Peterskirche

You get to learn the dates of many feasts of the Catholic Church when you visit places in Europe. For example, our first day looking around Vienna happened to coincide with the 40th day after Easter, the day of the Ascension. Many of the shops were closed, though the churches were open, but there's only a select few of us that think that churches are interesting enough to make up an entire day's occupation. We're the same group of people who will go google the stories of the saints when we learn to whom each altar in the church is dedicated.

Ooo ooo, I know this one! St. John of Nepomuk! I don't even have to look up how to spell Nepomuk anymore!

But a whole day of trying to find something to do in a city in another country where they don't speak English, where you can't figure out why nothing is open and where you are having extraordinary difficulty deciding what to do for lunch and/or dinner (you're not quite sure what time it is either) on top of travelling to so many different places can do something crazy to a person. You can become quite unreasonably angry with your friend and leave her on the metro back to the hostel while you hop the next train back into the city to sulk.

It was in this rather disquieted state of mind that I magically found my way to St. Peter's Church or Peterskirche in German. I had walked by this church before the last time I was in Vienna, I was sure, and even though I had determined earlier that day that I was going to focus on Stephansdom while I was in Vienna, the bells were ringing the evening mass as I walked by and I figured it couldn't hurt me to go to church. I would just sit down somewhere and write mean things otherwise.

Peterskirche is not a big church. It's baroque and it's impressive with its decoration, but it had already quite filled up by the time I walked in. I had to sit in a chair beside the raised pews with no kneeling rail. This mean that during mass, when I generally play a game of monkey-see, monkey-do with the knowledgable people around me, I couldn't imitate their kneeling. It was still good though, to listen to the congregation chant their way through mass and to contemplate things as I looked around the room, wondering what in the world the sermon could be about.

The confessional booths were open and I had never seen one of these things in action before. The ones in Peterskirche were also new to me because they had these little side nooks that you kneeled at and then whispered yours sins to the priest. Man, I want more privacy than that. If I have to say everything I've done wrong since my last confession, I don't want any chance of that mess getting around (that's what she said... and now I would have even longer of a list). But the booths are distant enough from the main nave, I guess, taking up some wall space in some of the side altars, so I just watched as a mini-priest in the making, a proud middle school boy, made his way over to the booth early on in the service to get those sins off his chest before taking communion. A little line formed, mostly men, though the boy's mother also went over to the booth (is it allowed to go both ways? I feel like moms should be able to get some information from the priest. They're all in cahoots anyway). It's a character study, watching their faces change as they approach confession and after they leave it. And hey, body language was the only thing that was making sense to me at the time.

After mass, the church cleared out but I couldn't bring myself to leave. I mean, I didn't particularly want to look around, because I was still mad and sad and stuff, but the people who stayed to pray had me glued to my seat. OK, this is kinda a lie and this is where I make my decision. Sometimes you just get tired of secularizing everything.

I believe in God. I believe God does mighty and wonderful things in the world today, sometimes through the Church and sometimes not. I believe God hears me when I pray and I believe that He doesn't judge me on the way that my prayers get to Him, so even though I feel a little insolent doing it in one of these fancy churches with enough decorations on the ceiling to scare anyone away from staring intensely at it, I will stare intensely at the ceiling because that's the easiest way for me to focus my attention on the task at hand, and I have found that I can pray for the hour and a half between mass and the evening organ concert and barely notice my butt going numb from the tiny wooden pew that I absconded post-mass.

Because sometimes, God needs to hear it. God needs to hear my confusions and my frustrations as much as He needs to hear my joys and my praises. God needs to hear my confessions and my failings as much as He needs to remind me of my blessings and my suceedings. God needs to hear when I am worried about the Church and He needs to hear what I have to say in praise of the Church. And I couldn't think of a better place to do this than the one I currently inhabited. It also doesn't hurt to send up a prayer or two for people you may or may not have left on metro trains, even though we're both capable adults and the metro stop is stupid close to the hostel. You know, just in case.

Then I let myself get distracted by the room. I'm getting to like the stories churches tell. I like recognizing the altars (St. John of Nepomuk, St. Barbara, St. Michael, St. Anthony).

I like looking at the different ways people choose to portray Biblical figures.

OK, so I don't really know who this is, but isn't that the coolest effect ever?!

 Of course, there's always people in the room. It's impossible not to be slightly miffed by the tourists that forget that you're in a church, that click two photos of the interior and talk too loudly to the people around them before moving on, but this can be countered if, say, a caring husband leaves his pregnant wife waiting patiently at the pews while he goes to fetch a priest to talk about a christening ceremony for the little not-yet-born human that will soon occupy all of their time. Then you can watch as one of the other priests, quicker at changing, comes over to talk to the pregnant wife like they're old family friends and watch the way she reacts, all comfort and smiles and quietly told stories, respectful but happy in the space she's in. You can sit back as the husband comes back, priest in tow, completely focused on getting back to his wife, smiling at her as he approaches. This little scene can give you a good bit of encouragement for the Church, if a place like this, so full of shiny things that they're willing to give you a printed guide at the door to help you sort it out, can still be bothered to do the simple care of a congregation. It can make you smile as you go back to your prayers.

I thumbed through the pamphlet on the objects in the room as I waited the extra half hour for the organ concert to start. The free concert, by the way, was something kinda crazy beautiful. They had singers as well, and they did Ave Maria, which I had done with my youth choir back home and dearly loved and my heart soared for a song I understood. All in all, it was beautiful. But before I got distracted by that, I was distracted by the top paragraph on the back of the pamphlet. "Before leaving, do look again at the painting aboce the main altar.

This work of art (by M. Altomonte) portrays the healing of the lame man by St. Peter and St. John at the Beautiful Gate in Jerusalem. Before you leave the church you might pray for the unity of all Christians. St. Peter's has worked for this goal since 400 AD."

See, the Ascention is when Christ left us all to deal with each other, you know, Love one another as I have loved you, etc. 400 years later, this church began its work trying to make that kind of unity true. It's all good, though. I can't think of a better place to celebrate the beginning of the churches' time together.

Berliner Dom

I wasn't originally going to go inside of the Berlin Cathedral. It's an impressive building, sure, and I loved taking pictures of it and just sitting in front of it, but the man behind the desk at the hostel had assured me that it was just like any other cathedral. He suggested several other places to go besides. It wasn't until I saw the people walking around the top of the dome that I decided that I needed to go in. It wasn't very expensive either, plus seeing the inside now freed up my Sunday morning as I had planned to go to service in this "Protestant St. Peter's."

Just like any other cathedral, the Berliner Dom has a lot of history. The first structure on this site was a chapel dedicated to St. Erasmus (who wrote Praise of Folly, which I wrote a paper on in my only English class in college, and made a copy of the Bible that scholars used for centuries, which I read about in my only book on New Testament textual criticism) in (wait for it...) 1465. 1465. That's a couple of decades before Columbus sailed over to America. Just to throw that into perspective there. Then, about three hundred years after that, they tore the chapel down to build a new cathedral in 1747. That cathedral was renovated in 1822 in the neoclassical style (to celebrate Prussia's uniting the Lutheran and Reformed communities). Next, Emperor Wilhelm II tore down that cathedral to build a new one in the baroque and renaissance styles that was finished in 1905, which was bombed during World War II and has since been renovated to show a simpler style, re-opening in 1993. And if you think that's a ridiculous amount of history, you should see the cathedral museum on the way up to the top of the dome. Ridiculous.

So the outside's deinitely impressive, with all these angels and then there are the fathers of the Protestant church (there's a lot of Luther) and there's Jesus, welcoming you in, and these gold inlay signs... it's a sight to see.

Inside, it's what I've come to expect from the older Catholic cathedrals I've visited- ornamentation, a decorated pulpit not in the center of the chancel, a crypt and a lot of biblical people looking down at you. Instead of the Latin or Greek church fathers, though, you have Protestant Reformers staring down at you. It's a little bit of a different experience.

Why hello there.

Whenever people ask me what brings me to whichever city I happen to be in, I say travel unless I want to get into a discussion about religion and the church. There are many questions tied up in studying sacred architecture. I'm always afriad of Why do we need cathedrals? I'm always tempted to brush it aside as a power and pride thing, ostensibly insiting that people are trying to display the glory of God in a building, the same way Handel or Beethoven would try to display it in a composition. It's easier to do when it's a Catholic church because I'm not Catholic. It almost makes me curl up in a ball of ignorance and guilt when I think that I had assumed that Protestants of any kind wouldn't spend their time building these ornate buildings. And yet here we are, Luther and Calvin glaring down at me from the heights of the cathedral.

You might think I'm being dramatic, but really. They're staring. It's impolite. 

Maybe to escape it all, I climbed up the stairs, my original purpose in buying a ticket. It's not a bad climb, though it was lengthy. I loved the view of Berlin from the top, though, so I'd consider it worth the time and effort. From there you could see the spires of other churches, the tops of other buildings, distant smoke stacks, tiny ant people in the park. From one side, an angel appeared to conduct a band on the bridge far below. From another, the angel sang out proclamations to the lady sitting in the middle of the giant heart I hadn't seen before.

Climbing back down led to staircase after staircase and I ended up in the crypt, which, ironically, is right by the bathrooms. I dunno, I just feel like we shouldn't be waving the dullness of everyday living, breathing, existence in the face of our dead. I also feel like you shouldn't have a bathroom right beside a crypt of the honored dead, like kings and queens and war heroes. I mean, what kind of message does that send, especially to vindictive ghosts?

I liked the crypt, though. It was quiet and respectful. It's easy to mourn someone else's loss. I paused for a long time in front of the tiny caskets and pondered over the paired tombs of husbands and wives. The best part of the crypt, though, was its focus on promises. Following the main path will lead you from the entrance to either the exit, the tomb of an emperor, or a marble statue of a young man sitting on a marble bench in front of a cross draped with a white cloth.

On the bench beside the young man were the words Er ist nich hier, Er ist auferstanden. He is not here. He is risen.

I like it when I leave a church pensive. I like that the building has given me something to think about or turn over in my head. It gives me different ideas about the structure and purpose of a church, though, when the most meaningful places were the metal walkway high above the sanctuary and the cold crypt far below it.

St. Nicholas Church on Lesser Town

Before you go all Google crazy on me and tell me that the pictures I have are not of St. Nicholas Church on Old Town Square in Prague, let me tell you that you are absolutely right. My pictures are of St. Nicholas Church on Lesser Town. There are three St. Nicholas Churches in Prague. How is that fair to my research endeavors?

St. Nicholas wasn't a church that I was originally intending on visiting, but since my doorstep dropped itself near the baroque giant of a church, I decided I might as well go visit. As a point of reference to my life, I've been sleeping a lot. Like, at least ten hours a night. Not that I'm that tired, just that my days are full enough to allow for things like excessive sleeping, and I do love to sleep. But, as I found out when I climbed the front stairs to the church surround by French tourists, sleeping too late can be vaguely detrimental. If you get into the church between 8 and 9 in the morning to pray, it's free. They only start to charge you (a couple dozen Czech crowns- I don't think it was much over a dollar or two) if you get there after that. So, as has been suggested before, the best way to see a church is to go to church, because they won't charge you then. But then again, I wouldn't have all these wonderful pictures to show you. And I have many wonderful pictures to show you.

Upon walking into the sanctuary, I was astounded. So. Much. Decoration. Like a baroque piece of music, with a billion notes flying across at least four different keys and three time signatures, there was ornamentation everywhere, from the side chapels to every single column to the side altars in the transept to the ceiling, decked out in a mural.

This is why I'm going on this trip- because there is no way, in word or in picture, that I can accurately express the amazing ornamentation of this space.

Even the ceiling is trying really hard to impress you.

It's amazing how something as simple as a pulpit can be so ornate.

I'd have to go back to my guide book to see what everything was, though my favorite part were the four virtues above the four Eastern Church Fathers on the four columns in the transept. They're Wisdom, Righteousness, Moderation and Bravery, which don't seem to be exactly the same as the cardinal virtues, though, honestly, English leaves us with quite a few words to choose for translations.

Figuring out the meaning of the statues, beyond what my little pamphlet tells me, has been quite an adventure. Trying to figure out what they meant by the Four Eastern Church Fathers has been particularly confusing. I just thought you called particularly influential men the early church Church Fathers, like St. Augustine and people like that. I have a real need of a church history class.

My deductive reasoning tells me this is a church father. Just look at his hat.

It's hard to pick what to describe in this church- there's a lifetime supply of statues and carvings and pictures and details and I almost felt guilty brushing by them with just a picture or two. The organ was apparently played by Mozart, but I looked at it long enough to appreciate the plethora of instruments in the decorations and take a few pictures.

The pulpit is crazy ornate- I can't imagine standing up there, much less preaching from there. There are many side altars, each with their own story. I could talk about the dome and the bell tower, which are visible in the Prague skyline. The bell tower was apparently used during the Cold War era to monitor the western embassies. Did I mention there are many embassies in Prague? There are many embassies. Everywhere.

Maybe the least tourist-y of the sights of the church was the chapel of St. Barbara, just to the left after the entrance. It's a chapel of the dead, which is sad because I like St. Barbara's story. She was locked in a tower by her father but secretly converted to Christianity. Her father took out his sword to kill her when she found out, but she was miraculously taken to a field nearby. The shepherd who told on her got turned into stone. In the end, she was beheaded. The sentence was carried out by her father, who was struck by lighting on the way home. She's now the patron saint of anyone who works with explosives.

St. Barbara's chapel was quiet, though. It had a prayerful atmosphere. It also reminded me that St. Nicholas is an active church. There were candles in the main nave to light, and in the chapel there was a statue of St. Anthony, with pictures of loved ones surrounding it.

And to my poor little over sentimenatlized heart, this one statue was more beautiful than anything I could see in the nave. Oh, these people.