Русский | rusharbin.com | Tuesday, July 6, 2004

The Gleaming Light of the Past

L. V. Sazanova (Voronova)
English Translation by Igor Radev

Dalian — my love, that was the name of an article I had wrote for the journal “Russian Atlantis” № 1. The unexpected meeting in Sydney with Volodya and Tanyusha Lyalin, remarkable people who during 1996 lived in Dalian, made me once more to engage in writing.

When Tanyusha got to know that I too lived for a long time in Dalian, she suggested to visit the daughter of Fr. Marin Korovin, who wanted to see me. I remembered Fr. Marin from the time he used to teach the Law of God in school and always was so good and fair to us.

That meeting with Galina Marinovna Filadelfovna left both of us very glad. The topic of our conversation were the recollections of the life in Dalian, while discussing the changes which took place there in the meanwhile. We continued talking about the Russian cemetery in Dalian, where her father was laid to rest, as it is also my maternal grandmother Xenia Gordeevna Kuznecova and my little cousin Tamarochka. With pain I found out that there was nothing left from the Russian Orthodox cemetery, excluding the Russian military burial ground where Soviet soldiers killed in 1945 lie buried. There were also some beds of honour left from the Russo-Japanese War of 1904.   

Nowadays there isn’t the beautiful and so welcoming church of Archangel Michael, where I and Alyosha got married. The priest of that church from 1943 till 1953 was Fr. Marin. On its place a building was erected, apparently an office structure managing the cemetery.

Galina Marionovna recounted how the tombstone was built at the grave of Fr Marin which was discovered by Tanya and Volodya Lyalin. Having just the address, they with much effort located the cemetery, which was made even more difficult by the fact that the city has spread so much that the cemetery was not any more in the suburbs but in the middle of an urbanized zone.

 “I remember how on the day Fr Marin reposed, at the crossroad near the cemetery gates, the Chinese neighbors burnt offering paper for him according to their custom.” — recalled Galina Marinovna. “After that, there came a delegation of five or six elder Chinese men in reputable attire, who solemnly paid their last respect in the church when there wasn't a service.”

In the middle of the abandoned cemetery which was all overgrown with grass, we, by accident, approached a half-broken tombstone with a broken cross, but whose inscription was still intact saying: “Archpriest Fr Marin Korovin”. Not long after Dalian was visited by Helen, the wife of Fr Marin's grandson, Nikolai Penyazev, who after paying a visit to the local Military Command, succeeded to obtain a permission to renovate the tombstone. That's how, now in Dalian, the renovated tombstone of Archpriest Marin Aleksandrovich Korovin's tomb on the military cemetery under the care of the Chinese Ministry of History and Culture and the Military Command, is standing anew.

Just before parting with that remarkably sweet and gentle woman, I asked her to write something on the life of Fr. Marin, in order to keep his name in esteem and preserve the memory of him. Galina Marinovna Filadelfova answered my plea, and thus sent me photographs and the biography of Fr. Marin, which I, with gratitude, am presenting it before the reader.

The Life Path of Archpriest Fr. Marin Korovin

Fr. Marin Korovin was born in 1884 in the town of Solikamsk of the Perm Prefecture into a priestly family — his father, grandfather and great grandfather were all priests. After finishing the Perm Seminary, he took the position of a teacher in the two-grade school of Solikamsk and in one private school. For a time he attended summer lectures for teachers at Saint Petersburg Imperial University at the Natural Sciences Department. In 1915 he was made a deacon, and then consecrated a priest, when he was also appointed a caretaker of the cemetery church of Osa in Perm Prefecture. In the same town he taught religion at the Osa Secondary School. Soon after, he along with the other refugees fallowing the withdrawing White Army, came to Chita, where he was appointed a serving priest in the Cathedral church. 

After the evacuation of the White Army, he along with his family, moved to Manchuria. The crossing of the border was somewhat unusual. At the railway depot a locomotive motorman and his friend, a stoker, had misgivings about the new government, so they have decided to make their way to Manchuria. Through some acquaintances of their, they gave notice to two priests that they too could go with them on the locomotive. Fr. Marin had a family at that time — a wife and two children of four and six, and the Old Believer priest had none. In that frosty dark night they all rode the locomotive. Us, the children, the motorman, out of pity, took with himself at the motor compartment, while the two priests and the presbytera spent the night above the pile of coal. It was cold and frightening from the anticipation… After crossing the border in the morning, we bid farewell and took to our new lives in the new land.  

At the Manzhouli station Fr. Marin took the service at St Seraphim church. In 1922 he and his family moved to Harbin and served at the city Cathedral, and along with that, he was also appointed headmaster of the Cathedral school located at the Moscow Row, where later a museum was established. Thanks to his efforts a makeshift church was built where services were celebrated on Feast days. Most often these services were attended by foreigners married to Orthodox wives, which was especially true on Pascha night, in order to avoid the crowds at the Cathedral.

After finishing his theological education, Fr. Marin taught the Law of God at the secondary schools of M. Oskakovska, M. S. Generozova, the schools of Songhua town and Gondatevka, at the Harbin Spiritual Seminary and other educational institutions. After graduating from the Theological Faculty of St Vladimir Institute, he received his degree in Divinity.

During the ensuing 18 years at the Iveron church, he served as a priest, a choir leader for the early Liturgy, clerk at the Parish council in charge of the economical-technical department (electric lighting, repair of smaller malfunctions).

Having been gifted with a good natural voice, Fr. Marin sang in many Church choirs, among them in the Archdiocesan choir in Perm. During the withdrawal of the White Army he sang in the military choir of General Mihailov regiment at the concerts for the wounded, and also took part in the famous choir of P. E. Stepanov under the guidance of the military chaplain Fr. A. Rusecki in Chita.

The numerous students of the schools and gymnasiums, where he used to teach, the faithful, the parishioners and public workers, they all highly respected and endeared Fr. Marin. Till today, there are still unfamiliar people coming to me and saying that they remember their teacher of the Law of God, Fr. Marin.  

He loved animals a lot, so in our yard there were always goats, geese and dogs. Once, Fr. Marin bought a puppy for only ten pence from some Chinese kids who intended to drown it in a ditch. It came to be a faithful dog always accompanying him. After his funeral, it didn’t come back home, but instead, spent the night at the tomb of its master. 

The last ten years of his life, Fr. Marin served in Dalian. He reposed on July 3, 1953, and was buried at the military cemetery.

Together with his family and those close to Fr. Marin Korovin, we too express our gratitude to all who helped in the renewal of the tombstone belonging to this humble priest of the Russian Orthodox Church and which stands on his resting place in faraway China.

And the city of Dalian, my love, is becoming better and better getting all built up. There is now architecture constructed in the Chinese national style…

Let it be God's will that everyone would build and not destroy!