The Alhambra and the Kremlin: The South and the North of Europe

by Samuel Irenæus Prime

But this church is not the wonder of the city. You must go with us to the Isaac Cathedral, whose gilded dome has attracted our eye from every part of the city, and whose glittering cross above the crescent we have studied with an opera-glass, again and again, at a distance. Peter the Great built a church of wood just here, and Catharine another when the first was destroyed, but that gave way to this glorious pile, which was forty years in building, and was completed in 1858. It is far more imposing in its external appearance than St. Peter’s. Its proportions are perfect and stupendous. Like all other Greek churches, it is four square and in the form of the Greek cross. A grand entrance on each side is approached by a broad flight of red granite steps, vast blocks of stone from the quarries of Finland. Each flight of steps is surmounted by a peristyle, each pillar of which is sixty feet high, one solid, polished, red granite column! Above them, thirty pillars support the central cupola, and on the crown of this vast hovering cupola is a miniature of the temple below, a beautiful finish to the whole, on the summit of which stands the shining cross.

Within, the splendor is amazing. Think of columns of solid malachite fifty feet high! A bit of this stone is a gem to be set in gold for an ornament on a lady’s dress. But here it is in lofty pillars, and steps for altars, with lesser pillars of lapis lazuli standing near. The worship is in the form and manner of the Greek Church, and is strikingly Oriental, more so than that we see in the Church of Rome. Men and women not merely bow and kneel and cross themselves, touching their fingers to their foreheads and breasts, but they prostrate themselves with their faces on the cold stone floor, and lie there as if dead. Women thus lying in a heap looked more like a bundle of rags or old clothes, than human beings worshipping the Almighty. Others brought candles and lighted them, to be burned before the images, that is, the pictures of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Child. Some of the people lighted the candles themselves, repeating a prayer; the verger lighted them for others, and presented them to the Virgin as he proceeded with the service.

One woman brought a napkin or some cloth embroidered, and gave it to the verger, who opened a golden door into the Virgin’s panel, and placing the offering in it, locked it again. This was as truly idolatrous as any worship you would see in Romish churches, and wherein it differs from offerings to idols in pagan temples I do not see.

A collection was now taken up, by assistants going around with bags, and gathering from the multitude standing before the altar. Every one seemed to put in something, and their alms and prayers went together.

Three priests were officiating. One went about swinging a censer with burning incense. A choir of men-singers stood near the altar and made the responses with great power and singular sweetness of tone. The sacristan came to us and offered to show us the sacred things in the temple, and when we objected that the service was in progress, and we did not wish to be sight-seeing at such a time, he assured us it was all right, and we need not stand upon ceremony. He led us to the holy places, and pointed out the sacred relics, which were useful to him in extracting a fee from the stranger, and that is the only miracle they are able to work. If they do this every day, and often enough every day, they will be held in honor as long as the temple stands.

In the course of our wanderings under the lead of the sacristan, we found ourselves behind the veil, or the hanging curtain which was opened for the priests to go out and in during the service. Fearful of intrusion, we were about to retire, when one of the priests came from his place, and invited us into the apartment where he was standing, and responding as his associate read the service. The inmost shrine, perhaps it may be called the Holy of Holies, is in a round temple, whose dome is held by eight pillars of solid malachite, and the walls and floors are of polished marbles of various colors. The steps by which we ascend to it are of polished porphyry.

The freedom with which a stranger was admitted “behind the scenes” in the midst of the service was surprising to me, and I had an opportunity not expected, of coming into contact with the priests and ministers of the Greek religion, while in their service. The priests are a very inferior order of men; very unlearned, of low extraction, and in their appearance and manners what you would expect after such a statement. They are obliged to be married once, and if the wife die, they are not allowed to marry a second time, but the widower continues to serve at the altar as before. It is said that the priests are very watchful of the health of their wives, on the principle that a good thing which cannot be replaced must be preserved with the greatest care. This is better than the celibacy of Romish priests, which is offensive to nature and good morals, a curse to the church and the world. You cannot be long in any country where the Romish priests abound without hearing of their bad morals, but the reputation of the priests in the Russo-Greek Church is better. In their religious services, the most effective part is the singing, and indeed the praying is intoning, which is a drawling kind of singing, now coming into use in the ritualistic churches, which are only feeble imitations of the Romish and Greek. Boys are employed in the choirs, and for some parts of the service, the solos particularly, they get the deepest bass voices that can be hired, and sometimes they render the sublime passages with great effect. I have said the men, as well as the women, appear to be religious in Russia. And it struck me as very strange to see a fine-looking, full-grown man coming in at noonday into a church, bringing a little wax candle, walking up to a shrine over which is a picture of the Virgin, kneeling before it, bowing his head to the floor, crossing himself again and again, lighting his candle and sticking it into a hole prepared for the purpose, and once more prostrating himself to kiss the pavement, and then retire! This lighting of candles is an emblem of life, and is designed to keep the spiritual nature of man continually in view. The Russians have no religious ceremonies without this symbol of the Spirit. It is fast finding its way into the churches of England and America that copy after these Oriental customs, without apprehending their meaning.

Nothing in the mode of worship distinguishes the Greek from the Roman Catholic. I would not speak with confidence, but it appeared to me that the people were more deeply religious than they are in Roman Catholic countries. It is not, as with the people in Italy and Spain, and more especially in France, merely a matter of form to be gone through with, and that the end of it. In the Romish cathedrals, it was rare that I could get into sympathy with the worshippers so as to feel devotional in a service foreign from that with which I was familiar. For anywhere on earth where men are worshipping God in their way and we are present, from curiosity, or any other motive, I would desire also to be a worshipper, and offer among strangers the incense of a loving heart, touched with a sense of sin, and longing for divine favor. There is no danger of becoming an idolater by worshipping the only living and true God in the midst of idolaters. The soul goes out to him who heareth prayer for those who are bowing down to stocks and stones. And he whom they ignorantly worship I would find in their temples, for the way to him is through the open door in the side of his crucified Son. But the Roman Catholics do not get so near to God as these Greek Christians do, for the former seem to be so much engrossed with saints and the mother of Jesus, that they lose the joy and blessedness of coming right to Christ, who is in the Father, and by whom they are saved.

The Russians keep Lent very rigidly, and are also careful to fast every Wednesday and Friday. They have four great fasts in the year: Lent, Peter’s fast, Conception fast, and St. Philip’s fast. The children are taught the catechism of the Greek Church. The Sabbath is not observed with any more regard to rest and worship than it is in France or Italy. They make long pilgrimages to monasteries and holy places. There are no pews or seats in the churches; all stand, the rich and poor, the emperor and empress, high and low alike on a level in the presence of God. When the Emperor was assailed in the park by an assassin, a few years ago, and escaped the blow aimed at his life, he rode directly to this Isaac Cathedral, and here in the midst of the thronging multitude, gave thanks for his deliverance from sudden death. The language of the church service is the Slavonic, and it is quite as unintelligible to the masses as the ora pro nobis and the rest of the Latin to the Roman Catholics in our country. The whole service is quite as imposing as the Romish, with processions and banners and sonorous responses. Religious services are often celebrated in private houses to cast out evil spirits; and always the fortieth day after a person’s death is observed in memory and improvement of the event. In one corner of every room that you enter from the street is the image of the Virgin, and you are expected always to remove your hat on coming in; at first, it seems to be required as a token of respect to the persons in the house, but it is solely to honor the Virgin in the corner. The Russians are a very superstitious people, and they believe in houses haunted with good and evil spirits, especially the evil, and the constant presence of a pictured Mary is a protection; at least they think so.