Efim has considered becoming a monk. He even traveled to the Pskovo-Pechorsky Monastery and stayed there last year for a month, but when he came back he told me he was not ready to take such a step.
At the same time Efim is thinking of emigrating to Israel. He has an uncle and several cousins there who managed to leave Lithuania before the Germans came. Efim’s mother was saved during the war by a Lithuanian peasant woman.
So now, finding himself in an uncertain situation and seeing that I am in an equally uncertain situation, he is proposing that I should enter a fictitious marriage with him and try to make a new life in the Holy Land where there are convents and other houses for those who incline to the monastic life. Although rejected by the convent, I remain a nun. Nobody has released me from my vows and this proposal of Efim’s is my only chance of starting a new life.
Dear Valentina Ferdinandovna, I value your advice above all others’ because you have long been close to the Dominicans and lead the perplexing and dangerous life of a nun in the world. You are so active and do so much valuable work that it is by you that I would like to be advised. The main problem is deciding for myself to emigrate to the Holy Land, because neither our prioress, let alone the bishop, will give me their blessing to do so. Even if the difficult formalities of emigrating can be overcome, I am accustomed to monastic discipline and obedience and find it very difficult to undertake such a wilful action.
In order to merit your advice, I must tell you everything I myself know about the situation. Efim is a man of quite exceptional nobility of spirit. I even believe that in pondering the option of emigrating to Israel he is mindful of the opportunity it would give to repair my destiny. Of himself he says that it will be there, in the land of Jesus, that he should be able to overcome his indecision regarding his future path, whether as a priest, a monk, or simply as a lay person.
I have never before met a man so profoundly immersed in Orthodoxy, so splendidly informed on the texts of the liturgy, and so knowledgeable about theological subtleties. He has the inspiration of a Catholic and the conscientiousness of a Protestant. For him the library is truly his home and he is in the full sense of the word a man of the book. He has long been writing his own treatise on the history of the Eucharist from the earliest times up to our days.
My sweet Valentina Ferdinandovna, I feel guilty about pouring all these tormenting problems out on your poor head. Forgive me, but I know that without your advice I am incapable of reaching a decision.
May God keep you, dear sister.
Your Teresa
7. December 1978, Vilnius
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ETTER FROM
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ERESA TO
V
ALENTINA
F
ERDINANDOVNA
Dear Valentina Ferdinandovna,
Events are developing so rapidly that I am writing to you even before receiving your reply to my last letter.
Yesterday Efim came and told me he had had a two-hour talk with the abbot. Efim informed him that, as he sees no prospect of being able to participate in the life of the Orthodox Church in Lithuania, he is inclined to emigrate to the Holy Land. Completely unexpectedly, the abbot then said he would be prepared to bless his ordination as a priest on condition that he emigrated. There is now only one obstacle to his becoming a priest: Efim is a bachelor and has no intention of marrying. In the Russian Orthodox Church there is a tradition, almost a law, that only married men are ordained into the priesthood. That is a complete reversal of the celibacy of Catholicism. Is this not a sign from above?
Efim and I knelt down to pray and prayed almost until dawn. Needless to say he has never thought that his companion could be any woman other than me, but each of us has had to make a sacrifice. I must change my faith and convert to Orthodoxy, he must take it upon himself to be responsible for me, and we have both undertaken to bear witness to God in a marriage of the spirit, a brother-and-sister relationship, a perpetual living of a shared life and shared service. What is that service to be? This decision we entrust to the Almighty.
I wept for the rest of the night. My tears and prayers delivered me from my usual nocturnal trials. I remembered those first tears of happiness after I had become a nun, when I would be wakened in the night not by fear and torment but by joy, by a prayer rising from the depths of my soul and rousing me from sleep. The sad thought occurs to me that I have lost that greatest of gifts. Next week I shall go to Father L. and hope very much that he will support me.
I ask your prayers, dear sister. May the Lord bless you.
Teresa
8. 1979, Vilnius
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ETTER FROM
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ERESA TO
V
ALENTINA
F
ERDINANDOVNA
Since that day everything has rushed by like something out of a movie. After five days I was anointed with Holy oil and was accepted into the Orthodox Church. Holy Communion came as a great surprise to me. It was one of the most powerful spiritual experiences I have ever had. I can tell only you and Efim that by comparison with the True Wine I drank of from the Orthodox chalice, the Catholic communion seemed rather feeble.
My vow, after changing my denomination, was purely a matter for my conscience, and on 19 May we were married. The application to register a civil marriage had been made earlier, and the day after we signed the register we applied to emigrate. Efim’s cousin had found a speedy way of sending us both an invitation through the consulate here. To this I can add that the abbot has told Efim we will face no objection from the authorities because he has personal contacts in this area. He also said Efim might be called in for a discussion by a very important department and asked him not to refuse to collaborate because it is only by agreeing that he will be able to serve the Church. That, after all, is the one thing we are both longing for, and no price seems too high to pay.
We may leave very soon, but the two of us are sitting here in a state of paralysis when we should be packing books. Efim has a large library he could not think of leaving behind. There are a great many books in foreign languages, there are ancient volumes in Hebrew which were saved from being burned during the war, and before they can be exported we need to obtain various special permits and there are lots of other forms we have to obtain.
Whenever I hear someone say “Israel,” my throat tightens. I cannot believe my own feet will walk the Via Dolorosa, and my own eyes will see Gethsemane, and Mount Tabor, and the Sea of Galilee.
I have one very important question. Can I write from abroad directly to your address or should I use other ways?
With love,
Your Teresa
9. 1984, Haifa
F
ROM
“R
EADERS
’ L
ETTERS
,”
HAIFA NEWS
Dear Editor,
Several days ago I was walking down a street in the city of Haifa when I saw the following notice on a house in one of the streets in the city center:
“There will be a meeting of the Association of Jewish Christians at the Community Center on 2 October at 18.00 hours.”
I don’t give a tinker’s curse about this society, but it does raise two issues: who is financing it, for one. And secondly, why is it being allowed to exist in Israel at all? We got by without this organization in the past. Why has it been set up now? The Christians have brought down so much war, persecution, and death on Jews from ancient times to the present that no Arabs even come close. What are we doing encouraging the existence of such organizations in Israel?
Shaul Slonimsky
REPLY FROM THE EDITOR
Dear Mr. Slonimsky,