He boldly approached the “pillar” enveloped in frosty steam, knelt down and began to pray. The water column began to slowly fall, and soon the water in the source calmed down, as if nothing had happened. Everything happened on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord
There is a holy Andreevsky spring in the Oryol region. For a long time, the water in it has been considered healing. In the summer of 2014, I also visited this place and met the caretaker of the source, writer and poet Gavrilin Vyacheslav Alekseevich. He was born in the village of Andreevka. In 1975, Vyacheslav was drafted into the ranks of the Soviet Army. He served in the Black Sea Fleet, in the glorious Sevastopol. After demobilization, an unknown force pulled Vyacheslav Gavrilin back to his homeland. Perhaps Providence needed a chronicler of these places, because there is a wonderful spring of crystal clear water that flows through deposits of blue clay, enriched with the smallest particles of silver. According to geologists, this is quite enough to purify water from salts and saturate it with silver isotopes.
But why is the source considered holy? This interested the former sailor so much that he began to collect legends and stories of old-timers about him. As a result of a long search, his book "Stories and Legends of the Andreevsky Spring" was published.
Icon on the palm
Here is one of these stories (not legends). In the twenties of the last century, village children grazed geese in the meadow near the spring on a fine summer day. Nine-year-old Vasya went to the spring to drink. He bent over the crystal key that gushed from the depths of Mother Earth, and suddenly a small icon floated out from under the shore into his palm, beautiful as a divine vision. Vasya carefully took it in his hands and carried it home. His sick mother prayed before this miracle and told her son to take the icon back. Vasya lowered the icon into the water, and under the curious glances of the surrounding boys, the icon went under the shore.
Vasya's mother soon recovered, and word of this event spread throughout the district. On one of the church holidays, the clergy from the neighboring Lukovsky church came to the source. With a large crowd of people, a prayer service was served and the source was consecrated. They said that during the consecration, the icon appeared again, but was not given to anyone. And Vasya received the nickname Vasya-svyatik from his peers.
One morning his mother sent her eldest daughter to fetch water. A few minutes later, the girl returned with an empty bucket and said that a column of water was pouring into the sky from the source, and the people did not know what to do. Vasya slowly got down from the stove, took the bucket, went out into the street and ran to the source. He boldly approached the “pillar” enveloped in frosty steam, knelt down and began to pray, overshadowing himself with the sign of the Cross. The water column began to slowly fall, and soon the water in the source calmed down, as if nothing had happened. Vasya scooped up water and returned home. Everything happened on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord.
Here are the soldiers coming
Promotional video:
And here is another amazing story that his grandmother told Vyacheslav.
In 1943, our artillery battery was located outside the outskirts of Andreevka, liberated from the enemy. On a warm August day, fierce, bloody battles began here. The whole day there was a rumble in the west. The sky in that direction was clouded with black-purple clouds. Only in the evening the rumble of the battle gradually began to subside. At the end of the day, Vyacheslav's grandmother went to the location of the battery to pick up the boys who were there. The artillerymen looked anxiously towards the horizon blazing with fires, and the children, who had become silent, were perched nearby. And suddenly, as soon as the disc of the sun disappeared behind the horizon, columns of soldiers seemed to move across the sky.
In silent formation, the soldiers marched east along the heavenly road. Meanwhile, on the eastern side of the sky, almost over the source, a bright rainbow hung, and under it the contours of a snow-white temple with blue domes and shining crosses began to appear. The doors of the temple were wide open, and the ranks of soldiers entered slowly. Grandmother fell to her knees and began to pray. The gunners who were standing nearby took off their hats. And the soldiers kept walking and walking. Some with weapons, some without. The uniforms covered with gray dust were tattered and cut by shrapnel, dirty, bloody bandages peeped through the holes. The solemn and terrible vision continued for several minutes, until evening gloom fell to the ground.
Water and fire
And here is what the old resident of the village told. Once a grandson came to him from the city. Once near the source, he wanted to wash the car. His grandfather stopped him by telling a story from his childhood. In 1941, he saw a mechanized German column moving past the source. The boy hid in the bushes and watched. The Germans drank from the water source, poured it into the tanks of the trucks, and then moved on. A few minutes later, several cars were on fire. The soldiers put out the fires, wondering why the equipment caught fire. Meanwhile, the lead vehicles brought down the bridge and got stuck in a muddy stream. The Germans carried on until the evening. After this story, the grandson of the old-timer did not desecrate the source.
This is how our land and water met the enemy.
In the 60s of the last century, militant atheists tried to destroy the source. They piled a hefty stone slab on top of him. But the water eroded the soil, and on one of the patron saint's holidays, people saw that this block was thrown several meters away, and the water broke free, bringing healing both body and spirit to the suffering.
Vladimir Konstantinov