Ordinary Wonders

by Oloesia Nikolaeva

  “The traffic cop grew nervous.

  “‘You … broke the law …”

  “‘What? Where?’ the hieromonk said in surprise.

  “‘Why do you have tires that belong on a Tatra?’ the cop finally came up with something.

  “‘Fine,’ agreed the hieromonk. ‘But you must write on the ticket: for having tires like on a Tatra …’

  “‘Why?’ the cop asked suspiciously.

  “‘So that I can show your superior (here he provided the name) at the Lavra, it was he who gave me my license.’

  “‘That’s fine,’ the cop was taken aback. ‘Just keep driving.’

  “The traffic cop let him go, but held a grudge against him. He found out that when they give communion, these ‘pops’ always drink the wine. So the next time, he kept an eye out for him.

  “Our hieromonk stopped and rolled down the window:

  “‘What now?’

  “‘Did you drink today?’ the cop asked triumphantly.

  “‘No, I didn’t drink, I consumed.’

  “‘Aha,’ his tormentor exclaimed spitefully. ‘Well then, hand over your license.’

  “He suspended his license for a whole year and even drew up a report so that everything would be followed to the letter. He left nothing to be contested.

  “The sorrowful hieromonk came without a car to the Lavra. He met me and told me the story, then plied me with questions:

  “‘Vladyka, where was I in the wrong? The commandments tell you not to bear false witness, not to lie! So I told him the truth! It turns out that I must suffer for telling the truth?’

  “And I said to him:

  “‘Oh, that tempter-traffic cop of yours had you wound around his little finger. You should have been more aware of whom you were confessing to. Were you ever taught to confess to a traffic cop? In addition, did you really drink? Did you really consume alcohol? It was the blood of Christ!’ And that, I think, is what happened with your repentant criminal,” sighed the bishop, looking at Sinyavsky, and then adding with feeling, “Why did he go and confess to the prison guard? So in the providential plan he chose the wrong man for his confession: don’t confess to the prison guard, or the traffic cop, or the tempter, or the enemy of mankind. It is only written: ‘O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endureth for ever!’ (Ps 135:1).”

  One Wave after Another

  In 1988, when church buildings were slowly being returned to the Church, a bishop that we knew, and for whom my husband was gathering materials about the history of the Vladimir Diocese, proposed to ordain my husband as a deacon and send him to serve in Murom, where the only Orthodox church had just been reopened.

  If the offer had come four years earlier or six years later, he would have immediately accepted. But we were experiencing very difficult times for our family then, and it seemed impossible to move the entire family, including our school-age children. Thus my husband declined.

  And so, when in 1995 he was ordained to the diaconate and then to the priesthood and began to serve in the Church of the Holy Martyr Tatiana, he received a letter from Murom. Inside the envelope lay a photograph of the church. On the other side was written: “This church was the last to be shut down in 1937. There served Deacon Vigilianskii, who was shot by the godless authorities. In 1988, the church was reopened, and the Divine Liturgy has been served there since that time.”

  This was such providential and symbolic news: the last clergy member to serve there before its closing was the New Martyr Vigilianskii, and the first to serve there after its reopening might have been Vigilianskii also, i.e., my husband. This would have restored the continuity of time, connected the break in the chain, one wave after another … It would have been a story taken straight out of the lives of the saints.

  But things didn’t turn out so dramatically, beautifully, literally, and … implausibly. That unity of place didn’t happen: the one served there, the other serves here.

  Even the bishop who had proposed ordination to my husband and the assignment in Murom didn’t know the last name of the last Murom clergy member then. He had made the offer driven not so much by human logic and forethought as by some other impulse and current.

  And so, I make so bold as to express my opinion that it was divine providence at work here, creating mysterious dramatic intrigue, whispering and indicating to the bishop, leading and prodding my husband toward something, being potentially present there, so that we would—albeit after the fact—discover its workings in amazed and joyful recognition.

  The Sound of Trumpets

  There lived in Holy Trinity Monastery a hierodeacon named Potapii, a man of mighty build and towering height. But his exceptional voice made the biggest impression—this he treasured, nurtured, and cared for very much.

  He could often be seen on Afon Hill, where he walked before the service, exercising his vocal chords and slowly warming up his voice. The wind carried abroad his delightful bass cadences: “A-a-a! A-u-a! I-u-e-o-a-y-e-iu!” Not only were they broadcasted—these “sounds retreating into velvet”1—but they were palpable, almost tangible.

  Soon he was noticed by the ruling bishop himself, Bishop Varnava, who made him his protodeacon, took him away to his diocesan center of Emsk, and placed him in a small monastery located right in the city center. They often went around the diocese together, and Fr Potapii would invariably lift the spirits of the praying congregations with his first invocation, when his bass so majestically, severely, and composedly presented that first “Arise!”

  But in between the services and trips, when he sat in his cell, the large Fr Potapii felt unbearably cramped and oppressed in that little monastery where the bishop had assigned him. What’s more, this little monastery did not belong to the monastery brethren at all, since there was also a museum there that considered itself the master of both the church and monastery buildings. The museum workers were very hostile and even aggressive toward the small body of monks who timidly backed into their corners. Potapii didn’t even have a monastery garden into which he could retreat in order to try out his voice properly: nowhere to do his exercises, starting with the hollow grumble of “Bless, Master,” continuing on to the hollow—since it was not possible to go any lower—bass intonation of “Bre-e-e-ethre-e-e-en,” and spreading further in breadth and height, ending with the high bellow of “We shall be-e-e-e with the Lo-o-ord!”

  At this moment, those ever-present museum workers would jump out and, dramatically plugging their ears, drive him back to the monastery house. “My blood froze in my veins from your howling!” the directress would cry out, offended. “And my milk turned. It’s all curdled now!” added the cashier, screwing up her lips.

  In a word, things were bad for Potapii there. He was sick at heart. They say that he was even not above flirting with “the demon alcohol.”

  From time to time he would call the iconographer Hierodeacon Dionisii in Holy Trinity Monastery and offer to sell him relics. These little pieces of relics could be placed in specially made reliquaries that were then built into icons, making the icons much more spiritually powerful.

  These could be relics of St Spyridon, or St Panteleimon the Healer, or the holy Martyr Tatiana, or even St Nicholas the Wonderworker.

  “Where does he get them?” Dionisii would wonder. “He doesn’t seem to go anywhere very far away. Does he cut them off his own body, or what?”

  This remained a mystery.

  But Dionisii always willingly bought the holy relics and wrote a corresponding icon especially for each one, then generously handed them out to his priest-acquaintances and laymen, or sold them in times of need. Potapii would come to him in the monastery and take money, a tape recorder, a projector, a cell phone, or simply a bottle of good cognac in exchange for the delivery of relics: anything that he laid his eyes on.

  But then there was a rumor that things were going badly for Fr Potapii: that he had “taken advantage,” “crossed the line,” “had picked up a passenger,” an
d was now being treated, not just anywhere, but in a mental hospital.

  Since by “passengers” the monks of Holy Trinity Monastery meant demons, this grim news elicited much concern among those brethren who loved Potapii.

  “The psych ward will not rid you of your demons,” they commented. “There you’ll only take on some more passengers!”

  So Dionisii set off for Emsk to visit his ailing friend.

  He arrived, subdued, at the hospital surrounded on all sides by a high wall, and asked:

  “Where is Protodeacon Potapii being treated?”

  And—surprisingly—the severe face of the nurse softened and she began to coo and softly twitter:

  “Let’s go, let’s go, I’ll take you to him! But please don’t take away our joy!”

  Dionisii was surprised, and grew hesitant: did she really mean Potapii? But he submissively went after her.

  They passed a few somber-looking, typical, boxy buildings, walked through the park, walked up a hill, and ended up near a tidy little two-story cottage.

  “Come in, come in,” the nurse welcomed Dionisii cheerfully, holding open the door. “Here we house our especially important guests, you can say our VIPs, of the sanatorium variety.”

  Dionisii found himself in what looked like a hunting lodge or an ethnographic retreat. From one wall, a color photograph of deer looked down on him, from another—a photograph of a hedgehog displaying a red cap mushroom on his needles. On a third wall hung an oil painting vibrantly depicting ears of corn. There was a preserved crocodile with its chops opened wide on the bureau next to the television, a tapestry hanging over the soft straw-colored couch reminiscent of illustrations of Papa Carlo’s hearth,2and Ukrainian-embroidered decorative hand towels on the table, windowsill, and television.

  Shuffling along the floor in soft white slippers and dressed in a white velour robe, Fr Potapii came in through the side door.

  The nurse grew abashed and left them alone together.

  “Yes,” said Potapii, “yes, yes! See what a golden place this is? A mental hospital and sanatorium in one. This is where I’ve been hiding. Slippers, a robe. Three meals a day. Just don’t tell anyone in our monastery, or the brethren will all rush over here tomorrow! There will be a flood, it will be full to the brim, you won’t be able to push your way through!”

  “But why did they put you here? I never thought that you would be in a mental hospital …”

  “It was all Vladyka, he petitioned for me a little—said that I was his protodeacon, that they should treasure me as the apple of his eye. Sometimes I sing for them here. They prefer romances. So I give them romances. ‘The night is still, the desert hearkens to the Lord …’ And sometimes I prophesize.”

  “You know how to?” chuckled Dionisii.

  “It’s a simple matter. Singing is more difficult. Some nurse or nanny will ask me to, so what am I supposed to do? So I tell her: ‘You have sorrow in your heart,’ ‘You often think that you are undervalued,’ or ‘You are capable of much more.’ And then I immediately say something about the future.”

  “What do you say about the future?”

  “‘You are now at the crossroads of your journey.’ ‘Soon you will meet a person who will influence your life.’ ‘You are on the threshold of a new period in your life.’ And that’s enough for them! And that’s how it is. Just try and object!”

  “But what happened to you?” Dionisii threw his glance over the walls with the deer and the hearth. “What was it, a passenger?”

  “No, no,” he winced. “There, in the museum, they noticed something missing: something disappeared from their storage room. Nothing but a trifle for them. They grabbed the guard—a good fellow. And he had sworn to me that there, in those museum storerooms, all those things had been lying for years unneeded, in the dust! Like a dog in the manger! They just hid it from the public eye and were happy with themselves! The guard went to jail, and I came here, farther from sin!”

  “I see,” Dionisii grew serious, having come to a realization. He sat with Potapii for a while and then hurried off home.

  Back in his cell, he took what was left of the relics of the Great Martyr Panteleimon and drove to the museum where Potapii’s monastery was located.

  He came to the director, and unwrapping everything, carefully laid it on her table—all the dark, tiny little splinters.

  “Here—I am returning them to you!”

  “What is this?” She fixed her gaze on him with disgust and wonder. “What is this dust?”

  “The relics of the holy Great Martyr Panteleimon,” he replied.

  “We’re not taking that!” she replied firmly.

  “But it was stolen from you!” he exclaimed.

  “Young man,” she shook her head with dignity, “pardon me, but you are offering us some sort of rubbish. If you must know, what was stolen from us was museum treasures—a cutlass from the time of Admiral Ushakov, a ring with the seal of Emperor Paul I, a shepherd statuette belonging to the family of Count Sheremetiev …”

  Dionisii wrapped up the relics again, put them in the chest pocket of his cassock, and went out into the monastery courtyard.

  She also came out almost immediately after him. She sat down behind her driver, who started the engine. Dionisii, walking past, suddenly decided to play a prank: he had been very offended by her “dirt” and “rubbish.”

  He bent down to her open window and asked:

  “Are you the only passenger here or are there more?”

  Before the car drove off, she managed to reply, haughtily leaning against the back of her seat:

  “I am the only passenger here,” and waving her hand, she gave her driver the signal to drive on.

  Fr Potapii soon left the hospital and wrote the bishop a petition to return him to his native Holy Trinity Monastery, but he still promised to serve the bishop wherever and whenever he was needed.

  Quite soon he could again be observed walking up and down Afon Hill and trying out his voice.

  “A! A! A!” At first the low notes resounded with a refined huskiness, then amid the guttural grumbling the following words could be identified: “Sacrifice, master,” “Pierce, master”3 And then a great growl ending in a real, thundering roar at the words “Lord have mercy!”

  The wind carried this all over the monastery, and the sound seemed to linger in the hollows, like the smell of good Athonite incense prepared without any added fragrances.

  As for Dionisii, he wrote an icon to the Healer Panteleimon, made a reliquary for it, laid the relics inside, and gave this icon to me. Even now it shines in my home like a window into the heavenly kingdom.

  Fr Potapii’s supply of relics dried up. How many times did Dionisii ask him, seeing him on Afon Hill:

  “Sweep up all the corners! Let me have someone’s, anyone’s …”

  But Potapii would just carefully place his fingers on his throat and draw forth the sound of trumpets:

  “Let us Att-e-e-end! Wi-i-isdo-o-o-om!”4

  “Our Boys” and “the Germans”

  My husband worked for a while in the literary department of the journal Ogonek. This was during the times when censorship was almost completely lifted, and the journal began to receive a stream of whistleblower materials revealing the true nature of the Soviet regime. In those days, my husband received a call from the writer Evgenii Popov, who asked him to accept a meeting with a certain KGB agent who would like to make a confession of his past activities.

  “You see,” said Popov, “in the late seventies he ran Hotel Metropol and analyzed the wiretapping records from Evgenia Ginzburg’s apartment, where her almanac was being prepared for publication. And now this guy tells me, you see, that among all the speakers on the tapes I elicited the most human sympathy from him, so now he would like to admit his guilt to me and in general to unburden himself. But as soon as I recall what we chatted about in that apartment, drinking and having a good time, and what he heard then, I feel sick to my stomach, and he himself is s
o revolting to me, so revolting, that I don’t want to meet with him under any circumstances.”

  All right. My husband invited this KGB agent (let’s call him Ch.) to talk, and he came to see him at the magazine offices with an article in which he denounced the activity directed against the people by his organization. While my husband corrected the style, underlined the unclear sections, and eliminated overgeneralizations, they began to talk. My husband, who in his youth and young adult years had had his share of trials at the hands of Ch.’s colleagues, began to ask him questions. So they sat across from each other: Ch.—tense, trying to stuff his hands into his armpits and his feet farther under the table, and my husband—carelessly sprawled out in his office armchair and tapping the table with his pencil. For a moment, my husband imagined that in past days they could have sat in the exact same attitudes, but in reversed positions—Ch. in the armchair and my husband shrinking back in his chair, with Ch. asking the questions:

  “Well, well, can you give me more details? And when did you intercept Popov’s conversations? And what was the goal of ‘Operation Metropol?’ Who was your informant in the case? You are not being completely honest, and you’re avoiding giving me a direct answer … I am interested in everything—the reports, contacts, what provocative measures you took … How did you personally become an employee of the regime?”

  In short, my husband discovered much about his interlocutor: he had served at the front, had gone through Stalingrad, had been injured, and then, after the hospital and the war, had finished law school, become a lawyer, and from there had gone on to work for the authorities. His article soon appeared in the Ogonek and caused an uproar. It was entitled “The Steel Trap of the Party” or something like that.

  But then, Ch.’s former colleagues (“former” because he was already retired) did not forgive him. They wrote a severe response, called him a “Judas,” “loosed” him from access to the department medical center, and even, I think, took away his food tokens, which were considerably important to him as it was 1989, and all of Moscow lived on these orders, tokens, and food stamps. So poor Ch., finding himself estranged, suffered. He even began to come by the Church of Metropolitan Philip that had just opened at the time. He wanted to change his entire life so much that he decided to get baptized and even asked my husband to help him do this.