Found Objects

We keep the church open every Saturday from the end of June until the end of August for the benefit of whoever wants to come in and have a look. Two volunteers per Saturday, and today it was my turn. Our “CHURCH OPEN” sign couldn’t face both sides that people were likely to come from at once, so I ran upstairs and printed a “CHURCH OPEN, Welcome!” sign to tape to the open door on the other side. Still, about half the people who came in asked “may I come in? may I have a look around?”

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We’d expected a very quiet Saturday because it was between events —last week when there was a large theatre festival going on the church had about three hundred visitors— and indeed, five in the first hour seemed to point that way, but after five and a half hours the tally was seventy-one. We opened five minutes early because we’d done everything, and closed twenty-five minutes late because people kept coming in as we turned off the lights. In between there was a constant trickle; I think I read about four pages of The Fellowship of the Ring in overlapping ten-line installments.

About half the people hadn’t expected a church to be in this spot, masquerading as a shop among shops. Several people who passed the church almost every day had never noticed that it was in fact a church until they saw the CHURCH OPEN signs. Some thought it was a conventicle, to hide from… well, the Reformation, I suppose; in fact we do have the remnants of an old conventicle in the cellar, but our church is a converted shop (which was a converted smithy before) and it’s far from secret, we don’t have the CHURCH OPEN signs for nothing.

One woman thought we were orthodox Jewish and didn’t accept my word that we were no more Jewish than any other Christian church, probably because she was stuck on the word ‘orthodox’. One woman wouldn’t believe that we weren’t all Russians, that it wasn’t a church for only Russians, that I wasn’t of Russian descent and that our priest isn’t a Russian; each of these after I’d denied the previous one.

One man asked “does Moscow make you change much?” because he’d been talking to someone from a Patriarchate of Moscow parish where the patriarchate has indeed forced the parish to become much more culturally-Russian. When I said “Moscow has nothing to say here, we’re with Constantinople” he said “Good for you” with obvious relief.

Several people thought the church was a museum or an exhibit, “do you still have services here occasionally?” and went “Really?” with astonishment verging on disbelief when I told them that we have services every Saturday, every Sunday and on at least the eve of every major feast.

The man who asked “do those stairs lead to the organ?” was equally astonished when I said, completely truthfully, “no, to the office and the library”.

One woman supposed, when I told her that the choir sings the whole service and the congregation only things they know by heart like “Lord, have mercy” and the Lord’s Prayer, that the rest of the time they “wait and listen” (wait? for what? the Apocalypse?). Another woman assumed that the choir stood behind the iconostasis, though the choir platform with a book on the music stand was in plain view.

A couple asked “does your priest stand with his back to the audience?” and I stood in front of them facing the altar to show that he has to stand with his back to the rest of the people, of course, because he happens to be in front while we’re all facing the same way. And we have no audience as such, unless we cast God in that role.

Some people pitied us for having to stand for an hour and a half in the service and thought we were mistreating the congregation for not providing enough chairs. One thought people brought their own chairs, like in the seventeenth century. One woman accused us of cruelty to children because we don’t have a dumbed-down children’s service.

One of the last people to come in was Tertia’s math teacher; I had a nice conversation with her about the similarities between math and religion (both are about structure).

I’m too tired to go to church now, especially as I promised to turn up at half past eight tomorrow to help set up the baptismal font.