WELL OF TRANQUILITY

Steven H Silver

 

"Well of Tranquility", by Steven H Silver, is set at G'ndevank Monastery. The monastery is very old. Its central building, the church of St. Stepanos, dates back to 936. In 1604 much of the monastery was destroyed, but it was rebuilt in 1691, this time with high walls. Protected by its walls and riddled with underground rooms and passages, the monastery endures through the turbulent history of Armenia.

 

Christianity came early to Armenia—in fact, it became the first officially Christian state in 301. Long before Christianity came to Armenia, a complex and frequently shifting mythology existed. In this tradition, Vahagn the Dragon Reaper ruled, along with his lover, Astghik. Astghik was the goddess of fertility, love, and water. One legend about Astghik tells of her spreading love throughout Armenia by sprinkling rose water everywhere she went. The festival of Vartavar is still celebrated throughout Armenia in the summer. It's a playful, riotous celebration during which people splash each other with water in honor of the goddess.

 

Christianity has a long tradition of co-opting pagan festivals and turning them into Christian ones. Rather than attempt to stamp out the festival of Vartavar, the Church tried to claim it as their own. According to Christian tradition, Noah ordered his sons to spill water on each other in remembrance of the Flood. The holiday is known as the Feast of Transfiguration, and the holiday commemorates Christ's appearance to his disciples on Mount Tabor. But people still remember the Goddess Astghik and her healing rose water. The water dumped on you from your neighbor's balcony during Vartavar is startling, refreshing, healing—and still fun, even after centuries.

 

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Above the Armenian mountain village of Gndevaz, there is a monastery that was founded in the tenth century. Sprouting from this monastery, like a tumor, is a small room that predates the rest of G'ndevank monastery by an unknown number of centuries. Small and dark, this room was accessible only to a few select monks throughout the ages. Men the Abbot felt could withstand the utter sensation of peace that overcame those who spent any amount of time in the cell.

I was tending the monastery’s vineyard with several other brothers when Brother Onik came to tell me that Abbot Mesrop needed to speak to me immediately. We hurried down the mountain, Brother Onik, whose young feet were much more sure than my own, leading the way and me trying to keep up as he found some invisible path through the weeds and scarp.

Brother Onik guided me to the postern gate and held it open for me before we hurried through the narrow, ancient stone hallways that made up the monastery. A place of worship and meditation, G’ndavank was seemingly built to withstand a siege by the Byzants and the Seljuks. While both those tribes had over run Gndevaz in their time, the city, and the monastery, still stood while the Byzants and Seljuks were mere memories the old women in town used to frighten children with.

Abbot Mesrop sat in his office behind a massive wooden desk that seemed as much a part of the monastery as the stone walls, but which couldn’t have been more than fifty years old, younger, in fact, than the Abbot, who had ruled the monastery since the time of the great purges, and now Abbot Mesrop and G'ndevank were still standing, while the Stalinists were as much the dead past as the Seljuks. I stood in silence, waiting for the Holy Father to look up and acknowledge me. He took his time finishing writing something with the old-fashioned fountain pen he always used, carefully blotted the page, and looked up at me. “Brother Sevak,” he said in his deep voice that brought importance to even the most trivial utterance.

“Holy Father,” I replied, practically a ritual, as was everything that happened within the ancient stone walls.

“I have been monitoring your progress for many years,” he began. With only a score of monks on the grounds of the monastery that once housed more than 100, this was no great feat, but I bowed my head in humility and understanding.

“I’ve watched you interact the other brothers. Quietly, nothing overt, nothing obvious. They see you as a leader even if you don’t see yourself that way. Our Lord needs men like you to step up and work in his name to the best of your abilities.

“As you know, there is a meditation cell that the novices are forbidden to enter. Few monks, sometimes only one in a generation, are given the privilege of praying in the cell. I’ve discussed you with Brother Dadour, and we’ve decided that you shall have access to the meditation cell, although your time will be limited until we know that you can…” Father Mesrop seemed to search for a word, “…survive in the cell.”

“I thank you for this honor,” I replied, “although I am not worthy of it.”

“We are not always aware of our worth,” Father Mesrop said and I lowered my eyes.

Father Mesrop rang a small brass hand bell sitting on his desk and Brother Dadour entered the room. “Would you please show Brother Sevak to the cell?”

Brother Dadour bowed low and took my arm, guiding me from the Abbot’s presence into the long, narrow corridors of G'ndevank.

“A great honor has been bestowed upon you, for currently only one living monk has been permitted into the cell,” Brother Dadour told me. “Father Mesrop was the last monk to be allowed to use the cell, and that was more than sixty years ago. I have never crossed the threshold into the room and all I know of it, all I shall pass on to you, is what I have learned from Father Mesrop.”

Brother Dadour spoke in guarded tones, as if he feared the walls of G’ndevank would hear his secrets and scream them to the world outside.

“Father Mesrop tells me that a supernatural calm falls upon those who enter the cell, allowing their thoughts to bring them closer to Him in a way that he has never felt in any other place in the world. But, he also warns that the feeling of serenity can be dangerous, for it is a…how did he describe it…an enticing calmness, as much to be feared as revel in.” Brother Dadour saw the expression on my face, “No. I don’t understand what that means. I expect you will, soon.”

Despite the prohibited nature of the cell, it held a central location in the monastery, located next to the chapel of Saint Stepan. It was barred from the monks by a series of three intricate locks, to which Brother Dadour held a key, Father Mesrop held a key, and another key was stored in a location somewhere in the monastery known only to Father Mesrop. Before coming to retrieve me from Father Mesrop’s presence, Brother Dadour had acquired all three of the keys.

Solitude was nothing new for me, or any monk, really. In addition to our chores in the fields and our communal prayers, each of us spent several hours each day in solitude, contemplating His creation and our own minuscule place in the vastness of the universe. I expected this cell, called the khaghagh, to be no different than my own cell where I had contemplated the world since I chose my path in the chaotic months following the independence of Armenia from the Soviet oppressors.

Brother Dadour opened the door and motioned for me to enter. The khaghagh held a sleeping pallet, a wash basin, a Bible, and a khachkar, the floral cross of Armenia which differs from the Spartan crosses and elaborate crucifixes of other nations. In its appearance and sparseness, the khaghagh was much like any other cell in G'ndevank. Had I seen a picture of it, I couldn’t have identified it as anything except a standard monastic cell. Perhaps the ceiling was a little lower, the construction showed signs of its age, which monastic lore claimed predated the rest of the monastery by more than four centuries.

“Thank you, brother.” I said to Brother Dadour as I crossed the threshold. As I did, a calm unlike any I had ever experienced settled over me.

“God be with you, Brother Sevak. I shall return for you shortly before dinner.”

The wooden door closed without a sound and I knelt in front of the khachkar.

“Eemasdootyoon Hor Hisoos,” I began the prayer for Wisdom, hoping to understand the great honor Father Mesrop had bestowed upon me. Whether or not I received an answer was irrelevant, for I felt comforted simply kneeling and saying the prayer.

My reverie was interrupted by a slight tapping on the door. I moved to open the door and found Brother Dadour on the other side.

“Will you join us for dinner, brother?”

“It has only been a few minutes, no more than half an hour.”

“You are mistaken. Several hours have passed since I left you. I have been knocking for at least five minutes. Please, join us for dinner.”

I left the khaghagh with the strong sense that I had missed something, but a serenity imparted by the room seemed to remain with me even as I entered the monastery’s refectory.

The entire population of the monks clustered at three long tables in a room designed to hold five times our number. Although we were not a silent order, there was little talking at meals, the sound of flatware and clay plates punctuated by the occasional voice asking for the bread to be passed. Nevertheless, after the hours I had spent in khaghagh, the clamor of the meal was deafening and it took all my resolve not to flee the room. By the time I finished eating, I had adjusted to the normal monastic sounds.

The next day, I again retreated to the khaghagh following lunch.

At one time, the room had windows to the outside, but over the course of centuries, they had been bricked and plastered over. No amount of touch up work, however, could make the room appear to be the same style as the rest of the monastery, even as the architecture of G'ndevank reflected different styles, they fit together in a way that the khaghagh did not. The room had an ancientness to it. Elsewhere, the weight of all those years might have been oppressive, but in the khaghagh, it somehow added to the sense of peacefulness, an almost oneness with the universe.

I began spending as much of my time as Brother Dadour would allow in the khaghagh. Both he and Father Mesrop warned me that the tranquility could prove addictive, and I understood their concerns when I was not in the retreat. When I was inside the retreat, I didn’t care, for time, apprehension, doubt, all disappeared.

I didn’t abandon my monastic duties, but they began to be less important to me than the serenity which I felt when I prayed to Him in the khaghagh. I could lose myself in contemplation, only to be brought back to the earthly world when Brother Dadour began knocking, sometimes pounding, on the door. The khaghagh was, in every conceivable way, my sanctuary.

During the Holy Season culminating in Easter, I spent less time than I would have liked in contemplation in the khaghagh. My monastic and religious duties required me to be with my fellow monks. When I was among them, I found myself battling a surliness I had never felt before, an unsociability that I never felt when I was in the khaghagh. I confessed to Father Mesrop, who gave me penance and a caution. “There is much good to gain from the khaghagh and I know you are strong enough, but you must not lose yourself.” I did my penance and I focused on his words, but by July, I was again praying as often as I could in the khaghagh.

As I prayed, the true form of the khaghagh revealed itself to me. Wooden walls beneath the stone and plaster. There was a hole in the roof to let in the warmth and light of the sun and fresh air. In the center of the dirt floor was an ancient well that I somehow knew had gone bad and been sealed up a millennium ago, shortly after the consecration of St. Stepan’s by Princess Sofia.

Rather than being alarmed by the change in the khaghagh’s aspect, I was comforted in a warm, womblike protection. For twenty years, I had lived in the monastery at Gndevaz, but for the first time, I realized it really was my home. It wasn’t a question of being part of the community of monastic brethren, but rather being accepted by the holiness of the edifice itself. The prayers in the chapel, the toil in the fields, the monastic rule, they were all a part of the monastery, but they weren’t the monastery itself.

I have heard that extended periods of solitude can cause a person to have visions and hear voices, but I do not think I imagined the gentle, feminine voice that spoke to me in an archaic Armenian, so old that it made the Church liturgy seem like the latest slang spoken on the streets of Yerevan.

I had thought that the peaceful atmosphere of the khaghagh came from the Lord of Peace, for the monastery has done His work for a millennium and Armenia has been in His hands for twenty centuries, but the khaghagh was holy long before the Blessed Thaddeus and the Blessed Bartholemew brought the Good News to the Armenians.

The voice told me of the legends of Astghig, wife of Vahagn, early Armenian heroes who were viewed as gods by the Armenians before the Word was brought to them. While Vahagn was a great warrior who slew dragons, Astghig was the source of life, the bringer of water, the civilizing influence on a race of hunters and warriors. I heard of her love for Vahagn and how she rushed to his aid in his fight against evil, shedding blood as she raced barefoot through the roses. How she sprinkled rose water over the land to bring love and harmony throughout Armenia. The voice spoke of how Astghig brings the morning dew and mist to create a peaceful, calm beginning for each day.

The well in the khaghagh was dedicated to Astghig and her spirit remains in its waters, even as they lay stagnant through the millennia, the unmoving waters reflective of the stillness of the room above them. Far from the khaghagh being dedicated to Christ’s love, it remained under Astghig’s protection, a sanctuary beyond strife.

By its very nature, though, this holy place, dedicated to the ancient Armenian Goddess of Peace, was united with His mission on Earth. To bring peace, love, and understanding to His creations.

In the two thousand years since Christianity had come to Armenia, it had stamped out nearly all traces of the pagan beliefs that predated it. Aside from the khaghagh, which few outside G'ndevank were aware of, only the ancient temple of Garni still existed.

Brother Dadour’s knock roused me from my vision and I found myself once again in the familiar khaghagh. I opened the door.

“Please come with me,” was all he said. A sense of sadness hung heavily over him and I wanted to close the door and retreat into the solitude of the khaghagh. Instead, we walked through the halls of the monastery. I saw monks at work in the fields, their bodies dripping with water, and watched as Brother Onik upended a bucket over Brother Patvakan.

“It is Vardavar?” I asked Brother Dadour. I realized I had lost all sense of time’s passage.

“Yes, today is the Transfiguration of the Christ.” He hurried on. I knew that Vardavar was more than the Christian holiday we celebrated. It was the holiday in honor of Astghig, who would sprinkle the world with water, bringing roses to life and peace to those who were thus baptized.

We arrived at the door to Father Mesrop’s office and Brother Dadour paused. “Today should be a joyful day, and it still is for most of the monastery.”

When he opened the door, I saw Father Mesrop slumped over his desk. There was no thought that he might be merely sleeping. Brother Dadour’s demeanor and those of the other three monks in the room laid that possibility to rest.

I rushed to Father Mesrop’s side and took his cold, flaccid, hand and began to recite the prayers for the dead.

“Brother Hovhan found him.” Brother Dadour indicated one of the other monks in the room. “And now we must tell the rest of the brothers.”

We left the Abbott’s office and moved to the chapel of St. Stepan, with Brother Dadour asking Brother Zavur to ring the bell to summon the monks from the fields. The extant and mountainous nature of G'ndevank’s property meant that it took close to half an hour for all the monks to filter into the church, some of them still drenched from the celebration of Vardavar or holding roses. Despite the nature of the holy day, the mood inside the chapel was somber as the monks waited for Brother Dadour to address them.

Father Mesrop’s death was not entirely unexpected. Although none of us knew exactly when he was born, he had served as the head of the monastery since the 1930s, more than eighty years. Brother Dadour and I had once estimated his age as 105, but that was as much an article of faith as it was a mathematical certainty. He had been as much as part of the monastery as the cross hanging behind the altar or the khaghagh. More a part of the monastery than the khaghagh, for he was seen and known by all the brethren, not just the few.

Brother Dadour’s announcement was greeted with a great wailing and cries of prayer. Pandemonium’s gates had broken loose in the chapel, and yet I felt the calm I so associated with the khaghagh even as I was in the midst of the maelstrom.

Brother Dadour whispered to me, “Father Mesrop has left note of his desire for you to succeed him.” I felt a piece of paper being pressed into my hand.

Father Mesrop’s scrawling handwriting should have been difficult to read, but it wasn’t. “And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not it will return to you.” The khaghagh has seen that you promote peace and your serenity will fill this House. “For everything there is a season and for every matter under Heaven.” You have the strength within you to know what needs to be done and when, and when things need not be done. I have faith that you will protect this house.

I walked out of the chapel and made my way down the hall. I passed the khaghagh, its closed door separating Astghig’s peace from the chaos reigning in the monastery in the wake of Brother Dadour’s proclamation. Father Mesrop’s profession of faith rang in my head as I walked past the khaghagh’s door and made my way to my own cell to pray for the guidance I would need to lead the community with the serenity I learned from Astghig’s calming waters and to keep the dangers of the world at bay, outside G’ndevank’s ancient walls.