A PRIEST'S MYSTERY
Prepared by Tatyana Shvetsova
Code: Select all
"A Priest's Mystery" is a true story and we believe it needs no comment.
Father John was held in universal and sincere respect in the town where he was a parish priest and religious instructor. He combined the humbleness of a servant of God and the dignity of a Christian pastor. He was meek and mild in everyday affairs, while zealous in everything that concerned his priestly ministry. He loved his church dearly, spared no pains to adorn it, and always entered it with joy and reverence.
Father John's wife was a kind and respectable woman who kept house in perfect order and comfortably off without being fussy. When her husband came back home from church or school, she would come out to meet him with their two small sons and receive his priestly blessing.
The lamp of God's grace was burning over Father John for a long time, but suddenly it went out. And Father John sank into the darkness of misery and suffering... This is what happened.
One winter night the rumor spread around the town that a landowner by name of Ivanov was murdered. This landowner had a servant notorious for his carelessness. At the night of the murder, this servant, without asking his master's permission, went to the inn, thinking as usual that it will go off all right at home even without him. He came back after two hour's absence, ready to fend off every possible reproach or accusation. It was with audacity therefore that he entered his master's study to take his orders. But what he saw there horrified him to death.
Landowner Ivanov was lying on the floor in a pool of blood, his throat cut. His initial shock gone, the servant hastened to the police to inform them about the accident. Immediately a policeman came to the scene. He examined the body and the traces of blood around it and interrogated the servant. It turned out that at the time when the servant was going out for his walk a priest, the well-known Father John, was seen approaching the house. The policeman rushed away to talk to him. He entered the hall unnoticed by anybody to come upon something that was apparently connected with the murder. In the hall there hung the priest's winter coat with its fur lining turned inside out and a knife stained with fresh blood sticking out of its inner pocket. The light-colored fur bore the marks of bloody hands obviously wiped up on the fur.
When the policeman entered the hall, he was met by the priest himself who gave him a warm, though somewhat confused, welcome.
"Tell me, Father John, did you come to landowner Ivanov's place today?" the policeman asked.
"Yes, I did!" answered Father John.
"Do you know what happened to Ivanov after your visit?" the policemen went on.
"Yes... I know... N-no, I don's know..." muttered Father John looking somewhat confused.
"Please, believe me, Father John, I think high of your well-known virtue and it's only my duty that makes me interrogate you. But I hope your answer will repel any suspicion."
"Do your duty," Father John replied.
I would like to ask you whose coat is hanging in your hall?.. Yours, of course?.. If it is yours, then how comes that it has bloody stains and a blood-stained knife in its pocket?
"What? It is not possible!" Father John cried out terrified.
With these words the priest sprang to his feet to run out to the hall. But the policeman checked him, took a candle and calmly walked forward. In the hall he pointed to all he had noticed and asked the priest:
"How do you explain all this?"
Father John said utterly overwhelmed: "Yet Thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me." [Job 9:31]
The policeman made an on-spot statement of all he had found and heard from Father John and moved away.
The following day the town talked about Father John being accused of Ivanov's murder. His faithful admirers refused to believe it. Others were surprised to see how such a crime could find its way to such a good soul or how long the priest managed to conceal his criminal inclinations under the cover of pretense and hypocrisy.
Father John spent most of the night standing and praying. Towards morning when he finally went to sleep a knock at the door awakened him. He got up and opened the door. Standing before him was his wife, downcast and tear-stricken. She started to plead with him to tell her what happened to him the day before. With a quick motion he pushed his crying wife aside and turned away from her.
"Don't ask me! Don't you dare ask me about that!"
"How can I not ask you about that?!" she exclaimed. "I have been your loving wife for so many years! I was happy to serve you... And all of a sudden I hear the whole town accusing you of murder! How can I not know whether you are guilty or innocent? I am the mother of your children. When they will grow up they will ask me if their father was a criminal or not. What I am to answer?"
"Tell my children when they grow up that their father was an honest man, that he never defiled his hands by any unjust acquisition, let alone human blood," replied the priest
"You mean you can vindicate yourself from the accusations cast on you, you can explain the circumstances making you suspect?"
"No, I cannot, I should not explain, I cannot vindicate myself," Father John said in response. "The Lord whom I serve as an unswerving servant has sealed my mouth. He has prohibited my tongue from speaking and He Himself has accused me. How can I oppose Him, and if I do I may lose the last hope to be justified by Him..."
On that day. Father John as a person under investigation was put under house arrest and was deprived of an opportunity to come out of the house or leave the town.
His wife's inconsolable grief and the cries of his small children who cried after their mother shook Father John.
On the third day after that unfortunate night, he summoned his wife to his study and said to her:
"Go to the bishop at once and ask him to take compassion on our children. Give him this letter, to his own hands only. There is nobody except you to do this for me. In it lies a mystery which I can disclose in part only to the archpastor. I conjure you by God not to yield to curiosity and to keep both the letter and the reply sealed."
It was only two days later that Father John's wife managed to get to the county center where the bishop lived. He received her. First he read the letter she handed over to him, then heard a plea she made with tears for herself and her children.
His clear look of an ascetic clouded and tears welled up in his eyes in response. He withdrew to inner rooms to write a reply to Father John. In a few minutes he came back and gave a sealed envelope to his visitor. In doing so, he said to her a few words of encouragement if it had come to the worst and, giving her his blessing, gave her this instruction:
"Show firmness in temptation. Prove that you are worthy of being wife to a priest."
When Father John opened the envelope with the bishop's reply, his hands were trembling. He discovered in it his own letter with this resolution of the archpastor:
"My Dear Father John, do not let the fate of your family disturb you. I will share even my last with them. As for you. our Divine Chief-Pastor Jesus Christ is giving you the crown of martyrdom for God. Do accept this gift with joy as a guarantee of eternal life and glory. I am rejoicing in the fact that the Lord has given you not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer as He did."
This answer did not hold any good promise for Father John's case, but strengthened him in faith and commitment to the will of God. He endured his misfortunes with tenacity ever since, though, as we will see, to a certain limit.
One day a cart with two soldiers stopped at his house. The soldiers were to take Father John to a prison which was located at the county center.
The priest, steadfast in prayer and faith as he was, calmly put on his traveling cloths, made three bows before the icons, blessed and kissed his little sons and, finally, came up to his wife. He was about to thank her for her faithfulness, for the family happiness she gave to him; he wanted to say that she would ever live in his heart, but she fell on the neck of her husband and muffled his words with her sobs. She implored him not to leave her, to tell her the secret that was hanging over them as a terrible cloud. But he said strictly and firmly:
"No! I can't. It is not my will, but God's."
With these words he carefully released himself from his wife's embrace and came out to the street where the soldiers were awaiting him. He asked them to make a stop at the parish church where he had served, and they promised to do so.
Presently the priest entered the church he had put so much effort in to bring it to perfect order. He looked at the gilded icon-screen...
"Here they are, the zealots of the faith of Christ... Hovering over them all with outstretched hands and nail-pierced palms is the Prince Himself, Jesus, Who accomplished the faith to suffer disgrace and death on the cross instead of joy due to Him. And you, unworthy servant at His table, you have not yet worked enough to shed your blood. Go now, go with patience and perform the feat you are to perform!"
Saying this to himself, Father John felt a new surge of strength and courage. He kissed the altar and the icons and came out of the church, saying to his escort:
"Now take me to where you have been ordered."
At the country center Father John was subjected to repeated interrogations. If he was asked whether he pleaded guilty to Ivanov's murder, he replied "not guilty". If he was asked who then killed Ivanov, he either kept silence or prayed, saying to himself: "O Lord, preserve me! O Lord, give me strength!"
If he was asked to explain the circumstances which seemed to establish his guilt, he would say that he could explain nothing, because the Lord had sealed his mouth.
He was convicted after all for murder to disfranchisement and hard labor in exile. "Disfranchisement" included his defrocking. The ecclesiastical consistory demanded that he should give a written undertaking not to conduct worship services, nor to give people his blessing or wear priestly cloths... Father John fulfilled everything, but that was the last drop that overfilled the cup of his suffering. The priest began to groan and wring his hands, appealing to the icon of our Savior which hung at the consistory and shouting madly:
"O Lord!.. What did I do?.. Why do You reject me lest I should perform sacraments before You?"
And with a bitter groan he fell down.
A few days later, Father John, together with other criminals, set off for his destination point. It was a hard journey. They had to walk several thousand kilometers. The work in mines to which the priest was assigned was also hard. But these hardships were nothing compared to his heavy thoughts. When he was overcome by these thoughts, he would cry out:
"Isn't God righteous? He will not reject me, for I am innocent. He will reject a hypocrite or an arrogant man who has forgotten about his trespasses. Just recall whether you were innocent when you were ordained to priesthood? When coming to the Sanctuary, were you worthy of approaching God? Standing before His throne, did not you think more of your own self? Raising your hand before Him and shedding tears, didn't you entertain the thought that you were in public eye? The Lord has not tolerated your self-esteem and self-importance. He has rejected you because in your service and teaching you sought glory not for Him but, secretly, for yourself. He has abandoned you in His righteous wrath as a worthless one. And you have suffered little yet and have not drunk up yet the cup filled with His wrath for you."
These thoughts made Father John tremble. He would hide in the farthest corner of the casemate, afraid to raise his eyes to the dark icon of our Savior, the only shrine at that sad dwelling.
Tortured by these thoughts, Father John sometimes heard in himself a weak but sweet voice of consolation:
"Yes, you were not pure before God, but His grace purified you too. His love could make you, too, His friend. Perhaps, your misfortune was not due to God's wrath, as Cain's was, but due to the Lord's love, just as Job's suffering was. Perhaps, the Lord will yet show the light of His face and reveal His mercy for you..."
But the voice of consolation was weak, while the voice of severe condemnation arose from Father John's soul strong and unyielding...
Many years thus passed. The hard labor was nearing its end, after which Father John was to stay in Siberia in permanent exile. Apparently, he himself was nearing his end.
Father John was lying up with a dangerous disease. Fever and delirium had persisted for several days. In this feverish oblivion he was acting priest. His lips uttered these words: "Do not turn Thy face away from me."
The face of the sick man sometimes reflected an anxiety. Then he whispered:
"They are coming! They are coming! Oh! They will prevent me again... They will mock again..."
In fact, one day the door of the prison hospital, where he was lying, opened to let in two officers: the chief of the prison and the commander of local troops, accompanied by the prison's doctor.
They came up to the bed on which Father John was lying and looked into his agitated and inflamed eyes. The officers asked the doctor to say what he thought about the sick man's condition. The doctor said that the disease required a careful treatment, attentive care and the patient's absolute rest. Any agitation, even joyful, may be fatal. At present the patient was unconscious.
After this statement the three men went out... Since that time the doctor came to see Father John every day. Everything that could be done to cure him was done. Thanks to these efforts, the patient survived the crisis. He came to and gradually began to recover.
When a favorable outcome of the disease was no longer questionable, the doctor came to see Father John with words which amazed and puzzled him:
"How are you. Father? My congratulations on your coming back to life. I must confess, Father John, that I was very much afraid for you."
"How can he call me Father John, what kind of father I am?" thought Father John.
"Do recover. Father John," the doctor said. "You have lived in distress, now you will live in happiness."
"I most certainly cannot be happy," replied Father John slightly smiling. "Why should I live?"
"Cheer up, Father, be merrier," the doctor said departing.
The doctor moved away, and Father John thought:
"What he has taken to call me "father" for? I know nothing about it... Oh!... I have no the strength even to think... I am so sleepy!.."
And Father John went to a peaceful and life-giving sleep.
At last the illness was past... One day he was summoned to the prison chief's office where two officers awaited him. They announced a change in his fate and read out for him a decree they had brought:
"As it has been established that Reverend John, though convicted for murder and deprived of all rights and sentenced to hard labor, did not commit any murder, but showed a valorous self-denial in his priestly service, we order that he be fully acquitted of the crime as alleged through misunderstanding and that the above-mentioned priest be restored to all rights and released... returned... rewarded..."
In addition, the officers read out a notice from his diocesan leaders stating that Father John will be restored in holy orders and the position he occupied before his conviction.
Listening to all this, Father John first could not believe his ears, thinking he was delirious again. Then he thought he misunderstood what he heard. When all the doubts were dispelled, his eyes poured out the tears of joy and thanksgiving. Exhausted from joy, he sat down and exclaimed:
"Glory to Thee, O God! Glory to Thee, O God! Glory to Thee, O God!"
Several days later Father John left the prison for his long-abandoned and cherished quarters where the happy half of his life took place... Once back again... Joyful feelings came one after another: meeting with his faithful, dearly-beloved wife and his sons, now young men, touching meetings with people in his native town, returning to his priestly service... There was not a single cloud to darken his joy...
And now we must explain to you why Father John was sentenced for the crime he did not commit.
It should be observed in retrospect that Landowner Ivanov, so cruelly murdered, was one of Father John's invariable admirers and spiritual son. On the day of his lamentable death, Ivanov felt inexplicably sad and had a premonition of disaster. Suddenly, as if by some good inspiration, Father John came to visit him. His visit made Ivanov extremely happy.
The priest and his spiritual son began a talk in which Ivanov made a confession to Father John, repented of the sins he committed in his youth and asked for the priest's prayers. The priest encouraged the sad man to have hope for God's mercy. Then he stood up and left, saying that he had tasks to do at home.
Outside, a few steps away from Ivanov's place, the priest met another of his parishioners. It was Fyodorov, also a landowner and the owner of a nearby village.
Fyodorov was obviously anxious about something. He seemed so engulfed in disturbing thoughts that he failed not only to stop to meet the priest, but also to answer his greeting.
Father John, having followed him with his eyes and noticed that he turned into Ivanov's yard, continued his walk home.
Once at home he set down to prepare the lesson he was to give on the following day at the school where he gave religious instruction. Suddenly he heard a squeak of the entrance door and somebody's steps in the hall next to his study. Father John abandoned his books, stood up and came out to the hall, carrying a candle. Standing before him was Fyodorov. He looked extremely agitated, pale like death, his eyes inflamed. In a whisper suggesting both fear and desperate determination, he said:
"Father John! I have committed a cardinal sin!"
"If you did, and your sin is lying heavy on your heart, here is an icon of our Savior before us, here is a cross and the Gospel," Father John replied. "Tell me as your spiritual pastor and father, about your fall, so that through me, an unworthy one, you can be healed by Christ Himself."
"Very well, I will tell you all, but you, Father John, you will not give me away to the police when they start investigating this case?" asked Fyodorov.
"I am a servant of God," Father John said. "What we are doing now is a sacrament taking place only among three: you, me and the Lord. After I testify before Christ that you have repented, I cannot testify to your crime before people. Both my conscience and law forbid me to do so."
Father John did not see a genuine repentance in the murderer's heart. This heart was agitated by altogether different feelings. The strongest of them was a fear of punishment. The priest therefore let Fyodorov go without giving him absolution, saying:
"You are not yet capable of receiving forgiveness from the Lord in a proper way. For the first thing you should go through a trying experience in order to realize that divine judgment is more severe than human."
After a policeman came to ask Father John if he knew what had happened to Ivanov, the priest became agitated. He was confused as to what answer to give. He could not say "I don't know" because of his characteristic veracity, while to say "I know" meant to breach the secrecy of confession.
The policeman suspected none other than Father John of Ivanov's murder. The blood stains on his fur-lined cassock and the knife concealed at its pocket - all supported the suspicion. Bound by the secrecy of confession, the priest could not say that the knife was probably left there by Fyodorov and, most probably, it was he who wiped his hands on the priest's cassock.
This unhappy coincidence of circumstances first made Father John see in it only the wrath of God that came down upon him as a punishment for some unrighteous actions.
Two or three days later he sent his wife to the county center with a letter to his bishop. He wrote in the letter that he did not disgrace himself by the evil deed of which he was accused. He could name Ivanov's murderer, but he did not dare do so as he learnt about the crime during a confession. Sending the letter, Father John nourished little hope that the bishop would show him a means of salvation. There was no such means. A priest could not save himself from trouble by violating his priestly duty. The bishop therefore blessed that Father John should suffer for other man's sin, just as Christ did.
That is why Father John refused to defend himself in court and was subjected to an undeserved punishment.
It should be said that Father John's family continued to be comfortably off throughout his years in prison. Anonymous benefactors gave a generous assistance to the priest's wife and children. Packages with large amounts of money kept coming to them by mail from unknown persons. This money was given this time to support the family, that time to help raise the children of "much-suffering and courageous Father John". These offerings from unknown donators were the best proof for the children that their father was innocent and did not deserve such suffering. Apparently, there was somebody who was aware of Father John's innocence and wished to reward his children for his agony. This also confirmed Father John's words that his wife kept repeating to their sons:
"Tell my children when they grow up that their father was an honest man, that he has never defiled his hands by any unjust acquisition, let alone human blood."
Finally, one of the higher court institutions received the following statement from landowner Fyodorov:
"I have been keeping a terrible secret deep in my heart for many years now. It is a burden that becomes heavier rather than lighter with years. I have reached the point where I can no longer conceal what I was so afraid to disclose. It was I who killed Ivanov. Moreover, I am to blame for the hard suffering of the innocent priest who was sentenced for my crime and is now languishing in captivity.
First I was not only an Ivanov's acquaintance, but also his friend. But later we had a disagreement which, because of my impatience and arrogance, grew into hostility. I believed Ivanov to be my sworn enemy with no grounds whatsoever. I insulted him without cause. To punish me Ivanov decided to bring a suit against me concerning the borders of our estates. I was told that the suit would result in my losing almost all my property. From the village where I normally lived 1 hastened to the town to incline Ivanov to drop the case.
Upon arrival at the town, I went to see Ivanov the moment I alighted from the carriage. The conclusion of our talk, however, was terrible. Instead of apologizing to my neighbor who was twice as old as I was, I accused him. Instead of asking I was demanding. Instead of trying to make amends for previous insults, I put on him new ones. All this irritated Ivanov, and he threatened me again with the suit and penalties. I flew into a rage. On the table before me there was a sharp garden knife. I immediately seized it, attacked Ivanov and cut his throat before he could cry out.
With the knife gripped spasmodically in my hand, I rushed out from the room, threw my fur-coat on and in the twinkling of the eye found myself in the street. The cold air freshened me and I recovered my reason. I looked around. The street was dark and deserted. Nobody saw me coming out of Ivanov's place. But was there anybody who saw me entering his house? The moment I thought about it I remembered that when entering Ivanov's yard I met a priest who knew me only too well. "He can become my exposer," I thought. I was terrified.
Conviction of murder, deprivation of all rights, hard labor in exile, separation from my wife and children - all this appeared so terrible then. I have to incline the priest somehow, I thought to keep silence about our meeting. I have to persuade or entreat him, or enforce silence on him in the last resort. Thinking about that, I felt that same knife in my hand. In an unbearable fear of punishment I was ready to commit another crime to conceal the first...
I rushed to the priest's house, more feeling than understanding that I had to see him and talk to him.
I was driven by the terror of punishment. As soon as I entered the priest's house, I dropped my fur-coat at the hall and stepped into a room dimly lit with icon-lamps hanging before the icons. Only now I examined myself. I saw that same knife in my hand and blood all over my hands. I returned to the hall, wiped my hands on something hanging on the rack and put the knife in the pocket of something I took for my fur-coat. Back in the hall, I told the entering priest that I had committed a cardinal sin.
At that moment I was not in the mood for repentance. There was more impertinence than grief in my confession. But Father John, after giving me edification, began saying prayers. I listened to him absent-mindedly and was impatient for an end. The only thing I was thinking of was whether the priest would expose me or not.
Finally, Father John led me up to the icon and let me speak. First of all I demanded an answer to the tormenting question whether he would keep silence about what I was going to tell him. He said he would, because I was talking to him, he said, as the spiritual father and a servant of Christ, and it was not an ordinary talk, but the sacrament of confession. Then I told him about the crime I had committed. He let me go, saying, "You will understand that divine judgment is more severe than human." Yes! Now I am fully aware of that.
That same night I left for my village. I spent several months there, fearing without end that the investigation would trace me and punishment would befall me. Finally I learnt that the priest had been convicted of Ivanov' murder on the evidence he could easily explain if he had not been so noble and had not kept the promise of silence. I could calm down after that, as human judgment apparently passed me by. But I could not calm down because I felt God's judgment approaching.
First my conscience began to speak in me. "You have dignity, freedom and wealth," it said to me, "but all this belongs to other man. You are a thief who has stolen other's happiness and honor. You have put on other man's clothes, while putting on him a prisoner's robe which belongs to you." These thoughts tortured me.
I could not be reticent with my wife and I let her into the secret that burdened me. She covered her face in her hands as if ashamed and burst into bitter tears. "I thought, she said, "you were an honest man". Some time later she died of consumption. Till her last minute she looked at me with both love and disgust, in the way a person looks at the putrid dead body of a beloved one. Some of my children soon passed away after their mother, while others did not like me and tried to avoid me. It was as it ought to be. A young soul needs light and warmth, whereas I was gloomy like prison and cold like Siberia.
So, I have become lonely. But I feel that this loneliness is not an end but only a beginning, not punishment but only a preparation for a judgment I will have to stand alone, an account I will have to give alone and a terrible retribution I will have to suffer alone.
The sacred faith gives every sinner a hope for salvation and pardon. The road to this pardon goes through repentance. But I cannot make repentance to God so long as I use the fruits of my crime. Ivanov's murder has brought me material security, while to the innocent priest it has brought disgrace and penal servitude. As long as it stays as has been so far, I do not dare appeal to the approaching Judge for mercy. In order to obtain salvation, I should first renounce the freedom I have stolen from other and to restore to him the dignity due to him.
That is why I confess to the court the crime I had committed. I ask and demand that I should be brought to trial, lest I should be deprived of human temporary punishment and the priest should be left to endure undeserved suffering."
On the basis of this declaration the long-forgotten case of Ivanov' murder was resumed. The priest was acquitted and restored to liberty, dignity and priesthood.
At the same time Fyodorov who condemned himself was to be imprisoned and subjected to a penal servitude in exile.
But the policeman who was sent to arrest Fyodorov found him in such a state that the only thing he needed was peace. Several hours earlier he was stricken with paralysis. The right half of his body was now powerless and lifeless, while in the left there was still a glimmer of life, like an ember. His lost his speech, but his consciousness and memory persisted.
A few days later he was no more.
On arrival back home Father John could only find the grave of the poor murderer. He also found out that it was none other than Fyodorov who rendered such a general financial assistance to his family.
All this gave Father John a sufficient motive to pray for Fyodorov to the end of his life, soliciting God to grant him mercy, absolution and Heavenly Kingdom. 09/22/2005 The Voice of Russia
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