Russian Cathedral in Paris

St. Alexandre Nevsky is the cathedral of the Orthodox Church in France. it started out as a center for the numerous Russian émigré's in Paris in the mid-19th century. The revolution swelled its ranks with the "best and the brightest" of émigré Christians, including people with names like Berdyaev, Bulgakov, Evdokimov, and a couple of Saints: my own Starets Sophrony (before he moved to England), and the remarkable Mother Marya Skobtsova — now St. Maria of Paris.

Santa Maria, like Dorothy Day, was an actual mother, as well as a spiritual one. She devoted her life to the poor, rescued thousands of Jews, and died as a martyr in Ravensbrucke.

Now there seems to be a whole new generation of émigrés. The place was packed. There were plenty of young people and small children at the liturgy this morning, which was celebrated by Archbishop Gabriel.

The Cathedral is a fine example of the national style. The iconography has a flavor of the jugenstihl, which can be a little startling at first, but I have grown to like it. Russian painters little-known outside Russia (because they painted mostly religious paintings and then came the anti-religious revolution) — such as Nesterov and Vaznetsov.

Nesterov ~ The Angelic Liturgy, 

Vaznetsov Theotokos

These two are examples of this style in other places, nit Paris. Copy and  enlarge the following picture to see what I mean. This ikonostas, completed in 1861, shows the beginning of the style, I think.

Iconostasis at Alexandre Nevsky Cathedral

In the North and South "transepts" I found painting is unusual for an Orthodox Church: not icons, but gigantic paintings depicting events in the Gospels, by the Alexey Bogolyubov, the landscape painter.

The proto--Deacon had the name of the composer of one of the Yale Russian Chorus's liturgical pieces. Nikolai Kedrov was associated with this cathedral. I assume the deacon is his descendant. Here is a sample of the choir, in dialogue with Deacon Alexander.

Chilling in Paris

France is pretty cool — cold, actually, until last week. I went to see the huge Egyptian collection at the Louvre, the Impressionists at Musée d'Orsay, and a nice Cézanne exhibit at the  Musée Luxembourg. 

I went out to Chartres to stare at the windows, and I spent a day in Notre Dame de Paris. Half the windows in Ste. Chapelle are under repair, and there is always a big long line of Chinese tourists waiting to get through the much-enhanced security, so I am going to skip it this time. Anyway, I got to see the Crown of Thorns, which they now have out in an apsidal chapel in Notre Dame.

I have also been to my favorite restaurant several time's (the one where they serve the whole shoulder of lamb, cooked confit style  and served on a cutting board, covered with fried potato slices).

                      Les Diablotins

 I have also really gotten into French bread. And bismarcks (which they call beignet). The latter is not particularly good news, but I have been walking a lot more than I do at home, so maybe it balances out.

The house in Suresnes is really comfortable and it is only a couple of blocks from the main street with all the shops, including about five hairdressers, two butchers, one high-end delicatessen, a cheese shop, two gfree-grocers, a frozen-food shop, several unpretentious restaurants, including Asian ones, two supermarkets and three bakeries. Most of the apartments are public housing,  built in the 30s and 60s. But they are extremely well-built, and the older ones are even rather elegant-looking. Everything else is single-family, suburban houses, like this one. This is, after all, the "fashionable" West — the area is even known as Val d'Or or Golden Valley. But Suresnes is the poor cousin of St. Cloud, its southern neighbor, which is where all the ex-pats live, including Johnny Depp.

Last week I house-sat for a friend in the 13th (SE. of the center, up the river on the left bank). Her apartment is on the top floor of a skyscraper right at the edge of Paris proper. From her 28th floor windows, there is a great view of Paris, and at night you can watch the Eiffel Tower sparkle with its strobe lights, which they turn on for 10 minutes just before the hour until they shut it all down at 1 AM. The Invalides gleams, the Pantheon broods, and you can even see the towers of La Defense, on a clear day – although there weren't  many of those. Fortunately, another high-rise entirely blocks the view of the ghastly Basilique Sacre Couer! The neighborhood (Port d' Choisy) is the center of Paris's Chinatown (or, more precisely, Indo-Chinatown). dozens of Asian restaurants, mostly Vietnamese and Lao. lots of Asian and African people, too, and not many Frenchmen. (Notice how European racism  has rubbed off on me? As though the French of African and Asian descent were not really French!) 

                      Outside the front door!

In any case, there was something really appealing about Port d' Choisy - more cosmopolitan and less suburban, I suppose. I even had a nice conversation with a young butcher at the supermarket there, who was of European extraction. As I was stumbling over my French (so many people speak English now, that I have not been forced to practice) he switched to English. I grunted something, and he said  "you speak very good English". I thanked him and told him that it was it, in fact, my native tongue. He asked me where I was from and  I told him America, Minnesota. He brightened and said that he had never been there, but he did go to Georgetown University, where he earned a BA in political science! We chatted for while, which he was eager to do, and it was all very pleasant. This kind of thing would never happen in Suresnes.

Next Tuesday, I will fly to Morocco for two weeks. Everybody must be afraid or something, because there are some really good deals. I am paying about $700 for 14 days, including airfare! The hotel has a big pool, a Turkish bath, and a garden. It's a cab ride to the old-town, but I really just want to sit in the sun, anyway. Time to get out of the chill, and get a head-start on spring. It seems to be in the 70s in Marrakesh. When I get back here it should be pretty nice. Maybe even nice enough to go out to Jean-loup's retreat in Brittany. And Claude (of the high-rise apartment) wants to take me out to Fontainebleau. I expect to be home on March 29.

On the Anniversary of Hazrat Inayat Khan's Death (called by Sufis his URS, or "wedding")

 

<< There comes a time in the life of a man when he can see some good in the worst man in the world. And when he has reached that point, though the good were covered with a thousand covers, he would put his hand on what is good, because he looks for good and attracts what is good. >>
                                                                                     – Hazrat Inayat Khan

Pir-O-Murshid said words to the effect that "there is not a hair’s breadth of  difference between good and evil". I think he must have meant good and evil persons. This is related to our Lord's injunction not to judge, lest we be judged. Hazrat Inayat Khan says the same thing, when he observes that  << No one can speak ill of another without making it his own; because the one speaking ill of others is ill himself.  >>  And thus, there is really no moral difference between condemner  and condemned.

Human beings have a deep-seated inclination to criticize others and excuse themselves: to behold the speck in the eye of the brother while ignoring the log in their own. This is part of the illusion known as Samsara; perhaps it is the essence of that illusion. With practice, this propensity turns into the widespread madness in which I project all my own failings onto others. Eventually, in order to the rid the world of this evil, I have to kill the others. Thus,  as Starets Sophrony  said,” the absolute precondition of peace in this world is the profound recognition of one's own sin." This fact is also behind the Orthodox communion prayer, in which those about to receive communion describe themselves, individually, as "the chief of sinners".  If beholding the speck leads ultimately to death, so noticing the log leads to life.

But this does not mean that there is no difference between good and evil. After all, condemning others is worse than not doing so. (That is the whole point!) It does mean that there is very little difference between good and evil persons, from the divine point of view. Let me dare to suggest that from that point of view, persons are seen for what they are as opposed to what they are not. Human persons are the image of God, perfectly good. God does not behold distortion and disfiguration of the image. God sees what is; what is not, God does not see. Perhaps this is what the prophet meant, who said God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on iniquity " (Habakuk 1:13).

So, from the divine point of view, there is little to choose between – say – Adolf  Hitler and Mother Teresa, as human beings created in the image of God. This is not to say that there is no difference in their effect on the world. Love is good; malice is bad. But only God can know the inner conditions, motivations, and intentions of human beings. As the hadith puts it:

Every man acts according to his own understanding, and God alone knows who is rightly guided.