The monastery of Petschenga

by J. A. Friis

‘What am I to do?’ Trifon inquired

‘You are to go to a barren and inaccessible land, and preach the Gospel to the poor,’ she replied.

From that time he began to undergo further and greater hardships. He took a vow that he would never more taste ‘any drink brewed from hops,’ neither eat any flesh meat, but ‘subsist only on fish and the kindly fruits of the earth.’ He girded his loins with a common thong, in place of the costly sword-belt which he had before worn, and he never afterwards wore any linen next his skin.

Then he began his wanderings northwards, towards the unknown shores of the Arctic Ocean. He went further and further, and on and on, until at last he reached the sea-shore and could get no further. There he found people who were living in heathenism, ‘worshipping images, serpents, and creeping things.’ There, in the year 1524, he built a hut on the shore of the Petschenga River, about a mile from the head of Munkfjord. He lived on this spot for some years without mixing with other people, subsisting only on the ‘fish which he caught himself, and on the roots and fruits which he found in the [[13]]wood.’ The fame of this hermit, who was living in a wretched hut in this remote place by the Arctic Ocean, and of the saintly life of renunciation which he was leading, gradually spread southwards, and pilgrims began to flock to the place to see him and his wretched dwelling. Then he built himself a small chapel. He cut down the timber himself in the woods at Peisen, and carried it on his shoulders to the site. In this chapel he hung up pictures of the saints which he had brought with him, as well as a picture of Ellen, with her blood-stained brow, which he had painted himself. From that time forward more people came, and began to give their money to Trifon in large sums. There was something mysterious and beyond the Christian comprehension in this temple, or house of God, standing so far North, and in unknown regions which, according to the general belief, lay one half of the year in total darkness, or had night at high noon, and during the other half of the year had noonday light at midnight.

The most zealous of the pilgrims who went to the monastery at Solowetski sometimes extended their wanderings as far as the chapel at Petschenga, and made there, at the altar in the church, their pious offerings, crossing themselves, and beseeching and praying God for remission of their own sins and the sins of others. Before they departed they used to gather wild-flowers in the fields, as memorials of their pilgrimage, and these they would take home, and preserve as precious relics.

The inhabitants of the district also came to see Trifon and the chapel, and he began to interest himself in the heathen Lapps, and to instruct them in the Christian religion. But for a long time they would not listen to his preaching. Their wise men and sorcerers very violently opposed him. ‘They pulled him by the hair, threw him on the ground, and threatened to kill him if he did not leave their country. They often contemplated putting their threats into execution, but the Lord protected him.’ When Trifon went to them, and visited them in their huts, they would scarcely give him a night’s shelter. They mixed dirt and filth in the wretched food he obtained, and tormented him in all sorts of ways. But, as a true Christian, he did not grow weary of being ‘long-suffering and of great kindness. He bore all things, believed all things, hoped all things, and endured all things,’ and in the end they came to esteem, honour, and love him, and listened to his [[14]]preaching. He could not, however, baptize them into the Christian faith, as he was not yet ordained to the priesthood.

The Russian fishermen also, who sojourned during the summer in that district, attended the chapel and took part in the services. They made voluntary oblations and gifts, and by this means still more money reached Trifon’s hands. He now realized that something more had to be done, and that he must have assistants for his work. It became necessary for him to enter into communication with the outside world, from which he had been for so many years voluntarily separated. Accordingly, about the year 1530, he undertook a journey to Novgorod, where he obtained from Archbishop Macarius a letter of commendation, or indulgence, for the erection of the church at the Petschenga River. He immediately returned, but this time he was not to be alone. He took with him builders, and with their assistance he erected a handsome wooden church beside the Petschenga River, but much nearer to the fjord, only about a quarter of a mile from the place where the river empties itself into the fjord.

For a couple of years this church remained unconsecrated, but in 1532 Trifon made a tour through the district of Kola, whose chief town, Kola, was not built until 1582. In that district, in the year 1529 (or, according to other authorities, in 1475), by the mouth of the Kola River, a church and monastery had been erected by the Solowetski monk, Theodorit, and at this monastery Trifon met with a certain Bishop Ilija. He persuaded the latter to accompany him back to Petschenga to consecrate the church. This was done, and it was dedicated to the Holy Troitsa, or Holy Trinity. At the same time Ilija invested the builder of the church with the monastic habit, giving him the name of Trifon, and ordaining him priest. It is probable that before becoming a monk, and during his wild career as a brigand captain, he had borne some other name, but no record of it is to be found. During the same visit Ilija baptized all the Lapps whom Trifon had instructed in the Christian faith.

In this way was laid the foundation of the monastery, which was afterwards built beside the church. Trifon’s fame for sanctity soon caused both monks and lay people to come, and request permission to settle there. When they had increased [[15]]in numbers, they elected from among themselves a venerable old monk, Gurij, who had travelled to Petschenga on foot, to be their Superior.

At first the monks were very poor, and had great difficulty in supporting themselves. They had not as yet any ecclesiastical rights, but were wholly dependent on the charitable offerings of the poor inhabitants of the district, and the gifts of the pilgrims who visited them. Trifon therefore decided to make another journey into Russia, and this time not merely to visit Novgorod, but to get as far as the capital, Moscow, in order that he might personally present a petition to the Czar. The ruler at that time was Ivan Wasilievitsch, whom history has branded as the Cruel or Terrible, and apparently not without sufficient reason. It is related of him that ‘when he was a boy of twelve years of age, he began to put animals to death by throwing them downstairs or out of the windows; and in his fifteenth year he carried on the same sport with human beings.’ Sergius Koubasov says of him that ‘he was tall and ugly, with a long flat nose and gray eyes, thin, but broad-shouldered.’ As Czar he burnt and destroyed Novgorod, and caused twenty-seven thousand people in the town and its suburbs to be killed. Eventually, in a passion, he killed his eldest son, Ivan, with an iron bar, because on one occasion he complained that his father had been very cruel to his wife (although she was enceinte), solely because she was wearing a dress which he did not like, and he had struck her so violently that she was confined of a still-born child. But at times this tyrant indulged in fits of piety. He then retired to Alexandra Sloboda, a fortified village in the neighbourhood of Moscow, and conducted religious services, for which he dressed all his courtiers in cassocks and monastic habits, and then officiated as Prior.