May 13, 2013, marks the twelfth anniversary of the martyric death
of Priest Igor Rozin on the feast day of St. Ignatius, Bishop of the
Caucasus, in the city of Tyrnyauz in the North Caucasus.
One cannot drive to the foot of Mount Elbrus except through Tyrnyauz.
The road from the city takes a rapid turn upwards until it reaches
Terskol. There it ends: above that, one can proceed only by cable or on
foot.
There is, however, one more way: from the north, from Kislovodsk, on a
mountain road. That is the way that stubborn mountain climbers took when
the road through Tyrnyauz was closed for nearly an entire year, from
February to November 2011, when a counter-terrorist operation was
underway here. Today this operation is often still declared, but not for
long: usually for a day or two, during which the news shows stories of
how a cache of explosives was located or an apartment in which militants
were entrenched was stormed. Few people outside of Tyrnyauz pay
attention to this news: today television shows too much of it. But it is
another story when you live here. People entering the city encounter
roadblocks. Resting his elbow on the butt of a machinegun hanging from
his chest, a solider in body armor smokes next to an armored personnel
carrier. A black mask covers his face. Other gunmen beside him check the
Soviet-era cars parked at the roadside.
In the distance one can see the empty-eyed skeletons of buildings
belonging to the Tyrnyauz Mining and Ore-Dressing Integrated Plant,
which was once famous throughout the entire Soviet Union. In the
beginning of the 1930s tungsten-molybdenum ore was discovered and the
city was built, but the plant began to fade in the early 1990s and has
since completely shut down. This once flourishing garden city has been
plunged into poverty and desolate chaos. But what has not been taken
away from this place is the beauty of God’s world, which shows through
the distorted features of modernity.
The unusual, almost radiant air gives the landscape a certain unreality –
perhaps this is a quality of the mountain, or perhaps of this place.
The velvet sides of the mountain, the ragged cliffs, the grey peak of
Totur, looking down on Tyrnyauz, the eagles pumping their wings in the
air currents – everything is so beautiful that it is as if you were in
one of the fabulous countries you read about as a child.
To the right, on the mountain slope, one can see the city cemetery. Over
one of the graves is a tall canopy topped by a cross. It was installed
recently, a couple of years ago, as was the black marble cross, now
hugged by a viburnum bush. Before this, the grave of Priest Igor Rozin
looked like almost all the others, with the exception that beyond its
fence, both then as now, one could often see people praying.
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A pilgrim prays at the grave of Fr. Igor, 2012. |
Despite the fact that getting to Tyrnyauz is not easy, and not always
without danger, people come to Fr. Igor’s grave constantly: from the
Caucasus, from Moscow, from St. Petersburg. We drive into the city. The
winding road, making its way through the new region, finally becomes an
avenue that is straight as an arrow.
+++
In the Soviet years, as it still is today, it was called Elbrus Avenue.
Commander Igor Rozin of the avalanche squad, a rescuer and mountain
climber, travelled on it more than once. Priest Igor hurried the same
way from Terskol to services. He was ordained in 1999, being given the
only surviving building from 1937 as a church. “Once I happened to meet
him—I hadn’t seen him in a long time. He asked if I could restore an old
Bible for him. I was surprised,” related Dmitry, a neighbor of the
Rozin family in Terskol and a colleague from the Vysokogorny Institute.
“And he said: ‘I’ve become a priest.’ ‘Where?’ ‘In Tyrnyauz. We were
given the dirtiest place in the city.’” Is that what he really said: the
dirtiest place? “That’s what he said. In fact, it was dirty: a
bacteriological laboratory. It couldn’t have been any dirtier: they
brought all the diseases there. But he said: ‘We’ll pray away this
dirtiest of places: nothing’s impossible.’”
I still think that he put it differently: all things are possible to him that believeth [Mark 9:23].
They did indeed clean and pray away. The entire community took care of
the repairs: there was neither a window, nor a door, nor a floor. There
is a photograph in which the first rector of the first church in the
history of Tyrnyauz, Fr. Igor Rozin, is captured along with the dean,
Fr. Leonid, and his daughter.
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Fr. Igor in front of his church. Photo described in the paragraph below |
Behind their backs is an icy metal porch, painted blue, the same color
as the decrepit door with its homemade cross welded together from thin
pipes, and a gray and peeling wall. The word “church” is written in
large, solemn letters on the nameplate. Fr. Igor is just barely smiling
under his moustache. The inscription on the photo reads: “Tyrnyauz,
‘cathedral,’ Fr. Igor.”
Not many photographs of him are left. But if one puts them in
chronological order, the dramatic change he underwent towards the end of
his life of forty-five years becomes obvious. Mind you, the term
“dramatic change” comes from the other, worldly vocabulary of his first,
pre-Christian half of life.
For the second, short, but utterly beautiful part, an entirely different word is appropriate: Transfiguration.
+++
He served out his entire, short priestly life—less than two years—in
this church. “It was very hard for him spiritually, because this was an
unsanctified, unconsecrated place. This was a demonic area,” says
Hieromonk Igor (Vasiliev), then Fr. Igor Rozin’s altar-server who,
twenty days after the death of his spiritual father, replaced him at his
post (there is no other way of putting it) as rector of St. George’s
Church. He shows me a video: an interview with Fr. Igor (Rozin) for
local television.
Standing in front of the modest iconostas in his little church, where a
week after this was recorded he would accept his martyr’s death, Fr.
Igor tells of the distant Christian past of his region.
“According to historical records, the local inhabitants—the Balkars—were
Christians before their forced conversion to Islam.” Unaccustomed to
giving interviews, he staidly pronounces each word somewhat like a
child.
He then remembers the most important thing and lights up: “Here, by the
way— somewhere in this place where the church is now—was a church
dedicated to St. Theodore. We have two Saint Theodores: the Stratelates
and the Tyro. I don’t know to which Theodore that church was dedicated,
but it’s indeed the case that there’s good historical evidence that
there was an Orthodox church of Byzantine construction here. The old
people—the very old people—remember its ruins from before the city was
built. The location of the Christian church was passed on from
generation to generation.”
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Fr. Igor, Little Entrance with the Gospel, in the humble church where he
served his entire period as a priest. |
When and who built and consecrated a church in honor of the Great-Martyr
Theodore on this land is not known and not overly important. The most
important thing here is something else: signs of Divine Providence.
Above Tyrnyauz towers Mount Totur, whose name is a distortion of the
Greek name “Theodore.” Christ, as it were, left us a note, right on top
of the peak of Totur, terrible and joyful to read. On the screen is a
soldier of Christ from the last times, witnessing to his loyalty and
love for Christ by his blood, shed at the foot of this mountain at the
dawn of the third millennium.
It is strange to catch his gaze now, as he occasionally looks at the
camera: still a simple person in whom, however, one can make out much
more than in the usual human gaze.
It is rather gloomy in the tiny church: either the old Betacam film is
distorting the color or else the day really was outstandingly dreary.
But behind the walls an invisible spring is gathering in the lungs: the
house’s windows are open and breathing, a ball is somewhere evenly
striking the asphalt, and life seems as comfortable and cozy as the
clothes one wears at home, which have long since taken on the body’s
shape. Many parishioners now remember that in the sermons of his final
months he spoke constantly about death and the Heavenly Kingdom. “I was
still unchurched and rarely went to services. I didn’t understand it. I
thought that the Heavenly Kingdom is somewhere far away and I have no
plans to die… I have children and a husband here… There are material
deficiencies that need to be addressed… But now the time’s come that I
do think about the Heavenly Kingdom.” This is Valentina, one of God’s
people, whom the Lord found fit to be in church when Fr. Igor was
murdered.
+++
He knew what would happen to him at least a week ahead of time. The
person who killed him on the feast day of St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov),
Bishop of the Caucasus—whose sermon on death Fr. Igor cited in nearly
every one of his final sermons—first visited the church on May 6. It was
the parish feast day of St. George the Trophy-Bearer. Fr. Igor did not
speak with the visitor in the overflowing church, asking him to come
back in a week. Did he know that this man would kill him? Of course he
knew, and he was exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death [Matthew
26:38]. He lit up after serving the Liturgy, after receiving Holy
Communion. The service came to an end. Firmly sending home his
altar-server who normally accompanied him on pastoral visits and, having
dismissed everyone, Fr. Igor went to take Holy Communion to a sick
parishioner.
Valentina tells the story of how it all happened. “I remained alone and
began to clean up the church. I was about to get ready to leave when a
young man appeared at the door and asked for the priest. I said that
Batiushka had left, and asked where he was from. He replied that he was
from Nalchik and wanted to attend the service. Balkars frequently
visited us to speak with Batiushka, so this didn’t surprise me.”
Fr. Igor soon returned. He went into the altar to place the tabernacle
containing the Holy Gifts on the Holy Table. When he exited, his killer
met him on the threshold of the altar. Valentina heard how Fr. Igor led
him into the sacristy—a room adjacent to the altar—and how he said:
“have a seat.” A short time passed, and then there was a noise. She
lifted her head and saw, in the open door, how Fr. Igor fell down and
the other man stood over him with a knife. Just like the New Martyrs of
Optina—Vasily, Fr. Trophim, and Fr. Ferapont—as well as like St.
Seraphim of Sarov, Fr. Igor was a man of great physical strength; he
was, no joke, a rescuer and master mountain climber who scaled the
highest peaks and lifted people out of crevices, but he did not resist.
This was conscious suffering for Christ: this person had come to kill
Fr. Igor for being a priest.
“This was incomprehensible. This was impossible. I screamed ‘Batiushka!’
and ran to him through the church. I began to open the door. This man
bent down over Batiushka and I couldn’t understand that he’d come to
kill him. I pushed him toward the door and said: ‘What do you need from
Batiushka? Leave Batiushka alone! Leave!’ He again bent down, I again
pushed him toward the door, and he turned toward me with the knife, but I
had nothing in my hands and so had no way of helping Batiushka. It
seems that he struck him twice with a knife in my presence. I began to
scream terribly. He stepped over Batiushka, who was lying down with his
right hand lifted: he wanted to cross himself, and he did not resist. I
heard how he said: ‘Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commit my soul.’”
She remembers the rest vaguely: how the killer ran away (“He ran like a
demon,” says Valentina, and for some reason I know just what she means)
and how she called someone. She called Andrei the altar-server. When
Andrei came running, Fr. Igor’s soul had only just departed.
Today this former altar-server, who carries out his ministry here as
before, again remembers this day. When Hieromonk Igor talks about this,
his voice becomes very quiet.
“There was, of course, the smell. I’ll probably never forget the smell
of his blood. The blood of a martyr. There was a special smell… For some
reason a lot of blood was shed… The floors are uneven… We had a font –
we still have it, it’s just in a different place – and almost all the
blood flowed under the baptismal font.”
|
The shrine to Fr Igor in the church. This shrine occupies the place where the baptismal font
had been. On the right is the shirt Fr Igor was wearing when he was killed;
the blood-stains are clearly visible. |
Then, twelve years ago, Metropolitan Gideon (Dokukin) of Stavropol and
Vladikavkaz blessed the altar-server Andrei to be tonsured to
monasticism and ordained to the priesthood in order to replace Fr. Igor
Rozin in the place of his ministry. Andrei was tonsured in honor of the
Holy Right-Believing Prince Igor of Chernigov. “They killed one Fr.
Igor—so here is another Fr. Igor for you” Vladyka said then.
Twelve years have since passed. The community decided not to leave the
place where the blood of the new witness to Truth had been shed. The
ramshackle church was rebuilt. Today, by God’s mercy, this small flock
still lives and carries out its ministry here.
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The Church of Greatmartyr George, as it appears today. |
We are sitting in the same apartment in which Fr. Igor Rozin lived
during the last months of his earthly life. We are watching an archival
video on which the former dean of churches in Kabardino-Balkaria, Fr.
Leonid Akhidov—now Archimandrite Lev—is giving a sermon in the Church of
St. George the Trophy-Bearer:
“Christ is Risen! In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit! Seven years have passed since Fr. Igor’s tragic death. This
is a church-on-the-blood. There is a great deal of red here. The Lord
said: they drove Me away, and they will persecute you. It is said that,
at the Mystical Supper, Satan entered Judas. Who killed Fr. Igor? Satan
himself. He is the adversary: the adversary of Christ and the adversary
of faith. He is the adversary of truth.” Fr. Lev keeps silent for a long
time, looking somewhere off to the side. When he turns back around, one
can see that he is weeping. “But the blood of martyrs is the seed of
the Church. Here, on an empty place, Fr. Igor began his ministry. He was
successful, for which reason the envier of the human race could not
stand it and decided to eliminate him, so that Christian singing and the
preaching of the Gospel would die down here… A beautiful church has
been erected on this place. I repeat Tertullian’s maxim: ‘The blood of
martyrs is the seed of Christianity.’”
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New Priest-Martyr Igor Rozin |
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