anglomedved

As such we in our cathedral parish of St Nicholas find ourselves in a country and a city, which is increasingly a mixed bag. Of Brussels’ 1.25 million inhabitants, 25% are non-Belgian, over 30% of births are Muslim. Of the ‘white’ Belgians under 30 whom I know, I would guess that nearly half either have a non-Belgian parent or a non-Belgian partner. If you like, we are mongrels among mongrels. And it is in this mongrel world that we have to be and preach Christ.

(Mongrels, lovely animals, aren't they/we)

The first sign of this is obviously language. I am sorry, but there is no way round that fact that we have to go bilingual. In a sense we already are: every Sunday upstairs after the liturgy I speak at least three languages (Russian, French, English), sometimes five. No, I am not in favour of multilingual services, but we need to mix Russian with one other language, either French, or English, (a language understood by every educated Belgian under age 40 and by many more Russians than is French). To do this needs a bit of patience and give and take, but it can work: the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in London is a shining example of this.

This will not go down well with Moscow, either the Church authorities, or the political authorities, who tend to see our church as part of a Russian cultural mission. Tough. Our role is to be Christians in Belgium, not standard bearers for the Russian political establishment.

But language in fact, is not what it is really all about. It is about attitude. It is about the way we as Christians believe that society should work, both our own inner society within the Church, and, so far as we are able to have a say in fashioning it, in the wider society of which we are part, which as I have said above, whether we like it or not, is that of Belgium and the European Union. Simply, the Russian model, as we see and understand it both in the Russian Church and in the Russian political structure, is uninviting in Europe – the Russian church through autocracy, the Russian political structure through kleptocracy and corruption. This is not to say that the European model is spotless – it has many weaknesses, but my contention is that it is more honest – and Christian - to work in it and to hopefully help improve it, than to sit outside and throw stones at it.

(to be continued).