This circumstance was widely used by young employees - anonymous, and the boss is no longer there! I don't know if the former seminarian John wrote such opuses, but he made a serious career out of armored steels. He would also be in prison, but - the war, and she, as you know, wrote off everything. The design bureau in the Urals, the sleepless nights of the 41st, the awards of the 43rd, in a word - success. In 1944, he was invited to head an institute in Moscow, an order bearer, an academician, an apartment in the center, inside the ring. For the apartment, and the owner was found - the connection with a former subordinate, a machine operator of the design bureau in the Urals, is legalized. True, a subordinate becomes a boss in an instant, even the service car is mostly in her charge. The young wife does not know about her husband's religious past, for her he is of worker and peasant origin, an atheist. Ivan joined the party in Turkestan. Everything is fine, but I dream of the Trinity! And it is frightening to answer to God for the children, and there are two of them, a boy and a girl. From time to time, Ivan Mikhailovich runs away from his wife and children, dressed in his most modest outfit and travels to holy places, and just visits rural churches. "At least to cleanse the soul," as he put it.

He did not invite me home - it was impossible, his institute was closed, the house was under supervision, but what he told me was just oil to the soul. It turned out that Ivan, my friend Vanya, had retained most of the property hidden during the revolution.

And it was like this: as soon as Vanya was demobilized from Turkestan and received a referral to the workers' faculty in Moscow, he immediately found and collected all my property. Actually, this was not all, many people were arrested by that time, and property was confiscated, but most of everything survived. It is clear that Ivan could not keep it in his dormitory - it was dangerous. But his aunt, a nun from a monastery dispersed by the Bolsheviks, settled in the Moscow region, and it was to her that he took my treasure. No one knew about the aunt - she was related to her mother, i.e. of a different surname, and both Vanya and the aunt absolutely kept the secret of kinship. We directed our steps to it.

A couple of hours by train: Ivan had his own safe travel plan with transfers, and we reached the goal. At the knock on the gate, an old woman in black comes out to us, lean, small with such a blissful expression on her face that you can even paint an icon! On the street, she did not show any signs of joy at meeting her nephew, but in the house she burst into tears. "Vanechka, why haven't you come for so long?!" - she kept wailing. "Aunt Vera, well, you know what it costs me to get out of the house, and not that from Moscow! Although Lyudmila knows that divorce is the end of my career for me, she is jealous of every post! I change the third secretary because of her, even if I howl like a wolf. I sent it to the sea, to Sochi, restored a couple of sanatoriums there, well, and came" - Ivan looks at me with justification. Aunt Vera lowered her eyes, quietly wiping them with the edge of her handkerchief, and fell silent, fussing around the table.

I began to examine the hostess's house. Amazing simplicity and dignity, nothing superfluous, but what is there is really necessary. A small house, a hall and a kitchenette with a Russian stove, which served as a bed for the nun. Near the stove there are a couple of small, sooty ancient icons, even the faces on them are difficult to make out. A lamp glows near the icons. The grips hang on hooks driven into the wall. On the police there are several cast irons and a couple of plates. In the hall there is a large holy corner with a beautiful, huge lampada, probably a temple lamp - it is so large. On several shelves there is a stack of linen linen. There are no chairs, the table and two benches near it are simple, chopped, scraped to white. "Aunt Vera," Ivan began, "don't make a fuss, we are with ot. Anthony not for long, you know what you came for. By the way, meet Hieromonk Anthony, well, this is my aunt Vera, nun Senkletikia!" "Vanya told me a lot about you, father, thank God - you are alive. I did not believe that I would wait for the owner of the things, I was afraid of what would happen to them after my death. but no, the Lord has arranged it! Well, then let's get it."

My treasure was hidden under the stove, several large wooden suitcases with iron-clad corners. In one there were vestments and monastic vestments, several sets of airs and covers. When this suitcase was opened, the acrid smell of mothballs spread throughout the room. The hostess was embarrassed: "Don't be disgraceful, father, it's me from the moth of the report, and it stinks so much!" My monastic vestments! How happy it was when I took it from the Lavra tailors, and wore it a couple of times!

Vanya was clearly nervous because of the delay. Realizing this, I moved on to the next treasure. Oh my God, where is this from?! There were about a dozen Antimensions in the suitcase, but I had only one! "I collected this," Vanya said quietly, "what I brought from the market during the war, what I brought from Turkestan. the soldiers rubbed their boots with antimensions, for shine. He could not look at blasphemy. I did not become a priest myself, I think at least I will serve like this."

In addition to the Antimensions, the suitcase contained service books, a baptismal box, a silver Eucharistic set, incense, a bottle of Myrrh, which had become incredibly thick over time, and something else.

In the third drawer there were books, many books. I took them and, as it were, met with old friends and mentors. Clearly not all the books were there. "Yes," said Ivan, as if understanding my thought, "many books have been lost. Not quite successfully they found the principals - in the famine of the twenties, they were sold, and some owners were arrested with confiscation of property. Maybe they remained hidden in their homes, but you won't ask to look for new owners - they are imprisoned for the Bible, it is considered anti-Soviet!" "Why, Vanya, dear, it's just a feat to preserve this in the midst of all the horror that has happened over the years! Thank you, dear, thank you!" - tears covered my eyes, I barely uttered the words of gratitude.

But that was half the battle, I found it, but how to smuggle it?! There are practically no passenger trains, and the risk is huge - both the police and the barefoot. Ivan helped again. The suitcases were sealed and sealed as the cargo of his institute. He changed me into a "capital" one, from his shoulder, wrote out documents for escorting the cargo and put me in a passenger train, in a soft car. Already on the train, in the pocket of the jacket I had been given as a gift, I found money and an envelope with a long letter from a friend...

Yes, that's how I went to Moscow. And they were waiting for me at home. This is such a necessary feeling for a person - that they are waiting for him. When I left, I didn't think about it. But when the first person I came across so generously gave me a greeting with a warm joyful smile, it became clear - I was needed here, they were waiting for me here.

Now there are no questions about how to bring things home, but then there were no horses in a good way. They drove me, and who - a district policeman in an old, captured BMW! And not only did he bring them, but he also helped me bring my suitcases home. And then there were visitors, with or without reason, people came, came and came. I couldn't wait to be alone with my treasure, my past, but they were coming. No, of course, they could not even guess who met me in Moscow, and that I came with money that, as they say, these workers could not even dream of. They came with food - an egg, bread, flour, a fish caught by the children. I put on the samovar, a gift from the nun Senclitikia, and we drank tea, a real one! Let it be rare, and re-brewed many, many times until the evening, but real tea!

But then evening came, my dear parishioners dispersed and I was alone. First of all, the books that I had left here, and there was not much time to make out. The main thing that I saw was the Philokalia in place. Chrysostom, Ephraim the Syrian, Gregory Palamas, Patericons, some of the books were in Greek, some were even in Latin. Everything is pretty much forgotten, but I think we'll figure it out. I saw several books that were not my own, someone else's. In all likelihood, Ivan's aunt was the keeper of more than just my treasure. Signature:

Hieromonk Nifont, Schema-Abbot Paul, Novice Daniel, where are you, reverend fathers?! And I felt a great responsibility before God and the Holy New Martyrs of Russia for being alive. Before the Church, finally.