Churches on the edge of nowhere
Extreme settings featuring places for God
For many of us new calendar Christians this week marks the start of the Christmas period with an intensive period of fasting, reflection and building of excitement towards the celebration of Christmas day. The main focus of any fast, which is also the focal aspect of this period of reflection, is to bring the adherent closer to God. Whether it is through quiet or intensive prayer of hesychasm, or actions of kindness towards each other through charity, humanity has consistently stepped towards the edges of what we can grasp in a hope to experience the Divine.
Cue Buzz Aldrin. Yes that moon guy. He takes out the award for the sharing of Communion furthest from.. well anywhere. On the 20th of July 1969 after their first steps on the moon surface Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin returned to the lunar module where Aldrin sat in quiet reflection. According to his own words he:
“In the radio blackout, I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread and the wine. I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine slowly curled and gracefully came up the side of the cup. Then I read the Scripture, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing’.” — Buzz Aldrin
Until we send humans to Mars this is unlikely to be topped. This doesn’t mean that there are no noteworthy places on earth that are on the edges of everywhere where worship is generally unexpected.
The Orthodox world is often thought to centre on its old home of Constantinople and is limited to the Byzantine Empire’s boundaries. Greece, Serbia and Russia are thought of as the natural home of Orthodoxy but globalization provided the opportunity for the spread of people, particularly after the two great wars, leading to the opening of Churches in far away lands. Cambridge in England and Edinburgh in Scotland both house Orthodox churches. These are hardly on the edge of society but when we consider the divisions of the East and West Church it was not that long ago that it would be inconceivable that the places not only are in the same cities as Catholic and Protestant churches but also inhabit the old buildings which housed the western churches.
Antarctica is one of the last places on earth where humans have not filled from coast to coast. Due to the insufferable weather conditions this is unlikely to change any time soon however the in the vastness of the Southern Ocean in an archipelago of islands that reach like an arm from the freezing continent there is a very unexpected site. King George Island is part of the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica and is home to the Russian Bellingshausen Station. In 2004 construction of the Russian Orthodox Trinity Church was completed which was funded by a collection in Russia for the ‘Temple for Antarctica”. It is a functioning open Church that can only fit about 30 adherents inside. Due to its location near South America services are share the language of Russian and Spanish and Baptism takes place in the Southern Ocean. Just to highlight just how amazing the location of this construction is, here is a picture of some penguins hanging out near the church. Never would have thought I’d be able to write a sentence like that!
Now back to the world as we know it. In places that are nevertheless inhabited and are far from the vastness of Antarctica silence and reflection was achieved historically by climbing to the sky. Saint Simeon the Stylite is best known for sitting on his pillar for 37 years until he left this world. His struggle for aesthetic life after standing constantly was not achieved due to the amount of pilgrims that sought his presence and visited the recluse. He decided to remove himself from the world and sat upon the pillar. The visitors continued to come however the place between the earth and sky is where Saint Simeon remained. Stylite monks then spread through the Christian world including in modern Georgia.
The Katskhi pillar which stands as an outcrop from the woodland at its base was left unexplored and impenetrable until recently. This is due to its height and no clear way to climb to the top where the remains of a Church proudly touch the sky. Studies have shown the Church and hermitage was inhabited from at least the 9th century until the 13th century. Modern efforts have seen the Church rededicated and inhabited by a modern stylite monk Father Maxime Qavtaradze who now lives on the edge of nowhere reigniting the stylite movement in the a modern world where it seems impossible to find places of solitude.
“It is up here in the silence that you can feel God’s presence”. — Father Maxime
The DPRK, or North Korea, is also home to an Orthodox church. Commentators often debate the freedom of worship in the country however the church dedication is interesting to ponder. Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad consecrated the church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Pyongyang that is reportedly for Orthodox believers in the city and for Korean believers. There are fewer places on earth which have as tightly controlled boarders and the endeavours of Bishop Kirill is truly remarkable considering the geo-political relations of the DPRK in 2006.
The cradle of civilisation of Ethiopia is likely to be a place which would be imagined almost antithetical to the common settings of Eastern Orthodoxy, however it is here that churches are not built up like the Katskhi pillar rather they are built down. The town of Lalibela is home to some stunning monolithic churches, which are churches carved out of rock. Monolithic churches are not unusual in the world but what makes Lalibela significant is the free standing structure of many of the 11 medieval churches that remain in service.
The house of Saint George is probably the most stunning of these churches. It forms a 12-meter by 12-meter cross-shaped church perfectly cut down out of the rock. The interior of the Church was hollowed out to make an impressive marble carving of a giant church. The community of Lalibela has a continuous link to Christianity of the 3rd century and also has links to earlier Jewish settlement with some positing it hosted the Arc of the Covenant after the fall of the Temple. While the nation of Ethiopia is heavily populated the Lalibela example shows that Christianity is far from the concept of an Anglo-European endeavour and that African Christianity is in fact older than many European nations.
Starting on the surface of the moon and ending at the place where humanity is said to have originated shows that the houses of worship inhabit the most unlikely places on earth. The Orthodox churches that are built in these extreme locations are for the purpose of devoting a space to God in a area that is unexpected, providing a familiar home for worship. Further from this unexpected occurrence of worship in far away places I find it astonishing that Orthodox Churches are often in the most picturesque backdrops providing a sanctuary inside that matches that of the churches that many visit week in and week out. In visiting a local church it is tranquil to consider that they share so many similarities with these sanctuaries built on the edge of nowhere. Making a space away from the world and going to the edge of nowhere is an endeavour to embrace a quiet, devotional space that we can dwell on the unexpected and uncontainable enormity of God.
