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''It seems to me that a man must have faith, or be seeking it, otherwise his life is empty, quite empty.''
Masha, The Three Sisters, Anton Chekhov, 1901
The Russian Orthodox Church has always been an integral part of Russian life, even during the Communist period when it was officially proscribed. Today, even for those Russians who might not go to church very often, they can yet be seen holding a lighted candle during the all-important Easter service.
Our tour of the most important centres of Russian Orthodoxy, the group of towns clustered around Moscow, known collectively as the Golden Ring, is a trip back in time, not only in terms of the icons and architecture, which date back to the twelfth century, but also for its insight into the role that the Church played in the lives of the tsars and the people. Suzdal, for example, where industry is forbidden, is still very much as it was in the nineteenth century.
At one time or another almost every tsar and tsarina went on pilgrimage to the monasteries and churches of the Golden Ring. In 1552, after the momentous fall of Kazan, Ivan the Terrible prayed in both Suzdal and Vladimir, thanking God for his great victory. In 1742 Empress Elizabeth I, daughter of Peter the Great, made the first of many retreats on foot to Sergiev Posad. The monasteries had other uses also - In 1699, Peter the Great, to be rid of his first wife, simply banished her to the Pokrovsky Monastery in Suzdal. And in 1913, to celebrate the three-hundredth anniversary of the Romanov dynasty, Nicholas II and the Imperial family visited Kostroma, where, in 1613, Mikhail Romanov was notified of his election to the throne. |
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