By Steve Weatherbe

EASTERN Orthodox Christians love to tell the story of St. Vladimir – and who can blame them? The 10th-century pagan king of the Russ people in what is today Ukraine, he went shopping for a religion for his people and picked Orthodoxy over Islam, Judaism and Catholicism, reportedly for its beauty.

Last month, relics of St.Vladimir that narrowly escaped the virulent religious persecution of the Soviet Communists were venerated at All Saints of Alaska Church beside Elk Lake in Victoria.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said the pastor, Father Kaleeg Hainsworth. “In Kiev they line up for hours to see and venerate it.” Indeed, after the Ukrainian Orthodox Church approved the North American tour for the relics, the government of Ukraine still turned back the ornate wooden reliquary containing fragments of the saint's skull at the border for several weeks of paper work.

At All Saints of Alaska Church (which occupies what formerly was Elk Lake Baptist Church), the congregation lined up, too, but briefly, to touch, kneel before and kiss the reliquary, and have Father Hainsworth inscribe a cross on their foreheads with holy oil.

“We worship God,” explained the priest. “We venerate saints and icons.”

Such actions may smack of idolatry to Protestants, but for the Orthodox the debate was resolved 1200 years ago. Ultimately those who condemned – and smashed – icons, the iconclasts, were themselves condemned as heretics who denied the incarnation.

The Old Testament condemns graven images, said  Hainsworth. But the Orthodox and Catholic churches both teach that Jesus, by becoming flesh in the incarnation, made the creation of holy images and worshipping Jesus or venerating saints through images or relics worthy forms of prayer.

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Most of St. Vladimir's remains were destroyed by the Communists in their first years in power, when they dynamited the Moscow church where they were held. Some, however, had been loaned to the Ukrainians, who hid them.

All Saints of Alaska Church belongs to the Orthodox Church of America, which was part of the Russian Orthodox Church until 1970, when the latter gave it independence. Hainsworth's church started eight years ago with three or four members and now has more than 80. Some are converts from other Christian faiths, including evangelicals, while others were formerly unchurched.

What's the appeal? “Three things,” said Hainsworth. “Christ, beauty and roots. Christ as he has been preached since apostolic times. Beauty, as an expression of Christ, in worship, iconography and music. And roots because people can reach back and see the continuity of the faith for 20 centuries.”

When St. Vladimir's delegates came back from visiting Muslims, they complained that alcohol was prohibited, while Catholicism involved submission to the Pope in Rome, and Judaism seemed to have lost God's favour because of the loss of Jerusalem. But their report on the holy liturgy at the Hagia Sofia cathedral in Constantinople was that “We knew not whether we were on earth or in heaven,” so beautiful was the service.

Last fall, All Saints of Alaska set up a downtown mission on Johnson Street called St. Maria of Paris Outreach Centre (named after an Orthodox nun killed by the Nazis for hiding Jews). It offers cooking facilities for those who lack them, counselling, coffee and services in a tiny chapel.

A St. Maria's volunteer, Joy Bartlett, said Orthodoxy “is very out of step with the modern world,” particularly its pursuit of money and individual gain. In contrast, “Here you find a real sense of community and 2,000 years of depth. It is incredibly solid and bold.”

November 2010