Love for fatherly coffins

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

On a cloudy summer of 2017, I happened to visit one of the Orthodox pearls of the Leningrad region - the Cheremenets Ioan-Bogoslovsky Monastery. The monastery is located on an island in the middle of Lake Cheremenets, now the island is connected to the mainland by a driveway dam. The place is very picturesque, the temples of the monastery seem to grow right out of the forest at the top of the hill. When approaching the monastery, a sign was installed with the message that photography is strictly prohibited, therefore all the photographs given are not mine, but borrowed from the Internet. The monastery has a rich history. It was destroyed and rebuilt many times, the last time literally from ruins already in 2012. There was a cemetery at the monastery, where several generations of famous Russian families were buried: Ushakovs, Muravyovs, Elagins, Nashchekins, Apraksins, Kheraskovs and Polovtsovs, completely ruined during Soviet times.

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There is a fork at the sign. A good road leads to the left, and usually everyone follows it to approach the foot of the temples or go around the territory of the monastery clockwise and then, passing through a forest with 500-year-old oak trees, go to the same place on the other side. In the center of the fork is an old larch alley, which, climbing up the hill, soon leads to the former main gate of the monastery.

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On the left along the alley and not far from the gate, a SARCOPHAGUS LIES right on the ground.

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It consists of two parts: the actual coffin and the lid of the cast stone; the lid is slightly darker in color. The lid is tightly closed. A cross and a coat of arms are visible on the lid. On the striped shield there are three lion's paws, on top is a knight's helmet with a plume and two lion's paws. On the upper side of the sarcophagus, on a polished stone surface, the inscription "Ashes … of Yegor Karlovich von Lode …" One must think that on the other side there are the same holes or rings, and maybe text.

Author: Adolf Matthias Hildebrandt - Baltisches Wappenbuch. Wappen sämmtlicher, den Ritterschaften von Livland, Estland, Kurland und Oesel zugehöriger Adelsgeschlechter, Public domain, Lode (German von Lode) is a noble family and surname.

Danish origin dating back to the 12th century. Its two branches are included in the noble matrices of the Livonian province, the Grand Duchy of Finland and in the VI part of the genealogy book of the St. Petersburg and Kiev provinces.

Who is this Yegor Karlovich? It turns out that this is a very famous person who has devoted his whole life to serving the Fatherland. He was born on March 25, 1768 (hereinafter, Art. Style). Russian military and statesman, landowner, captain, collegiate councilor. Member of the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815). During the Patriotic War of 1812, he joined the Petersburg militia and took part in the battles for the cities of Polotsk and Vitebsk, where he showed courage and bravery. Among other awards for his participation in the wars against Napoleonic France, the Yamburg noble assembly presented him with a silver glass with the image of the coat of arms of the von Lode family. Since 1824 he was in the civil service in the Gatchina city government. Later he served in the Department of Institutions of the Empress Maria and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 1832 he served as prosecutor of the Evangelical Lutheran General Consistory.

In 1817-1822. bought two parts of the village. Small Navolok (now the village of Navolok, Luga district). Renamed the new estate to Sredny Navolok. The total size of the estate was 120 hectares. In the 30s of the XIX century. arranged an estate on the shore of the lake. Cheremenetskoe (manor house with an orchard and a landscape park). Alas, Yegor Karlovich did not use his estate for long. He died on December 10, 1844.

His descendants also noted themselves in the public arena.

So, Eduard Yegorovich von Lode - Privy Councilor, member of the Academic Committee of the Ministry of State Property; genus. On September 19, 1816, he was educated first in the Mining Corps, and then at St. Petersburg University, after which in 1840 he entered the Petersburg Chamber of State Property, and the next year he transferred to the ministry itself, where he spent 49 years continuously. with a wide variety of activities.

As a versatile educated and hardworking official, in 1842 he was sent to the Ostsee region, and in 1843 - to the Vologda province for its economic review; from 1845 Lode was engaged in drainage and cultivation of the marsh environs of St. Petersburg and for his distinction in 1849 he was awarded the title of chamber-cadet; in 1851 he was the representative of the ministry at the world exhibition in London; in 1854 he was appointed chairman of the astronomical commission, and in 1856 - a member of the commission for drawing the rules and reporting forms for the agricultural part; from 1858 Lode was a member of several commissions, in which he took an active part, such as: in the commission for the consideration and simplification of the rules for the transfer of taxes levied on state peasants; in the commission for drawing up a regulation on improving the life and organization of landowners' peasants and in the commission for the regulation of land relations between appanage and state peasants, for the organization of state estates in the Ostsee provinces.

In 1867, he participated in the committee on the improvement of the veterinary part and on measures to stop cattle deaths, for which he received the royal favor, and in the same year he was sent to Austria, Prussia, France and England to study methods of transporting cattle by rail. …

In the last years of his life, Lode was vice-chairman of the St. Petersburg meeting of farmers and was engaged in the use of peat fuel.

Lode's fruitful activity was distinguished by many orders before the order of St. Vladimir 2nd Art. inclusive.

He died in St. Petersburg on October 3, 1889, at the age of 74. "Novoye Vremya", 1889, No. 4886. - "News", 1889, October 7.

Vladimir Eduardovich von Lode 28.01.1867-26.08.1914- Educated in the Corps of Pages. He entered the service on 01.10.1885. Member of the World War. George Knight; colonel; died at the front in 1914.

The story of A. S.'s bill of exchange is also curious. Pushkin, published by L. S. Matseevich in Russian Antiquity 1878, No. 7, p. 501, in his article "The Card Debt of A. S. Pushkin", written on the basis of "Case No. 1936 in relation to the Alexander Pushkin owes to the courtyard captain von Lode Fyodor Rosin 2.000 r. bank notes dated November 11, 1820. On 18 sheets."

On the website "Living Water" of the St. Petersburg Church Bulletin (and this is the official publication of the St. Petersburg Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church) in the article "Kind People from Cheremenets. John the Theological Cheremenets Monastery”(May 2016) we read:“Not far from the newly erected abbot’s house, there is an abandoned slab from the grave of Yegor Karlovich von Lode, the prosecutor of the Evangelical Lutheran consistory, who bought a village nearby at the beginning of the 19th century. The following story is connected with this tombstone: once the monastery needed a large amount of cement. Father Vladimir asked an entrepreneur from Germany for help, but he still refused: why on earth? And then Father Vladimir mentioned that noblemen of German origin were buried in the monastery. The argument turned out to be valid."

It should be understood that the monastery received money for cement. And what about the “stove”? She is still IN THE SAME PLACE. Yes, complete, is it really just a stove? After all, on a stone with a lid, "Ashes" is engraved in Russian. Maybe this is actually a coffin and the remains of Yegor Karlovich are still inside, and have not been buried?