Join John and Paul as we travel the wonderful countries of Europe in search of those elusive Euro-Trash hits of the past and present. Experience our adventures while we visit (in order of appearance) Bahrain, France, Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, Andorra, Monaco, Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Slovakia, Poland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belgium, and Greece. Special guest star: Tangier (Morocco, Africa).
Tuesday, August 1, 2006
Orthodox Saint Petersburg
St Petersburg also has a large share of the rich Russian Orthodox heritage. A highlight for us was attending the Sunday Liturgy (mass) at the 1900AD Cathedral of St John of Kronstadt which contains his relics and is part of the convent he founded (first photo). St John is a very popular Russian Saint and one that spent a lot of time advising youth.
St Petersburg has a large Orthodox cemetery hidden in a thick forest, only 8km from the centre. In its centre is a small chapel housing the relics of St Xenia (second photo) - we were lucky to be annointed with oil blessed on her tomb. We also visited the 1789 Cathedral of St Price Vladimir who, on behalf of the Tsar, "selected" Orthodoxy as the official christian religion for Russia in 988 (photo three). Our next stop was the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, founded in 1713 by the Prince of the same name to commemorate the victory of the Russians in the Neva battle of 1240. This monastery also contains the Tikhvinskoe Cemetery, founded 1823 with 147 graves of the most well-known musicians, artists, scientists and politians of the city and Russia, including: Tchaikosvsky (bottom photo), Dostoevski (author) and Ivanov (grand master artist with works in Hermitage).
Many of Russia's monasteries and churches were closed down by the communist regime (mainly in the thirties) and used as orphanages, hospitals or left to deteriorate. Many were re-opened in the mid fifities and early eighties and now there is extensive rennovations in progress to restore them. It is apparent to Paul and I (especially when we visited the Smolensky Cathedral which is now a concert hall) that some "deal making" needed to happen to get the more important churches back to the Russian Orthodox Church (especially those founded by Saints).
We farewell a grand city and Russia. Our summation is that Russia is like someone who has awakened from a long sleep. There is still a lot of work to do especially to update aging infrastructure and be better prepared for tourism but the encouraging news is that there are visible signs that change is happening. Russia will be an even greater place to visit in 10 years time!
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