One day, people representing the Moscow boyar Frol came to the monastery. Frol and his wife Agafya had been in marriage for fifteen years but had no children. Agafya’s womb was closed, though they had visited many monasteries and called for the most skilled doctors. Their hope had begun to ebb, little by little, and the very desire to have a child had ebbed, too, thanks to the approach of the seven thousandth year since the Creation of the world: in light of the possible end of the world, the child’s life could be assumed to be brief and joyless. This is why boyar Frol did not rejoice when he heard tell of the amazing healer from the Kirillov monastery.
Why give birth for death? boyar Frol said to the servants of his house.
But everyone is born for death, the servants objected. We have yet to see other types.
I can inform you that Enoch and Elijah were taken to the heavens alive, answered the boyar, but you truly have not seen them.
You know, life should not be stopped until it is stopped by the Almighty, advised the servants of his house.
Boyar Frol thought a bit and agreed. He said:
Go then to the Kirillov monastery and ask the monk Amvrosy for some prayers to grant me the fruit of childmaking.
Boyar Frol’s emissaries set off on their journey and rode for twenty days. Amvrosy greeted them when they entered the monastery’s gates on the morning of the twenty-first day. Without asking his visitors anything, he said:
I believe your journey is not in vain and, through the prayers of The Most Holy Lady the Mother of God, the Lord will grant boyar Frol and his boyar wife the fruit of childmaking.
With those words, Amvrosy held out two prosphora, for the boyar and his boyar wife. The visitors went to a service after kissing the giver’s hand. They genuflected for half a day and then rested after their journey for the next half-day and night. Boyar Frol’s representatives set off on their return journey at dawn and it was half the length because the scent of the prosphora satisfied their hunger and the sight of them relieved fatigue. When they returned to Moscow, the boyar asked, first thing, about the prosphora. And they handed him the prosphora and two children were born to him within the next two years: first a boy, then a girl.
How did you know about the prosphora? asked the representatives of his house.
And the boyar told them that on the night when his emissaries were resting at the monastery after their distant journey, he and his boyar wife had dreamt of a holy elder with two prosphora. The elder spoke without moving his lips but his speech was distinct:
You will be comforted with a son and daughter. We will pray here that nothing happens this year before Easter. For only on Easter Day will it be possible to hope the world has held fast.
All the bells of the Kirillov monastery sounded on the Great Day of Easter in the seven thousandth year. That ringing poured out over the Belozersk land, proclaiming that the Lord had shown His boundless mercy to all mankinde and given more time for redemption. It was decided to reset the calculations in the computus: up until this day, nobody had even known if Easter would come in the seven thousandth year.
Tears of gratitude flowed from the eyes of many people. Those with loved ones were comforted because their parting had been delayed, those who had not settled their affairs calmed because they had received time to settle them, and only those craving the end were not joyful, since their expectations had deceived them.
On Easter Day of the seven thousandth year, Amvrosy said to Elder Innokenty:
I seek seclusion, O elder.
I know, replied Elder Innokenty. There is a time for interaction and there is a time for seclusion.
I have been cognizing the world for a long time and have amassed so much of it inside me that from now on I can come to know it within myself.
The time for seclusion has come now that we are more or less calm regarding the end of the world. Prepare, O Amvrosy, to accepte the schema in this yeare.
Treating the ill became Amvrosy’s preparation. The flow of patients increased tenfold when it became clear once and for all that life would go on in the foreseeable future. Those who had recently taken ill were united in that flow with those who had preferred to wait out all those last years but then changed their minds in light of the favorable outlook that was unfolding.
The large quantity of visitors disconcerted the brethren and impeded concentration on prayer. Several of them complained about this to the abbot.
What, you mean to say you could concentrate on prayer before? the abbot asked the complainers.
We could not, answered the complainers, and the abbot thanked them for their honesty.
Amvrosy himself, however, was having doubts about the propriety of what was happening. Sometimes he remembered the words of the father steward, about how many of those who came to see him thought only about health, without giving a thought to prayer and redemption. Those words had sown a grain of doubt within Amvrosy. He began feeling disquiet, but Elder Innokenty was no longer alongside him. By this time, Elder Innokenty had moved to a secluded cell a day’s journey from the monastery. Knowing the distance was not a limitation for the elder, Amvrosy told him from the monastery:
I fear that my cures are becoming a customary matter for them. They receive the cures automatically, which does not prompt these people’s souls to stir.
What do you know about automatism, O Amvrosy? replied Elder Innokenty from his secluded cell. If you have the gift of healing, use it because that is why it was granted to you. Their automatism will pass quickly, when you are no longer with them. Believe me, though: they will remember the miracle of the cure forever.
On August 18 of the seven thousandth year since the Creation of the World, Amvrosy took the schema in the Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God. The rite for taking the schema was reminiscent of the rite in which his head was covered by the mantle several years before. This time, though, everything was more ceremonial and austere.
Arseny entered into the church, as was befitting, during the “little entrance” in the liturgy, the procession to the altar with the Book of the Gospels. As he entered, he took the mantle from his head and the sandals from his feet. He bowed thrice to the ground. His eyes became accustomed to the church’s semidarkness and the dark mass of those in attendance took on faces. A man who looked like Christofer stood in the choir. Perhaps it even was Christofer.
To the Creator of all and the Doctor of the sicke, O Lord, save me even before I die, Amvrosy whispered after the choir.
A late summer wind blew through the open doors. The flames over the candles began fluttering a little but then stood still, all stretching in the same direction. The fire behaved exactly the same way in his childhood when he had stood in this church with Christofer. And that was all that linked Amvrosy to that time because he had become someone else long ago, and Christofer was lying in his grave. Or at least he had been laid there. It occurred to Amvrosy that he no longer had an exact memory of what Christofer looked like. How could Christofer be here? No, this was not Christofer.