Abel (Vasiliev)

No official documents about the life of the monk Abel were preserved. The biography presented here is set out in accordance with the first printed report on Abel, published without attribution at the end of the 19th century (see below ).

Vasily Vasiliev was born on March 18, 1757 in the village of Akulovo, Aleksinsky district of the Tula province of Moscow province (the village does not exist now, the territory is in the Zaoksky district of the Tula region ^[2] ) in a family of the tiller and Vasily and his wife Ksenia. He was one of nine children.

In childhood and youth he worked as a carpenter in Kremenchug and Kherson . Having survived a serious illness in his youth, he decided to leave for the monastery. However, he did not receive the blessings of his parents. In 1774 he married “against the will”.

In 1785, he secretly left the village, leaving his wife and three children. Having received the purchase from his master, Leo Naryshkin , he reached the Valaam Monastery , where he received tonsure. He lived in the monastery for only a year and then he “took the blessing from the abbot and went to the desert” . After several visions, the monk Abel finally left the Valaam Monastery and went around the world. After nine years of wandering, he stopped at the Nikolo-Babaevsky monastery of the Kostroma diocese , where he wrote his first prophetic book. It was said that Empress Catherine II would die in eight months. ^{[3] [4] [5]} Bishop of Kostroma and Galitsky, Paul , who was shown this book, decided to turn the monk into the hands of the governor, who put Abel in prison and then sent to St. Petersburg .

In St. Petersburg, the empress was informed of him. Catherine II took pity on the monk and, instead of executing, ordered Abel to be put in the Shlisselburg fortress . Soon, however, the prediction came true, Paul I ascended the throne.

Subsequently, the monk Abel was exiled to Kostroma , where he predicted the date of the death of the new emperor ^{[6] [7] [8]} , for which on May 12, 1800 he was imprisoned in the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress .

After the death of Paul I, the monk Abel was exiled to the Solovetsky Monastery , which he was forbidden to leave. In the monastery, the monk wrote a new book in which he predicted the burning of Moscow by the French ^{[3] [4] [6] [9]} . After the prediction came true, Alexander I ordered the release of Abel. In the summer of 1813, the monk visited St. Petersburg, later on Mount Athos , in Constantinople , Jerusalem . After wanderings, Abel settled in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra .

October 24, 1823 he entered the Serpukhov Vysotsky Monastery . Fearing persecution, he left him in June 1826, was detained in the Tula province and imprisoned at the order of Emperor Nicholas I in the Suzdal Spaso-Euthymius Monastery .

He died on November 29, 1841, was buried in Suzdal , behind the altar of the St. Nicholas Church of the Savior-Euthymius Monastery .

The writings attributed to Abel contain a number of other predictions: the overthrow of the monarchy in Russia, both world wars, the Civil War in Russia ^{[10] [11]} .

Not a single complete book of Abel was preserved, only fragments and some copies. Nevertheless, it is alleged that Abel, at the request of Pavel Petrovich, wrote down the most important prophecies and hid them in a casket, which supposedly was opened by Nicholas II exactly 100 years after the death of Pavel Petrovich.

• About Catherine II: "... 40 years will reign."
• To Paul I : “Your kingdom will be short, and I see your fierce end. ... you will accept a tormenting death from unfaithful servants; in your bedchamber you will be strangled as villains whom you warm on your royal chest. ”
• About Alexander I: “The Frenchman burns Moscow with him , but he will take Paris from him and call him Blessed. But the secret sorrow will be unbearable for him, and the royal crown will appear to him heavy, and he will replace the feat of royal service with the feat of fasting and prayer ... ”
• About Nicholas I: "The beginning of Nicholas’s reign as a fight, the Voltairean revolt begins ...".
• About Alexander II: “The King Delivered by the Liberator, he will give freedom to the serfs , and after the Turks he will beat him, and he will also free the Slavs from the yoke of the infidel .” The rebels will not forgive him of great deeds , they will begin the “hunt” for him , they will kill him in the middle of a clear day . ”
• About Alexander III: “The Peacemaker is true. Glorious will be his reign. Sediment sedition seditious, peace and order he will restore. But the reign will not last long. ”
• About Nicholas II: “He will have the mind of Christ, patience and purity of the pigeon ... On the crown of thorns he will replace the royal crown ... There will be a war. The great war, the world ... Through the air, people , like birds, will fly, under water , like fish, swim, they will begin to exterminate each other with the fetidy gray . On the eve of victory, the royal throne will collapse . Brother to brother will rise ... godless power will scourge the Russian land ... And the Egyptian Execution will happen ... ” ^{[13] [14]} .
• On the consequences of the October Revolution : "... the Jew will be a scorpion ^{[15] to} scour the land of Russia, to rob its Shrines , to close the Church of God , to execute the best Russian people ."
• About the Great Patriotic War : “... the new Batu in the West will raise his hand . But Russian power will rise , Batu will collapse, will not stand it! ”
• About modern Russia : “Great will be Russia then, casting off the yoke of godlessness.”
• About great artists: "A good fellow will fall to the ends of the earth from the wild steppes, and with his hand will be great canvases written and his name will be Maximus"

There is also a legend set forth in the books of S. A. Nilus “On the Bank of the River of God” and Shabelsky Brock “The Monk of the Prophet,” according to which Paul I wrote down Abel’s predictions regarding the reigning dynasty and sealed them in the palace in Gatchina. He ordered the chest only 100 years after his death. The casket was opened by Nicholas II on March 12, 1901. According to legend, the casket contained a prophecy about the death of the imperial family and the cessation of the Romanov dynasty in 1918 ^[16] . However, this legend has not yet received reliable confirmation. According to a study by V. A. Semenov, deputy director of the Gatchina State Concern for Scientific Research, no mention of visiting the Gatchina Palace during this period is contained either in the camera-furrier journal or in the diaries of Emperor Nicholas II ^[17] .

The original Case of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Empire of 1796 has survived to our time: on March 17, 1796, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Empire instituted “The case of a peasant on the estate of L. A. Naryshkin named after Vasily Vasiliev, who was in the Kostroma province in the Babaevsky monastery under the name of Hieromonk Adam, and then called Abel and the book he composed, on 67 pages ” ^[18] . The original of this Cause has survived to our time and is in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts . In this case of 1796, he was accused of distributing his book of prophecies.

Another original source of information about Abel is the unsigned article “The Forecaster Monk Abel” in the journal Russian Antiquity, published in 1875 (vol. 1/7, pp. 415-432), and the article contained only prophecies concerning the beginning of XIX century. Subsequent publications retell the article, sometimes supplementing it without specifying sources of additional information. The author of this article of 1875 claims that “all of Abel’s prophecies came true” with reference to “Reading Imp. total history and antiquities of Russia "1863, book IV, p. 217-222.

There are also memoirs of Aleksei Petrovich Ermolov recorded by a relative of the future hero of the war in the Caucasus ^[19] , as well as “Notes” by Engelhardt ^[20] . However, all these sources are unreliable, and the information they provide in their nature resembles a legendary story with predictions to an incredulous monarch ^[21] .

All other printed messages about allegedly predicted events appeared later than these events themselves. Most of the “predictions” formed in emigrant circles in the 1920s (in particular, they appear in one of P. N. Shabelsky-Bork 's articles). The replenishment of the texts continued in the 1990s, writes the Orthodox interpreter Nikolai Kaverin, not completely denying the existence of Abel, but only proving the existence of third-party additions to the prophecies attributed to him and pointing to the formation through such actions of the “heresy of the kingdom ”, the main sin of which is the equalization of Nicholas II with Christ ^[22] .

• Abel. The Life and Suffering of Father and Monk Abel // Russian Antiquity , 1875. - V. 12. - No. 2. - P. 415-427. (reprint of M .: "Special Book", 2005).
• Rozanov N.P. The forecaster Monk Abel in 1812-1826. // Russian antiquity , 1875. - V. 12. - No. 4. - S. 815-819.
• Krasheninnikova N.N. Avel the Soothsayer // Orthodox Encyclopedia . - M .: Church Scientific Center "Orthodox Encyclopedia" , 2000. - T. I. - S. 125-126. - 752 s. - 40,000 copies. - ISBN 5-89572-006-4 . .
• Abel, the monk predictor // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• St. Petersburg. 300 + 300 biographies. Biographical Dictionary / St. Petersburg. 300 + 300 biographies. Biographic Glossary // Comp. G. Gopienko. - In Russian and English. lang - M .: Markgraf, 2004 .-- 320 p. - Shooting range. 5000 copies - ISBN 5-85952-032-8 . - S. 6.

• Koshel P.A. Russian Nostradamus // History of Investigation in Russia. T. 1. - Mn., Literature, 1996
• 7 prophecies of the secret-seeker Abel