While the headlines for the Russian Orthodox Church have recently focused on punk protests and watches, another, less sensational story has been in the news: Program 200, the push for that number of identikit churches to be built in remote districts of Moscow in the next few years.
The new churches show a desire of the patriarchate to expand its presence in the modern city, but village activists have lamented the neglect suffered by rural churches outside Moscow, since both the decline in prestige the church suffered after the revolution and often dwindling village populations.
Abandoned wooden and stone churches, many of them more than a hundred years old, are not rare in the villages of the Moscow, Tver and other regions, but little is done by the authorities to preserve them. Thanks to activists and charities, however, some are getting a second chance.
Society for Rural Churches
Founded at the end of the 1980s, the Society for Rural Churches helps to restore abandoned churches by raising money and carrying out the necessary work on the sites. But while some things, like cleaning nearby areas and removing obstructions require only manual resources and are usually done by volunteers, considerable financial resources are also needed: about 1.5 million rubles ($51,000) to provide a new roof, for example.
Highly skilled restoration professionals are also lacking. According to Clementine Cecil, the chair of the Moscow Architecture Preservation Society, the organization that has been collaborating with the church society, Russian restorers are very skilled but very few.
"In Communist times, there was a very good system of workshops throughout Russia," Cecil said. "And that collapsed with the end of Communism, and we feel that the restoration sector has fallen behind in Russia."
British cooperation
To help relieve the resulting dearth of restoration professionals, MAPS started a joint project with British conservation organizations, like the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, the oldest in Britain. Together, they have taken several groups, including British restoration specialists, to look at abandoned churches. Last year, they began fundraising to help repair a twostory stone house, once belonging to a merchant, in one of the villages as a venue for MAPS and church society workshops.
"The idea is that we are going to have collaborative workshops with U.K. craftsmen helping the Russian craftsmen," Cecil said.
This training can only help the projects, since untrained volunteers, while their hearts are in the right place, may use incorrect materials or techniques, which can harm the society's efforts at restoration.
"It's a double tragedy, because even when there is money, often the work is wrong," Cecil said. "There is a good basis of restoration in Russia and we want to give some support to that basis."
More than buildings
Svetlana Melnikova, the director of the Society for Rural Churches, sees church restoration as about more than saving and improving a building-about something deeper and tightly linked to the Russian historical consciousness.
"Rural churches, like nothing else in Russian culture, are associated with the land and the people," she said in an interview with the Russky Mir magazine. "Karl Marx wrote that the peasantry was the blood of the nation, and the remnants of the peasantry, the remnants of our blood, a glimmer of which is still there in the Russian provinces, must be preserved."
The Society for Rural Churches will organize volunteer trips starting in May and running through the fall.
The Rural Church Society http://www.village-church.ru
MAPS http://www.maps-moscow.com/eng
Keywords: Russia, Religion - Russian News - Russia
While the headlines for the Russian Orthodox Church have recently focused on punk protests and watches, another, less sensational story has been in the news: Program 200, the push for that number of identikit churches to be built in remote districts of Moscow in the next few years.
The new churches show a desire of the patriarchate to expand its presence in the modern city, but village activists have lamented the neglect suffered by rural churches outside Moscow, since both the decline in prestige the church suffered after the revolution and often dwindling village populations.
Abandoned wooden and stone churches, many of them more than a hundred years old, are not rare in the villages of the Moscow, Tver and other regions, but little is done by the authorities to preserve them. Thanks to activists and charities, however, some are getting a second chance.
Society for Rural Churches
Founded at the end of the 1980s, the Society for Rural Churches helps to restore abandoned churches by raising money and carrying out the necessary work on the sites. But while some things, like cleaning nearby areas and removing obstructions require only manual resources and are usually done by volunteers, considerable financial resources are also needed: about 1.5 million rubles ($51,000) to provide a new roof, for example.
Highly skilled restoration professionals are also lacking. According to Clementine Cecil, the chair of the Moscow Architecture Preservation Society, the organization that has been collaborating with the church society, Russian restorers are very skilled but very few.
"In Communist times, there was a very good system of workshops throughout Russia," Cecil said. "And that collapsed with the end of Communism, and we feel that the restoration sector has fallen behind in Russia."
British cooperation
To help relieve the resulting dearth of restoration professionals, MAPS started a joint project with British conservation organizations, like the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, the oldest in Britain. Together, they have taken several groups, including British restoration specialists, to look at abandoned churches. Last year, they began fundraising to help repair a twostory stone house, once belonging to a merchant, in one of the villages as a venue for MAPS and church society workshops.
"The idea is that we are going to have collaborative workshops with U.K. craftsmen helping the Russian craftsmen," Cecil said.
This training can only help the projects, since untrained volunteers, while their hearts are in the right place, may use incorrect materials or techniques, which can harm the society's efforts at restoration.
"It's a double tragedy, because even when there is money, often the work is wrong," Cecil said. "There is a good basis of restoration in Russia and we want to give some support to that basis."
More than buildings
Svetlana Melnikova, the director of the Society for Rural Churches, sees church restoration as about more than saving and improving a building-about something deeper and tightly linked to the Russian historical consciousness.
"Rural churches, like nothing else in Russian culture, are associated with the land and the people," she said in an interview with the Russky Mir magazine. "Karl Marx wrote that the peasantry was the blood of the nation, and the remnants of the peasantry, the remnants of our blood, a glimmer of which is still there in the Russian provinces, must be preserved."
The Society for Rural Churches will organize volunteer trips starting in May and running through the fall.
The Rural Church Society http://www.village-church.ru
MAPS http://www.maps-moscow.com/eng