Breaks


My rare trips back to Moscow felt like respite. I walked in all the familiar places, all my beloved monasteries (among them always the Holy Trinity monastery in Sergiev Posad), and studied the icons in the State Tretyakov’s Gallery and in others. All my visits were connected with Sergiev Posad one way or another, through the people I met or books I bought. The second time I came to Moscow with the intention to buy natural pigments for the egg tempera – until then I used acrylics. I did not know where to buy them and had no one to ask – I did not know any Moscow iconographers, all my knowledge was from the nun Juliania’s book. I went to see the icons in Andronicov monastery and there, by a chance, saw copying the icons students of the Holy Trinity seminary, the future iconographers. One of them noticed me sketching in my notebook, left his work, approached me, and we spoke. When he learnt that I came from Australia and I was an iconographer as well he gave me the detailed instructions where to buy the pigments, which varnish to use, and so on. In the end he told me “buy as much as you can, for many years”. I easily found the shop and bought everything he told me to.

Apart from Sergiev Posad, the second center of gravity was Fr Alexander Men. It was because of his books which I searched for in Moscow bookshops that I found out about sister Ioanna (Reitlinger), an iconographer, a spiritual daughter of Fr Sergiy Bulgakov, and much later of Fr Alexander Men. Her icons and correspondence with Fr Alexander influenced me enormously. With time I realized that my life was shaped by these people connected with each other: Men, Bulgakov, Florensky, Krug, Reitlinger, Sokolova and also – by the artists directly or indirectly related to them. Most of them were left wing Orthodox (free-thinkers and traditionalists at the same time), many connected with the Paris School of Theology (an anathema for ROCOR and a huge part of the ROC Moscow Patriachate). In my mind somehow they all matched the old Moscow landscapes. Walking through the Moscow streets, reading their books I felt I was partaking of their culture, their Orthodoxy. It is safe to say that what I experienced in that reality was very much affected by them (for example, my instinctive love for Sergiev Posad was further enhanced by the knowledge how dear it was for Fr Pavel Florensky, etc).

There were many seeming coincidences: an Internet acquaintance told me about the relics of St Alexiy Mechev, a spiritual father of nun Iuliania (this is how I began reading about him and found much of great importance that was necessary for me at that time) and advised me to go to Diveevo, to St Seraphim of Sarov. While in Moscow she introduced me to the abbot of the Sergiev Posad monastery’s branch in Moscow. The abbot gave me his blessing to go for a pilgrimage, and my acquaintance provided me with vital information about the trip.

The pilgrimage itself was a miracle. First my mother and I took a night train to the old town Murom, to honor the relics of our great saints, spouses Petr and Fevronia. It was well before the sunrise, the town was very dark and felt ancient with its emptiness and monotonous sounds of the bells of many churches. After the early Liturgy in the monastery we walked to the bus station and discovered, to my despair, that there was no bus that day going towards Diveevo. I felt like crying; one of taxi drivers nearby said he would take us to the very distant Diveevo and then bring back, for an unbelievably modest sum of money. Not only did he do all that but he showed to us all holy places in Diveevo and waited patiently in the car everywhere I wished to spend some time – the place is such that one does not want to leave.
Because it was so cold there were almost no pilgrims in the monastery, near St Seraphim’s relics, or near the holy spring so we could be there as long as we wished. Then he drove us to the spring of St Seraphim outside of the monastery in the forest where I dipped into icy-cold bluish-green water, strangely standing apart from the semi-wintery landscape – it was late November, snow was covering patches of land. (My mother did not follow me because she was afraid to catch a cold but did nevertheless; I did not although usually I catch a cold easily.)
When we returned to Moscow we realized that somehow we managed to visit three saints in two towns during one day – the day went on endlessly.


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