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

Irkutsk: Trans-Siberian Railway Part 5

Russia

Irkutsk

Irkutsk: First Impressions

At first glance Irkutsk seems a down-at-heel sort of city.

The minibus dropped us outside the Hotel Angara, where we would deposit our luggage for the day. Inside the upmarket hotel, which was considerably less down-at-heel, we spotted a post office and decided to send the cards we had bought at Yekaterinburg. The cards were enormous, but in no way big enough for the huge stamps, four of which were required for each. For some reason this irritated the woman behind the desk, and she was further incensed to find that we intended to purchase her whole stock – leaving two postcards still unstamped. We were treated to a Russian speciality: public service with a tantrum.

Irkutsk

A young man of vaguely Middle Eastern appearance was waiting behind us. ‘Where do you come from?’ he asked pleasantly. ‘From England’ we replied. He pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘Isn’t it a bit rough there, now?’ Slightly perplexed by this response, we assured him there was no better place on earth, except possibly Irkutsk and wherever he came from, and set out to explore the city.

At second glance Irkutsk seems a down-at-heel sort of city.

Irkutsk is in southern Siberia at the southern tip of Lake Baikal

Kirov Square and the Cathedral of the Epiphany

The Hotel is beside Kirov Square, which once sported two cathedrals and two other major churches. This was considered a superabundance for a city of only half a million people, so when the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan was destroyed in the civil war that followed the revolution, the Central Government Headquarters was built on the site. It is a truly ugly building. Opposite, the World War II memorial is in a sad state of neglect. The substantial Church of Our Saviour is now a museum, whilst the Polish Catholic Church, built in 1882 and Siberia’s only neo-Gothic church has become neglected as the Polish population has drifted away.

Only the Cathedral of the Epiphany remains in good condition having been re-consecrated after serving as a museum in the Soviet era. An unusually low building for a cathedral with a detached bell tower, its exterior had been freshly painted in the Russian ‘cake-decoration style’. The interior is covered with painting of saints, heaven and hell, angels, archangels and Virgins with and without Child. We watched two artists on scaffolding adding colour and calligraphy to new frescos.

The Cathedral of the Epiphany, Irkutsk

A small group of beggars had gathered by the door to receive our largesse. None of them were young, and it is easy to see why some people still think fondly of the Soviet era, when the young had jobs they were paid for, and the old could live on their pensions. They may not have had riches or political freedom, but they did not have poverty either.

We walked towards the commercial centre, stopping at a Post Office to dispatch the last of our cards. Here we encountered the other version of Russian public service, the one where you become invisible as you approach the counter. Fond thoughts of Soviet egalitarianism evaporated quickly.

Lenin Street and Karl Marx Street

After eventual success, we made our way down Lenin Street to the main drag, predictably called Karl Marx Street.

On our way we passed a number of the wooden building that are - or should be – Irkutsk’s pride and joy. With their carved ‘Siberian Lace’ decoration, their existence within an urban setting is almost unique. Sadly, those that are not falling down have been demolished to make way for cheaply constructed, badly designed modern buildings. Irkustsk will not be the first city to realise what treasures it had only after the last of them has gone.

Wooden Houses, Irkutsk

The main street was built in more confident times, when the city was still a boom town. Irkutsk was founded in1652 as a military outpost and by the 19th century was the administrative capital of Siberia. It still feels like a frontier town, a little like some small towns in the American west that once hoped to grow into Los Angeles or Seattle but never did. Just as the Americans pushed west in the nineteenth century to open up their continent, the Russians pushed east to open theirs – though without the cowboy hats and the movies. The city was a place of exile – most notably for aristocrats involved in the failed ‘Decembrist’ coup of 1825 – but most newcomers arrived of their own free will, particularly when gold was found in the area.

Karl Marx Street, Central Irkutsk

Though different in type, the difficulties of reaching Irkutsk in the 19th century were of the same scale as travelling the Oregon Trail. This changed when the railway arrived in 1898. Bradshaw’s ‘Through Routes to the Capitals of the World’ said of Irkutsk in 1903 ‘The streets are not paved or lighted; the sidewalks are merely boards on cross pieces over the open sewers…the police are few, escaped criminals are many….the stranger should not walk after dark; if a carriage cannot be got…the only way is to walk noisily along the planked walks….to walk in the middle of the road is to court attack from the garrotters with which Siberian towns abound’.

At third glance, Irkutsk seems a down-at-heel sort of city, but it has improved dramatically in the last 100 years.

An Italian Restaurant in Karl Marx Street

Café Snezhinka, inside one of the buildings on Karl Marx Street, has a high stucco-ed ceiling and a pleasant old world feel. We both read Cyrillic, but like primary school children, spelling each word out letter by letter and often arriving at nothing we can understand. On this occasion, we quickly deciphered Карбонара (carbonara) followed by Спагети (spaghetti) - it did not require a genius to deduce we were in an Italian restaurant, of sorts. The Siberian versions of carbonara and spaghetti bolognese had a weightiness that would have astounded their Italian originators, but were nonetheless pleasant enough.

The Trubetskoy and Volkonskaya Houses

The Decembrist rising of 1825 was an attempt to replace the autocratic rule of the Tsar with a constitutional monarchy. Five of the leaders were hanged in St Petersburg, the soldiers involved were transported to Siberia in chains, but the aristocratics involved merely found themselves sentenced to exile.

The Trubetskoy House, Irkutsk

We walked the best part of a kilometre down Karl Marx Street to see the house where Prince Trubetskoy and his wife endured their exile. It was covered in scaffolding and closed, so we walked on to the home of Maria Volkonskaya, wife of another Decembrist. It is a large and comfortable house still containing Maria’s furniture, clothes and letters. It is not altogether surprising that some of the Decembrists chose to stay in Irkutsk when their exile finished rather than return to the intrigues of St Petersburg.

The house of Maria Volkonskaya, Irkutsk

Others live less comfortable lives today. Walking back into town we saw people filling buckets with water from hand pumps in the street.

Loose Change

We dropped into a supermarket to buy supplies for our night on the train. Prices, as always, were quoted to the kopeck. This was sensible in the days when there was approximate parity between the rouble and the pound. The rouble crashed along with the Soviet Union and the new rouble - a thousand of the old soviet roubles – is worth 2 pence. In the days of the Italian Lira prices were often given to the precise Lira, but the cashier always rounded off to the nearest hundred when giving change, not so in Russia; you get your exact change down to the last kopeck. The tiny 1 kopeck coin is of such infinitesimally small value it costs more to hand over than it is worth. Unsurprisingly the recipients do not value them greatly and abundant if worthless loose change can be gathered in any Russian street just by bothering to bend down.

Off to Ulan Ude

We returned to the Hotel Angara to meet a man called Alexander who would give us our onwards tickets and drive us to the station. He was waiting not with two tickets but with four. ‘You can have the whole compartment to yourselves’ he said, ‘it will be more comfortable.’

This arrangement seemed simple enough, but was beyond the comprehension of the provadnitsa who looked at our four tickets, then the two of us and shook her head. ‘Where are the other two?’ she probably asked, though we did not understand. ‘Just us two,’ we answered, equally incomprehensibly. As we settled in she searched up and down the carriage for the other two people. As the train pulled out she shrugged her shoulders, gave us four sets of bedding and washed her hands of the affair.

Our next stop, Ulan Ude, was only 400 km away, but the journey took all night. The trip round the southern tip of Lake Baikal is allegedly the most scenic section of the whole journey, but it was dark, so I cannot comment.

Rudolf Nureyev was born on the 17th of March 1938 in a Trans-Siberian sleeping compartment travelling between Irkutsk and Ulan Ude. We had a much less eventful journey than Mrs Nureyeva.

The Trans-Siberian Railway

Part 1: Moscow

Part 2: Yekaterinburg

Part 3: Across Siberia to Irkutsk

Part 4: Listvyanka and Lake Baikal
Part 5: Irkutsk

Part 6: Ulan Ude (1)

Part 7: Ulan Ude (2)

Part 8 : To Naushki and into Mongolia

Part 9: Across the Mongolian Steppe from Ulan Bator to Burd Sum 

Part 10:With the Mongolian Nomads

Part 11 Ulan Bator