What struck me particularly on entering Novy Afon was the new tone in
the every day. There was less of the _barin_ and servant, officer
and soldier feeling, less noisy commandings and scoldings, even less
beating of the patient horses that have to carry such heavy loads in
Russia. Instead of these, a gentleness and graciousness, something of
that which one finds in artistic and mystic communities in Russia, in
art and in pictures, but which one seldom meets with in public life.
Here at New Athos breathes a true Christianity. It was strange how
even the undying curiosity of the Russian had been conquered; for here
I was not asked the thousand and one impertinent questions that it is
usually my lot to smile over and answer. There was even a restraint in
asking me necessary questions lest they should be difficult to answer.
Then not one of the monks possesses any property of his own, even of a
purely transitory kind, such as a bed or a suit of clothes. They have
all in common, and they have not that nicety or necessity of privacy
which would compel an Englishman to claim the right to wear the same
coat and trousers two days running. But the monks are even less
diffident of claiming their own separate mugs and plates at table, and
are unoffended by miscellaneous eating and drinking from one another's
dishes.
Every one is the servant of all--and without hypocrisy--not only in
act but in sentiment and prayer. Wherever I went I found the tone ring
true.
This fair exterior glory seems to spring from a strong inner life.
Religious life in the Holy Orthodox Church, with its many ordinances
and its extraordinary proximity to everyday life, is not allowed to be
monotonous and humdrum. Each day at New Athos is beautiful in itself,
and if a monk's life were made into a book of such days one would not
turn over two pages at once.
The day begins at midnight, when, to the occasional melancholy chime
of the cathedral bell, the brothers move to the first service of the
morning. On my second night at Afon I wakened at the prayer-bell and
joined the monks at their service. In the sky was a faint glimmer of
stars behind veiling clouds. The monastery, resplendent with marble
and silver by day, was now meek and white in the dark bosom of the
mountain, and shining like a candle. In the church which I entered
there was but one dim light. The clergy, the monks, the faces in the
ikon frames all were shadows, and from a distance came hollow shadow
music, _gul-l-l_, the murmur of the sea upon the shore. It was the
still night of the heart where the Dove yet broods over the waters and
life is only just begun. At that service a day began, a small life.
When the service was over and we returned to our rooms, morning had
advanced a small step; the stars were paler, one just made out the
contours of the shadowy crags above us.
Just a little sleep and then time to rise and wash and breakfast. The
monks in charge of the kitchen must be up some time before the rest
of us. At 8 A.M. the morning service commences, and every monk must
attend.
Then each man goes to his work, some to the carpentry sheds, others
to the unfinished buildings, to the brickworks, the basket works, the
cattle yards, the orchards and gardens, the cornfields, the laundries,
leather works, forges, etc., etc., etc.; the teachers to the schools
where the little Caucasian children are taught; the abbot to his cell,
where he receives the brothers in turn, hears any confession they may
wish to make, and gives advice in any sorrow that may have come upon
any of them. The old abbot is greatly beloved, and the monks have
children's hearts. Again in the evening the day is concluded in song
and prayer. Such is the monastery day.
* * * * *
No doubt the upkeep of this great establishment costs much; it does
not "pay"--the kingdom of God doesn't really "pay." Much money has to
be sent yearly to Novy Afon ... and yet probably not so very much. In
any case, it is all purely administered, for there are no bribe takers
at the monastery. For the rest, it must be remembered that they make
their own clothes and tools, grow their own corn and fruits, and
manufacture their own electric light. They have the means of
independence.
Such monasteries as Novy Afon are true institutions of Christianity;
they do more for the real welfare of a people than much else on which
immense sums of money are spent. It is a matter of real charity and
real hospitality both of hand and mind combined. The great monastery
sits there among the hills like some immense mother for all the rude,
rough-handed tribes that live about. In her love she sets an example.
By her open-handedness she makes her guests her own children; they
learn of her. Not only does she say with Christ her Master, "Suffer
the little children to come unto Me, for of such is the kingdom of
heaven," but she makes of all those who come to her, be they fierce of
aspect or bearded like the pard, her own children. When the night-bell
has rung and all are in their beds--the five hundred brethren, the
many lay workers, the hundreds of guests gathered from all parts of
Russia--the spirit of the monastery spreads itself out over all of
them and keeps them all warm. The whole monastery is a home, and all
those who are within are brothers and sisters.
V
Though Novy Afon is new, it is built upon an old site. There was a
Christian church there in the second and third centuries, but it was
destroyed by the Persian fire-worshippers; it was restored by the
Emperor Justinian, but destroyed once more by the Turks. So completely
did the Moslem take possession of the country that Christianity
entirely lapsed till the Russian monks sailed down there two years
before the Russo-Turkish war of 1877. Novy Afon is without Christian
traditions. It takes its stand completely in the new, and is part of
that Russian faith which has no past, but only a future. The third
century ruins of the cathedral and the Roman battlements are indeed of
great interest, and many people climb the two thousand feet high crag
to look out from the ancient watch-tower. But the attitude of the
monastery is well explained in the words of a monk:
"People come here to worship God, and we stand here as a witness of
God, to pray continually for the coming of the Kingdom, and to succour
those who come to us. It would be a sign of disrespect to our church
if people came here merely to see the ancient remains."
I for my part, being of the old though also of the new, was eager
to climb the steep stone way along which in ancient days had ridden
crusaders and mediaeval warriors. Great trees now grew through the
rent wall of the cathedral, and slender birches grew straight up in
the nave to the eternal roof which had supplanted that of time--to
heaven itself....
But alas for romance, the Russians are restoring the church, clearing
away the old stones, chopping down the trees. An ikon has been set up
within the old building, and the latter is already a place of worship.
Once more: to the eye of a monk a ruined temple is somewhat of an
insult to God. There is no fond antiquarianism; all the old Latin
inscriptions and bas-reliefs that have been found have been mortared
together at random into one wall; all the human bones that have been
unearthed, and they are many, have been thrown unceremoniously into an
open box. Even on the bare white ribs and ancient crumbling skulls,
bourgeois visitors have written their twentieth-century names. Some
ancient skeletons have been preserved in a case from pre-Mahometan
times, and under them is written:
With love, we ask you, look upon us.
We were like you; you will be like us.
The recommendation is unavailing. The bones have been picked up,
passed from hand to hand, scrawled upon, joked over. They are probably
the remains of strong warriors and early Christians, and one can
imagine with what peculiar sensations they, in their day, would have
regarded this irreverence to their bones could they but have looked
forward a thousand years or so.
It seemed to me, looking out from the watch-tower of Iver over the
diminished monastery buildings and the vast and glorious sea, on that
which must change and on that which in all ages remains ever the same,
some reverence might have been begotten for that in the past which
shows what we shall be in the future. The monks might have spared the
bones and buried them; they might have left the ruins as they were.
I am told that in a few years the work of restoration will be
completely achieved, services will be held regularly on the mountain
top, and peasant pilgrims will gladly, if patiently, climb morning and
evening up the stone way to the church, having no thoughts of any time
but that in which they are worshipping. The Russian is racially young.
He is in the morning and full of prophecy; only in the evening will
his eye linger here in the emotions of romance.
Life at the monastery is new life; it is morning there--it is indeed
only a little after the dawn. The day is as yet cool and sweet, and it
gives many promises. We can see what the morning is like if we will
journey thither.