Churches that Tell Stories in Russia, India, Vietnam, Portugal and the UK

Stories of Colonialism, Repression, a Long Christian Tradition, Natural Disaster, Commercial Exploitation and the Continuity of a Sacred Site

This post is an improved amalgamation of two older posts 'Three Favourite Churches' and...wait for it....'Three More Favourite Churches' - such originality.

Unlike Lynne, I am not a believer, but I am interested in religion and I do like churches. I like the architecture, I like the history they contain and the sense of community they embody. Building a church is somebody’s attempt at the sublime, sometimes for the greater glory of god, sometimes for the greater glory of themselves.

The six churches in this post all have stories to tell. and they are very different stories. From west to east they tell of colonialism, repression, an ancient Christian tradition in a place some find surprising, surviving natural disasters, commercial exploitation and the adaption of ancient sacred sites.

Colonialism

The Church of Giang Ta Chai, Lao Cai Province, Vietnam

The French ruled Indo-China for over a hundred years before independence in 1954 so it is unsurprising that there are many Vietnamese Christians – more specifically Catholics - and for a time, after independence and partition, there was a ruling Catholic elite in South Vietnam. Most Christians live in the urban centres; there are few churches in the countryside and they are particularly rare in ethnic minority villages in the northern highlands.

I cannot describe this church as 'sombody's attempt at the sublime', but it possibly has a rustic charm. It does not look like a Catholic Church, maybe it is an evangelical church, the work of more recent missionaries - a modern form of colonialism.

The Church of Giang Ta Chai, Northern Highlands, Vietnam

We passed the church of Giang Ta Chai, whilst trekking through the Muong Hao Valley in 2011. A village of the Hmong ethnic group, it has twenty Christian families. The photograph was taken in late March but the banner translates as The Church of Giang Ta Chai, Happy Christmas.

Repression

Cathedral of the Epiphany, Irkutsk, Russia

Cathedral of the Epiphany, Irkutsk

At the start of the 20th century the Siberian city of Irkutsk had two cathedrals and two other major churches clustered round one square. A decade of civil war and sixty years of communism saw them all either destroyed or converted to other uses. Since 1990 the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Epiphany has been reconsecrated, restored and repainted. Resembling an elaborate birthday cake it raises a smile in an otherwise rather dour city.

A Little Known but Ancient Christian Tradition

St Mary's, Thalassery, Kerala, India

Christianity is a minority religion in India, practised by only 2.3% of the population - but that is still 30 million people! In the 16th century Portuguese Catholic missionaries claimed many converts, paricularly in Goa while in the 18th century Protestant British and US missionaries worked in the north-east

St Mary's, Thalassery

22% of India's Christians live in Kerala, India's most southwesterly state, and few of them owe their Christianity to European missionaries. When asked, many Keralan Christians will describe themselves as 'Catholics', but most are not Roman Catholics but Syriac Catholics. According to tradition the church was founded by the apostle St Thomas who came to India about 40 CE and is buried in Chennai (formerly Madras) predating the arrival of European missionaries by more than a thousand years. The church above was photographed in 2010 at Thalassery (formerly Tellicherry) on the Keralan coast. Like Irkusk cathedral it could be mistaken for a birthday cake, but with very different icing; the light in India is different and demands strong colours.

Surviving a Natural Disaster

Igreja Matriz, Estômbar, Algarve, Portugal

Sitting on a low hill between the main N125 and the road to the ‘Slide and Splash’ water park, Estômbar has somehow remained aloof from the development that has gone on all around. Although it is now largely a dormitory village for the nearby city of Portimão, the tides of tourism have washed round the village not over it.

The light is different in Portugal, too. Although cooler than India the Algarve sees more sunshine than anywhere else in Europe and white and silver are the order of the day. Rows of whitewashed houses descend the hill from the central square which is dominated by the gleaming bulk of the Igreja Matriz (Mother Church).

The Igreja Matriz, Estômbar, Algarve, Portugal

Constructed in the late 18th century, a time of great prosperity in Portugal, it looks like a symbol of permanence and stability, but in 1755 a great earthquake and tsunami destroyed 85% of Lisbon's buildings, killing a quarter of its population, and inundating the Algarve. Estômbar's church was destroyed, except for the Manueline doorway, which the builders incorporated into their new church. The Manueline style was peculiar to late 15th and early 16th century Portugal and is exemplified in the Torre de Belem and the Jeronimo Monastry in Lisbon.

Commercial Exploitaton

St Bartholemew's Tong, Shropshire, UK

Built over an earlier Norman church in 1406 and remodelled in 1510, St Bartholomew’s is not an architectural masterpiece, though the octagonal tower is unusual. Much more interesting is the story attached to the church.

St Bartholmew's, Tong

Charles Dickens knew Tong well; his grandmother had been housekeeper at Tong Castle (the site now lies beneath the M54). The death of Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop was set in Tong and she was buried in a fictionalised version of St Bartholomew’s. The book's enormous popularity and Dickens' lecture tours in America, led to a spate of Americans coming to England to visit scenes featured in the story. Seeing an opportunity George Boden (or Bowden), the parish clerk, forged an entry in the parish register of burials, had a gravestone carved and charged visitors to see the grave of Little Nell. It did not seem to worry the visitors – and it certainly never worried George – that they were paying money to see the ‘real’ grave of a fictional character.

Ancient Sacred Site

St Margaret's, Bagendon, Gloucestershire, UK

St Margaret's, Bagendon

One of the delights of the Cotswolds is the way buildings can be so much part of the landscape they seem to have grown organically from it. The tiny church at Bagendon is a perfect example, and also an embodiment of two thousand years of Cotswold history. Although the earliest parts of the building are Saxon, Roman votive artefacts have been found in the churchyard suggesting the site was of religious significance in pre-Christian times. The tower is Norman, but the nave was rebuilt in the late fourteen hundreds. The enormous wealth brought to the Cotswolds by the wool trade at that time resulted in many churches receiving a Perpendicular Gothic makeover. Nineteenth century restorations and the addition of a porch in the 1960s were done so sympathetically it is hard to tell what is new.

see also...............

Taoist (or Daoist) Temples

Synagogues

Jain Temples