“THE WAYS OF SOUL, MIND AND HEART TO GOD - NO ONE CAN INTERCEPT THEM...”: LETTERS OF HEGUMEN AMFILOKHIY OF KONEV TO PRINCE A. V. OBOLENSKY, 1926-1934
The publication contains 21 letters of Hegumen Am lokhiy, the former father-superior of the Monastery of Nativity of Theotokos in Konevets, Finland, to the rstwave emigrant Prince Alexei Vasilyevich Obolensky from the period of 1926-1934. The letters are kept in the archive of Novo-Valaam Monastery in Finland and are published for the rst time. The rst letter was written by Hegumen Am lokhiy on 23 June 1926, the last one on 27 January 1934. Up to 1939, he congratulated the Obolensky Family on Christmas and Easter. The exchange of letters started when Hegumen was 51 years old; during the period of eight years he wrote about two-three letters a year, and after 1934 these were brief congratulations. Am lokhiy took monastic vow in Valaam Monastery in 1908, and in 1920 he was trasferred to Konevetsky Monastery. He became one of the promient representatives of the old-style movement which appeared after the Finnish Orthodox Church introduced the Gregorian calendar (1921) and the “new” paschal cycle in 1925. A church court condemned him and removed him from the abbacy for refusing to accept the reform. Nevertheless, the former father-superior remained to live in the monastery, worked together with others and prayed in a cell. His correspondence with Obolensky was mainly of spiritual and educational nature; however, some passages touched upon church life of that time. The letters are also interesting because they reveal the inner world and views of one of the “leaders” of the old-style movement in Finland, they show him as a deeply spiritual person sincerely devoted to monastic traditions.