From the very beginning, Lapvona demonstrates that the villagers equate suffering with salvation. Life in the village is dangerous and violent: In the spring, the villagers are raided by bandits who kill innocents and steal their meager provisions, while in the summer they endure a drought that kills half the population. The villagers cope with this harsh reality by believing that their suffering brings them closer to God.

The villagers’ heavily Christian environment lends some fodder to this idea, as Christianity teaches that Jesus endured torture and death to save humanity from its sins. However, their understanding of their religion is incomplete, as Jude’s reflections on Christmas make clear: “Jude and Marek didn’t know the story of the census, or that Christmas marked the birth of Jesus. Jude had thought that the reason Jesus was so revered was that He had been so brutally punished by soldiers on Christmas” (257). Lapvona’s idea of Christianity is therefore stripped of any consolatory elements and reduced to a mere celebration of suffering. This is probably by design: The corrupt Father Barnabas encourages the equation of hardship and holiness to manipulate and subjugate the villagers, encouraging them to embrace their bleak circumstances.