A Priest from Vitebsk Wrote a Novella About Righteousness That Turned Out to Be Demonism

A priest's sermon — what he says 'in his own words' during the service — is always perceived as a revelation that happens to you and in which some strange logic brings tangled, disordered thoughts into harmony. Sometimes it seems like a miracle, though everything is logical and there is nothing supernatural in the words, but everyone falls silent, overcome by this revelation.

With a similar feeling, I read the novella "Krushnya" by Father Siarhei Surynovich. A sermon, however, is a peculiar and at the same time very "light," completely uninvented genre. Fiction, on the other hand, requires something different: verbal imagery, character selection, plot-driven narrative—exactly what Surynovich is dealing with, from whom "by definition" one expects a sermon, after which you usually regret that a brilliant speech is an oral improvisation that is nowhere recorded.

In short, with such a thought I began to read, also a little wary of the recommendation of "very good" language — which would be a great rarity now.

Of course, I read an article about the author on Wikipedia, where I noted the geography of his life: he served as a parish priest in Vitebsk, Slabodka near Braslav, in Druya. But this did not change my overall impression of the novella: "priestly prose" lost in the genre struggle to the priest's sermon — the author's calling.

The author writes about old people, villagers over 70, just like the main character Stanisława — in whom, instead of a spine, there seems to be an iron rod made from a ramrod, which is meant to assert her primacy among others. She looks with contempt at her neighbors and everyone in general. Once, saving her small, sick son from a deadly illness, she refused to even share her victory with God, becoming "righteous" in everything. As a result, she was left completely alone with her "life of invented righteousness." Her children moved away, just to avoid dealing with her.

«The burden of the tarpaulin bundles was no longer measured by weight; they acquired the density of rock, each step laying a stone in a personal ruin — a monument that the woman had piled up for decades as if for protection from the dirty world».

— It's better to be imperfect but alive than to become flawless and dead, — reproaches her fellow villager, a peer.

Gradually, it becomes clear that this is essentially the same sermon, only softened in genre — to "priestly prose." It discusses "peculiarities of faith," which differ among people — even to the point of transforming faith into demonism. Also accompanying this are peculiarities of language, quite monotonous when describing physiological or natural phenomena.

And the story of Christ's birth begins: «When the Creator decided to come to earth, He for some reason did not demand boiled-in-soda linen for Himself. Having spent nine months in the dark amniotic fluid of a woman, Christ was born on hay among manure, amidst the smell of sheep and damp straw… «

Here is also a summary about a boy who joyfully brought a toad into the house, for which his mother punished him.

«This was not a lesson in cleanliness, but a systematic tearing away from the child of the very ability to become attached to something that might leave a dirty mark».

Here I would not associate the child's very ability to become attached with the strong words about a "dirty mark."

In short, it turned out to be an attempt to transform a sermon into prose, but prose as a genre did not amplify the effect.

Overall, this is a retelling of the Gospel parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee, which is very well suited for current defenders of order who elevate themselves above others.

In the Gospel according to Luke, there is such an episode:

«He also told this parable to some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else: «Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, immoral, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.»

Siarhei Surynovich's novella has an open ending. Stanisława seemingly realized her life's miscalculation, but what and how she will proceed is unknown. In "priestly prose," unlike a sermon, a revelation is not foreseen.

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