My last two years I was serving the elder. He had an omologion for the cell, a kind of lease. The cell belongs to the monastery and the elder is allowed to live there. When he dies he passes it on to someone else, usually his disciple. It is the elder himself who decides who is to live there after him, and mine told me, “You will not live here.” He registered the name of a monk from Novocherkassk in the omologion. That’s when I left.
On Athos the lady in charge is none other than the Mother of God. Whoever she accepts lives there, and anyone she does not accept leaves. She put up with me for five years. Nobody is ever expelled from Athos. Anybody who takes to the life can live there.
And there were all sorts living there! I should mention the Greek zealots, fanatics. They have proliferated new synods. There are “old-stylers” who live by the old calendar and do not accept the new-style calendar. Sometimes fights break out between them. From one cell to another they send each other anathemas, and the Mother of God puts up with them. Me, however, she did not accept.
I can only say, it did not work out. I miss Athos to this day. For the present I am in Jerusalem but can make no sense of the place. Everything is so mixed up!
Father, how happy I was with you in Tishkino. Whatever you said I accepted, but here it is impossible to understand. So many churches, so many denominations, but where is true Orthodoxy? I am indescribably disturbed at present. The Russians have just as many schisms as the Greeks.
I attend a variety of places, but go mainly to the Greeks. On Athos I didn’t completely master Greek but I can understand and read it. I move from one place to another. My soul is in turmoil and cannot find its home but I cannot go back to Russia. I shall stay here, in the Holy Land. Perhaps I shall find some quiet monastic house, an elder. Joseph the Hesychast was on Mount Athos. He died only quite recently, in 1957. Perhaps here is where I shall find someone to attach myself to. I shall soon be over 40 years old but still have no decisiveness. I cannot cut myself off from the world. This year I had the idea of marrying a Greek woman, a good woman, a widow in Saloniki, but as things turned out I nearly came to a bad end.
Father Mikhail, I remember the advice you gave me. “Do not become a monk, do not go from one monastery to another. Work for the Church in accordance with your gifts.” Alas, my pride turned my head. I thought, How come you became a priest and all I am good for is to sweep the church courtyard? But if I had then, as you advised, married Vera Stepashina everything would have worked out. How is Vera? I imagine she is married and has a dozen children. This letter has so disturbed my soul. I have recalled my life in Tishkino, my brother coming from Nalchik and getting drunk, and having to be taken to the hospital to have his stomach pumped. My respects to Mother Nina. I will write again, with your blessing.
With brotherly love from the slave of God.
Fyodor Krivtsov.
That is the name I have taken now. I did not become a hermit and am no longer a novice. I am still seeking the truth. Here in the Holy Land there are so many holy places of every description, but still I cannot find The Truth.
39. 1982, Kfar Saba
L
ETTER FROM
T
ERESA TO
V
ALENTINA
F
ERDINANDOVNA
Dear Valentina,
How pleasant it is for me, although a little awkward, to address you by your Christian name, but this familiar form, of course, accords with a special intimacy which I have never enjoyed with anybody before. Your last letter I have learned almost by heart, so important and exact do the thoughts you expressed seem to me. Especially your bitterly true words about fidelity and the impossibility of human loyalty. I know the Gospels almost by heart, but never had it occurred to me that even St. Peter renounced Christ three times, and that this signals the impossibility of an ordinary person remaining loyal. But after all, if you look from the height on which our Savior is situated, perhaps the difference is not so great between the fear which prompted Peter to renounce him and the envy which provoked Judas into betraying him. It is a bitter thought.
I told Efim about your letter, and he took it very seriously. He gave me a whole lecture. You probably know all this, but I will briefly paraphrase what he said. It seemed very important to me. Jews have a prayer called “Kol Nidrei”, which frees them from vows and oaths which a person has given to God. Once a year the service is held on the most important Jewish festival, the Day of Atonement. It is on this day that repentance and the absolution of sins are accomplished. After the prayer has been recited three times, all these vows are annulled. It embodies a very profound insight into human nature and a gracious attitude toward human weakness. I would go so far as to say that this Kol Nidrei embodies the grace of God.
Efim told me many very interesting historical details. For example, the Kol Nidrei prayer was seen for many centuries as grounds for considering Jews untrustworthy, since people who could so easily repudiate their vows could hardly be reliable partners in business. I thought, however, about the great wisdom and understanding of human psychology of the teachers who introduced this prayer into their religion. Efim is so erudite that any question you ask provides the topic for an absorbing lecture. I think lecturing is his true vocation. The trivial work he is doing at present is completely unsuited to his abilities and his inclinations.
We are both very dissatisfied with our strange situation. My intention of finding a congenial nunnery has evaporated. No place in the world would accept me. I can readily picture myself as Efim’s assistant, but so far he, too, has been unable to find a proper, worthwhile application for his talents. My nocturnal alarms are affecting him, too, and increasingly we spend the night in a shared vigil.
Last week I was again in Haifa visiting Brother Daniel. There is an amazingly joyful spirit around him. It seems to me that there really is something of the first years of Christianity in his community.
I have got so carried away that I have forgotten to thank you for sending me your new translation. I have to admit that so far I have read only your Introduction, and it is very meaningful. Your thoughts about the fragility of the word, its mortality, its mutability are very profound. Lately I have been increasingly reading not the Synoptics but St. John and, as always, the Acts and Psalms.
Please pass on thanks from Efim and me to Father Mikhail. Our meeting with him before we emigrated was very helpful. His strict godmother, the nun Ioanna, who at first received me with great suspicion, has now relented and gave me the address of the publishing house. Efim has been in touch with Ir. Al. and they are currently discussing how he might be useful to them. Needless to say, I am quite certain they will be making a big mistake if they do not offer him a job, but how can you explain to people what is in their own best interest?
Were you acquainted with this Mother Ioanna before, in Russia? She has been living here for many years in a convent on a special basis because she paints icons. I don’t know much about icon painting, but there is something quite enchanting about it as an occupation. She has a little table or easel, I don’t know what it is called, pots with ground-up paints, and everything is so pleasing. She has almost finished one icon of Peter on the Waters. It took my breath away when I saw it. It really seems to be about me. The water is engulfing me but I cannot see the Master’s hand. My move to Orthodoxy was so rapid, and partly involuntary, but now I am gradually understanding it and see its immense warmth, through iconography also.