AS I CLIMB THE STEPS TOWARD THE ENTRANCE OF THE CATHEDRAL of the Holy Trinity, a young priest with a straggly beard tells me foreign tourists are encouraged to make a small donation to the homeless and the hungry. I get the feeling he has been posted to scout for trade and saw me coming a mile off. A wooden cross swings on a chain around his neck.
When we get to the door, he smiles and holds out a large silver collection plate.
I reward his efforts with a bunch of roubles, head inside and find a seat between two praying babushkas at the rear of the nave.
I unfurl a fact sheet from the Ilitch Foundation website.
Holy Trinity is the foundation’s flagship, a model for its many other restoration projects. At the bottom of the sheet are some photos. They include a shot of the Church of St Mary Magdalene, which is familiar from the cabin. It overlooks the holy sites of the three religions and is a stone’s throw from where conference delegates are now assembling.
I become aware that someone is standing behind me.
It’s the young priest who accosted me at the entrance. He introduces himself as Father Yuri. ‘Excuse me. English?’
I get to my feet. ‘American.’
‘I like to show you something.’
I follow him. At the entranceway, he points to the collection plate. ‘Three thousand roubles! More than fifty dollars! This very, very good!’
I tell him I’m happy to help.
After he’s finished pumping my hand, he asks me my name.
‘Joshua? I like this. When I look for you, Joshua, I think you leave, but then I see you at back of church. As I come close, I see you reading about Ilitch restoration.’
I tell him the project interests me, particularly the one in Jerusalem.
‘OK.’ He claps me on the back. ‘So, I do something for you.’
He leads me past a panel of icons to a screen displaying the various stages of the process.
No expense has been spared in the employment of cutting-edge twenty-first-century technology. Where it hasn’t been possible to take castings from the original moldings, for example, digital images have been made of archive photographs and fiberglass facsimiles built using 3D printers. Yuri points out an angel’s head high on the domed ceiling that’s a prize example.
I ask him how I can make a contribution.
‘Contribution?’ He mangles each syllable.
‘A gift.’
‘But you make this already.’
‘That was for the homeless and the hungry.’
I point to the picture of the Church of St Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem. ‘What do you know about the work here?’
He peers at it. ‘Little. Father Grigory. He know.’
‘Who is Father Grigory?’
‘Father Grigory is nastoyatel.’ He pauses. ‘How you say? Father Superior.’
‘Please take me to him.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes. Now.’
‘Father Grigory is busy man.’
‘So am I. I want to make a sizeable donation.’
Yuri frowns.
I hold my hands wide.
We pass through a door that opens onto a narrow hallway.
A number of chambers lead off of it.
He stops at the second on the left, pauses, and knocks. A low voice answers. Yuri enters. I hang back.
A clean-shaven priest in a black robe and boxy headgear is sitting behind a desk in an office that’s bare except for an inlaid gold icon of the crucified Christ on the wall behind him.
Father Grigory is in his late thirties. The cross hanging heavily from his neck is solid silver. He stares at Yuri, then at me. He’s pressing a cordless phone to his ear with one hand and covering the mouthpiece with the other. He nods at Yuri.
I catch the words ‘Yerusalim’ and ‘Amerikanski’ in Yuri’s response.
Father Grigory appears to give us a curt dismissal.
Thirty seconds later, Yuri and I are back where we started, in the entranceway.
When I ask what Grigory said, he simply repeats that the nastoyatel is a very busy man.
‘He said you try come back tomorrow.’
My command of Russian isn’t brilliant, but I am fairly certain that this is not what the nastoyatel said. The word I heard him use was neudobnyy. As I walk down the icy steps toward the pathway that leads to the river, I check a translate engine. Neudobnyy means ‘inconvenient’.
A Range Rover and a Mercedes saloon – both so immaculately polished I can see my reflection in their paintwork as they sweep past – pull up at the base of the steps.
Two bodyguards leap from the Range Rover. One runs to the Merc and waits. The other clears a path through people milling around the entrance then speaks into his microphone. The first heavy opens the Merc’s door.
A priest in a black robe and white headdress emerges. I hear someone close by whisper: ‘Patriarch Nikolai,’ and watch the closest onlookers dip their heads toward the Primate of Moscow, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.
They pay little attention to the man who follows.
I have only seen that one picture of Vladimir Ilitch – on the crazy wall, from way back, when he was still a lowly accountant in the pay of the Soviet state. He is taller than I expected, but there’s no mistaking him.
He checks himself in the reflection of the passenger window, sweeps his distinctive lock of hair away from his face, and slips on a pair of sunglasses. Flanked by his bodyguards, he puts his hands behind his back, drops his head, and strides into the patriarch’s church.