Ordinary Wonders

by Oloesia Nikolaeva

  “When Fr Nikifor was in Moscow, he would stay with them. She also visited him at his parish—either by herself or with her family in the summer months. She would bring him some cheese, Lenten cod sausages and marshmallow candies. She would come and clean his place, prepare him some food, lead the kliros, and sing, since there was nobody to sing there in that remote countryside. She had been a singer in a Moscow church, so she knew the services and could read, and this was such a help to him that he set aside a little room for her in his small priest’s house.

  “Then this Vassa purchased a car under her name. But no matter how hard she tried, she could not learn how to drive it. She would sit behind the wheel and start to push back against the seat, clutch at the wheel, and worst of all, squint and squeal in terror. So she lent it to Fr Nikifor for his use, and he began to rush around in this car: from Moscow to his parish to the Lavra to Moscow to his parish.

  “What of it? His parish was made up of five old women who only attended on Sundays and feast days, and the rest of the week he would sit alone in that remote country wilderness, waiting for some old lady to repose in the Lord.

  “No, it was good, of course—more chaste than any skete, if you had a taste for ascetic life and unceasing prayer. But Fr Nikifor had not yet matured enough for that—he was himself from a large family, had been tonsured into a large, social monastery with many brethren, with whom he could have spiritually inspiring monastic discussions after dinner, and it became somewhat dreary for him in that shabby village.

  “Moreover, his little church house was terrible—all slanting to one side and full of holes. He sat there for a while, sat some more, skimmed through the classic monastic text The Ladder, and was seized with such melancholy, that he could almost cry from despair, or drink himself senseless, or run away toward the bright lights of the city without looking back. What a temptation! So he did start running—he would go out, get into his car, and in two or three hours, he would be in Moscow walking around on Vassa Frolovna’s carpet in his socks. But they also lived as a spiritual family—he would give her money for household purchases, they would pickle cucumbers together, plant potatoes, can preserves for the winter, and even make apple cider.

  “And in the summertime, when someone would stop by the little church house, they would find Vassa there running around barefoot in her dressing gown, fussing about and tightening up jar lids: ‘Oh,’ she would say in embarrassment, ‘how stupid of me,’ and shamefacedly point at her bare feet. This dismayed many people and set tongues wagging, especially when they would exit the little church house together and walk to the car—to go to Moscow or the river—and Fr Nikifor would first open Vassa’s door with his key, and when she would take her seat as if it was a magnificent throne, he would carefully shut her door.

  “This Vassa Frolovna little by little began to wind up Fr Nikifor and goad him on—why was it, say, that the village bailiff’s wife gave him half a penny for serving molebens, why was he paid such trifles for his services, and why was he paid for a funeral as if it was a handout?

  “He would simply wave her away and laugh her off: look for yourself, am I a monk or not, did I take an oath of poverty or not? It would be another matter if I had a family, but I wouldn’t ask for more money for my own sake … and so on and so forth.

  “At this, that Vassa would flare up in anger—what do you mean, if you had a family? What are my daughter and granddaughter to you—not family? You live in our house, you drive around in our Lada, but apparently we are strangers to you!

  “Well, Fr Nikifor was not a child, of course. He saw how strongly the car was tying him down, and he would give it up with the greatest of joy, because it presented a great temptation and enticement for him. But he had already grown attached to it—to that little purple car, to that steering wheel, firm and obedient—as to a bosom friend. He had grown to love flying about in it on happy highways leading to unknown places, shifting gears and attaining every goal. He had grown to love pressing down on the gas pedal, flashing the headlights in greeting at oncoming cars, and busily give it a splash with water from an off-road pond. But he didn’t have enough money to simply buy it from Vassa Frolovna!

  “But Vassa Frolovna had already put two and two together and had planned it all out, saying to herself: ‘The most important thing is to keep your priest by your side.’

  “This Vassa Frolovna also had a sister—a secret nun named Fotiniia who had been tonsured with the blessing of Elder Sisoi. There was another sister still, but she had married a prosperous German and had gone off to Germany.

  “As for Fotiniia, the nun by secret tonsure, she was younger than Vassa Frolovna and more presentable; she sang better, was the choir conductor in a large Moscow church, and always went out to the middle of the church to read the Epistle. So this Fotiniia began to visit Fr Antonii at the Lavra. What of it? She was a secret nun, and a spiritual child of Elder Sisoi to boot, as well as the sister of his closest friend’s parishioner, companion in prayer, and helper. Moreover, Fotiniia had at one time also, by the prayers of the elder, moved to Moscow from the country and had also gotten an apartment: she had looked after an old lady who then passed away, and Fotiniia set down firm roots there and even put up Elder Sisoi when he traveled to Moscow.

  “He also received his spiritual children there; even Fr Antonii visited him in Fotiniia’s apartment more than a few times. So that became the custom: Fr Antonii would come to Moscow on leave or on monastery affairs, and Fotiniia would happily invite him in, assigning a room to him, saying, Fr Antonii, this is your little cell, I won’t let anyone else inside, and here is a key to the apartment. Sometimes Fr Nikifor would come there with Vassa Frolovna, or Fr Antonii and Fotiniia would take Vassa’s car and come visit Fr Nikifor’s parish. In short—on the one hand, it was a monastic brotherhood and an innocent affair; on the other hand, strangely enough, a sort of family life had begun to form among them.

  “And then, to add to the mix, the sister in Germany finally brought the sisters some money for material support. So Fotiniia Frolovna took that money and bought herself the best available Lada at the time—in metallic silver—and began singing sweetly:

  “‘Fr Antonii, I don’t know how to drive a car, and I’m afraid to, this is not a woman’s job, so here are the papers for the car, why don’t you sit behind the wheel and use it as much as you’d like?’

  “Then what? Fr Antonii took the wretched car, foreseeing everything, but still taking it. He was sick with the desire to drive along his native roads, to take a spin over to Elder Sisoi, to visit his brothers in different monasteries. He loved the smell of gasoline, the rustle of the tires on the asphalt, the wind through the open window.

  “Thus he and Fr Nikifor developed a sort of symmetry: both monks, both in their own cars, both with their respective sister, one of whom was a singer and the other a conductor. But as soon as Fr Nikifor gave in to temptation and began to drive around on those wheels, the Lord visited him and marked him with eczema on his leg. Driving along on the road, his entire body itched and burned until his eyes were popping out of his head. Fr Nikifor began to develop gastrointestinal problems, and both sisters, it turned out, suffered from migraines and an ailing pancreas.

  “And so, one day over a cup of tea, Fotiniia Frolovna told them, rather announced to them in a victorious tone of voice, that a new and extremely effective method of treatment for all illnesses through physical cleansing had been discovered.

  “‘As it turns out, our bodies have all been poisoned by harmful chemicals that are very destructive for the tissues, for which reason it is necessary for our recovery to extract from our bodies anything chemically harmful. Many of my singers have already tried this method on themselves, and it helped them, added to their strength, increased their muscle tone, and purified their blood, and now even the readers, deacons, and priests are willing to submit themselves to the treatment.’

  “‘But what is this treatment?’ asked Fr Nikifor.

  “‘O
n the eve of the treatment, after taking a cleansing enema, you must drink four glasses of warm boiled water. Repeat in the morning. You mustn’t eat all day. The next day, you must drink a tablespoon of olive oil and keep your strength up by drinking a glass of juice—potato, carrot, or beet. Cabbage juice is also allowed. You could also try burdock root juice if it is the right time of year, or sorrel juice; also celery. And repeat this every day. Then you may with confidence move on to applesauce. They say it makes eczema vanish as if by magic!’

  “What happened next? Fr Antonii and Fr Nikifor, pure-hearted and sincere people that they were, believed her. The next day they assembled a group of monks close to them and with a similar mentality who were suffering from all sorts of ailments—monks are always sick with something, that is how the Lord helps them to be humble and to fight against temptations of the flesh—and shared the news with them of this miraculous, albeit difficult, method. The Great Lent feel of the treatment—a diet of completely raw foods—appealed to them all.

  “They resolved to invite Fotiniia Frolovna to the monastery—the guesthouse keeper even set aside a room for her—and they all designated her as no less than an experienced and enlightened medic; they referred to her as ‘doctor,’ some even as ‘professor’ …

  “In several days, Fotiniia Frolovna came to the monastery along with her heating pads, enemas, and juicers, and instructed the monks for a long time. The monastery supplied the olive oil, as well as the necessary vegetables. This cleansing trend continued over the course of several months—it was reminiscent of some sort of epidemic that took hold of more and more new patients. The monks walked around with a strange glassy gleam in their eyes and expressions that suggested they were completely cut off from reality, and shared their sensations with each fellow brother in whispers. Fotiniia Frolovna was now considered an indisputable authority: some even tried to ingratiate themselves with her, and in her voice appeared intonations of command.

  “Vassa Frolovna, however, found no place for herself in this picture. So she took Fr Nikifor out of the monastery, where he had come specifically for his time of leave in order to give his body over to the full cleansing process, and ordered him to forget about this charlatan method of her sister’s.

  “‘We’ll find another method,’ she said. And find another one she did, and soon.

  “She went down to the cellar of the little priestly house, where all her picklings and conserves were stored, when suddenly the ground gave way beneath her feet and she found herself in an underground hole. In her fear she began to feel her way around the soil and stumbled across a little chest. She and Fr Nikifor took the little chest out and discovered that it was full to the brim with some sort of old, perhaps ancient, coins. Vassa Frolovna even bit them to see what sort of metal it was, but she couldn’t identify it. They wanted to give the treasure trove to the government, but Vassa Frolovna placed a coin on her ailing head, as she was tormented by a migraine, and the headache vanished. So she and Fr Nikifor took to sitting down every night and treating themselves with the coins—it was good to place them on the eyes, or on the forehead, or on the small of your back—everything worked.

  “Fr Nikifor told Fr Antonii about this and offered for him to make use of the coins as well—to place one on his eczema under a bandage, but Fr Antonii finally came to his senses. He understood that this was all just a temptation. A classic temptation, just as it was described in the writings of the holy fathers! He closed up the monastery clinic and sent Fotiniia Frolovna home, despite all her protests and efforts to set the other monks desiring to continue the treatment against him. He understood that it was time to somehow escape from the bondage of these sisters. He prayed at the relics of St Sergius, sat in his car, and drove to Fotiniia Frolovna’s.

  “‘Mother Fotiniia, may the Lord save you, you gave me so much joy and relief with this car; I want to thank you also for sheltering me in your home, but it’s time for me to know my own worth. Here you go, I’m returning all your keys, the documents, the proxy.’

  “She was taken by surprise, began to scold him, and then almost broke down in tears. He put all the items on a little table in the hallway and ran off to the train station. Well, he thought, thank God, he got off easy.

  “But it turned out otherwise. It’s not so easy to get rid of temptation.

  “Some time later, a parishioner who had been confessing to him for several years came to him and said:

  “‘Fr Antonii, I just inherited a little Finnish-style house in Semkhoz from my parents. I already have a dacha there, so I have no need of that house—let me donate it to you. Please take it as a gift. From the bottom of my heart. The only thing is there are no conveniences there—the toilet is outside, though it’s a large plot all covered with trees.’

  “He filled out a gift deed and made everything official.

  “Fr Antonii had dreamed of just such a secluded little house for a long time—somewhere to hide from the public eye, lead an ascetic life for a while, pray to the Lord in total peace, and think of life, death, and everything else …

  “He went there—it was a pleasant little house, two steps from the Lavra—he even did a few renovations there, but left the toilet outside—the simpler the better … The monastic brethren began to visit—to rest and pray a little. Soon everyone knew about Fr Antonii’s little ’hacienda.’

  “But he decided to house one of his parishioners there, who had just been kicked out of the house by her drunkard husband, leaving her to wander around the train stations with her little son. She lived there for a month, then another month, then a third. Some of the brothers began to complain: it was such a nice little place for solitude and prayer, but you had to go and put that lady there with her son! Now we have nowhere to take some time out.

  “And so, one night, this resident came out into the garden—who knows why—to admire the moon, perhaps, or to use the toilet, and she saw a metallic grey Lada driving up to the little house. A woman in a dark headscarf and long skirt climbed out, opened the trunk, took out a canister of gasoline, and began to douse the wooden wall. Then she struck a match. The house immediately lit on fire, the woman jumped into her car and drove off, the parishioner rushed into the burning house and grabbed her son, and before their very eyes everything burned to a crisp within twenty minutes.

  “After that, the eczema on Fr Antonii’s leg developed into psoriasis when he recognized the arsonist by her description.”

  “Well, and how did it all end? Did this Fotiniia Frolovna, Lord save her, finally leave him alone?” one of the monks asked.

  “Yes, it all ended well! Everything ended as it should. Fr Antonii gained some good spiritual experience, and began to avoid any and all possessions, to stay away from all property, fixed or movable. For with such property, a monk finds himself in ‘a chicken or an egg’ situation—it’s unclear what came first. He may see it one way, but then it turns out to the contrary. Who chases whom, the mouse or the cat? Does life lead to death or death to life?”

  Such was the cautionary tale that I once heard from one of our neighborly monks.

  Confession to the Prison Guard

  Once we went on a pilgrimage with Andrei Donatovich Sinyavsky and Maria Vasil’evna Rozanova: first to Pechory, home of the beautiful and famous Pskov Caves Monastery of the Dormition, then to the childhood home of Maria Rozanova. There, as it turned out, my husband and I had a friend who was also the diocesan bishop. He put us up with the Sinyavskys in the guesthouse, and invited us to join him at his residence in the evening to eat.

  It was a wonderful evening; Andrei Donatovich and the bishop immediately fell into conversation, while the rest of us listened, as we dined exquisitely, pairing the food with sips of both juice and fine wine.

  “I have a question. What will you say to this?” Andrei Donatovich suddenly remembered. “When I was serving my time in the concentration camp, there were many religious prisoners there, or those who had been convicted under the ‘religious clause.’ The
y prayed, fasted, sang psalms, read the Gospel and this had an effect on one of the prisoners—he suddenly came to the Faith. And how! He became all directed toward God. He desired to confess and repent. He was serving time for theft, although in reality he had killed a man. But this crime had not been discovered, and the murderer had not been found.

  “And so he came to the prison guard and told him everything with tears of repentance. They looked through the files, found that case, put him on trial, and gave him the death sentence. So my question is—how do I say it—to the Lord God Himself: how is it, in His providential plan, that a person repented of his sins, and was shot for it? It bothers me. What are your thoughts?”

  The bishop thought, looked heavenward, and began to answer in a quiet voice, almost as if he was talking to himself:

  “I had an acquaintance—a hieromonk. He served at a village parish, and in between services he would drive to Moscow in his car. He began to be pestered by a traffic cop who always stood at the turn from the village where that hieromonk served, on the highway leading to the city.

  “Every time the hieromonk would drive to Moscow after the Sunday Liturgy, this traffic cop would stop him and badger him. Well, the priest would give him some money, and he would let him go in peace. But then an elder told him that it wasn’t right to corrupt the police with bribes like that. And he decided not to give the cop any more money.

  “One Sunday after Liturgy, he drove off as usual to Moscow. He had had a good morning of serving, praying, and partaking of holy communion, and had even consumed all the Gifts from the chalice, as he had served without a deacon. He drank a cup of tea for the road, and set off.

  “Then the traffic cop stopped him, waving his baton. The hieromonk rolled down his window and looked out. The cop kept waiting for him to put a crisp bill into his hand. But he held on to his steering wheel, looking out through his window and appearing disinterested.