YalTa: CriMea's PreMiere resorT

Над Святой горой все время движутся воздушные потоки. Они
не исчезают, даже если у подножия полное безветрие. Когда
поднимаешься по склону, ныне благоустроенному и красивому,
к храмам Почаевской лавры, к Успенскому собору, под сень
Чудотворной иконы и к навечно запечатленному следу стопы,
потоки воздуха словно обволакивают тебя и ведут вперед.
Фото / Photo: dreamstime.com
Что такое телесное и душевное исцеление? Об этом можно
спросить у паломников или у служителей лавры. И они охотно
объяснят, каждый по своему разумению, опыту, возрасту
и знанию. Но можно попытаться найти ответ на этот вопрос
и самому, если после восхождения на Святую гору прислушаться
к своему сердцу.
grief and rushed to return the icon to the monastery. Since then
the icon reputedly served to protect the Orthodox faithful from
numerous invaders, plagues and other misfortunes.
The 20th century proved a violent and brutish one for the
Orthodox church. The newly emerged Soviet Union was hostile
to every religious
confession, and
a period of severe
hardship emerged
under Joseph Stalin
and then Nikita
Khrushchev, who as
Premier promised “to
show the last Soviet
priest on television”.
Nearly half of the
remaining Orthodox
monasteries or
churches in the
country were
closed during this
period, and tough
governmental
controls were
imposed on the
clerical profession
and its lay people.
Children were
banned from church
services and believers often lost jobs or were expelled from
universities for openly professing their faith. Police forces and
other measures were used to harass the priests and monks, with
methods such as exile, deportation to Siberia and imprisonment
widely employed by the Soviet authorities.
As far as the Pochayiv Lavra is concerned, a decision was eventually
made by the Soviets to transform it into a museum dedicated
to atheism. The hill and monastery endured a siege as electricity,
water and food supplies were cut off by the authorities, though the
monks continued to resist. State police forces even tried to deport
the monks far away from Pochayiv until thousands of locals intervened,
risking their life and personal freedom to help the Lavra and
its monks survive. In the end not one monk left the monastery.
premier
landmark
40
Фото / Photo: depositphotos.com
Harsher treatment prevailed in summer 1963 when state authorities
drove many trucks to the monastery and police officers tried to
break open the doors and physically drag away the monks. Pochayiv
residents and other believers quickly gathered around the monastery,
many of them placing themselves under the wheels of the
trucks to prevent the authorities from taking the monks away.
Gentle breezes constantly blow over the Pochayiv Lavra even
when no wind can be felt in the town. These streams of air seem
to envelope a person and bear them ever upward along the slopes
and towards the holy shrines of the Lavra.
Bodily and spiritual healing of the kind experienced at the Pochayiv
Lavra begs philosophical and metaphysical questions that might
be explained based on tangible facts and observable phenomena.
However one arrives at such answers, the most important lesson to
be learned from a visit to such a sacred place is to empty the mind
of all thought, listen to one’s heart and find solace in the love, magic
and devotion which the Lavra itself represents.
40
Summer ‘10