The Flaming Sword in Serbia and ElsewhereStobart, M. A. (Mabel Annie)
History
The Flaming Sword in Serbia and Elsewhere
Stobart, M. A. (Mabel Annie)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Hospitals; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
Upon the walls of the church were beautiful frescoes of the fifteenth
century, and because they were in bad condition, they were about to be
whitewashed. Equivalent to saying, if you are ill, don't send for the
doctor, murder the patient. The only touch of soulful atmosphere was to
be obliterated.
After the service, the monk invited us to his house, adjoining the
church, and in the corridor we sat at a table, and talked, whilst
cigarettes, rakiya, and coffee were handed round. Mr. Little, our
clergyman chauffeur, who generally drove me, was with us. The priests
thought it very strange that a clergyman should be a chauffeur; they
asked if he was married? He was not. That again was strange to them,
because in Serbia a priest must marry whether he wants to do so or
not. A monk, on the other hand, must not, even if he wants to. A monk
and a priest were both present, so I asked them which of the two had
the worse fate--the one who must marry even if he wouldn't, or he who
mustn't even if he would. They laughed much, but the question was too
difficult; the answer was not contained in their theology.
The priest then wanted to know if English clergymen might marry two
wives? No interpreter was present, and our hosts only spoke Serbian,
and I thought at first that he meant bigamy, and I held up my hands
shocked. But he explained that he meant one wife after the other.
He, himself, if his present wife died, would, he explained, never be
allowed to marry again. Would our priest-chauffeur, who was sure to
marry some day, be allowed to marry again if his first wife died? "Oh,
yes!" I answered, "he may drive tandem but not a pair." I added that
this chauffeur priest was a very lucky man. He marries a wife; she
dies, no matter; he marries a second; she dies, no matter; he marries
a third, and so on to infinity. And when I further added that, indeed,
the only condition set by law as a premise for a priest's marrying with
a dozen successive wives, was the decease of, or divorce from, the
previous wife, our priest said he would like to live in England. "And
I should like to live in Serbia," I replied. "If I were not already
married, I should certainly choose to marry a Serbian priest, for my
husband could not fail to put a high value on me; he would know that,
though I might not be perfect, he could never get a better wife."
The priests then asked us if we would go with them to meet their
Metropolitan (Bishop), who was to pass through Ovcharska. We walked
together with all the monks to the tiny station on the railway, which
ran from Ushitza to Stalatz, and, when the train stopped, we were
introduced to, and talked with, the Bishop; also with two French
doctors who were on their way from Ushitza to Nish. I hoped they
might have some serum syringes, of which we were in need--much of our
dispensary equipment having gone astray at Nish.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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