The Rasputin File (22 page)

Yes, it was then in 1910 that it started to be heard. And heard ‘on every side’. Mysteriously ‘on every side’.

Those rumours had begun to spread six months earlier. And the first to become concerned was the fanatically devoted Feofan.

In February 1909 Feofan had been promoted to the rank of bishop. He would later take umbrage whenever anyone dared to assert that it was Rasputin who had made him a bishop. ‘My candidacy for the bishopric was put forward by the church hierarchs led by Bishop Hermogen. I would never have permitted myself to take advantage of Rasputin’s influence… I was known personally to the royal family and had four times or so heard confession from the empress and once from the sovereign … and I was already the rector of the Petersburg Theological Seminary.’ All that is true: Feofan deserved in every way to become a bishop. But the fact that he was also a friend of ‘Our Friend’ helped, of course. The ‘tsars’ appreciated Rasputin’s friends.

And that is why the tsarina was so surprised when Feofan, Rasputin’s devoted admirer, suddenly began, soon after he became a bishop, to doubt the holiness of the man with whom he had not long before been so delighted.

The File, from the testimony of Feofan: ‘Rumours began reaching us at the abbey that Rasputin was unrestrained in his treatment of the female sex, that he stroked them with his hand during conversation. All this gave rise to a certain temptation to sin, the more so since in conversation Rasputin would allude to his acquaintance with me and, as it were, hide behind my name.’

And Feofan, whom an unknown someone had informed of the rumours, discussed them with the monks at the abbey. ‘After discussing everything, we decided we were monks, whereas he was a married man, and that was the reason why his behaviour had been distinguished by a great lack of restraint and seemed peculiar to us … However … the rumours about Rasputin started to increase, and it was beginning to be said that he went to the bathhouses with women … It is very distressing … to suspect of a bad thing.’

There were in the bathhouses of Petersburg so-called ‘family rooms’. In which families would bathe. And, obviously, those ‘rooms’ were not only used by married couples.

It was very hard for the ascetic Feofan to take up the bathhouse question with Grigory, whom he considered a man of the holy life. But Rasputin evidently learned about the rumours at the abbey. And decided to broach the question himself.

From Feofan’s testimony:

An occasion helped … Rasputin himself mentioned that he had gone to bathhouses with women. We immediately declared to him that, from the point of view of the holy fathers, that was unacceptable, and he promised us to avoid doing it. We decided not to condemn him for debauchery, for we knew that he was a simple peasant, and we had read that in the Olonets and Novgorod provinces men bathed in the bathhouses together with women, which testified not to immorality but to their patriarchal way of life … and to its particular purity, for … nothing was allowed. Moreover, it was clear from the Lives of the ancient Byzantine holy fools Saint Simeon and Saint Ioann that both had gone to bathhouses with women on purpose, and had been abused and reviled for it, although they were nonetheless great saints.

Very likely, Rasputin himself had at the time talked about the visits of Saints Simeon and Ioann to bathhouses with women. For he would later frequently use that example. And in alluding to the great saints who had tested themselves by looking at the bodies of women, ‘Rasputin, as his own justification, announced that he too wanted to test himself — to see if he had extinguished passion in himself,’ Feofan testified in the File.

But Feofan warned him of the danger, ‘for it is only the great saints who are able to do it, and he, by acting in that way, was engaging in self-deception and on a dangerous path’.

But the rumours of the peasant’s suspicious visits to family bathhouses with society ladies persisted. And soon afterwards they truly were heard ‘on every side’.

One of those closest to the royal family, Captain Sablin, heard the rumours, too. And his testimony is also preserved in the File. ‘Rumours started to reach me that he was cynical in his treatment of the ladies and was, for example, taking them to the public bathhouses…At first I did not believe the rumours. It seemed impossible that any society woman, unless possibly a psychopath, could give herself to such a slovenly peasant.’

But Sablin decided not to talk to the empress about those instances.

The least distrust, or worse, mockery of him, had a morbid effect on her … I explain her blind faith and that of the sovereign by their boundless
love for the heir … They had caught hold of the belief that if the heir was alive, it was due to Rasputin’s prayers … I would wonder in my reports to the sovereign whether, in order not to tease society, ‘it might not be better to send Rasputin back to Tobolsk’. But the sovereign, thanks to his character, would reply evasively or, agreeing, would say, ‘Speak to the empress about it.’

Sablin did not realize that at the time the tsar already had a special justification for Rasputin, and for that reason did not ascribe any importance to the rumours.

Meanwhile, the rumours had reached the publisher Sazonov.

From the testimony of Sazonov in the File:

After rumours had reached us about Rasputin’s going to bathhouses with ladies, I asked him about it … He answered in the affirmative, adding that ‘the sovereign knows … I don’t go with one person but … with company,’ and explaining that he regarded pride as the greatest sin. The society misses undoubtedly were puffed up with pride, and in order to deflate it, it was necessary to humiliate them by forcing them to go to the bathhouse with a dirty peasant … To me as someone with a deep knowledge of the national soul, that made sense … although I … asked Rasputin not to do it any more. He gave me his word.

Two years later the police would record a visit to a family bathhouse by Rasputin and Sazonov’s wife, and they would go to the bathhouse by themselves, without any company.

And then to the rumours about the bathhouses were added new ones about the Tobolsk investigation into Rasputin’s having established a
Khlyst
sect in Siberia. And about his having taken his devotees to the notorious bathhouse there, as well.

And it was apparently for that reason that Nicholas, to Alix’s displeasure, decided for the time being not to receive Rasputin at the palace. And Alix asked the peasant not to be angry with them and to pray for them. And he prayed, but he was angry. Sablin in the File tells of being at Vyrubova’s when Rasputin telephoned her in a futile attempt to gain entry to the palace. ‘And he said from his heart, “They ask me to pray but are afraid to receive me.”’

And then Alix thought of a brilliant move.

The Monks’ Journey

In 1917 the investigators of the Extraordinary Commission visited a small, secluded retreat not far from the Verkhoturye Monastery, where an anchorite named Father Makary lived. Makary, an elder well known for his holy life, had since childhood been a swineherd in the monastery’s employ. He ate nothing for months, herded his pigs, and stood for hours in prayer in the deep forest. Being illiterate, he knew of Christ only through church services and the prayers he memorized by ear. But Makary was considered to be the spiritual father of Grigory Rasputin. And that was why the monk Makary was interrogated in his half-tumbled-down cell. Interrogating him was not easy, since the monk’s speech was confused.

His deposition remains in the File. The sixty-year-old monk Makary testified that ‘I came to know the elder G. E. Rasputin twelve years ago when I was still the monastery swineherd. At the time Rasputin had come to our monastery to pray and to make my acquaintance … I told him about the sorrows and misfortunes of my life, and he bade me pray to God.’ After that, Makary took monastic vows and began to live as an anchorite.

‘Rasputin apparently spoke to the former tsar about me, for money came to the monastery from the tsar for the construction of cells for me… Besides that, money was sent for me to travel to Petersburg…and I then went to Tsarskoe Selo, where I talked to the tsar and his family about our monastery and my life in it. I did not see any kind of bad actions by Rasputin and the others who came to us with him.’

And that was all they were able to extract from him about Rasputin.

The monk had indeed also been summoned to Tsarskoe Selo in the summer of 1909, but not at all to tell the tsars about his life in the monastery.

‘23 June. After tea, Feofan, Grigory, and Makary came to see us,’ Nicholas recorded in his diary.

It was then that Alix told the three of them about her idea. Knowing of Feofan’s doubts about Rasputin, she had devised the plan of getting Feofan together with Makary, who had such respect for Rasputin. So that they and Rasputin could go back to Our Friend’s home together. She believed that the trip would renew Feofan’s friendship with Father Grigory and dispel all his doubts. And that Feofan would then use his authority to put an end to the growing rumours, which were already beginning to scare her.

Feofan at the time was unwell. But the tsarina’s request was law. ‘I took myself in hand and in the second half of June 1909 set off with Rasputin and the monk of the Verkhoturye Monastery Makary, whom Rasputin
called and acknowledged to be his “elder”,’ Feofan testified in the File.

And then he described their trip in its entirety. First, they went to the monastery at Verkhoturye, Rasputin’s favourite. But even before they got there, Rasputin astonished Feofan. ‘Rasputin started to behave without constraint. It had been my view that he had begun wearing expensive shirts for the royal court’s sake. But he wore the same kind of shirt in the railway car, spilling food on it and then putting on another one that was just as expensive.’ Rasputin had obviously decided to show Feofan how many favours the tsarina had done for him. But just as clearly Feofan was ready to regard everything with suspicion.

And the farther they went, the more suspicious he became. The ascetic Feofan was amazed when ‘as we were approaching the Verkhoturye Monastery, and, as is the custom with pilgrims, keeping the fast so we could prostrate ourselves before the relics, Rasputin ordered himself something to eat and then cracked nuts.’ Rasputin, now aware of his power, no longer felt the need to dissimulate. His God was a joyful one. And he allowed himself to kick off the fetters of ecclesiastical regulation.

Feofan was offended by everything: ‘Rasputin assured us that he revered Simeon of Verkhoturye. However, when the service in the monastery began, he went off somewhere to town.’ Rasputin’s two-storey house grated on Feofan, too. How different it was from Feofan’s own dwelling, which he had turned into a monastic cell, and from his idea of what the house should be like of the person he only recently had held in such esteem.

We can imagine the arrangement of Rasputin’s house quite accurately using the inventory of his property made after his death. On the ground floor where he lived with his family, it was the usual arrangement of a peasant lodge. But, to make up for that, upstairs the once indigent peasant had attempted to arrange everything city fashion and thus suitable for the ‘little ladies’ and other guests from Petersburg. There he put Feofan, as well. And the monk took indignant note of the piano, and the gramophone that Rasputin so liked to dance to, and the claret-red plush armchairs, and the sofa and the desk. A chandelier was suspended from the ceiling, and placed around the room were several bentwood ‘Viennese’ chairs, then in fashion. And there were two wide beds with soft springy mattresses and a divan. Two weight-clocks in ebony cabinets chimed majestically, and there was a wall clock and another cabinet clock. The monk was particularly outraged by the ‘large soft carpet covering the entire floor’.

Rasputin also introduced Feofan to his followers — Arsyonov, Raspopov, and another Rasputin — ‘my brothers in the life of the spirit’. But, as the monk observed, ‘although they sang very harmoniously … they still made an unpleasant impression, generally speaking.’ Feofan, a mystic of broad
education who was well acquainted with heresies, sensed something dangerous in that singing.

Apparently he tried to talk about it with Makary.

‘The monk Makary … is, for me, a mystery. Much of what he says is incomprehensible, but from time to time he will say things that illuminate all life.’

But although capable of ‘illuminating all life’, Makary this time replied with ‘something incomprehensible’.

After thinking over all he had seen, Feofan concluded that Rasputin did not ‘occupy the highest level of spiritual life’. And on his return trip to Petersburg Feofan ‘stopped at the Sarov Monastery and asked God’s help in correctly answering the question of who and what Rasputin was. I returned to Petersburg convinced that Rasputin…was on a false path.’

On his return, he conferred with his friend the Archimandrite Benjamin about what he had seen on the trip. They then summoned Rasputin to the abbey.

‘When after that Rasputin came to see us, we, to his surprise, denounced him for his arrogant pride, for holding himself in higher regard than was seemly, and for being in a state of “spiritual temptation”.’

The Dangerous State Of ‘Spiritual Temptation’

This was a terrible charge.

I had a conversation at the Trinity-Saint Sergius Abbey with the monk Father Isaiah about the state of ‘spiritual temptation’. He told me: ‘A special spiritual loftiness is required to prophesy and heal. When it is lacking, the gift becomes a dangerous one, and the person becomes a sorcerer and falls into the state of “spiritual temptation”. He is now tempted by the devil, and it is by the power of the Antichrist that he performs his miracles.’

‘Arrogant pride’, ‘holding himself in higher regard than was seemly’, and ‘spiritual temptation’ — Feofan and Benjamin were, oddly enough, repeating everything that Militsa had once warned Rasputin about! It was the voice of the ‘black woman’ that was in Feofan and Benjamin’s arguments.