The week started with illness. I told last week how I went to the doctor. Although my condition improved somewhat after starting the cortisone, I remained really concerned, as I know the course of this illness, as I have carried it with me from my childhood and it plagues me at least 3 – 4 times a year, and more often since I’ve had Covid. The last time I had it was a few weeks before I left for Moscow, and that required more than a month and a two-and-a-half week course of cortisone to resolve.
On Sunday we attended a Liturgy presided over by Metropolitan Euphemy. This was very interesting to see, as he brought his own acolytes and deacons to help him celebrate and of course there were significant changes to the Liturgy – although you should not ask me now what they were! Afterwards we had lunch together and then yet another discussion group with young people eager to know about us, our countries and our way to Orthodoxy.
Although I remained ill, I became acutely aware overnight that many people were praying for me. Word had apparently spread amongst the seminarians about my condition, for I was asked repeatedly in broken English how my lungs were. And on Monday morning my lungs felt sufficiently better for me to slightly reduce my dosage of cortisone.
After breakfast I went to the doctor at the monastery again. The upshot of this visit – which consisted of a lengthy discussion between the student who was my interpreter and the doctor, but no examination of myself – was that I needed an ‘ambulance’ and had to go at once. This alarming news, when treated to a few questions, revealed that what I needed was not an ‘ambulance’ but a ‘hospital’ – scarcely more reassuring! But further cross examination of my interpreter made clear that the doctor was of the view that I need the attention of a doctor who could properly treat me, if needed, as the monastery doctor could not give prescription medication at the monastery, nor do the proper tests, if required.
And so off we went to Hospital of St. Maximos, which treats clerics and fledgeling Orthodox pilgrims from Africa. We sat in passages for the remainder of the morning, waiting for the doctor to see us.
The man who saw us eventually was a dour, reticent, bearded man – a true northern European. He took careful notes, then listened to my lungs and declared that my health was fine, that I could take another battery of tests if I wanted, but that it was not really required; and that I could continue to taper the cortisone.
And truly, I have been miraculously cured. My lungs complained for a day or so more, but really they were healed. I still don’t know exactly what to make of it, but there is no explanation for it from my previous experience.
On the way back from the hospital we stopped at a supermarket and I got a first glimpse of ordinary Russian life. Because what people buy illustrate what they need and desire, and (unfortunately to a decreasing extent) something of their culture. Thus you won’t find koeksisters in Russia, but you will find some unique pastries.
The supermarket was uninspiring but I did manage to get nice chocolates, although I must confess we have better chocolates in South Africa than in this particular supermarket!
On Tuesday, after a Liturgy in the morning and a day of nonstop lectures, we started the first of the Vigil services, a three hour affair which I cannot for the life of me see being performed in Afrikaans (or in the rest of Africa, for that matter) for the next 50 years. And at the end of this, we arrived at the monastery to find all the food for supper finished by the seminarians. We had supper eventually in the monastery’s café and was then given yet another set of forms to fill out with screaming urgency. These forms were, to my reckoning, the 5th such set of forms over the past 6 months, all requiring basically the same information, most of it irrelevant as far as I could see. As you might have noticed, Tuesday was not a good day.
But the Lord is gracious and good. Wednesday morning I went down to the Old Church for morning prayers at seven. After venerating the relics of St. Mary of Egypt and lighting a candle for my priest, I went down into the crypt to do my own morning prayers. It is a small, intimate space, dark and quiet. I stand there praying through my prayer rule, whilst in the Church above me the morning prayers in Russian are intoned. I know when they are almost finished when the seminarians and monks start singing. I go to the Church and venerate my favourite saints. Then I feel ready for the day.
I cannot really bring it under words exactly, but I have a pervasive sense here in Moscow that I am being carried by people’s prayers. Each of us have moments when we feel intensely conscious of God’s presence. But here I feel more consciously blessed and for a longer period, than I have ever felt in my life.
After breakfast we were supposed to be given a demonstration of bell-ringing. But the bell-ringer fell sick and the remainder of the morning I spent peacefully reading. After this our group was interviewed yet again, this time individually by a journalist of a church magazine. He asked many questions, a number of them quite interesting. And afterwards I had a series of delightful conversations, with a missiologist, a priest who in a previous (Jesuit) life was vice-rector of the Vatican university, and the journalist. We talked about missions and why they succeed or fail, and what would cause them to endure. It is a question which as vexed me for years. I discovered that these people, so close to the heart of the Russian Orthodox Church and with access to some of the best literature about Orthodox thinking, also don’t have answers. It is strangely comforting.
In the days that follow I also discuss the question with a professor of history, who specialises in Russian Orthodox Church history and its interplay with Russian politics over the centuries. He identifies one of the problems as the degree to which a church is identified with a particular state, because the fortunes of the church will wax and wane with the fortunes of the state. It is for this reason that the wonderful missionary work done by St. Nicholas of Japan has not lasted – the mission today is half of what it was upon his death: as Japanese nationalism rose and Japan came into conflict with Russia, the Orthodox Church was seen as an extension of Russia and people turned away from it.
This critical insight is one which ties in with another idea, namely that Orthodoxy is (also) a culture, which influences the culture of the country in which it is practised and is in turn influenced by it. Thus the Romanian Orthodoxy differs from Greek Orthodoxy, which in turn differs from Georgian Orthodoxy, and so on. But the true Orthodox culture remains, although it is of course not so easy to define it.
And whilst we should develop a unique South African Orthodox culture, we should take the utmost care to bind it too closely to Russian culture on the one hand, or to South African culture on the other.
The next day we visited the Convent of St. Martha and Mary, which was founded by St. Elizabeth the New Martyr. She was a royal and a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, whose husband Sergei as killed in a terrorist attack, after which she became a nun, started a convent devoted to helping orphans and the poor, and was eventually murdered by the Bolsheviks by being thrown down a deep mineshaft. Although our tour was quite rushed, it nonetheless made a deep impression on me and instilled in me a desire to get to know her better. We have been promised a more leisurely visit in future. I hope it materialises.
We have begun to do more practical training and I find this interesting and useful. I’m afraid the more theoretical lectures and history lessons did not blow my hair back – but then I’ve always hated lectures, even as a student (when I could find the time in my hectic social schedule to attend them). We will be required in future to present a lecture each. Yawn.
The most exciting experiences in Moscow remain my conversations with different people: about their fields of specialisation, about the situation in Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church, and about their experience of their faith. On Saturday afternoon I went out to . . . is it dinner or supper when it’s already dark but only 5 o’clock in the afternoon? . . . with Olga and Vasilly, who came to collect me at the airport. Vasilly spent 20 years at a monastery as a novice, hoping to be tonsured a monk, but God had other plans! Unfortunately he does not speak English at all. Olga is a devout Orthodox woman but works in a very large building with hundreds of atheist scientists. And I learnt this week that only about 30% of Russians belong to the Russian Orthodox Church. 30% of Russians would describe themselves as Christians but will have nothing to do with organised religion, about 30% are atheists, and a further 10% belong to other faiths.
The impression of Russia – and Moscow – as a diverse society is also continually brought home to me in the faces of the people I meet. Some of them are clearly eastern, whilst some look like Vikings!
My week ended on a high note with a South African visit, when Peter Hamilton’s son Viktor met up with me on Sunday. We spent a glorious afternoon comprising of several cups of tea, a long, interesting walk around the centre of Moscow visiting, amongst others, the Christmas market on the Red Square, the Museon sculpture park and GUM, the very upmarket department store (where we ate the famous Soviet ice cream) – and very interesting conversations about . . . well, ‘life, the universe and everything’. I felt like a student again!
As previously, I conclude with a number of photographs:
