A MONASTIC HOUSEHOLD.
My letter from his Sanctity of Archangel having been sent in to
Feofan, Archimandrite of Solovetsk, an invitation to the palace
arrives in due form by the mouth of Father Hilarion; who may be
described to the lay world as the Archimandrite's minister for secular
affairs. Father Hilarion is attended by Father John, who seems to have
taken upon himself the office of my companion-in-chief. Attiring
myself in befitting robes, we pass through the Sacred Gates, and after
pausing for a moment to glance at the models of Peter's yacht and
frigate, there laid up, and to notice some ancient frescoes which line
the passage, we mount a flight of steps, and find ourselves standing
at the Archimandrite's door.
The chief of this monastery is a great man; one of the greatest men in
the Russian Church; higher, as some folks say, than many a man who
calls himself bishop, and even metropolite. Since the days of Peter
the Great, the monastery of Solovetsk has been an independent
spiritual power; owning no master in the Church, and answering to no
authority save that of the Holy Governing Synod.
Like an archbishop, the Archimandrite of Solovetsk has the right to
bless his congregation by waving three tapers in his right hand over
two tapers in his left. He lives in a palace; he receives four
thousand rubles a year in money; and the cost of his house, his table,
his vestments, and his boats, comes out of the monastic fund. He has a
garden, a vineyard, and a country-house; and his choice of a cell in
the sunniest nooks of these sacred isles. His personal rank is that of
a prince, with a dignity which no secular rank can give; since he
reigns alike over the bodies and the souls of men.
Dressed in his cowl and frock, on which hangs a splendid sapphire
cross, Feofan, a small, slight man--with the ascetic face, the
womanlike curls, and vanishing figure, which you note in nearly all
these celibate priests--advances to meet us near the door, and after
blessing Father John, and shaking me by the hand, he leads us to an
inner room, hung with choice prints, and warmed by carpets and rugs,
where he places me on the sofa by his side, while the two fathers
stand apart, in respectful attitude, as though they were in church.
"You are not English?" he inquires, in a tender tone, just marked by a
touch--a very light touch--of humor.
"Yes, English, certainly."
A turn of his eye, made slowly, and by design, directs my attention to
his finger, which reclines on an object hardly to have been expected
on an Archimandrite's table; an iron shell! The Tower-mark proves that
it must have been fired from an English gun. A faint smile flits
across the Archimandrite's face. There it stands; an English shell,
unburst; the stopper drawn; and two plugs near it on a tray. That
missile, it is clear, must have fallen into some soft bed of sand or
peat.
"You are the first pilgrim who ever came from your country to
Solovetsk," says Feofan, smiling. "One man came before you in a
steamship; he was an engineer--one Anderson; you know him, maybe? No!
He was a good man--he minded his engines well; but he could not live
on fish and quass--he asked for beef and beer; and when we told him we
had none to give him, he went away. No other English ever came."
He passes on to talk of the Holy Sepulchre and the Russian convent
near the Jaffa Gate.
"You are welcome to Solovetsk," he says at parting; "see what you wish
to see, go where you wish to go, and come to me when you like."
Nothing could be sweeter than his voice, nothing softer than his
smile, as he spake these words; and seeing the twinkle in his eye, as
we stand near the English shell, I also smile and add: "On the
mantel-piece of my writing-room in London there lies just such another
shell, a trifle thinner in the girth."
"Yes?" he asks, a little curious--for a monk.
"My shell has the Russian mark; it was fired from Sebastopol, and
picked up by a friend of my own in his trench before the Russian
lines."
Feofan laughs, so far as an Archimandrite ever laughs--in the eyes and
about the mouth. From this hour his house and household are at my
disposal--his boat, his carriage, and his driver; every thing is done
to make my residence in the convent pleasant; and every night my host
is good enough to receive from his officers a full report of what I
have seen and what I have said during the day!
Three hundred monks of all classes reside on the Holy Isle. The chief
is, of course, the Archimandrite; next to him come forty monks, who
are also popes; then come seventy or eighty monks who wear the hood
and have taken the final vows; after these orders come the postulants,
acolytes, singers, servants. Lodgers, scholars, and hired laymen fall
into a second class.
These brethren are of all ages and conditions, from the pretty child
who serves at table to the decrepit father who can not leave his cell;
from the monk of noble birth and ample fortune to the brother who
landed on these islands as a tramp. They wear the same habit, eat at
the same board, listen to the same chants, and live the same life.
Each brother has his separate cell, in which he sleeps and works; but
every one, unless infirm with years and sickness, must appear in
chapel at the hour of prayer, in refectory at the hour of meals. Hood
and gown, made of the same serge, and cut in the same style, must be
worn by all, excepting only by the priest who reads the service for
the day. They suffer their beards and locks to grow, and spend much
time in combing and smoothing these abundant growths. A flowing beard
is the pride of monks and men; but while the beard is coming, a young
fellow combs and parts his hair with all the coquetry of a girl. When
looking at a bevy of boys in a church, their heads uncovered, their
locks, shed down the centre, hanging about their shoulders, you might
easily mistake them for singers of the sweeter sex.
Not many of these fathers could be truly described as ordinary men. A
few are pure fanatics, who fear to lose their souls; still more are
men with a natural calling for religious life. A goodly list are
prisoners of the church, sent up from convents in the south and west.
These last are the salt and wine of Solovetsk; the men who keep it
sweet and make it strong. The offense for which they suffer is too
much zeal: a learned and critical spirit, a disposition to find fault,
a craving for reform, a wish to fall back on the purity of ancient
times. For such disorders of the mind an ordinary monk has no
compassion; and a journey to the desert of Solovetsk is thought to be
for such diseases the only cure.
An Archimandrite, appointed to his office by the Holy Governing Synod,
must be a man of learning and ability, able to instruct his brethren
and to rule his house. He is expected to burn like a shining light, to
fast very often, to pray very much, to rise very early, and to live
like a saint. The brethren keep an eye upon their chief. If he is hard
with himself he may be hard with them; but woe to him if he is weak in
the flesh--if he wears fine linen about his throat, if savory dishes
steam upon his board, if the riumka--that tiny glass out of which
whisky is drunk--goes often to his lips. In every monk about his
chamber he finds a critic; in nearly every one he fears a spy. It is
not easy to satisfy them all. One father wishes for a sterner life,
another thinks the discipline too strict. By every post some letters
of complaint go out, and every member of the Holy Governing Synod may
be told in secret of the Archimandrite's sins. If he fails to win his
critics, the appeals against his rule increase in number and in
boldness, till at length inquiry is begun, bad feeling is provoked on
every side, and the offending chieftain is promoted--for the sake of
peace--to some other place.
The Archimandrite of Solovetsk has the assistance of three great
officers, who may be called his manager, his treasurer, and his
custodian; officers who must be not only monks but popes.
Father Hilarion is the manager, with the duty of conducting the more
worldly business of his convent. It is he who lodges the guests when
they arrive, who looks after the ships and docks, who employs the
laborers and conducts the farms, who sends out smacks to fish, who
deals with skippers, who buys and sells stores, who keeps the
workshops in order, and who regulates the coming and going of the
pilgrim's boat. It is he who keeps church and tomb in repair, who sees
that the fathers are warmly clad, who takes charge of the buildings
and furniture, who superintends the kitchen, who keeps an eye on
corridor and yard, who orders books and prints, who manages the
painting-room and the photographer's office, who inspects the cells,
and provides that every one has a bench, a press, a looking-glass, and
a comb.
Father Michael is the treasurer, with the duty of receiving all gifts
and paying all accounts. The income of the monastery is derived from
two sources: from the sale of what is made in the monkish workshops,
and from the gifts of pilgrims and of those who send offerings by
pilgrims. No one can learn how much they receive from either source;
for the receiving-boxes are placed in corners, and the contributor is
encouraged to conceal from his left hand what his right hand drops in.
Forty thousand rubles a year has been mentioned to me as the sum
received in gifts; but five thousand pounds must be far below the
amount of money passing in a year under Father Michael's eye. It is
probably eight or ten. The charities of these monks are bounded only
by the power of the people to come near them; and in the harder class
of winters the peasants and fishermen push through the floes of ice
from beyond Orloff Cape and Kandalax Bay in search of a basket of
convent bread. These folks are always fed when they arrive, are always
supplied with loaves when they depart. The schools, too, cost no
little; for the monks receive all boys who come to them--sent as they
hold, by the Father whom they serve.
Father Alexander is the custodian, with the duty of keeping the
monastic wardrobe, together with the ritual books, the charters and
papers, the jewels and the altar plate. His office is in the sacristy,
with the treasures of which he is perfectly familiar, from the letter,
in Cyrilian character and Slavonic phrase, by which Marfa of Novgorod
gave this islet to the monks, down to that pious reliquary in which
are kept some fragments of English shells; kept with as much
veneration as bones of saints and chips from the genuine cross!