A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps (Prov. 16:9).
Chapter One
I
Magnificent Venice in the summer of 1760 was seized by unrestrained merriment. Endless processions of crowded festivals and pompous carnivals paraded through the city, brilliant balls giving way to delightful masquerades. Every night wondrous music poured forth from the wide-open windows of splendid palaces; fantastic masks and luxurious costumes flickered in the bright light of hundreds of candles, and precious diamonds sparkled on the elegant attire of beautiful women. Silver ducats rang as they fell onto the rosewood of numerous gaming tables; beside the impassioned gamblers, light wine sparkled in wide goblets, and with laughter enormous fortunes were won and lost. Along the narrow canals between whimsical houses, gondolas adorned with colored lanterns glided to the accompaniment of enchanting melodies, carrying refined cavaliers toward intoxicating amorous adventures.
View of the Cathedral of St. Mark, the Doge’s Palace, and the Piazzetta.
By day in the rays of the southern sun, the five golden domes of the Cathedral of St. Mark, crowned with crosses facing the four points of the compass, shone with dazzling brilliance. The cathedral’s facade, with its picturesque mosaics shimmering in the sunlight, its multitude of elegant columns and bas-reliefs, its exquisite carving on the Gothic cornice, and its bronze quadriga on the broad loggia, concealed within the depths of five enormous arches, massive bronze doors that led to the black marble and golden adornment of the basilica, to its golden altar, to the treasury holding three-eighths of the wealth of the Byzantine Empire brought from Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade. At noon on the main square of Venice, along the sun-heated stone slabs, numerous processions passed by the Doge’s Palace in countless ceremonies; in the evening along the embankments of the lagoon, refreshed by a light breeze, prosperous citizens of the flourishing republic strolled with dignity.
Beautiful, delightfully beautiful, and carefree was the flourishing Venice.
The pleasures of youth are endless. The swift current of life irresistibly draws us toward ever new joys and amusements, and it seems they will never end. In the turbulent whirl of the prime of life, will we have the courage to choose the path that the Lord will surely indicate?
That carefree summer, in the home of the Venetian nobles Contarini, a wealthy family of the Greek nation, one of the sons of the head of the house, who had recently come of age and completed an excellent education, was bidding farewell to his relatives. Raised in the Orthodox faith of his pious parents, natives of Cephalonia, the young man of a little over twenty was leaving the world and preparing for tonsure into monasticism. Rejecting a carefree life of wealth and entertainment, and overcoming the temptation of the flourishing Catholic monasteries of Venice, he was returning to the outskirts of the republic, the Ionian Islands, to receive the monastic tonsure in an Orthodox monastery.
Here, in a small modest monastery, after the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, the elderly abbot read the words of Holy Scripture: Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me (Mt. 16:24), received from the candidate the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, crosswise tonsured the hair on the head of the young Contarini, and vested him in the black riassa and klobuk. The newly tonsured monk was given the name Chrysanthus. Having withdrawn from the world, he placed himself under the authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople.
With the exception of the tiny Cephalonian diocese, the entire territory of the Patriarchate was under the dominion of the Ottoman Empire. The former free citizen of the Venetian Republic now faced service in lands of the former Byzantium, now subject to infidels.
Patriarch Samuel of Constantinople Monk Chrysanthus fulfilled his obedienceIn several monasteries. Experienced spiritual mentors, self-denial, and humility helped him acquire the gift of sincere prayer and find peace of soul in love for the Lord and His people. Bishops of various dioceses took note of the young monk: soon he was ordained to the priesthood. After several years, Hieromonk Chrysanthus, elevated to the rank of abbot, was already governing monasteries himself. In 1774 Patriarch Samuel Hadjeri performed in Constantinople the consecration of the thirty-six-year-old archimandrite as bishop of the Metropolis of Neopatras.
His diocese in the center of Greece was beautiful: the fertile valleys of bountiful Thessaly, encircled by a ring of mountains, were crossed by the winding ribbon of the Pineios, carrying its waters through deep gorges to the gulfs of the Aegean Sea. To the north rose the cloud-wreathed peaks of Olympus; to the west, in the wooded foothills of the Pindus, the sketes of Meteora hovered in the air on sheer cliffs. Villages scattered across the valleys lay nestled in olive and orange groves; ancient cities with glorious pasts spread out near the ruins of Byzantine fortresses; in groves of evergreen eucalyptus trees, transparent springs murmured. But it was not a joyful but a mournful, fading peal of bells from ancient churches that resounded over this land. For three centuries already, Orthodox Greece had been under the yoke of infidels.
For eleven years the hierarch fearlessly defended the Orthodox flock from the caprice of the local pasha and the greed of Ottoman officials.
Metropolitan Chrysanthus governed the Neopatras diocese for eleven years—a remarkable term for a hierarch fearlessly defending the Orthodox flock from the caprice of the local pasha and the greed of Ottoman officials—especially since at that time, even the Patriarchs of Constantinople—who would be removed at the sultan’s whim—headed the Church for no more than two or three years, or five years under fortunate circumstances. In 1784, after another conflict with the pasha, Metropolitan Chrysanthus was relieved of the administration of the metropolis and recalled to Constantinople. The usual fate of a retired hierarch awaited him—the life of a recluse in a monastery of choice.
Man’s goings are of the Lord; how can a man then understand his own way? (Prov. 20:24). The Lord is wise and good, and His Providence will direct him to the path that He has appointed.
From Constantinople the former Metropolitan of Neopatras set out on a many-year journey through the East.
II
In 1785, Metropolitan Chrysanthus departed from Constantinople for the northeast of the Ottoman Empire with the intention of visiting Transcaucasia, the cities of the former Greater Armenia, and the Georgian kingdoms. Reaching Erzurum, he traveled by mountain roads to Kars, and crossing the border, found himself in Persia. Descending from the mountains into the flowering Ararat Valley, the metropolitan arrived at ancient Vagharshapat, once the capital of a mighty state, where in the Etchmiadzin Monastery resided the Catholicos of All Armenians. Having inspected the Catholicos’s residence, the traveler noted the monastery’s incredible luxury and wealth. Compared to the poor churches and monasteries of Greece, the Catholicos’s residence was flourishing.
Fortress-monastery in Georgia.
Eleven years later, by then in the Russian Empire, Metropolitan Chrysanthus, setting down on paper brief recollections of his wanderings, would write:
“Here I shall mention briefly the Armenian Patriarch residing in Ezmiansi. This Patriarch has great power in all those places, and almost the entire nation obeys his commands. He is almost autocratic. Of that monastery I can say that there is none richer in the world, except perhaps the monastery of St. John of Loreto in the Papal domains, and the Pope’s own treasures are comparable with this Armenian monastery. It contains a great multitude of monks and hierarchs, and from the least to the greatest, all are wealthy.
“But why does this powerful and autocratic Patriarch with a nation so populous and strong undertake nothing to this day, and why, when both place and means favor it, does he not at least unite with Georgia to act jointly against their common enemy? This greatly surprises me. I have often had similar discussions with many prudent Armenians. But in vain!”
From the cities of Armenia, Metropolitan Chrysanthus tried to travel to Eastern Georgia, to the Kartli-Kakheti Kingdom, which had recently concluded a treaty with the Russian Empire accepting its protection; but he was stopped at the border by Persian troops.
“I tried in every way to reach Georgia, but could not overcome the obstacles.”
The metropolitan found fellow believers—Georgians—living in Persia, gathered information about the Kartli-Kakheti Kingdom besieged by Persians and Turks, about King Heraclius and Queen Darejan, and about the unfaithful neighboring ally, Imereti.
Leaving Transcaucasia, the hierarch continued his journey through Western Persia; in conversations with educated Persians he perfected his Persian language, studied the customs and mores of the people, and learned of the fate of the Zand dynasty of shahs, treacherously overthrown a year earlier by the cruel and greedy ruler, the eunuch Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar. Reaching the southern border of Persia, he again entered the territory of the Ottoman Empire and arrived in biblical Mesopotamia. Here he sailed down the Tigris to the ruins of ancient Babylon, lived for some time in fabulous Baghdad, and studied Arabic. Not parting from Baghdad too soon, he again turned westward and ascended the Euphrates into Syria.
For several years the metropolitan wandered through the Near East and North Africa.
“I have already learned Arabic and with greater ease traveled all of Syria, the mountains of Lebanon, Jerusalem, and Egypt. I was in Ethiopia, from where I returned a second time to Egypt and Syria.”
From Syria Metropolitan Chrysanthus again directed his steps to the domains of the Baghdad pasha, to the now familiar Baghdad, from where he proceeded to the Persian Gulf in the port of Basra. From there in 1791 the traveler-hierarch sailed on a merchant sailing vessel to mysterious India.
Chapter Two
III
At the peak of a sultry, humid summer the sailing ship, considerably battered during the many-day crossing of the Indian Ocean, entered the western arm of the Ganges Delta and moored at one of the wharves of the Bengal port of Haldia. The arriving merchants busied themselves with the unloading of goods, while Metropolitan Chrysanthus, transferring to a small boat, continued his journey up the river to the capital of British India. In Calcutta, at the residence of the Governor-General Fort William, the metropolitan was received by Marquis Cornwallis, who promised the assistance of the administration in the hierarch’s travels through the British possessions in India.
“With the help of the English present there, I traveled through many provinces of India.”
Wondrous and unusual was the world surrounding him: shores covered with mangrove thickets rising from the sea; enormous banyans—trees that grow downward, sheltering entire villages beneath their canopy; impenetrable bamboo forests that bloom once a century; vast coconut and banana groves. In the river floodplains were extensive tea and tobacco plantations, endless rice fields with frail workers leading enormous buffalo. On the roads were elephants of unprecedented size on thick pillar-like legs, with fearsome white tusks, deafeningly trumpeting through long trunks, carrying local dignitaries on their backs in decorated wicker howdahs. In populous cities were bizarre pagan temples with fearsome statues of a blue four-armed goddess.
A pleasant surprise was the metropolitan’s meeting with several Orthodox Greek families who were enterprisingly conducting trade operations with the East India Company. Through them he learned that in Dhaka several Greek merchants were, at their own risk, preparing a trading expedition to unknown Tibet. Upon receiving this news, the metropolitan hastened to Dhaka.
A sailing bark hired by the Greek merchants, loaded to the top with salt and under the command of an Indian crew, ascended the full-flowing Brahmaputra during the monsoon season. Its passengers on this dangerous journey were several Greek merchants and an Orthodox metropolitan. The danger of the expedition lay in the fact that several years earlier, because the English had lost the trust of the local people, all Christians had been forbidden under pain of death to remain on the land of Tibet.
“It is forbidden to tolerate Christians there in that entire region, where several years before my arrival all Christians were killed and not one remained.”
However, some guarantee of the success of the enterprise for the merchants was the oral promise given to them by Tibetan traders they had met in Bengal to obtain permission to transport salt, owing to the extreme need for it, as far as the first trading city after the border.
Gradually the tropical thickets of the plains gave way to dense coniferous forests; the wall of mountains drew ever closer; now the Brahmaputra carried its waters through the luxurious meadows of the Tibetan plateau. Freely allowed through the first customs post, the vessel arrived at the appointed city. The metropolitan, who had come ashore in his tall klobuk with an embroidered cross and a panagia on his breast, was immediately detained by the guard and placed under respectful supervision. Word of his detention was sent to the Court of the Dalai Lama.
IV
An order to deliver the metropolitan to Lhasa immediately arrived after several days.
An open palanquin accompanied by several mounted warriors swiftly rode to the capital of Tibet, drawing the attention of many people in roadside villages, who were astonished by the hierarch’s unprecedented attire. They arrived in Lhasa after dark, around eleven o’clock in the evening, and proceeded without stopping to the palace.
The Potala Palace, Tibet.
“At the palace gates I was met by four state officials and one minister, who searched me to see if I had any weapons. After this the minister went ahead, and I followed him with those officials.”
The group walked for a long time through endless passages and halls, up broad staircases leading from floor to floor. Finally the metropolitan entered a brightly lit large chamber, in the middle of which stood a throne. Near the throne on an embroidered cushion gleamed the blade of a sword. Beside it sat an important dignitary, who turned out to be the first minister Baridar, the uncle of the Dalai Lama, holding on his knees a boy of about eleven—the Dalai Lama himself. Those accompanying the metropolitan signaled him to approach closer. Approaching, the metropolitan bowed and in Persian greeted those seated. The first minister replied to him also in the purest Persian! Slipping from his uncle’s knees, the young Dalai Lama approached the metropolitan, kissed him on both cheeks, took his hand in both of his own, and shook it firmly. The minister invited the metropolitan to sit beside them and addressed him with questions, also marveling at him, at his appearance and attire.
The metropolitan explained that he was of the Christian, Orthodox religion, a hierarch from Constantinople, traveling through the East. Metropolitan Chrysanthus was asked whether he was of the same faith as the people from the great northern kingdom whom they had seen several times in China, who cross themselves thus—and the minister showed with his hand. “Yes, I am of the same faith as they,” the metropolitan replied.
The conversation lasted about half an hour. The minister translated the metropolitan’s answers for the Dalai Lama from Persian. At the end of the meeting, at the command of the Dalai Lama, another minister brought out a luxurious robe, placed it on the metropolitan’s shoulders, and announced that he was being provided with quarters with a staff of servants and full maintenance.
Scarcely had the metropolitan arrived at his assigned lodging when a messenger from the palace brought him a gift that had been sent: an enormous porcelain dish covered with red cloth concealing a mound of various sweets, and a finest silk kerchief with one hundred rupees tied in it.
“Having support and suitable accomodations, I lived in these quarters for seventeen days.”
Every day the Dalai Lama’s own staff would take Metropolitan Chrysanthus on outings to the palaces and estates of the capital of Tibet.
Every day the Dalai Lama’s own staff, accompanied by one of the ministers, would take Metropolitan Chrysanthus on outings to the palaces and estates of the capital of Tibet. This sunny city was the most wondrous and beautiful of all the places he had seen in India. In the center of a valley encircled by a ring of mountains, atop a rocky hill rose the twelve stories of the enormous Potala Palace, concealing behind its sheer walls the residence of the Dalai Lama, numerous ceremonial halls, temples, treasuries, and quarters for ministers, soldiers, and servants. Below, around the hill, lay the city with its whimsical houses, elegant multi-tiered temples, and bazaars filled with costly goods; extensive gardens with various fruit trees bending their branches under the weight of ripe fruit surrounded charming country estates; crystal river waters sparkled in the rays of the sun.
In the evenings, the first minister Baridar would visit the metropolitan’s quarters, spending several hours in friendly conversation, inquiring about the European states, about the cities of the distant Mediterranean, about the faith that the hierarch confessed, and about the mighty Christian kingdom lying far to the north, ruled by an enlightened empress.
On the eleventh day of his stay in Lhasa, Metropolitan Chrysanthus was again invited to the palace. The Dalai Lama, who received him with benevolence, asked him about his health, about his impressions of what he had seen, and about the local climate.
“I replied, among other things, that the climate in Lhasa was most excellent, that I was very pleased with everything, and I thanked him. To the question whether there were such gardens in Constantinople, I replied that there were no such gardens. Then the Dalai Lama said to me that he was glad of my arrival in his land and that he hoped I would praise his dominions and himself everywhere.”
“As for the Dalai Lama,” the metropolitan wrote later, “he has a character pleasant to the soul, cheerful, and philanthropic.”
On the sixteenth day, during the usual evening meeting with the first minister, Metropolitan Chrysanthus spoke of his intention to proceed further to China and asked for recommendations. Minister Baridar noticeably darkened and after some pause said that this was impossible.
The next day the metropolitan was again summoned to an audience with the Dalai Lama, where he was informed that that same evening one of the court ministers was departing with a suite on state business to Northern India and that their guest would be conveyed there as well by this caravan. Thanking the Dalai Lama and exchanging kisses with him on both cheeks according to custom, the metropolitan prepared to return immediately to his quarters to pack, but was invited to remain for dinner, after which, at the command of the Dalai Lama, gifts were brought out to him: two thousand rupees, a white fur coat for the journey, and a roll of fabric.
“That same day, with that minister and at his expense I departed from Lhasa.”
This was in the seventh year of Metropolitan Chrysanthus’s wanderings. In the following year of 1793, Tibet would be occupied by Chinese troops, and for many years its connection with the outside world would cease.
To be continued…
