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One of the former Soviet servicemen who survived the Battle os Stalingrad and have lived to see this day is Archimandrite Cyril, a confessor at the Holy Trinity-Saint
Sergius Lavra. Cyril is his church name and back then, 60 years ago, he
was private Ivan Pavlov. The newspaper “Pravoslavnaya Moskva” (Orthodox
Moscow) carried an article about Archimandrite Cyril’s extraordinary destiny
in one of its latest issues.
Archimandrite Cyril is well known in Russia and beyond. People come from
all across this country and from abroad to ask for his advice and hoping
he will mention them in his prayers. After talking to him, many feel they
are beginning a new life, a life ruled by faith, hope and love. But few
know that his path to God lay not through the serenity and quietness of
a monastery, but through the deafening sounds of bomb explosions and shell
bursts in the battle for Stalingrad, one of the fiercest in human history.
Recalling those World War Two years, Father Cyril
writes in his book: “God let that war befall us because
we neglected Him and overstepped His moral rules,
because here in Russia people attempted to do away with religion,
with faith. It wasn't by chance that nearly all churches across Russia
that hadn't been demolished were shut before the war... But it turned out
the war helped people acquire faith that kept them on through incredible
hardships, and the government changed its attitude to the church. The then
Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin signed a decree allowing churches to reopen.
Reading Marshal Zhukov's memoirs, I came across one passage in which he
says that at the beginning of the war he marveled at the brilliant strategic
plans devised by Nazi general. Later, their
subsequent blunders and mistakes astonished him even more. There is one
thing I can tell you: should God choose to punish, someone he takes his
brain away…”
There were lots of examples confirming this simple truth cited by Father
Cyril. The legendary Korsun-Shevchenko military operation was one such
case. In early 1944 Soviet troops surrounded a 50-thousand-strong Nazi
force - more than 10 divisions with all their hardware. Reports about the
operation said that not only the enemy had been encircled but it had also
been destroyed. Now think how many troops would have been needed to destroy
10 divisions refusing to surrender. And this is what really
happened. As the frontline kept rolling westwards at fast speed, Nazi force
found itself in the Soviet army's rear. The Germans mobilized all their
strength up and struck from the rear, hoping to break through and rejoin
their troops. A handful of Red Army artillery and mortar batteries barred
their way. When the Soviet soldiers saw the multi-thousand armada advancing
on them, the only thing they really thought of at the moment was how many
enemy soldiers they would take with them to the next world. Luckily, a
day before some Soviet commander had ordered a tank army to be moved from
one front to another in that same direction. The moment Soviet artillerymen
were preparing to die, they heard the roar of motors. Behind them the entire
valley up to the horizon was covered with Russian tanks. As
the tank men confessed later, they fired just a couple
of shots and there was nothing left of the enemy force except twisted
hardware and human remains strewn over the
field. When the news reached the Allied forces command, a British
general raised his hands in disbelief: "You, Russians, have God Himself
as your commander-in chief.”
Looking back at the past from the point of view of Divine Providence,
one begins to understand a lot. But back in 1941, private Ivan
Pavlov, hardly over 20, brought up in the family of his elder brother in
the atheistic spirit, kept asking himself: "Why the war? Why do we have
to fight?" It was in 1943 during the battle of Stalingrad that an event
occurred, which made him change his life.
"When we knocked the enemy out of the city,” Father Cyril recalls, “our
unit was left to patrol it. All buildings were destroyed. It was April
and the sun was getting warmer. Once I noticed a book lying among the debris.
I picked it up and started reading. It was the Gospel - a real treasure,
a consolation to me at that horrible time. I kept it all through the rest
of the war. As I read it, I felt as if I was recovering my lost eyesight
– things looked different now. I was no longer afraid. Never. I finished
the war in Austria, my Gospel always with me. God helped me and soothed
me. Back home I enrolled in a seminary, burning with the desire to be on
the spiritual front..."
It's been more than half a century since former private Ivan Pavlov, baptized
Cyril, took monastic vows. Today he is a priest at the Holy Trinity-Saint
Sergius Lavra near Moscow and one of the best-known church figures in Russia.
Asked what was the most important thing in his spiritual ascent, he invariably
says: the Stalingrad Gospel, the book he has never parted with all his
life…
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