I went to the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul on what was Palm Sunday here. In England it was Easter Sunday, which is the first difference between the Orthodox and Protestant churches. Orthodox churches are a week behind as they follow a different calendar. It’s also called Вербное Воскресенье (or Willow Sunday) over here because, let’s face it, palms are hard to come by in Siberia and willow is also the first plant to flower in spring. This is what I was told at any rate; there may be other significances to using willow. We also didn’t have any kind of procession into the church which made me miss the Palm Sunday services of home, where we’d wave palm branches, sing, bang drums and generally make a lot of noise along the high street and into church.
What we did have on the way into the church were several people selling willow and even more people lining the street begging. I suppose it is potentially true that religious people are more generous or willing to give money to beggars; this is at least what the homeless people of Tomsk seemed to think. The other thing that was noticeable on the way into church was the building itself, because it had three large gold and silver gilded domes. I don’t know if this is a feature I’ll see at other churches but this church was certainly striking as the domes caught the light. The third noticeable thing before actually getting inside the church was how much people were crossing themselves: before going up the steps, before crossing the threshold and then before entering the church proper.
I was struck by how many people there seemed to be, I was told that because it was a special day there were a lot more people that usual but there was also an awful lot of movement. People were buying candles and other things from the shops either side of the main entrance and people were also coming and going a lot. There generally seemed to be a lot of disorder and people were free to wander around the church during the service. This was mostly in order to get to icons to place candles in front of them. The icons were also kissed and some people touched their foreheads to them and crossed themselves. The fact that there were no pews and the whole service was conducted with people standing made the moving about easier though.
All the women also had their heads covered, be it with a head scarf or a hat, even female babies and toddlers, which I imagine must have got quite warm. I’d bought a scarf especially for church, which to be honest I was far too excited about owning, whether I liked having my head covered or not. It’s one of those things that someone will have to explain the significance of to me; otherwise I will just end up being indignant at the fact that men don’t seem to have to do anything. I could probably apply this feeling to many aspects of the Orthodox Church to be honest because there’s quite a lot that’s different to what I know from home and does seem strange to me.
For example the service being in the Old Slavic language, which even the Russians don’t necessarily understand, seems to me very strange but then I suppose it’s very much comparable to Catholic services being in Latin. I found communion stranger to be honest because very few people other than babies, toddlers and the elderly seemed to receive it. I didn’t ask the person I was with about this, but perhaps it was because there were simply too many people there. Children seemed to be receiving communion whether they wanted to or not and there was an awful lot of crying. People first had the bread and the wine together on a spoon, then a priest wiped their mouth with a red cloth and they kissed the chalice. After this they moved off to one side, drank some water and ate more bread, I actually saw one crying child tipped up to be given water before being righted to continue crying.
At the end of the service everyone surged forward, holding their willow aloft in order to have it sprayed with holy water by the priest. He used a large brush which managed to throw a fairly hefty amount of water into the congregation with each flick, so everyone got rather wet. After this there was even more pushing forwards as every person came to the front to kiss the cross that the priest was holding. As he held it he seemed to be giving some kind of sermon and occasionally spraying more water on the willow branches that people were holding.
So that was my first experience with the Orthodox Church. I realise that this blog is hardly informative and that if you’re looking for real information on the Orthodox Church you should probably check Wikipedia, as I only ever seem to list things that I see in this blog. However this time I’m wary of passing judgement I think. I am certainly no-one to say what’s right or wrong in religion and I’m not going to condemn the Orthodox Church just for being different to my church in England. As ever religion is a personal matter and there’s only one person qualified to pass judgement on it. I hope you’ve been vaguely entertained by the events listed here though. Next time’s blog will hopefully be all about Easter and even if you’re not religious, the cultural comparison should still be interesting.
Until next time then.
that all sounds fascinating - I didn't know that the service was in Old Slavic. Is that the case with every service? Cos Catholic churches now tend to have the majority of their services in the vernacular, with maybe one Sunday mass in Latin, if that.
ReplyDeleteFascinating account. I envy you the expereience even if parts of it were incomprehensible (and not just linguistically).
ReplyDeleteThe covered head thing can be explained theologically. In one of his letters to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul upbraids (pun intended) some of the women there for attending services with their long hair uncovered. This was deemed to be unseemly behaviour and paul's strict instruction is that the women should cover their heads as a show of modesty. From such injunction has grown the tradition for women to wear hats or headscarves in church. Certainly during my childhood this was the custom and not just in Catholic churches) although it is now followed much less religiously (second intended pun!).
Looking forward to reading what you have to say about an Orthodox Easter.