14 April 2012 - Finding Religion

The Moscow International SDA Church

[Insert the name of your favorite hymn here.  I'm gonna go with, "A Mighty Fortress."]

When I was still staying at the Swissotel, I had seen in the Friday issue of The Moscow Times the religion section with a notice for the Seventh Day Adventist church here, even indicating that it had services in English.  Bonus.  Now, as most of you know, "backslidden" would be a kind way to describe my religious status these days.  But it's a part of my culture and traditions and when I am in an unfamiliar place, the familiarity of the services can be soothing.  It also is a great way to practice one's pronunciation in the new language!  (Incidentally the Russian Embassy is just around the corner from the SDA church in Frankfurt that I attended a few times.)

While at the Swissotel I had planned on attending one day and got dressed up and everything, but then they were late in getting me my eggs at the executive lounge and, well....  But today I was serious about it.  I had recalled that the newspaper announcement listed a Metro stop that required a couple of changes, so I thought this could be a long trek.  Turns out the church has a web site that gave quite good directions for getting there.  It is accessible from either the Nagatinskaya or Kolomenskaya Metro stations.  The newspaper had mentioned the Nagatinskaya station, which is the one that requires several transfers.  The Kolomenskaya station, however, was just four stops on the line that is closest to my place.  Perfect.  There was one other note in the directions, though.  If you arrived at Nagatinskaya, it was a 15 minute walk to the church, but it would be about a 25 minute walk from the Kolomenskaya station.  I did not relish a 25 minute walk in heels, especially as sidewalks in good repair are not a guarantee here.  Hmmm....  But wait, what else did the directions mention?  Oh, yes, "the tram."  Tram?  What tram?  Never heard or seen anything that I would classify as a tram here.  Maybe they were calling the electric buses trams?  Hmmm....

I followed the detailed instructions on how to exit the Metro station to find the tram and finally found some people standing around tracks in the street, so I figured that must be the place.  But I couldn't find a place to buy a ticket and wasn't sure if this was something that you bought from the little news and tobacco kiosks in the area.  But as I was pondering this, a tram arrived.  And it was not an electric bus, but a single street car.

I watched as other people got on board and the process seemed somewhat lengthy, but that was because people were buying their tickets directly from the driver through a little hole in the window between the driver's compartment and the rest of the car.  Fascinating.  So I bought my ticket this way (RUB 28 or a little less than $1 per ride, if you're curious), but then couldn't figure out how to use it in the turnstile.  With an arrow at the top of the ticket, it seemed like it should be pretty self-explanatory.  As I struggled with this, a few old ladies were looking at me like I was an idiot.  Nope, just an American apparently lacking in common sense.  They were talking to me and apparently telling me what to do, but of course it was in Russian and lost on me.  Then one of them took pity on me and came up and inserted the card for me - arrow first but card upside down.  Ah....  The rest of the ride was relatively uneventful and one of the stops was right across the street from the church (good thing the web site had a picture of the church so I recognized it as there were no announcements on the stops).

The church building looks large enough, but the sanctuary itself is extremely small (850 square feet).  According to the web site, this is a church where (due to foreigners visiting the country, for example) membership is actually smaller than attendance, the latter of which averages 270 (yes, all stuffed into 850 square feet).  They opened up a large space in the wall between the foyer and the sanctuary so that more people could see the services, but that's overflowing as well.  Forget niceties like a room for parents and infants.  They are trying to raise money to build a larger church, but of course the visitors are not as likely to give large offerings for this, so the burden falls to the members, nearly 70% of whom are under the age of 35, so still early in their careers.

I had arrived early enough that I was able to score a seat in the sanctuary, which was an open area with small upholstered seats arranged in rows and a large set of lights and other things overhead because, as it turns out, they stream the services on the internet.  I was really surprised by this as it seemed like something that one would expect of a large church with professional A/V staff and all.  Nope, just a line of young guys at the back of the sanctuary.  (If you're having insomnia late Friday night or early Saturday morning in the US, you can tune in at http://www.moscowchurch.ru/ and there are also archived sermons - all with English translation.)

A few highlights from the service that differed a bit from what I'm used to:

• The "praise singing" section at the beginning of the service featured lyrics on the overhead in both Russian and English.  I guess you were welcome to sing in whichever was easiest, though I couldn't hear anyone else singing in English.
• There were different translators throughout the service.  During the opening portion that included the praise singing, welcome and announcements, the translator was a young and energetic young man who was probably either still in high school or early on in college.  The translator during the sermon was a young woman who was very expressive, which helped to keep the audience's attention, though I suspect that her being quite attractive with a beautiful smile and playful eyes would have been enough to keep the male audience engaged in either event.
• Given the limited space or perhaps the hard tile floor, we didn't kneel during the service.
• I didn't need to wear heels.  This is one of those wonderful churches where you can wear whatever you have.  Not sure whether this was a function of the youthful nature of the audience, income limitations or general culture, but anything from jeans to suits to beautiful princess-like Easter dresses for the little girls was just fine.
• This was one musically talented group!  There were four different musical performances, including an a  cappella trio of women who I have to believe are of Filipino ancestry with their beautiful smiles and sweet voices singing in English, a woman who sounded like she had had professional singing experience, a tiny girl we could hardly see but who sang like an angel and a talented pianist who was apparently doing variations on a theme that he was creating real-time.  Just amazing.

Overall, a really nice experience.  I think I'll go back now that I know how to get there, though I have to admit that it is tempting to sleep in and watch the services online in my PJs....