Читать книгу The Ascent - Людмила Князева - Страница 3

Hierodeacon Antony, (in the secular world his name was Alexander Semyonov), was born on August 19, 1913 in the village of Elaur on the Volga into a devout peasant family. The baby boy came into the world at midnight, to the accompaniment of church bells ringing the call to prayer at the all-night vigil on the eve of the Transfiguration.

His father, Dmitry Fyodorovich Semyonov, came of wealthy peasant stock and owned two mills, a watermill and a windmill, 14 horses, a dozen or so cows and a large family house of his own. He was a fairly well educated man by the standards of his day having finished a private school in the city of Syzran.

Alexy’s mother, Natalya Alekseyevna, came from the village of Bukoyel, 60 km from Elaur. Her father, Aleksei Yefremov, was a merchant and shipowner who had traveled extensively on his trading business up and down the Volga and in the Caspian Sea. He also visited Persia and India from where he once brought a bride for himself. He had been looking a long time for the right woman. He found her when he was thirty. Her name was Ishna. Upon her conversion to Orthodox Christianity she was given the name of Irina.

Dmitry Semyonov and Natalya Yefremova got married in 1901. Of the seven children born to them only three survived and attained majority: two sons, Mikhail, Alexander and one daughter Katerina. The children got a religious education. Agathia, the nanny of little Sasha, hailed from Saratov and was a very devout and pious woman. She taught the boy to read and write and at age 7 he could read canonical hours in the local church.

However, he was destined to enjoy his happy and unclouded childhood only for four short years. The Bolshevik Revolution broke out in 1917 and rudely changed all that.

Early in 1918 his father, to the surprise of all suddenly sold all he owned, put his family on board a steamer and sailed up the Volga to the city of Cheboksary where the family disembarked. For another week they rode on horseback deep into the wilds of Chuvashia eventually halting at the village of Kakerli-Shigali, Chuvash for “red stone”, about a dozen miles from the district center of Shemursha. In the village surrounded by thick forest there was a beautiful wooden triple-throned church dedicated to the Archangel Michael. Not far from it the Semyonovs built a large wooden six-room, two-storeyed house.

The house was not so much for the family’s needs, as it turned out. The Semyonovs frequently put up passing pilgrims on their way to Sarov to venerate and pay homage to the relics of St. Serafim. Before long Sasha’s father became the local church warden. His mother for her part looked after the pilgrims feeding them, preparing steam baths for them and, whenever necessary, treated them with healing medicinal herbs and folk medicine tinctures.

What made Sasha’s father drop everything and move deep into the forests of Chuvashia is the subject of the next chapter of my story.

For now let us recall the words of the Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father who art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy name, Thy kingdom come,

Thy will be done on Earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses

As we forgive those who trespass against us

And lead us not into temptation

But deliver us from Evil,

Amen.