From two sides of the iconostasis .....

Two different people said they liked the service at the Cathedral this morning. Prayerful, they said.

Which rather cheered me up: seen from the altar-side of the iconostasis, it had been a near-disaster: we had had to borrow a priest from Antwerp as neither of our two was available. We were three deacons, no acolytes, no reader, number two deacon had a bad back and looked dreadful, I, number three, had slept very badly and struggled through the epistle in Slavonic.  And there were four adult communicants out of a congregation of 50.