The life teeming in Sergiev Posad proved socialism’s demise. Lazily, cars were filling the Red Army Prospekt. English lettering advertised shops and hotels to the foreign tourists who seemed to outnumber local residents. A McDonald’s stood on a street corner, competing for early customers with a sushi bar across.
Because the Lavra was a functioning Orthodox Christian site, a lady needed to adhere to a proper dress code in order to be permitted access. At a stall right of the entrance, Sokolov bought a traditional Russian kerchief to solve the problem. Asiyah used it to cover her head.
Sealed off by a wall measuring 1,500 metres in perimeter, the Trinity Lavra was a small island left to itself, preserving the fundamental canon intended by St. Sergius when he abandoned the distractions of the world. The entrance to the Lavra, known as the Holy Gates, was a tall archway leading through a gateway church — a tower the lower part of which was a frescoed gallery, and the upper part was a church rising over it, crested with a golden onion dome. By this design, visitors to the Lavra passed through a church via the tunnel in the middle, witnessing images of angels and saints portrayed on the curved walls.
Asiyah squeezed Sokolov’s hand, the effect not lost on her. Sokolov himself felt as if entering the gateway church outside the Lavra, and exiting it inside, surrounded by frescoes of the Holy Trinity, was similar to going through change, crossing the line that left the world behind.
Outside the gateway church, the main churches of the Lavra opened before their view, stone walkways connecting piazzas before each of them, lawns and young trees enjoying the vast open spaces in between. Cathedral of the Dormition, the Lavra’s largest church, was directly in front, a small crowd of people gathering at its entrance. It was a larger version of its namesake in the Kremlin, but it did not obscure the other churches around it. On either side of it was a narrow bell tower spearing the sky, and a tiny church of the Holy Ghost. Farther behind, Sokolov eyed the Trinity Cathedral, a 1422 stone replacement of the original wooden church built by St. Sergius, its golden dome jutting atop a low turret. To the far right was the Monastic Square, an enormous plaza that linked the low-slung buildings stretching along the Lavra’s walls, visible beyond the trees. Located centrally was the monastery itself, two storeys of it lined with windows belonging to monastic cells, the church it housed having its golden dome extending through the slanting roof. Next to it was the Lavra’s Academy, which had evolved from the Orthodox seminary established in 1742, and a separate wing for the colossal library. The other buildings constituted a tiny hospital, an administrative building, and a guesthouse where pilgrims could stay at no cost.
Sokolov’s heart thumped. Behind these great walls of white stone, his mind and soul touching the ancient Christian glory that he saw before him, he felt the confidence that he was also within touching distance of his brother. Constantine was somewhere nearby.
Asiyah followed his gaze.
“Do you think your brother could have stayed here as a monk?”
The thought, however obvious, was eerie for Sokolov to accept. Constantine becoming a monk? He was not comfortable imagining it, but after all the madness Sokolov had gone through in the last few days, the notion was not unbelievable.
“A monk. A priest. I don’t know, Asiyah. Perhaps he might have stayed in one of those rooms meant for pilgrims.”
“For more than a year?”
“With Ilia’s influence, why not? Sheltering fugitives does not go against the Lavra’s tradition, anyway. A young Peter the Great sought refuge here hiding from enemies, if I remember correctly.”
“It makes sense,” Asiyah said. “Assuming that your brother was hiding at the Lavra, he would be immune to police searches or identity checks. Not to mention that in a place as big as this, there is always the leeway to escape. A warning could be passed quickly if someone started nosing around. No one would ever hunt him down here.”
Sokolov nodded. “Let’s go. We need to find a person who knows everything about the Lavra.”
They started toward the Trinity Cathedral. Other visitors going by granted them no more than passing glances; Eugene and Asiyah fused well with the crowd. There were lonely old ladies clutching their prayer books, scornful of intruders; younger women strolling in twos and threes; men arching their heads, captivated by the lavish architecture. And the foreigners. The tourists had not yet flooded the Lavra like they would closer to midday, but Sokolov registered camera flashes and hushed voices in Arabic and Chinese, German and Italian.
All the same, Sokolov kept his check, not knowing where the danger could arrive from.
Sokolov crossed himself curtly as he opened the thick wooden door. Contrasting with the beating sunshine, the air inside the church was cool from the stone walls and reigning shadow. It carried the smell of melting wax, as candlelight highlighted the cathedral’s icons and frescoes in the semidarkness.
Most of the icons were created by the hand of Andrei Rublev, painter of the Holy Trinity, the single most famous icon in Christianity which he had created for this church, currently being preserved in a controlled environment behind bulletproof glass at the Tretyakov Gallery. Rublev himself was a mystery. Nothing was known about him, not even his appearance. Only his genius that matched eternity.
The Rublev who painted the frescoes and icons of the Trinity Cathedral had a grimmer vision than the master who created the Holy Trinity. In a country torn by gory feuds, the faces of saints were filled with more suffering.
“It’s so beautiful here,” Asiyah whispered to him. Her voice was full of reverence, her wide black eyes eager to absorb the art that inspired awe beyond the boundaries of religious denomination.
Sokolov followed her towards the iconostasis. For a few moments, neither of them wanted to say or do anything.
The longer Asiyah regarded the icons, the more stunned she became, until tears rolled down her face freely. Concerned by her reaction, Sokolov held her hand gently.
“Are you all right? Did something go wrong?”
“I don’t know what happened to me there,” she said. “But it made me feel different somehow.”
Her fingers wiped the moisture away from her cheeks.
“I…” she needed a breath. “I never thought these images could move me so much. My father always said that the Russians were heathens, worshipping their wood and paint.”
Hollow clicks on the stone floor — footsteps.
“That is not quite correct,” said a gentle voice behind them.
Sokolov turned his head sharply. A few paces behind them was a priest. Over his cassock he was wearing a bright pheloneon — a heavy cope necessary for service. He was middle-aged, his hair untouched by gray, his black beard trimmed neatly.
“We do not worship the icons,” he explained, smiling. “Even in a church, the human eye requires to rest somewhere. So is it proper for a person thinking of God to have his gaze lingering on something too earthly, like a cracked wall or an old chair? In fairness, it is better to set one’s sight on a depiction of a biblical event which reminds us of God. This is the real purpose of an icon.”