Letters from a Village Matushka - Road to Emmaus Journal

50 Road to Emmaus Vol. 2, No. 4 (#7)Letters from a Village Matushka51been a priest all of George’s life (28 years), and long before that under the Sovietregime. His mother was a typicon expert, and would set up the services and tellthem what to read and sing in church. They never allowed their only child towatch TV or read anything but spiritual books, except at school, and he wasto confess to his father for about fifteen minutes at each confession, even as alittle boy. Though George complains that now he is “underdeveloped,” – stillthe result of such upbringing is not a complete failure. Although not terriblydevout, George is very, very compassionate. His everyday life consists of helpingand saving people: feeding and puttingsomeone’s children to bed if theparents have to be away, treating thesick (he is a qualified hospital nurse),dragging alcoholics and drug addictsout of their poor state… If you sayanything to him about it, he looks atyou with the air of a stray teenagercaught by a policeman, “Well, ofcourse the fellow shouldn’t drink,and I shouldn’t care so much, butyou know, he is good. I just couldn’tleave him like that.”George is a tall man with spectacles,and a high, almost female voiceGeorgethat sometimes frightens children. After he came to us he said, “Fr. Victor,bless me to go with you and be your cell-attendant,” and so they went togetherto the village. When George came the villagers liked Fr. Victor even more.They address George as “Doctor.” He gives them injections, medicines andgood advice, and he sings a little and knows the services well! And he cooksbreakfast and dinner for himself and Fr. Victor.After the second month in the village they came to Moscow smiling andenthusiastic. Fr. Victor told me, “I think, dear, you and Kolya (our three anda half year-old son, Nicholas) should stay in Moscow through the winter. Ofcourse, I miss you both very much there, but the child is to young to live insuch conditions as we have in the village, and I will be able to devote my timeto building the church and not have to worry about you.” Now Fr. Victor andGeorge are again in Sakhulino. They left three weeks ago and must come toMoscow at the end of the month for a few days.Little Kolya draws pictures of his papa: “Look, this is Papa in a boat. Heis sailing back from Ivanovo region. He is waving a censer and a brush withholy water. On his way he sprinkles it on the river, on the fields and on theforests, and look, this is his church,” pointing at a circle – a dome – with atiny cross over it.So, this is about all the news. Kolya andI plan to join Fr. Victor in the late springwhen it is warmer.May God be with you, your children andyour parishes. May the Lord help you gothrough the days of Lent, and then meetthe Risen Lord with refreshed souls andwith spiritual joy.Yours,Matushka Inna Belov(for Fr. Victor and myself)III14/27 June 2001Dear Friends,Here we are with some good news, of which the most joyful is the fact thatFr. Victor’s church has been restored to the point where he can serve liturgy– the rough wooden altar is finished and he is very happily serving. Beforethat he could only serve Communion to sick and dying people at their homes,although he was doing the other services without liturgy.In February and March when the snow lies deep he was called once to asick woman living a dozen kilometers away from the church. The roads wereFr. Victor at table of preparationNicholas (Kolya)

58 Road to Emmaus Vol. 2, No. 4 (#7)Letters from a Village Matushka59that was all there was.The walls of the small winter church are not yet renovated, but I like theway that Fr. Victor and the babushki have fixed it up with simple cloths andpaper icons. Even if it is poor youfeel love there. It is a real church. Theseven babushki in church stood andwatched the priest like the seven sheepin Lyudmila’s barnyard had watched usthe day before – with humble interestand expectation.Services began. I like the way Fr.Victor serves: simple, intelligible andunobtrusive – it makes you want topray too. I wanted to take picturesinside the main church building (theAwaiting an early morning servicesmall winter church section of thebuilding is being restored first and thatis where we have services), but Fr. Victorsaid that he had boarded up the doorway leading to the shell of the mainchurch to keep it warmer during services in the coming autumn and winter.Also, the roof of the main church is in danger of coming down.In the three days he had waited for us, clever Fr. Seraphim had already foundout everything that Fr. Victor was doing from the people and said that everyonewas looking with joy at the things being done and that they very much want tohave the church restored. They only pray that it doesn’t stop for some reason.But God is helping us, and we hope it will happen.Dear friends, just as I was writing this letter, news came on CNN showingthe terrorist attack on America. Please accept our condolences. There are tearsin the eyes of all who watch it. Words are useless here, but Russians – ourneighbors, friends, and relatives – are crying with your people.God save and bless you.Inna BelovFrom the Editors of Road to Emmaus –We are hoping that Road to Emmaus readers might consider using the spiritualand material blessings that have come to them to help this small Russian parishthat is in extreme need. Fr. Victor Belov, who with his wife Matushka Innahave been friends of ours here in Moscow for almost a decade, was ordainedby Archbishop Amvrosy of Ivanovo a year and a half ago, and assigned to asmall village which, except for a short period after World War II, has not hada priest since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.Fr. Victor, even during the Communist years, was a fresco iconographer,doing monumental frescoes in the few churches that were allowed to remainopen. After the glasnost period he married Inna, and because he didn’t wantto continue spending months away from his family painting in distantchurches, he became a computer graphics designer and later, was trained asan accountant. His desire for many years, however, was to be a priest, and hedid much studying on his own before he was ordained a year and a half agoby Archbishop Amvrosy.His wife, Matushka Inna, you may know from her translation of Fr. ArtemyVladimirov’s “Bless O Lord” prayerbook for young children, published inAmerica, and from her interview in the first issue of Road to Emmaus: “Teachingour Children to Pray.” Their family consists of themselves, their four year-oldson, Nicholas, and Inna’s elderly father, Valery, who needs to live near them.The village of Sakhulino, that Fr. Victor has been assigned to is northeastof Moscow, about a seven-hour drive by car, twelve hours by bus. Fr. Victor’sassignment here is a very important step for this part of the region as thisparticular church is the hub for five villages, all of which have been withouta church or priest for almost eighty years, except for a short time during andafter World War II, when Khrushchev closed it again.The large church of St. Michael that was here before the Revolution stillstands, but is in need of major renovation, including rebuilding the crumblingroof. However, attached to it is the shellof a brick trapeza which still has a soundroof, and which Fr. Victor is slowly turninginto a small church. Over the past yeara door and windows have been built, andthe shell of an iconostasis (the facing is tocome). With this beginning, Fr. Victor hasbegun serving liturgy. This small winterstylechurch, also dedicated to ArchangelMichael, holds approximately 100 people(Russian style), and fills the present needsof the village.The villagers are extremely happy athaving their own priest. There is no houseRuined church of Archangel Michaelwith attached trapeza-church nowbeing restoredfor the priest’s family, but one of the women in a nearby village has allowedthe Belovs to live in an empty one-room house adjoining her own until theycan afford to buy one. Even before he moved there, Fr. Victor had been approachedabout baptisms, weddings, etc., and there seems to be a conscious

60 Road to Emmaus Vol. 2, No. 4 (#7)Letters from a Village Matushka61desire in the people for the sacraments. The Belovs have plans for catechizingboth adults and children. At this point, however, because her little son’s healthis very frail, Matushka Inna spends much of her time in Moscow where hecan be close to a doctor, particularly in the winter.The restoration of the small trapeza-church is not expensive by Americanstandards (for example, about $1,500 for materials and labor to build and installa door and windows, $800 for heating – building a Russian country stove, andanother $1,500 for materials and labor for a wooden iconostasis, altar table andside altar table) but all of this is impossible for Fr. Victor without outside help.Ivanovo is one of the poorest regions in all of Russia, even if work is available,an average local salary hardly covers basic food. As Matushka Inna says, “Thepeople are so poor they can’t even afford to buy candles.” This difficulty ofraising money for materials and labor is compounded by the fact that in Russia,ordained priests are forbidden to work at secular jobs. Therefore, a priest’sfamily’s subsistence (about $200 a month in a village) and any work neededon their church, or church supplies, are entirely dependent on donations. Fr.Victor is the first priest to accept an assignment here, as previous priests whowere offered the villages were frightened away by the poverty of the area.Plans are being laid to begin restoration on the larger church as well. Theneed to begin the extensive restoration on the roof is rather urgent so that itdoesn’t deteriorate any further.A great current need is a good used Russian jeep (about $3500). The nearestbus passes seven kilometers from Sakhulino and the rest of the journeymust be made on foot, unless one owns a car. In the winter this remote areagets chest-high snow, prohibitive to walk through if sacraments are needed inanother village, and impossible to carry building supplies or workers withouta four-wheel-drive jeep.Even five years ago, acquiring the needed help in Russia itself would havebeen easier. Some banks and Russian businessmen were willing to help restorechurches, but with so many churches being rebuilt, the rouble drastically droppingin value four years ago, and the 40% tax rate that is now being enforcedon businesses, the well of benefactors has dried up. Fr. Victor has been makingcontact with professional business people, but often those who are Orthodoxare already devoting their almsgiving to a specific church or monastery. A fewmonths ago, he was given 10,000 rubles, the largest Russian donation so far,which comes to about $300, for which he was very grateful. Many local peoplehere in Moscow at his old church, and even neighbors, have been coming withcast-off clothes, books, a little food, anything they can think of to give, butthere is little to spare.We have received some very welcome support on a continuing basis fromSt. John the Wonderworker Orthodox Church in Atlanta, Georgia, and fromseveral individuals on the West Coast and in the Midwest. We are lookingfor more individual support for this mission, or even parishes that might bewilling to take Sakhulino’s new village church on as a “sister-parish,” in thesame way that we have sister-cities in the U.S., and help them get on theirfeet over a period of a few years.Fr. Victor and Inna have also suggested that once church life is establishedthey can rent another house in the village for the summer, and OrthodoxChristians who would like to visit Russia and have an experience of countryvillage life, could live there with them for a monthor two. Matushka Inna speaks very good English,so pilgrims would be well taken care of, and shehas also offered to teach elementary Russian toany pilgrims who would like to learn. Fr. Victoris planning to fresco the walls of the churchhimself and has suggested that there may also beOrthodox Christians interested in coming andlearning from him.We hope that now, at the Christmas season,readers might consider assisting this church and itspriest, which serves the sacramental needs of fivevillages, totaling about fifteen hundred people.Last fall, when he was first assigned to Sakhulino,Fr. Victor left for the village where he beganserving in the unheated church, with only blanketshung over the window frames and empty doorway.Fr. Deacon Seraphim atchurch windowWe knew the winter would bring below-zero temperatures, but when we suggestedthat he wait until spring when we could collect a little money to helphim start, he said, “I can’t wait until I get help. There are people in those villageswho are ill and may die this winter, and I am their priest. I must beginnow, and God will help.”Please keep Father Victor, Matushka Inna and their villagers in yourprayers.Your brother and sister in Christ,Richard Betts and Mother Nectaria McLeesRoad to Emmaus