Eucharist


When I think about my trips back home to Moscow one episode inevitably comes to my mind. The Liturgy in the church in front of our apartment building, a working day so the church was semi-empty. Suddenly I noticed a few men of a very characteristic professional appearance whispering something to the praying people, approaching them quietly, one by one. One by one the people began leaving. The man came to the middle-aged woman standing near me who looked like a novice nun. She shook her head and said “No, the Father is in the altar.” One of “professionals” went into the altar space but returned without the priest and joined his mates. I asked the nun-like woman what it was all about. She whispered “They think there is a bomb in the church”. Only the priest, the supposed nun and I were now left in the church; I was afraid but I could not leave because the Eucharist had begun. Eventually the priest appeared with the Cup in his hands, looked at us and suddenly smiled. Then we all left. The professional looking men pulled out of the dark corner near the altar area a very pale woman of “Caucus nationality” – a suspected suicide bomber. They successfully delivered her, almost hanging on their arms, out of the church and locked into the car. “Oh,” – said “the nun” wistfully, “If we blew up we would go straight to heaven!”

I do not know whether there was a bomb or not. The huge market nearby for some years was “the cover” for criminal visitors from the ex-USSR republics, now Muslim. The area around our church was full of police.


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