Chapter Eight
Now Joshua said to Achan, "My son, I beg you, give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession to Him, and tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me."
Joshua 7:19
Silas went to bed that night with fresh bandages on again. Diggory hadn't asked him any further questions about Opus Dei since he discovered the scars on Silas' back but he told him stories about his day at the hospital and about his kids. It was a window in another world, a glimpse of a normal life. Silas hadn't had much contact with people with normal lives. He had known only street kids and jail birds like himself. Then he had been quite isolated in many ways within the Opus Dei community. Assassins were not encouraged to socialize.
He had tried to pray the rosary before going to bed but had only got through one decade before the drugs overcame him and he fell asleep. He slept soundly through the night with the rosary still in his hand and woke up in time to have breakfast with Sennett. He realized that he was already getting into a small routine.
"Do you remember that you told me there would be people in the Church who would protect me from Opus Dei?" Silas said hesitantly over breakfast. He was still unused to starting a conversation.
Sennett nodded.
"Do you think I could find a Confessor?" he asked tensely, putting down his spoon and clenching his white hands into fists.
Sennett looked at him thoughtfully as she ran possibilities through her mind. It was obvious to her that having the opportunity to go to Confession was very important to Silas emotionally.
"I think it would be dangerous to approach a Catholic priest in London, particularly at the moment," Sennett said honestly, "I really don't know any priest well enough to know their views on Opus Dei. It might seem odd if I started questioning them now."
Silas nodded. He knew she was right to be cautious but he was disappointed. He desperately wanted absolution.
"I do know a Russian Orthodox Bishop quite well who you would be safe confessing to. There would definitely be no ties to Opus Dei there. Would you accept an Orthodox Bishop?" she asked.
"I don't know a lot about the Orthodox," Silas confessed, a bit shame-faced. Opus Dei was not terribly interested in the Ecumenical movement. They believed they had the corner on truth, particularly Christian truth. His broader education had been so neglected growing up, that he didn't even have an insight into Orthodoxy from that.
"Okay," Sennett said meditatively, "Let's say that there is a continuum within the Christian faith from Conservative to Liberal. Let's say that Opus Dei is right at the far end of the Conservative end and the Catholic Church is just on the Conservative side of the middle and Liberal Protestantism is right at the opposite end to Opus Dei."
Silas nodded. He was good at visualizing and Sennett was explaining in a way that made it easy for him.
"Well, Orthodoxy would be somewhere between Opus Dei and Catholicism but probably closer to Catholicism. I always say that Orthodoxy is just Catholicism to the power of 10," she said with a small smile.
"More conservative than the mainstream of the Catholic Church?" Silas pondered aloud.
"But nothing like as rigid as Opus Dei," Sennett confirmed.
"What about doctrinally?" Silas asked cautiously.
"Almost identical," Sennett shrugged, "We say the same prayers, have a similar order of Mass, read the same Bible, have identical sacraments, even the structure of their parishes and authorities is similar. They have their own Pope who meets with the Catholic Pope at Ecumenical gatherings. The only Christian Churches who are closer in doctrine and practice are the Episcoplians and perhaps the High Anglican, really."
Silas was silent as he wrestled with this problem. He was used to only recognizing the authority of the Catholic Church and the Opus Dei hierarchy in particular. On the other hand, if Sennett trusted this Russian Orthodox Bishop then perhaps he should too. After all, Sennett obviously knew far more about the broader picture of the Christian faith than he did.
"How do you know this Bishop?" Silas asked curiously.
"It's a funny story," Sennett said with a shrug, "I keep a journal on-line. There are a lot of Christians and non-Christians out there interested in my work and who I can swap ideas with. This Bishop, his name is Seraphim by the way, joined my friends list on my journal one day. I didn't know anything about him at all, much less that he was a Russian Orthodox Bishop. He was such an unusually gentle, humble, wise man and I used to enjoy his journal entries so much that we got to know each other quite well. Then I noticed his other friends on-line were calling him 'master' which I thought was odd. So I asked him about it and it turned out he was a Bishop! 'Master' is a very rough English translation of a Russian word that the Orthodox use to address their Bishops. You could have knocked me down with a feather! Of course, I wasn't exactly in awe of him having gotten to know him before I realized his authority which turned out to be a good thing. It also turned out that he lives in London," Sennett said with a shrug.
"What is a on-line journal?" Silas asked blankly.
Sennett sighed to herself. Sometimes talking to Silas was like trying to make yourself understood by an alien.
"It's a diary that you keep on the internet. Other people can link their diaries to yours so you can all keep in touch and share ideas," Sennett explained.
Silas reflected that this was a wonderful way to have as little or as much contact as you wished with others.
"You trust this Bishop?" Silas asked warily.
"He is one of the few people I have met in my life that I would trust without any hesitation at all. I would trust him with my greatest secrets," Sennett said truthfully.
"You have a lot of secrets," Silas replied meditatively.
"So do you," Sennett rejoined. After a pause she added, "Let me know if you want to see the Bishop some time. I'm sure he would come around to visit you here. After all, you're not up to going out. It probably wouldn't be wise anyway."
Silas reflected that having choices was not easy. In Opus Dei he didn't have many choices. Now he had to make choices and he wasn't sure of anything. He didn't know enough about the world outside Opus Dei to make choices in an informed way. Once again, he found himself in the position of having to trust someone.
"Why don't you do some reading about Orthodoxy before deciding?" Sennett said, as though reading his mind.
She got up and went over to the bookshelves and picked out some heavy texts. She brought them back to the table and flicked through them one by one, marking pages with the dust cover or scraps of paper from a notebook on the table.
"Have you used the internet before?" Sennett asked.
Silas nodded. The access was very restricted at Opus Dei but he had more freedom than most. Assassins had to have certain knowledge before they went on assignment.
Sennett went over to her laptop on a small desk in the corner of the lounge. She logged on and left it open for Silas to use.
"There you go," she said, coming back to the table and picking up her bag, "Have a good day," she added as she left for work.
Silas went over to the laptop, taking a chair with him. He sat down and went to the Google Home Page. Hesitating slightly, he typed in "Russian Orthodoxy" and was amazed at how many hits he got. He was used to the restricted access of Opus Dei.
With dawning realization, Silas realized that he now had access to almost anything in the world that he wanted to know. He could even research possible Orders to join once he was finished healing.
With a feeling of anticipation and excitement, he clicked on the first link.
Later, Silas began to wonder if he wanted to become Orthodox. It was such a beautiful Denomination of Christianity with its mysterious icons, rich cathedrals, complex prayers and rituals, and formal and reverential approach to worshipping God. There was a romance about it that appealed to Silas' imagination and a formality that appealed to his ascetic nature.
He was beginning to feel sleepy again and reluctantly he went and lay down in his room. As he drifted off, images of golden cathedrals and incense smoke played inside his head. Without realizing it, he had already made the decision to see the Bishop.
That night when Sennett came in, she found Silas reading one of the books she had left out for him. There was a pile on the coffee table, so he had obviously been doing a lot of reading. His colourless eyebrows were drawn together in a frown of concentration as he read and Sennett noticed that he was still wearing his hood like a cowl over his pale head.
"Hey," she said quietly as she came in.
Silas glanced up to return the greeting when he noticed for the first time that Sennett looked tired. It was a bit of a shock to him. He hadn't realized that the week may have taken a toll on her.
"Are you alright?" he asked immediately without thinking.
She just nodded a smiled tiredly, "Just a little tired."
Silas contemplated that she looked more than just a little tired, she looked exhausted.
Over dinner, Silas had a question for Sennett. He always seemed to have questions for her. He had come to trust the information she gave him, particularly as she never seemed interested in forcing or even asking him to do anything. Sennett didn't seem to have the agendas that everyone else he had ever met did.
In this instance, her education would give him a very informed and balanced answer to his question.
"Have you ever heard of the Priory of Sion?" Silas asked tentatively in a hushed voice. He was afraid to say it too loud even here in Sennett's flat.
Sennett rolled her eyes, "Not that load of old rubbish," she said dismissively.
Silas' strange eyes widened. Why didn't Sennett with all her knowledge of church history and theology know of the huge threat the Priory posed to the survival of the Catholic Church? Why was she so indifferent?
"What do you know about them?" he asked cautiously in his deep, rasping voice.
Sennett shrugged, "There isn't a great deal of accurate historical information about them. Many historians say they never really existed and were a hoax perpetuated by the French Pretender, Pierre Plantard; a story moreover that has been verified by Plantard's own family recently. The theory goes that the Knights Templar were the Priory's military arm. The Templars were supposedly guarding something but what that was is anyone's guess. The romantics like to think it was the Holy Grail, the chalice at Christ's Last Supper but that's highly unlikely. The Pope squashed the Knights Templar in 1307, probably because they were too powerful and the Vatican didn't like any challenge to its political power in those days. The Inquisition was gathering force at around that time too, and the Cathars and other sects were being persecuted.
"There are modern scholars (and I use the term loosely) who think the Holy Grail the Templars were guarding is actually the secret of the bloodline of Jesus Christ Himself, and His family down through the centuaries. They suggest that Jesus married Mary Magdalene. They use some apocryphal gospels to support their theories and for some bizarre reason, the paintings of Leonardo Da Vinci. The verdict of historians is that these theories are little more than a series of guesses. It would make a great novel though, don't you think?" Sennett said.
Silas felt off-balance and stunned. Some large part of himself was crumbling and being washed away like sand on a beach. All these things he had been told, all these things he had killed for – they were only theories and suppositions unsupported by historical evidence? A well educated scholar like Sennett thought they were a joke and not worth taking seriously?
Had he really hunted down some poor woman and persecuted her; held a knife to her throat and pushed her to the ground for something that wasn't even true?
Silas had to know. He took a risk.
"What if I was to tell you that I met the four guardians of the Priory of Sion? That they do exist? What if I told you I had met the descendent of Jesus and Mary Magdelene?" he said in a voice so low, Sennett could barely hear.