God's Many Houses

"Be prepared; I must go into any church I pass by," I have often told people who travel to Europe with me. I love churches. I mean, LOVE them, like the feeling that I have come home for a little bit. Be prepared to pause, to look, perhaps to pray or to light a candle. It's a moment of connection with Heaven for the soul.

By the way, it strikes me that God's houses in brick, wood, and stone bear many similarities to God's dwellings in us--flesh and bone. You may want to keep that in mind as you read and look.

In this post I will take you into the twenty-one churches I visited in two weeks of travel in Estonia, Finland and Russia. Our university's string quartet played in eleven of these --everything from prison chapels to a cathedral or two. Clicking on any of these photos will give you a better, more detailed view. Come along on the tour!
We start with the Tallinn church. Despite our visit during traditional vacation time in the countries around the Baltic Sea, we had a good turnout for our concert here. You can tell the difference between the protestant churches (like this one) and the Catholic or Orthodox ones by the level of decoration on walls and ceilings. I really liked the effect of wood and ferns in this church.

This is the ruin of the Padise monastery in Estonia. Despite many fires, the chapel has survived over hundreds of years. The sturdiness and endurance of this room through much hardship is what struck me. I wonder what the windows were like--when it had window glass?

Now we go to prison, where this chapel had surprisingly good acoustics despite the look of being in a third world country. I was told that the prisoners might not like having their pictures taken, so I respectfully avoided pointing the camera in their direction. I'm struck by the thought that this space regularly welcomes more than its share of pretty desperate-feeling, needy souls.

The second prison we visited was more decorated, with the rugs on the platform softening the bare spaces of the prison. The prisoner in the green shirt sang some lovely praise songs (with the pop beat on the synthesizer keeping time). This is the chapel in which I took the pictures of chaplain Olavi and the prisoner (post below).

This organ graces one wing in the beautiful Helsinki cathedral in Finland. Despite the glory and gorgeous decorations of this huge church, I managed to pinch my arm in the pew door. Ow.

The Uspenski cathedral in Helsinki serves the Russian Orthodox believers. This is the view as you look straight up. I love those churches where, when you enter them, they draw your eyes straight up to heaven, and then are painted to make you feel that you are looking even higher. They tend to remind you of your place--pretty small--in this universe. It sets your problems in perspective.

My favorite church in Finland is the huge Temppeliaukio church in Helsinki, chiseled down into a solid rock hill. The colors in the rock are beautiful, as is the woven copper dishlike ceiling. There's something strong and thoughtful about the aura of this sanctuary, something that reminds you that we are very much still of the earth while we yet endeavor to make connection with God.

This is the church room at a place called Hopeaniemi, which is a lifestyle change center and spa about 45 minutes west of Helsinki. It also serves as it gym. We had only 10 people at the concert here, but they drank in the quartet's music appreciatively. I love the colors in this room, and the windows that draw your eyes out toward the view into the green of the forest. It's both a folksy and restful place to sit for awhile.

I've written about the cathedral in Turku, Finland before. The altarpiece depicting the transfiguration of Christ is beautifully done, and contrasts with the stark stone simplicity of the rest of this Lutheran church. Unlike altars in Russian Orthodox churches, which can only be approached by a priest, you can walk right up to this altar and take a moment to gaze up and be thoughtful, to symbolically approach God directly and personally. And yet the massiveness of the altarpiece reminds you that you are simple and human before a glorious God.

This pulpit graces a chapel in the Turku castle. Rather ornate, isn't it? I wonder if people sitting near it got a crick in their necks from looking up at the pastor? The special place for speaking the Word is a signal of two things to me: that God does indeed call some people--no matter how flawed--to be the bearers of His word, His encouragement and His exhortation to us. Second, it reminds me that this "higher calling" makes the called individual more visible to everyone, with every word and gesture examined. You get my drift.

Right near the pulpit is a box on each side for seating the highest ranking royal couple. I guess royal couples didn't get to sit together in church in those days.

Our string quartet performed in Bethel church in Turku. I love the moderately simple decor, the colors, and the familiar painting of Christ in Gethsemane for the altarpiece.

This church is actually hidden from any thoroughfare, surrounded by other buildings so that you must approach it through either a little alley or a tunnel staircase from the pedestrian mall. Perhaps at one time it was visible, but somehow it's gotten obscured by the others around it. That's rather sad for such a sweet gem.

In Tampere, Finland, there is a very unusual cathedral worth going out of your way to visit because of the paintings in it, which continue to be controversial (as in, you either love them or hate them). This altarpiece of the resurrection was painted by Magnus Enckell, and the rest of the paintings were done by Hugo Simberg. You can read about them and see more of the paintings here. In all of the paintings there are parables and object lessons, which remind me that some of the most powerful ways of communication are through story and metaphor. It also reminds me that some of the most powerful messages about God and the condition of man can remain unendingly controversial and divisive over the years.

We performed in Jyväskylä at the church pastored by my real-life friend Ansku, who blogs over at Pastorin blogi. The good-sized audience that turned up on this warm Friday evening was encouraging and appreciative.

This sanctuary is designed in the form of a square box built of brick, quite sparse. I think that simple surroundings turn the thoughts toward the examination of the inner life in a way that is not otherwise possible. Some of us appreciate the sacredness and protectiveness of a simple space that is boxed in, and some may feel--well, boxed in. I personally liked it, especially with the light streaming in from above.

This is the worship hall of a summer camp called Kallioniemi ("rock headland") near Jyväskylä. The floor is covered with woven rugs and the teenagers who were there for camp that week sat on the floor. They were surprisingly quiet, attentive and appreciative of the classical music. Maybe that's because we didn't overdo the length.

I love the warmth of the light in this wood building with candles burning on the front mantlepieces, and the informality and camaraderie of people sitting together on the rug-covered floor, in worship. At times, the kids would stand in lines during a song, their arms around each other and swaying as they sang. Singing and swaying together. We are so blessed and built up in these times of worshiping corporately.

Valamon Luostari is a Russian Orthodox monastery in central Finland. When Russia took away a big chunk of Finland following World War II, Finland lost part of this monastery.

They have a madonna icon in the church that is said to work miracles. You might see her on the right there, with all the incense burners hanging down over the top of her. I took two pictures of her and they both turned out fuzzy because of the low light. I tend to believe that it is the faith that makes the miracles, not the icon. Faith in the house of God is a powerful, undefinable thing.

This chapel is in an old Finnish manor house near a town called Siikasalmi. Some people bought this campus and have been trying to run a school and industries there. They had just finished providing a summer camp for a bright-eyed group of children from Russia.

As I looked at the people attending our concert, they appeared to be very simple, down-to-earth farming-type people. Men whose hands showed the signs of working with the dirt. Women with no makeup or fashionable clothing, but beautiful open faces. A spread of ages running from small children to very old people. And I mused that there must be a lot more to know about these people and their lives, belying the simplicity of their exteriors.

Our final concert in Finland was in the Joensuu cathedral. As with many old churches in this country, paintings decorated the walls and the vaulted ceiling. It was one of the most beautiful churches, and had the best acoustics. It was also the best performance by our string quartet. The audience seemed delighted with the quality of the concert.

The ceiling paintings depicted the local plants in this area. The carved balconies and organ casings showed much love and care put into their creation by the artists. But when you looked at the front of the church, the beautiful altar painting got right down to business by depicting Christ hanging on the cross, the darkness of that afternoon surrounding him. You could not forget, in this church, what this was all about.

Welcome to St. Petersburg. This is the chapel in the fortress of Peter and Paul. The last Russian royal family (Nicolas II and his family) now has their bones interred here, near many other Russian czars including Peter the Great and Catherine.

This church is used as a mausoleum rather than as a place of worship. It has long been a place of the dead, not the living. Status is celebrated by the more ornate tombs of those who are higher in the royalty food chain. Any depiction of Jesus is dwarfed by the huge columns and walls of cold marble.

The Cathedral of the Spilled Blood is also used as a museum these days, but I think it's going to be resurrected as a place of worship. It was erected on the spot where Czar Alexander II--who freed the serfs--was assassinated by some of the very people he had set free.

It was amazing to hear that during the soviet time there was a plan underway to turn this cathedral into a swimming pool. This was, hands down, my favorite church of any of these pictured. I could have stayed in there for hours and looked, and looked, and looked.

The edifice is huge, but even more impressive are the many mosaics stacked on the walls up to the ceiling, depicting in living color the scenes of the life of Christ. This is a church that constantly tells stories of Jesus from one wall to another, from one column to the next. It doesn't shut up. Had it been made a soviet swimming pool it would have continued to tell the stories of Jesus, beautifully, brilliantly, eloquently.

St. Isaacs cathedral in St. Petersburg was designed by Auguste Montferrand, a French architect who died 2 months after it was completed. It was his life's culminating work.

During the soviet times this church was turned into an "anti-religious museum." The dove has been there the whole time at the top of the cupola depicting Jesus and the apostles--that dove symbolizing the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. As best as I can tell, God has had the last laugh at this point.

We ended our tour with a performance in a very simple church in St. Petersburg, a building funded by believers in southern California shortly after the breakup of the Soviet Union. The topic of Bible study that day was the family of Moses (Zipporah, Aaron and Miriam) and what we can learn about family relationships to help us today. These people were digging deep into the Word.

It was at this church that we met Alexey of the bus/police incident fame described two posts below this one.

So there you have it. A whirlwind tour of such a variety of churches. When I wrote the title of this post, "God's many houses," and considered the differences among these churches, their designs and their usages over the years, I thought it was an amazing metaphor for who we are individually as the temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16), and the fact that our diversity in Christ is mirrored in the houses we build for God.

Just think about it.