“Picaso”: The Fall and Repentance
Excerpts from Andrey Vlasov’s book Picaso. Part One: Slave. Episode 26.
Time: 1992
Place: Kyiv
Characters: Father Lavr, seminarians.
On November 27, the first snow fell upon the royal city of Kyiv. It happened on the feast day of the holy Apostle Philip, the traditional eve of the Nativity Fast. Before midnight, all non-fasting food supplies had to be eaten. That was exactly what the seminarians were busy doing after evening prayers in the seminary dormitories.
Greed was never respected in the seminary, and everyone gladly shared the treats sent from home. But the evenings before the beginning of a fast were true feasts of generosity. Everyone treated everyone else. Students would even come from other dormitories in other buildings carrying sausages, cheeses, and other delicacies. Sometimes this happened at five minutes to midnight.
“Brethren, we brought you some consolation. Here, take it,” someone would say, handing over half a sausage or a piece of cheese. The recipient would scratch his stomach thoughtfully, wondering whether there was still room for anything else.
“Many thanks… And we have some milk for you…”
But there was always some leftover dairy or meat food. The next morning people would look at those remains with sorrow and annoyance.
“We still should’ve eaten it.”
The monastery cats finished the rest.
That morning had been gloomy. Rain began after lunch, but the temperature had already dropped below freezing, and by evening everything outside had turned to ice. A third-year seminarian, Pasha Kuznets, managed to obtain some “forbidden drink” – three bottles of Cahors wine – and the entire brotherhood of fifty-four students shared them. Everything anyone had in the way of non-fasting food was spread out on an improvised common table made from beds pushed together.
They were preparing not only to give up meat and dairy, but also jokes, anecdotes, and all sorts of foolishness. Everyone was cheerful, and when the first snow suddenly began to fall around ten o’clock that night, the mood became positively jubilant.
Everyone quickly got dressed and rushed outside. The snow sparkled joyfully in the light of the street lamps. Within minutes, the usually deserted square before the Far Caves of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra turned into a battlefield of snowballs. Snow flew in every direction, snowmen were built, and races across the ice began. Everything, however, was done as quietly as possible so as not to attract the wrath of the authorities.
After such a celebration before the fast, the entire Nativity Fast usually passed in a lively and joyful spirit.
The prayer circle formed for the “enlightenment of the servant of God Georgiy and those with him” had thinned considerably. Of the roughly twenty people who had once gathered every evening at the height of enthusiasm, only five or six “steadfast tin soldiers” remained. Those who had abandoned the effort mockingly called them exactly that.
The first to quit was Alyosha Okhrimenko – the very one who had urged Misha to increase the number of prayers. For a while he even increased them on his own, fingering his prayer rope for another half hour after everyone else had gone to bed. But it did not last long.
Then he agreed that “forty prayers and no more” was enough. Soon he joined the others only every other night, then less often, and eventually abandoned the practice entirely. He also became the first to tease them:
“Well then, prayer warriors – can’t sleep?”
Soon only three remained, but they fulfilled the rule they had taken upon themselves despite all ridicule.
Shortly before New Year’s, another supplementary class on the Old Testament was scheduled. As Misha and his companions walked to the library building, heavy snow suddenly began to fall.
“I’m no clairvoyant, brothers,” Alyosha Okhrimenko said, “but my heart tells me we won’t have class today.”
“Why’s that?”
“The Helicopter will come flying in and send everyone to shovel snow. Mark my words.”
Attendance at the Old Testament lectures had already begun to decline somewhat. It was now possible to find empty seats in the study hall.
Father Lavr entered wrapped in a scarf and spoke more quietly than usual. His throat was evidently bothering him.
“Last time, brethren, we did not finish discussing the Fall. The subject is extremely important. We stopped after examining the stages through which sin develops in a person – from the initial suggestion, that is, the sinful thought coming from outside, all the way to the sinful act itself.
“Again, when I say that a thought comes from outside, I do not necessarily mean that we see, hear, or smell something. A thought may arise in our mind which we mistakenly accept as our own. In reality, that thought may have been planted there by the evil one.
“It is written: ‘Test the spirits, whether they are of God.’ One could also say: test the thoughts entering your mind – whether they are from God. And if they are not, then simply do not think them.”
“Again, the development of sin in a person passes through several stages. Those stages may unfold instantly, or they may mature over years.
“And now, brethren, pay attention! The reverse process – repentance – requires no stages and no gradual development. For a man to return to God, he needs to take only one step. One! Do you hear?
“That was precisely the step man should have taken in Paradise after committing sin. That was what God awaited from him.”
“But before we speak about how God called Adam and his wife to repentance, we must understand the consequences of sin which appeared in the first people after tasting the forbidden fruit.
“It is written: ‘And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.’”
“The first thing one cannot fail to notice is that their eyes truly were opened, just as the devil had foretold. Remember: ‘Your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.’
“But what they saw was not that they had become gods. They saw that they were naked.
“What sort of nakedness was this, of which the first people had previously felt no shame?
“Here is what John Chrysostom says: ‘Until sin and disobedience entered, they were clothed in heavenly glory, and therefore were not ashamed; but after transgressing the commandment, shame and awareness of nakedness entered.’
“Almost word for word the same is said by Ephrem the Syrian: ‘They were not ashamed because they were clothed in glory. But when, through transgression of the commandment, this glory was taken away, they became ashamed because they had become naked.’”
“This understanding – that sinless people were clothed in glory as though in light – is found in many holy fathers. Let us recall those places in Scripture where people are described as clothed in light.”
The question was not difficult. Immediately the students recalled the prophet Moses, whose face shone after receiving the Law from God on Mount Sinai, so that the Israelites could not look upon him. They also remembered the Transfiguration of Jesus, when Christ was transfigured before the Apostles Peter, James, and John, and “His face shone like the sun, and His garments became white as light.”
“Yes, brethren,” Father Lavr continued, “some lives of the saints also mention divine light proceeding from them.
“And so our forefathers, Adam and his wife, suddenly saw that they had been stripped of this light – that it no longer shone upon them… They saw that they were naked.
“Again, in the Russian translation the word used is not ‘saw.’ It says they ‘knew.’ But even this word does not fully convey the meaning… the meaning carried by the Church Slavonic word ‘razumesha.’ They did not merely see and understand their nakedness, nor merely recognize it – they EXPERIENCED it.”
“Brethren, when a person experiences his nakedness, it can be terrifying.
“Adam and Eve dwelt in ineffable divine light, and suddenly they experienced that they were naked.
“In our world, a person often thinks himself good, decent, respectable – and suddenly realizes he is naked. If you are ashamed because you are physically naked, you can cover yourself. But what if you have not merely seen your nakedness – what if you have truly experienced it? What then are you to do?”
“In Revelation, God says to man: ‘Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.’
“That is terrifying.
“The ascetic fathers highly praise the vision of one’s own sins. They say that careful fulfillment of God’s commandments leads a person to see his sins as countless as the sand of the sea. But this vision is given gradually, according to a person’s spiritual strength. Usually God does not allow a man to see ALL his sins exactly as they are, to behold all his nakedness at once, lest he lose his mind. It happens gradually.
“For it is a terrible thing, brethren, to experience one’s nakedness.”
Father Lavr fell silent for a moment.
“And what happens to the man who has experienced his nakedness, who sees all his sins exactly as they are? Either he repents before God… or he lays hands upon himself.
“He cannot continue living, cannot endure seeing his nakedness!
“Christ had twelve apostles. One was Peter, another Judas. Both denied Christ. Both committed this sin. And afterward both experienced their nakedness…
“One ran to God in repentance. The other went and hanged himself.”
“Father Lavr, may I ask something?”
“Yes.”
“But Scripture never says Adam repented. Nor did he kill himself. So how can you say it must be one or the other?”
“That Adam repented of his sin is beyond doubt. Sacred Tradition speaks of this. Take even our liturgical texts,” Father Lavr said, as always closing his eyes and reciting from memory:
“Adam sat before Paradise, and weeping over his nakedness, he lamented: ‘Woe is me! By evil deceit was I persuaded and robbed, and exiled from glory. Woe is me! In my simplicity I am now naked and in confusion. O Paradise, never again shall I delight in thy sweetness; never again shall I behold my Lord and my God and my Creator. For unto the earth I shall return, from whence I was taken. O Merciful and Compassionate One, I cry unto Thee: have mercy on me who am fallen.’”
For a moment he stood silently with his eyes closed.
“Each one of us, brethren, is Adam cast out of Paradise… and each of us still resolves this same question: to repent before God or…”
“Father Lavr, but not everyone who fails to repent ends in suicide. Most people simply go on living and feeling quite fine. So how is it one or the other?”
To be continued…
The previous episode of the book can be read here.
