Incident in the monasterytranslated

Deacon Dionisy AKHALASHVILI

In the evening at dinner in the refectory of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery in Kamensk-Uralsky. The hegumen, Father Theodosius, is talking to three tanned workers: “You three have been in the garden all day in the morning and only tilled half of one field of potatoes?” They shrug their shoulders sadly and begin to talk long and tediously about the summer heat, dry soil, kvass forgotten in the car, unsharpened hoes and the lack of necessary skills.

He patiently listens to their endless explanations, and then asks the monk sitting next to me: “Father Porfiry! Can you go to the garden with our workers tomorrow and help them organize the work of hilling potatoes?” He shrugs his shoulders: “How bless, father! Last year, when we had no helpers, I alone cultivated both fields of the monastery’s potatoes. I managed with God’s help.”

I look at Father Porfiry, and I feel uneasy: he has no fingers on both hands, only stumps...

On the screensaver: Spaso-Preobrazhensky Kamensk-Ural Monastery in the 90s and in our time.

This story is from the new book by the regular author of the Thomas magazine, Deacon Dionisy Akhalashvili, “A Moment Before Happiness,” which was published in…