You carry your mat, utensils, rain gear, and anything else you might need for an overnight stay. During short stops or lunch breaks, you sit on the mat and stretch your legs. Some people manage to take a nap.
Today we receive buckwheat porridge, tea and watermelon for lunch. As we are lying on our mats, I ask Nadya, who invited me here, about the meaning of the procession for her.
“I liked it here last year and I was thinking about the people I would see again,” says Nadia. “This is an adventure for me. I had a lot of things going on during that procession and I like that I have certain thoughts here that change my attitude to life. Like, I am looking for a job right now and so it really worries me a lot. At breakfast today, I talked to Veronica about it, she is also walking it for the second time. It turned out that she is also looking for a job, but she is not worried at all. She told me about her priorities: God must come first. Because it turns out that the thing you are worried about is placed first, instead of Him.
You have a week during the procession when you don’t think about your daily cares, you don’t have to solve your usual problems, and you have a lot of time to think about something else. There is a schedule, everything has been planned ahead for you—all you have to do is just to sleep, eat, walk, and pray.
Today I was thinking a lot about the balance between doing and not doing and I realized that if I don’t fuss and fret, if I decide that I’ve done everything I could and that God will do the rest, it will become easier. The most important thing I have to worry about is my relationship with God. Then came a thought I’ve been pondering here—the scope of involvement of God in my life. Many people say that it is unrealistic to walk the entire procession route, and that you walk it only with God’s help. Last year, I didn’t have such a feeling about myself, because I can do twenty kilometers backpacking on mountain terrain. To walk thirty, sans backpack, on flat land isn’t too hard for me. I thought I walked it all by myself. But then Veronica told me that this is self-assured confidence. And I thought, I was sleeping three to four hours a day, and it isn’t normal, yet I did feel well! So, now I realize that it was not just my strength. It means that the Lord helped me.”
“Through the Cross procession we return to God”
In the evening we arrive to Ivenets, the Savior-St. Euphrosyne Church. A prayer service is held there. Many people sit on mats or even lie down. The priest at church says that the Holy Mother of God is waiting for us all at the end of the procession, and this is a great consolation, but today we are visiting St. Euphrosyne. This place has been sanctified by her prayers and intercession for a hundred years, and today we are here to pray and ask for blessing for our Motherland.
After supper in a school canteen, Nadia and I pitch a tent in the stadium, away from everyone else. We drink mineral water, watch the sunset and talk. A lecture on the meaning of the procession begins and I move my mat over to sit and listen there.
The reader Roman Larkov came specifically there to give a lecture. I write down the thoughts that are important to me in my notebook.
“Through the Cross procession we return to God and get to feel Christ’s labor. For a man to grow up he needs to labor. When man makes up his mind to do an ascetic labor, synergistically, God helps him carry his cross.
“God acts beyond the logic of man.
“It is important to find an answer if there is love between me and God.
“People see the participants of the procession, whose faces reflect the light of Christ, and they gain hope and joy. Many people say that they have been waiting for the procession to pass through their area—it is such an important and moving event for them. But it also imposes certain responsibilities—the behavior of a procession participant must be irreproachable. They must not in any way scandalize people who see them. At this moment, he is a missionary and a disciple of Christ who follows in His footsteps and preaches the Gospel.
“Many healings happen during the procession, but the most important is the healing of the soul from the wounds of impatience and pride.
“There has been a lot of grief in our land—disease, wars, anger, and hatred. And this is the land the pilgrim’s feet are treading: blistered, covered with ointment, and taped with band-aids. Thus, our land is cleaned and washed. Where the foot of a pilgrim steps, flowers of holiness blossom. Where there is work for God’s sake, there is God. The labors of man give God an opportunity to intervene. He sees man’s labor and rewards him as He sees fit. And the power of God is made perfect in weakness.”
It’s only been a day, but it feels like at least a month to me—the big world and its problems seem so far away!
I’m sitting enveloped in my sleeping bag. It’s only been a day, yet it feels like at least a month—the big world and its problems seem so far away… I no longer remember the news that threw me off balance, and I realize that the Lord, knowing the pain of my heart, with His caring fatherly hand, has helped to put me on the path to healing…
Day two. Twenty seven kilometers
We rise early again at 3:30 am. Gathering things, loading, walking in the dark to the church for Divine Liturgy. A small snack and a walk from Ivenets to Rakov.
“We pray the Jesus Prayer for hours, but how many times have we said it sincerely, from the heart? Isn’t it just for show? Is there any sense in it?” asks one of the sisters-in-faith.
In general, many participants have thoughts such as, “What am I doing here? Go away!” during the procession. They say it is also a struggle, more powerful than blisters and physical pain. Personally, at such moments I decide that I will just go to the end to see everything with my own eyes.
We have lunch today in the village of Kievets, near the wooden Holy Trinity Church. The green lawn gets quickly filled with mats and people who take off their shoes and take pleasure in stretching their tired legs.
A field kitchen is near the church, and today we are served solyanka soup. When we drove here with Alina, our driver Sergey told us that when he quit adding sugar and salt, he suddenly rediscovered the taste of food. Alina says that here, in the procession, it is just the same—fun stuff, “spicy things” go away, and all that’s left is a really simple life. The soul is stripped bare and it begins to feel everything brighter and sharper. Soup, a piece of black bread, porridge, and cucumbers taste better than the most elaborate dishes.
Just when it seems you can’t go any further, the laws of logic end and God acts
It begins to rain and everyone shelters down around the church on the floor. I fell on my hand last night and it became swollen. I’m standing in line at the ER to get it bandaged. Yura comes up to me (he is from Gomel and he has been walking since day one) and shares how it was difficult to walk during the first days, that it was hot, he wasn’t ready, and he’s got blisters on his feet… But at the very moment when it seems like you can’t take another step, the laws of logic cease to exist and God acts. So, on the fourth day he felt great joy in his soul.
“At some point, I found all of it, like in the Gospel, when people followed the Master and cared about nothing,” Yura says. “It’s the same here: He gives us the chance to live the inevitability of Pascha, and like His name, it brightens everything inside. But apparently you need to labor—to feel fatigue, to stop relying on oneself, and to get rid of everything that’s unncesessary, finding your strength in His name and taking refuge in Him.”
“Orthodoxy is neither sad nor boring”
At one of the breaks I talk to Nastya, a photographer from Bobruisk, about her experience in the Cross procession.
“In 2010, when I was sixteen, I saw an ad and told my mom that I would go with the procession. I didn’t know what it was, but I felt in my heart the desire to go.”
“Where do you think this desire came from?”
“I think it is because of the Providence of God. And when you feel this atmosphere of being close to God once, you will want to experience it over and over again. The soul knows these feelings and demands: “Go over here.” Probably twenty percent of the people here also walked last year.”
“How do you think you experince this sense of closeness with God here?”
“Because of prayer and the support and love from people in challenging times. Here you meet people, kindred spirits, who also revere God. And you realize that you are not alone, and altogether it gives you a sense of God’s presence. And I advise everyone, especially young people—have them join the Cross procession and see that Orthodoxy isn’t about sadness or boredom; it is a joy for people of any age.”
Next to me walks Ulyana, she is from Minsk. She is only sixteen. Last year, she and her friends walked the final stretch from Zaslavl to Minsk, which is about thirty-six kilometers.
“We really enjoyed it! We would start out at 3 am in the company of friends and families. Of course, we are teenagers and it was a bit hard, but when you look at the grannies who have traveled two hundred and fifty kilometers, you do feel fatigue but it’s completely different, you feel even ashamed to complain. And I understand how weak I am compared to them. Prayer gave us strength of spirit.
This time, I decided to walk a little longer and I am going for the second day, because I am in the eleventh grade now and will have to take the graduation exams, so I really need God’s blessing. I believe that I will receive it and that the Lord will guide me to get into the place where I need to be. He helps me a lot throughout my studies and guides me. I feel it and realize that I cannot do it without His help. Of course, I can’t say that my prayer is powerful, as more often I am thinking, ‘I wish I could finish the walk!’ But that’s the goal I came here with.”
“I wanted to cry, I just couldn’t walk”
Irina comes from Moldavia. She got married, and has been living in Bobruisk for seventeen years:
“Here you can definitely feel the special closeness of God at every step, in the smallest of things. You begin to rely not on yourself, but on God. I wanted to cry in the morning, I couldn’t walk or stand—I had little rest, we went to bed late and got up early, and I also froze in the tent at night. I could hardly reach the church, I was aching everywhere. And then it became brighter in the church, the sun broke through the clouds outside—and I regained my strength. And when you pray, you forget about your aching feet.
There is no such beauty of nature in Moldavia, and this also pleases me—the woods, the air that you want to breathe. During the last procession, I slept in a tent for the first time in my life (we don’t go camping in our homeland), so it was a special experience for me. And after the last procession, when I went on foot, I wanted to walk and pray the Jesus prayer.
The procession passes through the village parishes. The locals greet the procession with compassion, especially the elderly, and they try to give them something to eat. The participants carry their favorite icons on their chests; they sometimes approach the locals who venerate them.
We passed by a herd of cows. They suddenly rushed to the road and rumbled loudly. And it was unclear whether they saw us as a “herd”, or if it was something like, “let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord.”
“Thank God it’s so hard”
Sergey from Krupsky Deanery in the procession for the second time. Last year he went with his eldest daughter and this year with the whole family (and this means five children and his wife). His wife and younger children went for three days, while he and his older ones went the whole way.
It is only after you understand your weaknesses that we get to realize how the grace of God actually works
“I had my own idea about the Cross processionp participants before, but only when you are one of them do you realize all its intricacies and what it is for. I heard a proverb about the procession participants here, “Thank God was hard.” My opinion is that every person needs take part at least once to in a physically exhausting procession. Not just any procession, but a really exhausting one. Only after feeling our weaknesses we will understand how God’s grace works. Usually we do not let it in with our self-conceit and our supposed strength. But when are exhausted, have heard enough of your own grumblings, and seen everything you really have inside your soul, that’s when you realize how wonderful it is when the Lord helps you. All this cannot be explained in words.
Here, you are as if stuck in a tiny room and so your inner ugliness comes to surface very quickly. But there’s no time to debate—you need to come to terms with it. When we are walking together, I think of us as a broom, while if we had walked by ourselves, we’d be a single twig that could be easily broken.
The procession is like a field for good deeds! You can direct someone, carry things to others, offer support, talk about spiritual things; but the most important thing is the Liturgy every morning, and then there is the communal prayer. But when we can pray rhythmically as we breath, it is simply wonderful!
Personally, I can’t pray at home for ten of twelve hours, but when we pray here as a community—if you missed a beat, someone else will pull out a prayer and later you will fall back in tune.
Last year, I was on the lookout every day for a reason to quit, but then a thought came to my mind: “Lord, I will walk for the sake of being in communion with You every morning.” You have everything here to grow spiritually: you have a lodging at night and a meal during the day. Just walk, man, and pray.
Of course, it is the hardest to walk those few last kilometers—your legs are killing you and you are trying not to think about the pain in your feet and joints. All your attention is directed to the words of prayer. And then you already see youself walking through a residential area, but it does seem endless at that point. And then, when it seems that you cannot take another step, you hear the bells ringing. And you feel so much happiness and joy that tears well up in your eyes. They’ve been waiting for you! I think you can walk practically anywhere if you know that someone is waiting there for you.
But then there is this sand, stones, gravel—this is what our road to the Kingdom of Heaven is like, and Christ is waiting for us there! He wants and desires to strike the bell once we get there.”
Once we reach Rakov, we are welcomed by people dressed in national costumes and playing pipes. We receive the telephone number of a local lady who agrees to take several people to have shower. Christina is a Catholic and she often welcomes those who travel through Rakov on pilgrimage tours, but she is also respectful of the Orthodox faithful. Hot water, tea and freshly baked Danish pastries are the best way to end the day.
We manage to return to our place of night rest and listen to the end of the concert held today at the school stadium. Alexander from Orsha, who is called Uncle Sasha here, plays the guitar and sings:
“I sing in before you, but I can scarcely stand.
The soles of my feet are burning coals, but I won’t complain!
I barely limped to see you here, but I now I know,
that our procession will go on, it will go on ahead.”
To be continued…
