St Nicholas saves a young man from being
shot.
It was nearly half a century ago that I first heard of
this miracle wrought by St. Nicholas. Never had I chanced to read anything
about it in the writings of the Church. I would not want this case of the
saintly bishop's help to depart to my grave with me.
During the mid-1940s (I can't recall the exact date), I
had to spend the night in the city of Munchen [Munich] in West Germany. The
city was in ruins after the war, and I would be forced to spend the night
outside. Fortunately, there chanced to be a "Good Samaritan" church-house in
the city, and I was provided with its address.
There were two of us in the room. Myself, and a man
unknown to me, some 40-45 years of age. We introduced ourselves, each to the
other. I do not remember either his name or his surname - and they probably
would not have been "real," anyway. We had to sleep on wooden benches and
chairs. So, in order to pass the night more quickly, we fell to talking. I
can't remember why, but my co-locutor, for some reason or other, asked me
whether I was acquainted with the miracle of St. Nicholas that took place in
Kiev in the 1920s. I did not know of it, and he related the following tale to
me.
In Kiev, at Podol (the northern section of the city),
there dwelt an elderly widow with her son and daughter. The old woman dearly
loved St. Nicholas and, in all cases of difficulty, would go to his church to
pray before the image [obraz] of the saintly bishop [sviatitel'], always
receiving consolation and the easing of her misfortune. Her son, seemingly a
student, became an officer.
The governments of the city changed frequently: Whites,
Reds, a Hetman, a Directory, Poles, Germans, etc. All former officers were
arrested on the spot, the old woman's son among them. His sister rushed about
from one "department" of the time to another. She ran her legs off, but
achieved nothing. But the old woman ran off to St. Nicholas. Long did she pray
before his ikon; then she returned home, consoled--the saintly bishop will
help. She sat down to have a spot of tea, while her daughter's hands simply
fell to her sides. O, woe! her brother had vanished!
The son returned home at dawn of the following day.
Famished, beaten, dirty, weary. According to him, a large group of officers
under a strong convoy of guards was being led off to Pechersk. This is the
hilly section of town, opposite from Podol, by the Kiev-Caves Lavra. There was
a large hippodrome there, where horse races were held. Beyond it, there was a
grove, and rampart-trenches which had been dug in Peter I's day, as a defense
against the Swedes. It was in that grove, by the rampart-trenches, that the
shootings took place.
They had come up to the hippodrome when, suddenly, some
little old man or other stepped out from around a corner. He approached the
convoy-commandant and asked: "Where are you taking them?"
The commandant replied, rudely: "To Dukhonin's H.Q.!"
(which meant, in the jargon of the time, "to be shot"). "Go away, old man!" The
old man left, but, in doing so, he took the old woman's son by the hand and
said: "Let him go. I know him."
Neither the commandant nor the escort-guards replied with
even so much as a single word, nor did they hinder him. The little old man led
the young fellow out around the corner and, saying, "Go on home to your
mother," vanished away somewhere.
The old woman was overjoyed and immediately set off to
thank St. Nicholas. The son wanted to do nothing more than to lie down and have
a good, long sleep, but his mother took him along with her to the church. He
had probably been there on previous occasions, but had been but little
interested in anything.
The little old woman led him up to a huge image of the
saintly bishop. The son turned ashen-pale and began to tremble. He could only
whisper: "Mother, dear, but that's the very same elder who led me to
freedom..."
Wondrous is God in His Saints.
Many of the details of this tale were precise and
animated. Who had my co-locutor been? Perhaps he had been speaking of himself?
I don't know...
-- N. P. F. California 1993
[Translated from the
Russian text appearing in ~Pravoslavnaya Rus'~ ("Orthodox Rus'"), No. 13, 1997
by G. Spruksts, English-language translation copyright (c)
1997.]English-language translation copyright (c) 1997 by the St. Stefan Of Perm
Guild, the Russian Cultural Heritage Society and the Translator. Used with
permission.
Source- orthodox.net
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