Chapter 80: Holy Week, 1984

April 11, 1984, McKinley, Ohio

On Wednesday evening, I asked Father to step into the vestry after Vespers to talk.

"Father, Lara would like to set a time to speak with you so she's able to receive the Eucharist at the Paschal service."

"Time is very, very tight. How about after Liturgy on Saturday?"

"That will work. How long will you need?"

"About an hour if we do her confession. Is she keeping the fast?"

"Yes."

"And daily prayers?"

"I don't know. I made THAT mistake once, and I won't make it again."

"Wise, though you didn't realize it was a mistake at the time, and, to be honest, I was convinced you and Angela were going to marry. It's a terrible shame about her condition. Have you spoken to her?"

"Yes. She's improved enough that Doctor Mercer can begin treating her, but as I understand it, that's just the first step on a VERY long journey, one which Angie might never complete. You seriously thought we would marry?"

"I didn't know about her condition and was actually happy that she was averse to inappropriate physical intimacy, as I'm sure you understand. I didn't realize that was a symptom of a mental illness. Perhaps if I had..."

"I've said the same thing, and Doctor Mercer, who I'm seeing, has gone to great lengths to point out that I'm not trained to see those things. She's impressed upon me the importance of what she calls 'psych consults' if I have any concerns about someone I might see in the ER in the future. Before I forget, is there anything special I need to do before this weekend?"

"No. The choir and chanters will meet after Liturgy on Saturday morning for a final run-through, which you could assist with while I speak with Laura. Or is it Larisa? Or Lara?"

"You'll have to ask her," I replied. "I kind of mix and match, but I've been saying Lara the past couple of days."

"OK. When are you and Natalya Vasilyevna going to go public with your split?"

"Once she graduates and moves here," I said.

"Is she aware of Lara?"

"Lara had dinner with Tasha, Clarissa, and me on Sunday."

"And you received their blessing?"

I laughed softly, controlling it because we were in the vestry, "Yes."

"You have the strangest set of relationships I've ever seen, Subdeacon. But it does seem to be working for you."

I smiled, "It is. If you don't mind, I need to get going. We'll see you on Friday evening."

I received his blessing, then went to meet Clarissa and Lara for the drive back to campus. Clarissa and I joined our study group while Lara went to do her homework in her room, which she preferred. She came back for a 'good night' kiss, and then, after my prayers and thanks to a favorable ruling from the Board of Regents, Clarissa and I got into bed, spooned, and quickly fell asleep.

April 14, 1984, Lazarus Saturday, McKinley, Ohio

Great Lent had ended, effectively, with the Little Compline on Friday night, and Holy Week had begun. Immediately after the Divine Liturgy for Lazarus Saturday ended, I met with the choir and chanters for a final review, while Lara met with Father Nicholas to discuss her return to the Church after being absent for eleven years. As was the usual practice, Mrs. Sokolova sat in the outer office, and they kept the door open but spoke quietly for privacy.

While Lara and I were busy, Clarissa sat in the church hall and read. Lara finished before I did, and when I wrapped up the final review with the choir and chanters, Father Nicholas asked to see me. We went to his office and sat down side-by-side in a pair of easy chairs.

"Is there something which concerns you, Father?" I asked.

"If you'll pardon the poor attempt at humor, we are talking about YOU, Subdeacon!"

"I believe there is good reason for needing three «бабушки» (babushki), not including my mom, to whip me into shape!"

"Who's the third?"

"My friend Jocelyn, whom I've told you about."

"Ah, the young woman you've been close to since kindergarten. Does she know about Lara?"

"I call Jocelyn about once a week, and yes, I told her all about Lara. Like Clarissa, Jocelyn laughed when I explained how Lara had basically sandbagged me on being Russian."

"How much do you know about her?"

"We're just getting to know each other, so probably about what you would expect after roughly two weeks. I know her family situation is complicated by her parents' divorce and the fact they both remarried. She has a half-brother and half-sister who live with her dad and step-mom. From what I can tell, they all get along reasonably well, though there was some disagreement between her dad and stepdad over childrearing."

"Which is fairly common in those types of situations."

"She's also very, very smart, a very good student, and seems very logical and practical."

"And you two discussed what amounts to an arranged marriage within a couple of days of meeting?"

"She asked about my relationships and about my medical training. It basically flowed from there in a kind of hypothetical way. A few days later, we both agreed we wanted to get to know each other better, with that idea obviously in mind."

"She's the first emancipated minor I've ever met," Father Nicholas said.

"Same here. I don't know the exact details, but it had something to do with her coming to an out-of-state school and living in the dorms."

"Do you know why she chose WHTU?"

I shook my head, "I never asked. But then, I mostly never asked anyone else why they chose Taft. I decided based on the fact that it's the closest State school to home and not in a huge city like Cincinnati or Columbus."

"Her paternal grandfather was in the first graduating class of WHTU. He was a member of this parish until he moved to the Pittsburgh area right after graduation, which was just before the war ended. I never knew him, as I was born in 1948."

"Did she know he was a member here?"

"No. I looked it up. She knew he had gone to WHTU and had been faithfully Orthodox his whole life. I found him in the parish records. Her grandfather's parents moved from Alaska to Ohio when they saw war with Japan coming, and that's how they ended up here."

"What happened to them?"

"The whole family moved to the Pittsburgh area and transferred their membership to Saint Nicholas in McKees Rocks, where Lara was eventually baptized. Her grandparents, father, stepmother, and half-siblings attend there now."

"OK. It makes a bit more sense as to why someone as smart as she is would be at a small State school in Ohio."

"Did she mention anything else about why she came to Taft?"

I chuckled, "Jokingly, her MRS."

"And, two weeks later, do you think it was a joke?"

"No, actually, I don't. And now you're going to tell me that some «бабушка» (babushka) here is friends with her paternal grandparents and suggested she find a way to meet me?"

Father Nicholas laughed, "Not that I'm aware of, and that would be a stretch even from a member of what you call the «съборъ бабушек» (sobor babushki)! That said, occasionally, stranger things have happened. But, if that were the case, I would have expected her in church long before now."

"True, but they are a crafty, sneaky bunch!"

"No comment," Father Nicholas said with a sly grin.

"What's your opinion, Father?"

"There is no impediment to her coming to Eucharist, though she elected to wait until Pascha because of the symbolism. As for you, I think your approach is exactly right, Subdeacon. Take your time to get to know her, and don't put the cart in front of the horse. Your suggestion that you wait until after you've been apart for the Summer to have a serious discussion was very wise."

"You have no objections?"

"None, other than urging you to stay cautious and deliberate in your pursuit. You'll need to have her talk to Vladyka, if it gets to that point."

"Because she'd need to give her blessing for me to be ordained a deacon."

"As you always say, we know who is REALLY in charge!"

We both laughed, I asked for and received his blessing, and then left his office to find Clarissa and Lara for the drive back to Taft.

"What do you think?" I asked Lara as I pulled out of the parking lot.

"Father Nicholas is totally cool!"

"And you didn't know your grandfather was a member at Saint Nicholas when he went to Taft?"

Lara laughed, "No. I mean, I was sure he had gone to church; I just didn't know where. And until I met you, it mostly didn't matter."

"You had no desire to go to church?" Clarissa asked.

"Not really. Remember, I was five when we stopped, and once I got out of the habit, and there were no icons around and we didn't pray, it all sort of faded into the background. My stepdad was pretty adamant about not going to church, and because my mom had legal custody, they got to decide. My dad and his family weren't supposed to talk to me about church at all."

"Seriously?" I asked.

"It made life a LOT easier for everyone, and I'm pretty sure my dad figured once I turned eighteen, he could influence me to go back to church. He was pretty happy when I called him the other night."

"I can imagine," I replied.

"What else did Father Nicholas say to you?" Lara asked.

"Not much, really, other than he approved of the cautious, deliberate approach we're taking. But I think he has the idea that it's going to end where we think it's going to end. It seems you might have given him that impression, though he was very circumspect in how he broached the subject."

Lara nodded, "I'm pretty sure he wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting into, so to speak. You know, your upcoming ordination, what that implied, and the timeframe. He was a bit surprised we'd discussed that so early on."

"He said the same to me," I replied. "But I've always taken the approach of being upfront about the demands of my medical training, so it made sense to be upfront about this issue. How was confession?"

"Father Nicholas is easy to talk to, and that's really what we did — talk about my life, the areas where I made mistakes, including my 'exploration', and he gave me a basic prayer rule and a fasting rule, though he said I was free to follow your fasting rule, if I elected to do so and it didn't cause me any spiritual distress."

"Did you get a prayer book?"

"He gave me one of the little red paperback ones."

"When we go back, I'll get you a proper hardback one from the parish bookstore, along with a prayer rope. Do you still have your baptismal cross?"

"I do, but I keep it in my jewelry box at home. I asked my mom to send it to me. She can do that without any trouble from my stepdad."

"Is church going to cause conflict with him?"

"Some, but don't sweat it. As my mom said, he'll get over it. And your personality is such that any snide remarks he makes will just roll off you like water off a duck's back. I take it we'll do the family thing sometime after Summer?"

"Yes. I'm looking forward to meeting your dad and grandparents. The others, too, but mostly them. And actually, I wonder if my grandfather knows your grandfather or his parents. Or maybe Mr. Zhuravlyov."

"Yuri Valentinovich Zhuravlyov?" Lara asked.

"Uh-oh," Clarissa giggled, something she rarely did. "The plot thickens!"

"You know him?" I asked, ignoring Clarissa for the moment.

"He's one of my great-grandfather's friends. I knew him when I was little, and I know he's friends with my grandfather and that they have some kind of common business interests."

"I smell a rat!" Clarissa declared.

"No," I replied, shaking my head, "just the small community of Russians. Lara, nobody told you about me before last week, right? I mean, other than Rebekah or whomever else you talked to at Taft."

"No. I haven't seen Mr. Zhuravlyov in years, even though I remembered his name. Nobody said, 'Go to Taft, find Mike Loucks, orchestrate a way to get him to fuck you, and then marry him'."

I laughed hard and had to be careful not to swerve as I drove down the street towards the dorm parking lot.

"You never know with the «съборъ бабушек» (sobor babushki)," I chuckled. "As I said to Father Nicholas, they are a sneaky, crafty bunch! But this doesn't have that feel, if you know what I mean."

"There is no master plan I'm aware of," Lara said. "Mike's right, Clarissa. It's just the émigré community is pretty tight. I know my great-grandfather has friends from Alaska to New York, as well as in Paris and Canada."

"That's especially true of the «эмиграция первой волны» (emigratsiya pervoy volny), the first-wave émigrés," I said. "My grandfather and his friends have the same connections throughout the Russian community in the US. I know he has friends in Paris as well. And they are all faithful Orthodox, basically following what Bishop JOHN of Shanghai and San Francisco said: 'To the Russians abroad, it has been granted to shine in the whole world with the light of Orthodoxy, so that other peoples, seeing their good deeds, might glorify our Father Who is in Heaven, and thus obtain salvation for themselves.'. He's venerated by some in ROCOR, but I don't think his icon is in any churches except the one in San Francisco where he's buried."

"So he's not a saint?" Clarissa asked.

"There's another thing about Orthodoxy that differs from Rome — saints develop organically. There is no global authority which says that a particular person is a saint or isn't a saint. So, I could have an icon of Saint John the Wonderworker in my room and venerate him. We wouldn't put one in the church because he hasn't been accepted by our community of believers. But that doesn't make him not a saint."

"So then, how does someone become a saint in the first place?"

"Because some Orthodox believer somewhere commissioned an icon of him or her for private veneration and that believer's friends followed along, or a bishop commissioned an icon of the person for the church, and people venerated that icon. How and why the decision to commission an icon is made has no prescribed set of rules. It sort of just happens. Then, others learn of the life of that person, and veneration spreads until it becomes universal. Sometimes, there is a formal prayer service recognizing it after the fact, but that's not common in Orthodox history. And that would only apply to the bishop's diocese."

"So no miracle requirements or Devil's Advocacy hearings or anything like that?"

I shook my head, "No. There is no 'beatification process'. As with everything else, we're disorganized in our organized religion! Vladyka ARKADY decides which icons may be displayed in his churches, but he has no particular say over which icons I, or anyone else, have in our icon corners in our homes."

"You have Jesus, Mary, and the Archangel Michael, right?" Lara asked.

"Yes. I have limited space, or I'd add John of Chicago. He ministered to the émigré community here before returning to Russia around 1906. He was murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1917. They dragged him from the church where he was preaching, and he was summarily shot. I don't know of any icon of him, but I'd commission one if I could because of his martyrdom."

"And you could just do that?" Clarissa asked.

"Yes. I would need to find an iconographer willing to write the icon and work with them to develop the portrayal, though in line with the basic rules for iconography. Icons are stylized, and there are patterns which are usually followed."

"What would something like that cost?"

"It would depend on the size, but a sort of normal 8x10 would cost several hundred dollars, at least; more if I wanted real gold leaf. Prints of older icons would cost between $25 and $35. So long as they're blessed by the priest or bishop, there's no functional, if I can use that word, difference between them and one which is an original."

"Well, now I know why you're teaching Sunday School!" Lara said. "You know all of this cold despite only being twenty-one. It's impressive for not having gone to seminary."

"Thanks," I replied. "Father told me you decided to wait until Pascha to receive the Eucharist."

"What better time to return to church than Pascha?!"

"True. Are you going to come to all the services?"

"I need to talk to my professor about Thursday morning because I have biology lab."

Clarissa laughed, "I think I know where you can get some help with your lab report!"

Lara laughed, "One of Mike's lab reports was handed out as an example of how to do them. The name was redacted, but the grad student leading our lab said his name."

"Joe Miller?" I asked.

"Yes. He mentioned he wished you would make yourself available as a tutor, but you had so little time."

"He asked me about it at one point, but I prefer just to help students on Rickenbacker 8 and to do it informally. Let me know if there's any trouble with missing the lab, and I'll talk to Joe."

"Thanks. What time are we leaving to come back to church?" Lara asked.

"Vespers are at the normal time — 6:00pm — so we'll leave about 5:15pm, given I have things I need to do at church before the service begins."

April 15, 1984, Palm Sunday, McKinley, Ohio

On Sunday morning, Sophia joined Clarissa, Lara, and me at church to celebrate Palm Sunday, though, as was the norm for Russian churches, we used pussy willow branches instead of palm fronds. When the services ended, we joined the rest of the congregation for a traditional Palm Sunday 'fish lunch', as wine and fish were permitted because of the feast day. As Tasha had predicted, the looks Lara received from some of the eligible girls in the parish were withering.

Clarissa had noticed it first and pointed it out to me, and I saw the evilest of looks coming from the two girls Tasha had promoted — Yuliana and Elizaveta. I wondered if Tasha had said something to them when we'd first discussed options, and they felt that Lara was an interloper in what should have been a competition between the two of them. Of course, being the pig that I could be, I thought that competition might be a lot of fun, at least once Elizaveta turned sixteen. I pushed that thought out of my mind before it created an embarrassing problem.

When we finished lunch, the four of us left the church to head back to campus for a few hours before we'd attend the first Bridegroom Matins service.

"What did I walk into?" Lara asked with a silly smile.

"I'd say someone tipped those girls off to the fact that Petrovich was going to be a free agent in June," Clarissa said with a soft laugh. "And they sense an enemy at the gates!"