St. Petersburg - Day Two

We started our second day in St. Petersburg with a bus that took us to the Neva River, where we boarded a canal boat. Day 2's tour of St. Petersburg gave us a view of the city from the water. The palaces all still looked glorious from this view. While on board the canal boat, which was named Gladiator, we met John and Shirley from Oregon. John grew up in Washington, PA.

After the canal boat tour, we walked across one of the city's bridges to the Peter and Paul Fortress. Our local guide led us on a tour of the Fortress. The guide's name was Melliy (pronounced Mell-lay). As we toured, she kept saying "Follow Melliy; follow Melliy". Peter and Paul Fortress was built by Peter the Great as a political prison. Today it is a museum. The walls of the fortress are 10-20 meters thick.

Within the grounds of the fortress is St. Peter and Paul Church. The church was built as a royal church, to serve the nobility, in the 1700s. On our tour of this church, we learned that St. Andrew was the first to bring the gospel to Russia. (Not sure what that has to do with this church.) As are most of the churches in Russia, St. Peter and Paul is a Russian Orthodox church. Inside the church are many beautiful icons, as is typical of orthodox churches. There was an iconostasis, which is a screen bearing icons that separates the altar from the main part of the church. Again, gorgeous. Also in the church were many tombs of nobility from the Romanov family. Both the tombs of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great were here.

Because of the tombs located in the main church area, and no pews, I wondered about whether the church was used today mostly as a museum. I asked our tour guide and she informed me that it is still an active church, with Sunday services. I wondered why there were no pews - maybe they were removable and they brought them in for services. Later, at another orthodox church, there happened to be a service going on while we were there, and there were no pews. The people were standing during the service. That led me to do some research, as I found this very curious. Apparently, the use of pews in churches is a relatively recent innovation. During services, the people always stood because they participated in the liturgy with the priests, as all, priests and people alike, offered worship to God. However, after the Protestant Reformation, when the typical Protestant service became more of a sermon-being-preached service rather than a worship liturgy, pews were installed so the people could be seated to listen to the preacher.

After our tour of St. Peter and Paul Church, our group was ushered into a tiny chapel, where we were serenaded by 5 Orthodox monks, who were also professional opera singers. They sang a sacred song in their beautiful voices. They were amazing: the richness, the professional quality, the deep bass and incredibly low notes - their music just filled the space. We were so fortunate to be able to experience this.

Before we left the fortress, our tour guide told us that we had to wait until noon to experience the guns that go off every day at that hour. We were warned that they are very loud. When the noon hour arrived, first the church bells chimed. We noticed that when the church bells began to ring, the birds flew off at once, knowing that the loud sounds of the guns was coming next. Sure enough, after the church bells were done, the gun sounded (and yes, it was VERY loud), and then the birds immediately returned.