THE TALE OF THE COSMONAUTS AND THE CATHEDRAL OF ECHOES
- Special Correspodent
- Mar 20
- 9 min read
A Fairy Tale from the Province of Clevelandia
Being a Humble Response to the Official Chronicle of March 15, 2026
“Mi smo kosmonauti iz zvezdanog grada,
idemo na Mars jer tamo nema rada.”
“We are cosmonauts from the star city,
we go to Mars because there is no work there.”
— Ancient song, chosen with great wisdom for the occasion
Chapter I: In Which Lord Golden Tongue Returns in Glory
Once upon a time, in the Province of Clevelandia, there stood a magnificent cathedral. Its walls were covered in frescoes painted by the hands of devoted artisans. Its great chandelier blazed like a small sun. Its floor was laid in marble by Serbian immigrants who had crossed the great ocean with calloused hands and full hearts, determined to build a house of God worthy of their faith and their sacrifice.
For twenty Sundays, the faithful who had stood by the truth — who had refused to bow before lies, before brownnoses, before those who had set this whole sorry affair in motion with their schemes and slanders — had gathered outside the cathedral doors. Rain had fallen on them. Snow had covered their shoulders. The bitter Ohio wind had tested their resolve. Yet still they came, week after week, because a church belongs to those who stand for truth, not to those who trade in falsehood to keep their positions.
And then, on the fifteenth day of March in the year 2026, word reached the faithful of Clevelandia — not through any announcement by Lord Golden Tongue himself, not through any courtesy of those who surrounded him, but through the grace of God and the alertness of watchful eyes — that a great event was about to unfold.
Lord Golden Tongue was coming to Clevelandia.
Not since the previous year had he graced the cathedral with his presence. The faithful outside had waited for this moment — surely, they thought, he would come as a shepherd comes to his flock: with open arms, with words of healing, with the humility befitting a servant of God.
They were, as it is said in the oldest fairy tales, about to learn something important about the difference between a shepherd and a man who merely holds a staff.
Chapter II: In Which Eight Noble Steeds Arrive Before the Dawn
Lord Golden Tongue did not come alone.
He did not come with words of peace.
He did not come through the front door to greet the people who had stood in the snow for twenty weeks, waiting for exactly this moment.
He came, instead, with eight police vehicles.
Eight! The chroniclers of the realm searched their memory for precedent. Kings had entered conquered cities with fewer escorts. Generals returning from victorious campaigns had required less ceremony. Even the most celebrated visiting dignitaries of the Eastern Province had managed to attend liturgy with, at most, one parking attendant.
Yet there they were: eight noble steeds of the Parma constabulary, positioned with great precision around the cathedral, ensuring that the Divine Liturgy might be celebrated in perfect security from the terrible menace of grandmothers holding prayer ropes.
Lord Golden Tongue slipped inside.
The liturgy was served. The sermon was inspiring, we are told. The Precious and Life-Giving Cross was venerated. The Lord was with them — or so the Official Chronicle assures us most fervently.
The one hundred and twenty people standing outside received no sermon, no veneration, no word of any kind.
Lord Golden Tongue departed as he had come: surrounded, silent, and swift.
Chapter III: In Which the Official Chronicle Is Published, and the Faithful Are Counted
On the following day, the Official Chronicle of the Eastern Province appeared on the great noticeboard that the realm called “the diocesan website.” It bore a most stirring title:
“In the Shadow of the Cross Lies the Light of the Resurrection.”
The Chronicle spoke of unity. Which unity, we find ourselves wondering? Surely not the unity of a bishop with the one hundred and twenty faithful standing outside in the cold — for Lord Golden Tongue did not attempt so much as a glance in their direction, let alone a word of reconciliation. But perhaps it was a different unity. A smaller, more select unity. The unity of those inside with those also inside.
The Chronicle spoke of the fullness of the Church. Of an inspiring sermon and a beautiful hierarchical Divine Liturgy. Of the Imaginary Circle of Serbian Sisters — imaginary, because the genuine Circle, like most of the genuine parish, was standing outside — who with maternal love prepared a meal of fellowship for all present. And it closed with a sentence of such breathtaking confidence that the chronicler deserves, at minimum, a prize for creative writing:
“We also thank our faithful people, who week after week fill our church and gather at the Divine Liturgy.”
Week after week. Fill our church.
Now, the Chronicle has also published a photograph. And this is where our fairy tale takes a turn toward the mathematical.
The photograph showed the gathered congregation standing before the great iconostasis. It was a handsome group. It was also, the careful observer could not help but notice, a rather small group — standing in a cathedral built to accommodate 650 souls, in front of rows upon rows of empty chairs. One further detail merits attention. The photograph was taken from the front of the cathedral, looking toward the iconostasis — a most flattering angle, as any portraitist knows. Shot from behind the group looking outward, it would have revealed the full expanse of empty space stretching to the entrance doors. Shot from the side, the vacant chairs would have dominated the frame. But from the front, the gathered cosmonauts fill the foreground handsomely, and the emptiness behind them recedes into soft, tasteful blur. The chronicler, it must be said, had an excellent eye for composition.
(We note here, for readers unfamiliar with Orthodox tradition, that our churches do not have pews. The faithful stand, as has been the custom since the earliest centuries of the Church. Chairs are provided only for the elderly and the infirm. The empty chairs in the background of the photograph therefore represent not merely absent sitters, but the absent elderly and infirm — who also, it seems, had not received the memo about the filling.)
The faithful observers of Clevelandia, being a thorough and imaginative people, examined this photograph with great care. And because the image reminded them — with its clusters of people sorted by allegiance and origin — of nothing so much as cosmonauts identified by the colors of their suits, they painted the faces accordingly, the better to count:
● Purple faces: The appointed Trusteeship, their collaborators, and relatives
● Orange faces: Local clergy, monastics, and their relatives
● Green faces: Visiting clergy and guests, arrived from the Star Cities of New York, Akron, and Canton
And there, behind the cosmonauts in their three colors, stretching back to the frescoed walls in dignified silence: the empty chairs.
The saints painted on those walls had excellent views of the proceedings.
Chapter IV: In Which We Meet the Faithful Who Fill the Church
Let us examine these faithful people with the gratitude they deserve.
There was Lady Stankorious and her Circle of Family and Kumovi — that remarkable extended family and network of godparents who materialized when the elected board was expelled, installed by Lord Golden Tongue in what canonists would later describe as a rather creative interpretation of Article 32 of the Church Constitution, which specifically forbids precisely such arrangements. But creative interpretations of church law, like cream, have a way of rising to the top in the Province of Clevelandia.
There was Brother Nektarius, who had played so prominent a role in the original arrangements that led to this happy situation, and who therefore had every reason to celebrate its continuation.
And there was Cain.
Our readers will remember Cain from an earlier tale — the priest who had walked beside Abel for three decades, shared his table for Slava, baptized children together, buried the dead together, and called him brother in Christ. The same Cain who, when Lord Golden Tongue sent him the letter, could hardly wait. Who delivered the news to Abel not with sorrow or apology but in a cold, business-like tone: “You must hand over the estate to me tomorrow.”
There he stood now, in his red cosmonaut suit, in the cathedral from which Abel had been expelled. The estate he had come to claim was his. The meal prepared with maternal love was ready. The Chronicle would thank him warmly.
Outside, Abel’s people stood in the cold. They did not begrudge Cain his warm meal. They noted only that three decades of brotherhood had proved, in the end, to be worth precisely two days’ notice and a business-like tone.
There were the Green Cosmonauts from the Star Cities — from New York, from Akron, from Canton — who had made the journey to provide that essential element of any successful Sunday liturgy: an escort.
And there were children — some local, some imported from Canton — lovely children, innocent children, children who had done nothing wrong and who will one day be old enough to look at this photograph and ask their own questions.
These, the Official Chronicle informs us, are the faithful who fill the cathedral week after week.
Outside, one hundred and twenty families stood in the cold. They were not mentioned in the Chronicle. They did not receive a meal prepared with maternal love. No one thanked them. In the official version of events, they did not exist.
Chapter V: In Which the Evening Brings Further Spiritual Enrichment
But the spiritual blessings of March 15th were not yet exhausted.
That same evening, Lord Golden Tongue made an unannounced visit to the Monastery of St. Mark, arriving — as had by now become his signature style — with a police escort.
The faithful had gathered there for Great Lenten Vespers with the beloved Father Leontije. It was the third week of Great Lent — a time of fasting, of prayer, of the quiet interior work that prepares the soul for the Resurrection. A sacred time. A fragile time. The kind of time in which an unexpected lord with a police escort is not, generally speaking, a welcome addition.
They arrived to find Lord Golden Tongue already inside, with his companions.
Some turned around in the parking lot and returned to their cars.
Some entered and left in tears.
People who had come seeking God departed having found, instead, gendarmerie.
The Official Chronicle did not mention this.
It was a separate chapter. A chapter that did not fit the narrative of unity.
Chapter VI: In Which the Chronicler Reflects on the Song
We return, at last, to the song.
Let us be honest about how it came to be attached to this occasion. The faithful of Clevelandia, having painted the faces in the photograph with their three colors — purple, orange, and green — looked at what they had created and could not help but laugh. For the painted faces looked, unmistakably, like cosmonauts. And what song does one attach to cosmonauts? There was only one possible answer.
But the song’s words, once heard, cannot be unheard:
“We are cosmonauts from the star city,we go to Mars because there is no work there.Some small, green and blue beings live there,some changes will happen quickly in our heads.”
The cosmonauts came from the Star Cities — from New York, from Akron, from Canton, from the comfortable halls of diocesan power — to a province where, from their perspective, the local inhabitants had been making rather a nuisance of themselves by insisting on things like canonical elections, transparent finances, and priests who had not been removed without cause.
They arrived. They performed the liturgy. They posed for the photograph. They ate the fellowship meal. They departed.
No one spoke to the one hundred and twenty people outside. No one offered them so much as a glance.
And the Official Chronicle was published the following day, informing all the realm that the faithful had filled the church, the Lord was present, the cross had been venerated, and all was well in the Province of Clevelandia.
“Some changes will happen quickly in our heads.”
Indeed.
Epilogue: A Note from the Chroniclers
The Official Chronicle of the Eastern Province is a document of great piety. It speaks of crosses and resurrections, of unity and light, of maternal love and blessed years. We do not doubt the sincerity with which it was written.
We note only that a chronicle which does not mention one hundred and twenty people standing outside in the cold is not a chronicle of what happened.
It is a chronicle of what someone wished had happened.
The saints in the frescoes, who had excellent views of both the inside and — spiritually speaking — the outside, will perhaps provide a more complete account in due time.
Until then, the people of Clevelandia continue to stand.
Week after week. In rain and snow and cold.
Filling not the cathedral — but the space before it. Which is, as every Orthodox Christian knows, also holy ground.
∼ The End ∼
(Or perhaps, merely the next chapter in a very long tale.)
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