"Arrest, camp, exile..."-I remind you quietly. And from. Anthony continued his unhurried story.

"I was released after the war, I could not walk, so the disease was exhausted, and the term ended. One soldier taught me to go to his homeland, and he told me who to turn to. Warm-hearted people, believers, they left me over the summer. In the neighboring village they found a job - he got a job as a stoker. I did not turn to the local bishop, I was afraid, I had heard all sorts of things from people. I think the winter will pass, the heating will end, then I will look for something. The fathers gave me the address of one archbishop, they said for him that he took those who were imprisoned - calming the plenipotentiary with a bribe and a plentiful feast.

And I want to serve. Once, before Christmas, two or three weeks before, I don't remember if Varvara had already passed, they knocked on my door at night. It was a dashing, hungry, cold time, and I had coal, like a second bread! Come on, I think I'll open it. A young guy came in, about thirty years old and stood there, crumpling, unable to start. I couldn't stand it anymore, I said: "I've come, so keep your speech, that, they say, you're crumpling, I don't bite!" And this is what he said. His mother, a very religious woman, in the godless accursed thirties, was constantly visited by wandering priests, both monks and laymen, they say, there was even some kind of bishop. So, they stopped, served, communed, baptized, did everything that people needed. The old hieromonk appeared especially often, and people liked him very much for his simplicity, gentle character, and reliability in requests. One day a monk appeared in the morning, with his usual suitcase, in which he kept everything for the service and a bundle in his hands. He gave my visitor's mother the suitcase, and ordered her to hide it - they were already looking for him to arrest him. The last order was: "I will not return, I will give it to the priest who returns to these parts after the camps!"

The woman zealously fulfilled the assignment - even the Germans did not find the suitcase. And now she, old and sick, having heard that a priest allegedly worked in the stokehouse, sent her son to find out everything. There is no need to tell further - and everything is clear as it is. I didn't run, I flew like a bird without feeling any shortness of breath or rheumatic joints, only faster! Here it is - the cherished house, the barking of an unknown thin dog, the creak of the door and we are in the house. An old woman is lying on the bed, elderly women are sitting on the bench near the table. A kagan is smoking on the table, and there is not even a suitcase, as we understand now, but a solid wooden chest upholstered in leather. Its small size made me shudder - are there really no vestments?! Or maybe there is no Eucharistic set?

I was so excited that I forgot to greet the people and wish peace to this house! "Hello, father, bless!" - a middle-aged man stood next to me, a sturdy man and clearly a front-line soldier, "God bless." "I am the eldest son, Vasily. Here, father, the keys are all yours, sort it out. Only one request, it is to give my mother the Unction and funeral service - it hurts badly." "All you need is welcome! Only I'll open it in my stoker, okay?!" - my voice was trembling, my hands were nervously stroking the cherished chest. Vasily smiled: "I told you - he is yours, from. Antony. Yurko," he nodded at his younger brother, "he will bring him to you now."

I had one stool and a bench in my stoker. Now I covered the stool with a clean shirt given to me by someone, put the chest on it, and myself, sitting on a bench, examined my treasure. Brown thick leather was embossed, one might say, with patterns on church themes: a cross framed by grape bunches and leaves, in the corners - the domes of churches. But here is the key in the lock, I try to turn it - it was not there, the key is in place. Something is wrong here, the condition of the chest does not allow you to think that the lock is spoiled by rust. Once again I carefully examine the chest and find a hidden hole, insert the key there with the reverse side, turn and hear a slight click! After that, the second lock opened. I open the lid, but it's just a miracle! From the inside, the lid unfolds and turns into a small iconostasis. White robes are laid inside. Under them is a wooden bulkhead, in which, in recesses, the service Gospel, the service book and the service book are fastened. With trepidation, I pull out the vestments and unfasten the Gospel - yes, under it, as it should be, in the iliton, lies the Antimension! There is an opportunity for service, what a joy!

I pull out this middle bulkhead. Under it, in the recesses, there is everything - the Eucharistic dishes, and the baptismal set, and even the Monstrance. The bulkhead itself is a small table, a portable throne. The legs are immediately placed next to it. My joy has no bounds, but where to serve?! I don't have a home, and, in fact, not a house at all. Stoker, I work and live here. People called me to live with them, but why embarrass them, the houses and dugouts after the German are miserable, and here I will pray and sing. And I'm a dangerous tenant, look at it, they can take me again. But what to do now.

With this thought in mind, I fell asleep by the stoves near my treasure. But if the Lord had already given me everything for the service, then soon I received a place for it - a small house on the very outskirts of the village, given to me by a believing old woman. He began to serve, to send services. He did not specifically ask anyone to keep the secret, did not limit the number of those who came to the service, but this secret was strictly kept. He baptized and performed the funeral service - at night or early in the morning, as soon as the sun rose. I didn't take money, what did it do for me, I got something for working in the stoker, old people brought clothes, and food - how much does a monk need? He is alive - and thank God.

So the winter passed imperceptibly and with it my work in the stokehouse. In the summer it was worse - they were sent to the rise of agriculture. I was also issued a summons. I grieved a lot - there are so many holidays, and I will not be able to serve. Grandmothers and parishioners helped out. They went to the doctor whose granddaughter I had baptized, and explained that the village would be left without a priest if Anthony was sent to work. And they told me about my illnesses, how they nursed me with the whole world. They gave me a release, again I was assigned to the stoker - I went to the Donbass to knock out coal according to orders, checked the system, etc.

Several years passed in this way. I did not let go of the desire to go to Moscow, to the Trinity. The fact is that as soon as I took monastic vows and ordained, looking at the arrests and exiles, I began to prepare for all this. This preparation consisted in the fact that I began to deliver everything I needed - books, vestments, incense, etc., to the apartments of the faithful I knew with a request to hide it until better times. And now, looking at how my villagers had preserved the service suitcase, I was obsessed with the idea of trying to collect the hidden. First of all, books on spiritual work, because I went to the camps as a young monk, a monk only by tonsure, and not by work. Of course, something remained in my memory from the edification of the Trinity schemamonks, something was suggested by the priests who sat with me, but I keenly felt the need for literature and, above all, for the Philokalia. This thought made me go to Sergiev Posad.

There were no vacations as such then, everything was semi-legal. So I managed to beg from the authorities some kind of filkin letter for a trip to Moscow. I must say that at the first stage my idea seemed hopeless - this one died, that one died, there were strangers in the other's apartment, the owner, apparently, was sitting. So many years have passed, a warrior, a purge...

Having already resigned myself to failure, I bought a pie, stood there, chewed, and suddenly I heard: "From. Anthony, is it you?!" I turn - Lord, isn't it an obsession?! In front of me is a respectable man, in an expensive suit, the suit of the capital's authorities, in a hat, with a leather briefcase in his hands, it seems that absolutely everything alien to me, a former camp inmate. But no, it was him, my former seminary classmate, who helped, in particular, to hide my simple property in the apartments of believers. He was younger, much younger, and did not have time to take monastic vows and be ordained. "Vanya!" - tears sprang up in my eyes. We hugged and stood there, it was impossible to say a word because of a lump in the throat. Probably, the sight of a respectable man hugging an almost beggar seemed strange to the policeman on duty. He came up, asked Ivan if everything was fine, and he demanded my documents and checked them for a long time. However, maybe not for long, but I wanted to be alone with a classmate so much that minutes seemed like hours. Finally, the law enforcement officer was quite reluctant to return them to me and reluctantly trumped, as if he was free. Ivan and I moved towards the northern wall, there are fewer passers-by, and I heard the story of his life.

Ivan witnessed the gradual arrests of seminary and academy students, as well as teachers. Rumors about the horrors of detention in the camps and exile, and, at first, it was more exile, surpassed all permissible and perceived cruelties by reason. It was really hard to believe, but it was impossible not to believe. Bishop Hilarion Troitsky was arrested, the Moscow Theological Schools were closed, Ivan was taken into the ranks of the Red Army. Service in Turkestan, a cleansed biography, fortunately, it did not say that he was a seminarian, but a student. This was a lesser offense before the authorities.

Ivan went to the worker's faculty, to the institute, and, by the beginning of the war, made a good career. It was facilitated by the fact that all outstanding heads, one way or another, quickly moved from offices and workshops to "sharashki" - prison scientific institutions, this is at best. At worst - industrial lag, providing the country with wood, coal, iron...