St. Anthony’s Catacombs: Touching a Secret
THE FATHER OF MEDIEVAL RUS’ MONASTICISM
In 983, a boy Antyp was born in the old town Liubech, who was later destined to become the “father of Medieval Rus’ monasticism” and one of the most venerated Orthodox saints. Even in his childhood, Antyp felt fatigued of worldly vanity and sought solitude. As he was in his teens, he dug out a tiny cave in the forest two miles away from the town and lived there in complete seclusion. Then he made a pilgrimage to the holy Mount Athos, where he took monastic vows in one of the monasteries and dwelt in a cave near the Esphigmenou Monastery. His spiritual life struck his brethren. The Father Superior ordered Anthony to go back to his homeland to teach his compatriots what he had learned on Mount Athos.
Back in Kyiv, Anthony began to search for a secluded place and found a cave in the Dnipro riverbank thickets, where he dwelt for several years. But after Prince Volodymyr the Baptist died in 1015, the monk could not stand watching the bloody tussle for power among his sons and headed again for Athos to join the brotherhood of the same monastery. In 1028 the Father Superior again ordered him to return to Rus’. Anthony visited all monasteries around Kyiv but could not stay behind in any of them, for their inner life was too different from the one he saw on Athos and from what his soul longed for. In Anthony’s view, an individual could not seclude himself and pray in a big city. At last he found the cave, near the previous place of his seclusion, in which Hilarion, a priest from Berestove and later Kyiv’s Metropolitan, had once lived.
The word about Anthony’s righteous life quickly spread over Kyiv, and hermit monks began to settle near him. The death of Yaroslav the Wise in 1054 triggered a new internecine war. Anthony was accused of participating in an uprising of Kyivans against Grand Prince Iziaslav and fell into disgrace. Fearful of the prince’s wrath and vengeance, he chose to run away from Kyiv land. When Prince Sviatoslav came to know this, he had Anthony secretly brought to his capital. Thus did the righteous Anthony arrive on a night of 1069 in Chernihiv, where he chose the Boldyn Hills to dwell in. The place name derives from the Medieval Rus’ word bold for an oak-tree. Having a powerful energy aura, this tree had long been revered by locals and was once a place of pagan worship. In all probability, this choice of Anthony’s was the beginning of the “oddities” to be discussed below.
The pious Anthony dug out a cave inside the Boldyn Hill, and lived there for three years until Kyivans talked him into returning to the Pechersk Monastery of the Caves, where he died a year later at the age of 90. But in the course of the following seven centuries, as the monastery he had founded in Chernihiv continued to develop, bringing up the number of monks, Anthony’s cave was turned into a system of catacombs, with quite spacious under- and on-ground structures built all around. It was not until the rationalistic nineteenth century, when the number of those wishing to live underground was clearly on the wane, that the monastery went into a decline.
UNDERGROUND “ODDITIES”
Today, Anthony’s catacombs comprise such subterranean structures as the churches of St. Anthony, St. Theodosios of Totma and St. Nicholas the Pious; chapels with graves; Anthony’s cells; and cemeteries linked with galleries. The underground premises stretch for nearly 350 meters. Of greatest interest is St. Theodosios’ Church: 8.4 meters high in the vestibule, it can allow even galleries. Once a visitor gets into this church, he forgets he is underground. Anthony’s cell is considered the monastery’s chief shrine, although it is hard to believe it belonged to the monastery’s founder himself — there are too few chances that it has survived a thousand years. What characteristically distinguishes this complex from other similar underground structures is that its premises lie on four consecutive tiers.
There are many legends and still more rumors and insinuations linked with Anthony’s catacombs. On the other hand, there are things to be reckoned with, although they provide no scientific explanation. Planned and serious work (excavations, cleaning, study, reinforcement, and restoration) began in the catacombs three decades ago, as did all kinds of wonders. This is how an eyewitness describes one of these, “What happened on February 1970 radically changed my attitude to the oddities of Anthony’s caves. We worked on the complex’s lowest tier. The outer door was locked. There being no electric lighting in the catacombs at the time, we had to shine candles and flashlights as we dug. As dawn was approaching, we ran out of light and had to sit idling. Then we recalled we had left candle ends behind the altar of Nicholas the Pious’ Church during our previous period of work. I ventured to go and get them. Knowing the catacombs very well, I quietly walked in the right direction in spite of complete darkness. What then happened cannot be explained by common human logic... Next to Anthony’s cell stood a man in what looked like a long black old-fashioned overcoat. The ghost was silently looking at me from behind, while I saw it as if in the mirror because I actually stood with my back to it in Nicholas the Pious’ Church. Oddly enough, although I felt ill at ease, this inspired no terror, as the case usually is, in me. Well aware that this is a hallucination, I walked fast forward into the altar area. The apparition had vanished, but I felt even more alarmed. Rummaging through the place and finding no candle ends, I concluded with regret that we would have to go back without lighting. I didn’t feel like going out of the altar, but I had no other option — I could not wait for somebody to come to my rescue. As I entered the temple’s central vestibule, I saw HIM again. HE stood at the same place. Everything looked quite realistic except that it was impossible to see anybody in total darkness. Strange. Then my agitation abated. A few steps forward, and the specter vanished round the corner. Seeing my comrades again, I told them nothing, fearful of derisive snickering.”
This was an excerpt from a book by Volodymyr Rudenko, chair of the catacombs history department at the Ancient Chernihiv National Historical and Architectural Preserve, a serious researcher who began studying the local underground when still a teenager. Anticipating the reader’s skepticism, I will add that, before coming to the preserve, Volodymyr was a local policeman and criminal investigator: so there hardly is a Chernihiv resident who will dare accuse him of mental derangement, morbid fantasy or thirst for cheap sensations. Volodymyr has been meticulously recording, as if it were a police document, what is gong on in the catacombs for many years. He even tries to draw some sketches.
Many other preserve employees and visitors have also noticed “miracles” in the catacombs. Interestingly, even a group of people saw a “monk” there in the summer of 1995. Attempts were also made to carry out a special scientific analysis of catacombs anomalies, but the equipment installed in the underground premises went haywire and showed scientifically inexplicable readings. All kinds of experts, including psychics, were invited to study the anomalies. Each of them took an approach of his own, but the common opinion was that Anthony’s catacombs had an effect on the human body. This effect can lead not only to hallucinations but also to rapid heartbeat, blood pressure irregularities, and the sensation of unprovoked fear.
Some have also tried to cash in on the unusual properties of Anthony’s catacombs. For example, in 1999 a certain private firm was quite successfully attracting Moscow tourists to undergo underground healing sessions.
INTERVIEWING THE GHOST
This writer was also lucky enough to document an anomaly. On a fair September day in 1996 I asked Rudenko to show me the underground places where a human being feels the greatest discomfort. He suggested, however, that I walk alone in the catacombs with a candle or a flashlight in hand, while the overhead lighting is off.
The catacombs met me with pin-drop silence suddenly disturbed by the buzzing of my flashlight’s dynamo, the noise of my steps and breaths, and the rustle of my clothes. High on the list of the sights to see was Nicholas the Pious’ Church, the most haunted place. I walked from Anthony’s Church into the Church of Theodosios and, climbing to the next tier, got into a burial chapel and then, stepping down the so-called silent gallery past Anthony’s cell, reached the goal. I could go back either through a cemetery and a narrow corridor adjacent to Nicholas the Pious’ Church and leading to the burial chapel, or by the previous way, that is, past Anthony’s cell. I opted for the latter way.
Knowing very well the catacombs’ layout, I felt no fear. Raised in the spirit of militant atheism, I was bout to pour scorn on my worries. But it proved premature to celebrate a victory. Coming up to the burial chapel, I shone my flashlight onto the left-hand side passage. There was no beam! To be more exact, the beam went off the reflector and rested on something I could not make out. I was immediately overwhelmed with fear and an irresistible desire to get to the surface as soon as possible.
As I came out of the caves, I naturally kept silent about my “adventure.” All fears vanished, giving way to irony, but I was in for a major surprise at home. It turned out that, as I was underground, my voice recorder was still on, and the tape produced a totally weird sound precisely at THAT moment (it is very easy to identify the time by the sound track). This sounded something like “Ut!” exclaimed in a human voice, but it was somewhat subdued, as if played at twice the usual speed. If the “exclamation” had been in the sonic range, I would have heard it by all means: compared to the sound of my flashlight’s dynamo, it was as loud as the ramblings of a close-by thunder. None of the archeologists, speleologists, and physicists I know could rationally explain this phenomenon. Anthony’s catacombs leave us more questions than answers.
