22.06.2009

To gather those dispersed …

The metochion of St Elisabeth Convent is a place where work and prayer help a person build a new life, which will not be similar to a prison cell or a ward in a hospital. Many of the people who come to the metochion have a gloomy past behind their backs. Their new world assumes other relation to themselves, to the neighbour and to God. It is necessary for outward man to be corrupted, yet the inward man renewed day by day for Life Eternal.

Different people come to the metochion. There are ex-athletes, successful businessmen, together with people who did not have neither houses, nor a family since their childhood. Nothing would seem to unite them. Well, nothing in the past, whereas at present they are united in the Love of Christ who came to gather those dispersed.

All good cannot die even in seemingly the most embittered people it remains somewhere in their hearts, one ought to see and feel it somehow. When a person loves, his heart is opened and restored. Many brothers begin to trust the confessor and nuns and share their experiences with them.

For quite some time now, nun Marfa and nun Irina have started to keep a diary where they write down testimonies of the brothers’ life before they arrived at the metochion. Here are some records from this diary:

“He graduated from school with good marks. At school, he went in for basketball. He lost his mother when he was seven. She poisoned herself out of unrequited love. When he was 14, his father was jailed for 8 years for murdering his mistress. Right after leaving school, he married his schoolmate. A daughter was born to them. He lived happily with his wife. Then she left for Riga to her grandmother. Her grandmother was a Gipsy and told her that if she married a Gipsy she would become wealthy. There was a rupture in their family. After two months his wife married a businessman, not a Gipsy. The brother has seen neither his wife, nor his daughter since then.”

***

“He would receive excellent marks at school. However, when he went to ninth grade, a friend of his exposed him to glue sniffing. His mother learned about it and put her son into a hospital. Then he entered college, where he got used to drinking. They expelled him from college for that. He went back home and stayed with his older sister. The sister was alcohol-dependent and he drank together with her. They led a life like that for four years. He would work as an auxiliary worker at building sites. His first time in psychiatric clinic was when he was sniffing glue, his second time there was when he swallowed pills, having decided to commit suicide, and two other times because of his alcohol addiction …”

***

“He served in the army during the war in Afghanistan. He returned broke, and he was unable to sleep. This brother is a very able worker. He went in the footsteps of his father, a well-known artist and carver. He draws very well; he can sing a little and plays the guitar. When sent to hospital, he did not want to be treated and went back to the metochion...”

***

“This brother was married and the Lord gave him two sons. Both sons went to the war in Afghanistan and were lost. His wife could not bear that, she went mad and died …”

***

“He had a family: wife and two kids. They went together in a car, got in an accident where everybody except for him died.”

It becomes sometimes difficult to read this diary, because it causes pain inside one’s heart.

Once at the metochion, brothers change their attitudes in many ways. There are many vivid examples of how God won in a person’s heart at the metochion.

Brother Nicholas. He used to smoke for 30 years and said before his baptism, “I do not know, something in me has turned upside down, as though something happened, but I do not want to smoke anymore.” Since that moment, he quit smoking.

Brother Igor. He spent several years at the metochion, and now he is a novice and the supervisor over the candle workshop.

Brother Roman. He used to hit the road for a long time. Now he works at the metochion. He has his own family now: a wife and a small child.

Brother Oleg. He suffered from alcohol addiction for a long time. He has not drunk at all for several years here and now he successfully works in the world.

Brother Nicholas. HIV-positive and a drug addict in the past. After a long stay at the metochion he came to faith and it has helped him to quit drugs and has created a miracle: latest analyses have shown improvement in the condition of his health, although doctors predicted he would have died long ago. Now he lives in Svetlogorsk together with his new family.

Surely, everybody is impressed with the brothers’ success, but the eventual victory for many of them will occur only in the end of their life path …