Friday, the 11th of August, was marked by an important event for our congregation: fr. Vladimir, the dean of all the Russian Orthodox churches in New Zealand, brought to us a visitor from afar: sister Martha, a nun at the Gethsemane Convent in the Holy Land. Sister Martha has been Director of the Orthodox School in Bethany for the last 12 years.
Present from our dean to our church.
Present from our dean to our church.
Fr. Alexis is playing the gusli.
The evening started with fr. Alexi’s singing two spiritual chants, accompanying himself on the gusli (a folk Russian harp). This helped us to “tune up”: to forget our daytime affairs and prepare ourselves for sister Martha’s talk.
инокиня Марфа в храме Христа Спасителя г. Веллингтон
инокиня Марфа в храме Христа Спасителя г. Веллингтон
инокиня Марфа в храме Христа Спасителя г. Веллингтон
The sister suggested that our conversation should take the form of questions and answers.
The first question asked was about the history of the Orthodox convent in Jerusalem and school in Bethany. Sister Martha answered this question in detail.
The Orthodox Gethsemane Convent of the Saint, Equal to the Apostles Mary Magdalene (its full official name being “The Gethsemane Convent of the Bethany Community of the Resurrection of Christ”) is located on a Russia-owned piece of land on the Western slope of the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem. That convent is part of the Russian Spiritual Mission in Jerusalem, run by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. Several women from different countries in all the continents live here a life of prayer, united by their Orthodox Faith.
The history of this convent is very interesting. It is linked to the history of Russian pilgrimage to the Holy Land and to that of Russian Emperors. Russian pilgrims appeared in the Holy Land almost as soon as the ancient Russia (Rus’ is its ancient name) adopted Christianity. However Russia, even while being the largest Orthodox Christian country on earth, for a long time owned no land in the Holy Land. Only in the middle of the 19th century, archimandrite Antonin (Kapustin), Head of the Russian Spiritual Mission in the Holy Land at that time, began purchasing pieces of land, circumventing Turkish laws (the Holy Land was then part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire). Later on, Russian churches, monasteries and convents were built on that land. In May 1881, the Holy Land was visited by two Great Dukes: Sergei Aleksandrovich and Pavel Aleksandrovich, sons of the late Empress Dowager Maria Aleksandrovna, widow of Emperor Alexader the Second, assassinated by terrorists of the “People’s Will” terrorist group on the 1st of March 1881. The Dukes came to the Holy Land as pilgrims to pray for the soul of their late mother. Their trip marked the first anniversary of her death. The late Maria Alexandrovna, a former patroness and a benefactor of Russian property in Palestine, had a dream of travelling to Jerusalem, but that had to be abandoned due to Maria Alexandrovna’s poor health.
The Great Dukes were accompanied in the Holy Land by archimandrite Antonin who acted as their guide. He suggested to them building a church in memory of their mother and dedicating it to their mother’s patron saint, St Mary Magdalene. On his advice the Dukes bought a piece of land. A contest for the best design for the future church in the Gethsemane was announced in all of Russia. The contest was won by Architect David Ivanovich Grimm, a man of German descent, who all his life worked in Russia and specialised in Russian church architecture. The Gethsemane church was built in new-Russian (Moscow) style, with a tent belfry, seven traditional Russian “onion-shaped” domes, and with kokoshnik (arch-like semicircles architectural features).
The foundation stone for the church was laid on the 21st of January 1885. Construction and interior works took three years. Father Antonin exercised general management and supervision, while the imperial family bore all the costs. The main construction material was used as the main construction material, while timber and metal were brought from Russia. The iconostasis was built from white marble and decorated with dark bronze. The icons and frescos on the walls and inside the domes were painted by renowned Russian artists: Vasili Vereshchagin, Sergei Ivanov,
A. Korzukhin, A. Sokolov and E. Sorokin.
Great Consecration of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene was carried out on the
1st of October 1888, on the day when the Protective Veil of the Blessed Virgin was celebrated by the Russian Church. Reuph-Pasha, Governor of Jerusalem, the commandant of Jerusalem, the Greek consul, the entire staff of the Russian Consulate joined 150 Russian pilgrims for that event. Great Dukes Pavel Alexandrovich and Sergei Aleksandrovich with Elizaveta Fedorovna, his wife, whose name is carried by the sisterhood of out church, were also present. It was right here, in the Holy Land that Elizaveta Fedorovna decided to adopt Orthodoxy. Later on, in 1921, her remains were buried here.
Soon afterwards, a foundation for a two-storey building was built in the North-Eastern part of the Gethsemane piece of land. That building was to house aristocratic pilgrims. That building was built on orders from and funded by the Orthodox Palestine Society and was dedicated to the memory of the Great Duchess Aleksandra Georgievna, wife of Pavel Aleksandrovich, as well as of Great Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich. The chosen location was at the far corner of the garden, opposite a large grey stone, where – according to the legend – the Blessed Virgin threw her belt from the Heavens to Apostle Thomas on the third day after Her Assumption. That house for pilgrims became known as “The Great Duke’s House” or “Prince’s Home”. It was consecrated by Archimandrite Antonin on the 12th of September 1892. A Russian cemetery was established near the church in 1904.
In 1909, another piece of land was purchased not far from the church of Mary Magdalene by Archimandrite Leonid (Sentsov), the head of the Russian Spiritual Mission in Jerusalem at that time It was located in Bethany, a settlement on the South-Eastern slope of the Mound of Olives, 3 km away from Jerusalem. Bethany was on the route of our Saviour every time He and His disciples walked to Jerusalem along the road of Jericho. Lazarus, Christ’s friend and disciple, lived in Bethany with his two sisters: Martha and Maria (Mary). (Later on, a Russian Orthodox school will be erected on this piece of land. It will eventually become part of the Gethsemane Convent. This is the school of which sister Martha, our visitor, is now director).
Before the First World War, two stone-built two-storey buildings were built on that piece of land in Bethany for pilgrims. A big water tank and a stone fence along the perimeter were also made. When Turkish soldiers occupied this land during the First World War, the buildings sustained much damage. The two Russian revolutions in October 1917, followed by a civil war as well as some other geopolitical disturbances also resulted in the buildings of the Russian Spiritual Mission becoming damaged and neglected.
In 1921, Anastasi (Gribanski), the Kishinev (now called Chisinau) archbishop arrived, sent to the Holy Land by the hierarchy of the Russian Church Abroad. For 10 years (since 1924), Archbishop Anastasi supervised affairs of the Mission. During this period, the British Colonial Administration officially recognised the rights of the Russian Spiritual Mission (Palestine went over to the Great Britain as a result of Turkey’s defeat in the First World War), monastic life was re-established in its correct form, and financial affairs of the Mission were sorted out. Some parcels of land were leased, several new structures were erected, using borrowed money, and the school in Bethany opened its doors. Sister Valentina (Tsvetkova), from an educated Moscow family, was put in charge of the Russian Gethsemane land in 1929.
We asked sister Martha to tell us more about the beginnings of the Orthodox Bethany school. It so happened that the foundation of the school was linked to two Anglican nuns from Scotland. Their names were Stella (Marion Robinson before taking monastic orders) and Cathryn-Fransis (Alix Sprot before taking monastic orders). They decided to visit Jerusalem to visit the Holy Sites on their way to India in Spring 1932. However, Gethsemane became their home of many years.
The Anglican nuns were first housed in the so-called “small” (or “Kapustin’s) house, but later they were moved to the lower, “Princely” house (both abodes were rented out to tenants to earn some money for the maintenance of the land). The two nuns knew nothing of Russia or Orthodoxy, yet right on the eve of their leaving England, sister Stella purchased a thin book about the Great Duchess Elizaveta Fedorovna. One day, the Anglican nuns had a long conversation with sister Valentina, who told the Englishwomen of Elizaveta Fedorovna and of her own contacts with the Great Duchess. Having learned that the remains of the executed by Bolsheviks Great Duchess are buried under the church of St. Mary Magdalene, the nuns began attending services at the church. Inspired by the life of Elizaveta Fedorovna and under spiritual influence of archbishop Anastasi, Marion Robinson and Alex Sprot converted to Orthodoxy. In 1933, the two nuns and sister Valentina, blessed by the archbishop, established the Bethany Community (its full official name was “The Bethany Community in the Name of the Resurrection of Christ, Affiliated to the Church of Saint, Equal to the Apostles Mary Magdalene in the Gethsemane Garden”.
As Barbara (Varvara) and Alix were nurses by training, they – whenever there was a call – helped people with health problems. At the beginning, the Arab population was unfriendly towards the Orthodox nuns, however one day, a tragedy changed everything: a local woman sustained serious burns in own kitchen. Her desperate neighbours, feeling helpless, turned to the nuns, and the nuns helped the injured woman. Only two months after that accident, the nuns were treating up to a hundred patients a day. They even started making house calls. They also looked after sick children from dysfunctional families because these children stayed in the church clinic for significant periods of time. Little by little, the nuns started to teach the children to read and write, and these studies bore an idea to start a school for girls. The boarding school for Orthodox Arab girls opened on the Lazarus Saturday of 1937. Later on, an icon-painting school for women was organised on the same premises, led by artist Tatiana Kosinskaya. As the original building did not satisfy the operating standards, a new building, with large, sun-lit classes was erected in 1938, while the original building was transformed into a hostel for the teachers and students. The same year, Mary, the Sister Superior, opened a hostel in the Gethsemane Garden, entrusting the school to the care of sister Martha. In Bethany stayed only the sisters involved in education and care for the children. The curriculum included usual school subjects plus The Law of God, Sacred History of the Old and New Testaments, and History of the Orthodox Church. Senior students also studied Russian. A grotto was arranged on the school grounds as a place for praying. It developed into a church later on.
In 1948, the United Nations voted for the formation of Israel, an independent Jewish state in the Palestine. Only a part of the Palestine was given to the Jews. The rest of the Palestine was supposed to become an independent Arab state, while Jerusalem obtained an international status. This triggered off an Arab/Israeli war. Many Jewish settlements existed in the Palestine before the formation of Israel, starting at 1917, on agreement with the Great Britain who still controlled the Palestine. Immigration of Jews to the Palestine rose significantly after the Second World War due to the Holocaust when Germans killed a great number Jews in Europe, especially in Poland. Local Arabs as well as the surrounding Arab states opposed the formation of Israel and the growing immigration of Jews. This started the war, called the War for Independence by the Israelis. The Jews won, and more than 900,000 Arabs were squeezed out of the land of Israel. They settled in the neighbouring Arab states (mostly in refugee camps). More than 500,000 Jews, expelled from Arab countries at the same time, found a new home in Israel. As a result of the war, an agreement supported by the UN, gave the coastal strip, the Galilee and desert Negev to Israel, the Gaza strip to Egypt, and the West Bank of the Jordan river – to Transjordan (later called “Jordan”). Jerusalem was divided in two: West Jerusalem was handed over to Israel, while East Jerusalem with its walled Old City and the Temple Mount (the latter regarded as a holy site by Jews, Christians and Moslems alike), went to Jordan. The Mount of Olives, located in East Jerusalem, and Bethany also became part of the Kingdom of Jordan.
No Palestine Arab state has been ever formed. The neighbouring Arab states considered themselves at war with Israel. This hostile situation culminated into at least three wars: in 1956 and in 1967 (known as the six-day war) and in 1973 (the so-called the war of the Judgement Day). The six-day war ended with the Jewish army occupying East Jerusalem. Israel proclaimed the united Jerusalem its capital. No country recognised that situation, and all the embassies, except that of Turkey, stayed in Tel-Aviv, the largest city of Israel. The Russian Federation recognised West Jerusalem (NOT East Jerusalem) as the capital of Israel and moved there its embassy last year). Israel also fought two Lebanese champagnes: in 1982 and 2006.
The Arab-Israel conflict is the longest unresolved conflict in modern history, despite several international conferences and numerous negotiations were dedicated to its resolution. Acts of aggression were committed by both sides in the form of provocations, terrorist attacks etc.
We asked sister Martha:
-“How do the Russian Orthodox church and your convent survive in that complicated situation of never-ending conflict?” –
She answered:
– “Not without help from God! Even impossible becomes possible with God’s will”.
Sister Martha remarked that, although the Russian Orthodox school has never found it easy, its life became especially difficult after the Six-Day War. Israel expanded its boundaries, and Muslims fled in numbers in to the predominantly Christian Bethany. As a result, Christian Arabs started to leave Bethany and emigrate to other countries. The roll at the school was falling fast, so that by the ‘70s, the school was facing closure. A decision was made: to save the school, to put it under private administration and have it registered as a comprehensive school. The school was registered as a private Christian school in 1972. The school now accepted Muslim girls as well Christian students. At present, Muslims form the majority of students, while Christians amount to only 2-3% of the total number of students.
The threat of closure is no longer hangs over the school. The roll is increasing because the school in Bethany provides better education than other local schools. The class size also plays an important role. In an ordinary Arab school the number of students in a class room can reach 50 against no more than 30 in the Orthodox school. As a result, the school cannot enrol all those who wants to study there. The children have to pass certain tests in order to enrol at the school. Muslim parents accept that some Christian symbols are displayed in the school. They know that there is no danger of anyone trying to convert their girls to Christianity. Whenever there is a complaint from a parent or a teacher (whatever its reason), the school will try to resolve it in a way that suits both parties.
We asked sister Martha to tell us more about such occasions. Here is one of the stories she told us. All celebrations at the school are conducted in three languages: Arabic, Russian and English. As the first school term ends just before Christmas, the sisters will try to create a Christmas atmosphere. One year, they translated some of the traditional Russian Christmas carols into Arabic. One of the carols had the words “Mother of God”. A group of Muslim parents protested: their children would never sing carols with these words. The sisters suggested that the girls who did not want to sing them will be permitted to skip those carols. This resolved the problem to mutual content.
Dealing with the Palestinian Ministry of education is not an easy task for sister Martha as director. Take for example the number of school hours dedicated to teaching the Koran. In the Bethany school the Koran is studied two hours a week, while in an ordinary Arab school the Koran is studied four hours a week. The ministry demanded from the Bethany school to give Koran studies more hours. A former school girl, who was teaching the Koran at the school at that time, found a solution. She offered to the students to take part in the yearly contest for Koran students (Eastern wisdom in action!). The girls from the Russian Orthodox school performed brilliantly and won the second place in that contest. This gave sister Martha a valid argument, and she managed to keep the original curriculum. The other sticky problem was the school having no breaks for Muslim feast days, while closing for Christian holidays. The Ministry of Education was not happy about this. Similar difficulties crop up all the time. The convent takes care of the children from dysfunctional families who still live at the boarding house. The reader will remember that that boarding house was precisely the place where the idea of a school for girls was born years ago. The sisters care for the moral and spiritual aspects in the girls’ upbringing. The boarding girls do their morning and evening prayers in the house church and attend services at the convent every week. Sometimes they attend services at some other Holy Land churches. The boarders are fully supported by the convent, which pays for their food, clothes, medical needs and even transportation because the girls visit their families once every five or six weeks. School education is free for these girls. Sister Martha is assisted in her work in the school and boarding house by three other nuns. Their tasks include teaching, administration and financial aspects. As the school is part of the convent, the nuns also look after the needs of the pilgrims flocking to Gethsemane in year after year increasing numbers.
We asked more questions: What subjects are taught? How long is a school day? What the teachers are like, how many teachers are employed? How is the school and the boarding house funded? What are school fees like? Does the school keep in contact with its former students? Have any of the school leavers stayed at the convent? Sister Martha answered willingly and sincerely. Her story had much colourful detail, but this article would become too long to retell them all.
We also asked sister Martha another very important question: how she and other sisters resolve the huge issue of keeping the pieces of land that belong to the convent and school but are empty of buildings. A very serious issue arose when a Muslim neighbour started building on a piece of land, which had been donated to the school by his family many years before. Even the court was powerless to stop him although the school had the registered right of ownership. Land ownership rights are often broken in the Palestine. Sister Martha turned to the bishop for advice. He said that the only solution was to start building on that piece of land. The school that only just makes ends meet had absolutely no money for such an undertaking. The money parents pay for the education of their children cover only one third of all the money required to keep the school going. The remaining two thirds come from charity funds and donations. That only covers the expenses for public servicesand teachers’ salaries. Sister Martha discussed this problem with other sisters in the refectory while some of the girls happened to be present too. Next day, these girls put 18 shekel (less than $6 US) in front of sister Martha. Questioning revealed that one of the girls sold her toys and pencils to another girl. When next day the girls handed 42 shekels to sister Martha, she knew she had to put an end to that “trade”. The girls were very upset: “How can we help?” they asked. “Pray for sponsors who could help us to start construction works!” said sister Martha. That would be praying for a miracle, and a miracle happened: Mark, archbishop of Berlin and Germany rang with the news that there were some businessmen willing to sponsor the construction works. Having learned from the archbishop of the problem, they decided to help the only Orthodox school in the Holy Land. Construction works started, but a crisis came, the businessmen lost their businesses, and the building had to stop. Sister Martha laughs: “Why did I ask the girls to pray for sponsors to help us TO START our construction works? The Lord gave us exactly what they had prayed for. I should have asked the girls to pray for sponsors who could help us to start and finish our project.”
Sister Martha told us several stories. She proved an excellent story teller: bright, wise, with a great sense of humor. Father Vladimir supplemented some additional information because he has known sister Martha for years and was also well familiar with the Gethsemane convent. This article cannot convey even a small part of the stories told to us by sister Martha. It is a great pity that not all the members of our congregation were able to attend this wonderful meeting.
Sister Martha told us about herself. She was born in Kazakhstan into a big German family. Their ancestors were Mennonites. Her parents, both of them teachers, moved to Germany when sister Martha was still a child. Margarita (this was sister Martha’s name at birth; her family called her Gretchen) almost forgot Russian. She started her search for the meaning of life when she was a teenager. She turned to Catholics, Protestants, even Buddhists. When she was 16, she walked by chance into an Orthodox Christmas service in Stuttgart. She could not understand a single word, but this came over her: “God exists, and He is present here, in this church.” Margarita gained a university degree in mathematics, just like her father. Margarita’s family did not share her joy in finding God. Her father especially was determined to nip his daughters search for God in a bud. However, he was powerless to break her determination. She had to study Russian anew. She also learned Church Slavonic. (there were no Orthodox prayer books in German at that time yet). She converted to Orthodoxy at 21. At 28, she was appointed Director of the Bethany school. Teaching in the Bethany school is considered the hardest poslushanie(obedience) among the Gethsemane nuns. Sister Martha has run the school for 12 years. The other nuns who work there rotate every two years. The problem for the nuns is attending services at the convent because the Mount of Olives is located in East Jerusalem, which Israel considers its own, while Bethany belongs to the Palestine Autonomy. The Israeli government has built an eight meter tall fence between the two. This turned a walk from Bethany to the Mount of Olives into a bus trip of 15 km- to the nearest check point. It is 15 km there and 15 km back, and this does not allow the nuns to participate in church services dally.
There are some other artificially created problems. Israel controls the water supply. If they feel they need to punish the Palestine Autonomy (provocations is a normal practice in that abnormal situation), they limit or even stop water. When water has been stopped for several days in a row, the washing for the school is sent to the convent. There are also potential land issues with Israeli authorities. The convent has to show that all its land is in use, otherwise it might be stripped of some parts of it. So, sister Martha, that young, slim woman defends and protects her school form the Muslim all-men administration under the hard conditions of restriction on every side. She has learned to handle it all. She says that she has set for herself some clear-cut rules.
“However, my greatest helper is our Lord. We feel his helping hand and the protection of God’s Mother every day and in everything,” said sister Martha in conclusion.
Although fr. Vladimir warned us not to keep sister Martha for longer than 2.5 hours, we kept her for an extra hour with our questions, and she kindly answered all of them.
As a parting gift, sister Martha handed each one of us a lovely pocket-size copy of Enrich Semiradski’s painting ”Christ Visiting the House of Martha and Maria in Bethany”.
We all thank Sister Martha who made such a long journey and who spared so much of her time for the meeting with us. Our thanks also go to fr. Vladimir, our dean, who brought that wonderful visitor to us, and also to our own fr. Alexi for creating the right kind of atmosphere in our refectory for sister Martha’s visit.
Sister Martha’s words will help us to look deeper into ourselves, our attitude to the church and to our faith. We have now a better understanding of history of our Orthodox church and its role in the modern, secular society.
Written by Tatiana Sims
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