Obedience

Once there served a young sexton in a church. He was zealous in obedience and tried to get blessing for everything. One day, the dean charged him with bell-ringing before the service. The sexton immediately asked for blessing and went to the bell tower. A few minutes later the dean noticed that he had given the sexton the keys not to a big old lock, hanging on the door of the belfry, but to his new "Toyota".

He expected the careless novice to come back, but the church bell started ringing followed by change-ringing.

When the bell-ringer returned, they checked the keys. They were to the foreign car. The door to the bell tower was locked.

Later, the curious made several attempts to unlock the bell-tower with the keys to the dean’s car, but in vain. Probably they did not ask for blessing...

Read also

Water for the heart: Why Exupéry wrote about Baptism without knowing it

Right now, all of us are trudging through a desert of exhaustion. We reread The Little Prince on the eve of Theophany to understand why we truly need Living Water.

A shrine in your pocket: Why Christians wore lead flasks around their necks

They walked thousands of miles on foot, risking their lives. Why was a cheap lead flask of oil valued more than gold – and how did it become the prototype of our modern “go-bag”?

Strangers in their own palaces: Why Eliot called Christmas a “bitter agony”

The holidays are over – and what remains is the hangover of everyday life. We unpack T. S. Eliot’s piercing poem about how hard it is to return to “normal” when you have seen God.

God in a “krysania”: Why, for Antonych, Bethlehem moved to the Carpathians

Lemko Magi, a golden nut–Moon in Mary’s palms, and the Lord riding in a sleigh. How Bohdan-Ihor Antonych turned Christmas from a biblical story into a personal experience for every Ukrainian.

Stories of the Early Church: The place of the laity

In antiquity, a community could drive out its bishop. Why did we lose that right and turn into powerless “extras”? This is the story of the great turning point of the third century.

Revolt in the caves: How Kyiv’s saints defeated princes without weapons

A prince threatened to bury them alive for tonsuring his boyars. A chronicle of the Lavra’s first conflict with the state – and why the monks were not afraid of exile.