Chocolate

Before glasnost and perestroika, there was little to eat in the city of Moscow. I came to Russia as a student and studied the Russian Orthodox liturgy with a priest by the name of Father Boris. He was a devout man, with long black robes and white hair. Despite the dilapidated state of his church and the extreme hunger that surrounded him, he was almost always smiling. With the crumbling of communism, he was surrounded by new believers. People poured into the church seeking God. One morning I saw him baptize eleven babies.

At the end of my visit, I gave Father Boris one hundred dollars. I thought that he could use it to fix up the church, repair the icons or paint the walls. He told me to come back the next day. When I returned he had two large shopping bags. He took me in an old van to the outskirts of Moscow, through the gates of an orphanage. When the van pulled to a stop, he got out and children surrounded him. They cried out his name. They had made him pictures and written poems for him.

Father Boris put his hands on their heads and blessed them, and then he pulled out the two large shopping bags. Inside, I saw that he had purchased one hundred Swiss chocolate bars. He handed one to each child. And he told them that this gift was from me—from Katya—from America.

The children had no parents. They were hungry. He gave them chocolate, and in doing so, he told them something much richer. He told them that he loved them, and, more importantly, that God was with them.

- The Very Rev. Kate Moorehead

Thursday, December 13, 2007