Winter Palace (28 page)

“I try never to condemn anyone,” Jeffrey replied quietly, remembering yesterday's experience in the cathedral, wondering if he spoke the truth.

“Then you very strange man, Sinclair,” Sergei declared, and changed the subject. “You know, now Russians, they go to church, but many not go for God. Before, nobody goes. Now is fashion and people with no belief, they go. But this stops soon, I think.”

“Why do you say that?”

He shrugged. “Church asks too many questions. People who not believe, they don't like these questions. Soon they will stop going, and the church will be for believers.”

Jeffrey shook his head. “I know a lot of people in the West who go to church, hear the questions, and just decide they apply to everybody else but themselves.”

Sergei showed surprise. “This problem is in West too?”

“Maybe less than here, since churchgoing isn't such a fashion anymore. But yes, we have it.”

Sergei thought it over. “Yes, is true. People turn from questions they don't like. So. Maybe churches stay full but not full of belief. What is answer?”

“I think it lies in searching your own heart,” Jeffrey replied. “Searching with honesty and prayer.”

Sergei turned serious. “I think maybe you know many questions. Hard questions. You know answers too?”

“Only a few,” Jeffrey replied. “The most important one is Jesus Christ. You need to know that he is your Savior, to know His presence in your heart.”

Sergei mulled that over in silence until Jeffrey finished breakfast. As he stood, Sergei said, “Listen, Sinclair. My grandmother, she collects things.”

“What kinds of things?”

“From other lands.” He gave a cheerful shrug. “What no matters. Her room a museum of all what you never want to see.”

“You mean tourist souvenirs.”

“Look.” He reached in his pocket, came out with crumpled dollars. “I have twenty dollars. You take, buy for me. Buy things for tourists. Things so she can look and think of lands she will never see.”

“No, I can't accept your money.”

“Take, take. Is good money. Not stolen. You buy with this, yes? You bring back next time. Please. You do this. Friends, yes? You help me. Please.”

“All right.”

“Is good to help. I know. Touches heart. Gives much freedom to soul, this help of friends. You have strength, you share.”

“What strength?”

Sergei showed great amusement. “You have so much, you don't understand. Freedom is strength, yes?”

“I suppose so.”

“You free to choose. But to choose is hard. You learn to be strong because you learn to choose. You act. In Russia, we strong in talk, not in act.”

“You can learn.”

He shrugged. “Maybe yes, maybe no. Who can see? We
have big experience in talk. Too big. Centuries and centuries. Action dangerous. Get you killed. Talk our only freedom. But my people, they forget how to act.”

Jeffrey accepted the money. “I'll bring a little something back with me next time.”

“Good, good. You earn thanks. You see, I pay. I pay back big. Someday you need, I give.” He extended his hand. “You watch.”

Jeffrey grasped the firm grip and agreed, “Friends.”

The church was located in a series of interconnected storefront rooms just off a main thoroughfare and not far from the Markov palace. Jeffrey found it wonderfully refreshing to enter, be greeted in English, exchange the sort of smiles and greetings he was used to in his own church. After a few minutes, he found himself relaxing in a way that had not been possible since his arrival.

The church was
very
full. Every seat was taken. People stood four and five deep along the back and side walls. Jeffrey listened as first the greetings and then all songs, prayers, and the sermon itself were given in English, then translated into Russian. He looked around the crowded chambers and guessed that perhaps half those attending were locals.

According to the program handed him as he entered, the pastor was a Reverend Evan Collins. He was a scholarly sort, not in the least what Jeffrey might have expected in the rough-and-tumble of post-Soviet Russia. He was a middle-aged gentleman with sparse graying hair. Collins viewed the world through kindly, inquisitive eyes. There was no righteous anger, no domineering salesmanship. He spoke with a voice that invited listeners to lean closer, relax their guard, draw near. Here is safety, his voice seemed to say. Here is rest.

When the service was over, Jeffrey joined the congregation for coffee. He bided his time until the pastor was free, then walked over and introduced himself. “I have a problem I was wondering if I could ask you about.”

Reverend Collins shifted over one chair and invited him to be seated. “How did you find out about our church?”

“Through the American Consul General.”

“Oh, yes,” Collins said, quickly sobering. “Stan Allbright has proven to be a good friend to us. We have been confronted with a very serious problem, and had it not been for his assistance, quite frankly, I don't know what we would have done.”

“As a matter of fact,” Jeffrey replied, “the work that's brought me to Saint Petersburg might be connected.”

“How is that?”

“I'm not sure I should say.” Or could, he added silently.

“No, of course not.” Reverend Collins paused to greet a passing friend, then continued, “But I take it you know about Leslie Ann Stevens.”

“A little.”

“She was returning from a prayer meeting at our church when she was kidnapped. I suppose you know that, too. We have done everything we can think of, spoken to everyone we could approach, and the only vestige of hope we've found has been from the Consul General.”

“He appears to be taking the matter very seriously.”

“That girl was an absolute godsend for my wife and me,” Collins said, his eyes reaching out over the crowd. “Often we feel we are trying to run a church on the outer edge of civilization. The problems have been impossible to describe, truly impossible. We are growing at an incredible rate, utterly understaffed, more crises than you could ever imagine. And then up pops Leslie Ann, always willing to help out, never complaining, always taking over at the last-minute—”

A gray-haired American gentleman breezed over and cheerfully shouldered his way into the conversation. Collins introduced him as a deacon. Jeffrey shook hands and settled back to wait. Eventually the pastor turned back to him. “Sorry about the interruptions. Was your question about Leslie Ann?”

Jeffrey shook his head. “It wasn't anything urgent. I can see you have a lot of more important things to tend to right now.”

“Nonsense. I'd be glad to help if I can, and now is as good a time as any. Do you mind talking about it here in public?”

“No.” He related the discussion with the Orthodox priest and his feelings upon entering the church. Reverend Collins listened in silence, his eyes never wavering from Jeffrey's face, his depth of listening resembling the hidden reserves of a quiet, slow-moving river.

“Unity among believers is based on a twofold process,” Reverend Collins said when Jeffrey was finished. “In the Book of Peter, we are told that all of us, once Christ has entered our lives, participate in the divine nature. Christ is in me, and I am in Him. A glorious reassurance. And throughout the New Testament, we are declared joined to each other. A
body
of believers. The bride of Christ. A hint of the divine in earthly form. I think that we owe it to our Father to behave as He commands, don't you?”

Jeffrey nodded. “In principle, I agree totally with what you say. I guess my question is where to draw the line. At what point does a practice become unacceptable?”

“Who are we to judge what is and is not acceptable? In Proverbs we are told that one of the seven things God truly despises is a man who sows discord among those whom God loves. Why on earth would anyone wish to take that risk?” He paused to sip from his cup. “The Bible says that all the world is in the hands of darkness. Conflict between believers is for me the greatest evidence of this dark presence within the earthly body of Christ.”

Jeffrey took a breath. “I lost my faith a while back and only recently found it again. Or it found me; I'm not so sure about that part. What I'm trying to say is that the experience is still really fresh with me. I can remember how it felt to be without faith—boy, can I ever. And I can still feel how it was to return to the fold. Such a
powerful
moment.”

“The moment of earthly rapture,” the man agreed. “An earth-shattering experience.”

“I think a lot of people,” Jeffrey went on, “mix up the
path
that led them to this moment with the
goal
.”

Gray eyes fastened him with an intensity that suspended time. “Fascinating.”

“I wonder if maybe people think that because their particular church brought them to Christ, it is
the
church of Christ. The
only
church. The
right
church.”

“And what, pray tell, keeps you from making the same mistake?”

Jeffrey had to smile. “A Baptist loses his faith, falls in love with a devout Anglican, and is guided back to the Lord by a Catholic brother. Who do I give the credit to?”

“The good Lord Jesus,” Collins replied firmly.

“And yet,” Jeffrey added, “I have these strong feelings of discomfort with the way the Orthodox worship. Actually, I guess it's the way a lot of the Eastern churches worship. It's not anything I've thought out. In fact, it bothers me to feel this way. But I do, way down at gut level.”

“Their ways are different,” Collins agreed. “But so is this entire world. What troubles me about the Orthodox church is their view toward evangelism here. They tend to see themselves as guardians of the country's spirituality. As a result, many are uncomfortable with anyone else coming in to do direct evangelism. They tend to identify the church very closely with their national heritage, you see.”

“What about the icons,” Jeffrey asked. “Don't they bother you?”

“It's interesting,” Collins replied. “One objection the Orthodox make about us is that Western religious art depicts saintly figures in contemporary form. Do you understand what I'm saying?”

“Yes.” As styles of art and even fashion had changed with the centuries, Western religious paintings had done so as well. Biblical figures had been painted using local models and
had often been dressed in clothing from the period in which the painter lived. Jeffrey had laughed when he first learned of this habit, until another dealer had pointed out that even today, actors in period films had their clothes and hairstyles adapted to modern styles and tastes.

“But we don't kneel before Western art and pray,” Jeffrey protested.

“Certainly not in the same way,” Collins agreed. “But you see, the Orthodox
deliberately
make their paintings more abstract, exactly because they are used in the worship service. They do not wish to depict people, but rather religious principles.”

Jeffrey thought this over. “I still don't get it.”

“Perhaps you are right,” Evan agreed. “Perhaps I am trying too hard to show compassion and fellowship with people who make real mistakes in their form of worship. But so long as there is this tiniest room for doubt in my mind, I hesitate to condemn. There has been so much condemnation between Christians over the centuries.”

Jeffrey recalled lessons about the Reformation wars. “And so many bloody mistakes.”

“Exactly. So I tend to search for harmony rather than judgment, even if that may mean erring on the side of tolerance. I still feel more comfortable leaving the condemnation up to God.”

He shrugged and added, “The Orthodox are facing problems which we in the West have enormous difficulty even imagining. Not enough priests, and those they have are often undertrained. Large numbers of believers who cannot read. And even if they could, for seventy years it has been virtually impossible for them to have Bibles.”

Jeffrey struggled to understand. “So they use pictures to remind people of lessons?”

“Here again, the Orthodox would say we are making a typical Western judgment,” Collins replied. “They do not see icons as pictures at all. They exaggerate hands and eyes
and features because they intend to communicate truth
through
the painting. Attention should not be on the painting, but rather on what stands
behind
it. The worshiper must be pushed by the painting to see
beyond
the picture to the spiritual reality itself.”

Jeffrey shook his head. “But how do you separate the concept of icons from that of idolatry?”

“Well, maybe you shouldn't,” Collins allowed. “I'm not saying what is right or wrong here, you understand. I'm simply trying to understand what they think. That was a central question I had when I arrived: was I facing a nation that, like the early Israelites, had fallen away to follow other religions? As my Russian improved, I listened as best I could, and I came to believe that those who had refused to follow the idolatry of Communism had remained Christian, at least in their own eyes.”

“And so?”

“And so I'm still not sure,” Collins replied. “What I
think
is that it is one thing for informed priests and theologians to
know
the difference, and
maintain
the difference, and so look through an icon to the truth beyond instead of worshiping the icon as an idol. But it seems to me that maybe ordinary folks haven't been able to maintain that distinction. They end up identifying the Spirit's power with these icons and images. In the worst of cases, perhaps they do follow the idolatrous path.

“They make offerings to shrines—we see this all through the poorer lands where illiteracy is a big problem, not just here. Mexico is covered with them. The impression you get is that people identify the source of power as the object itself, not something beyond the object. So I think—and it's just one person's thoughts here, all right? But yes, I think that the way priests explain the icons is often quite different from the way a lot of the people here understand them, and the way they understand salvation. These distinctions are lost on a lot of them.”