Orthodox Parables and Stories: The ugly painting

At that time, when I was carrying out obedience to His Holiness Patriarch Alexy I, the following amazing incident happened to me.

After I graduated from the theological seminary, from an overabundance of knowledge in me, like many "theologians-intellectuals," a certain arrogance began to appear.

Once, sitting late in the evening in the reception room of the Patriarch, I was reading archival materials about the canonization of the Monk Seraphim of Sarov.
Reading about the solemn events of 1903 that took place in Sarov, I suddenly thought, or rather, the thought began to sound obsessively in my head that all these celebrations were nothing more than a political act aimed at bringing the Tsar and the people closer together.
This obsessive thought seemed to darken me, and I, as it seemed to me, understood everything. “Yes, this is politics, and nothing more,” an irrepressible voice insistently sounded in my head.
I don’t know what I would have thought of further if my reasoning had not been interrupted by a loud knock on the door.

This was our patriarchal cleaner.
I shook myself a little from my philosophizing and asked:
"What do you want?"
The cleaning lady answered:
"Father Kirill, some Jew is asking for you."
I was incredibly surprised:
"What Jew and why suddenly me?"
"I don’t know, father, he really wants to see you, and he gave your last name."
"Well, let him come in, only, of course, all this is strange," I said in bewilderment.
Literally a minute later, a clearly worried man with a large canvas bag in his hands peeked into the waiting room.
His appearance was so specific that it became immediately clear why the cleaning lady easily identified him as a representative of the most ancient people. I was the first to begin:
"What do you want, "faithful son of Abraham"?"
"So you are Father Kirill Borodin?"
"Yes, why?"
"Listen, father Kirill" with some pity in his voice, my visitor began to ask me, " take him away from me, I have no more strength. Take it away!"

At that moment the unfortunate Jew pulled out a portrait from his canvas bag, on which the face of the Monk Seraphim was hardly recognizable.
But what a portrait it was!
Only because of Father Seraphim I will not call him a daub.
On a small board, slightly flaky and darkened in an antique manner (it is not clear whether it was painted with paint at all), there is a slightly smeared image of the Sarov Wonderworker without a halo.
I have never seen such a terrible copy in my entire life, even to this day.

"Why should I take this painting away from you? " I asked a sudden visitor.
"Why this old man, whom I had the misfortune to draw and whom you are now examining on this board, demanded that I give - just give, not sell - it only to you! It just tortured me from the moment I drew it, or rather, copied it from an old engraving. I wanted to sell this painting first, passing it off as an antique dealer."
Then the poor Jew began to lament heavily, and I had to work hard to calm him down.  And he does not give me rest day or night. "Give me," he says, "to Father Kirill Borodin, who works in the Moscow Patriarchate, he will pray to me." This old man appears to me in a dream almost every night. Take him away, Father Kirill, I beg you! I don’t know who he is, but I feel - woe to me from him!

Honestly, I am the kind of person who is difficult to break to tears. But then, to admit, I just could not stand it. My heart skipped a beat, and a lump rolled up to my throat.
My soul melted, tears glistened in my eyes.
“It must be the same!" I was touched. “The Monk Seraphim asks me, the most sinful, cursed and unworthy monk, to save his icon from desecration!”

No matter how much I pushed money to the unfortunate artist, he did not take it under any pretext. That was how much he wanted to get rid of his job!
After the Jew, overjoyed by his deliverance, ran out, I knelt down before the face of the monk and prayed to him with tears for a long, long time.

My heart was jubilant, my soul was quiet and joyful.
All the thoughts about "politics" in the canonization of Father Seraphim, which recently seethed in my highly intelligent head, disappeared somewhere without a trace. Apparently, the monk himself drove them out by his visit.

Archimandrite Kirill Borodin.