Hieromonk
Anthony (Skorik)
I didn’t like
to read as a child—I considered it boring, if not outright torture. Yet I still
felt love and reverence before two books: the collected fairy tales of the
Brothers Grimm, and a children’s Bible.
In the
summer, I often stayed overnight at my godmother’s summer house. I would “dive”
into that children’s Bible every evening and I could leaf through it for hours.
I didn’t even read the text, but carefully examined the mysterious
illustrations of biblical subjects, which attracted me with something that was
mysterious, bright and interesting at the same time. There were two pictures
that I will remember forever.
The first was
a scene of the Flood with Noah's Ark rocked by fierce waves. But I was most
amazed and captivated by another illustration: the Savior’s Sermon on the
Mount. I don't know what exactly I found in it. A quiet, calm and peaceful
picture—but it grabbed me so forcefully that I looked through the book over and
over again.
Time went by.
I started to go to church. Once on the feast of the Transfiguration, I was
blessed to enter the altar. That event prompted me to read my first book in
life—the Orthodox Catechism. But I was already beginning to dream of reading a
real Bible.
As my thirteenth
birthday was approaching, my parents began to wonder what present I wanted from
them. The answer didn’t take long—I asked them to buy me a copy of the real
Bible. It was a shock! My mother wasn’t very pleased with my “pious” hobbies as
it was! But in the end she agreed.
At our
church, the cheapest Bible cost eighty hryvnia [Ukrainian currency.—Trans.],
but I didn’t like it. It was in an inconvenient format, the paper was too thin,
and had a bold font that was unpleasant to the eyes. There was another one on
sale, but it was much more expensive.
In the city
of Kharkov (Ukraine) where I grew up, there was a central market, and next to
it, across the river, were book stalls. I went there in search of a Bible. And
I found it! There were several Bibles for sale on a cardboard box, among the
makeshift shelves. So I bought myself a copy.
My approach
to reading the Bible was serious: I began to read it from the very beginning,
from Genesis. The speed of reading was extraordinary for me: I read the whole
Book of Genesis in one day, finished Exodus by the middle of the second day,
and by the end of the summer vacation I finished the text of the Apocalypse of
St. John the Evangelist with a feeling of joy and accomplishment.
The Bible was
one of the first books that I read in its entirety. It radically changed my
worldview—so much so that I became an Orthodox priest. Now I don't read the
Holy Scriptures every day, and I really regret it when I can't take the Bible
into my hands. The main thing that I understood for my entire life is that if
prayer is a conversation between man and God, then reading the Holy Scriptures
is a conversation between God and man.
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