Trousers: Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR)


In Australia I settled in a small town situated nowhere. Naturally, there was no Orthodox church. I had to travel to one of the state capitals or to the town an hour and half away where the service was in Greek and happened very rarely.

My first acquaintance with the ROCOR was off-putting. I was rushing to the evening service and went to the cathedral in Sydney straight out of the car without even dropping my luggage at the place I was staying, wearing female trousers, a knee-long loose blouse, and headscarf. I was stopped at the door by a bearded man – the epitome of Russian pre-revolutionary piety. “No, you cannot come in – you are wearing trousers.” I used to go in those very trousers and blouse to the monasteries in Moscow and beyond and none ever said anything to me against it but here I could not enter a city cathedral. Other women were passing along, entering the church freely, some of them in ultra-mini skirts and almost all of them without headscarves. I understood that here a mini-skirt was perceived to be more modest than my almost Muslim-like total coverage. I tried to state that I came from far away for the sake of confession and Holy Communion but the bearded man was adamant. Fortunately, a compassionate woman who heard our conversation rushed home and brought for me her own skirt. I pulled it over my garments. It was too short for me – only a few centimeters longer than my blouse but it was The Skirt so I was allowed in. Standing inside the cathedral in someone’s tartan skirt pulled over my trousers and flowery blouse I was feeling like a fool, and even more a fool when the priest beaconed me for confession.

He was friendly. He asked where I have come from, heard that I was baptized in Russia, shook his head and said “Oh dear! – Let us pray that your baptism was a true baptism.” I, a fool in someone’s skirt, went totally numb. What did he mean? The priest continued “Wait for me after tomorrows Liturgy and I will give you a book”.

Next day I came wearing a very long dress and a headscarf of a matching colour. Yesterday’s bearded man smiled approvingly and I, to my shame, felt that I was indeed worthier now than I was yesterday. After the Liturgy I waited for the priest for some time; the people around me were giving some sweets to each other. Eventually the priest came out and handled to me a pale bluish book saying “Surely you have never had such books or perhaps even any Orthodox books published in Russia.” It was a catechesis, a reprint of pre-revolutionary book.

Only later I learnt that many ROCOR priests consider the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate to be graceless therefore its sacraments are not true sacraments. The catechesis is still with me, somewhere between my volumes of the Philokalia and Fr Pavel Florensky brought from Moscow.

I had no means to go to the state capitals regularly so I did not need to decide if I was prepared to put up with this offensive, for me, attitude to the Church which baptized me and brought me up.


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