In the London Times, Peter Ackroyd, in the first of a 2-part series, recounts a visit to Russia. Much to ponder, arresting images, but since religion is our beat, we’ll focus:

IT [Tver] WAS A stopping place for Catherine the Great. So perhaps we can pause here, too. Among a little settlement of wooden houses rises the Church of the White Trinity, constructed on the orders of Ivan the Terrible. We meet by the ancient porch a young man — scarcely more than a boy — dressed in a black cassock that reaches down to his shoes. He is an assistant to the priest. He is tall and thin, with a pale face and large tremulous eyes. He tells us the story of the bones of St Makari, which are a sacred relic within this church. Two men, with the gaunt and emaciated faces of vagrants, stand in front of a pillar and listen eagerly to his story. It seems that the bones were originally preserved in a church at Kalyazin; but some decades ago the church was submerged on the orders of the Soviet authorities, who wished to create a lake there. Only the tower now rises above the waters. But the bones of this Coptic saint were saved. The young man talks in a low, melodious voice; he is utterly serious and intent. Only the slight faltering or nervousness in his eyes betrays his innocence. The church, like all Russian churches, is dark; it is lit only by candles and by the glowing icons that cover the walls. The pillars are thick, the windows small and deep, the cupolas high and narrow.

As the young man talks, three men with great bushy beards — looking much as I imagine bandits or revolutionaries to look — enter the church. In turn they cross themselves before one icon and kiss it; then they make the sign of the cross again and kiss another icon. Then they bow reverently before the inlaid coffin of St Makari, and kiss it.

If I had to express the essential foreignness of this world, these unworldly kisses would suffice. When I return to London I discover some words from that saint: “Pray simply. Do not expect to find in your heart any remarkable gift of prayer. Consider yourself unworthy of it. Then you will find peace. Use the empty, dry coldness of your prayer as food for your humility.” There is a passage in The Brothers Karamazov where two characters discuss the importance of prayer, and the fact that faith can move mountains. “Wait!” one of them exclaims. “So you believe that there are two men who can move mountains, you still believe in their existence? Ivan, ponder upon that little detail. Write it down. Here you have the secret of the entire Russian character! … I am right, am I not? A faith like that is wholly and essentially Russian, is it not?” That is what I was hoping to find — the faith that is “essentially Russian” — and in the Church of the White Trinity it was to be found.