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He lowered the crucifix and let it fall against his chest.
“The archimandrite and I would be honored to officiate at the ceremony, if that is your desire,” the archbishop said. “And now I suggest we have our dinner. No, first I think champagne is called for. And then dinner. During which Archimandrite Boris will continue his history lecture—Oprichnina 101—during which I’m sure he will satisfy Carlos’s questions why I felt it necessary to conduct the Russian Inquisition.”
[TWO]
“Oh, my Charley,” Svetlana whispered in Castillo’s ear. “I was so afraid you were going to do something to offend His Eminence, show a lack of respect, or get into an argument with him, or say something at which he would take offense.”
“By now, sweetheart, you should know me better than that.”
“If you two can spare the time for him…” His Eminence said.
Just a little thickly, Charley decided. He’s about half plastered. First all that wine, and then the champagne, and now more of the grape… .
“. . . the Archimandrite Boris will continue with Oprichnina 101.”
“I beg Your Eminence’s pardon,” Charley said.
“Not at all,” the archbishop said.
—
The archimandrite stood up and, as he collected his thoughts, took a healthy swallow from his wineglass. He swayed just perceptibly as he did so.
I guess the protocol here, Castillo thought, perhaps a bit cynically, is that if the archimandrite falls down during his lecture, the rest of us will pretend not to notice.
“As I touched on briefly before,” the archimandrite began, “the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkov’ Zagranitsey, sometimes known as the Orthodox Church outside Russia, acronym ROCOR, is a semiautonomous part of the Russian Orthodox Church.
“ROCOR was formed soon after the Russian Revolution of 1917, when the anti-Christian policy of the Bolsheviks became painfully evident. It separated itself from the Russian Patriarchate in 1927, when the Moscow Metropolitan—in effect the Pope—offered its loyalty to the Bolsheviks.
“His Eminence serves Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkov’ Zagranitsey as its spiritual head, and I humbly serve His Eminence.
“His Eminence is the spiritual leader of thirteen hierarchs—each headed by a bishop; what the Roman Catholics and the Anglicans would call dioceses—and controls our monasteries and nunneries in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Western Europe, and South America.
“Metropolitan Alexy of Leningrad ascended the patriarchal throne of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1990 as Alexius the Second, after the Soviet Union imploded. Became the Russian Orthodox Pope, if you like.
“There were calls after that from the faithful for ROCOR to place itself under the new Patriarch. While, on its face, this was a splendid idea, there were those opposed to it.”
“Including,” Nicolai Tarasov said, “the Tarasovs, the Pevsners, the Berezovskys, and our cousin Svetlana.”
“Why?” Jake Torine asked.
“They felt there was too much SVR influence on the Patriarch,” the archbishop said. “I decided that it was my Christian duty to give the Patriarch the benefit of the doubt, and last month…”
“On May twenty-seventh, a day which, like Pearl Harbor, will live in infamy,” Tarasov said, “you signed the ‘Act of Canonical Communion with the Moscow Patriarchate.’”
“Nicolai,” Laura Berezovsky said to her uncle, “you can’t talk like that to His Eminence!”
“Why not? Svetlana’s Charley called him a ‘self-righteous sonofabitch.’”
“He did what?” Svetlana demanded incredulously.
She glared at Castillo. “Did you?”
“That was after Charley told him to go fuck himself,” Vic D’Alessandro confirmed, wonderingly. “I never thought I’d hear anyone tell an archbishop to go fuck himself, not even a Russian one.”
Castillo, stonefaced, shrugged.
“Children, children,” the archbishop said placatingly. “We all make small mistakes from time to time. Mine was in not listening to Aleksandr and Nicolai when they told me of their suspicions about SVR influence on the throne of the Moscow Patriarch.
