Church Hill

One of the major points of interest in Daugavpils is Church Hill, a rise in elevation where Daugavpilians, in their wisdom, put their cathedrals. And there are three of them all in spitting distance from each other: a Catholic one because this part of Latvia is very Catholic, a Lutheran one because the Protestants got to the Baltics early on, and a Russian Orthodox one because it's a Russian city. This mix of denominations is another example of the diversity that you take for granted in Daugavpils. Lee took a couple of very nice shots of the Cathedral of Saints Boris and Gleb, and you can probably guess which denomination this one is. Does anybody know: who is Saint Gleb, exactly?

These golden domes are especially wonderful in the late afternoon when the sun hits them just so. The interior of this cathedral is pretty over the top, though I don't have photos of it; when I stopped in, there was a funeral going on, and it seemed highly rude to snap some pictures, though I wanted to. The chanting was sublime; even the smallest Russian Orthodox churches have sublime choirs.

In addition to these three cathedrals, there is also an Old Believers church nearby, a little pink confection that looks as if it is made of marzipan. The Old Believers were an offshoot of the Orthodox. They broke away in the 17th century over a number of theological issues, one of them (so I'm told) being whether or not you were supposed to cross yourselves with one finger or two fingers. I'm not kidding here -- entire churches get founded on such minutiae as this. Lest we Americans judge too quickly on this matter, we might remind ourselves how many different kinds of Baptists there are in the United States and recall those words of Jesus Christ about judging and not judging.

I would love to go into the Old Believers church, but it's closed to all except Old Believers. All the others are of course open to all passers-by, and  there is something really delightful about being able to just wander into a church and take a breather from your busy day. And of course, this is exactly what these spaces were made for: that liminal space between your regular self and your higher self.