Photo: culture.ru
It happened not long ago, when Masha and I decided to go to church at a seaside town in Crimea. She came there on a health resort voucher with me as her chaperone. And so, we decided to attend a church service there.
We took our chance ordering a taxi yet again. I say, we “took our chance,” because when we ordered it for the first time, half an hour before our next order, the taxi service accepted our order and the assigned driver called back to confirm it. But when he heard I was traveling with my disabled daughter, he said: “On my way,” and immediately blocked my telephone number. I only realized this after he never showed up on time, while I kept dialing his number in hopes to find out what went wrong.
We decided to go there by foot, but we got lost and called for another taxi. It turned out it was a blessing the first driver blocked my number—although to be sure, I ranted and raved at first. I was even surprised at my own knowledge of inventive swear words.
A person becomes someone only in relationship with God
I gave the taxi driver the address.
“Oh, that’s great!” he suddenly replied. “You are believers, Orthodox, right?”
“We are…”
This is how our conversation began. Our taxi driver, a middle-aged Crimean Tatar with the beautiful name Ibrahim, as it turned out to my surprise, was also an Orthodox Christian. I couldn’t help but ask him why. I would have thought he was a Muslim.
Ibrahim said, “I was no one. Because a man becomes someone only with God.”
His family wasn’t religious, so Ibrahim never thought of anything lofty and spiritual before he was forty years of age. He just lived his life. And he tried to live it well. He never lied or stole, and respected his parents. But there was no God in all this. He was relying purely on himself, building his life and shaping his own destiny.
A man may never do anything bad throughout his life, but he can still be a great sinner—because he lives without God
“I recently chanced upon a good saying online, by Father Dimitry Smirnov,” he said. “I don’t remember it word by word, but it boiled down to something like this… A sinner isn’t necessarily a killer, robber, or rapist. He may never commit a single bad deed, but he’ll still be a great sinner. Simply because he lives without God.”
Ibrahim came to Christ quite ordinarily, just like most people do. His youngest son got sick—double pneumonia, with serious complications. It happened when some kind of epidemic (not COVID, something else) hit Russia and the schools put whole classrooms in quarantine. One of their friends’ children even died.
Their son’s prognosis looked quite bleak. The doctors were doing their best, but his condition wasn’t improving. It so happened that Ibrahim’s passengers during those days were an old woman and her grandson.
“They also came for treatment, just like you,” Ibrahim shared. “They didn’t talk, only her grandson would cry out loudly all the time. He was a really sickly boy. I didn’t think much of it, all my thoughts were concentrated on my own sick son. So, we kept on driving, and suddenly that old lady asks me, “Sonny, why are you so gloomy?” And I just emptied it all on her—that my little one is sick, that I fear he’d die. That my wife, who’s in hospital with him, is waling and howling in despair. That the older children, left unsupervised, had gotten completely out of hand. One even reeks of cigarette smoke. In reply, she handed me a tiny paper icon. “Here, take this,” she said. It’s St. Luke, your own saint, from Crimea. He’s a holy physician. Pray to him—and he’ll surely come to your aid.” I replied in my foolishness: “But why doesn’t he help you and your grandson?” She responded, kindly and with a smile: “Why doesn’t he help? He does! It would have been really hard without God’s help. But with Him—glory to God for all things!” I was really struck by this. There’s nothing good in her life, but she says, “Glory be to God.” So, I decided that if that is so, then there really is something to it. I took the icon, dropped off the grandma and her grandson, and muttered: “Luke, help my son Bulat get well.” In the evening, I received a call from my wife, who said that “He suddenly felt better.” The doctors just shook their heads in disbelief. “Simply a miracle…”
An old charm doctor
When Bulat returned home with his mother, their whole family traveled to Simferopol—to the saint’s relics, because that granny told Ibrahim: “Son, don’t forget to give thanks later.” They got baptized themselves, along with their children. That’s how their life in Christ began.
We were already getting close to our destination when I realized that I couldn’t pay for the ride. I had no cash on hand, and it was impossible to make an online transaction either—the internet is jammed in that area these days. We had WiFi back in our resort, but elsewhere in town we were back to the good old days, without Internet.
“Alright, let’s go look for an ATM machine,” Ibrahim told me. “You will still need cash for your return trip. And we will talk more. I love to drive my brothers and sisters in Christ. Because I see all kinds of people here at work.”
It’s true, there’s a little of everything in Crimea. There’s a mosque nearby, and a synagogue. Ibrahim enjoys having their “representatives” as clients. A believer will always understand another believer.
But he also he has his share of real oddities as clients.
“I happened to drive two mothers, also with sick children,” he recalled. “They chatted among themselves that once they return home, they should travel somewhere to see an old woman charm doctor. They heard about her from someone at their resort, that she keeps on whispering, whispering, and once she is done, everything’s just gone, like you’d never been sick. She’d totally whisper all illnesses away till they’re gone, “Anything—from cancer to Downs syndrome.” But one should treat her respectfully, and do anything she tells you, because with her whispering she can “not just bless, but also curse you.” I finally lost my patience and said to them: “Hey ladies, why not go to church instead? If you’re in the mood for mysticism, why not pray to God? But also see a medical doctor…” They were so offended because they assumed that I called them sick. It’s possible, I could have done that, because they are sick, but I actually meant their children. As for God, they said, “What? Church? That’s so behind the times! Hello, aren’t we in the twenty-first century?” I said nothing to this, just kept silent. As for my clients… I thought to myself, of course! An old charm doctor in our twenty-first century is really is the most advanced and modern technology!”
We shared a laugh…
“I am a witch!”
But one time, Ibrahim had driven a witch. A real one! No, she wasn’t wearing black and had no broomstick. She was a stylish, sharp-looking woman in her mid-thirties.
“You’re probably an actress?” But she smiled in response and answered ever so sweetly: “No, dear, I’m a witch”
“She looked so gentle, and spoke in such a soft, soothing voice,” Ibrahim recalled. “She wore a veiled hat. I even thought to myself, ‘Some actress, no less.’ And that made me happy—after all, there isn’t much of a cultural life here. So, I gathered my courage and asked her, ‘You’re an actress, aren’t you?’
“But she smiled—I saw it in the rearview mirror—and said in the sweetest voice, ‘No, dear, I’m a witch.’ I nearly mixed up the brake with the gas pedal. ‘I’ll do whatever you want,’ she said. ‘What do you need?’ ‘Me? Nothing. Thank God, everything’s fine with me.’ At the words, ‘Thank God,’ she actually jolted in the back seat. I glanced at the mirror again—and it wasn’t a face anymore, but a snarl. Her eyes were blazing from under the veil, filled with hatred.
“I almost hit the brakes instead of thanking God; she even jerked in her seat back there! I glanced in the mirror again—her sweet smile was gone, and she was baring her teeth instead. Her huge eyes blazed from under the veil, filled with naked hatred.”
Ibrahim shuddered at the memory. “I didn’t even know what to do. It would’ve been silly to make her get out; after all, she was a client. But I was scared to go on. I just kept driving in silence, saying the Jesus Prayer over and over. And I could feel—almost physically—that it was tormenting her.
“I was afraid she’d claw my throat from behind with those manicured nails. The hair on my neck stood up. But I kept praying. Finally, she couldn’t bear it any longer. She barked at me to stop the car, threw the money onto the seat, and jumped out as if scalded. She didn’t even wait for her change. That’s how it was… Prayer is a mighty power!”
We found an ATM, and I withdrew some cash. Ibrahim took us to the church and refused to charge for the extra detour—only what we had agreed on at the start. We parted warmly.
Masha and I went inside the church, prayed, and venerated the icons. I asked God to protect that kind taxi driver and his family. I didn’t write their names on the commemoration list—I’d forgotten to ask for their baptismal names. They might have kept their own or taken new ones. But that’s all right—the Lord sees everything.
As for our return trip, we decided to walk back. We wanted to see the town.
So that’s the story. I thought afterward—I suppose taxi drivers must have plenty of tales like
“Owner of Plants, Newspapers, and Ships”
By the way, my friend Natalia’s husband is also driving a taxi these days. Well, he’s actually an engineer by profession, but life had other plans for him. He, too, has had just about everyone imaginable in his car.
He’s given rides to archimandrites. Once he got a call—zap!—and suddenly there’s an archimandrite sitting in his back seat. Another time, there was a woman who proudly told him she had recently been “unbaptized.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Roman—that’s his name—asked her.
“I was baptized as a child,” she explained. “But now I’ve learned the truth, so they told me I had to remove all that baptism from myself. I went through a rite of ‘unbaptism.’”
So yes—our world is full of surprises!
But recently, Roman had to drive a satanist.
He got the call around two in the morning—just another client, he thought. The man looked ordinary enough: well-groomed, slightly overweight, wearing glasses, maybe around forty.
He got in and immediately started talking—mostly about how he hated everyone.
“You can’t imagine what kind of monster I drove tonight!” Roman later told his wife.
“He was bragging to my husband that he’s ‘the owner of plants, newspapers, and ships,’” Natalia told me. “But everyone around him, he said, are nothing but ‘fleas, maggots, lemmings, biomaterial—useless ballast on planet Earth.’ He said he only has to sign one paper, and whole groups of people lose their jobs. ‘They come crying, saying they have kids,’ he told Roman, ‘and I’m glad they’re fired. Got themselves some degenerates!’
‘Do you have a family of your own?’ my husband asked him.
‘A family? Having a family is weakness—a burden and a vulnerability. We must be strong and independent.’
And so on, and so on…”
Then the man noticed the icons in Roman’s car. “Are you a Christian or what?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Roman. “I’m an Orthodox Christian.”
“I go to church too,” the man smirked.
“Oh really? Which one?”
“The satanic temple,” he said flatly.
Roman quietly began to say the Jesus Prayer under his breath.
But the man wouldn’t stop. “So tell me, what has your God ever given you?” he sneered. “You’re just a taxi driver, right? My radiant one has given me everything. I have it all!”
“It’s Terrifying They’re in Charge”
After that, as they drove on for another forty minutes or so, the man went on talking—saying he wasn’t alone, that there were many like him, and that they already owned quite a lot here. By 2047, he said, Russia would be even more sparsely populated: “Of them, there will be just enough normal people—the rest will serve us. And we’ll continue our policy of extermination. Humanity needs to be purged.”
And so it went on… I won’t even repeat the rest of it—it was too absurd.
But Natalia was right when she said, “It’s terrifying that they’re in charge—that they’re the ones at the helm. People like that—who openly confess their faith in Satan.”
She went on: “It’s horrifying that such people hold power, that they own businesses and make decisions that affect others. They can’t even keep their beliefs to themselves—they’ll sit down in a taxi with a stranger and start preaching it. They hate everyone, yet they try to convert everyone to their faith. But the Lord is much more powerful... And you know what’s revealing? It turns out, it’s impossible to be happy without God.
That man was ranting, full of pride, but he looked trapped—miserable all the same. He even said that pain was normal, that it makes people stronger. But the truth is, it’s God who makes us strong. The Lord is stronger than all of that. And the most amazing thing is—He even loves him.
When I said this, Roman just shook his head. But that man let slip that he had cancer. So maybe God is using that to bring him back to his senses—to reality. Because there’s still a way out, even for someone like him, who’s given himself over to darkness. The Lord shows the way even to such as him.”
After dropping off the passenger, Roman turned into a side street and rolled down all the windows. He wanted to air out the car—to get rid of the lingering heaviness. It took him a while to feel like himself again.
But still, I want to believe that man is simply ill... Because surely it can’t be just like that. And yet…
A Monk and a Demon
Later, Natalia and I went on talking. It’s clear that the Lord arranges the most unexpected encounters, “coincidences” that seem almost impossible.
“I get it when these things bring something good in the end,” she said. “But what about all the other cases? And honestly—what are the chances that a satanist would order a taxi and get an Orthodox driver in Moscow? It’s practically zero…”
But with God, there’s no such thing as zero. Everything is possible. There’s always a reason why things happen. Maybe there was a reason that witch had to ride with Ibrahim. Maybe she received something she needed. And maybe that wreck of a man will, too. Like Natalia said, ‘The Lord loves even him.’
And then I remembered something else. Not quite the same kind of story, but also a telling one. There’s a monk who serves as a volunteer cook in the combat zone.
A monk can’t bear arms, so when they were assigning duties—grenadier, mortar operator, and so on—he was sent to the kitchen instead, even though he’d never worked there before. One day he met another serviceman who had heard a monk was in his unit and came to see for himself.
“I’m a monk!” I said, reaching out my hand,” the monk later related.
“I’m Demon,” the man replied, shaking it—that was his codename.
So that’s how Monk and Demon met during the war.
And it turns out there are more stories like this—monks and “demons” seem to be drawn to one another, both in war and in peace.
I once met another soldier, a few years back. His codename was also Monk. He wasn’t a monastic, just a devout layman—and an athlete, too. His comrades gave him that nickname, like a kind of Russian Shaolin.
He told me how he and a fellow soldier went on a reconnaissance mission one day. They stumbled across a wounded man who told them there was another injured soldier lying “somewhere out there.”
“So we went looking,” Monk said. “There used to be a forest there, but by then only burned-out stumps remained. We couldn’t find the guy—couldn’t even call out, or we’d be exposed. Then we heard moaning. He was lying there—both feet broken. I sent my buddy to cover us and stayed with the wounded man myself. Suddenly, right above us was a drone carrying a grenade.”
Monk stepped away from the wounded soldier to draw the drone toward himself and fired at it. He managed to hit it and bring it down. Then he and his partner carried the wounded man out and gave him first aid. Thank God—he survived.
“Later he thanked me, almost in tears, for saving his life,” the soldier said. “He told me the grenade had been hovering right over him. ‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘What’s your codename?’ I said, ‘Monk.’ And he said, ‘I’m Demon.’”
So that’s how Monk saved Demon in the war.
And now, a question: what are the odds? None at all. But with God—everything is possible.
