Anton traces his journey to faith back to his youth, when a moment of piercing loneliness opened his eyes to the reality of God’s Presence:
“My coming to faith is connected with a feeling of utmost loneliness and despair that I once experienced as a young immigrant kid on the streets of New York City. Paradoxically, that moment made utterly visible to me a mystical Presence, powerful enough to change everything, as long as I had the courage to cling to it and let it act in my life. It then became the main focus of my inner sight, and I learned that this Presence was not an ‘it’ but a living ‘He’. Amazed by His power, wisdom, and mercy, I have remained in that Presence ever since.”
Born in 1979 into a family of musicians, Anton studied English at Minsk State Linguistic University. For more than ten years he travelled across Europe and North America with the foreign outreach of St Elisabeth Convent, visiting Christian communities, speaking about faith with the faithful, and sharing experiences of spiritual life and ministry. Today he serves as a translator at St Elisabeth Convent, working mainly with texts on the life of the Community, pastoral reflections, hagiography, Bible studies, and other materials that seek to connect the Gospel with the wounds and questions of modern people. He views this work, and his daily contact with the living tradition of the Church, as a great blessing and a sign of God’s endless mercy.
Reflecting on faith in the contemporary world, Anton writes:
“It is not easy to believe in God’s providence in a world torn by hatred, injustice, hypocrisy, and war. Yet following Him is always a choice – often neither obvious nor easy, but one that remains before us. Perhaps the key is to make that choice in the small, hidden decisions of every day, here and now. I am convinced that love is the only real hope for humanity’s survival; but to understand what love truly is, we have to look honestly into our own hearts, beneath the noise and shallowness of pop culture, and discover that love is both God’s most crucial Covenant with us and something planted deep within the human soul by the Creator Himself, quietly awaiting our free response.”
