Memorial Day of St. Macarius of Optina

September 20 is the Memorial Day of St Macarius of Optina, who made a great contribution to the development of spiritual literature and opened it to ordinary believers He was closely associated with many famous writers, publishers, and playwrights of the 17th century who came to confession to the elder Macarius was born into a noble family, which in addition to him had three more sons and a daughter He was born in the village of Shchepyatin, which is located on the territory of the modern Bryansk region, and at the end of the 17th century belonged to the Oryol province His mother died of consumption when the boy was only nine years old He received a good education, but at the age of 14 he was forced to go to work in the treasury Three years later, the young man was promoted to the position of head of the counting table When he turned eighteen, his father died The young man resigned and returned home to inherit the family estate He did it for the next four years, after which he decided to visit the Ploshchanskaya Hermitage, which was located nearby After the pilgrimage, Macarius stayed here forever At first he was a novice, and then took monastic vows According to the recollections of his contemporaries, Macarius walked towards this goal along a straight path, as if God had prepared this path for him from birth He had no doubts, no hesitations He lived in this monastery for nineteen years, after which he moved to Optina Pustyn Under the leadership of the Monk Macarius, translations and manuscripts of the Optina Hermitage were systematized and published He took this so seriously that soon a whole school of publishers and translators arose who specialized specifically in spiritual literature Rare writings, which previously could only be read by monks, have become accessible to ordinary believers Famous people of that time came to confession to the Monk Macarius Among them were the writer Nikolai Gogol, the playwright Alexei Tolstoy, and the poet Alexei Khomyakov Several years before his death, Macarius accepted the great schema The monk received believers until his death