On his return to the monastery, Brother Timothy wasted no time in putting his election campaign into effect. His first visit was to the Prior, who was buried under a stack of papers all dealing with the loss of their Abbot and the problems of determining his replacement. On seeing Brother Timothy at the door, Vaclav Sembera motioned to him to enter and waved his ink stained hands over the accumulated clutter.

"I never realized just how much work there was to running our little monastery," he admitted with rueful shake of his head. "Our dear Abbot used to complain to me about the administrative load he was carrying, but I never understood, until now, what he was talking about". He pushed a small stack of documents in the direction of Brother Timothy. "I would be so grateful if you could look these over for me, and give me your impressions".

"I will do so at once," Brother Timothy told him, picking up the papers and putting them under his arm. "It is indeed a difficult job being the Abbot of even a small monastery like this, but I suppose you will have to get used to it. When you become our next Abbot, you will be doing this every day!"

"Never!" Prior Vaclav Sembera almost yelled. "Under no circumstances will I do this job for a moment longer than necessary. My needs are simple; a bed, my food and my church duties. I have no ambition of higher office".

"But so many of our colleagues speak so well of you and the way you are carrying out these difficult duties at this particularly sad occasion in our lives," Brother Timothy said smoothly. "If you were to even suggest that you would be interested in becoming our next Abbot, why, every one of us would vote for you. It would be unanimous!"

Sembera scratched his nose with his pen, leaving a slight mark, and looked at his guest suspiciously. "I hope you are not suggesting for a moment that I am doing all this work just so I can win the favor of our fellow monks".

"Oh, no - not at all!" Brother Timothy replied in mock horror. "The thought never entered my mind. But you are so well respected around here that I naturally assumed that you would accept the higher office as your right and duty".

"Well kindly disabuse yourself of that delusion," Prior Sembera said, sourly. "First, you have an inflated impression of my popularity around here. My early morning masses are hardly attended at all. Second, I do not want, or seek, any higher office, and third, the authorities would never allow a native Czech like myself to become the next Abbot. They would find some way of stopping me".

Brother Timothy pretended to be puzzled. "So," he said slowly, as if thinking of an idea for the first time, "who else would wish to become our next Abbot?"

Continuing to scratch his nose, Prior Sembera said, "I've heard that Brother Anslem is very interested in the post, and has already spoken to me about the chapter meeting in which we will vote. But I told him, not for some weeks yet. We must allow an appropriate period of mourning for Abbot Napp before even thinking of finding his successor".

"Anselm Rambousek," Brother Timothy said, almost to himself, "but he is also a Czech, would he be allowed to become Abbot?"

"He seems to think so," the Prior said, "he feels he has sufficient credentials and has not angered the authorities enough to turn them against him. But he may be dreaming, you know how impossible Brother Anslem can be at times".

They both laughed at the well known instances of Anselm Rambousek's forgetfulness, occasional lapses of memory and his well known hatred of all kinds of formal meetings. Despite the wrath of Abbot Napp descending on him at regular intervals, Anslem Rambousek frequently did not attend their local chapter meetings and avoided completely all larger social gatherings.

Then Brother Timothy continued, "Yes, you are right, the post of Abbot needs someone who can do the paperwork as well as hold the spiritual side of our lives together. I feel that our monastery has strayed somewhat in the matter of prayer. I rather like the idea of an early Matins service being re-instituted in our monastery and more pastoral work being done in our local community. We have strayed too far in the direction of science and too far away from our original mission of serving God".

A sigh escaped from the lips of the Prior. "Yes, I feel you are right, but Abbot Napp, God bless him, was much more interested in these new secular ideas of his, and his work with apples and sheep, to worry much about the catholic side of his ministry. I hope our next Abbot brings a return to these more spiritual values. Perhaps you should think about becoming our Abbot yourself?"

"I had not even thought of such a thing," Brother Timothy said, modestly lowering his head. "But if my fellow monks ever did indeed award me that honor, I would make it one of my highest priorities to bring our monastery back to the spiritual path we both find so important".

It was to the subject of their conversation, Anselm Rambousek, that Brother Timothy turned next. He found the nascent Abbot at work in his very comfortable pair of rooms near the refectory. "Brother," he said to the surprised monk, "we live in difficult times".

Anselm Rambousek was a tall, thin, dignified man who had lost most of his hair a long time ago. His face was narrow and slightly pointed but his eyes were widespread and glinted with intelligence. At times of great thought or concentration he had the habit of placing the finger of his left hand against the side of his face and tilting his whole head in that direction. It made him look slightly bird-like and the gesture was much imitated by the boys in the brewery next door.

"Brother Timothy, want brings you here?" he asked in a quiet voice that was rarely raised above a whisper.

Taking a seat by the fire, Brother Timothy put down the Prior's papers and rubbed his hands before the warming flames. "I have just returned from town," he said, not looking at the owner of the rooms. "The Bishop's Palace is buzzing with the news of two new advisory councils they are about to form. It is said that one of them will be composed of all the higher catholic leaders of Brno and will be asked to investigate the issue of Paul of Samosata and the heresy at Antioch".

It was well known around Brno that their Bishop was particularly sensitive about the degraded opinions of Bishop Paul of Samosata when he became the Bishop of Antioch. The synod from which Dionysius of Alexandria had excused himself, was a constant source of friction and debate among church historians and, as a younger man, Anton Ernst Schaffgotsche had once made a fool of himself trying to defend the position of Gregory and Athenodore, the pastors of the Pontic communities.

"Normally," Brother Timothy continued, "such a matter would have been the natural territory of Brother Joseph, who has such an interest and concern about matters of church history. However, one of the equerries at the Palace told me that the Bishop insists that the council be formed of church leaders, not scholars, and so it is to be".

Getting up from his seat, Brother Timothy collected the Prior's papers and moved towards the doorway. "I look forward to reading the council's opinion, not that it will be published soon. As with all these matters, the council will have to hold many, many meetings that will take months and months to draft the first sentence! Also, they cannot start right away since the Bishop wants the next Abbot to be part of this council, and we don't have one yet. Poor man, not only will our next leader have to sort out all the problems of our monastery, he will also be constantly at the Palace debating church history to a roomful of Priests and pastors. I don't envy him at all!"

With that Brother Timothy patted Rambousek on the shoulder and quietly made his way out of the room. Behind him the ambitions of his fellow monk suddenly took a different turn and Anslem Rambousek put his finger against his face, tilted his head, and began to reconsider his options.