"My temple fits in my suitcase"

In a God's forgotten village on the edge of the Voronezh region, the priest reminds that a person is doing everything on earth

“Everything that is happening to me now is the last thing I would like in my life: this publicity, this media,” Father Sergius admits at the meeting (in the world - Sergey Teleov). - I am humbled only because I understand: so far without it. Mother and I lived quietly, worked, prayed, raised children. But this August turned our whole life over ...

Father Sergius was forced to be a media person half a year ago. When the Armed Forces invaded the Kursk region and partially occupied its territory, including almost completely Sudzhu and Sudzhansky district, at least two thousand people were cut off from the rest of Russia. Close relatives of the TV became hostages of the situation.

Father Sergius meets us at the station in Povorino. This small city in the Voronezh region is the nearest railway station to the village of Pykhovka, where the priest's family has been living for the past 20 years. Almost 70 kilometers to the village, we get to his old rattling car.

“I was a little late for the train, sorry, the car broke down on the road again,” the driver makes excuses in the cassock. - My acquaintances are surprised how she is still breathing? But there is no way out: neither buses nor taxis go to Pykhovka. I warned, we live in the “ass of the world”, to Uryupinsk - the capital of the Russian hinterland - a stone's throw ...

Father Sergius recalls the joke about Uryupinsk, the meaning of which boils down to the fact that the distant Russian city in its entire history has not heard about wars. A joke to the place, only no one is funny. The clergyman is upset by the bad news: on the eve of December 2, the second sending of Sudzhi residents to Russia through the territory of Ukraine was expected. But - according to the unknown father, Sergius and the rest of the relatives of Sudzhan, it did not take place. Sending was postponed to December 6, but warned: everything is inaccurate. Hopes melted faster than snow in this warm winter. Neither in December, nor in January, not only anyone was taken out of Sudzhi, but they stopped even promising such an opportunity.

And in the second batch of residents of Sudzhi and Sudzhansky district, preparing to travel from the territory occupied by the Armed Forces in early August, there were also native televon-sister Natasha and seriously ill mother and father-75-year-old Nina Ivanovna and 77-year-old Dmitry Ivanovich. For six months now, the priest has been trying to take out loved ones from where active hostilities have been conducted, where there is no water, products, medicines, electricity, heating, gas, and there is nothing! While his efforts are in vain ...

"I was a voice ..."

Pykhovka is a tiny village on the outskirts of the Voronezh region. In 2013, there were a little more than a thousand inhabitants here. Now about four hundred are left. You need to wait more than one hour to meet a passer -by on the street.

There is no second such place, Father Sergius believes, where you can renounce reality so much. Forget about her. There is no store, no pharmacy, no hairdresser. Nothing but mail and church. The Trinity Temple of red brick, built a century and a half ago, is the first thing you see when entering Pykhovka. It was closed back in Soviet times, and for the past 20 years it has been “restored” (though traces of restoration are not yet noticeable). The non -repaired, empty, inanimate Pykhov rural temple is the pain of Father Sergius and his last failed attempt to reconcile with the Russian Orthodox Church.

In 2009, when the priest with his wife and four children was forced to move from Sudzhansky district to the Voronezh region, he asked to give him this parish. I wanted to put in order and serve there. Father Sergius - a master of all hands and an experienced builder - would have dealt with a long time ago. But the temple was not given to him. This is not surprising, but sad.

Like all believers, Sergei Teleov traveled his own difficult path to serving God. And on this path, it went out with the official church.

In his youth, Sergei dreamed of becoming a military man. But with training at the Military Space Academy. Mozhaisk in St. Petersburg did not work out. After school he entered the Kharkov Aviation Institute.

Then it seemed to him that his calling was to be an engineer-designer of aircraft. But by the end of the training, in 1991, the future graduates of Khai announced: there will be no distribution, go where you want, the country does not need any more specialists of your profile.

Sergei went to serve in the fleet. He left for Crimea. There he met the future wife - Svetlana, a week later he made an offer to her, married a year later. The newlyweds moved to Suju. At first they lived with her husband's parents. Then they rented housing. They gave birth to the first daughter. Sergey was constantly looking for work, but it was difficult with earnings. Poverty was registered in the house of a young family.

- How did I get into the temple? It was the autumn of 1993. There is no money, there is no work at all. In a small provincial Sudge, it was impossible to get anywhere. I'm coming from the next place of work. They didn’t take me again. I think I’ll go to the priest. Priests are always with money. I do not remember that they were in poverty. I will sweep the leaves at the temple. Maybe something will pay. Let three rubles, but there is enough bread for a roll.

However, the first time Sergey did not reach the priest. At the Trinity Temple in Sudge met a familiar guy, he offered him a “Sabbath” at a construction site.

“And that guy worked in the temple,” the television continues. -Once he came up to me. He says: the priest has a job. Will you go? I agreed. So he met the priest. He immediately paid attention to me. I saw something in me. I often began to communicate with him.

The first time I went into the temple consciously. For the first time in his life he crossed himself in the temple. And that's it. At that moment, the Lord called me and no longer released me ...

"Serve so that it is not ashamed"

He did not end the spiritual seminaries of television, he studied in practice. Successful and fast. Already in 1996, he was ordained in deacons. When the 25-year-old Sergei came with this news to his mother, Nina Ivanovna said: “Do you understand that we have been living in Sudge for the whole century? Everyone knows you in this city, everyone knows me. If you are a priest, then serve so that I am not ashamed. ” The son did not violate the maternal order. Never. Never. Nowhere.

“In 1997, I became a priest,” says Father Sergius. - I was appointed rector in the Pokrovsky temple in Sudge. It then only opened, a new beautiful temple. The most beautiful that I know. First love ...

Only happiness turned out to be short. The young priest was not able to serve in one place for a long time because of disagreements with the church authorities. He was sent from Sudzh to a hawk (a village in the Manturovsky district of the Kursk region), then they were “exiled” to the Ulack (a village in the Sudzhansky district). In 2004, Father Sergei had to break with official Orthodoxy. Formally, he was kicked out "for violation of church discipline." And to be honest - for disagreement with the tacit rules that reign in the church. Father Sergius always worked according to an official price list, he did not take a penny anymore from parishioners - neither for himself or for higher ones. For this, neither his colleagues “in the workshop” or the leadership did not understand him or accepted him. They promised problems and did not allow working not only in the Kursk diocese, but also in Sudge in general.

Having removed the cassock, in the middle of the zero television he tried to earn a private car. Three daughters were already growing in the family - Masha, Ksyusha, Katya - and the son of Nikita, and the breadwinner was the only one.

But this bread was unreliable. Once, on the road, Sergey was detained, accused of illegal entrepreneurship, judged, a fine exceeded the size of a family wallet.

- To cover the penalty, I had to sell my daughter’s piano, we still regret it. And then we realized that in Sudge there would be no life for us. We decided to move to the Voronezh region.

In 2009, having sold everything acquired, the family bought a small house with a plot in Pykhovka. Three rooms, each look like a small home temple, and a refectory with a stove (in winter they still warm the house with wood). Father Sergius brought with him only the library-some church books on two hundred hundred years. There are handwritten. The owner restores them and protects them. The first furniture and utensils were presented by the parishioners. In the spring, televisions planted a garden. They started a bird and cattle (when the children grew up, they refused the cows: to keep them as an invoice).

“The matter did not work out with the local arrival,” the priest shrugs his hands. - They decided: let it lightly idle, disappears, just won’t get it. But somehow I met the catacomb bishop, he gave me antimins, and I began to serve home. I do not need any mansions, no ranks, no rewards. I just want to serve God, and that’s it. My temple fits in my suitcase ...

However, it is not easy to feed, dress, put on a large family. Even in the village, where everyone has a help - their subsidiary farm. Teleovs are now holding chickens, geese, turkeys. But Father Sergius is still, as in his youth, she is taking up any work. In each of the houses in Pykhov, he did something: built, white, painted, plastered ... Once in the summer the pass of goats. Mother sews and knit clothes to order.

A few years ago, when the children, having graduated from school, entered universities and went to study in different cities (Petersburg, Voronezh, Saransk), a priest, in order to be able to help her daughters and son, got a job for a permanent job - a fitter for one of the Voronezh enterprises. From the puffing to the capital of the region - almost 300 kilometers, you won’t even run into the weekend. Now at home, the father is so rare that mother, at the age of 48, handed over to a driver’s license. On the old "Lada", which Father Sergius represents at least than his car, Svetlana herself leaves for economic needs.

- Mother and I have been living like that for thirty years. Yes, with inconvenience, yes, it’s not rich, we don’t have a lot of things, we are largely forced to deny ourselves. We did not make any things. But then all our children received education, they have a future. And for me it is the main thing.

Parents have a dream: when the children will learn and get to their feet, to complete the house so that it is large, spacious, convenient for the whole relatives. But since August this year, the telephone is even greater - to meet with the whole family in this house ...

"And against whom?"

Father Sergius of those Russians who until the last did not believe that Russia and Ukraine would become enemies will sort things out with the help of weapons.

“I thought it was impossible,” says the priest. - Do you know a joke? Gagarin woke up and asks: - Well, descendants, how do you live? World peace? - No, we are fighting with Ukraine. - Yes? And against whom? .. - Here I am like Gagarin. Although in any situation I usually assume the worst, yet such a wild thought did not fit in my head ...

From the first day of a special military operation, Father Sergius prayed for its end. Then he stopped. I realized that this evil is committed according to the will of people.

For his relatives in Sudge, a priest every day since February 2022 asked: how is the situation? I persuaded to leave - the border is close. But relatives did not want to listen to him: life has been living here, property here. And most importantly - they hoped that the Russian army would protect them. And people suffered, learned to live next to death and gradually got used to the arrivals, shelling, destruction, killed ...

The trouble covered the border guards in August. She came to the Kursk region, but reached her father Sergius in Pykhovka.

When in early August the Armed Forces of Ukraine occupied part of the territory of the Kursk region, including completely Sudzhu and Sudzhansky district, the local authorities not only did not evacuate people from the danger zone, but even at the last critical moment they did not notify the population that it was necessary to leave. At least two thousand people, according to independent calculations of relatives of Suzhan, still remain there. Mother, father and sister of TV - too. Until November, there was no connection with the remaining in the occupied territory. It was impossible to even find out if they were alive ...

By the will of man

The priest says that parishioners are often angry with the disgrace of the Almighty. They ask: if there is God, then why does he admit that wars are going on on earth, people are dying? Why does the Lord not intervene, does nothing to stop it?

“God does nothing against the will of man,” the father patiently explains to believers. - If evil is committed on Earth, then only by the will of man. God does not intervene until a person himself asks him about it.

For six months now, Father Sergius, like his parishioners, pray for the salvation of Suzhan. Aliens and, it would seem, people who are far from Sudzhi are worried: how do they survive the remaining there? Do they have hope for salvation? And yet, having learned how Suzhana became hostages of the situation, residents of the Voronezh region are interested in the priest, is it time for them to collect disturbing suitcases so as not to be taken by surprise?

Father Sergius, unexpectedly having mastered the skills of a psychologist, reassures the parishioners: "I hope this will not be needed." But just in case, it teaches what to have at hand for emergency evacuation. He no longer knows if he will use his advice.

Parents and sisters, according to the priest, in August, was through the edge. Because of this, he was not able to persuade them to leave on August 6-7, when it was still possible. But it seems that now there is no less fever: what will happen to the apartment, how to transport a dog and a cat, and if you can’t take it away, then how will the hand rise to leave them? Despite the successful arrival of 46 residents of the Sudzhansky district at the end of November, many people refuse to leave because they are afraid to go to Ukraine. Nina Ivanovna, Dmitry Ivanovich and Natalya Televa - too. But there is no way out: while the path to Russia is still only through Ukraine.

In the last days of November, Father Sergius wrote down his relatives in the words of which it was difficult not to listen to the words: “Maybe I would no longer have the opportunity to tell you something ... I believe that we will survive everything that we are destined to survive ... Yes, having left Sudzhi, you will lose an apartment. Perhaps it will be looted. Perhaps no one will take you with pets. But you will stay alive. If you stay in Sudge, you will have housing. Maybe animals will remain. But you will die. I understand a very difficult choice. But something must be sacrificed for the sake of life ... Decide for yourself. But your life depends on this choice. ”

The sister still managed to send her brother the answer: “I'm trying to hide my stubbornness”, “We are sitting on suitcases.” After that, the connection was interrupted.

On December 6, no one knew that it was interrupted for an indefinite time.

***

A week before the New Year, the Russian army began surgery to liberate the Sudzhansky district. Since then, the Ministry of Defense regularly reports: “Novoivanovka is released”, “Novonikolaevka was released”, “Liberated Sverdlikovo”, “Liberated Darino” ... Rejan's relatives comment on this news in chats. It is easy to guess exactly how if none of the people who remained in Sudge and the surrounding villages have yet met their relatives.

Voronezh region

This material was released in the fourth issue "New Gazeta. Magazine". You can buy it in the online store of our partners .