Summer. It’s the early 1990s. I’m about eleven or twelve years old. The Soviet Union has either collapsed or is already on the verge. Churches and monasteries are being opened en masse all over the country, because they have decided that it is possible, necessary, and why not. People in camisoles and cassocks, clergymen, appear on TV screens in various programs. I’ve only seen them in movies or operas before. The fact that they still exist today is a discovery for me.
At this time, it occurs to my aunts that my sister and I should be baptized. My parents are from the Soviet engineering and technical intelligentsia, they are not churchly people, but they listened to the opinion of their older sisters. We were informed that we would be baptized, and we were given leaflets on which three texts were printed. They were prayers. They told me to memorize it.
I read them and didn’t understand a single word. It didn’t even help that it was written in the usual script, not in the Old Church Slavonic script. The adults decided to dispense with explanations of such complicated phrases as “tea of the resurrection of the dead,” and I was too shy to ask questions. I just felt that it wasn’t about tea.
It was that special day. We arrived at the gates of the Danilovsky Monastery in Moscow. There are a lot of people in front of the gates – in those years there were many who wanted to receive the sacrament of baptism. Apparently, people were afraid that the apocalypse would begin immediately after the collapse of the USSR and it would be better to be baptized just in case.
Several hundred people gathered in the huge cathedral. There were about fifty people who wanted to be baptized. There are also godparents, support groups, friends and relatives…
The divine service began. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a church service before. It was completely unclear what was going on. People were standing close together, and from my height I couldn’t see anything at all except the backs in front. Sometimes there were shouts of priests and something like the ringing of bells. A blue haze hung over our heads and there was a tart smell. The choir sang. Sometimes he sounded as if in dialogue with the priest, sometimes as if by himself, and sometimes the priest was shouting something, and the choir was singing at the same time.
At some point, the whole mass of people began to move. Attracted by the crowd, I suddenly found myself in front of a marble gazebo, only inside there were no benches, but something like a small pool. The font. Each person had to go down the steps into the water, and the priest, leaning over the railing, put his hand on top of his head and dipped his head three times. It looked fun and not at all scary.
It was my turn. I went down into the font, the water was almost chest-deep and very cold, but after the stuffy crowd and standing for a long time, it seemed invigorating to me. The priest put his hand on my head, and as soon as I had time to catch my breath, I was already immersed. The icy water pushed me back out, and the priest dipped me in again. After the third time, they let me out, and the aunts rushed to wipe me and change me into dry clothes. After that, we were each handed a burning candle, and we walked around the temple for a long time to the singing of the choir. At the exit, everyone was given a green certificate that we were now baptized. All.
What this whole ceremony meant and why it was needed was not very clear. Although there was a feeling that it was something significant. Something from the adult world. But this new circumstance did not affect my lifestyle in any way. When I came to school after the holidays, I casually told my classmates that I had been baptized in the summer. They asked in surprise what it was and why, but I couldn’t explain, and we switched to discussing the new students in the class.
Many years have passed: church life does not concern me, but I do not touch it. We’re like parallel universes– we don’t intersect.
It’s summer again. I’m about twenty. I’m a student at the theater Institute. One fine sunny day I’m driving around the city. I drive past the temple and see that there is some kind of joyful excitement inside the fence. It must have been Sunday afternoon. I have to go in, I decide impulsively, park and enter the temple. The service is underway. There are a lot of people. Very much. And there’s a lot of greenery all around. Not outside, but inside. The whole temple is lined with young birch trees. The smell is like in a Russian bath. From time to time, someone from the clergy appears in front of the iconostasis, proclaims something, and everyone around begins to cross themselves and bow. And everyone around is solemnly joyful. And again, nothing is clear, but it is clear that something significant is happening. There is only one recognizable detail: sometimes the priest waves the censer, and then you can hear the bells ringing, just like on the day of my baptism.
I see something like a queue among the crowd. I’m asking: Why is that? They say: to confession. Oh, I thought, and stood at the end. I don’t really know what I wanted, but for some reason I decided that I needed to. I approach the priest. Tall, not much older than me, but clearly wanting to look more mature and respectable than he is. He looks past me. Tell me, he says. Yes, this is my first time in confession, I answer. You can tell me where to start. Well, he says, start by telling me your name, how old you are, and what you do. My name is Irina, I’m about twenty years old, I study at the theater institute, I work in the theater.
His face was transformed. His eyebrows shot up almost to his hairline, and he pulled back and looked at me with all possible severity. At that moment, he became a bit like Yuri Yakovlev in the movie “Ivan Vasilyevich changes his profession.” “An actress, then!” he said. I felt like an abyss of sin. “You must be leading a messy life!” There was sorrow in his voice. “I don’t think so,” I muttered, confused.
Should I explain to him that I’m very busy rehearsing – they just released the play “Teremok” based on Marshak’s play, where I played a mouse, and we immediately start rehearsing the story about Ludwig the fox and Tutta the chicken, where I need to play a chicken, so there’s no time or energy for a messy life. It doesn’t stay.
He started talking about the sinfulness and temptations of the acting environment and, shaking his head, said that he could not allow me to take communion yet. I decided not to hurt him any more by asking what communion was, and went outside. This visit left one big question mark in me, but the sun was shining outside, the birds were singing, and it was summer. That’s what happens, I thought, and went to the rehearsal.
The church and I crossed paths again, but did not meet.
It’s been another ten years, maybe fifteen, maybe more. The temple again. The service is underway. I am the regent, which means I manage and conduct the church choir. Yes, there is such a profession. A few years ago, I went to study for a regent, and they gave me a green certificate again. This time it says that I am the regent.
The liturgy is underway. I’m conducting. I look at the sheet music with one eye, at the choristers with the other, at the altar with the third, and follow the actions of the clergy.: We have to match up. I pause. The choristers freeze. In the pause, the chime of the censer is heard. The parishioners, with their heads down, are praying intently. Silence. I lower my arms, and the choir starts singing again. The clergy decorously go out onto the solea (this is the elevation in front of the iconostasis). We manage to finish the chant exactly by the time the clergy leave. It’s good.
Suddenly I remembered how, during the conducting exam, someone from the harsh commission reproached me for being too dramatic in the musical interpretation and manner of conducting. “Well, she’s an actress, what do you want from her?” – my master objected. The commission shook its head–heads–and gave me an excellent grade.
The service is over, I put the music away and leave the church. I pass by the grannies, the regular parishioners. They smile when they see me. They say you sang well today, and it was easy to pray. Are you running to the theater? Well, run, run.
Yes, I’m in a hurry to go to rehearsal again. As always. And yes, the church and I finally not only crossed paths, but also met.
