“Oh, dear Jeffrey, life is so full of moments that you don’t expect. I am having big experiences in Newark, New Jersey. Big experiences! I was there two years, can you believe that? After I escape from the Ukraine, I am studying for priesthood in Rome. Then I am working in France, always with refugees from our homeland. Many, many people escape. So many. One million flee in 1920 alone, oh, yes, and even with so many difficulties and hardships, still there are people escaping over years, just like me. We are having our own diaspora, just like the Jews into Babylon. Yes, so many tragedies. So, I am sent to the United States for two years, and still my English, it sounds like I am learning last week.”
“Your English is fine.”
The bishop wagged his finger. “Now, now, dear Jeffrey. You must not tell falsehoods, are you not knowing your Bible? Look at Ivona here, never out of the Ukraine since a child, and still she speaks perfect English, does she not?”
“She speaks better English than I do.”
“Oh, no, no, dear, no. There you are, falsehoods, falsehoods. This will not do, brother Jeffrey. We must have truth even in compliments, yes? So. I am without an assistant, and I must use my very poor English to ask help from a brother in Christ, yes?”
“Yes,” Jeffrey agreed, letting his smile loose.
“So. How to explain, how to begin.” The bishop sighed happily. “The Ukrainian Rites Catholic Church is in communion with the Pope, while the Russian Orthodox is not, do you see?”
“I think so.”
“Excellent, excellent.” The bishop beamed his approval. “Ukrainian Catholics are therefore called Uniates, because we are united with other Catholics. But our liturgy, dear Jeffrey, our services, are very much Byzantine. Uniates, yes. And then there are the Orthodox. Ivona has told you of them?”
“A little.”
“They have many problems, dear Jeffrey. Oh, so many problems. Now they are having Orthodox believers in many cities who want to make a new church, separate from Moscow, separate from Rome, separate from everybody. And not just here. Just like the Soviet states, how they are dividing, right now, right now, this very moment the church is in explosion after explosion. Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Georgia, Lithuania, everywhere there is problems with nationalism and patriotism and Orthodox faith.”
“And with your own church, if I understood Ivona correctly.”
The gentleman’s gaze dimmed. “Ah, dear brother, what problems you cannot imagine. Last year, we had a synod of our bishops. You are knowing this word, synod?”
“A conference,” Jeffrey offered.
“Yes, a conference of bishops. The first true synod in one hundred and one years exactly. The Synod of Lvov, pronounced Livief in Ukrainian. Many of my brothers, almost half, they were consecrated in hiding. You see, brother Jeffrey, in 1946 Stalin was outlawing our church. Yes. But many people did not wish to become Orthodox, they are staying to the faith of their fathers, and their fathers’ before them.
“Yes. Back thirty generations, this tie to the Ukrainian church. Stalin hated this. Our church was a threat to his one great Soviet state. So our priests and bishops, they only worked in secret. Great danger, dear Jeffrey, such danger you cannot imagine. They gave Masses in cellars and they christened in trucks and they met only in night. Still there were the spies and the informers, and many died. Believers and priests and bishops, many suffered. But many still believed, dear Jeffrey.”
“And now it’s all changed.”
“Not changed, my brother. Oh, no, no. Changing. All is still difficult for us. Our churches, take our churches for example. Last year, we are finally receiving our cathedral, the St. George Cathedral here in Lvov, and the archbishop-general, he is now residing there. But the others, oh, Jeffrey, you cannot imagine.”
“I’ve seen a few,” Jeffrey replied grimly.
“For seventy years they have been stables. They have been warehouses. They have been crematoriums and laboratories and homes for the insane. Whatever the state could do that was bad to God’s house, they did. Then in 1991, under glasnost, all the churches are being given back. More than six thousand churches, Jeffrey, can you imagine? Six thousand churches, and most of them in ruins. But this is not the problem, dear brother. No. The problem is who received these churches.”
“The Orthodox,” Jeffrey guessed.
The bishop clapped his hands. “Precisely! And do they want to share with us? No! Will they even speak with us? No! So now the Ukrainian government, first it declared independence on August 24, 1991. Then the new parliament, it ordered the Russian Orthodox Church to give back our churches. And still, dear brother, still they are doing nothing. But we, dear Jeffrey, we cannot wait! We have people calling to us in the street, begging us for Mass and schools and, oh, they ask for so much, and we have no place, no place! So do you know what we are doing?”
“Taking over the unused churches?” Jeffrey offered.
“If only, dear brother. If only we could. But an unused church, what do you think of a building that was seven hundred years old, and then was a stable, and then was a garage for trucks, and then was left without doors for thirty years?”
“Rubble.”
“No roof, no windows, rain and snow and dirt. Oh, my brother, you cannot imagine how it pains me to go into our churches.” He shook it off. “No, we share churches with the Orthodox. And what sharing! We hold Masses at different times, yes, but our priests, they pass like strangers down different aisles. They do not speak, they do not see each other. And what are we teaching the people who come?”
“Not love, that’s for sure.”
“Yes! You understand!” The bishop cast a look back toward Ivona. “So now we decide, we call them brothers. Yes. Now we are having the freedom with the religion, with our faith, so now we must show ourselves as Christians. We begin. We take steps. We are blind to anger. We give in Christ’s name and see only that they are Christians. Human, yes, but brothers in our Lord. Only the heart we see. Only the good. And slowly things change. Not with all priests, no, dear brother, not theirs, not ours. But many. We see smiles. We share what we have. We pray together.”
He stopped.
“And then?”
“Yes.” Bishop Michael sighed the word. “There must be a then, no? I am here, I am asking for help, so change has come. A bad change.”
“Something was taken,” Jeffrey guessed.
When Ivona had translated for Yussef, the young man rewarded him with an approving look. Bishop Michael nodded. “Of course. You are intelligent man. You are perceptive man. But are you honorable? That is what we must know. Because, dear brother Jeffrey, this is a problem of great importance. Oh, so great. Yes, so I must ask, and then I must answer all the others who ask the same question. Is this American honorable?”
Jeffrey found himself with nothing to say.
The bishop nodded from the waist, bobbing back and forward in time to his words. “Yes, you are right, dear brother. There is no answer you can give. Not in words. Just in action. So. Do I trust you or not?” Still giving his gentle body motion, he closed his eyes, waited, then said, “I am thinking yes. So. Yes, dear brother. You are right but not right. Not something was taken, but things. Many things.”
“Antiques,” Jeffrey hazarded.
“Treasures,” Bishop Michael corrected, then settled back as to begin a tale. “There is a street in Lvov, dear brother, called Ameryka. It was lined with great houses. People in last century went to the United States, they worked, they came home, and they built great houses with their money. There was a church. A beautiful church. Church of St. Ivana, yes. The Communists, they made the front hall into Party offices and the back into oil storage depot. But you see, dear Jeffrey, it had doors. It had windows. Bad smell from oil, yes, but we could start there. So what we do, we invite our Orthodox brothers to come with us. Yes. Come and pray, we say. There are also Orthodox who need priests here. Come and share. And they do, dear Jeffrey. They come. But some people, they do not like this.”
&nb
sp; “People in the Orthodox church complained about the two groups working closely together?”
“Their church, our church, government, everywhere there are people who like and not like. Big problems, dear brother. So big. And then, we discover the crypt. No, not discover. You know that word, crypt?”
“Yes.”
“A few know of crypt. Not many. One priest now in Poland, he was told by another priest, who was told—” Bishop Michael waved it aside. “No matter. We know. The church was built on older church. No, not on.”
“The church was erected on the foundations of an earlier church,” Jeffrey offered.
“Exactly, dear brother. You are seeing churches here. Christianity is old here, oh, so very old. The first churches, they used for building wood and the old bricks, and they crumble. With time new churches of stone were built, yes? But the foundations, dear brother, they remain. And crypts, yes, some were old. More than old. Ancient. From the great Kingdom of Kiev. Yes. Before Mongols, before invaders from Asia. Before power moves to Muscovy. Old.”
“And forgotten.” Jeffrey nodded. “A perfect place to hide treasures.”
“Exactly!” The bishop began his nodding motion once more. “So when the Revolution starts, you know, in the twenties, up come the stones, these heavy stones in the floor, up they come, and church treasures from all over Ukraine, those they could bring in time, they are placed inside crypts. Inside coffins. Quickly, quickly, because outside there are fires and riots and battles. Chaos everywhere, dear brother. Churches full, people pray to be taken away. People are searching sky for Christ. With so much chaos, many people are saying must be Second Coming. But Christ is not coming, only Communists. Battles are coming closer, and the stones, you know, they were put back and the rings were cut out, so no one could see where was the stairs down.”
“And then the Communists arrive,” Jeffrey said. “And you wait. Amazing.”
“Yes, dear brother. We wait. All over world we wait for time to come home. And now we are here. And we have people starving and churches ruined, oh, so many problems. So we open the crypt, yes, and the treasures, they are still there. Amazing!”
“And then they were taken.”
“Stolen,” the bishop agreed. “The crypt is opened, and after two nights it is empty.”
“Do you know who did it?”
“I know what people say, dear brother.”
“The Orthodox?” Jeffrey stared at him. “Orthodox priests stole from you?”
Bishop Michael spread his hands wide. “Is not strange? Strange they would come in robes to steal? Strange they leave Orthodox cross on broken chain? Torn robe?”
“Those are the clues you have? It sounds almost as though they wanted you to think it was them,” Jeffrey said.
The bishop clapped his hands in agreement. “So do I think also! And others! Orthodox also! We have new friends, dear brother. Friends in Christ, they pray with us, and they are friends. They look. They go where we cannot. They tell us, yes, there are whispers here and there of treasures. Big gathering of treasures in Saint Petersburg. Too great to leave Russia easy. Icons and altars and miters and oh, so many things.”
“And they sound like your pieces?”
“Some, yes. Some not sound, are.”
“A big city like Saint Petersburg, close to the sea and having strong ties to the West; it would be a perfect gathering point.” Jeffrey thought it over, glanced around the impoverished apartment, reflected on how much the bishop was struggling to accomplish with so little. He reached his decision and said, “So you want me to go to Saint Petersburg as a buyer.”
The bishop weighed the air in open hands. “Is little chance they sell to you, brother. They are finding better prices in West, less problems with money. But yes, you have reason to be in Saint Petersburg. You go, Yussef goes as your hunter, like here, and Ivona goes too.”
“As my translator, just like here.” Jeffrey nodded agreement. “Where do I start?”
Bishop Michael examined him. “You are helping us?”
“I am helping you,” Jeffrey confirmed. “If you like. I will have to speak with my boss in London before saying for sure, but I think he will agree.”
“You take care? Great care? There is danger, dear brother. No treasure worth life.”
“I have already promised my wife to be extra careful.”
Bishop Michael nodded as though this made perfect sense. “Then you must know all.”
“There’s more?”
“Oh yes, dear brother.” The bishop took a careful breath, then continued. “We are also needing help for finding what was there before.”
* * *
“You’re telling me,” Jeffrey said, once they were underway, “that the priests found other treasure already in the crypt when they took their own valuables down?”
“It was a good hiding place when the Communists arrived,” Ivona replied. “It had been so before. Long before.”
They made their rocking way back toward the Polish border, the car’s windows opened wide in a futile effort to reduce the heat. The air blowing in felt drawn from a blast furnace. The sweat dried as fast as it poured from Jeffrey’s body.
“How long?” he asked her.
“No one knows for certain,” she answered. “Perhaps as long as a thousand years. Long enough for all records and all memories to be washed away in the sea of time.”
“So they opened up this ancient crypt to put in the church’s valuables and found somebody else had the same idea a couple hundred years before.” Jeffrey smiled at the idea. “Bet they were surprised.”
Ivona translated for Yussef, who replied, “They were too busy to be surprised for long.”
“So you’ve got two sets of treasures that have been taken together to Saint Petersburg—you hope.” Despite the heat, Jeffrey felt the faintest surge of adventure thrill. “Do you know what the first treasures were?”
“Not for certain,” Ivona replied, “but perhaps an idea. In the ninth century, Lvov was the provincial capital of the Kingdom of Kiev. Sometimes it is also called the First Kingdom of Rus. It was a great center of learning in those days, and of tremendous wealth, especially within the house of Rurik. One of the Rurik princes ruled Lvov when the first Asian hordes swept down out of the Steppes. Khazars, Pechenegs, Polovtsys—historians argue over which tribe finally defeated the First Kingdom. But in the twelfth century first Kiev and then Lvov were sacked, and the center of power in Rus shifted to the more easily defendable Muscovy.”
She dabbed the perspiration beading on her temples with an embroidered handkerchief. “The Rurik crown jewels were never recovered. Legends abounded, but nothing was ever located.”
Jeffrey twisted in his seat and examined her impassive face. “Treasures have lain hidden under this church for over seven hundred years?”
She translated for Yussef, who replied, “A wooden structure burns and falls upon a stone floor. Records burn with the rest of the city. All the city’s noblemen and priests are murdered.” He shrugged over the steering wheel. “A river of blood and a mountain of ashes. Those were the only records the invaders left behind. It would be easy to lose a world of secrets beneath them.”
* * *
Jeffrey Allen Sinclair arrived back at the border feeling as though he wore a second skin of grit. He climbed out of the car with the stiffness of one several days in the saddle. Yussef came around and asked through Ivona, “How is your neck?”
“Still there.”
Yussef gave his discolored smile. “It shouts to you, does it?”
“Only when I blink,” Jeffrey replied. “No, seriously, it’s much better. And it’s been worth it.”
“No doubt you will enjoy a bath tonight.”
Jeffrey looked down at his rumpled form. “I’ve probably been dirtier,” he replied, “but not since I was five years old and rolled around in mud puddles.”
Yussef grinned. “There is a certain flavor to friendship after a week of such work, yes?”
“Flavor and aroma both,” Jeffrey agreed. “It’s been great, though. Really.”
Yussef spoke again. Ivona’s internal struggle and hesitant voice returned. She gave Yussef an affronted stare before translating, “Can you tell me, where did you learn to read Bible?”
“I’ve studied with some different people,” Jeffrey replied. “And I’ve read some books. But the most important lessons for me have come through God showing me some special message in His Word. I know that’s hard to understand, but it is true.”
“Yes,” Yussef responded once Ivona’s flat-toned translation was completed. “I see that you speak what is truth. For you.”
“For anyone,” Jeffrey replied. “For anyone willing to read God’s Word with a listening heart.”
“I have watched you,” Yussef said, as though trying to convince himself. “You live what you believe.”
“I have doubts,” Jeffrey countered. “I have difficulties. But I try to do as He commands.”
“Well said.” Yussef scuffed his shoe in the dust, studied the road stretching out before him, decided, “I will think on what you say.”
“And I will pray for you,” Jeffrey replied quietly.
“A kindness for which I am grateful.” He straightened from his thoughtful slouch. “Now, to business.”
Yussef motioned toward fenced pens where crowds of exhausted-looking people stood in the dust and the heat. “Usually there are between three and four thousand people in the holding areas, waiting to cross from the Ukraine into Poland. They are treated horribly by the guards because they’re the poorest. They can’t afford cars, so their bribes will be small. Give me thirty dollars, and I’ll take care of your way out.”
“All right.” Jeffrey handed over the money. “How will you get the items we’ve purchased across the border?” he asked, and instantly regretted the question. “Sorry.”
When Ivona had translated, the young man laughed. “You will not pass it on to other dealers?”
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