Meeting with Fr. Kirill was a special experience in one’s life. To know that there are saints is one thing, and to come into contact with them in real life is quite another. Be it prayer during a church service, a common meal, or just a conversation, not even on sublime theological subjects (which, as a rule, Fr. Kirill avoided). In all cases, such a meeting is providential and reveals the mysterious facets of existence, touches the depths of your soul, and helps reveal that important things that were buried in your heart but which you probably did not even know existed.
For me, as for many guests and parishioners of the Church of the Protecting Veil of the Most Holy Theotokos at the Nizhnyaya Oreanda sanatorium in the city of Yalta (the Crimea), the presence of Fr. Kirill at the services for several months in late summer and autumn, which lasted eight years, became a special era and extraordinary experience of contact with living Patristic tradition. Before my very eyes, these meetings changed many people’s the lives, making them look at old and familiar things as obstacles on their path to Christ.
Holiness is a value and end in itself, and when you meet a holy man full of stillness and peace and come into contact with him, many of the chimeras and prejudices that ruled your consciousness and your imagination lose their power.
The first time, Fr. Kirill came with Archimandrite Agafodor (Markevich), the then abbot of Donskoy Monastery in Moscow, and stood quietly in the back of the church. There were no more than five or seven people at the service. While censing during “Lord, I have cried to Thee…”, I invited batiushka into the altar. I knew that he was staying in a nearby sanatorium and it was possible to see him there, but now he himself had come, and ome could approach him with one’s many questions on various topics, which I did at the first opportunity. He took my hand kindly and said softly, “You pray, pray. Then, after the service, we’ll talk.” But the longer the service went on the fewer questions I had. Fr. Kirill stood in the altar and looked out the window. We have a cruciform window in the altar apse, through which you can see the sky. He was looking with a very special gaze, seeing something there. And he radiated amazing stillness and calm, which, imperceptibly for me, began to make my questions, which had recently seemed so important, irrelevant. By the end of the service, they had lost their power and I thought that to ask them would be an unnecessary and idle thing. Interestingly, the elder himself remembered my desire to ask something: “Are your questions still tormenting you?” I didn’t want to delay the elder out my desire to linger with him longer. I said, “No, it seems like everything has fallen into place.” And it was true. Everything important now seemed obvious. “Well, thank God! Pray, pray. We’ll come back tomorrow.” And, strangely enough, at that moment I realized that there is something that concerns the salvation of your soul, and this is the most important thing, while there are an infinite number of intellectual, rational questions that, regardless of how reasonable and relevant they may look, have nothing to do with your salvation. Fr. Kirill had taught me an absolutely wonderful lesson at our first meeting. Not by word, but by his living example—everything that concerns salvation, our relationship with God, our immortal soul, is truly vital. For this he was ready to stay longer and talk. But if you just want to communicate on abstract topics—this is idleness.
With each year of Fr. Kirill’s stays in Nizhnyaya Oreanda, more and more new people would appear, wanting to meet him and talk to him. As a rule, they came up to the sanctuary after “Our Father” and asked him about something. He would take you by the hand and gaze intently into the distance, apparently praying for you. At that time, I marveled at his remarkable memory—he could easily and organically reconstruct a situation he had been told about many years before, as if he was seeing it all before his eyes right now. I was even more surprised that, asking additional questions about some circumstances, he would always wonder: “What do you think? How do you see the resolution?” When it came to health, he always asked what doctors said, and only then, with maternal love and meekness, did he give advice that organically grew out of your understanding and vision and directed your thoughts and feelings as you sought spiritual advice in a Christian direction. It was then that I first noticed that in the Gospel, when people turned to our Lord, He first asked about their faith and what they wanted from Him, and only then did He heal or help them according to their faith, thus never violating their free will.
In the spirit of the Holy Fathers and guided by Gospel love, Fr. Kirill did not go beyond the limits of one’s real experience and did not insist on his point of view even in obviously good things. At that time. I was very keen on arguing if I encountered an erroneous opinion, which gave rise to excitement and excessive emotions. One day, batiushka said to me quietly: “Don’t argue. If for some reason a person doesn’t understand, it is better to pray for him, and the Lord will sort it out.” And, much to my surprise, I soon got convinced that such an approach to solving contradictions and confusing situations is much more effective than any conflict.
Thanks to Fr. Kirill, I realized that I should speak with another person in his own language, without going beyond his views and ideas about life. And one should always do it with love, humbling oneself before him as much as possible. Only then is there hope of being heard. Fr. Kirill was a man with a strong character and will, and at the same time he possessed truly divine tact and was able to hold the person he was talking to, whoever he was, in his loving heart. There was something very Russian, boundless, majestic and at the same time profoundly humble in his character, like the Russian sky, under which everyone feels good, cozy and peaceful. Thanks to my meeting with Fr. Kirill I realized that the Lord is not only above you, but is also below you, and does not allow you to slide into greater depths of sin. And the Lord always sees the best in you and looks for a chance to justify you, raise you a step higher, show you the path of repentance and the surest path to salvation. In this sense, Fr. Kirill was a real teacher—that is, he guided your soul, like a small child, to the Heavenly Kingdom, where the Lord Himself receives it. For all Fr. Kirill’s apparent simplicity and his amazing humility, there was some inner nobility in him, a kind of spiritual nobility that helped every person to realize their place in this life and feel the spiritual hierarchy, like heavenly bodies that move each in their own orbit, not humiliating or exalting themselves, but obeying the Divine plan. Nobility is always about a boundary and a hierarchy, and in the case of Fr. Kirill the hierarchy and the boundaries were built and outlined by his pastoral love. It is only with such an attitude and such a Gospel perspective that humanity is born in you. And all the best and authentic qualities were brought to life in everybody who came into contact with batiushka. Even old, convinced atheists, such as some doctors at the sanatorium where he went for rest, began to turn in the right direction and think about something serious.
This is an absolutely wonderful school of edification, with the understanding that no will, no talent by itself can build and change another person. Only spiritual tact and Christ’s love for you can help you become a human being, and grow to your full stature.
Fr. Kirill had a special gift of discernment. He saw in you all your best qualities, all your shortcomings, and all the contradictions that torment your soul, and was able to put everything in its place. Confused thoughts, like twisted bowels, lead to suffering and depression. Thoughts can be correct, just as bowels may be healthy, but if everything is messed up, it’s a disaster—everything must be put in order. And batiushka did this with amazing skill, so that the sufferer would leave him feeling great relief, without always understanding how it all happened…
For a long time I did not understand that it is important not so much to read as to reread, especially the New Testament. I used to think that I had already read it, remembered everything well, and could answer people’s questions and “pass an exam”, as it were. But Fr. Kirill kept repeating that we must read the Gospel every day and “swim” in it. And thanks to his convincing words I realized that reading the New Testament should be a permanent factor in your life, like air or water, like warmth or food. And only then can there be relative clarity in your worldview or outlook; only then will Christ be at the center of your life. And you will be able to see all the circumstances of your life, all that surrounds you in the light of the Gospel truth. The landscape of your soul will appear as it really is, and you will be able to see and understand the world you live in soberly and reasonably, as befits any Christian. By the way, Fr. Kirill knew the Scriptures practically by heart. One day he said during lunch, “Help yourself, while I read to you from the Gospel.” And from memory he read chapters from the Apostle Paul’s Epistles, and then a chapter from the Gospel of Matthew naturally and simply, as if an open book was in front of his eyes.
Archimandrite Kirill (Pavlov) is a very special figure in our national history, a great elder of a great era, a fragrant, God-given fruit of the Russian Orthodox Church, and a spiritual landmark of our time.
An excerpt from the book, Love Is Born in Freedom.
