Date: 04/20/22
Author: Kent Moors, Ph.D.
Less than 72 hours ago, while Easter was still being observed here, the main Russian attack on Eastern Ukraine began in earnest. Of course, that part of the world is Orthodox and the holiday is next Sunday.
Nonetheless, the tragic juxtaposition of a religious tradition with the horrors of Putin’s imperial ambitions is difficult to miss. It also prompted my wife Marina to recall another time and another person. He may have been one of the least likely sources of controversy she would meet during years of writing her syndicated column Moscow Diary.
This guy was as meek as they come but managed to start little wars over what he did for a living.
He designed churches.
This is what Marina wrote about almost 25 years ago during a more optimistic time in Moscow. Once again, it showcases her ability to encapsulate broader events by focusing on a single person.
Moscow Diary
Diary Entry for Sunday, November 24, 1996
His name is Igor Chalov, and he is one of the most interesting products of Russia’s newfound freedoms. Until recently, the 51-year-old had been a quite invisible architect. He had spent most of his professional life working on those dull public buildings and dark unfriendly hotels which so populated the Soviet landscape.
These days, however, Chalov is the center of a religious controversy. He has moved into designing Russian Orthodox churches, with a popularity extending well beyond his native country. Shortly he will travel to Johannesburg in South Africa where there is a growing Orthodox community but no church. He has already finished designs for cities in Belgium and Italy.
Some call him “God’s builder.” Others have labeled him “Satan’s engineer.” He has merged the familiar onion-dome tradition with the use of modern angles and local materials. No two of his churches look alike, but they are all quite different from what one expects. The buildings are beginning to divide believers and some of the clergy. Going to church in Russia may never be the same again.
So, I decided to meet the fellow. It was the final day of an exhibition on architecture and religion sponsored by Arkhkhram, the architectural division of the church’s Moscow Patriarchy. They knew it would attract a crowd and put it in the city’s huge Rosstroiexpo hall. Chalov would have no choice but to be there – it was the day reserved for presenting his work.
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It took a while to weave through the mass of people by the entrance gate. Recently arrived rights of free speech were unequally combining with a thousand years of religious tradition in pockets of animated discussion. An unusually large number of militia (local police) were in view. This would not be the first time somebody worried about religious beliefs turning violent.
But this was not about doctrine. These protests were solely about buildings. As I made my way in, an elderly woman was shouting “God will visit his anger upon those who destroy his church.” Things endure in Russia, which is why the communist party never had a chance against her beliefs.
It is also the reason just about every current politician (including the remnants of the communists) takes plenty of PR photos inside churches or with one prominently in the background.
Chalov was in the middle of a group of admirers. At least they were looking at him approvingly. This small, almost apologetic looking man in metal-rimmed glasses and a poorly fitting brown sport coat made for the most unlikely looking of revolutionaries.
He was talking about his first “religious experience” – being on the team charged with designing the single house of prayer for the athletes at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. He did not last long on the project since he was not a party member.
His second fared little better. In 1982, he was commissioned to erect a guest house at a monastery in Vilnius, Lithuania [editorial note from Kent: Lithuania was then a part of the Soviet Union]. Shortly after completion, it was bulldozed over by the local Soviet authorities.
“Maybe it was God’s will,” he said with a smile, “because I didn’t like it that much anyway.” The assembled laughed right on cue. How quickly things change. Not too long ago such devotion would have been reserved for the fellow in the bulldozer.
Finally making my way up to him, I knew there would be time for only one question. I asked him what he thought was his finest achievement. I expected him to talk about his Church of the Transfiguration, considered by critics to be among the most important buildings in the post-Soviet period. It is in the Novgorod style of the early church but set slightly off center to allow the sun to do some awesome things with the windows.
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Or perhaps he might confront his detractors by naming his Church of Sergius Radonezhsky. This one is not even finished yet and it seems to have started a war. Under construction for an oil company in the city of Tyumen, work has been halted by several bomb threats. It has been called “a good example of a Protestant church but an insult to Mother Russia,” by the local clergy head.
The politics surrounding it is fierce.
His answer was as unexpected as it was beautiful. He talked lovingly and long about a church in Molokeyevo – a small village in the Belgorod region near the Ukrainian border. “They paid me in food and a train ticket. We had so little money for the construction that I had to convince the local collective farm chairman to advance some credit for the materials.”
That turned out to require all of his skills, Chalov went on to explain, since the fellow was both a communist and a hater of religion. “It will always be my favorite because it was my first complete project.”
And then he looked me square in the eyes and said “I can only design churches, I cannot save anybody in them. The buildings, you see, they are all my hands can give back to God and to Russia.”
Can’t put it into words yet, but this little church has something important to say about an old people with a new mission.
The schedule tells me the village is an overnight from Moscow with three train changes. Maybe I will write something about it when I get back.
Marina never made the journey to Molokeyevo. Shortly after writing the column, her mother took ill.
For the past several days that part of the Belgorod region has had streams of tanks rumbling through on their way to “liberate” Donbas from the rest of Ukraine.
Somebody, somewhere, needs another Chalov to design another church.
Dr. Kent Moors
This is an installment of Classified Intelligence Brief, your guide to what’s really happening behind the headlines… and how to profit from it. Dr. Kent Moors served the United States for 30 years as one of the most highly decorated intelligence operatives alive today (including THREE Presidential commendations).
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