Russian Life To-day

by Bp. Herbert Bury

I hope it will not be uninteresting now if, as they are not many in number, I describe briefly the places where English Church work is carried on in Russia, and give some characteristic service at each.

At Petrograd the British Church, with the parsonage, library, and a number of other suites of rooms, is a great block of buildings, formerly a palace, owned and maintained by the British Factory, and with a staff of three clergy. The church is the former ballroom of the palace, and is a classical basilica, with rows of Greek pillars and capitals, and a very impressive place of worship. If I single out one of the beautiful services I have known I shall choose the Evensong on the Feast of the Epiphany last year, when I preached on the last day of my stay, and had what one might call a Sunday congregation. It was grand to see that large congregation on a weekday, so far away from home.

The Bishop and Russian Chauffeur in the midst of the Steppes on the way to Atbazar.

Three other places are served from Petrograd—Helsingfors, Narva, and Schlusselberg. Helsingfors has a small community of girls engaged in teaching and nursing, and the one Englishman who lives there with his wife, a Mr. Reid, is a Professor of English in the Finn University. One has to go there and return during the night, and during my day there I had a Confirmation in the Art School, most carefully and reverently prepared, and in the evening Mr. and Mrs. Reid had all the girls for a reception, at which I was able to chat with them individually and speak to them about the important and responsible trust they had in being allowed to lay the foundations of character in young lives. At midnight they were all on the station to say good-bye, bright English girls with sparkling eyes and happy faces. Who could not go away deeply thankful that they were not allowed to feel in that remote place that they were forgotten by their Church?

Narva is a great manufacturing community with a large staff of Englishmen, also a long journey away, and it so happens that they are nearly all Nonconformists there, but they value our services, and enjoyed mine with them, followed as it was by a special evening of music and recitations, about sixty being present.

Schlusselberg is a large factory for printing cotton goods for Asia, half a day’s journey up the Neva, where we always have an evening service followed by Holy Communion next morning. It is the only place I have yet known where all the community, about forty, have been present at the evening service, and next morning been all present again as communicants, but with one added to their number, a man who had been away the night before.

Moscow has a church and parsonage and large courtyard, as will be seen in the illustration; almost startlingly like, it seems in that ancient capital, to a bit of a London suburb. But as I saw it on Christmas Eve last year it was Russian enough, the great courtyard was full of troikas and sledges, and the clear air musical with tinkling bells as the people came driving in from far and near, clad in warm furs, for the service. That Christmas Eve, with its carols and the old hymns, helped one to realize what it means to have an English church and clergyman in a community like that of Moscow. The chaplain conducts all the services, does all the work of the community, and visits over a large neighbourhood outside, single-handed.

Warsaw is the next capital to take, much before us of late, and perhaps with a great place yet to fill in future history. It is the centre of Christian work amongst the Russian Jews, as I shall have to explain more at length in my next chapter; but there is also a British community to whom the chaplain ministers, and which perhaps numbers, all told, about a hundred, with one or two outlying places reckoned in. The service I remember most at Warsaw, and shall always associate with it, was the dedication or consecration—the two abroad mean the same thing—of their church. We had it on a Sunday morning, with a very large congregation, and very impressive it was to take, so far away, as our little copies of the service told us, “The Order of Consecration as used in the Diocese of London.” There were some Old Catholics present, and they were deeply impressed with the scriptural character of a service which carried us back to the days of David and Solomon. I dare say it was true of all there, as one of them said, that they had never seen the consecration of a church of their own before, and had had to come to Russia for it when they did.