I set off to spend some time with the monks at Sergiev Posad under one of those wonderful pretexts of journalism - the ability to satisfy personal interests, while selling it to your editor as a serious story.

My companion on the trip, Arseny, is a Russian journalist (and rabid Slavophile) who, he later explained to me, regularly visits the monastery (Lavra) under the guise of working on a story.

My editor is an American-Armenian. His natural Caucasian caution forced me to tug roughly at his heart-strings about the importance of Russian Orthodoxy, its associations with the Armenian Church and even how Russia is Armenia's only friend before he would even consider it.

Somehow, under the sheer weight of these perverse arguments, he agreed.

We set off for the Lavra at 6 o'clock in the evening, bottles of Baltika in tow, and, having never had a proper conversation before, began to get to know one another on the hour-and-a-half journey.

It was a cool evening and the light was beginning to fade when we reached the gates of the monastery. But there were few people around ... as opposed to the hordes of camera-toting tourists that normally inundate Sergiev Posad.

We had come to see and speak to one of the 80-odd holy men who constitute the core of the monastery, monks who have forsaken all that is worldly to serve God.

"A monk is in a sense a martyr," explained Otets Grannitz, a university-educated monk, who also served in the Red Army before taking his vows. He now also works as an icon painter between performing his duties.

"It is a constant struggle to serve God. But it is something of which the world knows almost nothing."

The monks at Sergiev Posad live in small, concrete-walled cells that have housed their predecessors for centuries. Most of these are situated in the walls of the Lavra.

Otets Grannitz is a small man with a graying beard, quick-witted with a razor-sharp tongue. But these features were overtaken in my mind by the aura of strength of belief that seemed to flow from Grannitz.

Otets Grannitz hails from Samara, a city on the Volga, renowned for its wonderful fresh fish and cooking. Taking advantage of Grannitz's local culinary expertise, one of the younger monks was constantly knocking on his door for advice on cooking sturgeon head soup.

After the second such exchange, Grannitz told the questioning monk that it might be better if he cut off his own head and put it in the soup rather than waste a good sturgeon's.

Behind the cheerful mouse-like facade of Otets Grannitz lies the zeal of a true believer.

Being a heavy smoker, I was desperate to go outside the Lavra for a cigarette.

I was soon informed, however, that an Orthodox Christian had to be strong - Grannitz said that during his service in the army, he had been a chain smoker and that when he stopped, he felt it was like some sort of disease had afflicted him. (I agonized as I listened, knowing he was about to force me to endure the same).

"Though it is difficult to quit smoking yourself," he explained, as he made the sign of the cross over my cigarettes and lighter, "for God it is not hard," he said, as he hurled the same cigarettes and lighter against the iron bars of the window of his cell.

That was the end of that. We drank a beer with Otets Grannitz and he recounted stories of great monks in history. Being a Dostoyevsky fan, I asked whether the institution of the Starets still existed in Russia.

"Of course," he said, telling the story of a Starets in the Lavra who fought in the battle of Stalingrad. This particular monk had been involved in the bitter fight for Pavlov's house. There is even a story that this monk was the surgeon Pavlov himself.

"At the conclusion of the battle," Otets Grannitz continued, "he found a Bible in the room and began to read it. From there, he went on to become a monk in the 1950s, and now lives a totally aescetic life."

After a walk through the college, where young men study to become monks and priests - and listening to a couple of them being admonished for missing evening prayers - we headed off to sleep.

The sleeping quarters are also in the wall of the monastery and we bunked in with a couple of guys from Siberia.

We awoke the next morning at 5. Or should I say, got out of bed, having listened to a blitz of snoring and rustling from our Siberian counterparts all night.

The morning service at the monastery differs markedly from those one would normally see in a church on the weekend.

First, because at 5:30 a.m. it is cold and dark - the church lit only by candles.

Second, because rather than the magnificent singing that normally resonates through a cathedral on a Saturday or Sunday, the early morning prayer is punctuated only by a solemn chant. It is an austere environment.

The first half of the two-hour service ends with parishioners kissing the tomb containing the remains of the founder of the monastery, St. Sergius. The Saint's tomb is considered one of the holiest sites in all of Russia.

By about 6:30 a.m., the atmosphere in the church eases somewhat, as the sun shines through the transparent dome in the ceiling.

Shortly after the service concluded, the mercurial Otets Grannitz managed to arrange a brief visit to what are considered the crown jewels of the monastery. These are located behind a door adjacent to the altar in the Sergiev Cathedral.

Inside this church annex lies a stone from the tomb of the Virgin Mary and the tomb of St Nikon - a student of St. Sergius and the man who headed the monastery after its founder's death.

As we slipped through the door, two old women followed right on our heels. The annex (actually a small adjoining church) is rarely opened to the public. Normally reserved for services by the Patriarch, the babushki seized the opportunity to get a special viewing.

By that stage, it was time to leave (I had a particularly grumpy Armenian editor awaiting my return...who, incidentally is still letting out long sighs as I write this).

As I was preparing to leave (with the curled lower lip of my editor the only image in my mind), one of the Monks came striding up to us.

"Where are you going?" asked Otets Grannitz.

"To kill someone," the stern-faced monk replied.

He was in fact off to ring the bells in the giant tower and I could not refuse the opportunity to scale its heights with him. From the top, one can see the tower from which Peter the Great used to shoot ducks while hiding from his sister and her troops, who wanted to kill him.

Following this two-hour effort, I was again about to leave. But then came an opportunity to view the inside of the Patriarch's palace.

The palace is glorious - a far cry from the Spartan walls of the monk's quarters. Astride the stairs is a primitive escalator, used by the Patriarch and by President Yeltsin to make their way to the top floor of the palace.

Peasants like us use the stairs.

Inside is a magnificent gold altar from the time of Catherine the Great, a ceramic fireplace from the nineteenth century and other stunning paintings and frescoes.

But thanks to the Armenian editor, I was forced to cut my sightseeing short. I had to bid a quick and fond farewell and make a dash back to Moscow.

The editor hissed and muttered under his breath as I arrived.

This, folks, is my epitaph.