An exercise in Faith: Pre-Bolshevism Christianity in Russia

Hello dear friends,
I thought I'd start this week with a lesson in faith and piety. I found these lovely photos from the beginning of last century, and I'd like to share them with you.

Photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) undertook a photographic survey of the Russian Empire with the support of Tsar Nicholas II. He used a specialized camera to capture three black and white images in fairly quick succession, using red, green and blue filters, allowing them to later be recombined and projected with filtered lanterns to show near true color images. The high quality of the images, combined with the bright colors, make it difficult for viewers to believe that they are looking 100 years back in time - when these photographs were taken, neither the Russian Revolution nor World War I had yet begun. The Library of Congress purchased the original glass plates back in 1948.

Children near a church, White Lake, Russia, 1909

Church on the wharf at Mezhevaya Utka, 1912

Nikolaevskii Cathedral from southwest in Mozhaisk in 1911
Photos, via here

Decades of the strictest oppression, when hateful leaders declared that "God does not exist" and that "Religion is the opium of the masses", have done nothing to stop the Russian people from being pious. As soon as the restrictions fell, the people returned to their faith in Jesus Christ.

But isn't it a pitty that so many had to lose their way?

And isn't it a pitty that although we are not persecuted (yet...) as they were, we lose our Faith in less oppressive circumstances?

Sweet God's blessings to you, my friends, and a beautiful week to all,