bread crumb

cross on the top of the hill in Jordanville
©-nat

"...If not for my sad looking tent and not for the quiet lake nearby it, i would leave this otherwise very significant place..." ( letter from Jordanville)

I knew The Pilgrim well. He stayed here for a long time... Some people even stopped calling him "a pilgrim"/ He became Vladimir. Sometimes he was talking about himself. But the best was his stories about the sea. He would leave his heavy Cross, that he is carrying voluntarily, and go in his past - where storms, and salty ocean waves, and vessels were taking him all over the globe.

The Pilgrim was sleeping for a while in the little closet in the summer kitchen, while he was working there... But he didn't stay there for a long time. He was moved to the White house. From there he went to live in the green house.


greenhouse, where Pilgrim lived in Jordanville
©-nat

When winter started, he didn't listen to my call to go live in the cold, covered with snow forest, but moved to the basement of the bakery, and slept at the stove on the wooden boards. He helped us a lot - baking bread and peeling potatoes. A bird lived with him over there. She was eating bread crumbs... she left the monastery together with the pilgrim...

Pilgrims ideas about non-resistance to evil with force, about imitation of Christ and living like first Christians, did not meet much of understanding or compassion here... And one day... early in the morning he picked up his back pack and left on foot to Herkimer, to the bus stop.

Some of our Holy Fathers think that he is under some "lure" (prelest). No one is waiting for him over here. But when he comes, we are glad to see him again..."

Lev Ivanovich and Easter

I am standing in the cathedral, the service is in progress. Lev Ivanovich is coming in, dressed in his yellow robe. I wanted to hide. First thought - he is going to come and, in best case, ask something. I am growing into the church column. He passed me by.

Now he goes the other way, to the exit. Coming toward to me, saying: "I need to change my walking stick to the black one". We went to the White house. He came back from his cell in sunglasses. I wonder, what all changes in his outfit might mean?

We went to the cemetery. I was looking for the grave of Father Gerasim. Lev Ivanovich said that he surely was at the funeral. He didn't show me the grave though, and did not concentrate on my question - out of three cemeteries where the grave is? - at all.

He was in the spring mood. He recited poems (told that he wrote these poems :) Told me that his dream is to go to New Diveevo monastery, to see his mother's grave. (People, may be someone can take him there!)

He asked me if i'm married. Then, answering my question, he optimistically said: "Not yet". Offer me to marry him :) When i said that i need "to think", he recited me Krilov fable "The Monkey and the Glasses". Presentation unexpectedly ended up with "...you were singing all this time - now go dance!" (out of completely different fable).

He was very gentle and kind, in the Easter mood. I blame myself that i didn't take him for a ride to the country...


Lev Ivanovich with the Easter bread. 2005. Jordanville, NY



Lev Ivanovich at the cathedral. 2005. Jordanville



Lev Ivanovich is making sure everything is OK. Jordanville, 2005



Lev Ivanovich and the novice Alexander Chernavski. Jordanville 2005

like this in paradise

©mine-n.t.
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was driving on highway 52 today... ©.nt
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field of poppy-flowers at the highway 52 near winston-salem, NC - ©.nt
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stones

...eyes like two pond...

“strannik you are leaving my eparchy -
giving you into merciful hands of the God's Mother..."

that is how we said goodbye

i imagine that he simply went into the sea

i will be sitting here, on the shore
throwing flat pebbles in the water…