A STORY OF STORNIKS

“Prepare your shields and spears, and step to fight. Horsemen, saddle your horses and mount up. Put your helmets on, sharpen your spears and dress in hauberk. But what do I see? Those got frightened and turned back. The strongest of theirs were crushed and they are running without looking back. Dread reigns everywhere, the Lord says. The fleet-footed will not get away with it. The strong will not be saved. At midnight, on the Euphrates river, they will stumble and fall.”

The earthly society had developed very strongly and was competing with the Universe’s most developed planets. God had let them develop freely, without control.

Those who ruled over peoples, namely the strong ones, became too self-confident and rebelled. They started exhorting the peoples, shyly at first, but increasingly more violently along the way, against God. The result was that they no longer abode by any law.

The civilization’s downfall began. At a certain point, the men built their Tower of Babel – tower of unfaithfulness – and pointed their arrows of involution against God. In those moments, God was very disappointed and turned His back on them and confused their languages.

Out of every bloodline, a stornik remained, namely one family in 1 000 individuals. These families of storniks, God’s seeds, continued to believe in God and did not fall into debauchery. The peoples’ leaders, the strong ones by violence and debauchery, knew the storniks and poured their wrath on them. With all their anger, they could see that they were unable to uproot the faith. The faithful were thrown to the lions, were scorned, dishonoured, tortured, but they did not betray their faith.

A king who did not have children sent thieves. They stole a male child, in his infancy, from a stornik’s house. When the thieves returned, they informed the king that a set of twins was there, but they only took what he had ordered, namely the boy, the other being a girl. The storniks bemoaned, but they did not know what had happened to their child, by whom he had been stolen and where he had got. They prayed to God to protect their infant, as He was protecting them, too.

The boy grew tall and strong, as the heir to the throne. He was fair-haired and beautiful. The education he had received from the king, whom he recollected as his father, was good for him, but not for Christianity.
The king, being old-aged died. The heir to the throne remained the storniks’ child. He became a cruel and bloody king, as he had been educated. He was waging fight after fight, war after war.

One day, after a victory, he was returning, weary, with all his armies. Morning had already broken. Close to the palace, he noticed a beautiful long-haired maiden, like a diva, by the spring. He was stunned by her beauty. He drew near and told her:
“Maiden, will you give me water from the spring?”
“Yes, your majesty”, she answered.”
The king was spellbound by the girl’s beauty and invited her to the palace, wanting her for himself. The lass lowered her gaze and answered:
“I can’t, your majesty, my wedding will be this week and I am a girl who keeps her word. We pay all the tolls to you. You have everything you want, including all the girls, but you can’t have me, because I have given my love to somebody else.”

“I give you everything you want, you will live in the palace, you’ll be like a queen.”
“I don’t want to live like a queen, your majesty, I have freedom and love.”
“You are a stornik”, the king told her.
“Yes, I am a stornik, and I am not ashamed, I am both poor and rich, but you can’t understand this.”
The king ordered that the girl be taken and his soldiers executed. He wouldn’t take no for an answer from his subjects.
In the evening, he entered the girl’s room, who had been washed and prepared for him. The maiden begged him and also prayed that he would not do anything to her, because that would be against her faith. The king would not listen and then God gave him impotency. The king felt humiliated. The girl smiled and said:
“This happened because I have faith in God.”
The king, being humiliated, drew his sword and pierced her chest. Even dead, the maiden was so beautiful, that the king admired her, still keeping her in the palace.

In the morning, as usual, he received the poor who were complaining about indignities. An elderly woman, with her hands and face tired from labours, arrived in front of him.
“Your majesty”, she told him, with tears in her eyes, I had twins, a boy and a girl. When they were a few months old, the boy was stolen. I was only left with the girl. We were about to have her wedding. Last night, she did not come back from the spring and we only found the pitcher and many hoof prints around it. Please help me to find my fondling.”
“And how was your girl, old woman?”
“A child like any other, good, well-advised”, the old woman answered. She had a birth-sign on her shoulder, a heart gifted by God. Find her for me, please, even dishonoured and dead, at least to bury her.”
“You are a stornik, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am a stornik.”
“You wouldn’t want to blame me, ask your righteous God, why have you come to me?”
“I don’t dare blame you, your majesty, the hoof prints are responsible. My God is righteous, He gave me two beautiful children and even the second is missing; however, it was not God that took them away from me, but those who have nothing to give, but only to take.”
The king got angry, sent the old woman away and went to make arrangements for the girl to be thrown into the river.

In the palace, the queen mother met him and told him:
“I want to tell you something, my son. I heard from the lodge the old woman’s entreaty. I am not long for this world; therefore, listen to me.”
And then, she recounted him everything. She also told him that those who had stolen him had been beheaded and, from their skulls, two golden chalices had been made, out of which he had been drinking wine even by then. The king, taken aback, went to the room where he had left the maiden. He removed the covers off the girl and saw the heart-shaped sign on her shoulder.
He looked in the mirror and compared it with his own birth-sign – they were identical. At the same time, the soldiers whom he had previously called entered the room.
“Your majesty, what happened to you?”
The king looked in the mirror. He was of a young age, but he was left with no blonde hair on his head. His hair had turned white. That moment, he took his sword out of its sheath, lifted it and plunged it into his heart, with the words:
“God, forgive me!”

That people has become ever since a people of storniks who spread all over the planet, because they could no longer live in that place, sinful against God. And now, God is urging them:
“Prepare your shields of divine love, your spears of human love and step to fight! Horsemen of faith, put the saddle of faith, put on your helmets of dignity and dress in hauberk! The time has come for those who believed themselves strong to see what the force of God and the force of faith mean.”
Darkness came up short, Light carried the day!

By Master Mavrino
2005