Chapter Three
V
William Simpson. The Production of Cashmere Shawls. 1867.
Metropolitan Chrysanthus parted with the Tibetan embassy in Patna, the sacred city of three Eastern religions. From there, at the confluence of the mighty Ganges with its tributaries, having found traveling companions in a merchant caravan, he set out for Kashmir.
For several weeks the caravan made its unhurried way along the trade route beside the gigantic wall of the Himalayas. The territory under English administration came to an end, and the caravan now traveled through the lands of the former empire of the Great Mughals. At last the white peaks of the Lesser Himalayas appeared ahead. The road now wound among evergreen mountain forests and rose noticeably higher and higher. The caravan’s horses labored up the steep pass, impassable in winter, and the daily stages grew shorter. After several days of continuous ascent the mountains suddenly parted, and the travelers found themselves in a high-mountain valley.
“O Lord, how great are Thy works! Thy thoughts are very deep!” (Ps. 92:5). Metropolitan Chrysanthus exclaimed upon finding himself in Kashmir.
Fantastical white fluffy clouds, seemingly torn from the glittering snowy peaks, floated above cedar and walnut forests, above luxurious meadows, above apple and cherry groves, and were reflected in the clear waters of a winding river and a marvelous blue lake, on whose surface floating gardens slowly revolved. Along the riverbanks, in a tangle of channels and canals, stretched the ancient trading city of Srinagar, famed for its wealth and wares. Merchant caravans from the most distinguished cities of the East made their way here, to the treasure-house of Kashmir. In the vast bazaars Arabs, Persians, Indians, Afghans, Uzbeks, and Chinese purchased carpets, shawls, scarves of white cashmere, the finest silk fabrics, articles of silver and precious stones, saffron, and rose tea. Right by the lake on broad terraces stood the marvelous palaces of the Great Mughal; numerous streams cascaded down man-made cornices among the exotic plants of the enchanting gardens.
“No other region in the whole world can compare with the land of Kashmir,” the hierarch would write several years later, recalling his journey.
Metropolitan Chrysanthus left the captivating land of Kashmir together with a caravan of Bukharan merchants returning to distant Transoxiana. A long and exhausting road lay before the caravan. The endless route ran across the plains of the Punjab and the arid valley of the Indus, along the impassable ridges of the Hindu Kush and the Sulaiman Mountains, climbed the bed of a swift river in a narrow gorge, and stretched across a stony barren desert. Only after a long time did the caravan enter the gates of Kandahar, the chief trading city of Afghanistan.
At dawn crowds of people hurried along its narrow crooked streets to the city bazaar. Pedestrians, horsemen, camels laden with packs and waterskins, colorful robes and turbans, wandering musicians, fakirs, elders with red beards, street beggars—all this motley throng swirled noisily across the broad square surrounded by shops, workshops, and teahouses.
After several days of rest in the overcrowded caravanserai, the caravan continued across the stony upland and a week later entered Herat, once abundant but now ruined by many years of war between Persians and Afghans, situated in a fertile oasis at the crossroads of India, Persia, Bukhara, and Khiva.
Pistachio trees and dense thickets of wild rose surrounded the dried-up moat and half-collapsed walls of the once flourishing city, known throughout the East for its splendid horses. Now only men hung with daggers in dusty clothes wandered its dirty streets. Without lingering in Herat, the travelers turned onto the mountain road leading to Kabul. The road was deserted; only occasionally did they come upon villages surrounded by adobe walls, and suddenly appearing on the mountain summits were horsemen with veiled faces who watched the caravan’s movement intently.
Environs of Kabul, mid-nineteenth century
Kabul, to which the Afghan shahs had transported the remnants of the Great Mughals’ treasures seized at the fall of that formidable state, met the travelers with preparations for another campaign. Before Timur Shah marched an army equipped by the local chieftains—numerous cavalry pranced, armed with bows and spears. The main force—camels with falconets fastened between their humps—stepped sedately; soldiers with old matchlock muskets on their shoulders marched in disarray.
“The ruler of this domain is exceedingly rich in precious stones and pearls, but has no money and can scarcely support himself with his revenues,” Metropolitan Chrysanthus would note.
The irrevocable passage of time marked the ninth year of the metropolitan’s endless wanderings
The irrevocable passage of time marked the ninth year of the metropolitan’s endless wanderings. In his dark mantle and sun-bleached kamilavka he repeated the words of the Jesus Prayer.
Having passed the last possession of the Afghan shah—the small fortress of Balkh, surrounded by once-beautiful but now devastated gardens—the caravan entered the lands of the Bukharan khanate, and after ten days’ journey, crossing the Amu Darya, reached Bukhara.
VI
Palace of the Emir, 1888–1889. Uzbekistan, Bukhara Region, Bukhara. Photo: pastvu.com
Metropolitan Chrysanthus called the land beyond the river a garden of astonishing beauty, abounding in all things necessary for human life.
Cool springs flowing from the mountain ridges streamed through hollows planted by nature with fruit trees, wild grapevines, and mulberry groves. Well-fed herds grazed on the succulent pastures of the foothills; fields of wheat, rice, and cotton, irrigated by the life-giving water of the Zeravshan, stretched across the plain along a thousand man-made canals.
The sacred city of Bukhara, the bulwark of Islam in Central Asia, famed for its multitude of mosques, mausoleums, and madrasas, astonished visitors with the abundance and crowds of its bazaar. Here were bought and resold elegant goods and precious stones from India and Kashmir, silks from China, locally made gold-woven carpets, glazed painted pottery, sabers and daggers mounted in silver, and gold ornaments by Bukharan jewelers. Baskets overflowing with ripe peaches, broad platters with heavy clusters of grapes, mountains of the sweetest melons that hid the sellers, stood side by side with bales of cotton and bundles of costly Karakul skins. But right there beside them, under the scorching sun, stood people in chains, sold like sheep for forty or fifty gold coins. Captives taken in wars with Afghans and Persians, peaceful civilians driven off in raids on neighboring Balkh and Mashhad, Russians bought from nomadic tribes or kidnapped on the borders of the Urals and Irtysh—all were brought here to the slave market.
“The Kirghiz-Kaisaks and Nogais annually carry off several captives from Russia and bring them to Bukharia and Khiva. I often had occasion to speak with these captives, who adjured me by God to do everything possible to convey to Russia news of their pitiful condition.”
The ruler of Bukharia ordered the metropolitan seized and brought to trial for violating the law of Islam
News of the presence in the city of an Orthodox hierarch quickly reached the ruler of Bukharia, the country’s highest spiritual authority, Mir Masum Shah Murad, “the most hypocritical mullah,” who ordered Metropolitan Chrysanthus seized and brought to trial for violating the law of Islam, which forbade an infidel to be in a sacred place with an unshaven head under pain of death. In July 1794 in Bukhara, in the presence of Mir Masum Shah Murad, the trial of the metropolitan began.
The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him. (Nah. 1:7). For several days Metropolitan Chrysanthus loudly refuted all the judges’ assertions, citing sayings from the Koran in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. Suddenly, without concluding the trial, the naib Mir Masum Shah ordered the metropolitan released and immediately expelled from the country.
The metropolitan left Bukhara. He set out toward the Caspian Sea, into the depths of the Kara Kum sands. Ahead lay the last oasis—the Khivan khanate.
Khiva
After ten days’ journey along the deserted left bank of the Amu Darya there appeared a city on the sand—Khiva, surrounded by adobe walls ten arshins high with towers, loopholes, and battlements. Entering through the opened eastern gates, the travelers found themselves in an unusual multicolored city with narrow streets that would not allow oncoming horsemen to pass, graceful arches between houses that unexpectedly revealed semicircular domes of mausoleums, broad entrances of palaces, slender minarets, and the massive Friday mosque with its multitude of carved columns—all decorated with intricate multicolored majolica ornaments; a city with pure cool water from ancient wells.
Every morning, when the fortress gates opened, Khiva met the endless caravans passing through the city, carrying goods from the four corners of the earth. The abundant bazaars, famous throughout Central Asia, carried on lively trade. And in this place, just as in Bukhara, people were mercilessly sold into slavery at the slave market.
“In Khiva, among the other slaves, there are more than four thousand Russian captives,” the hierarch recorded.
Having come to an agreement with Turkmens of a caravan returning from Khiva, Metropolitan Chrysanthus continued with it on his way to the Caspian. Now the road ran across the waterless Usturt desert. Gray, lifeless salt marshes stretched into the boundless distance around the caravan; only occasionally did a solitary twisted saxaul bush suddenly appear in the haze of the scorched plain.
The long-awaited sea appeared unexpectedly. Light blue and calm, stretching along the deserted shores of Mangyshlak, it rolled its waves with a quiet murmur onto the flat coastal stones. After a long wait in yurts set up by the Turkmens, we saw the sails of a Russian merchant vessel appearing in the distance.
Chapter Four
Russia. Astrakhan. View of the city (from the book by A. Olearius, “Travels in Muscovy.” Pieter van der Aa edition, early eighteenth century, with drawings by Cornelis de Bruyn based on drawings by Adam Olearius)
VII
On the last day of May 1795, festive services for the Feast of the Holy Trinity were celebrated in the churches of Astrakhan adorned with greenery. In the five-domed Dormition Cathedral of the kremlin, the diocesan hierarch himself celebrated the Divine Liturgy. A multitude of people with bouquets and branches of trees stood in the church strewn with fragrant freshly mown grass. The many-voiced archiepiscopal choir, priests in festal green vestments, and the people receiving the Holy Gifts glorified the joyous feast:
“We have seen the true Light, we have received the Heavenly Spirit, we have found the true Faith, we worship the undivided Trinity, for He hath saved us!”
With Bishop Platon, Metropolitan Chrysanthus, who had arrived in Astrakhan two weeks earlier, concelebrated the services. The peal of the bells of the cathedral belfry carried the news of the triumph of the Holy Trinity over the houses, streets, and embankments of the white city and over the banks of the great river.
In the Orthodox Kingdom, in Astrakhan, capital of the Caucasus Viceroyalty, the wanderings of Metropolitan Chrysanthus came to an end
In the Orthodox Kingdom, in Astrakhan, capital of the Caucasus Viceroyalty, the wanderings of Metropolitan Chrysanthus came to an end. Upon receipt of the Most August decree on the metropolitan’s petition to be accepted into Russian subjecthood, Bishop Platon administered the oath to the metropolitan on the Holy Gospel:
“I, Metropolitan Chrysanthus, formerly of Neopatras, do promise and swear by Almighty God, before His Holy Gospel, that I desire and am bound to serve faithfully and unfeignedly Her Imperial Majesty, my true and natural Most Gracious Sovereign Lady Empress Catherine Alexeyevna, Autocrat of All Russia, and to obey her in all things, sparing not my life even to the last drop of blood…”
The hierarch of the Astrakhan and Stavropol diocese invited Metropolitan Chrysanthus to share the roof of the archiepiscopal house. The bright, cheerful, and generous Bishop Platon (Lyubarsky), a native of Little Russia, a tall, powerful figure who bore among the subordinate clergy the nickname “Zaporozhian,” quick to punish the guilty and to reward the zealous with generous gifts, listened with an open heart to the lowly. Daily interaction between the two hierarchs of the same age, joint services in the house church and the cathedral, and services in the suburban St. John Monastery led to mutual goodwill and soon to friendship for many years.
Bishop Platon told Metropolitan Chrysanthus of the striking changes that had taken place in the south of the Russian Empire over the past ten years. In Taurida and the Ochakov steppe, large cities had appeared; a mighty naval fleet stood in the bays of the place called Sevastopol; Greek families coming from Turkey settled on the shores of the Black Sea region, as in ancient times.
Perhaps Metropolitan Chrysanthus would now head there, to the south of Russia? No, it was too soon—a chain of events drew him along the appointed path. At the beginning of summer the cruel ruler of Persia, Agha Mohammad Khan, demanded that the King of Kartli-Kakheti, Irakli, break the Treaty of Georgievsk with the Russian Empire and again become his vassal. In August a many-thousand Persian army crossed the borders of the kingdom and halted on the approaches to Tiflis. The Governor-General of the Caucasus, General of Infantry Ivan Gudovich, asked Metropolitan Chrysanthus to help clarify the situation in Transcaucasia and detained him in Astrakhan.
Events accelerated; in September the Persians by a sudden blow destroyed a small Kakhetian force and entered Tiflis, carrying out a merciless pogrom there; upon learning of her ally’s calamity, Empress Catherine II decided to prepare a military campaign into Persia; the Astrakhan and Nizhny Novgorod dragoon regiments and Cossack regiments from Stavropol arrived at the border of the Caucasus Viceroyalty, at Mozdok and Kizlyar. Metropolitan Chrysanthus was urgently summoned to St. Petersburg.
VIII
St. Petersburg. Engraving by John Atkinson
On the day of the Meeting of the Lord in 1796, a sleigh carriage with Metropolitan Chrysanthus wrapped in furs and an accompanying officer sped across the snowy expanse. Snow crunched under the runners in the frost and sparkled in the bright sun. Urged on by a dashing coachman, the lively troika raced along the endless road, leaving behind fields in winter repose, snow-covered villages with smoke above the huts, bearded peasants in sheepskin coats, frozen rivers, copses covered with a white mantle, and towns with the pealing of bells.
Moscow met Metropolitan Chrysanthus with the Sunday peal of bells. On the cathedral square of the ancient capital, the golden dome and cross of Ivan the Great flashed in the first rays of the sun, and a moment later—the crosses of a thousand parish and cathedral churches. In the monasteries that had already finished the Midnight Office, the morning hours were being read; festively dressed people hurried to the beginning of the early Liturgy.
In Moscow, on its outskirts, in the Danilov Monastery, the ailing Archbishop Nikephoros Theotokis, a learned writer, “the glory of Greece,” who had arrived in Russia twenty years earlier as a simple hieromonk and just four years ago had retired as Archbishop of Astrakhan and Stavropol, was living out his days in peace. During Metropolitan Chrysanthus’s brief stop in Moscow, a meeting between the two hierarchs was bound to take place.
The Alexander Nevsky Monastery was designated as the metropolitan’s place of residence
At the end of winter, Metropolitan Chrysanthus arrived in St. Petersburg and was immediately introduced to His Serene Highness Prince Platon Alexandrovich Zubov at the Empress’ winter residence. In the luxurious office of a majestic building on the banks of the Neva River, the metropolitan was received by the all-powerful field chief general, who was preparing a plan for the spring Persian campaign. His Serene Highness, who was eagerly awaiting information about the state of affairs in Transcaucasia and the Middle East, took note of the thorough account of the enlightened eyewitness, and the metropolitan was asked not to leave the capital for the time being. The Alexander Nevsky Monastery was designated as the metropolitan's place of residence.
Here, in the cells of the monastery's fraternal building, Metropolitan Chrysanthus wrote down in abbreviated form “those truths that in my long travels I saw with my eyes and heard with my ears and experienced in action,” managing to present his explanations to Lieutenant General Count Valerian Zubov, who was leaving for the Caucasus. Here he met Metropolitan Gabriel (Petrov) of St. Petersburg and Novgorod, highly respected by the Empress; a bright bishop of a brilliant age, seeking the rewards of the world, wearing vestments studded with precious stones, allowing him to rest from fasting at court dinners, but within the walls of a monastery a strict ascetic, eating only stale breadcrumbs. He was a learned theologian, fluent in Latin, the publisher of The Philokalia, and a writer of exemplary sermons. Here Metropolitan Chrysanthus learned Russian, made use of the rich library of the main seminary, and became acquainted with the history of Russia and its church structure. He communicated with young pupils of the Corps of foreign co-religionists, the sons of renowned Greek families who had received Russian citizenship, and future naval officers who were brought to the Holy Trinity Cathedral for worship in Greek. Here, finally, and—oh, what unsearchable Providence!—he was introduced to the organization of the service of naval hieromonks on Baltic warships that had developed in the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, and began carefully studying it.
Metropolitan Chrysanthus studied Russian, made use of the rich library of the main seminary, and became acquainted with the history of Russia and its church structure
With the beginning of summer, news reached the capital of the successful southward advance of Count Valerian Zubov’s Caspian Corps, of the capture of Derbent, Quba, and Baku. By mid-autumn, the regiments of the corps were stationed at the confluence of the Kura and Araks rivers, preparing for a decisive advance deep into Persia. His Serene Highness Prince Platon Zubov was intensely occupied with plans for the postwar reorganization of Transcaucasia.
Throughout the summer and autumn, the high society of St. Petersburg lived carefree amid its customary entertainments. Ceremonial receptions attended by eminent dignitaries and European ambassadors were held at Tsarskoye Selo and the Winter Palace. In vast halls illuminated by hundreds of wax candles, distinguished cavaliers in court uniforms adorned with orders and ribbons upon their breasts moved gracefully through elegant polonaises alongside irresistible ladies clothed in brocade and silk gowns decorated with precious stones. Carriages attended by stately footmen in livery delivered finely dressed spectators to the entrances of the Imperial and private theaters for performances of Italian opera and French vaudeville.
And at the other end of the city, in the monastery upon the banks of the Neva, the unhurried cycle of monastic services continued according to ancient custom. With each passing month the Lazarevskoye Cemetery beside the monastery walls grew larger, while the clock in the tower of the Trinity Cathedral tirelessly continued to mark the appointed hours.
On the morning of Wednesday, November 5, Empress Catherine II of Russia suffered a severe stroke. All the efforts of the court physicians to restore her consciousness proved futile, and thirty-six hours later the Autocrat of All Russia passed away.
The heir to the throne, Grand Duke Paul I of Russia, was summoned from Gatchina by courier and arrived in the capital.
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Together with a dispatch from St. Petersburg about the death of the Empress and the accession to the throne of the new sovereign Paul Petrovich, the command of the Caspian Corps received an order to administer the oath to the new Emperor to the troops, while military operations were to cease. At the beginning of the following year, 1797, a second Most August command arrived—to prepare the troops for return to Russia. From April, already under different command, the corps began its march back to the Russian border, and at the beginning of June the troops crossed the Terek. The Persian campaign was over.
Now nothing detained Metropolitan Chrysanthus in the capital. The Most Holy Synod granted the metropolitan’s petition to depart for residence in Novorossia, assigning him the ordinary pension of a retired hierarch—500 rubles per year.
Again hundreds of miles of road flowed past. The carriage sped along with post horses; district towns and villages, postal stations, and inns flashed by. Gradually sparse copses and streams gave way to the full-flowing rivers, groves, and blossoming gardens of bountiful Ukraine. Behind remained the Desna River and provincial Chernigov with its ancient cathedrals, Nezhin with the local Greeks joyfully greeting the metropolitan, beautiful Kiev, the ancient capital on the high bank of the mighty Dnieper, glorified by the saints reposing in the deep caves of the Kiev Caves Lavra. In the recently built cathedral city of Novomirgorod in the summer of 1798, Metropolitan Chrysanthus was met by the ruling hierarch of the newly-created Novorossiysk and Dnieper diocese, Gabriel Banulesko-Bodoni, who had recently moved here together with the archiepiscopal house and the diocesan consistory from Poltava, a native Moldavian, five years earlier elevated to the rank of Metropolitan of the Moldo-Vlachian diocese and removed by the Porte at the end of the Russo-Turkish war. He had returned to the Russian Empire and taken the place of the reposed Archbishop Ambrose of Ekaterinoslav1 and Kherson-Taurida.
Without lingering in Novomirgorod, Metropolitan Chrysanthus continued his journey to the shores of the Black and Azov Seas, hastening to the new Greek settlements in the hope of seeing faces familiar from his ministry in Greece.
In September 1799 Metropolitan Gabriel was transferred to the Kiev diocese. In October the new hierarch, Bishop Athanasius—a learned man, expert in ancient languages, translator of early Christian writers, formerly rector of the Moscow Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy—arrived in Novomirgorod, appointed by decree of the Most Holy Governing Synod “to be Bishop Athanasius of Voronezh Bishop of Novorossiysk and Dnieper.”
The wise and authoritative Metropolitan Chrysanthus was of great help to Bishop Athanasius in the administration of the Greek parishes
At the end of the year, by decree of the Most Holy Synod, the Theodosia and Mariupol vicariate of the former Novorossiysk diocese, established twelve years earlier for Greeks settled in Taurida and Mariupol, was abolished, and Bishop Athanasius summoned Metropolitan Chrysanthus to Novomirgorod for assistance because the numerous newly-incorporated Orthodox Greeks, parishioners and clergy, spoke only the modern Greek dialect and did not know Russian. The wise and authoritative metropolitan was of great help to Bishop Athanasius in the administration of the Greek parishes, often traveling from Novomirgorod to the coastal areas.
The interaction of the two highly educated hierarchs brought both no small joy. Many evenings passed in long conversations between the learned men, whether in examining administrative affairs, questions of homiletics; or, in a free hour, discussion of Tertullian’s apologies.
Portrait of Alexander I by G. Dawe The order of diocesan life in Novomirgorod was disrupted by a Most August manifesto delivered at the end of March 1801:
“By the grace of God, We, Alexander I, Emperor and Autocrat of All Russia, etc., etc., etc., do declare to Our faithful subjects: By the inscrutable ways of the Most High it has pleased God to end the life of Our beloved parent, Sovereign Emperor Paul Petrovich, who departed this life suddenly by an apoplectic stroke in the night from the 11th to the 12th of this month. We, inheriting the Imperial All-Russian throne, inherit together with it the duty to govern the people entrusted to Us by God according to the laws and according to the heart of Our grandmother, reposed in God, Her Imperial Majesty Empress Catherine the Great.”
In all places of the Russian Empire clergymen administered the oath of faithful subjecthood to His Imperial Majesty to people of every rank and station of the male sex, excluding state and seignorial peasants. A new, changeable and ambiguous Alexandrine age had begun—the quarter-century reign of a contradictory emperor.
The change in former legislation also touched the spiritual sphere—at the end of December 1803, to the name of Archbishop Athanasius, who had been granted on the day of the coronation of Their Imperial Majesties the high rank of archbishop, there arrived a Most Augustly confirmed decree of the Most Holy Synod on the transfer of the archiepiscopal household, consistory, and seminary to the provincial city of Ekaterinoslav. In May 1804 a carriage with Archbishop Athanasius and Metropolitan Chrysanthus, who had left Novomirgorod, was met on the midway to Ekaterinoslav at his estate by General Fyodor Borovsky, a wounded hero of Maçin and knight of the highest orders, who asked the hierarchs to consecrate his newly-built, beautiful house church. He hospitably entertained the guests with exquisite dishes of his estate at tables set amid blossoming cherry orchards.
In Ekaterinoslav the archiepiscopal household was conveniently housed in a large wooden building formerly occupied by the civil governor. By autumn, through the efforts of the archbishop and with the assistance of the metropolitan, a new seminary was arranged in a city house rented with diocesan funds. Archiepiscopal services were celebrated in the Dormition Church, which had become the cathedral.
On light summer evenings, in walks along the heights above the Dnieper from the large garden surrounding the archiepiscopal house to the half-ruined palace of the Most Serene Prince Grigory Potemkin, to the extraordinarily large foundation of the unbuilt Transfiguration Cathedral, the hierarchs recalled the words of the Prophet Daniel about those who sleep in the dust of the earth.
In the tranquil diocesan center of Ekaterinoslav it seemed that long years of peaceful life lay ahead.
But once again Divine Providence made itself known—the time had come!—Metropolitan Chrysanthus received unexpected news from Crimea, and in the autumn of 1804 set out for permanent residence in Sevastopol.
Here new glorious deeds awaited him, perhaps the chief ones in his life.2
