Religious Symbols Hold Dual Meaning

It's been nearly four months since my last post, and I'm here in Poland, deciding that I can post again once a week, until my novel is completed. Maybe it's because I'm past the halfway mark and I feel a little less harried by the idea.

Last week I went to the Ikon Muzeum, where icon images of the saints, Jesus and Mary were displayed. Having an English-speaking tour guide made it an enjoyable experience as our small group was instructed on the strict requirements of how each figure is supposed to be painted, with hand gestures and colors specified, according to the official icon book of the Orthodox church.

Set behind a church in the monastery, we went through one space that was like a catacomb, another that was like a Cathedral hall, and galleries that captured the moods of the 14th to 19th centuries through the arts of religious medals, wood paintings and hammered metal portraits. The last room contained pieces of frescoes, the remnants of a cathedral that had once stood nearby, but had been blown up by the Germans during WW II. Every city has these stories, though many of the churches were spared because their bell towers were visual landmarks useful during bombing raids and attacks.

Today I spent a mostly sunny morning in Bialowezia, the big primeval forest on the southeast border of Poland, and the churchgoers filled the Orthodox and Catholic churches in the tiny town of Narewka, population 2,000, adjacent to the forest. I know this because I first went to the Orthodox (more specifically, Russian Orthodox) church right next to the Palace Park and stood in the back of the crowd for a few minutes before the 10 a.m. service. Several elderly women were lighting candles in front of the altar, behind which was a door leading to a holy room that only the priest could enter. It is reminiscent of the Jewish Holy of Holies in the Old Testament, where God's presence is said to reside.

I knew I would not stay in the Orthodox church because I'd been in one in the Bialystok city center and saw that there are no seats and you must stand for two to three hours for the service. Since I don't understand the language, I feel there's a limit to my patience in standing to see the service.

The Catholic church does have pews, and I did stop in to say prayer before the 10:30 service. Just as the main Cathedral in Bialystok, there was a Black Madonna painting, in addition to a Renaissance style portrait of Mary. The nearly life-size crucifix was surrounded by varnished branches, representing the forest, I presume. There were two other crosses in the back of the church that were hewn from branches.

Somehow all of these churches kept going even during a Communist reign in which religion was greatly frowned upon and the worship of the Atheistic political system was encouraged and rewarded. Despite that, it's obvious that faith is alive and strong in the churches, even in those that are less than a couple of miles from the Belorussian border. There are also active synagogues, though far fewer of those. All of them are a reminder of the importance of the freedom to believe in whatever you choose, in spite of government interference and ethnic strife.