I‘m not sure if we, as Muscovites, actually realise how many churches there are in our city centre. Fair enough, there were even more, and we’ve long heard complaints that many of them had been destroyed in the Soviet era. Having lived and travelled around Britain for 7 years, I now cannot help wondering if those churches that were destroyed had decayed to the extent that it was cheaper to destroy them than to repair? On the other hand, for all the beauty of Russian churches, not all of them boast a “civic-friendly” design that would easily allow to convert them into living or business spaces, like they do in the UK. I know that in the eyes of the pious, wherever they live, it is an act of blasphemy to make use of the house of God for any purpose, other than worship. But as the population grows, the question of accommodation rises sharply. “Accommodation” shouldn’t be understood merely as a place to live, but also figuratively, as provision the opportunities for work and leisure. Perhaps in the not so distant future we will have to rethink our attitude to a religious space, and maybe by such means we will also be able to acknowledge the omnipresence of one God across many religious practices.
For now, though, we are left with a number of beautiful ancient churches, cathedrals, and monasteries within the city of Moscow. The church on the photo above is a 17th c. church of St Vladimir at the Old Gardens in Starosadsky Pereulok (Lane) that is separated from the Lutheran church of St Peter and Paul by the State Historical Library in the same street. On the left is the Church of Holy Trinity in Khokhlovsky Pereulok (Lane); and Vysokopetrovsky Monastery in Petrovka St. is on the right.