XIII

I buried Kiriak under the clods of earth on the banks of a frozen river, and here it was that I learned from the savages the abominable news that my successful Zyryan baptized – I am ashamed to say it – simply by treating them to vodka. To my mind this whole business was a shameful one. I did not want to see this baptizer or hear anything more about him, but returned to the town firmly resolved to sit down in my monastery to my books, without which a monk, having idle thoughts, is utterly lost, and in the meantime I would quietly cut the hair of the ordinants, or settle the quarrels between the deacons and their wives. As for Holy Work, which, to be done in holiness cannot be done carelessly, it were better to leave it undone – so as not to offer foolishness to God.

I acted thus, and returned to the monastery, wiser for the experience, and knowing that my much suffering missionaries were good men, and I thanked God that they were so, and not different.

Now I saw clearly that good weakness is more pardonable than foolish zeal in a work where there are no means of applying intelligent zeal. That this is impossible was proved to me by a paper, I found waiting for me at the monastery, in which I was requested “to take note” that in Siberia besides the 580 Buddhist lamas, who were on the staffs of thirty four temples, a number of supernumerary lamas were permitted. What of that? I was not a Kanyushkevich or an Arseni Matsievich – I was a bishop of the new school and did not want to sit in Reval with a gag in my mouth, as Arseni sat; there was no profit in that. I “took note” of the information concerning the increase of the lamas, ordered my Zyryan to return from the desert as soon as possible, and conferring on him an epigonation – the spiritual sword – kept him in the town attached to the cathedral in the capacity of sacristan and superviser of the re-gilding of the iconostasis, but I called my own lazy missionaries together and bowing down to their girdles said:

“Pardon me, fathers and brothers, that I did not understand your goodness.”

They answered, “God will forgive.”

“I thank, you for your graciousness; be gracious from now always and everywhere, and the God of Mercy will prosper your works.”

From that time, during the remainder of my prolonged stay in Siberia, I never troubled if the quiet labours of my missionaries did not produce the spectacular results so well loved by the impatient members of fashionable religious society. While there were no such sudden effects I felt assured that the water jars were being filled one after another, but when it chanced that one or other of my missionaries produced a large number of proselytes… I must confess, I was troubled… I remembered my Zyryan, or the baptizer of the Guards Ushakov; or the Councillor Yartzev, who were still more successful because in their case as in the days of Vladimir, “piety was allied to fear,” and even before the arrival of these missionaries the natives begged to be baptized. Yes, but what was the result of all their nimbleness and piety allied with fear? The abomination of desolation was produced in the holy places, where these fleet baptizers had their fonts and… all was confusion – in the mind, in the heart, in the understanding of the people, and I, a bad bishop, could do nothing for it, and a good bishop could not have done more before – before, so to speak, we begin seriously to occupy ourselves with faith, and not merely take pride in it for pleasure’s sake like Pharisees. That, gentlemen, is the position in which we Russian baptizers find ourselves; not, as it may appear, because we do not understand Christ, but because we really understand Him and do not want His name to be blasphemed by the heathen. So I lived on, not showing tyranny with the same readiness as before, but patiently, one may almost say, lazily, stumbling under the crosses sent down to me both by Christ and not by Christ, of which the most remarkable one was that I, who began to study Buddhism with zeal, was sedulously reported by my Zyryan to be myself secretly a Buddhist. And this reputation clung to me, although I did not restrain the zeal of my Zyryan and allowed him to act according to the well tested and successful methods of Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky, which were thus proclaimed over his grave by his follower Kus’ma: “If a heathen comes, order him to be taken to the sacristy – let him look upon our true Christianity. And I allowed the Zyryan to take anybody he chose to the sacristy and display to them with care all that our people and he had collected there of “true Christianity.” All this was good and fairly efficacious: they praised our “true Christianity,” but no doubt my Zyryan found it was dull to baptize only two or three at a time – and it certainly was “dull.” Here we have a real Russian expression. Yes, gentlemen, it was dull then to struggle against the self-satisfied ignorance that tolerated the Faith only as a political means. But now, perhaps, it is even duller to struggle against the indifference of those who instead of enlightening others have as that same Matsievich very happily expressed it, “themselves hardly any faith.” Well, I suppose, you clever modern men think: “Oh! our diocesan bishops are bad! What do they do? Our bishops do nothing! Now, I do not want to defend them all; many of us have certainly become very feeble; they stumble under the crosses and fall; and not only do influential personages, but even some “popa mitratus” become authorities for them, and all this is of course, because of “What will ye give me?” Well, supposing I were to ask you: What has brought them to this? Is it not really because they, your diocesan bishops, have been converted into administrators and are unable to do anything vital now? And mark: Perhaps you owe them much gratitude for doing nothing in these times. Otherwise they might have strapped with the official thong such an unbearable load on your back, that God knows, if your back bone would not have been shattered to splinters, or the thong have been torn in two; but we are conservatives, and defend liberty as well as we can; liberty, may Christ free us thereby from such co-operation. Gentlemen, that is why we act and co-operate weakly. Do not throw up at us the former hierarchies, such as those of St. Guri and others. It is true St. Guri knew how to enlighten, but for that purpose he went into savage lands well armed with orders and powers to “attract the people with caresses, with food, with defences from the authorities, with support against the Voevods and the judges;” he was obliged to take part in the councils of the government, but your bishop of today is not even allowed to take counsel with a neighbouring bishop about the business of his diocese; in a word, he must think of nothing. There is somebody who thinks for him. All he has to do is to “take note of” what is ordered. What do you require of him, when now he can never act for himself? Lord, Thy will be done… What can be done is somehow done by itself. This I saw towards the end of my stay in Siberia. One day a missionary came to me and said that he had come upon a camp of a nomad tribe at the spot where I had buried my old Kiriak, and there on the banks of the stream, he had baptized whole crowds in the name of Kiriak’s God, as formerly a man had been baptized in the name of Justinian’s God. Near the bones of the good old Monk the good people learned to love and understand God, who had created this pious soul, and they themselves wished to serve the God who had brought into existence such spiritual beauty.

In consequence of this I ordered such a large solid oaken cross to be placed over Kiriak’s grave that even the Galician prince Vladimirko, who thought it unworthy to kiss small crosses, would not have been able to resist it; so we erected to Kiriak a cross that was twice the size of the Zyryan – and this was the last order I gave in my Siberian pastorate.

I do not know who will cut down this cross or who has already cut it down – whether it was the Buddhist lamas or the Russian officials – besides, what does it matter?

Now my tale is finished. Judge us all from what you see – I will not try to justify myself, but I will only say this: My simple Kiriak certainly understood Christ not less well than your foreign preachers, who jingle like a tinkling cymbal in your drawing-rooms and winter-gardens. Let them preach there surrounded by the wives of Lot, who, whatever words they may hear, will none of them go to Zoar, but, after shuffling about before God, while existence is dull for them, at the least change in their lives will look back at their Sodom and become columns of salt. This will be the only result of this drawing-room Christianity. What have we to do with these miracle workers? They do not want to walk on the earth, but desire to fly in the sky, and having but small wings and a large body like grasshoppers, they cannot fly far, nor can they pour the light of faith or the sweets of consolation into the fogs of our native land, where, from wooded dale to wooded dale, our Christ wanders, so blessed, so kind, and above all so patient, that He has taught even the worst of His servants to look submissively on the destruction of His work by those who ought to fear it most. We have become used to submit to everything, because this is not the first snow to fall on our heads. There was a time when “Our Book of Faith” was hidden, and a hammer of German workmanship was placed in our hands; they wanted to cut our hair, shave us and transform us into little abbés. One benefactor, Golitzin, ordered us to preach his crazy divinity; another, Protasov, shook his finger under our very noses; while a third, Chebyshev, excelled all the others and openly uttered “corrupt words” in the market place as well as in the Synod, affirming that there is no God, and to talk of Him is stupid. It is impossible to guess whom we shall meet next, and how some new cock or other may yet crow to us. The one consolation is that all these zealots of the Russian Church will not injure her, because theirs is an unequal struggle: the Church is indestructible like the apostolic edifice; the spirit will pass from these singers, and their place shall know them no more. But, gentlemen, what I think, especially tactless – is that some of these highly placed or broad-minded personages, as it is now the fashion to call them, do not notice our modesty, nor do they value it. Verily, this is ingratitude; they have no right to reproach us with being patient and quiet… If we were more impatient, God knows, many would not be sorry for it, more especially those who do not consider work, nor admit of man’s wounds, but having waxed fat, reason idly as to what they ought to begin to believe, in order to have something to reason about. Gentlemen, reverence at least the holy modesty of the Orthodox Church, and understand that she has truly maintained the spirit of Christ, if she suffers all that God wills her to suffer. Truly her humility is worthy of praise; and we must wonder at her vitality and bless God for it.

We all involuntarily answered:

“Amen.”