Endless calculations of the date were made, especially by the Raskolniki. About a thousand tracts on the subject have survived. All took as their premise that the number of the Antichrist was 666, and while some made their calculations from the split between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, and others argued that the Antichrist lay bound for a thousand years and then waited for his number, nearly all the calculations pointed to a year between 1666 and 1691.
In Russka, Daniel had been torn. While he feared that the end was near, the new joy he had found in his little family had made him hope that it might not be so. But in Moscow that hope had evaporated.
Strangely enough, it was a former monk, who had just joined the Raskolniki, who convinced Daniel. He was a small, intense fellow, and they had met at one of the secret prayer meetings at a private house. The monk had been an icon painter, which had drawn them together in the first place, and he had a formidable collection of pamphlets. He also had numerous prints which depicted Tsar Alexis and Nikon as the horns of Antichrist, or Nikon as the Beast of the Apocalypse.
He knew the Book of Revelation thoroughly, and quoted passage after passage explaining how each referred to a current event.
As Daniel became daily more appalled by what he saw in Moscow, his head also became more full of the monk’s formulae and quotations. The fellow is certainly learned, he concluded. And it seems to me that what he says must be true.
But if indeed the end had come, then that must mean that the Antichrist himself had arrived upon earth. Many thought so. And in that case – who was he?
Some said Tsar Alexis. Others believed that it was Nikon, who, many of them added, must also have been Jewish!
But here again, the little monk had better information.
‘Tell me this, who was Peter’s real father?’
‘Tsar Alexis.’
‘Perhaps. But why then is he such a dark giant? Can you think of another?’
Daniel gazed uncomprehendingly.
‘Ah, my friend, you are a good man: you do not see evil. I tell you, the father of this Peter was none other than the wicked Nikon himself. And this foul, illegitimate offspring is not a true Tsar at all. Does he behave like a true Tsar?’
Daniel could only agree that he did not.
‘It is Peter himself who is the Antichrist,’ the little monk concluded in triumph. ‘It is he who is here to begin the Apocalypse. Be warned.’
God knew, with each passing month, Peter was giving his subjects good cause for thinking that this must be the case. And no wonder, too, that if any final proof was needed, it came with this new and infamous act of changing the counting of the years.
‘For is it not said,’ the monk reminded Daniel, ‘that the Antichrist shall change the time? Is it not said that the years of God shall be abolished when the years of Satan are proclaimed?’
‘All this is true,’ Daniel agreed.
‘Bear witness, then,’ his friend admonished him, ‘that this is indeed the Antichrist.’
The festival of Epiphany, which falls on January 6, was always celebrated in Russia in a very beautiful way.
Deriving from the ancient Jewish Feast of Lights, the festival of Epiphany – or Theophany as the Orthodox usually call it – means ‘The Shining Forth’. At this festival are especially remembered Christ’s appearance to the Wise Men, and his baptism by John in the River Jordan.
It is a lovely and a delicate festival, calling to mind images of light, water and a dove descending.
At Epiphany, in Russia, it was the custom to bless the waters; and in Moscow this ceremony was of particular beauty.
Little Maryushka was excited therefore when her father announced that morning that they would all go to the river to watch.
She had been aware of a tension in the air for the last three weeks. She had seen her parents and the Lady Eudokia consulting each other and heard such words as ‘wickedness’ and ‘the Second Coming’ murmured. She had seen the decoration over the doorways and heard people say it was the New Year; but since her father sternly told her it was not, she supposed everyone else must have made a mistake.
But today, at least, all seemed to be well. There was only the faintest wind. The cloud cover was high and thin, so that the pale presence of the sun was sensed, if not seen. The streets were full and by the time they reached the river a huge crowd was gathering. She could even see people sitting on the tall roofs of the houses. They crossed the frozen river and took up a position opposite the high walls of the Kremlin.
In the middle of the frozen river, inside a large area enclosed by rails, stood a little wooden building, like a shrine, densely hung with icons. Before it she could see a broad circular hole in the ice, like a well. Young priests and deacons were standing about there.
Maryushka looked up at her father. Although she already understood what it meant to be one of the Raskolniki, she hoped it was all right to enjoy these ceremonies performed by the ordinary Church; she was glad, therefore, to note a look of approval on Daniel’s face as he gazed at the river, and she held her mother’s hand happily.
Soon, she knew, she would see both the Patriarch and the Tsar himself as they sat in splendour, on twin thrones upon the ice, to watch the blessing of the waters. She was so fascinated that she forgot even to glance up at her parents again.
Across the ice now, she could see the front of the procession. A banner was waving; there was a faint glint from the jewelled mitres of the priests. They were coming.
But then, suddenly, another sound was heard: the sound of pipes and drums – brisk, cheerful, but harsh. And now on to the ice swung column after column of soldiers, marching smartly in step. They wore close-fitting German coats of red, green or blue, with gaiters and tricorn hats. They carried flintlocks. And they were cleanshaven. In front of each company marched a man with a banner; and before the first column strode a huge, tall man dressed in a green uniform. While the drums rolled and the pipes squeaked, some twelve thousand foreign-looking soldiers marched out on to the ice and formed a huge square around the area where the priests were to bless the waters.
Only when the troops were in place did the priests come on to the ice.
But now at last they came. How stately, how gorgeous the procession was. A huge gold cross was followed immediately by an enormous lantern with mica windows, carried on the shoulders of a dozen priests, in which huge candles were burning brightly. Some five hundred priests in their golden robes and jewelled mitres followed in stately procession behind: archbishops, bishops, archimandrites, priests and deacons; and as they gathered, hundreds of tall tapers were lit. On a raised dais now, a deacon stood holding aloft a huge banner on which, in gold, was depicted the double-headed eagle of the Russian Tsars. On a throne sat the Patriarch. Here, indeed, was all the gorgeous panoply of old Russia.
But where, she wondered, was the Tsar? Why was the Patriarch sitting alone?
‘Where is Tsar Peter?’ she whispered.
‘He’s there,’ Arina replied.
Maryushka frowned. Which one was he then?
The blessings had already begun. A mitred priest was passing the censer over the water: one, two, three times. Long candles were being dipped in the water. The waters were being blessed.
It was a sacred moment. At this instant, Maryushka knew, the waters of the river were mystically transformed into those of the River Jordan. This, indeed, was holy Russia.
During all this time, the massed troops had remained silent. At each important point in the service of blessing, the huge standard with the double-headed eagle had been waved, and the standards of the soldiers, as if in reply, had at once waved back in unison. As the ceremony ended, they were brought forward to be sprinkled with Holy water.