Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [127]
As soon as he was back, he called the surprised steward to his house, and also the old priest from the little church.
‘I have decided,’ he told them, ‘to make a great gift to the glory of God. I am going to found a monastery on my old land across the river.’
‘What has brought about this decision?’ the priest asked. He had not considered Milei capable of such a selfless act.
‘I had a vision,’ the boyar replied drily, though with truth.
‘The Lord be praised,’ the old man cried. Truly, how strange and secret were the ways of God.
Milei nodded, then, apparently lost in meditation, he walked out through the door of his house to look at the land he had just given away.
He returned a moment later, smiling as if with relief, and at once took the priest across the river and conducted him round the site.
And so it was, in the year 1263, that the little monastery at Russka was founded.
It was dedicated to St Peter and St Paul.
One other event of significance occurred in that year.
In order to beg the Tatar Khan to be lenient with the rebellious tax-payers of Russia, the Great Prince Alexander Nevsky had set out across the steppe to visit the Horde.
‘He is not well,’ a visiting boyar from Vladimir told Milei. ‘If the Tatars don’t kill him, the long journey may.’
‘I hope not,’ Milei answered. ‘His policy may have been unpopular with the people, but it has been wise.’
‘It will be continued,’ the other assured him. ‘But he was very distressed to go at such a time. His youngest son is only three and he wanted to see him through until he was grown.’
‘Ah, yes, Daniel is the little boy, isn’t he?’ Milei knew nothing about this child beyond his name. ‘I wonder what his inheritance will be.’
‘They say,’ the boyar from Vladimir told him, ‘that Alexander has instructed his family to give him Moscow when he is older.’
‘Moscow! That miserable town!’
‘It’s not much of a place,’ the other agreed, ‘though its position isn’t bad.’
Moscow. Milei shook his head. Whatever talents this infant prince might have, he couldn’t imagine he’d ever make much of a paltry little town like that.
The Icon
1454
At the Monastery of St Peter and St Paul, they were summoning the Monks to Vespers and though the spring evening was cold and damp, there was excitement in the air. Tomorrow was the great day: the boyar was coming; a bishop from Vladimir, too. And everyone smiled as his assistant Sebastian led the man at the centre of it all, old Father Stephen, into the church. There was only one sadness. If only Father Joseph could be there.
For many years there had been three very ancient monks at the monastery: now only these two remained. Father Stephen was short, Father Joseph tall. Stephen was revered as a maker of icons; Joseph had no skills and some thought him simple-minded. But both were very gentle, with long white beards, and they loved each other.
For thirty-three years, however, Father Joseph had lived apart. Across the river now, in a small clearing some way beyond the springs, there was a group of three huts, which formed a hermitage, or skete. In recent generations, inspired by the so-called Hesychast tradition of the famous Mount Athos Monastery in Greece, many Russian monks had drawn apart for a life of intense contemplation. Some, like the blessed Sergius of the Trinity Monastery north of Moscow, had gone deep into the forest: ‘Going into the desert’ they called it. The skete at Russka was quite cut off. To reach the monastery the hermits had to walk about a mile to the river, then call for the ferryboat kept on the opposite bank. But they came in, each day, for Vespers.
Except Father Joseph. For a year, they had had to carry the old man. Now, however, he was too weak even to be moved. Death, everyone knew, could not be far off. Yet still each day, a thousand times, he whispered the Jesus prayer: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me.’
Vespers: the start of the day. Following the ancient Jewish custom the Orthodox Church began its day at sundown. The evening psalm was sung. Throughout the Orthodox