Wayne had gotten off the bus at a fairly busy corner on East Lincoln. It was in an area of town where fancy churches peppered large swaths of land and where upper-income Lincolnites attended their institutions of beliefs. It was here that Wayne found where The Russian Orthodox Church of Lincoln held their services temporarily. The temporary church site was very modern and quite minimalistic, in comparison to the original church’s ancient Gothic, Baroque style. It was also quite small—a mere meeting hall, virtually. But that was all that the Russian Orthodox members needed until they had a new church edifice rebuilt, thanks to the money coming from their insurance company’s fire compensation policy. And with a relatively sizable Russian population in Lincoln, Wayne guessed it would not be too much longer for a new Orthodox church to be built to replace the old one.
Wayne opened the door to the hall and found a middle-aged secretary at the circulation desk. She had a bit of a hard look about her, but she clearly made an effort not to show it in her demeanor as she smiled at him.
“Welcome to the Russian Orthodox Church,” she said with a heavy flavor of Russian. “Can I help you, young man?”
Wayne gathered his thoughts before answering. He had decided to do a little investigation on his own into the whole Rasputin episode…if, in fact, that was whom they were dealing with. It was clear that Julius and, especially, Edward were not going to help him on this.
“Hi, my name is Wayne Paul. I’m a student at Lincoln High. I’m doing a report for my social studies class. I ran across something that relates to your church and I was wondering if there was someone I can talk to about it?”
“Oh…okay.” Her English was a lot better than Bishop Vilkin’s. “Are you talking about the religious aspect of our church? Historical in nature…?”
“Mmm, a bit of both.”
“Well, you came at a good time, Wayne. Bishop Nicolas Gurnov is here today and he has a light load this morning. I believe he may have some time for you!”
The secretary had picked up the phone and was about to dial for the bishop when she noticed Wayne’s countenance.
“Is everything all right, young man?”
“Yeah…” Bishop Gurnov. Now that was interesting.
About two minutes later, a man around sixty, clean-shaven, came from behind the circulation desk and walked over to Wayne and shook his hand. He was amiable, rather plump and short, and quite nimble…the complete opposite of the man who claimed to be the Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church of Lincoln, Nebraska he and Edward and Julius met a few weeks ago!
Gurnov walked Wayne over to his temporary office, located just a few yards from the circulation desk. The bishop closed the door and gestured for Wayne to take a seat on a chair that was in front of his desk. Wayne noted how instead of seating himself behind his desk, Bishop Gurnov sat on the chair next to his. Usually a good sign that someone wanted a more informal conversation and was more likely to listen.
“So, Wayne,” the bishop said, his Russian accent a bit softer than the secretary’s, “you’re doing some research for social studies on the Orthodoxy in Russia?”
“No, not quite. It was on the Soviet Union. But, you know how it goes when you’re doing research on the Web…your eyes run across other links that look interesting to you and the next thing you know you’re at another web site totally outside of what you’re supposed to be reading!”
The bishop laughed easily. “Yes, that happens to me nearly every day! So, what was the link that grabbed your attention? Ours?”
Here we go!, Wayne thought. “Uh, no…” Wayne produced the hard-copies from the web site he had printed on Rasputin and shared with Edward and Julius. Julius had given them back to Wayne a couple of days ago, after the trio’s meeting in the boys’ locker room. Instead of embarrassing himself any further, Wayne simply handed the pages over to Bishop Gurnov without saying a word.
Wayne expected the man to scold him about bringing up such a foolish subject since he’s such a busy man. But, to Wayne’s totally surprise, Bishop Gurnov’s face turned to stone! That, in turn, caused Wayne to freeze, wondering if he offended him instead of angering him.
“And, how did you say this had to do with our church,” Gurnov inquired softly, the bright eyes on his countenance long gone by now.
Wayne paused. It almost felt like an interrogation now. He remembered Edward’s warning about telling other people about this Bishop Vilkin, since it would implicate them with the larceny they committed at the church. But Wayne knew that what they were dealing with was far larger than a few stolen items.
“I—a couple of friends and I—saw someone that looked exactly like Rasputin!”
The bishop looked upon Wayne with questioning eyes. “Where did you see this individual?”
“At your church, Bishop.”
Another moment of uncomfortable silence.
“Was this before or after the fire burnt our church down?”
“It was after.”
Gurnov leaned back in his chair and breathed out the slightest of a sigh. He leafed through the printouts silently. He then, suddenly, got up from his chair and went to his office phone. He, presumably, called the secretary, said something in Russian to her, and hung up the phone.
Oh, no; he called the cops!, was all that Wayne could think. Worse yet, may be the organization that replaced the KGB…may be Julius, Edward, and I all created an international rift!
“Wayne,” said Bishop Gurnov, his voice nearly back to its previous jovial level, but his eyes a bit more subdued, “are you finished with school today?”
Wayne considered the man very carefully before responding. “Yeah…I only had five periods today. Why?”
“Because, my young friend, you are about to take a little history lesson.”
Bishop Gurnov gave an outline on the life of Grigori Rasputin. That he was born around 1864 in Pokrovskoe, near the Ural Mountains and near the Siberia vicinity. Later, as a young man, Rasputin had been a student at a monastery in the town of Verkhoture, though he did not follow through with becoming a monk.
To Wayne’s surprise, Rasputin had married and had three children. Indeed, later, after entering the circle of the upper class in Russia of the early 1900s, it was purported that Rasputin had mistresses and was accused by some of using his high-class connection for those trysts. He also eventually had a following, a kind of discipleship. He claimed, and was believed by others, that he could heal those with infirmities and was able to foresee the future.
His move to St. Petersburg was his apex of fame, power, and, ultimately, his downfall. By the time the last of the Russian tzars, Nicholas Romanov, was desperate to stop his son’s bout of hemophilia, Rasputin had become famous throughout Russia. Other medical measures the Romanovs took apparently didn’t work. So, by 1907, Rasputin was invited to try his magic on the Russian monarch’s son. For some unknown reason, little Aleksei’s hemophiliac attack stopped and, predictably, it was credited toward the healing powers of Rasputin.
Bishop Gurnov said that, depending on whom you talk to, it’s believed that Rasputin took advantage of this apparent miracle with Aleksei Romanov. Rasputin warned Tzar Nicholas that if he wanted his son to stay alive and for his monarchy to reign succe
ssfully, Rasputin would have to have a seat in the Romanovs’ house of power!
Well, that was a little too much for some in the Romanov regime. Indeed, Tzar Nicholas and his wife, Alexandra, found out about Rasputin’s mistresses and they began to share the Russian officials’ concerns about his impact on the Russian government.
In December of 1916 there was a plot to kill Rasputin. Interestingly enough, two of the three men who ended up murdering Rasputin were relatives of the tzar. Prince Feliks Yusupov was married to Tzar Nicholas’ niece and Grand Duke Dimitry Pavlovich was cousin to the tzar. The third man was a member of the Russian parliament, the Duma…
“…yet Rasputin lived, even after eating the poisoned food,” Bishop Nicolas Gurnov was saying to young Wayne Paul, who had remained seated at the same chair through the Russian’s brief historical account of Rasputin. “So one of the three men shot Rasputin, and even that did not work!”
“Yeah,” Wayne confirmed, “I remember reading that at one of the other websites I went to! Poor guy probably would have lived to be an old man if it weren’t for the fact that they ended ganging up on Rasputin and dumping him in that river.”
“Yes, the Neva.” The bishop had been standing the whole time as he told the legend, gesticulating with his chubby hands. But now his body language had settled, and he reclaimed his seat next to Wayne’s. The bishop’s old eyes were unblinking as he addressed the young criminal. “Wayne, I don’t know what you and your friends were doing at our church when you saw this man. Honestly, I do not care…under normal circumstances, yes, right now you would be talking to police for trespassing on our property. But if it is true