The Unknown homeland : a Samizdat manuscript / [print]
translated by Marite Sapiets.
- first U.S. edition.
- Springfield, Illinois : Templegate Publishers, (c)1980.
- vii, 247 pages ; 23 cm
- Modern Russian spirituality series .
- Modern Russian spirituality series. .
This is the true story of Father Pavel, a Russian Orthodox priest, and his life in the last days of Tsarism and the early period of Soviet rule. It shows Russian Orthodox spirituality in its simplicity, and profundity, earthed in a rich tradition that fills the lives of people who live by it. Father Pavel was born about 1876 and died early in 1932 in exile in Siberia, prematurely aged by prison and suffering. As a young man, he was called to be a hermit. But after his original studies he became known as a brilliant writer on Pratristics and before making his profession as a monk, he taught for a year in a girls school. At the end of the year there was a graduation ball. In a description which is like something out of War and Peace, he is persuaded to dance by two high spirited girls. He falls in love with one of them and marries. For awhile, they live happily together; she becomes a school teacher while he becomes involved in parish work. After the October Revolution, Father Pavel's wife repudiates religion and becomes an active atheist. They continue to live together, although his religious books and icons are now banished to the corridor. He is arrested, given a prison sentence, and exiled to Siberia. He is released from prison and taken to a village in the depths of the forest where he lies mortally ill and exhausted by the cruel journey. One of the criminals he has met becomes a spiritual son, and although the church in the village has been shut, he comforts the people from his deathbed.