Tales of Past Years

Fr Sergei Hackel was the Russian Orthodox Chaplin when I was an undergraduate at the University of Sussex back in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Each year he would lead a celebration of the Eucharist according to the Orthodox rite in the University Chapel, the Meeting House, introducing the liturgy beforehand for the non-Orthodox present, and telling the tale of the Emissaries of St Vladimir as set out in the Russian Primary Chronicle, 'Tales of Past Years', year 6495 (587AD).

Sent out by their master, Vladimir the Great, to study the religions of the various neighboring nations whose representatives had been urging Vladimir to embrace their respective faiths, they returned full of praise for the Greek Orthodox worship they witnessed in Hagia Sophia: "...the Greeks led us to the edifices where they worship their God, and we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such splendor or such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We only know that God dwells there among men, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations. For we cannot forget that beauty. Every man, after tasting something sweet, is afterward unwilling to accept that which is bitter, and therefore we cannot dwell longer here."

Fr Sergei died in 2005, and his body now lies in the peaceful churchyard of the Anglican Parish Church of St Mary's, Barcombe, in sight of the Sussex Downs.