Dilemmas of the Spirit

It's Lent here in Estonia. Well, more or less. It turns out that folks here are, for the most part, not very involved in, not too observant, when it comes to at least the formal or outward forms of "doing church." (I'm talking about Christian heritage folks: the Jewish festival of Purim is coming up this weekend, which we're planning to attend: what do people do to celebrate the deliverance of the Jews from evil rulers who sought to wipe them out millenia ago, in a country in which such a ruler actually succeeded in doing so--declaring Estonia "Juden-frei" or Jew-free? But that's a different story.)

In some ways, cultural traditions which announce or prepare people for the coming of Lent seem more important than Lent itself. Such traditions are festive and enjoyable here, if not as extravagant as ones like Mardi Gras elsewhere. In the old days (at least in theory, or in my imagination), Lent was a time of reflection and renewal preparing the faithful for Easter. It was also a time of self-denial, or sorrow, when believers might give up the richer foods they could occasionally afford and enjoy (like meat, dairy products, and eggs). Fat Tuesday (or here, Shrove Tuesday) was a last chance to pig out (literally), to enjoy holiday dishes like pea and ham soup, pork and potatoes, and whipped cream buns (see photo below). For some, it was a time to eat up such goodies so one's house would be free of them (a little reminiscent of ridding one's house of bread crumbs and yeast-based products before Pesach or Passover for Jews) during the days of fasting. Jesus is said to have fasted for 40 days in the desert before he began his ministry, and his followers could go and do likewise.

I've been talking here about ethnic Estonians, native Estonian speakers who traditionally have been primarily Lutheran (the pea soup and cream buns folks). But ethnic Russians, who are traditionally Russian Orthodox, have similar traditions, substituting delicious pancakes (or blinis, or crepes) for the cream buns, and whose festivities are, in our experience (as Barbara described in a previous entry), more full of song and dance and music (see photo below). But the idea's the same.

Estonians have other cultural traditions around the arrival of Lent as well. The local woman in the first photo above, showing Barbara some handicraft techniques, also gave her a shot of licquer said to put the blush of beauty in women for the coming year. It was also a day (Shrove Tuesday) when men and women would change places, with women free to spend the day away from household chores and drink at the taverns. We didn't actually witness this (these days at least younger women are usually at work rather than home), but it was a nice coincidence that this year Shrove Tuesday was also the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day.

I bring all this up partly because as a sociologist I'm just really interested in what people value and do in a culture, what sense they make of their lives together, what hopes and dreams give their future meaning. But also, partly, because I'm still searching personally for what life means beyond what we can see and touch and feel of it, and for what my own personal history with Christianity can offer to that search.

That search has often been much enriched by time spent with other traditions as well, some closely related (Barbara's Judaism and her practice of it), some more distant yet closer than I'd once thought (the Islam we've encountered in the Middle East). I recent years I've learned about eastern/Orthodox traditions within Christianity itself that we in the U.S. (unless we're part of those traditions) are largely ignorant of: Greek Orthodoxy in Turkey, Coptic Christianity in Egypt, Russian Orthodoxy in Lithuania and here (see the photo of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral ten minutes from our apartment, in which I've wandered amidst the dark icons from time to time).

But I'm still wondering, still searching, and part of me will feel a little sad if there's not some way to continue to grow in an encounter with observant believers here as I did with Islam in the Middle East and Buddhism in Thailand. And that may be less possible here, in spite of the fact that most of the people theoretically share the same religious framework with which I've spent much of my life.

It does make sense that people here are less active in their observance. Religious practice was discouraged (even forbidden) under Soviet rule, especially after World War II--churches were closed, sometimes used for museums or warehouses. Religious traditions were forgotten, including many of the cultural practices by which those traditions had been expressed locally. (Similarly, the small Jewish congregation here, made up mostly of Russian Jews, is said by the rabbi to know few of the prayers for services.)

It may also make a difference that Christianity came late to the Baltics, even later than to Scandinavia. Estonia "became Christian" (as part of military campaigns rather than friendly conversions) only in the 1300's, and Lithuania only in the 1400's. It's said that local people still have some pride in old pre-Christian traditions (stories, legends, and spirits). (It does seem ironic that many Europeans, feeling threatened by immigration from Muslim nations, depict Europe as a Christian civilization--as we've learned in our travels, Egypt spent about the same amount of time as largely Christian, before the arrival of Islam, as the Baltics have spent being Christian since it's arrival here.) So it's possible (though sociologically unlikely?) that Christian practices never became quite so rooted here.

A third reason for the apparently low level of religious observance here may be that Europe as a whole has become largely less religious in belief and practice than it once was--in spite of the fact that some countries still have an official state church (Lutheran for Iceland, Norway, and Sweden; Church of England for England). "Catholic countries" like Spain and Italy now have some of the lowest birthrates in the world, and church attendance in most of Western Europe is meager. So it's not too surprising that religious observance in Estonia might be something for the minority (for ethnic Estonians more than ethnic Russians).

On Ash Wednesday (the day after Shrove Tuesday), I felt a desire to find a connection with a local church. I wound up at St. John's Lutheran church on Freedom Square (commemorating Estonia's first break from Russia in 1918, a forerunner of the 1991 independence), the yellowish church in the photo above). There was a pretty good crowd, perhaps a hundred (the photo below shows the church interior, as worshippers were gathering), though I couldn't help notice that I seemed at 65 to be younger than most others there (I saw only one or two folks who were clearly under 50). And there were no ashes! Hey! Where's a guy supposed to get ashes on his forehead in the shape of a cross when he's so far from home (and after having come to terms with possible embarrassment about leaving it there all day)? This was an afternoon service; but it was the only one scheduled for the day.

Sunday I continued my search for Lent. There seems to be just one church service in town in English, every Sunday at 3:00 at the Püha Vaimu kirik (Holy Spirit Church), coincidentally one of the oldest churches in Tallinn (part of it dates back to the 13th century). We did have a minyan (perhaps a dozen of us), I could understand the Lenten sermon, and five of us knelt at the altar railing to receive communion. I'll likely return, though I also realized that the service was accessible because it was not an Estonian service. So I'm still puzzling through how I might have some deeper encounter with local church traditions than I've been able to find so far. And they are out there: the fact that church attendance or observance is quite low by U.S. measures doesn't mean that the minority of Estonians who still find meaning in their faith (or searches for it) aren't there.

I may have to ask new questions here. I may have arrived, after time spent in recent years in the Middle East and Asia, expecting (without realizing it) that new religious experiences and growth would suggest themselves as they did there. How could I not, in cultures so Muslim or so Buddhist, ask how their searches for meaning were both parallel and different than my own? What am I led to ask, and to learn, in a place like Estonia, which on the surface has traditions similar enough to my own that I am not immediately led to self-examination? How may I widen or open myself to what is available here, rather than qvetching about not finding ashes for Ash Wednesday?

Bruce