On 18 May, as the Church commemorates the Icon of the Mother of God "The Inexhaustible Cup", the monastery's men's farmstead, keeps its patronal feast. The flock here carry a heavy burden - most have wrestled for years with old habits that are hard to break. They are bound together by a single struggle and a common prayer: for health and a new start.
I am met by Sergei, the altar server. As we walk along, he begins to tell me of a wonder that happened to him not long ago. On the second day of Pascha, Sergei was on his way to the church of "The Inexhaustible Cup" to top up the oil in the ever-burning lamp - one of his duties. The Royal Doors were open. A strong radiance coming from the altar almost rooted him to the spot:
"My legs almost gave way... I wanted to fall to the ground, then I remembered: it was Pascha, you do not go down on your knees. I had never seen anything like it: a very bright light was pouring out, and a calmness wrapped the soul. I realised then that God is not in the noise, not in the thunder, but in the silence..."
Frescoes in the church
For some years now, Sergei has kept a quiet flame of faith alive in his heart. He holds on to a deep, quiet peace. He worries that by slipping up or losing his way - as has happened often enough - he might drift far from his Maker.
"God has pulled me back from the brink so many times! I have had many falls and close calls - and not a scratch on me..." Sergei says with thanks. "He must have kept me for some cause. It may be there is work for me to do here. Or elsewhere. The ways of the Lord are past finding out."
The Lord led Sergei to the church by a winding path: he built and plastered churches in Belarus and Russia, yet he was deaf to the call from above.
"I knew nothing of God until I was thirty. I grew up in a state boarding home. My mother lost her parental rights, and I never knew my father. So my parents could not pass faith on to me. Now and then a Bible came into my hands, but I did not open it. At one point, I fell in with some Baptists. I went along because they were giving out hot meals. I was told that if you write out all the words God speaks in the Bible, your eyes will be opened. I had a small icon of the Mother of God of Kazan; I would light the lamp in front of it and write. With this little image, by the way, they had blessed me in Novy Dvor, when I was plastering in the church of Archangel Michael. I copied out the Lord's words as far as the New Testament. And what is striking is that when I came to work in the monastery, I was choked with tears. I would run off and hide from people, because I could not stop. At that time I did not yet know Father Andrey; I was simply working. I made the steps in the "Reigning Icon" church. I was finishing the church of "The Inexhaustible Cup". That was when I was baptised.
I also worked on secular building sites. For a while, I was doing twelve-hour days. Once I was given a very small wage and said, "I'm not working for you again!" I had no one; I slept rough for three days, thankful it was summer. The bosses were freezing me out, holding back my pay. I went without food. Then at last they paid up. I squandered it all on drink. Then I came to my senses - I had to look for work. I met a brother from the monastery. He suggested I go to the monastery's men's farmstead. And I have now been here for five years. I serve at the altar in the church.
Everything is different at the altar. For the first month I was overwhelmed by grace. The joy lifts you right out of yourself; words cannot touch it."
Brother at the farmstead
For more than thirty years, Sergei was held fast by a very different kind of hunger: every winter, he watched for the summer, waiting for the wild flowers to bloom so he could brew his poison.
"I have a technical background. I have always been busy; I even had my own small business. Yet that other habit did not seem to get in the way - it was just a place you slipped into. The main thing was to feed the need on time to keep the feeling going. At our boarding school two whole final-year classes slipped into the same snare. And I first took up smoking when I was six, as the boys my age simply would not have spoken to me otherwise.
There was a time when I gave in to the darkness - I'd lost hope of ever breaking free. I took far too much and remember nothing for two days - then, by some miracle, I got up. The doctors say they still find it hard to believe such a thing is possible.
Here I have been able to leave behind both that habit and strong drink. When I see bottles in the shop, I shiver. For five years, the only thing I've had is kvass, which has a tiny bit of alcohol in it. Father gave his blessing. The Mother of God helped me, and so did the Lord.
The Church of the Inexhaustible Cup means everything to me. Every good thing in my life happens here.
Life at the monastery farmstead is, of course, a gift. The brothers are wonderful, though they themselves hardly realise it. Now and then someone will get you cross - there are, after all, more than a hundred of us here. The farmstead is a place where you can put the brakes on in this life and not be anxious about our daily bread. You simply live and work for the glory of God.
But I am not cut out to be a monk; I am not humble enough for that. So I need to set my personal life in some sort of order. I once lived with a woman for seven years and we brought up a daughter together. Then we parted; one day we felt as if we were strangers. Now I am ready for a new relationship."
The altar server takes from his pocket a small icon of St Sergius of Radonezh. He made this image of his patron saint himself, piecing it together from scraps of wood. Making these images is another of his duties. He straightens the lamp and hurries off to the workshop.
Reading prayers
We now meet Brother Yuri. His main duty is to keep the church clean. He also does the washing and the ironing. Yuri starts with the icons, wiping each one with care. He believes he has never been so near to God as he is now - both with his hands and with his heart.
"I always used to envy my wife: "How can you believe like that?" I would go along with her now and then, just stand there. But now I know what faith is. You set off somewhere, and deep in your heart you say, "Lord, bless!""
It is not as simple to clear your thoughts and heart as it is to brush the dust from an icon cover. Yuri has learnt this in his own flesh and soul:
"That old pull is still there sometimes. Even in church you sometimes think about it. Thoughts, memories press in from every side. The Jesus Prayer helps. I read it quietly for half an hour, and it grows easier. The Lord wins the day.
I went through long stretches of empty time - when I read the Qur'an, books on theosophy, and the Bible too! Still, I felt drawn to Orthodoxy."
By "empty time" Yuri means his years in custody. Robbery, rackets, and breaking parole time and again - he has been sent away more than once. Many times he tried to give up drink and the needle, sank to his lowest, left the farmstead and then came back...
"After another stint away, I was baptised, and when I came out of the church I had the feeling I was without sin. I felt light inside. For two weeks I was walking on air - and then everything slipped again.
I remember it was 30 degrees outside. In the segregation wing, the radiators were barely warm, it was impossible to sleep. You do press-ups and squats just to get warm. You drop off for half an hour, then you jump up again from the cold. And then a scene rose up in my mind. Morning. Church. My wife beside me. Our child in my arms. And I began to call to mind happy times, to live by them - to live here and now, in a single cell. I kept saying: "Lord, thank You for everything. Someone surely has it worse than I do now." And it helped."
Yuri was doing his time when, unexpectedly, he got a letter from a woman in Orsha he had never met. She was a friend of the wife of his former cellmate. A woman of faith, who had gone to church since childhood and sung in the choir, she wanted to get to know him.
"I kept asking myself, "Why?" She was far from all this prison life. I was very surprised by such a meeting, but I still answered the letter. We agreed: no romance, we would just talk, get to know one another in soul. For six years we wrote to each other. Our first short visit took place on the eve of my release. Then I went to see her - and that was it. We set off for Minsk. We lived together for sixteen years. Our son was born.
My wife was a wonderful mother. And I only brought money home, that was all. Three years ago she died - an accident. And then our boy woke up and said: "Dad, has Mum really died, or has she just gone to work?" Inside me everything turned over, and in one moment I became a father. Sadly, I managed to keep going only for half a year, and then I started drinking again. Thanks to the farmstead I came back to myself, went out into the world to earn a living. I could not bear it and came here again. I have been here for more than a year. Never before had I spent so long out in freedom. All the supervision orders have been lifted. I wake up and thank God for everything.
Two rules work here: work honestly and go to church - and everything somehow comes together by His mercy. My ties with my father and with my mother-in-law have grown warmer. I see my younger son, I keep in touch with my elder from my first marriage. He lives in Kazan, he is thirty-seven. We are friends.
Here I have come to know God. Even in my heart I try not to begin anything without His blessing. My conscience is awake. I am very afraid of losing this inner state; I hold on to it with all I have."
The brothers at the church homestead
"I've always managed to keep money coming in. I learnt to do tattoos while I was serving my time. I later spent many years working in tattoo shops. Some offer me good wages abroad, asking me to go and work in Europe. But I do not want to change anything - life is fine as it is. And, in truth, tattooing is a sin. I have plenty on my own body. I even once had three sixes, but I had them covered. That does not sit right with the life I lead now."
The years that felt empty have given way to days that are alive. His time is taken up with work in the church and with prayer. He is sure that the Mother of God keeps him under Her protection. He knows he can always come to the icon of the "Inexhaustible Cup" and speak with the Mother of God about what is most hidden in his heart. From the age of four he rarely met his mother on earth - she had left him with his father. Perhaps that is why he so often asked the Lord for help.
"Mum, why did you leave me?" - "How old were you when you first went to prison?" - "Nineteen." - "If I had not left you, you would have been sent there even earlier. And I did not throw you away. I left you with a Doctor of Science." They had this talk once, and never spoke of it again.
"I went to School No. 42 in the centre of Minsk, with children from wealthy homes. That was when I first came across drugs: the street, the yard, my friends... My first stint came after a street scuffle. I did not finish anything, I have no schooling. I never found what I was meant to do. I did not live my own life.
I have, of course, forgiven Mum. I always felt I loved her more than my father. Now, at fifty-seven, I pray for her more than for anyone else, because she had never come to know God."
Icon of the Mother of God "The Inexhaustible Cup"
Once a day each brother, if he is not confined to bed, comes into the church to read the Psalter. For an hour or so, he is alone with the book, and alone with God. I break in on the quiet thoughts of Alexander, one of the flock.
"I had it all once, but now, as the saying goes, I have nothing left but my soul," my companion says with a bitter smile. "I lost my family and my flat. My daughter is twenty-five. She went away with my wife, and where they went I do not know.
I have no backbone - I am weak with drink. If someone put a glass in front of me now, I might say: "Let's go." Or maybe it is the demons inside. They keep on at me, pushing me to do wrong. At times such darkness comes over me that I feel I could get drunk, grab a tomahawk and strike out at everything and everyone. But I bear it, I keep it all inside. "Lord, have mercy" - twelve times before sleep and in the morning. I cross myself three times and say, "Thank God that I am alive." And at other times I think, "It would be better if they had laid me in the ground. Perhaps a few friends would weep, and later the grave would grow over." On the other hand, the dear Lord has so often put a pillow under my head. Maybe I am still needed here."
At the monastery farmstead Alexander looks after people with disabilities. He says he himself almost became like that. He drank dreadfully. He tried the medical cure five times but waves his hand at the thought: "Nonsense. All nonsense."
"I ended up in the clinic twice; I asked to be taken in. Three months was enough - and then it would all start again. Drink is a grave."
Alexander had started to dig that grave for himself back at college, where he was training as a combine operator:
"Discos, here and there... How could you go there sober? A bottle to share with the crowd. Later, when I started work, I drank at weekends. The longest I've ever kept off it has been here - more than a year. I owe that to God and the Church, I think.
At the plant I took spare parts and sold them on. I was given time for it: first three years, then five. My wife was fond of money - she wanted crosses, gold chains, fur coats. She liked to splash out."
"And you yourself didn't splash out?"
"I did. Cars, girls... But now my good life is right here..."
Alexander's sister brought him here. He could not have come on his own. He could hardly even walk, let alone travel: his legs would not obey him, his mind was in a fog. He had barely made it to the "Inexhaustible Cup", much like a weary old soldier from Tula in the 19th century who sought healing for his drinking at Serpukhov.
A man on crutches
"Drink had brought me very low. I tried to get about here on my own. I do not like people breathing down my neck. Quietly, I began to go to church. At first it was hard to go out on the processions with the cross. Later it grew easier. I remember climbing the steps, and my legs were shaking, so weak. In the village where I live there is a church. Once I was drinking with two mates, and they took it into their heads to go in there. I told them it was a sin to go in like that. Of course our lively trio were asked to leave the church. The other two are already in the next world. If my sister had not brought me here, I might be food for worms too... Sometimes, at the service I stand by the icon of the "Inexhaustible Cup", asking for health - for me, for those I love, for friends."
"And how do you see your life from now on?"
"As things fall. Who knows? Maybe it'll be diamonds, or maybe spades. It all comes down to my choices. I want to go home. Home is back in the village. And at home the same life may come back, and I could end up lying out by a fence, with dogs sniffing at my face. It has been like that. I do not hide it - I am a drunkard through and through."
"Have you been this hard on yourself for long?"
"At the start of the year I began to realise who I am, that everything was lost. They say that is the first step towards healing. Here you think about many things. I dream of seeing my daughter - she's so dear to me."
A brother from the farmstead
Between tasks, Nikolai stops at the church to pray. At the farmstead everyone calls him Kolya. Kolya leads the team that prepares the root vegetables. He shares out the work, to speed things up. He peels the vegetables himself - and, at the same time, his soul.
"I say the Jesus Prayer quietly to myself. I like to work with prayer. When I first came to the farmstead, they put me on to watch over the potatoes. Night-time, a small fire, plenty of time. That is how I began to talk with God. Later I watched a film where, whatever they did, they kept saying the Jesus Prayer. That gave me even more heart to pray. It lightens the load."
Kolya has been living at the farmstead for three years. He has survived three strokes; he does not rule out that drink may well have had its part. He has been married several times. He is in touch with his son every day, but his daughter does not answer the phone.
"At the farmstead there are friends and there are those who are against you. I wish health to everyone. I'm not one for rows. I try to take things quietly. This is, in fact, my home... And where am I to go after three strokes?" Kolya looks thoughtfully at the icon of the Mother of God "The Inexhaustible Cup". "It was here that I first came to know this icon. You sit by it and read the Psalter; you come up to it and ask. For health, of course. The Mother of God helped me to be freed from sin... And then, you know, a miracle happened. I had an old mobile. I asked the Lord, and in just a month my brother's wife gave me hers. It's not new, but it suits me. Google and Yandex don't get on with it, so there's no pull to look things up; I can't check the news. Sometimes, in my spare time, I watch films about the Bible."
Kolya closes the church door and goes to the kitchen. At the farmstead by the church he is as if on an island - far from the bustle of the wider world, yet in this smaller way of life something great has been opened to him.
"Here there are no such temptations. My way of seeing other people, and myself, has changed. I look at myself in the mirror in the morning - oh, I don't like what I see. Many here feel the same. But I make myself: "Get up, go, don't be lazy." I have felt God more. Faith helps me draw nearer to Him, to love Him."
The main theme of the painting in the church in honour of the icon of the Mother of God "The Inexhaustible Cup" is the fall into sin and the return of a person to God. Today, more than a hundred people at the farmstead are on this road. Prayer and work are the two wings that help them rise up and break away from sin.
People in the church
Photographs by Maksim Chernogolov
