Criss-Cross
1. A ryassa is an outer cassock or cloak worn by a priest over his cassock.
2. Vladyka is a respectful, but informal, way to address a Russian Orthodox bishop.
The Queen’s Pendants
1. His Holiness Patriarch Pimen was patriarch of Moscow and all Russia between 1970 and 1990.
Embrace
1. The root of each of these last names is a title of a church feast day in the Russian language.
About Love
1. A Panagia is a medallion bearing the icon of the Mother of God that is worn by a bishop. Panagia is a Greek word meaning all holy.
2. NKVD is an early name for the Soviet secret police.
3. Vladychenka is an affectionate diminutive of Vladyka.
4. Oprichnik was the term given to a member of the Oprichnina, an organization of loyal followers of Tsar Ivan the Terrible.
5. An “angel in the flesh” and a “man of heaven” are two different descriptive phrases widely used in Orthodox hymnology for ascetics and righteous ones.
Wishes Come True
1. Peredelkino was a writer’s colony in the forest outside of Moscow.
2. This is a troparion from The Great Canon the Work of St Andrew of Crete (Jordanville, N.Y.: Holy Trinity Publications, 2016), 36.
More Than Enough or Nothing Extra
1. Pechory is another name for the Pskov Caves Monastery.
Come and See
1. The title refers to the scripture verse: “He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where He was staying, and remained with Him that day (now it was about the tenth hour)” (Jn 1:39).
2. Father Frost is a character from Russian mythology who is prominent in contemporary New Year festivities.
3. This is a reference to the retreat of the Napoleonic armies from Moscow in 1812.
4. This is a reference to the escape of the people of Israel from Egypt as recounted in Exod 14–15.
5. This is taken from a troparion to St Nicholas the Wonderworker.
6. This is a reference to a Russian folk song.
7. This is a liturgical text from the Blessing of the Waters.
Bring Back My Husband
1. Perestroika literally means restructuring. This term denotes the period from the mid-1980s when an attempt was made to reform the Soviet Union politically and economically, presaging its eventual downfall less than a decade later.
The Apple of My Eye
1. “Pops” is a slang and derogatory nickname for a priest.
2. An epaulent is a shoulder piece often indicating military rank. This saying implies that priests were secretly military or secret police officers.
3. The title of the journal Nadezdha means “hope.”
4. Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava was a singer-songwriter and sometime dissident of the Soviet era.
The Thrill-Seeker
1. Mt Elbrus is the highest mountain in Russia and Europe.
2. Communism Peak, now known as Ismoil Somoni, is the highest mountain in Tajikistan.
3. General Dmitry Karbyshev was a lieutenant general in the Soviet Red Army. He was captured by the Nazis and held in various concentration camps. He was executed in 1945, after he had cold water poured over him and was left outside to freeze on a winter night.
The Sound of Trumpets
1. This refers to “Impossible” by I.F. Annenskii.
2. Papa Carlo is the Russian version of Geppetto from the story of Pinocchio, The Adventures of Buratino.
3. From the proskomedia: The Divine Liturgy of Our Father Among the Saints John Chrysostom: Slavonic-English Parallel Text (Jordanville, N.Y.: Holy Trinity Publications, 2015), 31.
4. Ibid., 103.
“Our Boys” and “the Germans”
1. The NTS was a group of anti-communist Russian emigrees founded in Serbia in 1930.
2. Yuri Andropov became chairman of the KGB in 1967.
3. Those who are “sprinkled” with holy water in baptism are called “oblivantsy,” while those baptized by full immersion, or “immersed,” are called “pogruzhentsy”—Trans.
Five Months of Love
1. Anna Akhmatova was a twentieth-century Russian poet who remained in the Soviet Union.
Mysteries beyond the Grave
1. Panteleimon (Nizhnik), Eternal Mysteries Beyond the Grave (Jordanville, N.Y.: Holy Trinity Publications, 2012).
2. From the rite chanted following the departure of the soul: A Psalter for Prayer, trans. David James (Jordanville, N.Y.: Holy Trinity Publications, 2011), 328.
Augustine
1. Mowgli is the feral child from Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book stories.
The Lord Gave and the Lord Took Away
1. “The Lord Gave and the Lord Took Away” is an allusion to Job 1:21.
2. Birch and other twigs are used in the banya (sauna or steam bath) to massage the skin and open the pores for cleansing.
Halvah
1. In the Russian language, the word “khalva,” or “halvah,” is very similar to the word for “glory,” “khvala.”
How I Lost My Voice
1. Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, Rev. H.F. Cary, trans., Cassel and Company, Ltd., London: 1892.
Money for Sabaoth
1. “Protopope” is a Russian way of writing Protopresbytr, the title given to a senior priest in the Orthodox Church.
2. “The Beslan terrorists” refers to a school siege perpetrated by Chechen Islamists in September 2004 in the town of Beslan in North Ossetia in southern Russia that resulted in hundreds of deaths.
Kalliping
1. The quote refers to a Russian counting rhyme.
Good Material for a Television Series
1. This is a famous quote from the Russian movie The Twelve Chairs.
A Blessing to Smuggle
1. Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois is a southern suburb of Paris, France. It became a major center of the Russian emigration after the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917. The Russian House served as both a retirement home and a center of Russian culture.
2. Sheremetevo was at that time the major Moscow airport for international flights.
3. “Joyful steps” refers to the 5th Ode of the Paschal Canon by St John of Damascus.
4. This is a quote from the epic poem Ruslan and Liudmilla by A.S. Pushkin.
Payback
1. EMERCOM is the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Affairs for Civil Defense, Emergencies and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters.
2. The “horn of Jericho” refers to Joshua 6 when, after the blowing of horns, God caused the walls of the city of Jericho to fall, allowing the Israelites to enter.
The Delusional One
1. “Overcome the order of nature” refers to the Dogmatic Theotokion in the 7th tone.
2. This is a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche translated from the Russian.
3. Renouncing Satan is part of the baptismal service in the Orthodox Church.
4. This refers to Mt 5:37: “But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.”
The Little Cloud
1. Chakra is a Sanskrit name used in the Hindu religion to refer to the centers of spiritual energy in the body.
The Late Husband of Mother Seraphima
1. The Babylonian captivity is a way of referring to the Soviet period where the situation of the Church was comparable to ancient Israel in the pagan Babylonian empire.
2. The Russian PEN Center is the Russian branch of an international organization that promotes literature and freedom of expression.
3. Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna is better know as St Elizabeth the New Martyr, sister-in-law of the last Tsar.
4. A.S. Pushkin, “To … (Kern).” This translation was obtained from From the Ends to the Beginning: A Bilingual Anthology of Russian Poetry: russianpoetry.net—Trans.
5. Ibid.
6. Nuns are referred to as “the brides
of Christ,” as they have no earthly husbands and are considered to be wedded to Christ.
7. A metochion is a dependency of a main monastery.
8. A kolobok is an imaginary being from a Russian fairy tale.
9. Peter and Fevronia were a thirteenth-century couple seen as patrons of love and marriage. In their last days, they entered monastic life but asked God to take them to eternity on the same day.
Heavenly Fire
1. This refers to the prayer that is said before the distribution of holy communion. It can be found in The Divine Liturgy of Our Father Among the Saints John Chrysostom: Slavonic-English Parallel Text (Jordanville, N.Y.: Holy Trinity Publications, 2015), 213.
Corfu
1. This is a reference to Homer’s Odyssey.
2. The Manege is the Moscow Central Exhibition Hall close to Red Square.
3. The Aleksandrovsky Garden is a public park between the Manege and the Kremlin.
4. Corfu is off the coast of Albania. Under the rule of Hoxha (1944–1985), Albania was a military, atheistic, communist state.
5. Illyria is the ancient Greco-Roman name for the area of the west Balkans that broadly corresponds to the territory of the former Yugoslavia and Albania.
6. Boris Pasternak is a twentieth-century Russian author famous for such works as Dr Zhivago.
7. A panikhida is a memorial service for the departed.
8. A bast house is one made from tree bark or other fiber of certain plants.
9. The evacuation referenced here is most likely in the face of the advancing German army.
10. Earlier in the book, the author refers to her godmother’s husband as Gennadii Snegirev, a famed children’s author.
11. Pushkinskaya Square is a very busy central Moscow meeting point.
12. Lawrence Durrell was a famous novelist, and Gerald Durrell was a naturalist, author, and TV presenter. They were not born in Corfu but in India and lived on Corfu at a later age.
13. Though the author states that Lawrence Durrell received the Nobel Prize in Literature, he was only a candidate, along with John Steinbeck, the actual winner.
14. Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson is best known for his service in the British navy during the Napoleonic Wars, losing his life at the battle of Trafalgar. Earlier in his career, he had lost sight in one eye. Lady Hamilton and he were lovers, and they had a child together.
15. The Leningrad blockade was the period between September 1941 and January 1944 when St Petersburg was besieged by the German army.
16. This is the way St Spyridon conveyed that the Holy Trinity is One God in three persons.
Appendix: A Short Reflection on Miracles
1. Alexei Losev, 1893–1988, was a prominent twentieth-century Russian philosopher.
Ordinary Wonders Page 36
