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..."