Chapter V

Chapter V

On the third summer after he arrived, Konstantin decided to go and see his brother Stefan. But it was during bad times. Before that he spent the first summer in the monastery with his uncle, and the next summers at the Bucharest Academy. The academy was built almost a century ago and was mostly attended by the children of nobles and to a lesser extent by the children of traders, craftsmen and the smartest children of foreigners. They studied mathematics, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, history, religion and Latin. In Walachia children studied in the Greek language and in Transylvania they studied in the German and Latin languages. Konstantin studied mathematics and read advanced history books which he then exchanged for other books from the monastery.

Socializing with these children Konstantin developed a special attitude; something he learned by observation. He felt it was necessary for him to use this in his relations with this kind of people. For the most part, he clearly observed that they respected him when he didn’t pay much attention to them, or when he pretended not to be aware of their presence. When he did this they wanted to talk and listen to him even more. By nature he was quiet and rarely spoke but his thoughts were always clear. He had a strong intellect which he developed from the many books he constantly read until late night and sometimes until dawn. With his neat look and his especially neat reddish-brown and slightly curly hair, Konstantin attracted respect. He had his mother Despina’s face and a similar complexion, reddish-brown hair and big dark green eyes. He inherited his father’s strong jaw tied with a firm beard, straight nose and high forehead.

“My brother is closer now but I wonder how he is coping?” said Konstantin to himself while making his bed. Three summers ago Stefan was appointed judge in Kraiova. Soon after that his wife Elena gave birth to a son whom they named Konstantin after his brother, but they called him Kocho. Unfortunately, after everything

was going so well, last summer war broke out between the Austrians and the Turks. Balachesku, Stefan’s father-in-law, had lived in Kraiova for generations and didn’t want to leave his home hoping that no evil would touch him. Stefan however didn’t stay. He set off for Bucharest with Elena pregnant and his two-year-old son the moment he heard the cannons roar and before the fighting and suffering reached Kraiova. The arrival of groups of wounded and maimed soldiers became more frequent. Stefan pleaded with Balachesku to go with him but he refused to leave. He believed the bad days would quickly pass but as a precaution he gave Stefan his coffer with his money and valuables to take away for safety. The guards quickly released the family at military checkpoints along the way because of Elena’s condition and complaints from her midwife. The bribes Stefan offered also helped. Stefan’s decision to take Elena in her condition that long distance unfortunately had consequences. The unborn baby’s life, who they named Dimitri, born after that journey, was placed in danger. Regrettably Balachesku didn’t survive to see the city liberated. Turkish deserters plundered his property and tortured him to death. Balachesku and his servants were all killed.

Field Marshal Paul Cray and the Austrian armies eventually defeated the Turks and liberated Balachesku’s hometown. But unfortunately he failed to save his fellow citizens. The Austrians fought until December of last year liberating cities along the Danube, among which the largest were Belgrade, Orshava, Severin and going as far as Bucharest. In July 1790 Cray was appointed baron as a reward for his victories. In the meantime General Alexander Suvorov and the Russian army attacked the Ottomans from the east. In September of last year Suvorov demolished an Ottoman army of one hundred thousand soldiers near Ramnik, with a force five times smaller. Suvorov was twice appointed count, once by Tsarina Catherine and a second time by Emperor Joseph II. And had Prussia and Britain not intervened, being angry at the Russian and Austrian expansion, the whole of Rumeli would have been without Ottomans. After Emperor Joseph II fell ill he withdrew from the war and before he died he gave the countries he had liberated back to the Ottomans. His brother Leopold II became the next Emperor. And while the war was still taking place around the Danube and in Rumeli, the bourgeoisie started a revolution in

France. It seemed like a plague had attacked the nobility. They were seized by unprecedented fear.

“What are you thinking about?” asked the bishop, interrupting his nephew’s thoughts.

“Forgive me Your Beatitude, I was wondering how my brother found himself in this place called Urlati, near Ploeshti?”

“It was important for him to save his family and there is no one more resourceful than him!”

It’s true Your Beatitude. The first thing we think about during severe danger is our salvation; my father saved us in the last moment! Young Kocho, who has the same name as me, went on a similar journey as me at almost the same age. Even our grandfathers suffered in a similar way from thieves at their hearths; his in Kraiova and mine in Linotopi. My mother lost a son named after his grandfather, and here his mother is afraid of the worst for her other son - seven-month-old Dimitri, named after his grandfather!”

“Little Dimitri will survive… he will survive. His father Stefan has hired a good doctor. By God’s will he will be saved.”

“Everything is in God’s hands… I do want the little one to recover. Our strange destinies gave me the wrong impression,” explained Konstantin.

“There are good things and bad things in life. They used to call Kraiova the “city of money”, but war broke and wiped things out. Then the spring earthquake turned everything to ruin.”

“Are you still angry at my brother for changing his name?”

“Anger, rage and resentment are part of the passions that lead to decline. When they enter a person’s mind and heart, even a little, they can destroy a person because they have the power to poison. Our minds and hearts should be our gardens that we nourish with love, humility and patience; and if we nourish them with anger, rage and resentment what fruits will they bear?”

“It seems that I didn’t express myself clearly Your Beatitude. I thought you might be angry at him because you spoke negatively in some of your lessons about my brother taking a foreign name.”

“It’s different when it comes to lessons. Stefan absorbed my teachings and advice well, but after he left he sought to absorb the conveniences Balachesku enjoyed, so he changed his name without considering the transience of it. What did he really gain and lose by doing that?”

“Your Beatitude, my brother did that out of great love. Isn’t love a powerful feeling that makes one give up things?”

“You can talk about love for days; its power is without equal. Love for God or for a human being – it moves you, but only when it’s sincere, non-hypocritical and unconditional. Stefan was hypocritically provisioned with the holiest of sacrifices – he gave up his name! ...Now listen to me and hear me well. When we arrived here we had nothing except our name. Everything can be taken away from a person by force - land, peace, family, health and life, but not the name with which they were baptized. When I started out twenty-three years ago, I took my secular name Daniel with me and became a monk in the Zihna diocese. Now I’m a Bishop here but I’m also Daniel Zihnenski. I kept my name in memory of Zihna - a city built by Philip II, Alexander the Great’s father. Even the Ottomans didn’t demolish it after they captured our vilayet. The village Ziliahovo is now in its place. The first bishop who went there called himself Jakim Zihnenski. He was the founder of “St. John the Forbearer” (Sveti Jovan Pretecha” monastery located near Seres...) There you will find Slavonic books and icons hanging on the walls of saints with tormented faces and meek penetrating eyes. All these icons were painted by artists from your village Linotopi in 1630 - the summer of our Lord. There are also beautiful walnut carvings of grapes, birds, animals and people. The walls are sturdy, made of earth and stone. They say things were the heaviest where they lay but were not so heavy when they were moved to other places. Our names were sculpted from those frescoes, carvings, Slavonic words, stones, earth and wood. And if you change your name then you’re not the same. It’s like changing your faith!”

“Your Beatitude, your name too comes from your faith.”

“Yes, about that, I will tell you a sad story of an incident that took place in Meglen in the 1759th summer of our Lord, which involved Bishop Hilarion. Patriarch Seraphim did everything in his power to abolish the Archbishopric in Ohrid but the people of Ohrid, led by their bishops, did everything in their power to resist it. (Seraphim II of Tsarigrad was a Patriarch from 1757 – 1761. He was a supporter of Greek domination over the Orthodox Church and the Greek state. He exploited the Russo-Turkish war, Russian interests and weapons for the Greek uprising in 1769. He later fled to the Ukraine.) Seraphim had received a letter from the Bishop of Meglen, and presented it to the Porte (Ottoman government) as a plot to overthrow the Ottoman government and establish Macedonia, a Slavonic state. As a result the Sultan ordered a severe attack against the people of Ohrid Region involving the Ottoman army and bands of Bashibozuks. The bishop of Meglen said that he had found out about this on the first day of the Easter holidays before the attacks had taken place. To save the thirty villages from slaughter, the bishop gathered his clergymen, informed them of the situation and went to church to conduct liturgy. After he was done delivering his last part of the liturgy, he began to weep and informed the people of the following:

‘My dear bothers and sisters, my spiritual children, great evil is approaching us with aims to destroy you and our church of Christ. The bloodiest soldiers and Bashibozuks have been dispatched here to deliver a slow painful death. And, as long as the eyes can see, they will commit the most ungodly suffering. They want to destroy all that is dearest to us, especially our helpless children, without whom we will be uprooted. That… should not be allowed to be done. We need to do everything possible to preserve our nation, which is the least we can do. Therefore I ask you and advise you brothers and sisters to convert to Islam en masse. I am forced to ask you to do this so that we will be spared from the imminent slaughter. But before I take off my bishop’s robe, I will swear to you that Patriarch Seraphim, who carries Jesus Christ on his tongue and not in his heart, is responsible for this great evil aimed at harming the church of Christ. I will swear that it is Patriarch Seraphim who

stands before God but cares not for the happiness of evangelical truth, but pursues the policies of the Greek tribe, to the detriment of other Christian peoples. And now I greet you with the blessed joyful of all greetings - Christ has risen, and under the weight of everything I also greet you with the words - Bairam bairolsun!’

This unexpected alienation was a shock to the people; it dismayed, saddened and brought them to tears. With hardened hearts, following the advice given to them by the Bishop of Meglen to convert to Islam, a select number of them went to complain to the Metropolitan. The conversion, as they explained was to consist of all the people in the thirty villages of the Meglen Diocese, including several Vlach villages. Unfortunately neither Seraphim nor Hilarion stepped in to save them. As a result we lost our spiritual and blood brothers. In time the souls that accepted Islam melted away and became permanent Muslims. The moral of this story, a lesson for you, is to never renounce your faith or your name or allow anyone else to do it for you. Such an act would be permanent as was the case with the people of Meglen who converted to Islam. It is true, and the church celebrates those martyrs who, above all, choose cruel death over converting to another faith, but after those martyrs are gone their children and future children will still remain faithful to the same religion. That’s not the case with the people from Meglen who changed their religion. Their children and all future children will be faithful to their new religion, even though the new religion was accepted under the influence of horror. And what horror did Stefan face when he changed his name? That’s why my lessons are often about faith.”

“That was truly a sad event, Your Beatitude. I will remember it well...”

“Sometimes we don’t learn our lessons from our own suffering, let alone from someone else’s!”

Soon they arrived at their first destination. The coach pulled into a yard and his uncle’s entourage, that included two novices, unloaded some cargo from the harnessed coach and took it away. Konstantin got off the coach, said goodbye to his uncle and got back on again.

When it left the yard the coach took the road leading to the northeast part of the city.

Rolling down the dusty road, the coach sped across the picturesque plains. It only stopped at villages that had wells or watering troughs for livestock. These were oases for the relaxation of body and mind. The watering troughs were made from deeply carved tree trunks fed by rushing water from springs that soaked the ground and formed puddles, wetlands and ponds. Drenched in sweat, the horses drank from the troughs quenching their thirst while swatting the swarms of flies that kept landing on the sensitive parts of their bodies. The village wells were dug deep with low protective walls built around them. Village women and travelers hung around them waiting to fill their buckets and earthenware water jugs. Konstantin and his companions didn’t go to springs or wells. When they needed to rest, eat or drink they went to roadside inns. They did their best to avoid being ambushed by marauders escaping the recent fighting. There was also the great aqueduct. Master Nikola Mavrogeni started building it four summers ago but it was damaged by cannon fire.

As they traveled through the countryside they encountered desolation and wasteland and on occasion they ran into hills that rose from the ground like bubbles. Sometime in the afternoon they reached Ploeshti. From the distance they could see the rear of the city. This was one in a string of cities in the lowlands. Ploeshti connected Targovishte and Pitesti to the west, with Buzau and Braila to the east, and Campina and Kronshtad (modern-day Brasov) to the north in Transylvania. The back of Ploeshti was decorated with massive wreaths extending from the Carpathians. The travelers stopped at an inn to rest while Konstantin went out to shop in the bazaar. There was a mobilized army and checkpoints in the city which made everyone nervous. The soldiers were overly aggressive and mistreated people. After the travelers left the inn they continued traveling east, crossing the bridge over a nearby river and passing the last checkpoint. Two hours later, they arrived behind Urlati on his brother’s property. The property was spread over a secluded forested hill and on it was a spacious thick-walled house located at the bottom of the hill. The bottom part of the house served as a winter storehouse and above it were porches on all sides except on the north. As they traveled through the property and after they

passed by a number of plum trees tangled in a fence, they arrived in front of the house and stopped.

“You’re late, we were worried about you... these are bad times!” said Stefan and, without waiting for an answer, hugged Konstantin as soon as he got off the coach.

“It’s important that we arrived. And even though we are religious people from a monastery they still held us at the checkpoints the same length as they did all others.”

“You’re lucky. No one is sure of anything these days, even Master Mavrogeni. You know that even though he was faithful to Istanbul, the Ottomans took him to Bulgaria and killed him at Ruschuk... But, enough talk out here, let’s go inside and get reacquainted.”

While Stefan led his guests inside his servants unloaded the coach and unhitched the horses from the harness. Elena greeted them at the porch with a pleasant expression on her face. She greeted Konstantin with a sad face after he asked her how little Dimitri was feeling. Shyly peeking from behind his mother’s wide dress was three-year-old Konstantin.

“Hi Kocho, please come over here. Look what I brought you!” Konstantin told his nephew while opening a box of candies, which he’d bought in Ploeshti. The child’s eyes immediately lit up but he still hesitated. Little Kocho then looked at his parents as if asking for their approval.

“Take them,” said his father, “Konstantin is your uncle. He has the same name as you!” Kocho took the candy to the delight of everyone watching. The guests then went to another room and washed their hands with water that was poured from engraved Ottoman copper and silver containers made in Sarajevo, a famous city with the most skillful masters in the region. Walachia imported quality products from there for those who could afford them. After they washed their hands, Stefan’s guests went into a room with a long table and sat down. The table was set with plates and utensils covered by thin serviettes. As soon as lunch was over the two brothers left the table and went for a walk around the property. The

greatness and everything else about the property was an indication of the immune condition of its owner. The money from Balachesku went to good use, but only in small part. Stefan bought the property cheaply from a bankrupted Boyar who had left for Russia.

“This place is great but why is it so far away from the road and the city? You aren’t someone who needs to be isolated from services and other things,” said Konstantin.

“Look around. See how calm it is? You won’t find this kind of tranquility in the cities. I hid here so as not to make the same mistake Balackesku made in Kraiova. Yes, his money came in handy, it improved our lives, but when you have money and live near or in a city, you’re more likely to be assaulted and robbed. There are greedy people out there as well as thugs. You become a target for them, so it’s best to stay away from crowded places. It wouldn’t be so dangerous if the authorities took more care to curb the assaults and robberies. The Master has taken some measures to remove crime carried out on the roads as well as some of the government officials who looked the other way but it’s not enough. Besides I’m comfortable here and my servants are trustworthy and faithful,” explained Stefan.

It’s true, the property was well positioned in this location and Stefan’s security concerns were well justified. With much admiration Stefan wanted to talk about every little thing about his property; the new wall, the trench and everything else they came across. At one point they came to a building, not as high as it was wide, made of solid stone. On top of it, on the third floor, was a spacious porch. The porch was supported by five round pillars with a roof on top, and there was a wooden terrace on the south side along its entire length. Shortly afterwards they arrived at a crest in the property from where they had a wide view of the plains to the southwest. They were silent as they kept looking into the distance. It seemed like they were conquered by the vastness of the panorama of endless fields, pastures and meadows in a mix of colours from last summer and from the most recent autumn. Konstantin tried to look beyond the extreme edge of the plains but he couldn’t. In the far distance everything merged into everything else. It seemed like the

sky had merged with the meadows and pastures, and the sun with the yellowish harvested fields.