Ordinary Wonders

by Oloesia Nikolaeva

  “Don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid!”

  Then, at the very last moment, the driver of the car flying straight at me swerved to the left, hit me slightly in the left side panel, after which he flew along the towering snowdrifts another five meters until he crashed into a metal fence: the fence sprang back and stopped the suicidal flight of the car, which still managed to make a hole in it. A man of northern ethnicity jumped out of this BMW and rushed to the back door. He threw it open and lifted out a child of about seven years old in his arms. He held him and held him up high, then the boy began to stir and stood on his feet.

  We were all whole and unharmed.

  But I continued to sit in my car, which after the impact had turned to the right and had buried itself nose first into a pile of frozen snow. A true miracle had just taken place, and my soul was celebrating while still unable to admit and recognize this. I was especially taken aback by the voice I had clearly heard: “Don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid!” I felt that the speaker must have been near me at that very moment, right there with me.

  Well, after that, there was a lot of hustle and bustle—I had to take my daughter and granddaughter to church in a taxi, wait for the police, ask someone to pick up my husband after the midnight service in Peredelkino, and so on and so forth. That’s beside the point.

  I understood that the Lord had heard my secret complaints and had comforted me with the assurance that my angel, even if he remained unseen by me, was ever by my side. I walked and he followed. I slept and he stayed over me. I wrote and he looked over my shoulder. I languished in loneliness, but I was with him. But also, I became angry and he heard my rebukes, my unfair and venomous words … and that meant that everything that happened to me was not in vain: someone took it seriously, and it was all counted and recorded in a book that would be read at the Final Judgment.

  And so, it would seem that my problem was resolved in full. My requests were granted. Rejoice, sing, live! “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise” (Eph 5:15). But in fact, it was not so!

  Because in a considerably short time—it was already Great Lent, in March, the month of oxymorons, when seemingly disparate beginnings and ends meet, when scenes of childhood, youth, and our continuing years of maturity mysteriously come together in time; when the frailty and transience of life are especially distinctly felt, and with them, its boundlessness and transcendence; when both the inescapable approach of the Fateful Day and its ephemeral nature are keenly felt, the image of this unseen angel once again appeared as a desired and longed-for object. I walked among the black, shriveled, wicked snowbanks and tried to imagine where he was, but was still unable to find him. I searched for him as for my beloved, and couldn’t find him! I called him, but heard no response!

  It was all happening again: “A dark and foul flood of evil thoughts rises up within me, separating my mind from God. Do thou dry it up, O my intercessor!” My angel, my angel!

  But soon Pascha arrived at last. Everything became exactly how I had dreamed it would in the beginning of winter. The sun shone out, the birds began to sing, the jasmine bush on my porch began to perk up.

  Several days later, my husband’s parishioner came to visit him at the Church of the Holy Martyr Tatiana, having just returned from the Holy Land, and brought him a Paschal gift.

  It was a photograph of Isidor, Patriarch of Jerusalem, taken on Pascha, when he himself communed believers in his church. In the photo, he stood on the ambo with the chalice in his hands, carefully administering the Gifts with the communion spoon. Next to him, on the same side at the chalice, just slightly askew, was the silhouette of a snow-white angel with a burning candle in his hand.

  Heavenly Fire

  On August 18, I was in a tour bus headed for Mt Tabor. This was the high point of our pilgrimage: to ascend at midnight to the summit and there, on Tabor itself, in a Greek monastery on the Feast of the Transfiguration, to pray at the Divine Liturgy and receive communion. We pilgrims had already visited the Tomb of the Lord and the manger in Bethlehem, crossed the Judean desert, and visited the monasteries of St George the Hozebite and St Gerasimos of the Jordan, whom the lion had served. We even stopped at Cana of Galilee, where Christ had performed His first miracle. Now the other pilgrims were boisterously discussing our tour guide’s program for the day.

  “See, at eleven we meet at the foot of the mountain, then climb up. At twelve, vigil and Liturgy. At three in the morning, the descent of the grace-filled cloud.”

  “What? Does the grace-filled cloud descend on the dot?”

  “Well, yes, since it’s part of the program.”

  “Do you believe it?”

  “I doubt it … I think it’s some kind of trick. The Greeks are always up to something. How can you plan something that you have no control over in advance?”

  It was quite a motley group of pilgrims, diverse in social status, age, and level of “churchliness.” There were the pious, quiet ones, the “constantly prayerful,” the “advanced in spirit”—they were always reading akathists on the bus out loud, and over a meal, all you ever heard was “but my priest told me this …,” “but my elder told me that …,” “but my spiritual father …”

  But there were also the completely uninitiated. One of them was an old dried-out village crone with the angriest eyes, a pile of money, and a crutch, with which she beat her fellow travelers’ legs at the slightest provocation. So, she didn’t like that I took the front seat in the bus, which had a great view, and she drove me away. She didn’t say a word, just scraped me off my seat and sat there herself. In Cana of Galilee, the tour leader took us to the gift shop, where the old crone couldn’t make herself understood to the cashier, who spoke only Yiddish and English, so she asked me to translate. When the time came to pay for the gifts and she pulled out wads and wads of dollars from her purse, at which I couldn’t help but stare in astonishment, she barked at me: “What are you goggling at?” and elbowed me in the side, covering her money with her hand. Finally, she let slip that her very rich son had sent her on this pilgrimage. And all who had the opportunity to feel her crutch became convinced that her son was not just a real businessman, but simply a jerk.

  Another equally offbeat person on this pilgrimage was a man, around forty-five, brawny and conspicuous, but a bit simple, and his unhealthy lifestyle had left traces on his already wrinkled face. He admitted that his wife had sent him on this pilgrimage in the hopes that maybe the trip would change him for the better. He was planning to go to the Tomb of the Lord in only a white undershirt, but our tour guide, a young hieromonk, asked him to come in more appropriate clothing, so he changed into a black T-shirt with a white skull on it.

  “This is how I am. I like to make jokes,” he explained good-naturedly, drawing his hand over the picture on his chest.

  After we visited the Tomb of the Lord, at lunch, when our conversation began to encompass more exalted themes, he joined in.

  “I believe in God, too!” he admitted. “And I know that He helps me.”

  The hieromonk joyfully nodded.

  “It’s very good that you feel that way.”

  “What’s there to feel? I see it like I see you. One time I woke up—head pounding, throat dry—I’ll die, I think, if I don’t drink something. But there’s nothing in the house, and my wife’s at work and took all our money with her. Well, damn, I thought. So I left the house, started walking down the street, looking down at the ground the whole time—that’s how rotten I felt!—and suddenly, right in front of me on the pavement—you won’t believe it!—five hundred rubles! Well, Lord, I said, you didn’t let me down. You understood! Glory to You! I walk into our store and I’m on my way to the usual section, and here my neighbor comes up to me—‘Hey, Vovchik, I borrowed two hundred from you before. Here it is.’ At that, I couldn’t contain myself, and I said, ‘Lord, what is this? Enough already! At this rate I’ll get really drunk!’ But I took the money. So, there yo
u go! How can you not believe after that?”

  Our hieromonk bashfully chuckled and lowered his eyes.

  “I had another situation like that … I once met this floozy …”

  At this, everyone stopped listening to him, and the meal was ending anyway.

  Now he was sitting, sprawled over two seats at once, in the bus that was taking us to the mountain where the Lord had transfigured.

  “Come on!” he said. “It’s those Greeks, they make those clouds with chemicals! Maybe they shoot some kind of capsule with the fog in advance, and it explodes on a timer and descends in the form of a cloud. And they rake in the dough with the pilgrims … Well, I’m not going to buy anything in that monastery on purpose. I even heard how in one monastery the monks wiped the icons with sunflower oil, then told the old babas, ‘Look! It’s streaming myrrh!’ Oh boy, how they started howling, and in came the cash!”

  “That’s all nonsense,” the hieromonk said, upset. “That is impossible! Of course, that’s just what they need—to slather icons with oil! Monks don’t swindle people!”

  “Quiet, quiet!” the akathist-singers shushed them.

  So we arrived at the hotel. We dropped off our things there, rested for a bit, read the rule for holy communion, and it was already time to go to the foot of Mt Tabor. From there, we had the option either to walk up or take a taxi because buses didn’t travel up the mountain.

  While we rode, all the conversations were about the cloud. Everyone was worried—will it appear or won’t it? Only I, for some reason, remained indifferent. It seemed to me much more important that we were celebrating the Feast of the Transfiguration at the actual spot where it happened “at that time,” and continues to happen at the Liturgy, “now and ever and unto ages of ages.” While I climbed the mountain, I understood that I didn’t need anything else to bolster my faith: no streaming myrrh, no clouds.

  The Greek monastery was already full of people. Other than the Greeks themselves, there were Orthodox Arabs, Jews, Serbs, Romanians, Georgians, and—of course—our Russians and Ukrainians:

  “Khalia! Khalia! I saved a spot for you!”

  Such a crowd could never fit inside the church, so the Greeks set up a portable altar, something like a veranda adjacent to the church’s altar, so that people could stand in the courtyard of the monastery under the starry sky. I squirmed my way forward and stood right at the rails separating the improvised altar from the rest of the monastery. Here I stood the entire service, until the very end of the Eucharistic canon.

  The moment that the priests began to commune in the altar, only a few meters from me, a whisper began to spread through the crowd.

  “There it is! There it is! The cloud! Look up!”

  I looked up and truly did see how, down on top of the cupola of the church, onto the very cross, a slate-grey, tight, tidy little cloud descended lower and lower down, until it covered the cross, then the cupola.

  And the moment when the priest came out with the chalice to the makeshift ambo and exclaimed, “I believe, O Lord, and I confess!”1 while all the people streamed toward him, the cloud seemed to pop, spreading itself all over the monastery and swaddling the people with its soft, moist, foggy breath. And immediately—here, there—flashes, flashes, lightning flashes! At first, I thought this was the effect of flashing cameras trying to capture this miraculous scene. But having received holy communion, I moved away, and looking more closely, I saw that the entire area, both in the skies and on the ground, was filled with these joyful, festal fiery birds, snakes, and lightning-bursts, dancing in zigzag patterns in the air and illuminating joyful faces and upraised hands that tried to touch or even grab that heavenly fire come down to earth. “I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” (Lk 12:49).

  And—joy, rejoicing, reverence, life, life!

  The angry old crone saw me in the rejoicing crowd, and something kind, childlike, and simple-hearted glanced from within her. She grabbed my hand with her entire paw, and—filled with emotion—shook it. It must be that this fire has the same essence as that grace-filled fire that comes down to the Tomb of the Saviour on Pascha. It didn’t burn, though it didn’t light any candles, either …

  All this continued until the very end of the Liturgy. Then the heavenly light began to weaken, and the fog began to dissipate. It was time to leave.

  Together with my little old lady, we left through the gates and tried to hail a taxi to take us back to the foot of the mountain. Suddenly, we saw our man coming through the gates—the same one who had suspected the Greeks to be avaricious fakes.

  “It’s like I’m drunk!” he exclaimed. “Drunk, but I drank nothing! Take me with you.”

  And we took him into our taxi.

  “That’s it,” he said. “I give up. They beat me!”

  “Who beat you?”

  “Who? Those Greeks, that’s who! Everything seemed so natural, so accurate. God must arrange it all for them! And I almost caught one of the lightning flashes! I even left them twenty euros. ‘I acknowledge it,’ I told them. I believe, so to speak. Oh, mommy, mommy!” And he suddenly lifted a fist to his head and struck himself, hard, three times on the forehead.

  “Well?” I asked myself—the same self who had been so smart before and had said things like, “Well, my faith doesn’t really need these miracles!”

  But that version of myself was no longer there. She wasn’t answering. I didn’t even try to find her.

  Corfu

  St Spyridon of Trimythous is considered to be the patron saint of Corfu, though he never lived there, being from Cyprus. In Cyprus, he carried out his Christian service, performing miracles and great feats of prayer and charity, but his relics were transferred to Corfu in 1456 from Muslim-occupied Constantinople, and since then he has physically remained there, defending and assisting anyone who turns to him in faith and prayer.

  I love St Spyridon very much and have felt his love, protection, and help so many times that I actively feel his presence in my life: if you call out to him in prayer, he will respond. And now, here in Kerkyra, nearing his relics and standing before them waiting for them to be opened, I feel the joy of MEETING. For truly: “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Mt 22:32). This is one of the most astonishing revelations of Christianity.

  It is said that, in his time, he never allowed his island to be occupied by the Turks who seized increasingly more lands all around: in 1537, the Janissaries, preparing to take Corfu, laid a long-lasting siege on it. The downfall of Kerkyra, its main city, seemed inevitable, but its occupants turned in prayer to St Spyridon, and the Turks were annihilated, in spite of the fact that they far outnumbered the Christian defenders.

  During 1386–1797, the Venetians became masters here, then the French came for a while, but in 1799, the Russian fleet, commanded by the great Admiral Ushakov (since then added to the ranks of the saints and especially revered here in Corfu), defeated them and liberated the island. Then in 1815, it fell under British control, and as a result, the English language remained behind: the locals have traditionally been fluent in it ever since.

  The feeling remains that it was the Venetians, not the Turks, who set the tone here: the capitol of Corfu, Kerkyra, is reminiscent of Venice, Genoa, Padua, and Malta, while in the main Orthodox churches—that of St Spyridon and the cathedral in which the relics of St Theodora are kept—the church singing during the Greek service is accompanied by very careful, delicate organ playing that seems to mimic the human voice. All the Corfu folk melodies also speak of its distinctive character, its freedom from Muslim persecution and influence. And it seems like the ancient Phaeacians1 have been living here since time immemorial, with their lack of bloodshed or catastrophic mingling of nationalities; they are a Christ-loving and peaceful people. It was they, the Phaeacians, led by their king, Alcinous, who welcomed the almost despairing and cunning Odysseus and brought him at last to his native Ithaca.

  There are always Russian pilgrims in the
Church of St Spyridon. They are instantly recognizable, even if they are quiet—not only by the women’s headscarves, but by a certain triumph in their faces. After the services, when everyone has approached the cross and the priests have had their breakfast, the attendant opens the reliquary and a moleben is served before the relics. Approaching the reliquary, adorned all over with expressions of gratitude to the wonderworker for his blessings, you can see the entire body of the saint. There it is, in the flesh, filled with the Holy Spirit, immune to corruption for the past seventeen centuries.

  The Greeks have a custom: if you want to thank the saint, order an image to be cast for you out of silver, or buy a symbolic representation, of the miracle committed by him. On their reliquaries and miracle-working icons hang silver carvings of legs, arms, eyes, heads, if not entire bodies; in other words, these are given in gratitude for a miraculous healing of that body part. There are also images of babies who were born by the prayers of the saint or the Mother of God. There are images of ships—these must be offerings for deliverance from storms at sea. St Spyridon’s reliquary is similarly covered in such gifts.

  I understand these expressions of gratitude very well, even if it looks strange from the outside: why, let’s say, would the saint want these silver trinkets, or the Mother of God flowers? But the grateful heart so wants to share its gratitude, to touch the relic once again with all its soul—not with cries and prayerful groanings this time, but with an affected and gladdened heart: “Glory to You, O Lord! Thank you, St Spyridon, for hearing me and responding, for delivering me from impending misfortune!”