When he returned from the front, he began to work as a seller in the village of Grishkino, Tomsk region. I wanted to go to a seminary or go to a monastery. But I didn’t get out of work.
It was 1948, when there was an incident that I still can’t remember without worry. It was 7 p.m., and the work day was over. Suddenly a person comes to my store. I didn’t know him, and I still don’t know who he was—a seemingly ordinary, 55-year-old, very kind face. I went straight to him because his face is the mirror of his soul. A stranger locked the door on a hook and said to me,
Rise, Valentine, kneel, face east, cross three times. Look, I’m going to tell you my past and future life, your friends, what happened to you, I’m going to tell you everything. Listen carefully.
He spoke slowly, clearly, as if he wanted me to understand and remember his every word.
He told me where and what happened to me and described all the places I visited. Named my family and all my friends — with whom I lived and fought, about injuries, about operations, about my future illness.
I looked at him a little incredulously and thought, ‘He can’t know all this!’ How does he know I was under siege? And when that man said that I had a shard in my lower back, then I believed that he was really telling the truth. I even cried in horror, because here in Siberia, nobody knew about the shard, nobody! I think, well, where I was, he might know if he was a scout. What and for what I have awards — it is also not difficult to find out, Kagebeshniks work well.
But about the shard, which sat between the third and second vertebra, I did not even say to my daddy and mommy — I did not want to upset, I thought: I will endure.
And then this man asks me,
Do you remember the six of you agreeing that you should never utter a word and never hurt each other?
— What about… I remember! — I said only (who, besides my fellow soldiers, could know about it?!).
My tears were terrified that he knew everything. A man cannot know such secrets — I never told anyone about it. And why is it, who wants it?
You prayed fervently, asking the Lord to keep you alive. And here you are. And your friends are all alive. Did you see the bodies around you?
So if you were swearing, the blatant words would say, so would your bones. That’s what «mother» means, and that’s what prayer means. Tell everyone never to swear, but to pray in times of grief. And God will keep him alive.
Prayer preserves life in war, motherhood takes away, because you insult the Mother of God herself, Your own Mother and Mother of the Earth.
From the memoirs of the priest Valentin Biryukov
The Holy Land Charitable Foundation
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Orthodox stories from life
