Greetings From Afar

And Then There Were Nun

The Convent of Our Lady of Sorrows is out in the middle of nowhere. It is so far out in the sticks that you have to chase the owl off of your clock in the morning before you can tell what time it is. It is so far out in the boondocks that the emaciated wolves really do chase the starving bears through the frozen deserted forest. Well it’s not really that bad, but it is rather isolated. The convent is something like forty miles from Novosibersk, as the crow flies… as the narrow, one lane dirt track that leads to it winds, it’s more like sixty, and the convent is located a good, healthy two mile walk from the meandering little road. So… the occasional visitor is compelled to exert himself or herself, and put forth a genuine effort if they really want to see the Convent of Our Lady of Sorrows.

Of course, it was intended to be that way. The Nuns that founded the convent back in the early days of the last century, were looking for the isolation that the remote reaches of Western Siberia provided. They were a contemplative order, dedicated to prayer, fasting and meditation. They were “called” as they say to be “apart from the world”.

Every morning, the air rings with the chanting of the morning office. All through the day, the somber, black clad figures of the sisters can be seen as they go about their daily chores much as they did a century ago. Modern conveniences are unknown to the Convent of Our Lady of Sorrows. Everything is done by hand. Even in the dead of winter, the Nuns can be seen hauling water from the little river that runs nearby… indoor plumbing is not known in the confines of the Convent. In the winter, when the sun rises late, and sets early… when there is only four hours of pale daylight to be had… the glimmering light of candles illuminates the sister’s prayers, to be extinguished all together at the conclusion of the evening office.

The sisters never travel into the city. The convent is completely self sufficient. They need nothing from the outside. No visitor ever enters the cloister. It must be observed only from afar… the sounds of the sister’s voices, as soft as the song of the angels, heard from a distance as they drift over the soft, white blanket of snow that covers the birch forest.

The sisters are, in fact, completely “apart from the world”. They have been since the winter of 1918, when the White Guards burned the Convent or Our Lady of Sorrows to the ground and executed all of it’s inhabitants for aiding a local company of Red Guards. From the road, one can hear and see them, still, as they go about their daily chores… one can listen with delight to their heavenly voices as they chant their daily offices. They are, after all, truly heavenly. If you venture too close, wander off the road and climb the gentle, sloaping hill to the convent for a closer look, or perhaps a listening place, you come face to face with the grim reality of the present… the charred, smoke stained ruins and the somber, stone covered hill, with it’s graves that mark the final resting place of a long dead order .

© 2006/20009 by Dr. J. Lee Choron. All rights reserved unless specifically granted by the author in writing.