By Jon Croft
Deep in the Carpathian Mountains...
“Sweet Jesus, our Savior……..” Father Vasatika mutters out loud, instinctively reaching for the Orthodox crucifix wears around his neck.
Blackened bodies are stacked in the hardening mud, like cordwood. Each one has their neck ripped open, flesh and sinew flapping in jagged tears exposing flat white discs of neck bone beneath. The moist cold gives weight to a foul stench that villagers have been murmuring about for weeks. Everyone now avoids the place, saying it is “cursed” by a Leshy – a one-eyed male demon of the forest who inflicts evil and misfortune, seeking to embarrass and diminish Veles, the supernatural God of trees, animals and forests.
The unvarnished terror of the massacre scene lends an almost supernatural credence to the infernal miseries and Pagan superstitions of local peasants. Father Vasatika struggles daily with the myriad folk tales and malevolent fables that terrify these backward, inbred people. Their evil mythologies torture them night and day. Leshy are believed by Slavs to lead people and animals astray, cause accidents among hunters and drive people to madness and death in the nighttime hours when darkness envelops the wood. But this is all too real. Unimaginably real.
The piled corpses have most of their faces burned off in large splotches. Their eyes are completely scorched out of their sockets and their flesh is charred, crisped like scraps of meat thrown into the fire after meals are finished. But it is their mouths that horrify Father Vasatika the most: the front teeth are crushed backwards – intentionally shattered out of their gums by violent blows delivered by attackers who wanted to deprive them of their ability to bite. The splintered remains of these canines are visible inside gaping mouth cavities – they look like wolf teeth…preternaturally oversized and freakish.
There are at least eight bodies – male and female – all ash-crusted, charred and mutilated. The bodies on top of the pile are the worst – they are covered in viscous-like melting slime and smoldering in the morning light. It’s an oozing and misshapen mound of putrescence…congealing itself into a gruesome mass.
“What in God’s name happened here…?” He whispers to himself.
Father Vasatika hurries back to his temporary home base – a log farmhouse where he and four other Greek Orthodox Priests have established a makeshift administrative center outside of a quaint town called Sanok. He is part of an advance unit of priests dispatched six months ago to these remote interior regions of the Carpathian Mountains. Their appointed task is to spread Orthodox Christianity – “The Great Mission” of Metropolitans Cyril and Methodius of Constantinople. Byzantine Emperor Michael has personally financed the famous cleric siblings from Byzantium to undertake a most difficult and critical assignment: convert the Pagan Ruthenian “Kievan Rus” to Greek Orthodoxy before Rome can get its greedy paws into them.
Once back in Sanok, Father Vasatika feverishly confers with his four fellow vicars of Christ, and they agree: Metropolitans Cyril and Methodius in Kiev must be told. They’ve all heard rumors of these kinds of butcheries in the Seminary and share the same fear: evil is upon them. He leaves immediately. Father Vasatika’s trek back down the mountains to Kiev is laborious and takes two full weeks of hard riding. Travel is dangerous in the wilds of Transcarpathia. Many polities and tribes claim the place as their own – Poles, Hungarian Magyars, Moravians, Lemko-Ruthenians. Banditry is rife. Mercifully, no one harasses the priest on his fateful mission. He gets to the storied capital of Rurik the Norseman exhausted, but uninjured.
Father Vasatika finds Cyril and Methodius in Kiev, busy crafting an alphabet based on their native Greek so they can use it to compile a Book of Gospels and the Holy Liturgy in “Old Slavic” vernacular. They call their alphabet Cyrillic. It will enable Pagan Ruthenian Slavs to fully embrace the Word of God throughout their uncultivated and savage land. Emperor Michael in Constantinople has high hopes for their Mission. He has good relations with The Kievan strongman Rurik – who also would like to unite his people under a religion that can settle them down and civilize them. Rurik knows that commerce – not war – is the future of this region. There’s much money to be made.
Byzantium has lucrative treaties with the Kievan Rus. Rich trade is facilitated by Kiev’s impressive Varangian fighters, a cadre of whom the Byzantine Emperor Michael uses as his personal guard. Rurik is Norse – or in Byzantine parlance, Varangian. As leader of Kiev, he rules his people, the Ruthenians or Rus, with an iron fist. He is their revered and charismatic leader. The Ruthenian Slavs call him Khagan.
Ruriks’ people hail from the “Lands of Oak and Ash” beyond the Baltic seas up North. Nordics are men of large stature with powerful bodies toughened by decades of conflict in Scandinavia, Novgorod and throughout the Black Sea. They are vicious fighters – known for their crazed “Berserker” style of warfare. Emperor Michael knows that keeping the Kievan Rus a close ally is a priority to Byzantium. Prosperous trade in Persian gold, Slavic furs and Jewish Khazarian goods brokered from the “Silk Road” regions in Asia beckon, expedited by Rurik’s influence and prestige. Of course, Emperor Michael also believes that baptizing Slavic pagan souls with the Holy Spirit is his religious duty. The brothers, Metropolitans Cyril and Methodius, are two of the greatest scholars of the Orthodox Church in Constantinople. Who better than they to teach Ruthenian Slavs about Christ and the Holy Scripture?
After weeks of arduous travel, Father Vasatika finally reaches his Orthodox Superiors in Kiev. The clerics Cyril and Methodius listen impassively to his report on the events in the Mountain village of Sanok. Their wise faces betray no emotion. Methodius speaks first.
“We thank you for your thorough account. You must rest and prepare yourself for a return to Sanok. We will confer with Constantinople and call for you when we are ready.”
Father Vasatika gently bows in their direction and touches his hand to his breast in a gesture of respect before leaving the ornate Church rectory. When the priest shuts the door behind him, Cyril sighs audibly and brings his cupped palms up to his face, cradling himself gently.
“Bratva…we must contact Patriarch Anastasios in Constantinople immediately. He will speak to Emperor Michael……you know whom we must send to Sanok…”
Methodius stares straight ahead and speaks. His deep voice is barely a whisper.
“My brother…I recognize that this Sanok is an isolated place deep in the wilderness of Carpathia…a perfect site for blood feeding by the cursed ones. I know what you’re thinking. But I caution you: Deuteronomy 18:9-13 tells us that those that employ illusions of the mind are empowered by Satan…that their actions are an attempt to discredit the power of God”.
Cyril is unmoved by his cautionary words.
“Saint Peter himself thought differently…who are we to question his judgment? He knew we would need defenders. Perhaps Father Semyon’s infamous Egyptian markings can confuse our enemies. All the same, he is a Priest. Our Holy Thaumaturgus. Our Sorcerer. We must fight fire with fire. We must send for Father Semyon immediately.”
The Church of Hagia Sophia, Constantinople
Father Semyon walks up the dark, magnificent entryway to the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, intoxicated, as always by its timeless beauty and spiritual expression. Flickering candles inside the church cut through the dark night and direct his steps.
Inside he turns towards an antechamber on his left and is saluted by two Varangian guards that are bigger than the doors they push open for him. He returns their gestures of respect with a nod and enters.
Inside Semyon sees three people – but in the shadows beyond the many priceless icons and church treasures positioned everywhere are eyes and weapons trained on him. The emperor’s Varangian Guard is everywhere.
“Your Excellency….” Semyon kneels before Michael, Emperor of the Byzantine Empire. “How may I be of service to Your Serene Highness?”
To the left and right of Emperor are two Varangians. Warriors – but wearing the robes of Novitiates completing their studies for the Priesthood. Semyon knows that such warrior priests are exclusively mentored by Patriarch Anastasios – and are hand-selected by the Patriarch based on their academic promise and their martial arts training. They have an attentive, somewhat bemused look in their eyes. Semyon is the object of their stare; they’re no doubt thinking – “This is a Priest?”
Semyon’s attire is in the Persian military fashion – black, exquisitely fitted animal skin leggings and breastworks, crisscrossed by leather belts and blackened silver fasteners. His boots are Stygian calfskin and silent as he walks. He wears a black hooded robe and – obviously – has a large knife strapped to his chest. The only shiny object the novitiates see is a large but simple silver Orthodox crucifix suspended from a chain around his neck. The cross is anchored to his animal skin vest – obviously so it won’t come free when he’s engaged in battle. He’s gray-bearded and has an impressive mane of wavy gray hair. He’s not muscular – but he’s robust and athletic, sinewy in a feline, predatory kind of way.
The young men hold their tongues. It is said that Semyon the Thaumaturgus can walk through walls and read a man’s thoughts before they speak.
“Father Semyon…” Emperor Michael intones, smiling in the Priests’ direction and extending his hand in greeting.
“You leave on the first tide for Kiev. Chieftain Rurik the Norseman himself has asked for you. Cyril and Methodius have prepared these scrolls for your attention. Study them during your journey and share their contents with your two companions – Thurn and Haaken. Teach them well. May our Lord, Jesus Christ, Bless you and keep you…I wish you success in your mission.”
Copyright, 2024 Jon Croft
Email: vlchek1@gmail.com
