Serhiy Krymsky’s monologues about wisdom and life

THE WORLD IN A STATE OF ENDLESS MIRACLES AND DISASTERS

Orthodox theology proceeds from the idea of woman-mediated communication with the Lord. The Divine Absolute prevails over everything earthly and death is the only heavenly condition allowing direct contact with Him. Hence such importance of the notion of the Mother of God, the idea of maternal protection of man before the Creator.

All Christian churches — Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant — feature the scene of the Annunciation. Archangel Gabriel clad in white as a sign of the Good News, with two red stripes on his left hand, announcing to the Virgin Mary that she will bear the Child of God. Red purple was then the most expensive dye, it had to be obtained from the bottom of the sea, so red clothes could be afforded only by the emperor or prince (in Old Rus’). Roman senators were entitled to one red stripe, indicating their closeness to the emperor. In the Annunciation scene we see two red stripes, meaning the greatest closeness.

Whatever temple one visits, the Annunciation scene shows Mary to receive the News calmly. She is not surprised. It is an interesting aspect. European civilization developed two concepts of the world. One comes from antiquity. Here the world is regarded as the cosmos (from Greek kosmos “order, universe, ornament”). And so the words cosmetics and cosmos have common roots. The Greeks believed the surrounding world to be a work of art, a spatial organization of daily life, subject to aesthetic observation. The Holy Bible offers a different notion: olam meaning the world not as space but time, as history.

History is something you cannot see but only participate in. This olam, or the world as time, is in a state of endless miracle and disaster. Miracle and disaster are a matter of course in this world. And so Mary was not surprised, because she lived in this world. By the way, Tarkovsky in his science fiction film Solaris tried to portray olam as a cosmic habitat being in a state of endless miracle and disaster. Here we see an entirely different understanding of the world, something alien to us.

PARADOXES OF THE SCRIPTURES

Regrettably, the atheists (among them quite a few learned individuals) are known to have said a lot of nonsense about the Annunciation scene, focusing on the Immaculate Conception. The mistake is simple. There are three notions of woman in Hebrew. A woman the way we understand it as a female ripe for marriage; a maiden, also corresponding to the modern interpretation, and the third notion, married woman without children. The latter is a special condition, described as “A lonely fig tree casting no shadow.”

And so the Virgin Mary must have been a married woman that had no children at first and the notion was translated the Immaculate Conception. The Vatican adopted the dogma only around 1860. Actually, the Gospels offer no erotic associations. Instead, we read that in the person of the Virgin Mary sinful mankind agreed that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us [St. John 1:14]. Here the Word means Jesus and the statement is a creative rather than erotic analogy.

Indeed, the Immaculate Conception continues to be misinterpreted. For example, there is no Civil Code in Great Britain the way we understand it and adjudication relies on precedents. In other words, everything that has happened in English judicial history and practice still applies. As in the case of a the adulterous wife of a British lord that received a document from a British court of law to the effect that her conjugal infidelity was an “immaculate conception,” thus emphasizing her noble spouse’s tactless behavior (as a lord, he had no right to file a claim with an ordinary court, only with the House of Lords).

We are now in front of church altar, the place of yet another continuous miracle, the Eucharist, the central sacrament of the union of Christ with the faithful, when bread and wine are consecrated, turning into His flesh and blood. This rite has a long history. Artemisia II, wife [and sister] of King Mausolus of Caria, lived in fourth century BC (Caria was an ancient country of southwestern Asia Minor — now part of Turkey — south of the Buyukmenderes {Menderes} River, bordered on the south by the Aegean Sea). She loved her husband very much and when he died she burned the body and drank the ashes with wine, then had a large sepulchral monument built which became known as the mausoleum. Inside, instead of an urn or coffin, were scrolls with poems dedicated to him. Now forget the canon for just a moment and picture a man that lived to work out a teaching about good, with a dogma commanding the faithful to partake of the teacher’s flesh and blood, lest they forget his teaching. But you know how sinful the human race is, and that even this powerful sacrament could not prevent separate representatives of that race from committing evil deeds.

From the artistic point of view, the Eucharist offers an overwhelming mosaic. First, note that the whole scene is against a gold background. Gold is known to overwhelm and destroy all colors except blue, red, and white. Here we see a singular color expertise, for the ancient painters used precisely the colors immune to gold. And the design of the Apostles’ attire is unique. Behind all that versatility of folds you can sense their flesh. By the way, Mikhail Vrubel made a special point of studying the technique at St. Sophia’s in Kyiv.

Jesus is repeated twice (some heresies recognized the Holy Communion only, through wine, others trough bread. And everything is beautifully in sync, with one Apostle lifting the left foot and the next the right one. Every movement is very accurately portrayed.

SPIRITUALITY AND HAGIA SOPHIA

The order of the saints rates a separate lecture. The scene with the fathers of the church is overwhelming, a portrait mosaic. I mention this because the Hagia Sophia of Kyiv is the principal Christian temple. There is a scene of the Last Judgment in every Christian house of God. It is invariably positioned on the western wall, by the exit. There is no such wall at St. Sophia’s (said to have been destroyed by time). However, reconstructions and Westerfeld’s engravings show that there was no Doomsday scene. Could there have been no such scene in the principal church of Kyiv Rus’? This is incredible! But nor are there the traditional Passion series, such as the Deposition, Putting Christ in the Coffin, or Mourning the Dead Christ. There is the Crucifixion, but symbolic rather than realistic. There are no death scenes. Why? Writing a paper on the archetypes of the Ukrainian mentality, I realized that the roots should also be traced here [to St. Sophia’s]. That’s ontological optimism. The key must be in the altar. The order of saints portrays mostly members of the Cappadocian theological study group, including St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Athanasius. The group was the first to come out with the idea of apocathastasis, gracious return to the original purity even during one’s lifetime, rather than after the Last Judgment.

St. Sophia reflects the idea of ontological optimism permeating all of Ukrainian culture. It is archetypal. The developed Ukraynian culture before Ivan Franko and Lesia Ukrainka shows no lyrical aspects of the tragedy. The tragedy was understood only in epic terms. Even Taras Shevchenko’s tragedy Kateryna is that of all Ukraine. Cossack serf songs are likewise epic (“We’ll try together and get it done somehow”). Or take the then well- known song about Kuperiyan (seventeenth century). Men sit in a tavern, discussing the problems of life, and in the refrain master of the guild Kuperiyan repeats, “We’ll manage somehow.” A catch phrase that has become an archetype of the Ukrainian mentality; we’ll work on it together and get it done somehow.

Now take the ancient graffiti. There are plenty at St. Sophia’s, although every “artist” would receive forty lashes if caught.

Here the first Slavic primer was discovered, predating Cyril and Methodius. This is important for us as proof that there is nothing new, abstractly speaking. Everything emerges after all the preconditions have been provided, so what is left is the final finishing touch.

The Divine Liturgy would last long previously, for hours on end, with the faithful standing, and was physically hard to endure. All the men had an iron stylus attached to the belt; they used it in the intervals, writing something like oh, Lord, help Thy servant!

SOURCES OF ENIGMATIC UKRAINIAN GRAFFITI

The most interesting graffito is about the death of Prince Yaroslav the Wise. His demise was preceded by an inscription reading, “There shall be thunder in winter.” In the fortune- telling books it meant the prince’s imminent death. Underneath the inscription another confirms the prophesy: “In the summer of 1054 (in terms of the modern calendar), our Caesar Yaroslav passed away.” Remarkably, Prince Yaroslav is referred to as Caesar, i.e., the king. Most importantly for the researchers, the statement is accurately dated, meaning that the dates in other chronicles could be checked against this one (often, chronicles reached our day after being copied twenty times).

An advertisement by the entrance states that a certain Boyan’s land is for sale. In fact, it implies that Boyan was an actual historical personality, while the available chronicles offer no such evidence. Because parchment was very expensive, sentences were written without intervals between the words, so they had first to be sorted out. By the same token “Boyan” can be “Bo Yan” (there was a person by the name of Yan Vyshatych).

FRESCOES, THE GEMS OF ST. SOPHIA’S

We have been exploring mosaic decorations, now it’s the frescoes’ turn. Here is one titled Apostle Paul, a real gem of Kyiv Rus’ fresco decoration. As you probably know, all of this was plastered over in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries and superimposed by oil paintings adding to the fresco scenes. After removing the plaster, the St. Paul fresco turned out to have preserved its original expressiveness, which is another proof that frescoes are an eternal art. The wall is breathing, giving off gas. Oil paint will sooner or later form bubbles. Mineral colors applied to damp clay make an image part of the wall. There is even a metaphysical touch to it; the wall has to sacrifice itself, serving as the podium from which the fresco conveys its message to the viewer.

Who was St. Paul? The first Christian ideologue who, in the form of letters (he was in Greece) to the Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians, etc., set ouf to formulate the Christian concept. First, he started by shaping a universally human religion. Before him the churches were purely national (Judaic, Zoroastrian, and so on). Christianity evolved as a religion meant for the entire human race. Second, he outlawed blood sacrifice. Remember Jesus driving the merchants and moneychangers from the Temple? Their merchandise was not all those usual things but sacrificial animals for sacrifices at temples (the Armenians still practice the rite).

As a philosopher, I am interested to note that St. Paul was the first to come up with the idea of paranoncontroversial logic. What is it? Max Born, the celebrated German physicist, wrote to Academician Omeliansky that he was thrilled by Soviet philosophy, adding that there was one thing he couldn’t grasp. How could a philosophy claiming universality be considered genuine? St. Paul constructed a universal religion. He realized that he could accomplish this by introducing contradictions. In other words, contradictions were purposefully instituted.

Another aspect is that we see rich clothing design. The question is why. Why the clothes? To hide the shame of the flesh? But that flesh is sacred. Shame? What shame? Are we to assume that the souls in paradise also wear clothes? As always, the theologians found the answer intuitively. They claim that the folds express body magnetism and sympathetic field lines. This is psychologically acceptable. Every man has a personal space. Even if someone very close to you sits down next to you too close, you will give a start, because your personal space has just been violated. With everybody this personal space is different. Remember Tolstoi’s Natasha [in War and Peace] sensing a glass wall separating people? When she fell in love for the first time, she felt that wall drop between her and her sweetheart.

An interesting fresco portrays St. George in the side altar. You can glimpse an Apollo bust to the left of the saint. The reason is that the artist was a Greek. He could have worshipped his pagan gods and included one, Apollo, using him as a model for the Christian saint. Then he painted the bust over. I believe that St. Sophia’s is the only place in Europe with a direct graphic translation of antiquity into Christianity. I could be wrong, but painting over the Apollo bust means that it was not part of the fresco composition. The bust was revealed in our time.

Also consider St. George’s side altar. As you know, all Rus’ princes had two names. The Slavic name Volodymyr literally means He that Owns the World; Yaroslav means He that Worships the Sun. The princes received Christian names at baptism. Thus, Volodymyr became Vasyl [Basil] and Yaroslav, Heorhy [George]. In other words, St. George’s side altar was dedicated to Prince Yaroslav the Wise. A fresco was discovered under a layer of old oil paint. It depicted a man clad in royal attire, with lifted hands, the sign of Oranta. Most likely, at least hypothetically, it is a life portrayal of Prince Yaroslav.

YAROSLAV’S CROWNED DAUGHTERS

In the central nave we see the well- known fresco image of Prince Yaroslav’s family, females and males. In reality, everything is mixed up. Sometime in the seventeenth century the frescoes were repainted. Yaroslav had three daughters and four sons, yet all his children wear the korza men’s cloaks. The family’s dynastic links are easily traced.

Yaroslav’s first daughter Elizabeth figures in a well-known gothic story. A Varangian from the prince’s druzhyna troop well in love with her and asked Yaroslav for her hand. The prince said his daughter could marry only a prince. The Varangian signed up for the Byzantine army, eventually became its commander and seized Sicily. He wrote poems, some of which have reached our days. He described his feats of arms and complained that the Rus’ maiden paid no attention.

Later, Byzantine empress Zoe fell in love with the Varangian, but his heart belonged to Elizabeth. Zoe ordered him to be thrown into a dungeon, but his troops rebelled and liberated him. The Varangian returned to Scandinavia (Norway) and killed his royal brother, whereupon he ascended to the throne as Harald III (Harald the Ruthless) and then he could and did marry Elizabeth.

Yaroslav’s second daughter Anna married Henry I of France and, as queen, impressed everybody by her literacy. Her husband was illiterate and signed the documents with a cross. She signed Anna Regina. She brought the Bible to France (still kept at Reims and it was on that Bible that the subsequent sovereigns swore allegiance to France). Anna’s personal knight was Baudouin IV, King of Jerusalem. In the First Crusade, the knight captured Jerusalem and became its king. There he introduced the cult of Anna, so when a Rus’ mission visited the city in the thirteenth century they were accorded a luxurious welcome, the way only close relatives would be treated. The Rus’ were amazed. Anna was in the center of the knightly circle and French philologists would discover Kyiv landscapes in French Arthurian epics, particularly The Song of Roland. Anna must have told stories about Kyiv that would be reflected in such epics.

Incidentally, it is alleged (perhaps another legend) that the Hagia Sophia of Kyiv was saved by the French author Romain Rolland. Pavel Postyshev, Stalin’s satrap in Ukraine in the 1930s, planned to demolish St. Sophia’s and St. Michael’s cathedrals, to use the sites for a government center above Khreshchatyk. Baranovsky, a noted restorer, turned to Rolland for help and the writer sent a letter to Stalin, saying that St. Sophia’s in inseparably linked with the French queen, so the French intelligentsia would appreciate it if the oldest historical site were kept intact. The letter may have preserved St. Sophia’s for the posterity.

Yaroslav’s third daughter Anastasia married Andrew I of Hungary. Both would be buried by Lake Balaton and the chapel is still there.

ST. SOPHIA’S SECULAR THEMES

We are on the second floor. What do we see? Secular as well as religious wall decorations. Secular themes with a sacral touch. An Old Rus’ orchestra, even a pipe organ (it was military band, not a religious instrument in Rus’).

The decorations end in musical scenes also in the north and south belfries. Religious — including Byzantine Orthodox — singing has been a cappella and the instruments were added to convey the Pythagorean harmony of the world. Whenever you see a musician with instrument, it has a symbolic meaning and serves to reflect the harmony of the world, Pythagorean harmony.

As for the mosaic ornament, similar patterns are found at the Prague Restaurant in Moscow. The tiled patterns are used in current garment designs; in this manner we have indirect contact with the past.

Come to think of it, the past is not what is bygone. We cannot have contact with things long since gone, they are nonexistent. Our past is all those opportunities we didn’t use at the time, but are using now, thus having contact with the past.

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The Editors express their gratitude to Nelia Kovalska, manager of the National St. Sophia Preserve, and Olha Barska, manager of the National St. Sophia Museum.