The word "Church"--was it a dream? No, there it was again and--unmistakably--again. The first light of dawn infiltrated my darkened room as I sat up in bed. Yes, it was Moscow, the Cosmos Hotel, Saturday morning, and in spite of the jet lag I was not dreaming this; some official-sounding newscaster was discussing the millennial celebration of the Russian Orthodox Church. I looked around the room to discover the source of the sound and found it coming from an internal hotel radio system, from a speaker located just between my bed and the bed opposite, where my wife was not yet tuned in to the new day. I located the volume switch and adjusted it upward just a hair. Enid did not stir.
All the basic information was communicated: It was a thousand years ago that Prince Vladimir of Kiev had put out word of his interest in investigating the religious options of the tenth century. Islam, Judaism, and Christianity all came calling, and then Vladimir dispatched delegations to observe these communities on their own turf. Islam, according to the story, lost out because it did not tolerate alcohol, a sacrifice that Vladimir accurately reckoned would not be acceptable to Russians. Judaism, with its focus upon Jerusalem, and German Catholicism, with its center in Rome, became suspect for their potential diversion of attention away from Russia itself. Besides, the research team in Europe found the expressions of Catholicism somewhat flat.
Not so the delegation that traveled to Constantinople to look into Greek Orthodoxy. They were wined and dined by the government, deeply impressed by the theologians, and awed by the largest sanctuary in the world, Hagia Sophia. The sound of music, the color of vestments, the smell of incense all combined in their report, which is widely quoted to this day:
We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. We cannot forget that beauty.... Having tasted something sweet, we do not want anything bitter. Therefore we seek permission to return.
Following this remarkably deliberate exercise in church shopping, Vladimir made a series of equally deliberate decisions. He offered six thousand Viking mercenaries to the Greek war effort in exchange for Anna, the sister of the Greek king. In anticipation of the marriage, he made the commitment to be baptized into the Orthodox faith. Finally returning to Kiev he ordered all of the people to present themselves on the banks of the Dnieper on the appointed day in 988. They duly assembled, waded into the river by the thousands and, when the imported priests from Constantinople had completed the baptismal prayer, following Vladimir's cue, they all shouted, "Amen." It not only marked the birth of the Russian Orthodox Church but the beginning of Russia as a nation-state.
The radio reporter returned to the present. This being the Saturday before Easter, and Easter being the primary festival of the Church, the thousand-year celebration was very much in the minds of the people. Current estimates count fifty million members of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union. The government constitutionally grants the people the right to profess or not to profess any religion, and accordingly it is tolerating, if not promoting, the millennial commemoration. But in most official communications the impression is given that the Church is an antique, a relic from the past that the people eventually will not need and will mature
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