Ordinary Wonders

by Oloesia Nikolaeva

  There were almost no people around at that early hour, and the little street onto which I had turned seemed almost empty, so I started moving practically on all fours. Then I came along some roadside bushes and trees, and a gnarled stick that I could lean on like a staff, and I made it in the end in one way or another.

  All this reminded me of The Three Musketeers and the queen’s pendants that had to be delivered on time at any cost in order to preserve her honor. Many obstacles, enemies, and villains were met on the way, but the hero had to overcome all of them. The queen had to appear at the ball in her diamond pendants.

  In the same way, my spiritual father, as soon as Patriarch Pimen asked for his relic back after the Liturgy, was able to hand over the antique cross, restored and adorned with precious stones, without skipping a beat.

  As for my boots, I never wore them again after that—it was impossible to walk in them. But I often remembered how that miraculous power carried me in them at three o’clock in the morning from my house to Yaroslavsky railway station, while the policemen watched me from their cop car, waiting for a chance to catch me, but which the Lord did not allow.

  Embrace

  My husband, now Fr Vladimir Vigilianskii, comes from a family of many priests. His last name itself has an ecclesiastical origin—such noble names were given to seminarians who had especially excelled in their studies, and in this way, they became Blagoveshchenskiis, Vosnesenskiis, Bogoiavlenskiis, Preobrazhenskiis, Uspenskiis, or Rozhdestvenskiis.1 Similarly, my husband’s ancestor had simply been Gubin, but later became Vigilianskii.

  There were three branches of the Vigilianskii priests in all. One was situated in St Petersburg: it is known that Fr Boris Vigilianskii was the spiritual father of Lermontov’s beloved, Sushkova, and that he dissuaded her from the criminal idea of running off with the reckless poet, as the latter had been suggesting.

  Another branch spanned the Vladimir Diocese. Fr Maksim Kozlov, the rector of the Church of the Holy Martyr Tatiana, under whom my husband served, recently showed him a photograph of either his great-grandfather or great-great-grandfather—Archpriest Kozlov, and next to him another priest with the last name Vigilianskii. It turns out that they both served at one time in the same church in Murom. What’s more, just like now, Kozlov was the rector, and Vigilianskii was the second priest.

  The third branch—the biggest one—was spread out throughout the Volga Region. To this branch belonged mitered archpriests and a protodeacon with great presence whose intonations of the litany of supplication had even been immortalized on a record. We were given a fleeting chance to hear this voice and see the photographs of these God-loving ancestors. All this wealth had been in the possession of a cousin of my husband, who had died suddenly and whose property had disappeared somewhere.

  This illustrious tradition of priests was interrupted with my husband’s father—Nikolai Dmitrievich Vigilianskii, as he became a writer and journalist who spent time in a concentration camp, was freed after the Beria amnesty, deprived of his civil rights, and moved to the countryside. He kept himself occupied with all sorts of things, even becoming a dance teacher …

  Later, after Stalin’s death, the family relocated to Moscow, and Nikolai Dmitrievich’s son was accepted to the Literature Institute and became a literary critic and journalist. And so it seemed that the priestly dynasty had come to an end.

  But, obviously, the devout Vigilianskii forefathers prayed for the continuation of their line, and the Lord made His choice in my husband. “You did not choose Me, but I chose you” (Jn 15:16). And in one moment, our life suddenly and drastically changed course and rushed headlong in a direction we were frightened to contemplate.

  And so, in the end, my husband was ordained to the diaconate on February 14, 1995. Everything about it was miraculous—the consecration was scheduled on the day of the Martyr Tryphon, whom we greatly revered; it took place in the Church of the Mother of God of the Sign near Ryzhskaia metro—“our” church, which we had attended for many years with our children, where we knew all the relics, icons, clergy, singers, and parishioners; and His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II himself led the ordination.

  Standing at that Liturgy, which was already nearing its end, I unexpectedly looked to the side, as is the case when you feel you are being watched. I turned my head and saw the left side of the church with the miracle-working icon of the Martyr Tryphon, and farther, near the window, the standing icon of the crucifixion from the skete at Gethsemane, Golgotha …

  I had always prayed before this crucifixion when I was in that church … I had placed candles before it … I had venerated the crucified Christ, kissed the Mother of God and St John the Theologian who were suffering next to Him …

  Now at the Liturgy, however, when I unexpectedly turned my head in that direction, I suddenly saw something new that amazed me, something unusual that I hadn’t seen before—this time I didn’t see the hands nailed to the Cross, the palms with wounds from the nails, but only the arms of Christ opened wide in a welcoming embrace, only a beckoning, blessed embrace …

  A little later I wrote a poem:

  The heart is a traitor.

  The heart is a rider and wanderer.

  The heart is the hunter in an ambush and the animal in the pen.

  The heart is an aging acolyte,

  nasal voice droning on his commemorations,

  And the wizard on the throne!

  It is a pawnbroker! A swindler! A slaveholder!

  A Pharisee. A man condemned to death.

  A troublemaker brawling on a third-class train.

  But also—a recluse,

  A hesychast and a victim of fire.

  And an academic-year-repeater manning the rearmost desk!

  Through all of its knockings and beatings,

  Through its leather bags and its dresses

  You will understand only one thing: however you open your arms

  You get a cross …

  And the Crucified One opens wide His embrace!

  Soon our son Nikolai was also ordained a deacon. So the line of priests, though disrupted, was again restored.

  About Love

  When my husband and I visited Archimandrite Seraphim in the Little Hermitage after our baptism, we received enough gifts there to last a lifetime. Firstly, it was the people whom we met there: priests, hieromonks, simple monks, pious lay people, holy and blessed fools—Holy Russia. One of these precious people was a hierodeacon of the Lavra who has since become an archbishop.

  But at that time, with the elder’s blessing, he became our spiritual mentor and enlightener, for we were notably untaught people when it came to matters of the Church.

  And so, this enlightener and friend of ours, who was in those days a student of the Moscow Theological Academy and a hierodeacon of the Lavra, once brought us cassette tapes to listen to with recordings of Metropolitan Anthony lecturing to academy students and seminarians. These were lectures about God, ministry, and faith.

  One day we sat at the table, on which stood a small tape recorder, and began to listen. Then, the next day, we began to invite friends, relatives, and mere acquaintances so that they could listen too. We sensed that this was in some ways a treasure that we were obligated to share with people near and far, with everyone. If no one came, we listened by ourselves. Everything which Vladyka said, and how he spoke—with that wonderful voice of his, his noble, old-fashioned accent, turns of phrase, and intonation—carried, without exaggeration, “indescribable pleasures” to our hungry neophyte souls, so dire was our spiritual thirst.

  Here, in Vladyka’s presence, we sensed a living and personal experience of witnessing to Christ. He spoke as one who had knowledge, who had power, who participated in the mysteries of the heavenly kingdom. We quickly grew to love him. And with this love we most attentively examined his photograph in the Orthodox church calendar, from which a handsome man with a thick black beard gazed at us with piercing eyes from underneath his white klobuk (clerical hat). We tried to
recreate a mental image of his appearance while listening to his voice, too. This voice, daily resounding throughout our room, was soft, but also, as I said before, very forceful and inspired, and its bearer manifested himself to us as a man who was extremely dignified in appearance, of high stature, and full of strength.

  We didn’t dare to even dream of meeting Vladyka in person—it was still the time of the Iron Curtain, and Vladyka lived in London; we knew that his trips to Russia were problematic.

  Just like our friend the hierodeacon, our father confessor lived at the Lavra at the time, and we went to him very often—sometimes once a week, sometimes even more often. He would appoint a meeting place at the monastery gatehouse, and then take us to some quiet side room or a church where there were no services at the moment, and there we would confess to him or just talk.

  At that time, I was translating poems written by Georgian poets, and I left for one of my research trips to Georgia. At first light, my husband went to the Lavra to receive confession and communion from our father confessor. They were supposed to meet, as usual, at the gatehouse.

  This was February 10, 1983. The winter frost was fierce, and my husband, dressed like a frivolous student in jeans and a jacket, had already managed to freeze on the commuter train ride to the Lavra.

  At the appointed hour he stood at the gatehouse, waiting for our father confessor to appear at any moment. But ten, fifteen minutes passed with no sign of him. Then my husband, frozen to the bone, began to ask the monks entering the monastery to call our father confessor, explaining that he was supposed to meet him. But another five minutes passed, then ten, and still no one came. My husband, shifting from one foot to the other and shivering from the cold, felt something akin to hurt pierce his soul, and an unpleasant anxiety fluttered in his chest: maybe our father confessor set the time and then forgot? Maybe he was sitting somewhere all warm and praying, his thoughts ascending to the heights, and forgetting all things earthly? The Liturgy would begin at any moment; how was he to take communion without confession? He would, of course, have time to confess in the church near the gatehouse to another priest, but what if he would leave and our spiritual confessor would emerge from the gatehouse in his epitrachelion and cuffs, with cross and Gospel in hand?

  So he tried to banish these varying thoughts attacking him as temptations, and began to shift from one foot to the other even more earnestly, noting with alarm that his feet were at this point completely numb, becoming wooden and disobedient.

  In the meantime, the reading of the hours was announced from the bell tower, the Liturgy began, and still no father confessor came. He didn’t come, but my husband, numb with cold, believed that he would appear before him at any moment. He would hate to think that he had stood there so long in vain, and he wished that his pointless wait would still somehow be rewarded at least for his exhibited loyalty with the appearance of his father confessor. A little more time passed, however, before my husband realized that he wouldn’t even have time to confess in the church near the gate, and that he would not be able to receive the holy communion for which he had so assiduously prepared.

  He stood a little longer, tortured by the icy, frost-ridden wind, to strengthen his sense of duty, and finally, his heart overflowing with disappointment, bitterness, and even hurt, he gave up, opting to go inside the Church of the Holy Trinity-St Sergius and warm up a little there. He also wanted to pray that St Sergius, now and ever the abbot of his monastery, would somehow remind his prayerful monk of certain earthly arrangements of his.

  And so he came to that wonderful church, venerated the relics, and, stepping down, remained close by them. There were few people, the priest read the akathist to the saint in a quiet, rhythmic voice, and several old ladies raised their breaking voices to repeat: “Rejoice … rejoice …” My husband kissed the reliquary and settled himself in the corner, leaning against a choir stall. It was warm and lovely in the church …

  Soon seminarians desiring to venerate the saint before the beginning of their school day began to appear, then a stream of people began to pour in but soon dried up—evidently, the Liturgy had ended and those who had been blessed with partaking of holy communion had come to bow down to St Sergius, the abbot and wonderworker.

  And so the church eventually became empty—it was a weekday and the weather was unfavorable for pilgrims. Having warmed up, my husband, standing immersed himself in the words of the akathist in the half-dark, illuminated only by the little flames of the multi-colored vigil lamps.

  Suddenly, an old monk with a grey beard, who was not tall, or perhaps even slight, as it seemed to my tall husband, appeared in the church doorway. He held himself upright and immediately approached the shrine with the relics. The priest, pausing his reading for a moment, went up to the solea, opened the shrine with the relics with his key, and asked the blessing of the old monk, who didn’t carry on his person any sign of his rank. All the old women, seeing the priest asking this old man’s blessing, also began to present him with their crossed hands.

  My husband, witnessing all this from his corner, decided that asking to be blessed by a man unknown to anyone reminded him of a magic ritual of sorts: neither do you know who is blessing you, nor does the other know what is on your conscience. In short, he decided not to even approach this grey-haired old man wearing a skoufia, the hat of a cleric.

  Meanwhile, the latter was already walking toward the exit; he passed my husband and even glanced in his direction—he was the only one remaining who had not received a blessing—but my husband lowered his eyes. And then he caught one of the old ladies answering another’s question and whispering something like “from England …”

  My husband started: from England? Could it be that Metropolitan Anthony was here, now? But he hadn’t heard anything about this, and what’s more, this small grey-haired old man with a straight back didn’t look anything like that stately youthful bishop from the calendar. Nevertheless, he understood that if this was truly Vladyka Anthony, his favorite bishop, he would never forgive himself if he had been near him and hadn’t asked for his blessing. So he rushed after him.

  The bishop was already at the doors, and in his agitation, my husband yelled at him with an impertinence that even he didn’t expect from himself:

  “Wait!”

  The old man in the skoufia stopped and turned around, looking at this strange young man with amazement.

  Here my husband again hesitated—he was so small, so grey, where was his force of presence? Where was his strength? His energy? And finally—where was his Panagia?1 Only a certain unique sparkle in the eyes of this still-unidentified monk could attest to the fact that it was indeed Metropolitan Anthony.

  Stammering and discouraged, my husband suddenly asked even more impertinently:

  “What is your name?”

  “Anthony,” the old man calmly replied. “And what is yours?”

  “Vladimir,” answered my husband, and immediately bent down, asking for a blessing.

  But Vladyka Anthony didn’t even glance at his extended hands. Instead he raised his own, took this insolent, bewildered, and dismayed young man burning with shame by his cheeks, or rather his ears, pulled his face down in order to reach it, and kissed him three times.

  At this my husband—who, I must say, is a completely unsentimental man and nowhere near inclined to expressing even the most strong emotion, especially by way of tears—felt such a joyful rush of excitement that his eyes welled up with tears, and he began to prattle on excitedly:

  “Vladyka, we love you so much, you have done so much for my family and for me personally, we listen to your lectures on our tape recorder, they are so important to us, such a joy, Vladyka!”

  “Vladimir, we will pray for each other!” said the metropolitan, his face radiant. “Now we will pray for each other forever!”

  “Will we ever see each other again?”

  “We will definitely see each other again!” the metropolitan promised.

  “And we
can talk then?”

  “We definitely can!”

  My husband went outside and, not feeling the cold, went to the monastery entrance. His soul rejoiced. There! he thought, a person can undergo a trial, but then the Lord will comfort them so much that the trial will seem like nothing at all.

  Now desiring to share his joy with our father confessor, who also respected Metropolitan Anthony very much, he asked a monk who was just about to disappear into the gatehouse to call our priest.

  “But he’s sick. He’s lying in bed with a temperature near one hundred degrees. It’s probably the flu. How am I supposed to call him?”

  That evening in Tbilisi (the time difference with Moscow was two hours), my phone rang.

  “Do you know who I saw at the Lavra today and whose blessing I received?” my husband asked animatedly.

  “Yes, you saw our father confessor.”

  “No, he’s very sick—pray for him. But who did I really, really want to see but didn’t even dare to imagine …?”

  “Vladyka Anthony?” I asked, feeling my throat seize up with joy.

  “Yes! Tomorrow he’s serving vigil at the Church of the Three Hierarchs, Liturgy the day after tomorrow, and I will see him again!”

  I started to cry. This was a true miracle, a gift from God! For some reason, it seemed then that the Lord was strengthening us in this way for impending persecution. I will remind you that it was 1983, the very beginning, and all the spiritual blessings were received and multiplied in view of the forthcoming adversities.

  Even in 1986, as strange as it would seem at present, all monks, including those at the Lavra, prepared themselves for great trials. At that time, either in the Komsomolka or in News Bulletin, a blatantly atheist article came out on the front page, and all monks—young, middle-aged, and old—prepared, just in case, to retreat to the forest, learning by heart the Gospel and church service texts, while others—former concentration camp prisoners—even began to dry bread to make crackers.