A Lavra kind of day

I met my friend Brother Vladimir at 9 on Wednesday at Metro Station Teatralna, our usual meeting place, near the bust of Lenin.  We went out to his monastery, Lavra Pecherska.  In Ukraine, a Lavra is a special spiritual center and there are not many of them throughout the Slavic world.  We went to Lavra so I could shop and get things as gifts and stuff for church.  I already have two icons for church: one of Mother Mary,  Panta Nassa - people come to pray for healing to this image.  Another of St. Dorofee or Dorofea, an interesting saint who was born a woman and entered the monastery and lived her life as a man.  Upon her death, she was discovered to be a woman.  Because of her/his holiness, (s)he is revered. Some pray to this saint as a man, and some as a woman.  Perhaps there's greater wideness in Orthodox thinking than previously thought.  We went to numerous churches in the Lavra which is really a walled city and to several shops, including a fascinating shop where metalwork for churches is done - domes, candelabras, communion sets, etc.   I bought an Orthodox stole which came with cuffs also.  An Orthodox stole differs from a western stole in that it goes over the head but is joined down the front instead of hanging as two separate strips.  Cuffs are used in Byzantine and Antiochan rites.  Practically speaking, they could prevent wide sleeves from getting in the way!  I also bought an Orthodox rosary for myself, one with only 3 decades of beads.  I also bought a gold plate censer (called Thurible in the western church).  It has four chains, each chain with three bells.  Vladimir was surprised that I knew how to swing it.  I told him I'd been around the block a few times.  I bought a small icon of St. Pantaleimon (by now you know he's my favorite saint) and bought some triptychs as gifts.  I didn't find the kind of altar cloth I wanted but I have a shop in mind that I will visit today.  After leaving Lavra Pecherska, we walked to Vladimir's grandparents' apartment for borsch, stopping on the way at a church/monastery where a miraculous icon of Mary lives.  We stood in line in a very hot church for quite a while to have our chance to pray in front of the icon.  Many people approach, cross themselves, kiss the glass covering the icon and then rest their foreheads against the glass while they pray.  Then, they wipe the glass with a cloth, cross themselves and bow and make room for the next person in line.  I presented my prayers to Mother Mary, followed the ritual, and made way for the next person.  Vladimir's grandparents live in a small apartment on the 11th floor of a building.  The borsch was vegetarian because Vladimir has been vegetarian for many years.  He served the borsch in the way of his grandmother's village: first he cut up a good quantity of cucumber into the bowls, put a good dollop of sour cream and poured on the hot borsch.  It was great, kind of like having soup and salad all at once.
We then walked to the Metro so I could return to my apartment and unload my purchases and Vladimir to work.  He had taken the morning off to spend it with me.  While we were still at the Lavra, I made a two minute video of him to send to my church.
I went back to the apartment in Kharkivska to unload my purchases and since my legs and feet were reminding me how much I had walked and how many hills and stairs I had climbed, I lay down for an hour then puttered until it was time to leave to return to the center to meet my friend, Anna,  for a beer and pizza.  The pizza was interesting.  The beer was my favorite Ukrainian brand, Slavutich.  Slavutich comes in two varieties.  Regular and unfiltered.  The unfiltered is called "white" because it is cloudy.  I prefer unfiltered but happily drank what they had.  Only one, though.  I returned to the apartment around 10 and crashed.
I'm sending this from McDonalds which is packed with people having breakfast on their way to work.  I'm trying not to think of packing and leaving.  Here's a link to yesterday's pictures: https://picasaweb.google.com/revjimmulcahy/Lavra_Pecherska_Monastery?authkey=Gv1sRgCNP2gY_XjqH6wwE