“No, no, no that is not how it is sung, Fr.
Philemon, that is tone three, not seven... This is how it is sung…” an
elderly voice tried to reach the high resonant note, but began to quaver
and broke off.
“You are trying to get tone five, not seven,” interrupted another aged voice.
A third voice, more manly in character, was
heard from the altar, “Why are you quarreling, venerable fathers,” and
with a high-pitched sweet baritone, in full voice, he began to fill the
small wooden church with the words of the
holy irmos: “Night is not bright for the faithless, О Christ, but for
the faithful there is illumination in the sweetness of Thy words. For
which cause I wake early unto Thee and hymn Thy Divinity” (Irmos 5 of
Sunday Matins, Tone 7).
It was a cold, gray, Siberian, November night
and there was hardly anyone in the church. Besides the serving
hieromonk, Fr. Vladimir, the one with the good voice, and two old
rassophore monks, Fr. Procopius and Fr. Philemon, only
one other old man was at Matins, a fisherman who had been a regular
attendant at this poor church for almost fifty years, from the very day
of the founding of the skete on the coast of Lake Baikal. The locals
from the surrounding villages, most of whom were
former convicts, rarely attended services; all the same, more people
used to come.
The grandeur of the Church services had been
grander too. Instead of just the two old monks in the choir, there were
four others, younger and possessed of sweet harmonious voices. Fr.
Vladimir was canonarch then.
For a brief period the White Army was in
control here, but when the atheistic Soviet authorities came and took
over, Archimandrite Palladius, abbot of the Holy St. Innocent-Ascension
Monastery, which administered the small skete,
ordered the young, untonsured novices to be released and sent through
Kjala and the Mongolian wilderness in order to cross the border. The
rassophore monks were taken into the main monastery, while Fr. Vladimir
was blessed to remain as superior of the skete
and for that reason ordained to the priesthood.
So two old rassophore monks, who were
prevented by age from going abroad and who loved the skete more than the
main monastery, remained with him. And here, by the irony of fate, the
incomprehensible providence of God, the skete,
which Archimandrite Palladius had worried about so much because of its
isolated location, still stands, while the St. Innocent-Ascension
Monastery was destroyed long ago by the godless authorities. The monks
were dispersed, some to forced labor, some back
to their home villages. Nearly all the sacred vessels of the monastery
were taken away and placed in godless museums. However, Fr. Palladius
managed to save some holy objects, and together with Fr. Vladimir, hid
them around the Skete. They were so well hidden
that if someone searched for a hundred years, they still would not be
able to find them.
Daybreak does not come early on the shores of
Lake Baikal in the month of November. It was already seven o'clock when
Matins finished in the skete church, but still there was no sign of the
morning light.
Fr. Vladimir stepped out into the doorway and
sank into deep admiration for the sheer beauty of the moon's rays
shimmering on the waters of
Lake Baikal. In the moonlight the frozen waves of ice sparkled like uncut diamonds on the vast expanse of this mighty lake. Such beauty!
Dark mountains, so steep that they are nearly
snowless, encircle the lake on all sides, casting their shadows on the
brilliantly glittering field of ice, and under the light of the moon
countless curling pine trees form a splendid
trimming for the massive cliffs.
How Fr. Vladimir loved that view. He loved the
deep beauty of the Baikal which had become kin to him. The lake's
varying scenes of beauty never repeated themselves. Every day of the
year offered a new and different picture of the
breathtaking beauty of Lake Baikal.
The rays of the morning sun had just begun to
glimmer in the east as Fr. Vladimir completed the last prayer of the
rule before Communion. As the sacred words and melodious hymns echoed in
his heart, he quietly and with peace of soul
once again stepped onto the porch to go to the church for Liturgy. The
sound of bells and the squeaking of sleighs in the distance caught his
attention. It almost surely meant that they were coming, which meant
there would be unpleasantness. Fr. Vladimir had
prepared himself for this moment for a long time; each day that had
passed in peace only surprised him. He crossed himself as he gazed upon
the white cross on the church illuminated by the sunrise. He did not go
into the church, but remained on the steps of
the very entrance to the skete.
“Arrest all the monks and take them to
Irkutsk, and search the property,” ordered a tall, frowning Soviet
commander, the Chief of the Red Army detachment sent to the skete for
the arrest and search.
Fathers Procopius and Philemon began to weep.
Remaining completely calm, Fr. Vladimir tried to comfort them. Long ago
Fr. Vladimir had placed his fate in the hands of God. He celebrated
every feast day of the martyrs, of which there
were so many throughout the year, with particular reverence, begging the
ancient passionbearers to intercede on his behalf before the Lord, to
strengthen him in his weakness with the same divine help that had
empowered them.
Though he had already completed the prayer
rule before Holy Communion that morning, Fr. Vladimir had no time to
serve the Liturgy and partake of the Holy Gifts, but an inner voice said
to him that the rule was not read in vain. It
was a preparation for Communion in the Kingdom of the Heavenly Father,
that Communion for which he had prayed at every Liturgy in the words of
the ancient service: “Grant that we partake of Thee fully in the
unwaning day of Thy Kingdom” (Paschal Canon, Ode
9).
The court session was brief. The monks were
imprisoned for a little over a month. Fr. Vladimir was accused together
with Fr. Palladius and “other monks” of hiding “the property of the
people” from the “former St. Innocent-Ascension
Monastery.”
Fr. Vladimir did not try to deny this, nor did
he begin to defend Fr. Palladius, for he knew the strength of spirit of
his spiritual father and abbot and was not worried about his resolve.
He put all his effort into defending the
old monks, weaker brethren who might be tempted. Fr. Vladimir was
successful in this and Fr. Philemon and Fr. Procopius were released and
sent to their home villages on the condition that they never return to
their ruined skete.
Since he admitted to having hidden Church
property (holy objects) and firmly refused to reveal their whereabouts,
Fr. Vladimir was sentenced to be shot. The tall, Red commander who had
brought Fr. Vladimir from the skete to Irkutsk
was assigned to carry out the sentence.
It was a gray morning when Fr. Vladimir was
lead out of town to be shot. With a tender, almost perplexing smile, Fr.
Vladimir refused the blindfold with which they offered to cover his
eyes before the execution. The commander did
not force him. As the Red Army members were preparing their firearms,
Fr. Vladimir leaned against the pine tree and began to sing that
especially memorable irmos which had been heard by him for the last time
on this earth at his last Matins: “Night is not
bright for the faithless, О Christ, but for the faithful there is
illumination in the sweetness of Thy words...”
Suddenly the Red commander, who until then had been quite polite, asked in a startled tone, “What are you singing?”
“It is a church hymn,” Fr. Vladimir calmly
answered. “It has a very deep meaning for it explains about how for
you—the faithless, unbelievers in Christ—the night is always dark,
unilluminated, joyless—you are lovers of a moonless
night, that is, accumulated sins. But for believers, the faithful, all
of life is full of light and joy, even death itself is powerless in
defeating that joy.”
“So, you really do not fear death?” the commander interrupted.
“No, I rejoice in it, for it will bring me to
Christ!” exclaimed Fr. Vladimir. The tone of his voice and his bright,
composed countenance conveyed such sincere tranquility, light, and
authentic joy that one could not help believe
him in these moments before death.
The commander, grimacing from the rush of
emotions, quickly gave the signal for the soldiers to prepare. The shots
rang out and Fr. Vladimir collapsed onto the snow, the same serene
expression never leaving his face.
A few years passed. A tall, emaciated man
could be seen crossing the border at the river Amur, from the Soviet
side to the Manchurian, which was still free.
Endangering their lives, hundreds, maybe even
thousands of people crossed that border. But this man was not the
typical refugee—a peasant or tradesman or the occasional Red Army
soldier fleeing from the unbearable pressure in the
homeland in search of work in the border villages of China, or for the
same purpose, heading south to the train line.
This refugee was not looking for work.
Arriving on the Manchurian side of the Amur he began to question the
Russians he met about the location of a closed Orthodox monastery. And
soon a tall, frowning novice, never smiling and rarely
speaking began to labor in one of the Orthodox monasteries in Manchuria.
He did the work of four. From the few phrases
he let slip, it was possible to conclude that he was a man of
intelligence. But every time the abbot of the monastery offered him the
tonsure so that in the future he could become a hierodeacon
or hieromonk, the novice declined. Once when the abbot, with particular
force tried to make him accept, the monastery's spiritual father stood
up for the novice and would not bless him for the tonsure.
Only once did the solemn monastery worker
slightly lift the curtain on his secret. In answer to the monks’
persistent question, “For what did you make such an effort to come to
the monastery, if you will not accept the tonsure?”
He replied, “I came to the monastery so that my night would become
bright, to learn how not to fear death.” And then in a dark, husky voice
he sang the irmos of tone seven: “Night is not bright for the
faithless, О Christ...”
No one could get any more out of him.
In 1945, after the second of November when the
Soviet army invaded Manchuria, the somber novice left the monastery. In
a brief note to the abbot, he wrote of the change in his life caused by
the martyrdom of Fr. Vladimir. Concluding
his note the departing novice wrote, “May the Lord save you, my Abbot,
for in your monastery I have found what I sought: I have learned not to
fear to die for the truth. And now I go in order to receive such a death
from that satanic authority which I once
served.”
Translated from "Talks on Holy Scripture and Faith" by Archbishop Nathaniel.
Orthodox Life
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