May 21, 2014; is when I wrote this article. Updated; June 26, 2015…
I have written many articles about this village that we have a home in and I have been upset in the past when certain unscrupulous preacher boys have tried to rip the village off and greed was the motive. The era of slight of hand preacher boys seems to be over and now it looks as if a real Orthodox Priest has taken over…
Update; I have watched the last few years and can say confidently that the Priest in charge now, while somewhat lazy at times, cares and has his heart in the right place. He has a flock of followers and it is growing monthly. He has several very reliable monks that keep things going at the monastery. While I believe that they should live here full time, they seem to get the job done, albeit slowly at times. I also am starting to realize that the main priest has more than one church to deal with (?) and in fact may be overwhelmed at times with all he has to do. So I will continue to reserve full judgement as I always do…
http://windowstorussia.com/russian-weekend-russian-way_18.html
I have been watching since I have come to the village and I have to say that I will give the benefit of the doubt and get my hopes up. I hope that they really do rebuild this place and that it becomes a place for God again. Now I am not saying that God is not here, I am saying that I hope man does what is right and lets the village be what it does best, a place to worship God…
Update; As you can see last year I was still skeptical. I have been right to allow hope to over ride other thoughts and hope won. The monastery is growing and time is all that is needed to get it back to the house of God it was. Actually it is a house of God, but since people have to see to believe, then time will allow growth as the monastery develops from the ashes of destruction of the old days…
Zarya Svobody is the name officially of our village The locals call it Commune and I call it Sunrise to Freedom. I interpret the name as being Dawn of Freedom therefore, Sunrise to Freedom fits just fine…
Update; Though I must use the term Communa to make sure people know where I live…
Now what has gotten me going about all this is the fact that they are working on getting a new roof on the bell tower as I write this. Two men spend everyday Monday through Friday and they work on the bell tower. They have somehow managed to lift beams that are huge and weigh tons each, high up into the tower with just their hands and pulley ropes They have rebuilt the staircases that transverse to the tower top and they are laying beams to re-floor the complex. Anyone who has been following me knows that I have tons of pictures about this tower and it has never looked better than it does now. I also am understanding that they are planning to rebuild the church that was destroyed during Soviet times…
Update; The church is being unearthed as you read this and the bell tower is weather tight in the main tower section. There ended up being five men working on the tower last summer and while the roof never was installed, the bell was installed and a sealed floor below the bell. It had to do with cost and time, but a roof is planned in the future. (There is planned a wall around the whole monastery as in all monasteries and they have been surveying the area, getting ready for that.) I have had the pleasure of seeing inside the bell tower and it is wonderfully beautiful, even if you would call it rough and plain. The inside seems twice as large as it looks from the outside, that I attribute to the sheer size of the tower. The bell tower sings it song three times a week as the monk reliably shows up to hold worship, even when he is alone…
http://windowstorussia.com/life-in-village-is-it-too-crowded_18.html
This is very important to me and should be to you also. The preservation of a Christian based society is important in this world and never more so than the way things are preeminent now in a vicious declining circle…
I call it the commonality death spiral…
Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…