Participation of archimandrite Leonid (Kavelin) in the publishing and translation of Optina Pustyn’s books under the guidance of St. Makarius

The present article on the basis of published sources and archival materials gradually studies the participation of the future historian, archaeologist and ethnographer of the XIX century Archiman-drite Leonid (Kavelin) in the book-publishing activity of Optina Pustyn. During the military service near St. Petersburg Lev Kavelin got acquainted with S.A. Burachek, the publisher of Mayak mag-azine, that gave him the opportunity to publish his essays in this magazine. That also helped him to develop his literary talent and enabled him to actively ask for the experienced publisher’s help to pass the censorship in St. Petersburg and print the works of Optina residents. The young officer was asked for help in reviewing Optina’s books both by the authors themselves and by St. Macari-us, who from the 1850s even started to entrust him with collecting the necessary historical material for the planned publication. When the future Father Leonid retired from military service and en-tered the skete of Optina Pustyn, he joined the translation group consisting of the monastery’s resi-dents. During his stay in the St. John Forerunner’s skete he participated in translating and preparing three books in Russian, two books in Slavonic and two books in both languages for publishing. In this work he applied his knowledge of ancient languages, his literary talent and his experience of interaction with high-ranking Church figures. At the same time, this study traced Father Leonid's reverent attitude to the publishing works of Optina Pustyn. He described with keen interest the process of preparing each book for publishing in the skete’s Chronicle. Father Leonid's participa-tion in the translation work under the guidance of St. Macarius allowed the Slavonic translations of the Moldavian Elder Paisius available in the monastery to be edited and published at a high schol-arly level, as well as do new translations into Russian, having checked them against the Greek originals of the patristic writings. Father Leonid’s tireless efforts as a member of the Optina transla-tion group contributed to the publishing of the Holy Fathers’ works being beneficial to the Church in Slavonic and Russian, which were aimed at the spiritual and moral enlightenment of the public.