My Vocation

My Vocation 
               
There are no lowly vocations
Venedict Erofeev "Moscow-Petushki"

        The first episode. Childish Fantasies. When I was a boy of 5 (it was in summer 1963) my parents who were psychiatrists, worked in the Psychiatric Hospital near village Tumenskoe (district of Kolomna, Moscow oblast), where there was once a church of Our Lady of Kazan. At that time it was in ruins, now (2005) it started functioning again. I was staying with them. At that time I already had an experience of a sacredness of a human body (acute sense of bodily shame, which I experienced at the lake situated not far from the hospital). Also on the way back to Moscow I dreamt fully awake about my future activities. I imagined it as some keen work with wood and woodcraft instruments. At that time I didn't know anything about God or Christianity. Concerning this childish fantasies and what do they have in common with the idea of a Christian vocation, I can only say, that one can remember Jose Escriva, who wrote in "The Way", that shame is one of the younger sisters of chastity. As for the second (work with wood) one can remember about St Joseph the Protector of Our Lady.
       The second episode. A Hungarian Movie. For a long time I had no idea of serving humanity not as a member of an organization, but individually. Only once, when I was 13 (it was summer and I was staying with my grandmother in the village Maryanskaya near Krasnodar, on the Kuban') I felt that it would be great, if one could live and travel spreading the idea (Communist, Christian or other). It was all very vague. Then I saw a film  "Lion Preparing to Jump" (staged by Gyorgy Revesz, Hungarian producer, in 1968). The main idea of the film is the salvation of humanity challenged by a superterrorist. As Losev says, there are lower mystic states and higher ones. That was a low mystical experience, an explicitly erotic one also. Taken in itself, it could have led me to eternal perdition. But one shouldn't mix up vocation and chastity. Vocation comes from love, so it is a purified eros. Also I noticed that although mathematics and physics are very chaste subjects in themselves, those who study them are sometimes not very chaste. So the only way to conquer eros is to sublimate it through love.
       Now I think a lot about the role of Hungary and Hungarians in my life, starting from Gyorgy Revesz to Cardinal Mindszenty and Stanley Jaki.
       The third episode. A Pretty Girl. In September 1968 a new school year started, which was full of sorrows for me, but also started a new life within me: a life of love. Before I experienced love only towards my parents and grandparents, now it was something radically new. I think it was a reaction to beauty, which is always a gift from God. Now, when more than 45 years have passed, I can confirm, that it was a real experience of supernatural, because God is supernatural, and God revealed Himself to me in the beauty of His creation. So my first pilgrimage, I mean, the realization of my childish desire to see the house in which my beloved (a new girl, who moved with her parents from Baku, Azerbaijan and started with us the new school year) lived, was also in some way religious. I secretly took the class journal and memorized the address of a new girl. Then I took a map and carefully planned the expedition, which I kept secret from my parents.
      The fourth episode. Reading Dreiser. Next comes my stay at the Rest House in Moscow oblast with my father. It was in January 1974. Being in the Rest House, I read Theodore Dreiser "An American Tragedy" and some essays by Victor Shklovsky. I remember having vague fantasies of serving God (and even praying) in the Jewish Synagogue. By that time I visited Moscow Synagogue once. Also this experience was somehow connected with E., whom I was in love with. I think that reading "An American Tragedy" was very important for me at that time. I've just started the amorous relations with my schoolmate I., so the situation was exactly the same as described in the Dreiser's novel. The only difference is that I didn't physically killed I., but morally severely injured her (which is almost the same). What influenced me most in the Dreiser's novel is the epilogue - the inevitability of justice and punishment. It all could have happened to me, but Jesus gave me the grace to believe (not at that time, when all was just starting, but later, when the crime was already committed).
       The fifth episode. The Cathedral of Saint Vladimir. It was in Kiev on May 3, 1975. Olga, Eugenii, E. and me entered the Vladimirsky Cathedral. It was the Holy Saturday, the service hasn't yet begun. It was a miracle that we were allowed to enter, because immediately after we left, the Cathedral was surrounded by druzhinniks, who didn't allow young people to come for the Easter service. I bought a cross (in the shape of a crucifix made out of plastic) for E. and a little aluminium cross to wear on my neck, and did wear it in the University also, so that a fellow student, Tolya Nikulin, said: Why are you wearing a cross, if you are not baptized? From his reaction I understood that there is some force in that symbol. That's how the idea of asking for baptism first came to my mind. Also in Vladimirsky Cathedral, while buying the crosses I was suggested by a woman at the Church counter, who did the sellings, to write the names of the people I wanted to be prayed for, on a sheet of paper. I immediately thought about I., with whom I broke the relations in March the same year (this caused her much pain). But when I was told that I have to pay for the prayers, I declined the offer.
           The sixth episode. In Search of My Destiny. Olya, her best friend Tanya, somebody else (I don't remember) gathered at Olya's flat on Chusovskaya street. It was September 1975. Somebody proposed to go to the cinema. I "followed the crowd". All of us took metro and headed towards the movie-theater "Zaryad'e". There was shown a film "In Search of My Destiny". This film was made in 1974. It didn't make a sensation. In fact it was the debut of Elena Safonova, a young actress only one year older than me. The film was about a certain Orthodox priest who had a vocation crisis. May be it was planned as an ideologically atheistic film, but the actors and the producer made it far more deep and philosophical. Elena Safonova played very well. I vividly remember a scene, in which she, playing the role of a young girl who "got religion", stood up in the classroom and before the silent and amazed classmates said that her "beloved hero" is Jesus Christ. This film produced a great impression on me.
          The seventh episode. The Ambassador's Daughter. My mother worked with Inna Kozyreva, a child psychiatrist, who was a daughter of a USSR ambassador to Italy Semyon Kozyrev. Once, it was around 1968, my mother and Inna went to the Moscow Conservatory and invited a young postgraduate student (also a psychiatrist) Valery Abramovich. Valery invited his friend Boris Gordon (they both were from Volgograd where they attended school together). Thus Boris Gordon got acquainted with my mother and soon became a friend of our family. In September 1975 I asked Boris Gordon to give me for a few days the novel "Doctor Zhivago" by Pasternak. At that time it was forbidden and could be read in USSR only in samiztat copies. Boris Gordon said that he doesn't have a copy, but suggested me to apply to his friend, Volodya Rokityanskii. So it happened that on a sunny October day 1975 I for the first time entered the flat, where Volodya and his wife Tanya lived. They met me with true Russian hospitality and gave me a copy of the novel I asked for. Thus began my friendship with Volodya (who was 15 years older than me), which led to many other events in my life.
         The eighth episode. Moscow Baptists. Visit to the Baptist church in Moscow on February 3, 1977. I think I visited it at least 4 times during February and early March that year. I first came Thursday (or, perhaps, Saturday) evening, and continued to come on Thursday evenings. I once tried to come on Sunday but the church was overcrowded and I didn't understand if I would be allowed to take part in the "breaking of bread". It seems to me that after that Sunday visit I sort of lost interest to Baptists. What I liked on Thursdays is that the service was very simple and open to all visitors. There was a sermon, a prayer and a lot of singing. The preacher was a very talented man in his fourties or fifties. Also I was touched by the sincerity of the people during the prayer. Many were weeping.
         What did I remember from the sermons? I think the first sermon I heard there (perhaps on February 3, 1977) was about a wealthy youth. The preacher spoke about the youth calling Jesus in a somewhat ambiguous way ("A good teacher"). According to the preacher, it was a lack of faith, the young man should have called Jesus "the Lord". The second sermon was about Jesus preaching in His native town (the text was taken from the Gospel according to St. Luke).
         Already the first visit (combined with the visit to Pechory Monastery on January 29-30, 1977) provoked a deep thirst to devote oneself totally to religion. That's why I quarreled with my parents on February 6, 1977. We had a heated discussion, which lasted until 3 o'clock in the morning. During this discussion I said I would not deny God, and sited the Gospel according to St. John: "I am from above, you are from below, you are from this world, I am not from this world".
          During this quarrel my mother said: "This is all because of the influence of Volodya Rokityanski: he castrated [spiritually] our child [i.e. me]". With Volodya I got acquainted (as I mentioned already) through my parents' friend Boris Gordon in October 1975. Volodya indeed gave me books on religion and Russian history. On May 1977, already after the quarrel with my parents, Volodya gave me a book "Nicholas and Alexandra" (by Robert K. Massie?) about the destiny of the last Russian Сzar Nicolas II. After reading this book I for the first time started to doubt my commitment to physics and even talked on that topic with my scientific tutor professor Vladimir Ivanovich Grigoriev. The latter told me to think it over. I sort of had no other choice as to try my luck in theoretical physics (but without much enthusiasm, because my heart was with Russia and its painful history).
         The ninth episode. Elder Tavrion. It is from Volodya that I heard for the first time about elder Tavrion from Riga, a wondermaker, who could foresee the future events and read in other peoples' hearts. It was, I think, in May 1977. About the same time I heard similar things about elder Tavrion from certain Nadezhda Konstantinovna, a school librarian, whom I first met in Pechory monastery in July 1976, after I was baptized there. Nadezhda lived in Malakhovka, a small village 40 km east of Moscow. This information intrigued me very much. So after the end of the examination session I bought a ticket to Riga and went there. It was in the end of June 1977.
        Later I continued seeking elder Tavrion's spiritual help, and at the end of March 1978 I was again in pustynka near Elgava, where the elder lived. This time I got acquainted there with a man about 30, a Jew from St. Petersburg, whose name was Mark Elkind. He recommended himself as a Catholic, although he told me he was baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church. Our family situation was almost the same: we were the unique children in family with Jewish roots, brought up in atheism, and our parents were very much against our conversion to Christianity.
        The tenth episode. An Experience of Praying. In happened in the town called Anapa, in July-August, 1977. I was staying there with my father. Once I decided to find an Orthodox Church there. At that time there was only a prayer-house on Grebenskaya str. (Church of St. Onuphrius). Also I went almost every evening to see K., who was working in the pioneer camp. It was a long walk (about 2 km), but not tiresome, as I went by the street along the beach, breathing the fresh air from the sea. While walking I was reading a long list of names of persons for whom I prayed. I can say with sufficient degree of certainty, that my parents, teachers, schoolmates, fellow students were on the list (which was very big). Also I included some more distant acquaintances, for example Arvid and Spodra - our family friends from Liepaja. Spodra was not a close friend of ours, we've seen her in Liepaja in 1976 very briefly. Spodra is almost exclusively a Latvian name. But God made a sign, indicating that this my prayer was heard by Him, because quite unexpectedly Spodra visited us in Moscow in September 1977 and spent an evening with me and with my parents. She never visited us again. This is a phenomenon, which I observed several times afterwards: prayer is attracting people. On the 8th or 9th of August me and my father came to Krasnodar from Anapa in order to return back to Moscow. We stayed there for a few days. One evening I bought some flowers and went to stanitsa Elisavetinskaya (about 5 or 10 kilometers from Krasnodar) to put the flowers on the graves of the White Army warriors. I was at that time very naive, because no traces of those graves were to be found. At last I decided to put those flowers on the window of the former Orthodox church building (which was desecrated and not functioning at that time). I think in visiting Elisavetinskaya I was influenced by the novel of Alexei Tolstoy "The Year 1918".
         The eleventh episode. Trying to Escape. I decided to leave my parents and go to stay with elder Tavrion. That happened in March 1978 (around March 17 - March 19). Early in the morning I collected some necessary belongings and took them to Rizhskii railway station. There I put them into the automatic luggage camera and then went to see some of my friends to say goodbye. First I went to Matveevskaya to see Kolya, a painter who was restoring icons. When I approached the building where he lived (and also in his room) I had a distinct feeling that I can and should pray for those people, whom I'm leaving for good (even if I will be put into a psychiatric hospital for my escape attempt).
         The twelfth episode. Udmurtia. I ran away from a military camp near Glazov. It happened on July 1, 1978 at about 11 a.m. I crossed some little rivers, got wet under the rain that started in the afternoon and at about 7 p.m. reached the bank of the river Cheptsa. About 3 or 4 hours I followed Cheptsa in the direction of Glazov. I remembered that somewhere at 10 or 12 km from Glazov there is a bridge by which I crossed the river and then followed the road to the city. I entered Glazov at approximately 1 a.m. July 2. Early in the morning (at about 5 a.m.) I bought a ticket for a passing train Serov-Moscow, which stopped in Glazov at approximately 6.30 a.m. Fortunately there were some spare tickets. I felt tired and slept almost the whole day on the upper shelve in my compartment. Only at Shakhunia I ventured on the platform to buy something to eat. I remember that in the night I awoke and heard two girls (teenagers, looked very nice and innocent, seemed they were sisters) whispering. Suddenly I was overwhelmed with a feeling of love and tenderness for these girls and for all people. All by bodily sufferings and fears seemed nothing to me, I offered them for the happiness and protection of these girls and of all people. As for those girls, they went off at Kovrov (in was about 4 a.m. July 3).
         The thirteenth episode. On the Way to Pechory. It was August 7, 1978. I was standing on a suburban train platform Dorokhovo waiting for a train to Moscow. I didn't know where to go. I decided to go to Pechory and ask schemahegumenos Sabbas what to undertake. I had enough money only for a ticket to Pechory, I couldn't even buy food to eat in the train. I relied only on God and felt secure.
          The fourteenth episode. Holy Pictures on the Wall. On August 30 I visited Mark Elkind, a Catholic layman, in his apartment in St. Petersburg. In the corner of his room, over the study, there were hanging some photographs, among them was a photo of St. Pius X (Mark explained to me who he was). At that time I didn't know that his memory is celebrated on September 3. The matter is that on September 3, 1978, 4 days after I first got to know who is that saint, he sent me a present (on that day I got acquainted with my future wife: it was near Mozhaisk, where the Moscow University students helped gathering potatoes from the fields).
          The fifteenth episode. A Confession in Leningrad. On November 7, 1978 I arrived in St. Petersburg (then called Leningrad). I was accompanied by Alexei Khlebalin, who was a student of the Physical Faculty of MSU (we got friends with him while gathering potatoes near Mozhaisk in September the same year). When we came to Mark's flat, Mark asked Alexei if he was a Christian, and when Alexei answered in the negative, Mark suddenly became very unfriendly and impolite. So Alexei left and soon after we went to see Mark's goddaughter Olya. With Olya we went to the Catholic Church of Our Lady of Lourdes situated in Kovensky pereulok. There I made a confession to Fr. Joseph Pavilonis. Looking at me in the Church, Olya (she was half gypsy) said: If you persevere in such faith, you will become something great.
         The sixteenth episode. Witnessing a Suicide Attempt. It was between December 26 and December 28, 1979. A few days before entering the III Dominican order, on my way to Nora Nicolaevna (sister Catherine) while in the metro wagon, I was suddenly aware of some commotion on the platform. The train didn't leave the station. Then I heard from the passengers that a certain person attempted to commit suicide by jumping on the rails. Somehow this person remained alive and was taken away. When I came to Nora Nicolaevna and said that this accident perhaps was a sign from above (in view of my entering the III Order), she agreed with me.
         The seventeenth episode. Meeting a Catholic Bishop. While meeting the Ukrainian Greek Catholic bishop in Leningrad in September 1980 I received a blessing from him to quit my work as an engineer and find another, perhaps as a school teacher. I did exactly as I was told, and in October started the necessary activities. One of these was to visit a psychiatrist to ask him to give me a certificate that I need to change a working place. After I got this certificate, I went with it to the director of the NPO Energia and he easily agreed to dismiss me. So I was free and never after that did I work as a physicist. From that time I was free to serve God.
         The eighteenth episode. Praying for a Kidnapped Girl. This happened in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad) in the end of July 1983. At that time the news informed about the kidnapping in Rome of a fifteen year old Emmanuela Orlandi, a daughter of the Vatican Bank official. The kidnappers asked for a release of Mekhmed Ali Agdga from prison. I decided to offer my sufferings for the release of that girl.
         The nineteenth episode. Meditation on the Seven Words. End of November 1983. I made my bed in the kitchen (with the intention to sleep apart from my wife during the Advent) and before going to sleep started reading the reflections of Anna Ivanovna Abrikosova about the Seven Words Spoken by Our Lord from the Cross. At that moment I understood the meaning of sacrifice.
         The twentieth episode. Sorrows of Mary. I went to St. Petersburg in April 1985. At that time I was reading a book by St. Alfonso Maria Liguori in French, called "Les gloires de Marie" (It was not the whole book, which I got in US in 1998 in English translation, but the second part of it, containing the meditations on the Seven Sorrows of Mary). At that time I from my personal experience could understand what does it mean to wait for imminent trouble. So I took to heart the first sorrow of Mary: i.e. St. Simeon's Prophecy, and also the second one: Flight of Jesus into Egypt. Also I think I understood the third sorrow: Loss of Jesus in the Temple.
         In July or August 1985 I often heard "Voice of America" in Russian. One evening the journalist Arina Ginsburg was speaking about her travel to Medjugorje. This was the first time I got the whole story. It impressed me very much indeed. Also that summer I read for the first time "The Way" by Josemaria Escriva. Among the sayings that impressed me the most I can cite this one: "You failed? No, you gained an experience. Forward!"
         In November 1985 I was working in the Lenin Library, officially to prepare my PhD, but in reality I was reading Acta Sanctorum in Latin. Many things impressed me there, but especially I liked the life of St. Martina (Tatiana) and the life of St. Macarius of Alexandria. Because of much work I suffered from insomnia and had to take a medicine. In the end of January 1986 I felt better. At that time my wife was bearing our second child, a daughter, which was born on July 3, 1986.
         The twenty-first episode. Studying Greek. In April 1986 I still worked in the Library of the Academy of Sciences. Somehow the Greek-English dictionary (Liddell and Scott) came into my hands. I started learning Greek. By July 1986 I already ventured to read in the original some passages from the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch. Of course I looked into the parallel Latin text as well. In one of the letters I came across these words: "On my way to Rome I had to fight with ten leopards, who after receiving gifts become even more cruel". St. Ignatius hints at the ten legionaries, who were guarding him on his way from Antioch to Rome. Also I came across a letter allegedly written  by Our Lady to St. Ignatius (in Latin).
         In August I was walking with my 2 years old son near the Orthodox Church of the Nativity of Christ. When we entered the church, I heard the sermon, spoken (as I got to know later) by the Fr. Leonid Roldugin. To my amazement he was speaking exactly about the letter sent by Our Lady to St. Ignatius of Antioch!
        After my wife gave birth to a second child, I for a few months slept in the kitchen (because there was only one room in our flat at that time). Before going to sleep I often listened to the radio. How glad I was to hear (in October 1986) that Russian poet and dissident Irina Ratushinskaya was released from prison shortly after Gorbachev and Reagan met in Reykjavik.
        The twenty-second episode. A Polish Dominican. In December 1986 my family was visited by Fr. Zygmunt Kozar, a Dominican priest from Poland. He said about my wife: "She is a good wife, a kind one". On June 12, 1987 after a quarrel with my wife these words came to my mind and calmed my emotions. It should be mentioned that Fr. Zygmunt wanted me to become a Catholic priest, so when he heard in Poland that I got married, he reportedly said: "O, why!"
        The twenty-third episode. A Translator. I arrived in Riga, where I was to take part in the Conference on the History of Astronomy. It was organized by Alexander Gurshtein (later he emigrated from Russia and now he lives and works in USA). It happened so, that on the same day Fr. George Friedman, an eastern rite clandestine Catholic Priest from St. Petersburg (then Leningrad), also came to Riga. So we met at the railway station. Together we visited the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows in Old Riga (central part of the city with the remnants of medieval architecture). We passed through the same streets I passed in May 1983 with my wife during our honeymoon travel to Riga. In the Church we met a young Dominican Priest Vilhelms Lapelis (now he is a Bishop Emeritus of Liepaja). Then I went to see my relatives in Imanta (a suburb of Riga) and took my luggage to the hotel, where the Conference was to take place. In the evening of the same day I visited Fr. Viktors Pentjuss, a catholic priest who taught Moral Theology in Riga Catholic Seminary. He gave me a textbook (H. Noldin. Theologia moralis. De principiis) to translate from Latin into Russian. So I became a translator.