen, Resurrection in Sokolniki and others. They left these churches only after the war. The Renovationists abolished the Old Church Slavonic language and began to serve in Russian, the throne was taken out of the altar into the middle of the church... Renovationist services were shorter, but the people did not really favor them, especially women. The singers came to them only for the sake of money - those who were not firm in the faith. Many bishops and clergy first went over to the renovationists, but then they all repented to Patriarch Tikhon...”

Archimandrite Daniel recalled: “It used to be twelve o’clock at night - a piercing bell. They came to take someone away. They search for two and a half hours and then turn everything over. Then we see if they take one. We say goodbye."
In the Danilov Monastery many Bishops, deprived of their chairs for their devotion to the cause of the Church, found shelter, among them the Hieromartyrs Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov), Archbishops Seraphim (Samoilovich) and Gury (Stepanov), Bishop Pachomius (Kedrov). In the mid-20s, Bishops also began to be arrested and exiled.

By 1930, the first holy monastery in Moscow was closed. More than fifty inhabitants of the monastery, involved in the “case of the Danilov brotherhood,” together with Vladyka Theodore, died a martyr’s death. Archbishop Theodore (Pozdeevsky) was shot on October 23, 1937 in Ivanovo prison. Shortly before his death, he adopted the schema with the name Daniel - in honor of the Venerable Daniel of Moscow.
From the memoirs of Elder Daniel: “In the year 29, the Trinity Cathedral of our monastery was closed, and at the end of the year 30, the entire monastery, which remained the last active monastery in Moscow, was closed. The relics of the blessed Prince Daniel of Moscow were transferred to the Church of the Resurrection of the Word, which was located behind the monastery fence and did not belong to the monastery. An amateur mixed choir also moved there from the monastery, of which I became the regent. There were wonderful singers there, especially female voices. I tried to preserve the traditions of monastic singing in this choir. For two years we celebrated the memory of St. Daniel in the Church of the Resurrection of the Word, but then we closed this church too...
In the 30s, when the concentration camps began, terrible times came. The authorities began to cut down everything in the church at the roots. When a young man comes to church, reads “Holy God...” - they are already following on his heels. Then they call him or come for him: either they will expel him, or they will make him so afraid that the person is afraid to enter the temple.
In 1932, it was my turn: they took me to Butyrki. But then the schema-monk Zacharias was still alive, who said that they would release me. And indeed, I spent forty days and was released. I went straight to Father Zacharias, thanked him for his holy prayers and asked for his blessing to accept the priesthood. And in those days this meant that immediately after being ordained you would go to camp. Father did not bless me for this, he ordered me to continue singing and reading in church. With his holy prayers, I went to the Church of St. Nicholas on Novokuznetskaya, where Father Alexander Smirnov served. And for nine and a half years I organized such folk singing there! And there are arrests all around. I walked boldly, and no one took me by the grace of God...”
Schema-Archimandrite of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra Zacharias (Minaev, 1850-1936), the last to leave the Trinity-Sergius Lavra after its closure, settled in Moscow. Many believers came to the perspicacious elder for advice. He warmed everyone with his love, and during confession he himself named forgotten sins. By the will of God, the past and future of people were revealed to him.
Ivan Sarychev was destined to take monastic vows only three decades later. Elder Zechariah blessed him to marry. Ivan Sergeevich’s chosen one was the girl Claudia Nikolaevna Kutomkina. In 1933, the young people secretly got married, they were married by Father Efimy (Rybchinsky), the spiritual child of Elder Zechariah. On May 18, 1934, a daughter, Olga, was born to Ivan Sergeevich and Claudia Nikolaevna, and a son, Vladimir, was born on February 14, 1936.
The spiritual father of Ivan Sergeevich was Archimandrite Seraphim (in the world Klimkov Grigory Yuryevich, 1893-1970), after accepting the schema - Schema-Archimandrite Daniel.

Elder Seraphim had the gift of love and reasoning. In the monastery during Lent, he had to confess until three in the morning. Archimandrite Seraphim was arrested several times and spent a total of fifteen years in prisons and camps. When the spiritual children asked: “Didn’t you really lose heart there, father?” - he answered with meekness: “No! As soon as I wake up, I begin to “inflate the samovar” - I will read the entire service in order.” He conducted an extensive correspondence, tried to answer all questions for each of his children, tried to develop in his spiritual children an awareness of their sinfulness, and called for sincere repentance.
Several decades will pass, and Ivan Sergeevich will become a worthy successor to his spiritual father. In the 40-60s, when being a believer again became life-threatening, Ivan Sergeevich not only visited churches, but organized church choirs and led them.
The confessor of Ivan Sergeevich's wife, Claudia Nikolaevna, was the elder of the Danilov Monastery, Archimandrite Polycarp (Dmitry Andreevich Soloviev - shot on October 27, 1937 in Ivanovo prison).
In the 50-60s, Ivan Sergeevich Sarychev led the choir in the Church of the Deposition of the Robe and the choir in the Small Cathedral of the Donskoy Monastery.

Ivan Sergeevich got a job as a glass blower at the Research Institute for Fertilizers and Insectofungicides, located on Leninsky Prospekt, not far from the Donskoy Monastery. In the morning he managed to attend church services, at 9.30 he was already at his workplace, and after work he hurried to the church.
On April 27, 1970, in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, Archimandrite Naum (Bayborodin) tonsured Ivan Sergeevich into monasticism with the name Daniel. Claudia Nikolaevna also took secret tonsure with the name Olga. (On September 8, 1983, Father Daniil was widowed - Mother Olga was hit by a car. Father Daniil grieved the loss and found consolation in prayer and spiritual singing.)
Archimandrite Daniel was destined to live to see the glorification of St. Tikhon.
According to an eyewitness to those events, Alexei Valerievich Artemyev: “It all started with a tragic event. On November 18, 1991, at the end of the evening service in the Small Church of the Donskoy Monastery, someone from outside broke out a window in the already locked church and threw a packet of Molotov cocktail inside. The temple instantly turned into a kind of blast furnace. The fire lasted 15-20 minutes, but the destructive power of the fire was such that the temple had to be closed for lengthy repairs. And in the temple there was a great shrine of the Russian Orthodox Church - the tomb of St. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus', adjacent to the southern wall of the temple. The lower part of the temple, one and a half meters high, was almost not damaged by the fire, so the marble tombstone over the grave of the Saint remained intact...”
The inhabitants of the monastery asked for a blessing to examine the grave of the Saint, and on February 15, 1992, on the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, the monks, having served a prayer service in front of the tombstone, removed it, began to dig and discovered the coffin. And on February 22, the official church act of finding the relics took place. Under the dark green hierarchical robe lay the body of the deceased great Moscow Saint, completely unchanged in its shape.

On the day of remembrance of his Heavenly patron, Father Daniel glorified the holy noble prince Daniel of Moscow, and many believers came to the Church of the Deposition of the Robe, in which the holy relics were kept for two years, and everyone prayed fervently. Metropolitan Macarius began to receive complaints against Father Daniel. Once in a subtle dream, Father Daniel saw the holy Prince Daniel, who warned him about the threat looming over him. Through the prayers of the saint, the trouble passed. Many years later, Elder Daniel recalled with tears in his eyes how holy Prince Daniel warned him: “They want to drive you and me out!” And he advised, before going to the Metropolitan, to pray and put a candle in front of the icon.
Elder Daniel often advised his spiritual children in difficult situations to pray to the Holy Prince Daniel, he himself prayed and asked for the suffering. He said: “Great is the prayerful boldness of Holy Prince Daniel before the Holy Trinity!”
From the memoirs of Elder Daniel: “Bishop Nikolai (Eletsky) said that when he opened the relics, he exclaimed: “Prince Daniel, I saw a lot of relics, but I could not see anything like this. You just have to open your eyes and you’re alive.”
On December 17, 1978, the diaconal ordination took place, Ivan Sergeevich was ordained by His Holiness Patriarch Pimen (Izvekov).
In 1983, the Danilov Monastery was returned to the Orthodox Church. When life in the monastery began to improve, Father Daniel donated the old photographs and sheet music he kept to the monastery. On August 2, 1988, it was in the Danilov Monastery that his presbytery consecration took place.
One night he heard a voice: “An order has come to you to ordain you as a hieromonk.” When the next morning he came to the Danilov Monastery, he heard the following from Bishop Tikhon’s cell attendant: “A decree has come to you from Patriarch Pimen to ordain you as a hieromonk, go to the governor.” Soon after this, Hierodeacon Daniel was ordained to the rank of hieromonk. A few years later, already in the Donskoy Monastery, Hieromonk Daniel will be elevated to the rank of abbot. And on April 7, 2000, Father Daniel was elevated to the rank of Archimandrite.
According to the stories of contemporaries, Archimandrite Daniel was an elder of high spiritual life and an outstanding regent. He said: “The regent must be a deeply religious person - sing and pray with his soul. And this spiritual instinct of his, it permeates both those who sing with him and those who pray. When the singing is prayerful, church, when the choir sings “with the soul,” as mother nuns used to sing in monasteries, then the worshipers stand and feel as if they are in heaven.”
From the memoirs of the inhabitants of the Donskoy Monastery: “This was a great prayer book for Russia. Many people from all over the country came to the priest for spiritual advice. Endowed with special spiritual gifts, Father Daniel found a special approach to everyone.” Through the prayers of the insightful elder Daniel, miracles of healing took place, lonely people who had lost all hope found family happiness, peace and love returned to dysfunctional families, children were born to childless spouses. The artists Maria and Alexey did not have children for nine years. The family could have fallen apart, but through the prayers of Elder Daniel, the couple had a daughter, and soon the Lord sent a son.
According to the story of one spiritual daughter of Archimandrite Daniel, during the years of perestroika, when there was almost no food in stores, through the prayers of Elder Daniel, who wanted to console his spiritual daughters on the day of the Angel of one of them, food miraculously increased. Mashed potatoes from several potatoes would barely be enough for dinner for two people, but the spiritual daughters ate with the elder not only that day, but also the next. According to the testimony of Archimandrite Daniel’s cell attendant, a similar incident occurred on the elder’s 90th birthday. That day, food was prepared only for the closest spiritual children, but many came to congratulate Elder Daniel - and there was enough food for everyone. The elder prayed for three days, and through his prayers the food did not decrease. There were cases when believers were healed of stomach illness by eating food blessed by the elder.
According to the testimony of the servant of God Nina, in 1996, on the day of the Angel of Elder Daniel, when she came to his cell to congratulate him, she received healing from a leg disease. She did not tell her confessor that her legs hurt, so she was very surprised when, upon seeing her, the elder invited her to put on his slippers. Having put on the slippers obediently, she received healing.
On July 24, 2006, on the day of Saint Olga, 94-year-old Elder Daniel, weakened during a long, debilitating illness, was taken to the hospital with a diagnosis of “bilateral pneumonia.” The day before, the servant of God Maria saw in a dream a nun who was leading the elder away - “a woman in a black robe walked in front, and Archimandrite Daniel followed her.” (The Lord will call Archimandrite Daniel to Himself on the day of the death of his wife, Mother Olga.)
A week later, Elder Daniel began to ask to be taken from the hospital, predicting that otherwise they might “never see him again.” He suffered a heart attack, and pulmonary edema soon began. The elder prayed unceasingly and received communion daily. On September 8, 2006, on the feast of the Presentation of the Vladimir Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, Archimandrite Daniel was honored to receive the Holy Gifts for the last time.
The elder’s condition worsened every minute; his spiritual son, priest Dimitri, began reading and managed to read the waste card three times. At 22:45 on September 8, 2006, the oldest monk of the Moscow Donskoy Monastery, Archimandrite Daniil (Sarychev), peacefully reposed in the Lord.
Soon after his death, Elder Daniel appeared to his spiritual daughter Catherine in a dream vision and warned that “we need to sing about him not about health, but about repose.” When they sent her an SMS message that the elder had gone to the Lord, she replied that she already knew that he himself warned her in a dream.
On Sunday, September 10, the funeral service for Archimandrite Daniel took place in the Great Donskoy Cathedral of the monastery. The funeral service was led by Bishop Savva (Volkov) of Krasnogorsk. Bishop Savva noted that the soul of a person who was honored to receive communion on the day of death passes to the Throne of the Lord, bypassing the ordeal. This happens to high ascetics or to people who are exceptionally pure in heart.
The cathedral was filled with believers; spiritual children gathered that day to see off their dear priest on his last journey. Archimandrite Daniel was buried in the cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery in front of a large crowd of believers and clergy.

Lord, rest the soul of Your servant, Elder Daniel, with the saints, and save us through his prayers!
Tatiana Velk-Uglanova.
Memoirs of the spiritual children of Archimandrite Daniel

From the memoirs of the elder’s spiritual daughter Marina: “Once I didn’t have the money to submit a note for a prayer service. During the prayer service, the priest calls names for health. But I think I’m not in the notes. And I add to myself: “And Marina, and Marina.” And I myself think: “Will Father hear me or not?” And suddenly he turns and says: “And about Marina’s health!” I was so glad that the priest heard me so spiritually. It was a miracle for me! And then, when I came to him, I mentally asked, and he already answered my question. At the end of the Liturgy, the priest goes out to preach. I mentally ask him a question, and he already answers from the pulpit and gives an answer. Therefore, there was no longer any need to approach him directly. Wonderful are Your works, O Lord!
One day I was riding the escalator on the subway and saw a nun. And it’s as if I’m drawn to this nun. She goes up the escalator, and I go down. I hurried up the escalator after her. I look, she entered the carriage, and I entered the carriage. And I myself am thinking how I can talk to her... The nun sat down, and I stood next to her and said:
-Have you ever been to the Donskoy Monastery?
She says: “It was.” And he asks: “How can I get to Elder Daniel?” I say: “You know, he has a cell... When you go to the elder, where Archangel Michael is, you will ring the bell.”
And this nun tells me:
- Once I was walking through the monastery on a holiday, and Father Daniel came up to me and said: “Bless me.” And I say: “How can I, a simple nun, bless the Archimandrite?!” And he said: “And I force you, as if in obedience, you must bless me.” And a few months later I became the abbess of a monastery in the Tver region. There are three convents there. Not where old lady Lyubushka is, but in one of the two, which is in the middle...
Once I was walking around the monastery here. One monk comes up and says: “Let’s go with me to Elder Nikolai Guryanov.” I answer: “Yes, I don’t have money.” He says: “Let's go. You only need three hundred rubles... I’ll pray, and by evening you’ll have three hundred rubles.”
I go to Father Daniil’s cell, I haven’t said anything yet, and he immediately gives me 300 rubles. I turned: “Father, bless me to go to Elder Nikolai Guryanov.” And he answers me: “It’s winter, I’m not blessing you, you’ll die on the way.” I say: “Then I don’t need 300 rubles.” And he says: “Take it, take it, for a good cause, take it, take it.”
One time I came to his cell and didn’t say anything either, but he:
- Well, why aren’t you fasting? Do you drink milk?
- Yeah... I use it.
- What, does your stomach hurt?
- Hurts.
He says: “Take the oil of Patriarch Tikhon, drink it and smear it on your tummy like this! He also advised me to smear the chest in a cross pattern. And I had fibrous mastopathy... They wanted to cut me several times... But, thank God, it didn’t come to that. And the pancreas?! How many times they took a biopsy, they suspected oncology, they said that everything was bursting, but I’m still living. When they wanted to operate on my pancreas, the priest did not give his blessing. I already had such severe pain... And I already agreed to the operation, I couldn’t stand it. But they kept me in the hospital so long that I no longer had the strength to even breathe or talk, let alone undergo the operation. I say: “Give me a little rest before the operation.” Well, I rested. She left the hospital and never returned. I still live. I had a pituitary adenoma, a tumor of the head. And through the prayers of the priest, they have been doing EMR for five years now and have not found a head tumor.
Through the prayers of Father Daniel, they gave me an apartment. I lived with my daughter, my husband, my mom and dad, and my cousin in a one-room apartment. Only seven people. I run to Father Daniel. And so the priest and I prayed, he prayed at the altar, and I was on my knees in the church... And when I returned home, suddenly a call from the woman who was sorting out the case: “You know, you’ve been put on a waiting list!” There, when the issues were being resolved, one woman, who was very against it, accidentally left the room and your case immediately went away.” Then we got an apartment."

The spiritual daughter of Elder Daniel, Lyubov, first met Father Daniel in 1992: “Father walked with a swift gait, small, quick steps, short in stature, neat, gray-haired, with a lush beard, mustache and snow-white hair, as if powdered with snow, his entire body simply glowed. His benevolent smile, lively, radiant gaze pierced the soul through and through. Having looked closely at how people approached the blessing, I folded my hands in the same way and with fear and trembling approached Father Daniel. He smiled his soft smile, blessed and said: “Come to our service, we are doing well.” During Father Daniel's sermon, I fainted. When I woke up, I saw a monk with holy water, which he gave me to drink, and a monastery doctor offering his help. My health was bad; doctors made two bad diagnoses for women’s diseases. Father Daniel said: “Ask Patriarch Tikhon, he will help.”
One day after mass, Father Vladimir (now deceased) read an akathist to the Holy Patriarch Tikhon. I stood next to the relics of the Holy Patriarch. While reading the akathist I felt bad, I walked away four times so as not to faint. For the fifth time, as soon as I asked: “Holy Patriarch Tikhon, heal all my illnesses!” - instant pain pierced me, and I passed out, saying goodbye to life. When I began to come to my senses, I felt myself sitting on a bench opposite the miraculous image of the Mother of God and felt a gentle hand stroking my head, neck and back and pouring water on me.
Again sharp pain, urge to vomit. I thought with horror: how can I be in such a holy place?... But immediately, at the level of thought, the answer was given in the voice of my Savior: “Don’t be afraid, this is not your concern, everything will be taken care of. This is good, very good. Don't worry". Since then, I forgot my female diseases, everything went away for me. Afterwards I realized that all this happened through the prayers of my precious Father Daniel.
After the first meeting with Father Daniil, my legs carried me to Donskoy, my soul yearned only here, to Father Daniil. He was everything to me: a father, a friend, a mentor, and a doctor; I could tell him everything that was painful over many years. He carefully healed all mental and physical wounds, life acquired its highest meaning - to live in God and love.
Father said: “You need to pray, read the Gospel, the Psalter, the lives of the holy fathers.” After reading the latter, my troubles seemed like troubles.
At home there were strong attacks from my husband; Father Daniel advised us to arm ourselves with the Jesus Prayer. Reading the prayer calmed me down and humbled me. When I separated from my husband, I was on disability (resection of part of a lung), there was no means of subsistence, and there was no one to leave the children with. Through my father’s prayers, I found a good job, and with God’s help I mastered the computer. Father said: “Ask the martyr Tryphon and Prince Daniel of Moscow, they will help you.” I did everything as he ordered, but I knew that I had been heard by his holy prayers.
My granddaughter was two weeks old, the priest said: “We urgently need to baptize her!” That's what we did. In 1994, when the granddaughter was six months old, her daughter gave her formula, after which the granddaughter began to turn blue, an ambulance was called, and she was urgently sent to the Morozov hospital with a diagnosis of intestinal volvulus. The doctors said that if they didn’t purge the intestines, they would have to have an operation. I immediately went to the Donskoy Monastery to visit Father Daniel. He reassured me and said that he would pray. Through his prayers everything worked out. No surgery was needed.
A year later, my granddaughter scalded her hand with boiling water. I urgently went to the priest and asked for his holy prayers. The granddaughter was being prepared for surgery because there could be tissue rejection and blood poisoning. On the morning before the operation, during a follow-up examination, the doctors were amazed: the tissues healed themselves, and surgery was not required. Through the prayers of our blessed father Daniel, the granddaughter was saved.
One day my brother-in-law hit me in the operated chest with his fist. It was a big shock, my vision almost disappeared and burgundy spots the size of an old five-kopeck coin appeared on my body. I came to the priest and told him everything. He blessed and said: “The Lord will help you, everything will pass, your vision will be restored, it’s because of your nerves.” My vision was restored, the spots disappeared, and through the priest’s prayers, God took my son-in-law away from us. His daughter separated from him.
They wanted to put their son in prison on false charges, but the priest said: “They will let him go, he is innocent. They’ll let you go, don’t worry.” And so it happened.
Father told me to ask the holy noble prince Daniil of Moscow to help me with my apartment. I had all the papers collected to receive it, but at work they said that I still had to pay money that I didn’t have. When I told the priest about this, he said: “You don’t have to pay anything, they’ll give it anyway, you’ll receive it in a week.” I told my boss and the economist, with whom I was sitting in the same room, about my father. They said: “Will they really give it? What kind of father is yours, how can he see everything!” Exactly a week later they called me and asked me to come for a warrant, everyone was simply stunned. And so it happened, my son and I were given a two-room apartment.
I am in great debt to our kind, bright father. Once after the service, the priest said that my ex-husband would soon die, so that I should go to the relics of St. Tikhon and pray for him. I cried a lot at the relics, I was so scared and hurt for my husband, I thought: here he is suffering, and there will be even more. How can I help him?
Three months before my husband’s death, through the priest’s prayers, he was able to receive communion and unction.
The daughter got married a second time and got married, but when she was carrying the child, doctors discovered that she had a terrible blood disease. Father said: she has blood cancer, but everything will pass. Let him take the oil from the relics of Patriarch Tikhon and drink it spoonful and ask him for help. Throughout her pregnancy, the daughter, previously unchurched, received communion weekly, read prayers, the Gospel and an akathist to Patriarch Tikhon. With God's help, the daughter gave birth to a girl, who was named Olga in honor of Equal-to-the-Apostles Princess Olga. The birth was premature, difficult, the doctors wanted to leave the newborn alone in the hospital without her mother, but the priest ordered to immediately take the girl home with a signature, which we did. Olenka remained alive, although she was diagnosed with the same blood disease as her daughter. At two years old, she was deregistered with the entry “healthy.” Father begged our Olenka...
Our land stands on such pillars, and life is prolonged and improved by the holy prayers of such great elders of God...”

Through the prayers of Archimandrite Daniel, the son-in-law of his spiritual daughter Nina was healed of meningitis.
From the memoirs of the servant of God Natalya: “Once two young pregnant women came to the Donskoy Monastery. They were in trousers, high heels and without headscarves... And the women who surrounded Father Daniel did not let these girls in and said: “Get away from here. In such an obscene form! And suddenly the priest turned around and said: “My children, come here, I will bless you.” And he blessed them and put his hands on their heads. And it was clear that the girls’ faces were not vulgar, but bright.”

From the memoirs of the servant of God Elena K.: “How I came to God is a whole story... We had “Cosmic Natural Science Courses.” And so I went there and ended up, it turns out, in the wrong place... After the third meditation, I suddenly realized that this was a deception. The Lord Himself revealed to me that the Lord gives the gift of healing for a righteous life. For some merits before the Lord. And I really wanted to tell everyone about this, but I couldn’t. It was impossible to say and open my mouth... As a result, I got involved in meditation, but what the Lord put on my heart went to a distant corner. It ended with me developing a mental illness, fears and suspiciousness.
And then I started going to church. And when I came to Father Daniel, I couldn’t tell him anything either. But he saw everything. And he greeted me as if he were his own, prayed and brought me prosphora.
Father Daniel sang in the choir. The way his choir sang is impossible to describe. It's as if angels are singing. I am a singer myself, a regent, and I began to sing with the priest in the choir. This singing is simply amazing. People are not professional, everyone is different. And no one bothers anyone. Nobody, no voice. The sound comes on its own, and everything is clean and good. It was surprisingly easy to sing in it in the choir. The priest had such great grace.
Once I had a ligament failure, and I couldn’t sing at all and couldn’t say anything at all. I went to the doctor and they told me that I couldn’t open my mouth at all for a month. I came to Father Daniel and by the grace of God I was able to say a few words: “Father, I am prescribed hormonal inhalations. You can’t sing or speak at all.” And he says: “No need for hormonal inhalations, do soda inhalations, smear yourself with St. Tikhon’s oil.” And I named the recipe, I can only say approximately. A teaspoon of aloe, two teaspoons of honey, two tablespoons of Cahors and add hot water to half a glass. And drink this every day at night. That's what I did. She anointed herself with oil and did everything as the priest said. A week later I could already sing... I think that it’s not the recipe, but the great faith of Father. His faith was extraordinary!”

From the memoirs of cell attendant Elena: “Once I asked Father Daniel: “Father, maybe I have a thyroid disease?” And he says: “No... Maybe your stomach hurts?” I didn’t know then... I went to the hospital to check my stomach. Indeed, it turned out that my stomach was sick. Father saw this, and he said about it. I saw everything without x-rays...
One woman came into her cell and said that with the priest’s blessing she was healed of cancer, she came to thank the priest... Before that she came and asked: “Father, bless me to give away things. I have cancer". And the priest says: “Wait, it’s too early to give it to you. They will still be useful to you. Go to Saint Tikhon, take the oil, pray to him, anoint your chest. And then go to surgery."
And when they took a picture of her just before the operation, it turned out that her entire tumor had shrunk into a lump, and they cut it out. I stood up after the operation as if I had just woken up. And the room is so bright, there are only lamps and icons. And he hears a voice: “Go down to earth, and pray there.” She got up as if after sleep.

From the memoirs of God’s servant Raisa: “Once my car stalled and completely turned off. Absolutely in an unexpected place, very dangerous. There was no light at all, it was already dark. Late autumn night. I can’t be seen: the car is in the dark... And I began to pray and call Father Daniel for help. And suddenly a car appears from somewhere to the side and stops. A man comes out, looks into the car, did something there and says: go with God!
My son was taken to the police station, there was a terrible story there, and he was detained for three days. Three days later, my son and I came to Father Daniel. Father asked: “Are you guilty?” Sergei: “No, I’m not guilty at all.” Father Daniel says: “Everything will be fine!” The appointed day has arrived. We sit and wait. Suddenly the secretary comes out and says: there will be no trial, everything is settled!
My relative came to the priest with her child. The girl was five or six years old and had a lump of animal hair in her stomach. The child had a habit of stroking the cat and licking his palms. And so this lump formed, which became impassable. What is surgery on the stomach at this age?! And the priest says: “Everything will be fine. There will be no operation." And so it happened. Everything was removed without any surgery.

From the memoirs of cell attendant Tatiana: “Mother Claudia was dying before being tonsured as a monk. She had breast cancer. Father Daniel tells her: “You urgently need to take monasticism, you could die...” He anointed her with oil from St. Tikhon... She accepted monasticism and was healed... Many of Father Daniel’s spiritual children were healed from cancer.
One of Elder Daniel’s spiritual daughters had a toothache, she couldn’t eat anything for two days... And then she came here to the grave. We celebrated a memorial service. And in the evening she calls me and says: “The temperature is above 38 degrees. I'm already shaking. I’ve already started to lose consciousness.” I say: “You have flowers from the grave
Father Daniel? Let's eat it." She ate, and in the morning she sang with us...

From the memoirs of Archpriest Dimitry Shpanko (rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity in the village of Izmailovo, Vidnovsky district, Moscow region): “In 1995, schema-nun Lyubov (Vereikina, 1901 - 1997) and I visited Elder Daniel.
And what a meeting it was! Before this, my mother prayed and asked who Father Daniel was (she only knew him in absentia)…
Mother said: “When I was praying, I had a vision: I looked, there was a barrel of honey, and everyone was carrying, carrying, carrying honey there with spoons.”

When she met Father Daniel, she fell at his feet and repeated twice: “Father is the new Seraphim!” And she came to report. I, he says, will give an account for my life and bring repentance. And so mother, having reported to Father Daniel for her entire life, says: “Well, now, father, read to me: “Now you let go...” To which Father Daniel replies: “Well, that’s later. It’s too early to leave, we still need to pray and live here.” And mother says: “Then bless me to work with your spiritual ones (there were several priests there). That is, to work with us, we were very young then... But you can only teach spiritually from heart to heart. Only by touching, how to take over fire from fire, is like lighting another candle from a burning candle, and Christian hearts are like this... I remember the words that the visiting monk said to my mother, about whom it will be said a little later: “True Orthodoxy must stand on you.” And the words of the Savior from the Gospel: “I have come to bring down fire on the earth, and how I wish that it would already be kindled” (Luke 12:49).
Mother told me a lot of interesting and surprising things about her life: “One day a monk came to my house (this was in Sochi), he came and said: where do you have such and such a servant here? (She always called herself a servant of the Lord. Everyone in Sochi knew her, since she sometimes acted like a fool...)
So this monk gives her from the Hieromartyr Peter (Metropolitan of Krutitsky and Kolomna Peter (Polyansky)), bloody rosary and skufa and antidors, which remained after the Liturgy performed by the Saints in the dungeons. Mother called them bread. And he gives it to her with these words: “True Orthodoxy must stand on you.” He served a prayer service... And he said: “Only the bread so that you can eat it yourself, don’t give it to anyone.” And left. Such a tall, thin monk. Who it was, an Angel or a man, I, he says, never saw him again in my life. I left everything to her and left. But what to do, he didn’t say anything... When remembering this meeting, my mother said: “How they tormented him! My hair still stands up when I remember it. Everything was covered in blood, the rosary and kamilavka.”
After the death of mother, Elder Daniel testified about her righteous life. And he said that she would be glorified. She was illiterate, but she was led by the Spirit. The greatest gift is love. And she, just like Father Daniel, acquired this gift of love with her life and her sorrows... I once asked her: “Mother, what is True Orthodoxy?” And she says: “True Orthodoxy is the Cross and the Gospel!”
This is what True Orthodoxy is! That's what she took out of her life - to love and suffer, suffer and love! What is the Cross? This is Suffering. What is the Gospel? This is Love! So it turns out - True Orthodoxy! All Holy Ascetics have always lived by this Truth and kept it in their hearts.”
Priest Dimitry Shpanko was ordained in 1992 and sent to a parish in the village of Izmailovo... There were many difficulties and sorrows. At that time, the Institute of Earth Physics was located in the temple. They didn't want to vacate the premises. They said: “Look for another place...”
In 1993, the temple was literally “taken by storm” with the help of the Cossacks in order to enter, defend, and return what rightfully belonged to the believers. Before this, so many thresholds had to be knocked down, so many letters were sent out, but the temple building was not given away. Schema-nun Lyubov begged for the temple. After the “assault” on April 7, 1993, on the day of the Annunciation, the Academy of Sciences was forced to look for new premises for the institute’s employees.
Soon after his ordination (1993-1994), out of inexperience, Father Dimitri began to reprimand the possessed, something unimaginable began to happen in the church, each time up to ten people possessed by spirits of evil were present at the service, they constantly shouted something, interfered not only to believers, but also to a young priest.
On the advice of Schema-nun Lyubov, Father Dimitri went to Archimandrite Daniel for help, Elder Daniel listened attentively and said: “Go to the Lavra to see Father Naum,” and he himself began to pray intensely for him. The next day, Father Dimitri went to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. On the same day, he managed to meet Father Herman and Father Naum, who, with fatherly love, sent the young priest to the monastery refectory. Returning after the meal, we managed to take a blessing from Elder Archimandrite Kirill, who was feeding the pigeons with tenderness and love - at the sign where it was written “Feeding the pigeons is strictly prohibited.”
Father Dimitri returned safely to his parish. To the surprise of the young priest, there were no more possessed people in the temple; through the prayers of the elders, everything was settled.
In 1995, a small cell was built for the old woman on the territory of the temple, where Schema-nun Lyubov settled in August 1995 and lived here for nine months before her death.
According to the testimony of Father Dimitri, Elder Lyubov prayed to the Lord to let her get sick before she died. The Lord fulfilled her request. Easter 1996 has passed. On Bright Week he went to Elder Daniel. “This year during Great Lent there was a Chrismation at the Donskoy Monastery. Elder Daniel blessed the myrrh for mother as well. But what kind of world? Over which the last prayer has not yet been read, after which the chrism becomes that shrine that is used in three cases: during baptism, during the Great Consecration of the temple and during the anointing for the kingdom. Upon returning to the temple, Father Dimitri says to Mother: “Mother, here is myrrh from Father.” She rejoiced, and the next day she said:
- Father, take myrrh. I can't - I'm not worthy. This is such a big shrine!
- Come on, since Father Daniel blessed me, I’ll anoint you with it. I'll pour it on my head.
She agreed. She immediately took off the scarf, and Father Dimitri poured a cross on her head... Mother is happy, everything is glowing... Everything is fragrant...” It was on Friday, Bright Week, the day of the celebration of the icon of the Mother of God “Life-Giving Source”. And from Sunday to Monday, mother had a severe stroke... After mother’s death, Father Dimitri remembered the Gospel story about how, before the suffering on the cross and the death of our Savior Lord Jesus Christ, a sinner came to Him with an alabaster vessel of ointment and anointed Him... (Matthew 26 , 6-12).
Elder Lyubov was ill for a whole week and went to the Lord on the day of the celebration of the Myrrh-Bearing Women. Throughout the week she was given unction and communion. The last time Mother Lyubov received Holy Communion was forty minutes before her departure into eternity.
The funeral service was performed by Archimandrite Daniil (Sarychev); at the funeral service, during the farewell, the elder said: “You can breathe easily at your mother’s tomb!” Archimandrite Daniel came to pray at her grave on the ninth and fortieth day.
I would like to end the essay with the words of the elder’s spiritual daughter, the servant of God Lyubov: “Such a lamp was sent to us by the Lord God to save us sinners and our great Russia, for which he constantly prayed and said in his sermons: “Russia will definitely be reborn. We are already on the threshold of this blossoming, and just as she fed the whole world both spiritually and materially, so she will continue to feed. So great joy awaits us, dear brothers and sisters, and many who stand here in the service will see this; I hope that I will live to see this time and rejoice with you. Russia will rise to greater glory, and I hope that many will live to see it, but this bloom will not last long. The coming of our Lord will be obligatory, and it is approaching, but our job is to preserve the Orthodox faith, pray, live according to the commandments of God and love each other. May the Lord God and Mother of God protect you, dear brothers and sisters!”

We thank everyone who assisted in the preparation of this essay. We will be very grateful to everyone who sends us their testimonies and memories of Elder Daniel (mailing address: 117546 Moscow, PO Box 112 to Velk-Uglanova Tatyana Valerievna) or [email protected]

In the photo: Archimandrite Daniel (Sarychev) (1912-2006); the moment of farewell to Patriarch Tikhon, who died on March 25/April 7, 1925. Among those seeing him off on his last journey is novice Ivan Sarychev; Bishop of Volokolamsk Theodore (Pozdeevsky), Hieromonk Gerasim (Sadkovsky), Archimandrite German (Ryashentsev); small cathedral (Donskoy Monastery) Temple of the Deposition of the Robe; the grave of Archimandrite Daniel decorated with flowers (photo by Tatyana Velk-Uglanova);

(1912-2006)

Archimandrite Daniil (Sarychev) was born on January 14, 1912 in the village of Zverevo (Ryazan region, Storozhilovsky district) into a peasant family.

From the memoirs of Archimandrite Daniel: “I really wanted to be a canonarch, and I often prayed to the Lord about this. And when I was eleven years old, my dream came true, and I became the canonarch of the Danilov Monastery...” According to contemporaries, Canonarch Ivan had a unique memory, absolute pitch, he had a strong and beautiful voice (alto), he knew by heart many religious melodies chants. Many believers specially came to the monastery to listen to the young canonarch. By 1930, the Danilov Monastery was closed. (A children's reception center was placed within the walls of the monastery. The reconstruction of the monastery began only in 1983.)

More than fifty inhabitants of the monastery who were involved in the “case of the Danilov brotherhood” suffered martyrdom. Throughout his long life, Archimandrite Daniil (Sarychev) remembered hundreds of names of ascetics of piety; he never tired of talking about them, trying to hasten the day when they would be glorified.

In his youth, Archimandrite Daniel was lucky enough to receive the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon; he was honored to accompany Saint Tikhon on his last journey, and he was destined to live to see the glorification of the Saint.

From the memoirs of Elder Daniel:

“In 1929, the Trinity Cathedral of our monastery was closed, and at the end of 1930, the entire monastery, which remained the last active monastery in Moscow, was closed. The relics of the blessed Prince Daniel of Moscow were transferred to the Church of the Resurrection of the Word, which was located behind the monastery fence and did not belong to the monastery. An amateur mixed choir also moved there from the monastery, of which I became the regent...” (Later, for nine and a half years, he led the choir in the Church of St. Nicholas on Novokuznetskaya.)

In the 40s, Ivan Sergeevich Sarychev led the choir in the Church of St. Nicholas (on Novokuznetskaya), in the 50-60s - the choir in the Church of the Placing of the Robe (on Donskaya Street) and the choir in the Small Cathedral of the Donskoy Monastery

On April 27, 1970, in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, Archimandrite Naum (Bayborodin) tonsured Ivan Sergeevich into monasticism with the name Daniel. On December 17, 1978, the diaconal ordination took place (Ivan Sergeevich was ordained by His Holiness Patriarch Pimen (Izvekov)). On August 2, 1988, a presbyterian consecration took place at the Danilov Monastery. (A few years later, already in the Donskoy Monastery, Hieromonk Daniel will be elevated to the rank of abbot.)

In 1990, the Donskoy Monastery was transferred to the Moscow Patriarchate, and the resumption of monastic life began. The consecration of the large Donskoy Cathedral took place on August 18, 1991. In 1991, Father Daniil became a monk of the Donskoy Monastery. On April 7, 2000, Father Daniel was elevated to the rank of archimandrite by Archbishop Arseny (Epifanov) of Istra.

From the memoirs of the inhabitants of the Donskoy Monastery: “This was a great prayer book for Russia. Many people from all over the country came to the priest for spiritual advice. Endowed with special spiritual gifts, Father Daniel found a special approach to everyone.”

According to the stories of contemporaries, Archimandrite Daniel was an old man of high spiritual life, endowed with special spiritual gifts. According to the testimony of the spiritual children of the elder - through the prayers of the perspicacious elder Daniel, miracles of healing took place (believers who suffered from various types of cancer were also healed), lonely people who had lost all hope found family happiness, peace and love returned to dysfunctional families, and children were born to childless spouses. children.

From the memoirs of God's servant Catherine: “...Father had great love for all of us, and real fatherly severity, in order to raise us in the Orthodox Faith, not counterfeit, but true!

Through his prayers, many things were arranged in people’s lives. Many everyday problems, problems with work and study were solved. He was always surrounded by a great many people... A huge number of people from different places came to Father. These were people of different social status, from ministers to ordinary people. And he found time for everyone. He helped with his prayer, which has colossal power.”

On July 24, 2006, ninety-four-year-old old man Daniil, weakened during a long, debilitating illness, was taken to the fifth city hospital with a diagnosis of bilateral pneumonia.

On September 8, 2006, on the feast of the Presentation of the Vladimir Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, Archimandrite Daniel was honored to receive the Holy Gifts for the last time.

The elder’s condition worsened every minute, priest Dimitry Shpanko began to read the departure prayer. (He managed to read the discharge document three times).

At 22:45 on September 8, 2006, the oldest monk of the Moscow Donskoy Monastery, Archimandrite Daniil (Sarychev), peacefully reposed in the Lord.

On Sunday, September 10, the funeral service for Archimandrite Daniel took place in the Great Donskoy Cathedral of the monastery. The funeral service was led by Bishop Savva (Volkov) of Krasnogorsk. Bishop Savva noted that the soul of a person who was honored to receive communion on the day of death passes to the throne of the Lord, bypassing the ordeal. This happens to high ascetics or to people with exceptionally pure hearts.

The cathedral was filled with believers; spiritual children gathered that day to see off their dear priest on his last journey. Archimandrite Daniel was buried in the cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery in front of a large crowd of believers and clergy.

Lord, rest the soul of Archimandrite Daniel, rest with the saints, and through his prayers save us!

*Hieromartyr Peter, Metropolitan of Krutitsky and Kolomna

Hieromartyr Peter, Metropolitan of Krutitsky and Kolomna (in the world Peter Fedorovich Polyansky) was born in 1862 into the pious family of a priest in the village of Storozhevoye, Voronezh diocese. In 1885, he graduated from the Voronezh Theological Seminary, first class, and in 1892 from the Moscow Theological Academy and was left with it as an assistant inspector.

After occupying a number of responsible positions at the Zhirovitsky Theological School, Pyotr Fedorovich was transferred to St. Petersburg, to the staff of the Synodal Educational Committee, of which he became a member. In 1897 he defended his master's thesis. During the beginning of the persecution of the Holy Church, in 1920 His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon invited him to take monastic vows, the priesthood and become his assistant in matters of church administration.

Immediately after his episcopal consecration in 1920 as Bishop of Podolsk, Vladyka Peter was exiled to Veliky Ustyug, but after the release from the arrest of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, he returned to Moscow, becoming the closest assistant to the Russian Primate. Soon he was elevated to the rank of archbishop (1923), then became Metropolitan of Krutitsky (1924) and was included in the Provisional Patriarchal Synod.

In the last months of Patriarch Tikhon’s life, Metropolitan Peter was his faithful assistant in all matters of governing the Church. At the beginning of 1925, His Holiness appointed him as a candidate for Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne. Vladyka Peter was confirmed in this position by the Council of Bishops in 1925.

In November 1925, Metropolitan Peter was arrested. After imprisonment in the Suzdal political isolator, Vladyka was brought to Lubyanka, where he was offered to renounce his ministry in exchange for freedom, but he replied that under no circumstances would he leave his ministry.

In 1926, Vladyka was sent into exile for three years in the Tobolsk region (the village of Abalatskoye on the banks of the Irtysh River), and then to the Far North, to the tundra, to the winter quarters of He, located 200 kilometers from Obdorsk. Vladyka was arrested again in 1930 and imprisoned in Yekaterinburg prison for five years in solitary confinement. Then he was transferred to the Verkhneuralsk political isolation ward.

The conditions of the Saint's imprisonment were very difficult. The Bishop suffered because, feeling responsible before God for church life, he was deprived of any connection with the outside world. In 1931, Vladyka was partially paralyzed. In 1933, the elderly Saint, suffering from asthma, was deprived of walks in the common prison yard. On July 23, 1936, Vladyka Peter was in the Verkhneuralsk prison; instead of freedom, he received a new sentence of another three years. By this time he was already seventy-four years old, and the authorities decided to declare the Saint dead, which was reported to Metropolitan Sergius, who in December was awarded the title of Patriarchal Locum Tenens - while Metropolitan Locum Tenens Peter was still alive. Thus passed another year of difficult imprisonment for the sick elder high priest.

In July 1937, by order of Stalin, an operational order was developed to execute all confessors in prisons and camps within four months. On September 27 (October 10, New Art.), 1937, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the holy martyr Metropolitan Peter was shot in the Magnitogorsk prison.

Canonized by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1997.

(Days of remembrance: January 23 (new martyr), September 27)

1st Apostolic Fast - during fasting you are allowed to drink only water).

2 “Antidor is sacred bread, which was brought in offering and the middle of which was taken out and used for sacred rites; this bread, as sealed with a copy and having received divine words, is taught instead of terrible Gifts, that is, the Mysteries, to those who have not partaken of them.” (Saint Simeon of Thessalonica)

From the memoirs of the inhabitants of the Donskoy Monastery: “This was a great prayer book for Russia. Many people from all over the country came to the priest for spiritual advice. Endowed with special spiritual gifts, Father Daniel found a special approach to everyone.”

Archimandrite Daniel, a resident of the Donskoy Monastery, was born on January 14, 1912 in the village of Zverevo, Starozhilovsky district, Ryazan region. His parents were peasants - father Sergei Vasilyevich and mother Anna Valerianovna Sarychev. He grew up in a godly family. His mother was especially distinguished by her piety. The family had six children, two of whom died in infancy. Father Daniel had a deep faith in God from early childhood, and he was surrounded by simple believers. While still a child, he once went into the forest with other boys, and when they were returning, they saw two hieromonks in stoles performing censing in a clearing. But who these hieromonks were will be found out later. After the death of her husband, Anna Valerianovna, left without a family breadwinner, moved with her children to Moscow not far from the Danilov Monastery. Soon Vanya (the future Father Daniel) was taken by Bishop Theodore (Pozdeevsky) as a novice to the Danilov Monastery. It was there that he saw above the Holy Gates the two hieromonks he had previously seen. These were the saints - Simeon the Stylite and Daniel the Stylite.

From the memoirs of Archimandrite Daniel: “...My first visit was to the Simonov Monastery. Hieromonk Sebastian, gifted with the gift of spiritual vision, served there, and after that I came to Danilov Monastery...

Every day I went to the monastery for early mass, during which Archimandrite Gregory (Lebedev), who later became rector of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra and bishop, sang. I loved him very much, and he loved me too. It was he who paid attention to my voice and sent me to study with Abbot Alexy, who was the regent at the monastery. I quickly mastered the science of Father Alexy, who taught me voices and the Slavic language... as soon as I heard a chant once, I could already sing it.

I really wanted to be a canonarch, and I often prayed to the Lord about it. And when I was eleven years old, my dream came true, and I became the canonarch of the Danilov Monastery... It used to be that on holiday we sang ten stichera; So I alone canoned all ten - I walked from the right to the left choir. I wore a cassock and slightly long hair, so I looked like a girl. Sometimes, while I was walking through the temple, my pocket in my cassock was full of sweets and chocolate.”

According to contemporaries, Canonarch Ivan had a unique memory, absolute pitch, he had a strong and beautiful voice (alto), and knew by heart many melodies of religious chants. Many believers specially came to the monastery to listen to the young canonarch.

According to the testimony of Archimandrite Daniel, in the Danilov Monastery at that time the service was statutory, many of the monks had higher spiritual education, the chants were chants from the Optina Monastery.

From the memoirs of Elder Daniel: “The singing in our monastery was beautiful, prayerful, solemn. On the right choir, the choir was hired and consisted of about thirty people. All the voices were selected: churches and monasteries were closed, so there was a large influx of singers. It was then that the oppression began, and they began to be afraid to sing in church.

On the left choir, our monastery residents, about twenty in number, sang, under the direction of Abbot Alexy, a gifted man of extraordinary kindness, who had a beautiful, slightly “on-the-nose” tenor. In total, we had about forty monks in our monastery. Among those who sang in the choir was Archimandrite Simeon, who had a wonderful bass voice. His tragedy was that he was paralyzed in the lower part of his body, and he was carried in a wheelchair. During the revolution of 1905, with his body he shielded our rector, Bishop Theodore, from a shot, and the bullet touched his spine. He was also a very kind man and an ascetic of the faith. In such a painful state he was arrested, and he never returned to freedom... (Archimandrite Simeon (in the world - Mikhail Kholmogorov) was arrested in 1934 and died in prison).

In the first place in our monastic singing was churchliness... It was both solemn and softened the hearts of those praying. There must be inner prayer in singing, then it will be spiritual and will awaken to prayer. Our services in the monastery were long, especially on major holidays: all the kathismas were read, the stichera were sung in full, the service lasted from half past five and ended at half past ten. But we weren’t tired, we didn’t want to leave the temple.

It must be said that to celebrate the memory of the blessed Prince Daniel of Moscow, many Moscow clergy gathered in our monastery, and in 1924 His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon came to us...

The times I am talking about were very difficult. Persecution of the church, oppression of the clergy and closure of churches began immediately after the revolution. The first to suffer in Moscow were the Kremlin monasteries and churches. Then they began to close other churches and monasteries - Simonov, Alekseevsky, Petrovsky, Donskoy, Strastnoy...

From the very first day of the oppression, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon stood up for the defense of the Church. But he was greatly harmed by the renovationists led by Vvedensky. “Renewals” captured the Cathedrals of Christ the Savior, St. Pimen, the Resurrection of Christ in Sokolniki and others. They left the church only after the war.

The innovations of the Renovationists were that they abolished the Old Church Slavonic language and began to serve in Russian, the throne was moved from the altar to the middle of the church... The Renovationist services were shorter, but the people did not really favor them, especially women. The singing of the Renovationists was the same as ours. But again, the singers came to them to sing only for the sake of money - those who were not firm in the faith.

Many bishops and clergy first went over to the renovationists, but then they all repented to Patriarch Tikhon...

His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon himself died in March (March 25/April 7), 1925, and his funeral service was held in the Donskoy Monastery, where the body stood for four days. The funeral service was performed by Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsky and Kolomna, concelebrating with sixty-two bishops. There were so many clergy in the cathedral that the people could no longer fit there...

When the mass ended, all the bishops, together with Metropolitan Peter... went out for the burial. Before the burial began, Metropolitan Peter addressed the people with a brief sermon. Then the coffin with the body of His Holiness was carried around the walls of the monastery, brought to the cell where the Patriarch lived, and brought to the old cathedral. A short litany was served here, and the Holy One was lowered into the grave. Millions of people sang “Eternal Memory”.

After the death of Patriarch Tikhon, the Russian Church was ruled for eight months, until his arrest, by Metropolitan Peter, who defended everything he could. But gradually the clergy were expelled and churches were closed... It was especially difficult for monks to get a job. More often than not, they were arrested and deported. At first it was a free deportation, and then they began to send them to concentration camps - to Kolyma, to remote places in Siberia. All our monks remained there, and there were especially many bishops at the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal.

I lived in a monastery in the bishop's chambers and was an eyewitness to this situation: sometimes, twelve o'clock at night - a shrill bell. Everyone knows that they have come to take someone away. They spend two and a half to three hours searching and turning everything over. Then we see if they take one. We say goodbye.

Many bishops lived around the monastery. Their dioceses were closed, and they came to Moscow, where during the NEP it was still possible to rent a room... In addition, bishops were attracted to the monastery by the fact that our rector, Vladyka Theodore, who had previously been the rector of the Moscow Theological Academy, intended to renew it at our monastery. But gradually the bishops began to be arrested and exiled. It started around 1926-1927. During these same years, the Donskoy Monastery was closed, at the end of 1928, and in 1929, the Novodevichy Monastery (its abbess Vera also suffered).”

This time of the 20s and 30s was very difficult for the church. After the destruction of the foundations of the Russian state, representatives of the Soviet government attempted to destroy the Russian Orthodox Church in order to destroy its church-canonical system; the authorities in every possible way stimulated the renovationist movement. Temples and monasteries were closed, the clergy were oppressed. Vladyka Theodore, together with His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, stood up in defense of the Church. Bishop Theodore took a decisive position towards the Renovationists; this position excluded dialogue with the Renovationists as people who had fallen away from the Church.

In order to disrupt the spiritual connection between archpastors and their flock, diocesan bishops were deprived of their chairs. Many bishops, deprived of their chairs for their devotion to the cause of the Church, found shelter in the Danilov Monastery, among them the holy martyrs Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov) and Archbishop Seraphim (Samoilovich), Archbishop Gury (Stepanov), Bishop Pachomius (Kedrov).

During these years, many Muscovites found spiritual support and guidance in the monastery from Archimandrite Georgy (Lavrov (1862-1932), Archimandrite Simeon (Kholmogorov) (+1937) and Archimandrite Polikarp (Soloviev) (+1937). (In 1922 there was The future Reverend Confessor Georgy (Lavrov) was released and accepted “on bail” by Archbishop Theodore to the Moscow Danilov Monastery.

By 1930, the first holy monastery of Moscow, founded more than seven centuries ago by the holy noble prince Daniil of Moscow, the only operating monastery in the late twenties, was closed. (A children's reception center was placed within the walls of the monastery. The reconstruction of the monastery began only in 1983.)

More than fifty inhabitants of the monastery, involved in the “case of the Danilov brotherhood,” together with Bishop Theodore, died a martyr’s death. Vladyka Theodore was shot on October 23, 1937 in the Ivanovo prison. Shortly before his death, he adopted the schema with the name Daniel - in honor of the Venerable Daniel of Moscow.

Throughout his long life, Archimandrite Daniil (Sarychev) remembered hundreds of names of ascetics of piety; he never tired of talking about them, trying to bring closer the day when they would be glorified.

From the memoirs of Elder Daniel: “In the year 29, the Trinity Cathedral of our monastery was closed, and at the end of the year 30, the entire monastery, which remained the last active monastery in Moscow, was closed. The relics of the blessed Prince Daniel of Moscow were transferred to the Church of the Resurrection of the Word, which was located behind the monastery fence and did not belong to the monastery. An amateur mixed choir also moved there from the monastery, of which I became the regent. There were wonderful singers there, especially female voices. I tried to preserve the traditions of monastic singing in this choir. For two years we celebrated the memory of St. Daniel in the Church of the Resurrection of the Word, but then they closed this church too... (Archimandrite Tikhon (Balyaev) was the last abbot of the monastery.) And when our monastery was closed, the relics of St. Prince Daniel were not immediately given to us. And we lost hope that they would give us the relics to the Church of the Resurrection of the Word. And on the eve of the memory of St. Sergius, we already served in this parish, the monastery was closed. But the relics have not yet been given to us. And when we sang: “We bless you, our Reverend Father Sergius,” at that time the church doors opened and Father Tikhon (Balyaev) and some brought in the relics of the blessed Prince Daniel, where they remained for about two years and a little. And then we sang: “We magnify you, holy, faithful and great prince Daniel.” They sang, cried, there was such joy.

In the 30s, when the concentration camps began, terrible times came. The authorities began to cut down everything in the church at the roots. When a young man comes to church and reads “Holy God...”, they are already following him. Then they call him or come for him: either they will expel him, or they will make him so afraid that the person is afraid to enter the temple. (In 1937, people in the church were already afraid to serve, read, or pray to God.)

In 1932, it was my turn: they took me to Butyrki (Butyrka prison). But then the schema-monk Zakhary was still alive, who said that they would release me. And indeed, I spent forty days and was released. I went straight to Father Zacharias, thanked him for his holy prayers and asked for his blessing to accept the priesthood. And in those days this meant that immediately after being ordained you would go to camp. Father did not bless me for this, he ordered me to continue singing and reading in church. And my relative says: “Father, they will take him again.” “They won’t take him anywhere. Go to church, sing, read, praise God.” With these holy prayers of his, I went to the Church of St. Nicholas on Novokuznetskaya, where Father Alexander Smirnov served. And for nine and a half years I organized such folk singing there! And there are arrests all around. I walked boldly, and no one took me by the grace of God...”

Schema-Archimandrite of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, the perspicacious elder Zacharias (Minaev, 1850 -1936), the last to leave the Trinity-Sergius Lavra after its closure, settled in Moscow with his spiritual daughter. Many believers came to the perspicacious elder for advice. He warmed everyone with his love, and during confession he himself named forgotten sins. By the will of God, the past and future of people were revealed to him.

The perspicacious elder Zachary blessed the novice Ivan to marry. By God's providence, he was destined to take monastic vows only three decades later.

Ivan Sergeevich’s chosen one was the girl Claudia Nikolaevna Kutomkina. In 1933, the young people secretly got married, they were married by Father Efimy (Rybchinsky), the spiritual child of Elder Zechariah.

On May 18, 1934, Ivan Sergeevich and Claudia Nikolaevna had a daughter, Olga, and on February 14, 1936, a son, Vladimir.

Father Daniil soon got a job at the Fertilizer Research Institute. And when the war began (1941-1945), he was taken to the front. At the end of the war, Fr. Daniil returned home and continued working at the same institute until his retirement (1972). In the 40-60s, when being a believer was life-threatening, Ivan Sergeevich not only visited churches, but also organized church choirs and led them.

The confessor of Ivan Sergeevich’s wife, Claudia Nikolaevna, was the elder of the Danilov Monastery, Archimandrite Polycarp (Soloviev).

Archimandrite Polycarp (Soloviev, 1892-1937) moved to the Danilov Monastery after Bishop Theodore. Subsequently, he became one of the remarkable confessors.

From the memoirs of Archimandrite Daniel: “Archimandrite Polycarp (Soloviev) was the greatest ascetic. When he walked on the ground, it was as if he were walking on air. This was the penultimate governor." (In 1937, Archimandrite Polycarp was arrested and shot on October 27, 1937 in the Ivanovo prison).

In the 50-60s, Ivan Sergeevich Sarychev led the choir in the Church of the Deposition of the Robe (on Donskaya Street) and the choir in the Small Cathedral of the Donskoy Monastery. (At that time, the Small Cathedral of the Donskoy Monastery was annexed to the Church of the Deposition of the Robe and belonged to the Danilovsky Monastery. Later, at the request of believers, it was returned to the Donskoy Monastery.)

Ivan Sergeevich got a job as a glass blower at the Research Institute for Fertilizers and Insectofungicides (NIIUIF), located on Leninsky Prospekt, not far from the Donskoy Monastery, so in the morning he had time to attend church services and at 9.30 was already at his workplace, and after work again hurried to the temple.

On April 27, 1970, in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, Archimandrite Naum (Bayborodin) tonsured Ivan Sergeevich into monasticism with the name Daniel. Claudia Nikolaevna also took secret tonsure with the name Olga. (On September 8, 1983, Father Daniil was widowed - Mother Olga was hit by a car. Father Daniil grieved the loss and found consolation in prayer and spiritual singing.)

Archimandrite Daniel deeply revered the holy noble prince Daniel of Moscow, the heavenly patron of the St. Daniel's monastery, the quick helper of the faithful people of Moscow. For two years the holy relics were kept in the Church of the Deposition of the Robe. On the day of remembrance of his heavenly patron, Father Daniel praised the holy prince, many believers came to the temple, everyone prayed fervently. Metropolitan Macarius began to receive complaints against Father Daniel. (Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow and Kolomna (Nevsky, 1835-1926).

Once in a subtle dream, Father Daniel saw the holy Prince Daniel, who warned him about the threat looming over him. Through the prayers of the saint, the trouble passed (Many years later, Elder Daniel recalled with tears in his eyes how the holy Prince Daniel warned him: “They want to kick you and me out!” And he advised, before going to the Metropolitan, to pray and put a candle in front of his icon .)

Elder Daniel often advised his spiritual children in difficult situations to pray to the Holy Prince Daniel, he himself prayed and asked for the suffering. Every time the believers talked about the improvement of their living conditions through the prayers of the saint, the archimandrite called for a thanksgiving prayer to be served as soon as possible.
Archimandrite Daniel said: “Great is the prayerful boldness of Holy Prince Daniel before the Holy Trinity!”

On December 17, 1978, the diaconal ordination took place (Ivan Sergeevich was ordained by His Holiness Patriarch Pimen (Izvekov).

In 1983, the Danilov Monastery was returned to the Orthodox Church. When life in the monastery began to improve, Father Daniel donated the old photographs and sheet music he kept to the monastery. (On August 2, 1988, it was in the Danilov Monastery that his presbytery consecration took place.)

Later, Elder Daniel recalled how one night he heard a voice informing him that he would soon be ordained a hieromonk: “An order has come to you to ordain you as a hieromonk.” When the next morning he came to the Danilov Monastery, he heard the following from Bishop Tikhon’s cell attendant: “A decree has come to you from Patriarch Pimen to ordain you as a hieromonk, go to the governor.” From the memoirs of Elder Daniel: “When I went to the governor, Vladyka Tikhon, he gave me a decree to ordain me to the rank of hieromonk. And before that there was a voice from above: “A lot of clergy interceded for your dedication.” Soon after this, Hierodeacon Daniel was ordained to the rank of hieromonk. (In a few years, already in the Donskoy Monastery, Hieromonk Daniel will be elevated to the rank of abbot.)

In 1990, the Donskoy Monastery was transferred to the Moscow Patriarchate, and the resumption of monastic life began. The consecration of the large Donskoy Cathedral took place on August 18, 1991. (This year marked the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Holy Don Monastery.)

In 1991, Father Daniil became a monk of the Donskoy Monastery.

According to the testimony of the former singer of the choir of the Church of St. Nicholas in Khamovniki, servant of God Antonina, Father Daniel loved people very much: “It was like the sun from him that it was light and warm.” The woman said that in the early 90s, Father Daniel three times invited her to be a soloist in the choir (at the Donskoy Monastery) on the patronal feast day of the Don Icon of the Mother of God. One day, soon after the holiday, Elder Daniel specially came to the Church of St. Nicholas in Khamovniki to thank for the soulful singing and to convey a blessing (a copy of an ancient engraving of the monastery) to Father Evlogiy (Smirnov, now Archbishop of Vladimir and Suzdal Evlogiy), who really liked how she sang in the Donskoy Monastery. From the memories of R. B. Antonina: “Such attention to me is a sinner - Father Daniel came specially for this. He had such attention and love for everyone. He was small in stature, but he contained so much strength and love... His Holiness Patriarch Pimen (Izvekov) loved him very much. The Patriarch blessed Father Daniel to serve him in any church, that is, he did not need to take a blessing for this every time... According to the testimony of R. B. Antonina, her confessor Archimandrite Naum (Bayborodin), a resident of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, greatly revered Elder Daniel, and believers often turn to him for prayerful help.

On April 7, 2000, Father Daniel was elevated to the rank of archimandrite by Archbishop Arseny (Epifanov) of Istra.

According to the stories of contemporaries, Archimandrite Daniel was an elder of high spiritual life and an outstanding regent. He said: “In church singing, everything depends on the regent. The regent must be a deeply religious person - sing and pray with his soul. And this spiritual instinct of his, it permeates both those who sing with him and those who pray. When the singing is prayerful, church-like, when the choir sings “with the soul,” as mother nuns used to sing in monasteries, then the worshipers stand and feel as if they are in heaven. There is a proverb: “Like the priest, so is the parish.” So, like the regent, like the choir."

From the memoirs of the inhabitants of the Donskoy Monastery: “This was a great prayer book for Russia. Many people from all over the country came to the priest for spiritual advice. Endowed with special spiritual gifts, Father Daniel found a special approach to everyone.”

According to the testimony of the elder’s spiritual children, through the prayers of the perspicacious elder Daniel, miracles of healing took place, lonely people who had lost all hope found family happiness, peace and love returned to dysfunctional families, children were born to childless spouses. The artists Maria and Alexey did not have children for 9 years. The family could have fallen apart, but through the prayers of Elder Daniel, the couple had a daughter, and soon the Lord sent a son.

According to the story of one spiritual daughter of Archimandrite Daniel, during the years of perestroika, when there was almost no food in stores, through the prayers of Elder Daniel, who wanted to console his spiritual daughters who intended to celebrate the day of the angel of one of them, food miraculously increased. The spiritual daughters and the elder ate mashed potatoes from several potatoes, which was barely enough for dinner for two people, not only that day, but also the next. According to the testimony of Archimandrite Daniel’s cell attendant, a similar incident occurred on the elder’s 90th birthday. That day, food was prepared only for the closest spiritual children, and many came to congratulate Elder Daniel - there was enough food for everyone. The elder prayed for three days, and through his prayers the food did not decrease. There were cases when believers were healed of stomach illness by eating food blessed by the elder.

According to the testimony of the servant of God Nina, in 1996, on the day of the angel of Elder Daniel, when she came to his cell to congratulate him, she received healing from a leg disease. She did not tell her confessor that her legs hurt, so she was very surprised when, upon seeing her, the perspicacious elder suggested that she put on his slippers. Having put on the slippers obediently, she received healing.

According to the testimony of the servant of God Catherine, the spiritual daughter of Archimandrite Daniel, soon after his death, Elder Daniel appeared to her in a dream vision and warned that “we need to sing about him not about health, but about repose.” When they sent her an SMS message that the elder had gone to the Lord, she replied that she already knew that he himself warned her in a dream.

On July 24, 2006, ninety-four-year-old old man Daniil, weakened during a long, debilitating illness, was taken to the 5th city hospital with a diagnosis of “bilateral pneumonia.”
It should be noted that the day before, the servant of God Mary saw in a dream a nun who was leading the elder away - “a woman in a black robe walked in front, and Archimandrite Daniel followed her.” (The Lord called Archimandrite Daniel to Himself on the day of Mother Olga’s death.)

The elder was taken to the hospital on the day of the Equal Apostles celebration. Olga (Elena) (July 11/24). According to the testimony of the cell attendant, a week later Elder Daniel began to ask to be taken from the hospital, predicting that otherwise they might “not see him again.” Archimandrite Daniel suffered a heart attack. Soon pulmonary edema began. The elder prayed incessantly, he was given communion daily (the inhabitants of the monastery, his spiritual son priest Dimitry Shpanko, came).

On September 8, 2006, on the feast of the Presentation of the Vladimir Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, Archimandrite Daniel was honored to receive the Holy Gifts for the last time. The elder’s condition worsened every minute; his spiritual son, priest Demetrius, began to read the departure prayer. (He managed to read the discharge document three times).

At 22:45 on September 8, 2006, the oldest monk of the Moscow Donskoy Monastery, Archimandrite Daniil (Sarychev), peacefully reposed in the Lord.

On Sunday, September 10, the funeral service for Archimandrite Daniel took place in the Great Donskoy Cathedral of the monastery. The funeral service was led by Bishop Savva (Volkov) of Krasnogorsk. Bishop Savva noted that the soul of a person who was honored to receive communion on the day of death passes to the throne of the Lord, bypassing the ordeal. This happens to high ascetics or to people with an exceptionally pure heart.

The cathedral was filled with believers; spiritual children gathered that day to see off their dear priest on his last journey. Archimandrite Daniel was buried in the cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery in front of a large crowd of believers and clergy.

Sources and literature used:

1. Website “Orthodox Pantry”: http://orthodoxpantry.blogspot.com/2010/11/blog-post_18.html

2. “I see Your palace, my Savior. . .”, Archimandrite Daniel (Sarychev). Biography. Memories of spiritual children. Selected Sermons. Publisher: Blessing, 2009

In the village of Zverevo (Ryazan region, Storozhilovsky district), a son was born to Sergei Vasilyevich and Anna Valerianovna Sarychev in a peasant family. The baby at Holy Baptism was named Ivan, in honor of St. John the Baptist.
There were six children in the Sarychev family, two died in childhood. The couple raised their children in piety, in love for God and neighbors, taught them to fast from a very early age, and instilled in them a love of prayer and the Holy Scriptures.
Archimandrite Daniel recalled that not only their family, all the residents of the village were believers, everyone strictly observed fasts, attended church, and tried to live according to the commandments of God. For a long time, the ascetic’s memory retained a vivid childhood impression of late Easter in 1923; he then so wanted to attend the festive service, all day he helped his mother prepare for the holiday, before going to bed he turned to her with the words: “Mom, wake me up for the bright morning.” . Mom nodded promisingly, but did not dare to wake up her son.
From the memoirs of Elder Daniel: “...My mother wakes me up and says: “Get up, break your fast.” I say: “How should I break my fast, but should I go to church?” I'm crying. She says: “Get up quickly, see how the sun plays - don’t cry.” And when I went outside, I saw through our window, it was just the sunrise, and I saw a huge ball and the sun seemed to be bathing, and the reflection was in different colors on the wall, on the tables. And all the people, dressed in Easter dresses, all stand on the boundary, on a hill. Everyone watches the sun play, and all the people sing: “Christ is risen from the dead!” And the children are already rolling eggs. That is, it is indescribable! Holy Rus' is free!
One day Ivan and his comrades went into the forest to pick berries. Before picking berries, the boys prayed as usual, bowed on all four sides and scattered in all directions, when they had collected full baskets, they met. Coming out of the forest, the pious youths were rewarded with a miraculous vision. From the memoirs of Elder Daniel: “...Five hundred meters from us, my comrades and I saw two hieromonks in stoles. At the boundary, in the field, they performed incense. And our temple was not far away. And so, when I arrived in Moscow, I saw above the gate an image of these two hieromonks: the Venerable Simeon the Stylite and Daniel the Stylite. I already saw this in reality in the Danilov Monastery, where I was soon accepted and was there until it was closed as a canonarch.”
It should be noted that the future novice Ivan came to Moscow in the early twenties with his mother, sisters and brother; they stayed with her relatives on Malaya Tulskaya Street, near the Danilov Monastery. From the memoirs of Archimandrite Daniel: “...My first visit was to the Simonov Monastery. Hieromonk Sebastian, gifted with the gift of spiritual vision, served there, and after that I came to Danilov Monastery...
Every day I went to the monastery for early mass, during which Archimandrite Gregory (Lebedev), who later became rector of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra and later a bishop, sang. I loved him very much, and he loved me too. It was he who paid attention to my voice and sent me to study with Abbot Alexy, who was the regent at the monastery. I quickly mastered the science of Father Alexy, who taught me voices and the Slavic language... as soon as I heard a chant once, I could already sing it.
I really wanted to be a canonarch, and I often prayed to the Lord about it. And when I was eleven years old, my dream came true, and I became the canonarch of the Danilov Monastery... It used to be that on holiday we sang ten stichera; So I alone canoned all ten - I walked from the right to the left choir. I wore a cassock and slightly long hair, so I looked like a girl. Sometimes, while I was walking through the temple, my pocket in my cassock was full of sweets and chocolate.”
According to contemporaries, Canonarch Ivan had a unique memory, absolute pitch, he had a strong and beautiful voice (alto), and knew by heart many melodies of religious chants. Many believers specially came to the monastery to listen to the young canonarch. According to the testimony of Archimandrite Daniel, in the Danilov Monastery at that time there was a statutory service, many of the monks had higher spiritual education, and the chants were chants from Optina Pustyn. From the memoirs of Elder Daniel: “The singing in our monastery was beautiful, prayerful, solemn. On the right choir, the choir was hired and consisted of about thirty people. All the voices were selected: churches and monasteries were closed, so there was a large influx of singers. It was then that the oppression began, and they began to be afraid to sing in church.
On the left choir, our monastery inhabitants, about twenty in number, sang, under the direction of Abbot Alexy, a gifted man of extraordinary kindness, who had a beautiful, slightly “on-the-nose” tenor. In total, we had about forty monks in our monastery. Among those who sang in the choir was Archimandrite Simeon, who had a wonderful bass voice. His tragedy was that he was paralyzed in the lower part of his body, and he was carried in a wheelchair. During the revolution of 1905, with his body he shielded our rector, Bishop Theodore, from a shot, and the bullet touched his spine. He was also a very kind man and an ascetic of the faith. In such a painful state he was arrested, and he never returned to freedom... (Archimandrite Simeon (in the world Mikhail Kholmogorov) was arrested in 1934 and died in prison).
In the first place in our monastic singing was churchliness... It was both solemn and softened the hearts of those praying. There must be inner prayer in singing, then it will be spiritual and will awaken to prayer. Our services in the monastery were long, especially on major holidays: all the kathismas were read, the stichera were sung in full, the service lasted from half past five and ended at half past ten. But we weren’t tired, we didn’t want to leave the temple.
It must be said that to celebrate the memory of the blessed Prince Daniel of Moscow, many Moscow clergy gathered in our monastery..., and in the year 24, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon came to us...
The times I am talking about were very difficult. Persecution of the church, oppression of the clergy and closure of churches began immediately after the revolution. The first to suffer in Moscow were the Kremlin monasteries and churches. Then they began to close other churches and monasteries - Simonov, Alekseevsky, Petrovsky, Donskoy, Strastnoy...
From the very first day of the oppression, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon stood up in defense of the church. But he was greatly harmed by the “renovationists” led by Vvedensky. “Renewals” captured the Cathedrals of Christ the Savior, St. Pimen, Resurrection in Sokolniki and others. They left the church only after the war.
The innovations of the “renovationists” were that they abolished the Old Church Slavonic language and began to serve in Russian, that they moved the throne from the altar to the middle of the church... The “renovationist” services were shorter, but the people did not really like them, especially women. The singing of the “renovationists” was the same as ours. But again, the singers came to them to sing only for the sake of money - those who were not firm in the faith.
Many bishops and clergy first went over to the “renovationists,” but then they all repented from Patriarch Tikhon...
His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon himself died in March (March 25/April 7), 1925, and his funeral service was held in the Donskoy Monastery, where the body stood for four days. The funeral service was performed by Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsky and Kolomna, concelebrating with sixty-two bishops. There were so many clergy in the cathedral that the people could no longer fit there...
When the mass ended, all the bishops, together with Metropolitan Peter... went out for the burial. Before the burial began, Metropolitan Peter addressed the people with a brief sermon. Then the coffin with the body of His Holiness was carried around the walls of the monastery, brought to the cell where the Patriarch lived and brought to the old cathedral. Here a short litany was served and the Holy One was lowered into the grave. Millions of people sang “Eternal Memory”.
After the death of Patriarch Tikhon, the Russian Church was ruled for eight months, until his arrest, by Metropolitan Peter..., who defended everything he could. But gradually the clergy were expelled and churches were closed... It was especially difficult for monks to get a job. More often than not, they were arrested and deported. At first it was a free deportation, and then they began to send them to concentration camps - to Kolyma, to remote places in Siberia. All our monks remained there, and there were especially many bishops at the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal.
I lived in a monastery in the bishop's chambers and was an eyewitness to this situation: sometimes, twelve o'clock at night - a shrill bell. Everyone knows that they have come to take someone away. They search for two and a half hours and then turn everything over. Then we see if they take one. We say goodbye.
Many bishops lived around the monastery. Their dioceses were closed, and they came to Moscow, where during the NEP it was still possible to rent a room... In addition, bishops were attracted to the monastery by the fact that our rector, Vladyka Theodore, who had previously been the rector of the Moscow Theological Academy, intended to renew it at our monastery. But gradually the bishops began to be arrested and exiled. It started around '26, '27. During these same years, the Donskoy Monastery was closed, and at the end of the 28th and 29th, the Novodevichy Monastery (its abbess Vera also suffered).”
After the destruction of the foundations of the Russian state, representatives of the Soviet government attempted to destroy the Russian Orthodox Church in order to destroy its church-canonical system; the authorities in every possible way stimulated the renovationist movement. In order to disrupt the spiritual connection between archpastors and their flock, diocesan bishops were deprived of their chairs. Bishop Theodore took a decisive position towards the Renovationists; this position excluded dialogue with the Renovationists as people who had fallen away from the Church. Many bishops, deprived of their chairs for their devotion to the cause of the Church, found shelter in the Danilov Monastery, among them the holy martyrs Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov) and Archbishop Seraphim (Samoilovich), Archbishop Gury (Stepanov), Bishop Pachomius (Kedrov).
During these years, many Muscovites found spiritual support and guidance in the monastery from Archimandrite Georgy (Lavrov (1862-1932), Archimandrite Simeon (Kholmogorov) (†1937) and Archimandrite Polycarp (Soloviev) (†1937). (In 1922 there was The future Reverend Confessor Georgy (Lavrov) was released and accepted “on bail” by Archbishop Theodore to the Moscow Danilov Monastery.)
By 1930, the first holy monastery of Moscow, founded more than seven centuries ago by the holy noble prince Daniil of Moscow - the only operating monastery in the late twenties - was closed. (A children's reception center was placed within the walls of the monastery. The reconstruction of the monastery began only in 1983.)
More than fifty inhabitants of the monastery, involved in the “case of the Danilov brotherhood,” together with Bishop Theodore, died a martyr’s death. Vladyka Theodore was shot on October 23, 1937 in Ivanovo prison. Shortly before his death, he adopted the schema with the name Daniel - in honor of the Venerable Daniel of Moscow.
Throughout his long life, Archimandrite Daniil (Sarychev) remembered hundreds of names of ascetics of piety; he never tired of talking about them, trying to hasten the day when they would be glorified.
From the memoirs of Elder Daniel: “In the year 29, the Trinity Cathedral of our monastery was closed, and at the end of the year 30, the entire monastery, which remained the last active monastery in Moscow, was closed. The relics of the blessed Prince Daniel of Moscow were transferred to the Church of the Resurrection of the Word, which was located behind the monastery fence and did not belong to the monastery. An amateur mixed choir also moved there from the monastery, of which I became the regent. There were wonderful singers there, especially female voices. I tried to preserve the traditions of monastic singing in this choir. For two years we celebrated the memory of St. Daniel in the Church of the Resurrection of the Word, but then they closed this church too... (Archimandrite Tikhon (Balyaev) was the last abbot of the monastery.) And when our monastery was closed, the relics of St. Prince Daniel were not immediately given to us. And we lost hope that they would give us the relics to the Church of the Resurrection of the Word. And on the eve of the memory of St. Sergius, we already served in this parish, the monastery was closed. But the relics have not yet been given to us. And when we sang: “We bless you, our Reverend Father Sergius,” at that time the church doors opened and Father Tikhon (Balyaev) and some brought in the relics of the blessed Prince Daniel, where they remained for about two years and a little. And then we sang: “We magnify you, holy, faithful and great prince Daniel.” They sang, cried, there was such joy.
In the 30s, when the concentration camps began, terrible times came. The authorities began to cut down everything in the church at the roots. When a young man comes to church, reads “Holy God...” - they are already following on his heels. Then they call him, or come for him: either they will send him away, or they will make him so afraid that the person is afraid to enter the temple. (In 1937, people in the church were already afraid to serve, read, and pray to God.)
In 1932, it was my turn: they took me to Butyrki (Butyrka prison). But then the schema-monk Zakhary was still alive, and he said that they would release me. And indeed, I spent forty days and was released. I went straight to Father Zacharias, thanked him for his holy prayers and asked for his blessing to accept the priesthood. And in those days this meant that immediately after being ordained you would go to camp. Father did not bless me for this, he ordered me to continue singing and reading in church. And my relative says: “Father, they will take him again.” - “They won’t take him anywhere. Go to church, sing, read, praise God.” With these holy prayers of his, I went to the Church of St. Nicholas on Novokuznetskaya, where Father Alexander Smirnov served. And for nine and a half years I organized such folk singing there! And there are arrests all around. I walked boldly, and no one took me by the grace of God...”
Schema-Archimandrite of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, the perspicacious elder Zacharias (Minaev, (1850 -1936)), who was the last to leave the Trinity-Sergius Lavra after its closure, settled in Moscow with his spiritual daughter. Many believers came to the perspicacious elder for advice. He warmed everyone with his love, and during confession he himself named forgotten sins. By the will of God, the past and future of people were revealed to him.
The perspicacious elder Zachary blessed the novice Ivan to marry. By God's providence, he was destined to take monastic vows only three decades later.
Ivan Sergeevich’s chosen one was the girl Claudia Nikolaevna Kutomkina. In 1933, the young people secretly got married, they were married by Father Efimy (Rybchinsky), the spiritual child of Elder Zechariah. (Klavdia Nikolaevna’s sister, Olga Nikolaevna, looked after her confessor for 22 years.) On May 18, 1934, Ivan Sergeevich and Klavdia Nikolaevna had a daughter, Olga, and on February 14, 1936, a son, Vladimir.
The spiritual father of Ivan Sergeevich was Archimandrite Seraphim (in the world Klimkov Grigory Yuryevich) (after accepting the schema - Schema-Archimandrite Daniel).
Elder Seraphim (Klimkov, (1893-1970)) had the gift of love and reasoning, the number of his spiritual children grew rapidly. In the monastery during Lent, he had to confess until three in the morning. Archimandrite Seraphim had to endure a lot during the years of unbelief - he was arrested several times (in 1921, 1927, 1945) and spent a total of 15 years in prisons and camps. (Schiarchimandrite Daniel was buried at the Kotlyakovskoye cemetery.)
Several decades will pass and Ivan Sergeevich will become a worthy successor to his spiritual father. In the 40-60s, when being a believer was life-threatening, Ivan Sergeevich not only visited churches, but organized church choirs and led them.
The confessor of Ivan Sergeevich’s wife, Claudia Nikolaevna, was the elder of the Danilov Monastery, Archimandrite Polycarp (Soloviev).
Archimandrite Polycarp (Soloviev, (1892-1937)) moved to the Danilov Monastery after Bishop Theodore. Subsequently, he became one of the remarkable confessors. From the memoirs of Archimandrite Daniel: “...Archimandrite Polycarp (Soloviev) was the greatest ascetic. When he walked on the ground, it was as if he were walking on air. This was the penultimate governor." (In 1937, Archimandrite Polycarp was arrested and shot on October 27, 1937 in Ivanovo prison).
In the 50-60s, Ivan Sergeevich Sarychev led the choir in the Church of the Placing of the Robe (on Donskaya Street) and the choir in the Small Cathedral of the Donskoy Monastery. (At that time, the Small Cathedral of the Donskoy Monastery was annexed to the Church of the Deposition of the Robe and belonged to the Danilovsky Monastery. Later, at the request of believers, it was returned to the Donskoy Monastery.)
Ivan Sergeevich got a job as a glassblower at the Scientific Research Institute for Fertilizers and Insectofungicides (NIIUIF), located on Leninsky Prospekt, not far from the Donskoy Monastery, so in the morning he had time to attend the church service, and at 9.30 he was already at his workplace, and after work hurried to the temple.
On April 27, 1970, in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, Archimandrite Naum (Bayborodin) tonsured Ivan Sergeevich into monasticism with the name Daniel. Claudia Nikolaevna also took secret tonsure with the name Olga. (On September 8, 1983, Father Daniil was widowed - Mother Olga was hit by a car. Father Daniil grieved the loss and found consolation in prayer and spiritual singing.)
From the memoirs of Archimandrite Daniel: “I sang in the Church of the Deposition of the Robe, and then the old Cathedral was opened to us. And we were allowed to perform services here, with the help of the late Patriarch Pimen. Then the relics of St. Tikhon were found there..."
In his youth, Archimandrite Daniel was lucky enough to receive the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon; he was honored to accompany Saint Tikhon on his last journey, and he was destined to live to see the glorification of the Saint.
According to an eyewitness of those events, Alexei Valerievich Artemyev:
“It all started with a tragic event. On November 18, 1991, at the end of the evening service in the Small Church of the Donskoy Monastery, someone from outside broke out a window in the already locked church and threw a packet of Molotov cocktail inside. The temple instantly turned into a kind of blast furnace. The fire lasted 15-20 minutes, but the destructive power of the fire was such that the temple had to be closed for long repairs, and it contained the great shrine of the Russian Orthodox Church - the tomb of St. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, adjacent to the southern wall of the temple. It must be said that the lower part of the temple, one and a half meters high, was almost not damaged by the fire, so the marble tombstone over the saint’s grave remained intact...
There was no doubt that then, in 1925, the burial was here... Thank God, everyone’s beloved Archimandrite Daniil (Sarychev) was alive... who was present at the burial of the Patriarch as a boy... Father Daniil did not I doubted that she was here...”
The inhabitants of the monastery asked for a blessing to examine the saint’s grave, and on February 15, 1992, on the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, the monks, having served a prayer service in front of the tombstone, removed it, began to dig, and discovered the coffin.
This happened on February 17, 1992 (The official discovery of the relics was on February 19, 1992)... And on February 22, the official church act of finding the relics took place. Under the dark green hierarchical robe lay the body of the deceased great Moscow Saint, completely unchanged in its shape.
Archimandrite Daniel deeply revered the holy noble prince Daniel of Moscow, the Heavenly patron of the St. Daniel's monastery, the immediate helper of the faithful people of Moscow. For two years the holy relics were kept in the Church of the Deposition of the Robe. On the day of remembrance of his heavenly patron, Father Daniel praised the holy prince, many believers came to the temple, everyone prayed fervently. Metropolitan Macarius began to receive complaints against Father Daniel. (Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow and Kolomna (Nevsky, (1835-1926)). Once in a subtle dream, Father Daniel saw the holy Prince Daniel, who warned him about the threat hanging over him. Through the prayers of the saint, the trouble passed (Many years later, Elder Daniel with tears With his eyes he remembered how holy Prince Daniel warned him: “They want to kick us out!” And he advised him to pray and light a candle in front of his icon before going to the Metropolitan.)
Elder Daniel often advised his spiritual children in difficult situations to pray to the Holy Prince Daniel, he himself prayed and asked for the suffering. Every time the believers talked about the improvement of their living conditions through the prayers of the saint, the archimandrite called for a thanksgiving prayer to be served as soon as possible.
Archimandrite Daniel said: “Great is the prayerful boldness of Holy Prince Daniel before the Holy Trinity!”
On December 17, 1978, the diaconal ordination took place (Ivan Sergeevich was ordained by His Holiness Patriarch Pimen (Izvekov)).
In 1983, the Danilov Monastery was returned to the Orthodox Church. When life in the monastery began to improve, Father Daniel donated the old photographs and sheet music he kept to the monastery. (On August 2, 1988, it was in the Danilov Monastery that the presbyteral consecration took place.)
Later, Elder Daniel recalled how one night he heard a voice informing him that he would soon be ordained a hieromonk: “An order has come to you to ordain you as a hieromonk.” When the next morning he came to the Danilov Monastery, he heard the following from Bishop Tikhon’s cell attendant: “A decree has come to you from Patriarch Pimen to ordain you as a hieromonk, go to the governor.” From the memoirs of Elder Daniel: “When I went to the governor, Vladyka Tikhon, he gave me a decree to ordain me to the rank of hieromonk. And before that there was a voice from above: “A lot of clergy interceded for your dedication.” Soon after this, Hierodeacon Daniel was ordained to the rank of hieromonk. (A few years later, already in the Donskoy Monastery, Hieromonk Daniel will be elevated to the rank of abbot.)
In 1990, the Donskoy Monastery was transferred to the Moscow Patriarchate, and the resumption of monastic life began. The consecration of the large Donskoy Cathedral took place on August 18, 1991. (This year marked the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Holy Don Monastery.)
In 1991, Father Daniil became a monk of the Donskoy Monastery.
According to the testimony of the former soloist of the choir of the Church of St. Nicholas in Khamovniki, the servant of God Antonina, Father Daniel loved people very much: “From him, like from the Sun, it was light and warm.” Servant of God Antonina said that Father Daniel three times in the early 90s invited her to be a soloist in the choir (at the Donskoy Monastery) on the patronal feast of the Don Icon of the Mother of God. One day, soon after the holiday, Elder Daniel specially came to the Church of St. Nicholas in Khamovniki to thank her for her soulful singing and to convey a blessing (a copy of an ancient engraving of the monastery) to Father Evlogiy (Smirnov) (now Archbishop Evlogiy of Vladimir and Suzdal), who really liked it how she sang in the Donskoy Monastery. From the memories of R. B. Antonina: “Such attention to me is a sinner - Father Daniel came specially for this. He had such attention and love for everyone. He was small in stature, but he contained so much strength and love... His Holiness Patriarch Pimen (Izvekov) loved him very much. The Patriarch blessed Father Daniel to serve him in any church, that is, he did not need to take a blessing for this every time... According to the testimony of R. B. Antonina, her confessor, Archimandrite Naum (Bayborodin), a resident of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, greatly revered Elder Daniel, often blessed her and other believers to turn to him for prayer help.
On April 7, 2000, Father Daniel was elevated to the rank of archimandrite by Archbishop Arseny (Epifanov) of Istra.
According to the stories of contemporaries, Archimandrite Daniel was an elder of high spiritual life and an outstanding regent. He said: “...In church singing, everything depends on the regent. The regent must be a deeply religious person - sing and pray with his soul. And this spiritual instinct of his, it permeates both those who sing with him and those who pray. When the singing is prayerful, church-like, when the choir sings “with the soul,” as mother nuns used to sing in monasteries, then the worshipers stand and feel as if they are in heaven. There is a proverb: “Like the priest, so is the parish.” So, like the regent, like the choir."
From the memoirs of the inhabitants of the Donskoy Monastery: “This was a great prayer book for Russia. Many people from all over the country came to the priest for spiritual advice. Endowed with special spiritual gifts, Father Daniel found a special approach to everyone.”
On July 24, 2006, ninety-four-year-old old man Daniil, weakened during a long, debilitating illness, was taken to the fifth city hospital with a diagnosis of bilateral pneumonia.
It should be noted that the day before, the servant of God Mary saw in a dream a nun who was leading the elder away - “a woman in a black robe walked in front, and Archimandrite Daniel followed her.” (The Lord will call Archimandrite Daniel to Himself on the day of Mother Olga’s death.)
The elder was taken to the hospital on the day of the Ravnoap celebration. Olga (Elena) (July 11/24). According to the testimony of the cell attendant, a week later Elder Daniel began to ask to be taken from the hospital, predicting that otherwise they might “not see him again.” Archimandrite Daniel suffered a heart attack. Soon pulmonary edema began. The elder prayed incessantly, he was given communion daily (the inhabitants of the monastery, his spiritual son priest Dimitry Shpanko, came).
On September 8, 2006, on the feast of the Presentation of the Vladimir Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, Archimandrite Daniel was honored to receive the Holy Gifts for the last time. The elder’s condition worsened every minute; his spiritual son, priest Demetrius, began to read the departure prayer. (He managed to read the discharge document three times).
At 22:45 September 8, 2006 the oldest monk of the Moscow Donskoy Monastery, Archimandrite Daniil (Sarychev) peacefully went to the Lord.
On Sunday, September 10, the funeral service for Archimandrite Daniel took place in the Great Donskoy Cathedral of the monastery. The funeral service was led by Bishop Savva (Volkov) of Krasnogorsk. Bishop Savva noted that the soul of a person who was honored to receive communion on the day of death passes to the throne of the Lord, bypassing the ordeal. This happens to high ascetics or to people with exceptionally pure hearts.
The cathedral was filled with believers; spiritual children gathered that day to see off their dear priest on his last journey. Archimandrite Daniel was buried in the cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery in front of a large crowd of believers and clergy.

Published based on an article by Svetlana Devyatova "Archimandrite Daniil (Sarychev)" .

Grave:
Archimandrite Daniil (Sarychev) died on September 8, 2006 in Moscow.
Buried in necropolis of the Donskoy Monastery in the city Moscow.

Day of Remembrance:
26.08/8.09 – day of death (2006)

Archimandrite Daniel (Sarychev Ivan Sergeevich) was born on January 14, 1912 in the village of Zverevo, Storozhilovsky district, Ryazan province, into a peasant family.
Father - Sergei Vasilyevich, mother - Anna Valerianovna. The family was pious. The mother was especially distinguished by her piety. The family had six children, two of whom died in infancy. From early childhood, Ivan had a deep faith in God, and he was surrounded by simple believers. While still a child, he once went into the forest with other boys, and when they were returning, they saw two hieromonks in stoles performing censing in a clearing. Later, while in Moscow, he saw above the holy gates of the St. Daniel Monastery the icons of the Venerables Simeon the Stylite and Daniel the Stylite and recognized them as the hieromonks he had seen in the forest.

Anna Valerianovna, left without a family breadwinner, moved with her children to Moscow. They lived not far from the Daniel Monastery. Soon Vanya was taken by Bishop Theodore (Pozdeevsky) as a novice to the St. Daniel Monastery.
Here are his own memories: “Every day I went to the monastery for early mass, during which Archimandrite Grigory (Lebedev), who later became the governor of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra and bishop, sang. I loved him very much, and he loved me too. It was he who paid attention to my voice and sent me to study with Abbot Alexy [Selifonov], who was the regent at the monastery. I quickly mastered the science of Father Alexy, who taught me voices and the Slavic language... as soon as I heard a chant once, I could already sing it.
I really wanted to be a canonarch, and I often prayed to the Lord about it. And when I was eleven years old, my dream came true, and I became the canonarch of the Danilov Monastery... It used to be that on holiday we sang ten stichera; So I alone canoned all ten - I walked from the right to the left choir. I wore a cassock and slightly long hair, so I looked like a girl. Sometimes, while I was walking through the temple, my pocket in my cassock was full of sweets and chocolate.”
His spiritual father was Archimandrite Seraphim (Klimkov).

According to contemporaries, Canonarch Ivan had a unique memory, absolute pitch, he had a strong and beautiful voice (alto), and knew by heart many melodies of religious chants. Many believers specially came to the monastery to listen to the young canonarch.
According to the testimony of Archimandrite Daniel, in the St. Daniel Monastery at that time there was a statutory service, many of the monks had higher spiritual education, and the chants were chants from the Optina Monastery. From the memoirs of Elder Daniel: “The singing in our monastery was beautiful, prayerful, solemn. On the right choir the choir was hired and consisted of about thirty people. All the voices were selected: churches and monasteries were closed, so there was a large influx of singers. It was then that the oppression began, and they began to be afraid to sing in church.
On the left choir, our monastery residents, about twenty in number, sang, under the direction of Abbot Alexy, a gifted man of extraordinary kindness, who had a beautiful, slightly “on-the-nose” tenor. In total, we had about forty monks in our monastery. Among those who sang in the choir was Archimandrite Simeon [Kholmogorov], who had a wonderful bass voice. His tragedy was that he was paralyzed in the lower part of his body, and he was carried in a wheelchair<...>He was also a very kind man and an ascetic of the faith. In the first place in our monastic singing was churchliness... It was both solemn and softened the hearts of those praying. There must be inner prayer in singing, then it will be spiritual and will awaken to prayer. Our services in the monastery were long, especially on major holidays: all the kathismas were read, the stichera were sung in full, the service lasted from half past five and ended at half past ten. But we weren’t tired, we didn’t want to leave the temple.
It must be said that to celebrate the memory of the blessed Prince Daniel of Moscow, many Moscow clergy gathered in our monastery..., and in the year 24, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon came to us ... "

The time of the 1920s was very difficult for the Church. Temples and monasteries were closed, the clergy were oppressed. To destroy the Church from within, a renovation movement was created. Bishop Theodore, together with His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, stood up in defense of the Church.
Ivan then occupied a cell in the Bishop’s chambers and witnessed how at night they came to the monastery with a search and took away one of the brethren: “It used to be twelve o’clock at night - a shrill bell. Everyone knows that they have come to take someone away. They search for two and a half hours and then turn everything over. Then we see if they take one. We say goodbye."
In 1929, the Trinity Cathedral of the St. Daniel Monastery was closed, and in 1930, the entire monastery was closed.

In 1932, Ivan was arrested and put in Butyrka prison, but after 40 days he was released - through the prayers of the schema-archimandrite of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, the perspicacious elder Zacharias (Minaev). From the memoirs of Father Daniel: “I went straight to Father Zechariah, thanked him for his holy prayers and asked for his blessing to accept the priesthood. And in those days this meant that immediately after being ordained you would go to camp. Father did not bless me for this, he ordered me to continue singing and reading in church. And my relative says: “Father, they will take him again.” “They won’t take him anywhere. Go to church, sing, read, praise God.”

Ivan wanted to become a monk, but he didn’t have a blessing for that either. And his father Zechariah blessed him to marry. His chosen one was a parishioner of the Daniel Monastery, the maiden Claudia Nikolaevna Kutomkina, whose spiritual father was Archimandrite Polycarp (Soloviev).
In 1933, the young people secretly got married, they were married by Father Euthymius (Rybchinsky), the spiritual child of Elder Zechariah.
On May 18, 1934, Ivan Sergeevich and Claudia Nikolaevna had a daughter, Olga, and on February 14, 1936, a son, Vladimir.

Ivan Sergeevich got a job as a glassblower at the Scientific Research Institute for Fertilizers and Insectofungicides (NIIUIF) on Leninsky Prospekt, not far from the Donskoy Monastery, so in the morning he had time to attend the church service, and at 9.30 he was already at his workplace, and after work he hurried to the church .

In 1941, the war began, and he was taken to the front.

At the end of the war he returned home and continued to work at the same institute until his retirement in 1972.
In his free time from work, he sang and read in the Nikolo-Kuznetsky Church in Vishnyakovsky Lane, where Archpriest Alexander Smirnov was the rector. Then he gathered his own choir from former Danilov parishioners. On Easter, on Bright Night, he organized folk singing on the street in the church fence. And when trips to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra were organized, I went there with my choir.

Around 1952, Ivan Sergeevich was invited to the Church of the Deposition of the Robe on Donskoy Street in Moscow, to which the Small Cathedral of the Donskoy Monastery was annexed.
Regent of the Small Cathedral of the Donskoy Monastery.

On April 27, 1970, in the Holy Trinity Lavra of Sergius in the city of Zagorsk (now Sergiev Posad), Moscow region, he took secret monastic tonsure in the name of Holy Prince Daniel of Moscow, together with his wife Claudia Nikolaevna, who became a nun Olga.

On December 17, 1978, the deacon's ordination took place. Father Daniel was ordained by His Holiness Patriarch Pimen (Izvekov).

On September 8, 1983, Mother Olga was hit by a car and died.
On November 24, 1985, my son died of a heart defect.
At that time, Father Daniel and his daughter were greatly consoled and supported by the Danilov elder Hieromonk Pavel (Troitsky), as well as Father Vsevolod (Shpiller). Father Daniel found consolation in prayer.

In 1990, the Donskoy Monastery was transferred to the Moscow Patriarchate.
In 1991, Father Daniil became a monk of the Donskoy Monastery.

In his youth, he was lucky enough to receive the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon; he was honored to see off Saint Tikhon on his last journey; he was destined to live to see the glorification of the Saint in 1989.

On April 7, 2000, on the feast of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos, Archbishop Arseny (Epifanov) of Istra, he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite.

Archimandrite Daniel deeply revered the holy noble prince Daniel of Moscow, the Heavenly patron of Russia, Moscow, the St. Daniel monastery and his own, quick helper of believers. On the day of his memory, Father Daniel glorified the holy prince, many believers came to the temple, everyone prayed fervently.
Once in his youth, in a subtle dream, Father Daniel saw the holy Prince Daniel, who warned him about the threat looming over him. Through the prayers of the saint, the trouble passed. Many years later, Elder Daniel recalled with tears in his eyes how holy Prince Daniel warned him: “They want to kick you and me out!” And he advised me to pray and put a candle in front of his icon.
Elder Daniel often told his spiritual children in difficult situations to pray to the Holy Prince Daniel, he himself prayed and asked for the suffering. Every time the believers spoke about the improvement of their living conditions through the prayers of the holy prince, the archimandrite called for a thanksgiving prayer to be served as soon as possible. Archimandrite Daniel said: “Great is the prayerful boldness of Holy Prince Daniel before the Holy Trinity!”

While performing pastoral service, Father Daniel gave a lot of strength and love.
From the memoirs of his daughter: “I will say about myself that I really loved being at the Divine Liturgy when Father Daniel served. What a prayer it was! And when Father covered my head with the stole, I felt an extraordinary lightness in myself. Through his holy prayers I was wonderfully saved from death. I was crossing the road and did not notice how an avalanche of cars quickly moved towards me. How I ended up on the sidewalk is humanly impossible to explain. Only Father was very excited when I entered his cell. Father Daniel loved to relax "on the porch under the vines. Grapes were born every year and in abundance. Father loved to treat him to grapes, and not only to them, but also to apples from the garden of the Donskoy Monastery. The apples were of rare varieties and were also born every year."
Despite his advanced age, he directed the choir back in 2003.
In December 2004, I caught a bad cold and was sick all winter until Easter. And when warm days arrived, his health improved a little, he began to leave his cell and sit on the porch.
Since the winter of 2005, he has become worse again. The last time he went to church was on the Feast of the Entry of the Blessed Virgin Mary into the Temple, December 4, 2005. After that I went to bed.
The brethren of the Donskoy Monastery communed him with the Holy Mysteries of Christ in his cell.
At times Father felt very bad and an ambulance was called.
On July 24, 2006, on the day of the celebration of Equal-to-the-Apostles Olga, Father Daniil was admitted to the 5th City Hospital in intensive care in critical condition. Thanks to the efforts of nurses and doctors, he was brought out of this state. At times he felt better, and then suddenly he got worse.
From the memories of his daughter: “I came to him a few days before his death with his spiritual daughter, nurse Lena. Father Daniel called us to a feast: “Come to my feast, I invite everyone, there are already a lot of people going to the feast, there will be a great celebration." And, surprisingly, my mother, shortly before her death, was also invited to a feast by her late mother. My mother refused, she didn’t want to, but she said that it was necessary. And my mother was hit by a car and died on September 8, 1983 Meeting of the Vladimir Icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Father Daniil died on the same day, September 8, 2006. Two days before his death, his face suddenly became young, like that of a young man, and it seemed to me without a beard. I stopped by his bed, amazed at the change. My dad had a peaceful and serene death. He received communion every day and received communion on the day of his death.”
The day before, one servant of God named Maria saw in a dream a nun who was leading the elder away - “a woman in a black robe walked in front, and Archimandrite Daniel followed her”: the Lord called Archimandrite Daniel to Himself on the day of Mother Olga’s death.
On September 9, the body of Father Daniel was transferred to the Small Cathedral. Requiem services were served, and on September 10 it was transferred to the Great Cathedral, where Bishop Savva (Volkov) of Krasnogorsk celebrated the Divine Liturgy, accompanied by the clergy. After the liturgy, the funeral service was performed.
The funeral took place on the territory of the Donskoy Monastery with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy (Ridiger).

From the memoirs of the inhabitants of the Donskoy Monastery: “This was a great prayer book for Russia. Many people from all over the country came to Father for spiritual advice. Endowed with special spiritual gifts, Father Daniel found a special approach to everyone.”
According to the testimony of his spiritual children, through the prayers of the perspicacious elder Daniel, miracles of healing took place, lonely people who had lost all hope found family happiness, peace and love returned to dysfunctional families, children were born to childless spouses.

Literature:
1. T.V. Velk-Uglanova. Archimandrite Daniil (Sarychev). – On the website http://www.cofe.ru
2. http://pstbi.ru
3. Recordings of Radio “Radonezh”.
4. Memoirs of the spiritual children of Archimandrite Daniel, recorded by Tatyana Velk-Uglanova.