A turning point in my life came almost a year later. And not without reason do they say that "the ways of the Lord are inscrutable." As it turned out, the roots of my path to God lay in that same philharmonic hall.
The director called me in and said that the ensemble had long needed to change its repertoire, since people had grown tired of the same melodies and rhythms. This meant we had already worn out our audience, and they would no longer come to hear old songs in our performance. We were given only ten days in total. This meant the whole group would have to work day and night without interruption to completely (or at least partially!) renew our repertoire before the next tour. Remember, we're talking about the 1980s, when musicians weren't equipped with technology as they are today. There were no backing tracks, various computer programs, or special effects that so generously equip today's entertainment industry workers. Everything was played and sung without "fakes"—without backing tracks—live, and this greatly complicated our task. We needed to find, arrange, learn, and artistically process 8-10 new songs, and in such a way that it would be interesting not only to listen to but to watch. In short, not an easy task.
I gathered my musicians and asked if anyone had any ideas about this. Everyone was silent. The task seemed completely impossible. And suddenly one of the musicians started telling us that he lived near a house where believers gathered. Passing by, he often noticed music coming from open windows and doors. "The words," he said, "are strange, incomprehensible, but the music is excellent. If you wrote good lyrics to it—you'd get a real hit song!"
His main argument was that this would be much faster than writing all the songs ourselves (and we needed ten!), and, importantly, these strange believers would never claim authorship. Since no other suggestions came up, I said he should go there immediately and record those songs. But the guy flatly refused, saying he had a poor musical memory.
"You're the conductor—you go," he said to me.
"I don't want to go there either," I cut him off, "I've heard enough in atheism lessons about these believers! They conduct their religious ceremonies, and at the end of their gatherings they perform sacrifices and drink the blood of Jews. And I have no intention of becoming a victim of a religious cult before our tour."
Such were my views on believers and their worship at that time. The musician answered that this was all atheist propaganda; he'd lived nearby for many years and had never heard of anyone being sacrificed in the prayer house.
The whole group nodded in agreement, supporting his words, and under public pressure, I agreed to visit this "dangerous place." After asking about the day of their gathering, I firmly decided I would go and "see and hear" for myself what they sang there.
The day of the gathering came. I found the house and entered, first cautiously peering through the door. Convinced that, at least for the moment, no one was planning to attack me, I still sat near the exit so I could quickly escape if needed. The first thing I noticed was the absence of religious symbolism, which surprised me greatly. What kind of church is this without icons, candles, or priestly vestments? Everything was very simple and natural. People spoke from the pulpit—in ordinary language, without resorting to Old Church Slavonic phrases. The whole atmosphere was conducive to peace, and I relaxed somewhat in anticipation of the singing.
My goal was to remember a couple of songs to later record and turn into real hit songs. And finally, everyone began to sing, but these weren't the songs I expected at all! That day was a prayer meeting, and the songs accompanying the prayers were completely different from what my musician had described. I was disappointed: the slow, sad melody had nothing to do with standard hit song conventions.
I continued sitting, expecting something more suitable to come along soon. But the singing remained the same. After sitting for two hours, I hadn't heard anything remotely appropriate. Imagine how angry I was—at my musician for wasting my time, at myself for coming here for no reason, and at all these believers who hadn't bothered to sing what I needed. And then the gathering ended. Rising, I went toward the exit with the others.
Many people noticed me: leather pants and jacket, hair down to my shoulders, shiny jewelry on my hands and neck—in short, a rock musician in all his glory. But people weren't looking at that. They saw simply a new person who had come to God's temple. People greeted me warmly, saying how glad they were that I'd come, and inviting me to come again. The attitude of people toward me—a complete stranger and someone foreign to them—simply shocked me. After all, I'd prepared myself for a completely different reception—at minimum, to be shamefully expelled, at maximum, to become a victim (after all, I have Jewish blood!).
Coming home, I told my wife about what I'd seen and experienced. To my surprise, after listening to me, she said she'd long wanted to go there and see it with her own eyes. It turned out she'd heard a lot about faith and believers from her grandmother, who believed in Jesus. I hadn't paid much attention to this, but I said that when the opportunity came, we would visit together.
And soon the opportunity presented itself. After our tour, we had a day off, and we decided to visit the prayer house again.
Honestly, something subconsciously drew me there, but I couldn't explain the reason for this attraction. Arriving at the place, we sat by the door and began observing what was happening. A middle-aged man took the pulpit and began reading passages from a large Bible, explaining what he'd read. In particular, he reasoned that when the last pagan repents, the door of salvation will close. Whoever doesn't manage to enter that door before this repentance will perish forever.
I didn't understand at all what salvation he was talking about; from what one needed to be saved, and what kind of door this was; where it was located and who this last pagan was, after whose repentance the door would be closed. But suddenly I was seized by a terrible desire to manage to enter that door before the "pagan." But to do this, I at least needed to find out who he was and what his plans were regarding repentance. But the man speaking from the pulpit said nothing about this. With difficulty, I waited for the gathering to end and approached the preacher. In a loud, demanding voice, I began asking him about the information that interested me. What was this nonsense? What must this pagan repent of? And if he really must, then where and when? Does anyone know anything about him? An address? A name? I spoke at length and confusedly, demanding the impossible from this preacher. His patience is something to be admired! He listened to me until the source of my "eloquence" ran dry. Then he said that the Bible contains no information about this person. But if I'm really interested in questions of salvation, he'd be happy to visit us at home and explain everything in detail. We agreed on a meeting.
At the appointed time, the preacher came to our house. We opened the Holy Scripture together and began to read. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that Jesus Christ was a Jew! After all, since childhood in our family there had been the opinion that we Jews have our own faith and our own god, while Russians have different faith and a different God. Although it was very difficult to speak about faith at all, since in my youth I didn't believe in anyone or anything. Moreover, it turned out that all of Jesus's disciples were also Jews.
Perhaps some readers will respond to these "revelations" with skeptical laughter, as if I didn't know the most elementary things, but it's really true! I was an ordinary representative of my generation, raised during Soviet times, when even the word GOD was forbidden, when believers were constantly accused of espionage and betrayal. They were persecuted and punished according to the strict law of the godless country. We knew nothing, nor did we want to know, because such knowledge carried danger. So that evening became an evening of revelations. The more we listened, the clearer we felt that something had to be done about this. We couldn't continue living this way, and it was simply dangerous. My wife and I suddenly saw ourselves in a different light, as if someone had turned us inside out, revealing all our filth to the whole world. Our life, which had seemed so right to us, in the light of the bright ray of revealed truth suddenly turned out to be completely rotten and absolutely not in accordance with God's standards. It was unbearably shameful and painful; we desperately wanted to fix everything—and as soon as possible.
Having poured an incredible amount of new information about God onto us, the preacher left. And we, reflecting on faith and our condition before Him, completely lost our peace. What should we do now? What could we do? I lost sleep, work became joyless, I found it hard to live, even to breathe. One thought kept nagging in my head: right now, this very moment, this pagan is repenting—and that's it! The door is closing, and we're left outside!
Fear seized me; I didn't want to be late! We lived in this nightmare for several days. My wife figured it out first. She said: "What made us sick, that's what will cure us! Let's go back to this gathering, and let them solve the problem they created for us!" I completely agreed with her, and we decided to devote Saturday to resolving all our burning questions. Why Saturday? Well, my grandfather would sometimes visit the synagogue on Saturdays. So we went on that day.
Arriving at the house, we approached the door. I pulled the handle, but it wouldn't budge. Turning to my wife, I said: "Well, that's it! The pagan has repented! Everyone who managed to get in is inside, and we're left outside!" "No, it can't be," said my wife, "you just need to push harder!" "Nothing's working," I screamed in fury. "The door is locked, no one's here, we're too late!" In desperation, I pounded on the door with my hands and feet, shouting down the street: "Open up!!! This is unjust!!! We couldn't know when this pagan would repent!!! We don't want to perish!!!" My wife grabbed my hands, trying to calm me down; curious neighbors were already peering out of neighboring houses. But I was "carried away" and nothing could contain my anger. Much later, after becoming familiar with the last chapters of the Gospel of Matthew, I was able to properly understand my state at that moment—the state of a person left outside the Kingdom of Heaven.
May the Lord preserve you, reader of these lines, and all of us from this fate—to find ourselves among the rejected...
I don't remember how long I raged, and it could have continued for who knows how long until I'd completely smashed the door, but suddenly the sound of a key turning in a lock rang out. I jumped back in surprise, the door opened slowly... In the doorway stood a grandmother, looking at me with bright, slightly bewildered eyes.
"Son, why are you breaking the door?" she asked, stretching her words a bit. "Do you want me to call the police?"
"So the pagan has repented?!" I asked or concluded.
"What pagan?" the grandmother didn't understand.
"But there's no one inside, right?" I continued.
"Of course not. There's no service this morning. Come tomorrow morning. There's no one here now!"
"So everything is still in place?" I continued my unclear questions.
"Well, you're a strange one, I already told you: 'There's no one here!'" the grandmother continued, not understanding what was wrong with me or what I was asking about.
Finally, convinced that nothing special had happened yet, that everything was still here on earth, I calmed down somewhat. At the end of the dark tunnel of my life's wanderings, a ray of light appeared, and with it hope that all was not yet lost. My wife and I decided not to delay and visit the gathering the very next morning.
The next morning, on Sunday, September 1st, 1985, Sveta and I arrived early and took seats on the balcony—far from the stage. There were many people. Later I understood that this was the day of Breaking of Bread, the Lord's Supper.
The gathering began; we watched and listened carefully, occasionally nudging each other with our elbows and whispering: "Well, should we?" From our conversation with the preacher, we knew what we had to do. But it turned out that standing before God and saying: "Forgive me!"—is not so simple! The service lasted two hours, and we sat on our chairs as if glued down, unable to break the bonds of sin holding us back from repentance.
Time relentlessly passed; the gathering was coming to an end. The closing prayer had already begun, and then—oh, wonderful mercy of God!—the man who had visited us at home was standing and praying on the stage. Seeing us, he understood our condition and began to pray loudly, calling us by name and appealing to the Lord for His forgiveness and grace. And it worked!
Without agreeing beforehand, Sveta and I jumped from our seats and rushed down, pushing through the thick crowd of people toward the pulpit. We felt incredible relief, lightness in our bodies. People, stepping aside, blessed us, again and again thanking God for His mercy. And finally, we stood before everyone and in a simple prayer: "Lord, forgive!"—we opened our hearts to Jesus.
People came to congratulate us, and in our hearts sounded a melody of incredible beauty, authored by God Himself! And I now knew with absolute certainty that this melody would never sound on the stage of the philharmonic with "new words" and a new arrangement.
