He loved Christ like a child

In memory of father Georgy Chistyakov

The first obituaries on the death of Fr. George, which appeared online a few hours after his departure - on the night of June 22-23 - reported that he died “after a serious and long illness.” And it was true. But it was also true that he died suddenly - suddenly and unexpectedly. For others and for yourself. He suffered from leukemia for several years and underwent grueling courses of treatment for several years. And at the end of March, the left half of the body was paralyzed - at first they thought it was a stroke, but then it became clear that the cause was a brain tumor. They don’t live long with such a diagnosis – Fr. himself understood this. George, and those who knew him, loved him, who prayed for him. But the immediate cause of death was a heart attack - the heart could not stand it, undermined by the fight against the disease, and the burden of pastoral service, and other hardships, many of which, probably, only Fr. Georgy.

O. Georgy Chistyakov died suddenly after a serious and long illness - this is how this phrase from the obituary should have sounded. And this paradoxical formulation would probably best correspond to the very personality of the deceased, who combined very different qualities, and to the faith that occupied the main place in his life - Christianity, the religion of paradoxes.

He came to the priesthood at a mature age - at 40 years old. But, as he often liked to tell himself, he was always a believer. Since childhood. That's how he was raised. For some reason, this surprised many - perhaps because throughout his life he retained an enduring sense of the novelty of faith, reverent surprise at the beauty of the Gospel, which for many passes along with neophyte?

Father George largely retained his “childish” faith until his very last days - like a child, he loved Christ, loved the Gospel, loved the Church. His sermons contained few rational arguments or philosophical constructs - they contained this love, which he conveyed in his characteristic emotional manner. This annoyed some, but it helped others to believe more deeply that God really is love. There was something childish in his manner of performing divine services, and in his manner of giving lectures, and in his manner of simply communicating with people. Sometimes in a conversation with him it seemed that he was not listening attentively to what he was thinking at that moment about anything other than his interlocutor, but then, under certain circumstances, it almost always became clear that in fact Fr. Georgy listened very carefully. And I remembered almost everything.

Perhaps his ability to listen and understand most clearly manifested itself when he confessed. When I first came to Fr. George - with whom by that time I was already quite well acquainted - to confession, I was amazed at how serious and deep the one who until recently had so easily jumped from one topic to another became near the lectern. He knew how to console, but did not connive or flatter his spiritual children. He could find a word that sounded more like friendly advice and that is why it made him think about his life. For example: “It’s not necessary - it destroys the personality so much...” Among modern church leaders, he probably respected and revered Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh the most (“I am a bloomite,” he said jokingly about himself) and Pope John Paul II, whom he was lucky enough to know personally. He valued them for the respect for the human person that distinguished each of these hierarchs, who at first glance were not very similar to each other.

With all his childish sincerity, Fr. George sympathized with those who sought the truth, who risked themselves for the sake of the truth. And it is no coincidence that it was he who celebrated the memorial service for Anna Politkovskaya, whom he called the servant of Justice.

He had many friends, students, admirers, but he also had many enemies. He was accused of both “liberalism” and “modernism”, hanging all those labels that are stored in the bins of “protective Orthodoxy”, and not wanting to notice that the main thing for this person was always Christ and that for the sake of Christ he went to hospitals (the Mercy Group at the Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos in the Russian Children's Clinical Hospital, where Father George was rector, has been working for more than 15 years), distributed alms, listened to confessions for hours when, due to illness, he could barely stand on his feet.

A few days before Fr. George - again, as paradoxical as it may seem - experienced a new surge of creative strength. Returning home on June 20 after another course of chemotherapy, he called his colleagues at the Library of Foreign Literature, where he had headed the research center for religious literature since 2000, discussed some practical issues, and was planning to come “to work.” At about six o'clock in the evening on June 22, he suddenly felt unwell, lay down and died a few minutes later...

In April of this year, on the days of his last earthly Easter, he wrote a letter to his children, friends, and relatives. Surprisingly, it is similar in spirit to the last entry in the diary of another outstanding shepherd of the Church of Christ - Fr. Alexander Schmemann, who was dying from the same disease as Fr. Georgy. “What happiness it all was” were the last words of Fr. Alexandra. And the Easter letter from Fr. I would like to bring Georgy here in full - this will probably be the most correct conclusion to the obituary...