CHAPTER CVIII.

Visit to Platon's Monastery and Sergius's Coffin.

N the afternoon, about two p.m., we drove to the

IN

corner of a wood, belonging partly to the Lavra, and partly to the dependent convent and seminary of Bethany, founded by the Metropolitan Platon, and established, that is, slightly endowed by the Emperor Paul. We walked the rest of the way, being about a mile along a beautiful valley, with a lake, sometimes broad, sometimes like a river winding among the hills, now wooded with pine and birch down to the water's edge, now beautifully bordered with native turf, as in an English park, and now a hill or rock jutting out and overhanging it. The ground, too, about the Lavra itself, I may observe, is finely thrown about and broken.

We visited first the Seminary, and then the curious church of the hermitage, in which Platon erected a great hill of rock-work and moss representing Mount Tabor, with steep steps leading to the small platform

on the summit. Here is a small sanctuary with an upper Church of the Transfiguration, and an icon which was taken from the French in 1814, and is said to have belonged at one time to Louis XVI. of France. The lower church is called that of the Resurrection of

Lazarus, and in a grotto representing his tomb is the tomb of Platon himself.

While we were there, a

crossing themselves and

number of people came in, prostrating, and touching the ground with their foreheads, and then leaning over and kissing the head and feet of a figure of our Saviour on the cross which lay on the top of the tomb. In a niche or vault close adjoining, with a lamp burning before it, and covered with a carpet, there stood a long wooden coffin, in which St. Sergius himself was originally buried, and in which he lay above thirty years before the exhumation of his relics.

Though of such antiquity it seemed in excellent preservation, the boards being very thick, only the middle part under the carpet was somewhat uneven or broken. This was explained by the Rector's telling me that it came from the people biting off and carrying bits off as a cure for the toothache, which was a common superstition among the peasants.

At the moment we entered the church they were beginning Vespers, which they celebrated in the upper church as agreeing with the mysteries of the season.

It was noticed, also, that to-day there was a commemoration of the Metropolitan St. Alexis, who, with St. Sergius, strengthened Demetrius Donskoi against the Tartars,' and wished to persuade Sergius to be his successor. After the Vespers and Compline, we heard them sing a Pannychid in memory of the Metropolitan Platon, according to his last instructions. In a glazed frame close to his tomb in the Grotto of Lazarus hangs a copy of his will, with a Testamentary Address and Thanksgiving, an interesting and touching document.

We next visited his apartments in the hermitage, which have been kept up just as he left, and are furnished with much taste and elegance, according to the fashion of that time: they said it was the English style.

It was impossible not to be struck with the enchanting prospect of the lake, lawns, walks, herds, and corn-fields, and over all in the distance the golden bulbs and white towers and massive walls of the

Lavra shining in a gleam of sun. He had evidently chosen the site and built these rooms and pavilion on purpose for this view. Nothing can well be imagined more beautiful. There are strawberries and violets in the wood, and fish in the water, and we saw the boys fishing, but did not see any boats upon

[The decisive battle was fought on Sept. 8th, 1380. Vide Blackmore's "Mouravieff."]

it, though there is one at least belonging to the monastery. The students of the Academy have liberty during the hours of recreation to walk here; only the Inspector must know, and his apartments in the Lavra are well placed, so as to command a view of the place by which they go in and out. We walked back as we had come, through the wood, or skirting it along the margin of the lake, and, on emerging from it, found our carriage waiting for us, and drove back to the Lavra.

CHAPTER CIX.

The Troitsa Vestry, and lodgings of the Metro

HE same

THE

politan.

afternoon the Archimandrite-Vicar

showed me the vestry. We passed through several very strong and heavy iron doors, and saw several rooms full of presses, containing the robes of various Archimandrites, especially of the Patriarch Ioasaph, and the famous Dionysius, and many rich gifts of John the Terrible and other Tsars. Numbers of old and small icons were fixed round the tops of the presses. On a table in one of the rooms is a cabinet with the original will of the Metropolitan Platon; also riches in pearls, jewels, and gold on the various mitres, chalices, gospels, crosiers, &c., quite indescribable. Among other things, in a set of altarcloths and coverlets, given by Boris Godounoff, was one article, an Aer,' on which the body of our Saviour, with glory round His brow (as on the Sindon), was represented by embroidery lying on the chalice with the asterisk over it, while two angels, bending over, were 1 [Vid. supr. p. 186.]