TRIFON, THE FOUNDER OF THE MONASTERY.
Not many persons are acquainted with the fact that in Finmark, far away
to the North, and on the very shores of the Arctic Ocean, there once
stood a large monastery, which was famed, in its day, throughout the
Greek Church for its sanctity, its wealth, and its industry.
That monastery was the most northerly one on the globe. It was situated
on the seventieth degree of latitude, not far from the mouth of the
Petschenga River, and immediately to the east of the present boundary
between Norwegian Lapland and Russia. The districts of Neiden, Pasvig
and Petschenga (or Peisen) formed, as is well known, a debateable
territory, on which both Norwegians and Russians levied taxes.
At the present time the monastery of Solowetski, which stands on an
island in the White Sea, is the most northerly in the world, as the
monastery of Petschenga no longer exists. There are not even any
remains or ruins of its numerous buildings or of its handsome churches
to be found. All are gone; they are either overgrown, or buried, or
removed, and have entirely disappeared. Trees which are a hundred years
old have grown up on the site. Traditions concerning it still exist
among the older folk of the country, and vague, romantic, and wonderful
tales are told about the monks, their wealth, their shipbuilding, their
whale fishery, and their commerce with foreign lands.
The founder of the monastery was known as Trifon, and his name is
celebrated to-day throughout the Greek Church. He is still regarded as
a great saint, and is reverenced and invoked as such. But Trifon was
not always a saint. Tradition relates that in his youth he was a wild
freebooter, ‘a valiant warrior against a foe.’ He used to haunt the
frontiers of Finland and Karelen with a band of outlawed comrades, and
there ‘he plundered numbers of people, set fire to dwellings, and spilt
much blood.’ It is evident that he was the captain of a band of
brigands. It will be interesting to inquire how he came to be a saint,
and who was the means of his conversion.
Traditions has it that during his wild career as captain of the
brigands, Trifon was always accompanied by a beautiful young woman.
Sometimes she dressed as a man, and followed him on horseback. But
whether she was his lawful wife or his mistress, no one seemed to know.
Her name was Ellen, and she is said to have been of noble parentage,
and to have belonged to a Russian family of distinction; whereas
Trifon, on the other hand, was of humble origin, the son of a poor
priest at Torschok, in the department of Tver. He had been a teacher on
her father’s estate, and what is constantly happening still, occurred
in this instance—the daughter of the house fell in love with the tutor,
and ran away with him, following him about in his unlawful and
desperate career. Her gentle nature, by its influence over Trifon,
often saved innocent persons, and curbed his fierce passions.
On one occasion she wished to save a young man from death who had, for
some time, been in Trifon’s service. He had been brought to Trifon in
bonds by his comrades, who charged him with meditating treason. There
was no doubt of his intended guilt, and he was condemned to death. But
just as Trifon was in the act of striking the death-blow Ellen threw
herself in front of him so as to shield the young man. Trifon’s
jealousy was so inflamed at this, and he was so maddened at her
conduct, and with the strong drink which he had too freely taken, that
he struck such a desperate blow at his beloved one as to cleave open
her beautiful pale brow, and she fell forward, with her outstretched
arms covered with blood, and soon lay dead at his feet. Trifon,
appalled at what he had done, drew back a little, and gazed
speechlessly at her, while his companions also stood terror-stricken
around him. Then he threw aside the blood-stained sword, clasped his
hands before his face, and threw himself with a wild shriek of despair
on the dead body.
After a time he raised himself up, and found that he was alone; but he
was a changed man. He at once left the band of brigands and sought for
solitude, hiding himself away from the haunts of men in lonely forests
and desolate places. For a long time he would not look another person
in the face, for there was constantly before his eyes, whether he was
sleeping or waking, the vision of Ellen with her blood-stained, cloven
brow. He had loved the woman, who, though rich and of good birth, had
forsaken all on his account. Compunction and remorse so preyed upon him
that he appeared like a living corpse. And the more his body wasted
away, the wilder became his illusions and dreams.
One night he dreamt that Ellen was standing in the broad daylight,
alive, before him, with the gaping wound in her brow, from which the
blood, drop by drop, was trickling down her face, and she seemed to say
distinctly to him:
‘Trifon, Trifon! you will never have peace or repose, either in life or
in death, until you do penance. Do penance! Do penance!’
‘What am I to do?’ Trifon inquired
‘You are to go to a barren and inaccessible land, and preach the Gospel
to the poor,’ she replied.
From that time he began to undergo further and greater hardships. He
took a vow that he would never more taste ‘any drink brewed from hops,’
neither eat any flesh meat, but ‘subsist only on fish and the kindly
fruits of the earth.’ He girded his loins with a common thong, in place
of the costly sword-belt which he had before worn, and he never
afterwards wore any linen next his skin.
Then he began his wanderings northwards, towards the unknown shores of
the Arctic Ocean. He went further and further, and on and on, until at
last he reached the sea-shore and could get no further. There he found
people who were living in heathenism, ‘worshipping images, serpents,
and creeping things.’ There, in the year 1524, he built a hut on the
shore of the Petschenga River, about a mile from the head of Munkfjord.
He lived on this spot for some years without mixing with other people,
subsisting only on the ‘fish which he caught himself, and on the roots
and fruits which he found in the wood.’ The fame of this hermit, who
was living in a wretched hut in this remote place by the Arctic Ocean,
and of the saintly life of renunciation which he was leading, gradually
spread southwards, and pilgrims began to flock to the place to see him
and his wretched dwelling. Then he built himself a small chapel. He cut
down the timber himself in the woods at Peisen, and carried it on his
shoulders to the site. In this chapel he hung up pictures of the saints
which he had brought with him, as well as a picture of Ellen, with her
blood-stained brow, which he had painted himself. From that time
forward more people came, and began to give their money to Trifon in
large sums. There was something mysterious and beyond the Christian
comprehension in this temple, or house of God, standing so far North,
and in unknown regions which, according to the general belief, lay one
half of the year in total darkness, or had night at high noon, and
during the other half of the year had noonday light at midnight.
The most zealous of the pilgrims who went to the monastery at
Solowetski sometimes extended their wanderings as far as the chapel at
Petschenga, and made there, at the altar in the church, their pious
offerings, crossing themselves, and beseeching and praying God for
remission of their own sins and the sins of others. Before they
departed they used to gather wild-flowers in the fields, as memorials
of their pilgrimage, and these they would take home, and preserve as
precious relics.
The inhabitants of the district also came to see Trifon and the chapel,
and he began to interest himself in the heathen Lapps, and to instruct
them in the Christian religion. But for a long time they would not
listen to his preaching. Their wise men and sorcerers very violently
opposed him. ‘They pulled him by the hair, threw him on the ground, and
threatened to kill him if he did not leave their country. They often
contemplated putting their threats into execution, but the Lord
protected him.’ When Trifon went to them, and visited them in their
huts, they would scarcely give him a night’s shelter. They mixed dirt
and filth in the wretched food he obtained, and tormented him in all
sorts of ways. But, as a true Christian, he did not grow weary of being
‘long-suffering and of great kindness. He bore all things, believed all
things, hoped all things, and endured all things,’ and in the end they
came to esteem, honour, and love him, and listened to his preaching. He
could not, however, baptize them into the Christian faith, as he was
not yet ordained to the priesthood.
The Russian fishermen also, who sojourned during the summer in that
district, attended the chapel and took part in the services. They made
voluntary oblations and gifts, and by this means still more money
reached Trifon’s hands. He now realized that something more had to be
done, and that he must have assistants for his work. It became
necessary for him to enter into communication with the outside world,
from which he had been for so many years voluntarily separated.
Accordingly, about the year 1530, he undertook a journey to Novgorod,
where he obtained from Archbishop Macarius a letter of commendation, or
indulgence, for the erection of the church at the Petschenga River. He
immediately returned, but this time he was not to be alone. He took
with him builders, and with their assistance he erected a handsome
wooden church beside the Petschenga River, but much nearer to the
fjord, only about a quarter of a mile from the place where the river
empties itself into the fjord.
For a couple of years this church remained unconsecrated, but in 1532
Trifon made a tour through the district of Kola, whose chief town,
Kola, was not built until 1582. In that district, in the year 1529 (or,
according to other authorities, in 1475), by the mouth of the Kola
River, a church and monastery had been erected by the Solowetski monk,
Theodorit, and at this monastery Trifon met with a certain Bishop
Ilija. He persuaded the latter to accompany him back to Petschenga to
consecrate the church. This was done, and it was dedicated to the Holy
Troitsa, or Holy Trinity. At the same time Ilija invested the builder
of the church with the monastic habit, giving him the name of Trifon,
and ordaining him priest. It is probable that before becoming a monk,
and during his wild career as a brigand captain, he had borne some
other name, but no record of it is to be found. During the same visit
Ilija baptized all the Lapps whom Trifon had instructed in the
Christian faith.
In this way was laid the foundation of the monastery, which was
afterwards built beside the church. Trifon’s fame for sanctity soon
caused both monks and lay people to come, and request permission to
settle there. When they had increased in numbers, they elected from
among themselves a venerable old monk, Gurij, who had travelled to
Petschenga on foot, to be their Superior.
At first the monks were very poor, and had great difficulty in
supporting themselves. They had not as yet any ecclesiastical rights,
but were wholly dependent on the charitable offerings of the poor
inhabitants of the district, and the gifts of the pilgrims who visited
them. Trifon therefore decided to make another journey into Russia, and
this time not merely to visit Novgorod, but to get as far as the
capital, Moscow, in order that he might personally present a petition
to the Czar. The ruler at that time was Ivan Wasilievitsch, whom
history has branded as the Cruel or Terrible, and apparently not
without sufficient reason. It is related of him that ‘when he was a boy
of twelve years of age, he began to put animals to death by throwing
them downstairs or out of the windows; and in his fifteenth year he
carried on the same sport with human beings.’ Sergius Koubasov says of
him that ‘he was tall and ugly, with a long flat nose and gray eyes,
thin, but broad-shouldered.’ As Czar he burnt and destroyed Novgorod,
and caused twenty-seven thousand people in the town and its suburbs to
be killed. Eventually, in a passion, he killed his eldest son, Ivan,
with an iron bar, because on one occasion he complained that his father
had been very cruel to his wife (although she was enceinte), solely
because she was wearing a dress which he did not like, and he had
struck her so violently that she was confined of a still-born child.
But at times this tyrant indulged in fits of piety. He then retired to
Alexandra Sloboda, a fortified village in the neighbourhood of Moscow,
and conducted religious services, for which he dressed all his
courtiers in cassocks and monastic habits, and then officiated as
Prior.
One day, as he was going in solemn procession to church with his second
son, the pious Prince Theodore Ivanovitsch, in order to hear Mass,
there stood outside the church door a venerable-looking monk with a
long white beard, who was clad in a shabby old habit. The Czar started
at the sight of him, and stopped. The monk crossed himself, bowed low
to the Czar, and then, kneeling down, presented him with a paper or
petition. The Czar ascertained from the bystanders that this was a holy
monk named Trifon, who had built the most northerly church in his
realms. He accepted the petition, and entered the church. There both he
and his son read it, and the pious Theodore was so much touched by it,
that he went into the sacristy and divested himself of his costly
cloak, which he sent out to the poor monk, and offered it to him as a
gift. The Court attendants could not be behind-hand in their gifts. The
Czar was on this occasion accompanied by princes and boyars, among
others by Vjæsemski, Nikita, Boris Gudunov (to whose sister, Irene
Gudunov, Theodore was married), Morosov, Theodore Basmanov, Gregon,
Skourlatov (his executioner, who was known as Malijuta), and others.
All of these bestowed valuable gifts of gold and silver on Trifon, so
that in a very short time, from being a poor pilgrim, he became a rich
man.
The next day he was summoned to the palace, to an audience with Ivan
the Cruel. The latter was anxious to hear from Trifon an account of
those Northern regions in which he lived and laboured. Trifon spoke in
glowing terms of his life in those parts, with the light summer nights
and the dark wintry days. He told the Czar of the heathen people who
lived there, the wealth of fish, both in the fjords and in the rivers,
the enormous whales in the vast Arctic Ocean, the virgin forests, the
herds of reindeer, and, above all, the need there was that the Russian
Church should erect places of worship and monasteries, and thus, in a
way, put the stamp of the Russian kingdom on those lands, and so take
them into the Czar’s possession, seeing that Denmark was laying some
claim to them. This had its effect, for Ivan, who after the fire of
Moscow was in one of his fits of piety, was now entirely controlled by
the priests Sylvester and Alexis Adasjev, and on their advice issued a
deed of gift to the holy Trifon on November 22, 7065 (1556). This deed
of gift has been preserved, and it runs as follows:
‘According to the intercession of our sons, the Princes Ivan
Ivanovitsch and Theodore Ivanovitsch, we have granted unto Gurij, the
Superintendent of the monastery of the Holy Trinity at Petschenga,
together with the convent of the same; and do also grant to every
Superintendent and convent of that monastery, because of their poverty,
and in place of clerical dues, and revenue from the saying of Masses,
the Mototsk (Mutkafjord), Litsk (Litzafjord), Ursk (Orafjord), Pasrensk
(Pasvig), and Navda (Neidenfjord), as hereditable property. In like
manner also the entire fishery, and wreckage as well—for example, that
which the sea casts up on the land—whales and walruses, or any other
sea-creatures, together with the foreshore, the land, all the islands,
rivers, and smaller streams. Similarly all the forests, meadows,
hunting-grounds, as well as the Lapps, who, moreover, at the
before-named Mototsk and Petschenga fjords are bound to pay tax to us;
and also all the pasture-land belonging to them, and all royalties
which appertain to the Czar and the Grand-Duke, with all levying and
collecting thereof. All of which is to serve the monks for the
sustentation and erection of a monastery. And be it known that our
Boyars of Novgorod and Dvina, and all the inhabitants on the coast, as
well as the Karelen folk and the Lapps, and all others whom it may
concern, have no right to acquire property, either in rivers, or
jetsam, or fish, or any other thing.’ [2]
By this means the foundation of the power and prosperity of the
monastery was laid. By virtue of this deed of gift the monks obtained
even greater rights over those parts than the people of Bergen obtained
over Finmark about the same period (1562), and in the worst days of the
tyranny of monopolies. The entire population was by this deed virtually
sold to the monks, almost as if they were slaves, so that the monks
could levy taxes and tithes as they thought fit.
Every year more and more monks and lay-brothers came to the monastery.
Larger buildings were erected for them, and also a hospice for guests
and pilgrims. Only thirty or forty years had passed since Trifon had
come to Petschenga as a poor hermit, and in the year 1565 there were
twenty monks and thirty serving-men.
At this time a large amount of money from shipping dues came to the
monastery. It is related in one place that a number of persons came
from Cholmogor and Sergopolis with goods, which they bestowed on the
monastery for its adornment and for the conversion of the Lapps. About
this time Trifon built a new church at the mouth of the Petschenga
River, or (according to other accounts) on an island at the lower part
of the fjord. This church was called St. Mary’s Church. Thither at
times Trifon retired and lived as a hermit, and performed Divine
service. Close to the church, or near the spot where it stood, a small
river discharges itself into the fjord; this is called Trifon’s River.
It obtained its name because Trifon used to fish in it when he resided
there as a hermit.
At this time he undertook the building of a chapel by the river Pasvig
in honour of the saintly and pious princes, Boris and Gleb. This chapel
is, as is well known, still standing in South Varanger; it was
consecrated, according to the inscription on the cross, by the priest
Hilarion on June 24, 1565. Finally, Trifon undertook the erection of a
little chapel by the Neiden River as a sign that this district had also
been bestowed on the monastery by the Czar, and that it belonged to the
Russian kingdom. Nothing was, however, done on the part of Denmark in
the matter of its claim, no effort was made to secure the districts for
that country, though Denmark had undoubtedly a better right to them
than the Czar.
Trifon died on December 15, 1583. He was probably born in 1500, or a
year or two later. At any rate, he lived to a good old age. His
birthday was probably February 1, as both that day, and December 15,
were in after-times observed as festivals in his memory. He was buried,
according to his will, in St. Mary’s Church, but at a later period his
body was translated to the church which still exists, about a mile
further from the sea, and which is called Trifon’s Church. The cross
over his grave is now just outside the church door. This cross is a
very tall one, and is esteemed so holy and so miraculous, that when the
church was struck by lightning on one occasion and set on fire, the
fire put itself out as soon as it had burnt down to the level of the
cross.
When Trifon was nearing his end and felt death to be approaching, he
sent for old Gurij in order to receive the Sacrament. When he had
received it, he raised his feeble hand and pointed to the picture of
Ellen which he had hung by his bed.
‘You see that red blood,’ he whispered, ‘which is dropping down over
that woman’s brow? That is patent to everybody’s eyes, but nobody has
seen the tears of my heart. Those colourless tears have for fifty years
dropped like burning resin on my sinful soul, and have tormented and
crushed it night and day to my last breath.’
‘Trifon, thou art dying! The Lord have mercy upon thee!’ prayed the old
Gurij, as he knelt by the bedside.
‘Ellen!’ muttered Trifon once more, and died with a smile upon his
face. He saw her beatified, and she received him.
Tradition gives another incident which is related as occurring after
Trifon’s death. While the Czar and the Grand-Duke Theodore (who came to
the throne after his father in 1590) were carrying on a war in Esthonia
against the Swedes, under Karl Horn, in 1584, the Czar had fixed his
camp during the siege of the town at Rugodew, or Ivangorod, and had
deposited his baggage and pitched his tent not far from the town. The
crafty Esthonians, however, unperceived, directed all their cannons
against the baggage and the tent. While the Czar, wearied with the
fatigue of battle, was resting in his tent, a venerable monk appeared
before him, and said:
‘Czar, arise and leave thy tent, that thou mayest not suffer death
before thy time.’
The Czar inquired, ‘Who art thou?’
The monk answered: ‘I am Trifon, on whom thou didst confer thy mantle
as an alms to set others a good example. Therefore saith the Lord my
God to thee, Tarry not, arise from this place.’
The Czar got up at once and left the tent. The Esthonians immediately
began firing at the baggage and tent with their well-aimed cannon, and
a cannon-ball which hit the tent fell on the bed where the Czar had
been reclining.
The Czar then stormed Narva, but was driven back. To save the city and
to escape a fresh storming of it, Ivangorod was delivered to the
Russians by Karl Horn, and Theodore made his entry into the town ‘clad
in white cloth of gold, and drawn by his soldiers in a large sledge,
under which a stove was arranged for warmth.’ The Czar praised God and
rejoiced over his deliverance. He related the episode with the monk to
his boyars, and sent messengers to the monastery at Petschenga to seek
for Trifon. But the old man had already departed to the habitations of
eternal life, and the monastery lay in ruin.