From Good to Evil to Good

 

            Harold lives in Leeds UK with his parents, after graduating from university, he was able to retain a job as a computer programmer, while working remotely. He is now twenty-eight years old and has been saving his money with the hope of eventually purchasing his own home with some land. For several years he has been dreaming of living in the wooded land north of Leeds in a castle like home. He works somewhere between forty and fifty hours a week, rarely leaving his room, but still enjoys three meals a day with his parents.

               He has created a habit for himself of checking his bank account balance every Friday afternoon and as he has come to realize that he now has almost five hundred thousand pounds in his account, he begins a discussion with his father about buying some land, and hopefully restoring a house if the land contains one. His father agrees with him and encourages him to become the man of his own home and offers to visit potential land and homes if or when they become available.

               Three full days pass and Harold sends an email to a real estate agent in northern England explaining his desire to purchase land in northern England, requesting that she send him the details of land for sale. He clarifies that his preference is for a piece of land less than five acres preferably with a home that can be remodeled. Within less than an hour, he received a response from the agent, who confirms and understands his request, she tells him that she will gather real estate listings based on his preferences and will forward them to him.

               Harold joins his parents in the dining room for the evening meal, and goes into a detailed explanation of his conversation with the real estate agent. The three of them enjoy a peaceful evening, complete their meal, and Harold’s mother suggests that some time after the kitchen and dining room are cleaned, that they all should go for a walk, as fresh air is always a good idea for everyone involved. Harold offers to do the cleaning work, and when he has everything in order, he calls for his parents to begin their walk. The three of them spend the next forty-five minutes walking the pavements of Leeds, greeting and interacting with those they meet. Having completed a path through some of the city, they return home, leaving Harold feeling slightly tired and uncomfortably sweaty.

               He excuses himself when they enter the house to take a shower, return to his room, and spend some time searching through properties for sale in northern England. Harold and his parents spend most of their Saturday cleaning the house, chatting, and preparing for the evening church service. They take a lengthy walk to the sanctuary and return home in the dusk of a slightly chilly evening. They rise early the next morning to attend the Divine Liturgy, enjoy a beautiful midday meal with everyone in the congregation, and then walk the several blocks back to their home.

               Harold and his parents sit together in the living room until it is time for his mother to prepare the evening meal. When the evening meal is ready, Harold rises to his feet to do a little stretching, takes his seat at the table and thanks his mother for her hard work and for preparing a glorious and wonderful meal. Harold then offers to clean the dining room and the kitchen, to then spend an hour with his parents in the living room to talk about his plans for buying land and restoring a house. “I have contacted the real estate agent and am waiting for her to send me listings of land in northern England,” he said, “I will keep you informed as this develops.”

               Thursday afternoon arrives and Harold receives an email from the real estate agent, prints out the documents she has provided, carefully studies them, descends to the first floor and sits with his father to review the documents. “Father, I was thinking that you and I and the agent could visit some of these listings Saturday morning before Matins and Vespers,” he said.

               “Yes, that sounds like a great idea,” his father said, “once you make a decision on which properties you want to visit, let me know what time you want to depart from home to make the journey north.”

               Harold then excuses himself to return to his room, calls the real estate agent and inform her that there is one property that he would like to physically visit with his father and the agent. “Also, can we meet at the property sometime on Saturday morning.”

               “Yes, let’s meet at nine o’clock in the morning,” she said, “you should know that the property you are interested in currently has a rapidly decaying Roman church on the land. It has been abandoned for a little over four hundred years. It was built in 787 and was used by the Roman church for eight centuries but was eventually abandoned as the attendance declined to the point where there was not enough income to maintain the facilities and pay for the priest to continue his work there. Also, you should know that after the building was abandoned, a group of Satanists took over the building in the mid 1800’s and were performing human sacrifices on the altar. Please understand that a great deal of evil and corruption took place within those walls for about one hundred years. I’ll see you there on Saturday at nine o’clock.”

               “Very good, thank you for describing the history of that location,” Harold said, “my father and I will be there at nine.” Harold then returned downstairs told his father about the property, while leaving out the gory details of human sacrifice and Satanic activity. “Father,” he said, “we will need to leave home Saturday morning at eight o’clock to arrive at the property at nine to meet the agent.”

               “Very good,” his father said, “I’ll be ready to go at eight, I am excited to see this property and we will need to take notes, photos, and think carefully about the cost of remodeling the current home that is currently standing.”

               Harold finished his work that Thursday and the following Friday. He set his alarm for seven o’clock in order to be ready in time for the eight o’clock departure on Saturday. He and his father began the drive at eight o’clock, arrived at the property, met the agent and began a careful review of the buildings and the land. One hour later, Harold and his father began their drive home to descend into a long discussion about the state of the land, the sorry state of the Roman church, and the overall cost of restoring the small house.

               “I have plenty of money, Father,” he said, “I believe that this would be a good investment, and if I hire skilled artisans to restore the church and convert it into an Orthodox place of worship, we would then have an Orthodox Church which could be used instead of renting from the Anglican church in Leeds, which would be a great blessing for our people, for our land, and for our community. I was also thinking that I could build a large facility that would provide free meals for the poor in the area.”

               When Harold and his father arrived at home, he placed a phone call to the real estate agent informing her that he would like to make an offer on that property. “Ah, very good Harold,” she said, “I’ll put together the documents, scan them, email them to you, and you will need to electronically sign them, please tell me the amount you would like to offer for the property.”

               “Yes, ma’am, currently the asking price is two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, I would like to offer two hundred and twenty thousand pounds,” he said.

               “I think that is a reasonable offer to make,” she said, “I’ll get the documents together and you should see them in less than an hour. Please sign them as soon as possible. When I receive them, I will send the offer to the current owner and will let you know their response.”

               As promised, in about thirty minutes Harold received the documents, reviewed them, quickly signed them, and waited for a response from the agent. On Sunday evening, he received an email from the real estate agent that the current owner accepted his offer and that the paperwork would be ready for him on Monday evening at her office. Harold then placed a phone call to her, and confirmed that he would be to her office by six thirty on Monday evening.

               He finished his day of work, quickly drove to the real estate agent’s office, signed a large pile of documents, she then sent the signed documents to the current owner to be signed and approved, he received the keys for the property, the completed property transfer and then drove home to announce to his parents that the purchase was complete and after remodeling the house, he would be moving further north. “This will easily take at least four months before I can move in,” he said.

               The next day, Harold and his parents traveled to the property, walked through both buildings, and through all of the land. Upon returning home, he placed several phone calls to contractors to begin the restoration process on the home. Meeting times were set up with four different contractors to handle four different aspects of the restoration work. Harold requested three days off of work, so he could confirm that everything would be taken care of in a timely manner at his new property.

               Four months passed and the restoration work of his new home was complete, he hired a moving company to gather, pack, load, and unload his belongings into his new home further north. Before leaving his parent’s home, he called the necessary companies to handle putting the power, the garbage, the water, and the internet service in his name. He spent the next two days getting everything in order in his new home. Now completely satisfied with the orderly state of his home. He then began to focus on cleaning and organizing the slowly decaying Roman church.

               After two weeks of work of cleaning and organizing, he placed a call to the bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church that he was now in possession of a decaying Roman church and would like to convert the building into an Orthodox place of worship. The bishop was very excited about his offer and suggested that they meet as soon as possible to view the property, discuss the details of restoration, and how soon they could begin conducting services therein.

               When Harold met with the bishop, he made a strong effort to communicate that the building he would be remodeling was taken over by Satanists in the mid 1800’s, who were performing human sacrifices on the Roman altar. “This is very important to know,” the bishop said, “we will need to perform a sanctification service before we can begin having services therein.”

               Two weeks later, a team of people from the Russian Orthodox archdiocese met with Harold on his property and they walked through the building, around the property, and through the attached cemetery. After three months of restoration work, the building was now in a state of full usability. The priest from the Russian Orthodox Church in Leeds was re-assigned to the new place of worship and people steadily began to arrive and become involved in weekly worship.

               Harold then hired a contractor to build a new dining hall with a fully functional kitchen to feed those in the community. He began advertising the Church in the local community, the free offer of evening meals, and welcomed anyone who was interested in weekly Orthodox worship to attend every Saturday at the seventeen hundred hour and Sunday at the nine hundred hour.

               After one full year of Orthodox worship, Harold was thrilled to see over two hundred people in regular attendance and scores of people arriving each evening for a free, hot meal. As he worked his normal day, he received an email from the local newspaper, asking to do an interview with him regarding the new Church, the new free meals each evening, and what motivated him to take on this massive endeavor.

               He agreed to meet with the reporter, shared all of the details of his plan, the importance of loving one’s neighbor, and the importance of doing good when good needed to be done. After a thirty-minute discussion with the reporter, Harold returned home, ate dinner, placed phone calls to the priest and the bishop about the interview he just completed. A large number of young men were now in attendance at the Church, with many of them offering to help with cleaning, with maintenance, and with yard work.

               Eventually Harold met a wonderful young woman and after one year of romantic interaction, he asked her to marry him and begin a family. Though the house was small, he had visions of adding on another bedroom, a large gathering room, and a second bathroom. The wonderful young lady named Eloise said yes to his marriage request, after nine months they asked the priest to perform the wedding ceremony, they then took a three-day honeymoon to Paris, returned home and were filled with joy with the start of a new life.

Ten more years passed and the number of parishioners continued to increase, leaving Harold feeling overwhelmed with joy at the positive impact he and the priest were having on the local community. Harold watched as his bank account continued to grow, and at the same time, he saw many more people continuing to talk about the beauty and glory of the new Church just north of Brafferton.