Christmas Liturgy in the Orthodox Cathedral

The Cathedral this morning (Jan 12)
A favourite moment in the film Good Will Hunting is when Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) asks Will Hunting (Matt Damon) whether all the books he’s read about Michelangelo contain the smell of the Sistine Chapel; whether, by reading them, he understands how it feels to stand beneath that beautiful ceiling. Were I merely to summarise the history of the main Orthodox Cathedral here in Riga (“The Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ”), to explain to you the tenants of Orthodoxy, or even to describe the technical details of the service, still it would not capture what it feels like to stand through the Christmas Liturgy in the Cathedral, as I was able to last Tuesday morning.
So, друзья, давайте; let me tell you about the ceiling…
1. Riga on Christmas Eve
After the 9pm service on Christmas Eve (January 6) I returned home, fetched myself some tea and a сырок, and watched an episode of the soviet cartoon “Ну Погоди!”. Walking back to the church from my apartment at midnight did remind me of one or two scenes in The Brothers Karamazov; the road was iced over, a cold wind blew, and I was sure the church would be as empty as the streets were. I passed through one of the parks near the centre, the moon in conversation with the snow, smiling… where else?
The domed roof of the church was there bright, in the night, and near the entrance I passed a man strumming his guitar and forgetting the words to Yuri Vizbor’s “Tы y Mеня Oдна.” What else could embrace me at that moment but a flock of babushkas from a trolleybus, all performing various gestures before the great entrance, and in a hurry to assume their usual station near the central altar. I- we- entered. It was to be a special service; Aleksandrs Kudrjašovs, the head of the Latvian Orthodox Church, was in attendance. The church was filled to capacity.
2. The service begins
It is something of a competition with oneself to stand there for two or three hours without moving much, and one inevitably becomes distracted, which is good, for by inspecting the people around you, you will perhaps begin to understand something of the culture from which Dostoevsky or Gogol developed their characters. There is a humour- gentle, unassuming, perhaps unaware of itself- which makes an Orthodox service wonderfully enjoyable, once you determine to remain standing until the end. Inevitably there will be the dedushka following his wife, his head slightly lowered, a Maxima bag in his left hand; the young woman with a stern and believing face; the short man in purple pants who crosses himself somehow too furiously, so that each time your neighbour smiles shyly to himself (and then remembers himself to make the cross). And the priests… one of them cannot stop yawning and strikes his staff on the floor to rouse himself; there are the furious whispers between small groups when someone has stood in the wrong place or started the wrong prayer (a mistake which is always corrected). Or, and my favourite on Christmas morning, the Catholic priest who fell asleep on his feet during the Lord’s Prayer, only to be roused by a woman with an urgent question. The candles by the icons flicker or extinguish themselves, sending good or ominous omens to those nearby and occasionally justifying a prostration, and all around you the high arches and biblical murals flicker in this light. Your feet are sore, but the 80 year old in front of you has stood for hours like a statue. You sigh and look upwards for the source of the main light in the Cathedral. Christ, on the interior of the upper dome, holds the chandelier with a faint smile.
3. Further into the morning…
At about two in the morning people began to seek refuge on one of the few benches in the church; to rest their feet, complain to their partner, watch the line of people awaiting communion somewhat suspiciously, alert to any Catholic, protestant, or simply curious infiltrators.
Once communion was over, all of us, by now somewhat bewildered and thinking of home, were summoned around the main icon by the priests. There is movement among them; Father Aleksandrs Kudrjašovs is now eighty five years old, and he cannot stand for long unassisted, but he wants to speak to us. He tells the young man near him to bow his head lower, and not to forget to kiss the relics when they are passed from one set of hands to another. The priests look tired, but they are loud (except for one, who is trying to explain to a woman that she cannot light a candle by the icon at this moment). The priests hurry up the stairs and disappear behind the apparition and Aleksandrs Kudrjašovs turns to us, rests his staff on a lower stair to support himself, and begins to speak.
Whatever you think of organised religion or the veneration of icons, I believe you will understand me when I say that it was not an old man with tired words who spoke to us at 2:07 am on Christmas morning- not a figure performing a duty- but a person who though many in years, smiled and sighed with all the earnestness of a youthful soul. I noticed a tears down the cheek of the young priest behind Father Kudrjašovs; I noticed others hiccuping with emotion around me, and I understood, if partially yet clearly, Dostoevsky’s Zosima. His voice, gentle, carried through the church as if louder than any of the chanting that preceded him. He said to us, “Be kind to one another, and let love into your heart.”
Blessing us, he sent us into the night, and outside the church strangers embraced each other and wished for each other a happy Christmas, before hurriedly summoning one of the eleven Bolt taxis available. And the man was still there with his guitar, singing something I did not recognise but which was, apparently, recognisable to others… a man wearing skinny jeans, sneakers, and a tight-cut black sweater, around which hung the satchel inevitable for many middle-aged Russian ‘family’ men (and from which he had issued his donations during the service) approached the busker and said something like, “It’s a big holiday, you shouldn’t sing that near the church.” The busker, recovering himself, promptly kicked up a new tune, Nautilus Pompilius’ “прогулки по воде” (“Walking on water”) which opens with:
“As Apostle Andrew fished from the dock, the Savior walked upon the water…”
Вот, Друзья, if for no other reason than to consider how many human beings have declared their fears or uttered their hopes by lighting a candle and kissing an icon, or even to understand something of Dostoevsky’s humour, do visit the Orthodox Cathedral on Christmas or any other morning.
For images from the service, see http://provoslavie.lv.
Laef, currently studying Russian at Liden & Denz Riga