The monastery bells in pleasant liquid tones struck every quarter of
an hour, and at two o'clock in the morning I was awakened by a great
jangling, and the sound of steps along the stone corridors. I asked my
companions--I was sharing my room with an Armenian and a Russian--what
was the reason of the bell, and I learned that it was the call to
early prayers. We none of us got up, but I resolved to go next night
if it were possible.
Next day was one of relaxation after tramping. The Armenian went off
ten miles to a celebrated cave and a point of view, "the swallows'
nest"; he wished me to accompany him, but I had not come to Novy Afon
to find points of view or the picturesque--moreover he had come by
steamboat and was fresh, I had come on foot five hundred miles and
wanted a rest.
In the morning I looked through the workshops, chatted with a master in
the little monastery school, lounged in the orange groves and cedar
avenues. After dinner, as I sat near the pier, a monk pointed out to me
some artificial water where willows drooped, and white swans rode
gracefully under them. "You ought to come here at
_Kreschenie_--Twelfth-Night. We make of that water a little Jordan in
memory of the Jordan where the Son of God was baptized. The ponds are
all decorated with fresh-cut grass, laurel leaves, and cypress branches,
myrtle and oleander, many roses and wild flowers. Scarcely anywhere in
all Russia could there be found such flowers at that time of the year."
"Have you pilgrims then?" I asked.
"Oh yes, many. They come from all the district round about, to dip
themselves in the water after it has been made holy. We keep the
festival very solemnly. The Archimandrite comes down from the
monastery, and after him the priests, the monks, the lay brethren, the
labourers, the banners and their bearers, and the sacred Ikons. There
is a long service. Though the month is January, the weather is
often bright and warm as early summer, and the mountains look very
beautiful."
As we were thus talking, the Archimandrite, Ieronym himself, came
out of the hostelry yard and passed us, a benign old man, devout and
ancient of aspect, but kindly and wise. He is accounted a living
saint, and it may well be that after his death he will be canonised.
Novy Afon has only been in existence thirty years, and he has been
abbot all the time. The monastery has been his own idea, it has grown
with him. If Novy Afon is a fountain of life, he is the rock out of
which the fountain springs. The whole monastery and all its ways are
under his guidance, and as he wishes them to be. They are as a good
book that he has written, and better than that.
He went to a gorgeous little chapel at the base of the landing-stage,
there to hold a service in memory of the visit to New Athos of their
highnesses the late Tsar, Alexander the Third, and his queen, on that
day 1888. Presently behold the worthy abbot in his glorious robes,
cloth of gold from head to foot, and on his head, instead of the
sombre black hat of ordinary wear, a great golden crown sparkling with
diamonds and rubies. The many clergy stood about him in the little
temple, or beyond the door, for there was not room for all, with them
some hundred monks, and the multifarious populace. The service was
read in hollow, oracular tones, and every now and then a storm of
glorious bass voices broke forth in response. Evidently the Ikon of
the Virgin named _Izbavelnitsa_ was being thanked for her protection
of the Tsar in a storm. So much I could make out; and every now and
then the crowd sang thanks to the Virgin. At the end of the service
the Archimandrite, who had had his back to the people all the time--or
rather, to put it more truly, had all the time looked the same way,
_with_ the people--turned, and lifting and lowering the gold cross
which he held in his hands, gave blessing. The heads and bodies of the
worshippers bowed as the Cross pointed toward them.
The service was over. As the abbot Ieronym resumed his ordinary
attire, and left the temple, the hundred or so peasant men and women
pressed around him, and fervently kissed his little old fingers, white
and delicate. I watched the old man give his hand to them--I watched
their eagerness. Religion was proved to be Love.