Pechersk--The Refectory "Temple"

For me the most significant experience I had at Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra was attending a mass inside the Byzantine Refectory which is adjacent to and just east of the Grand Church at Lavra, the Dormition Cathedral. After spending more than an hour in the Refectory and walking back outside, I asked three different priests or worshippers in Russian, "What is the name of that Church?" to which they all replied, "трапезной храм." It was interesting to me that they used the word, "храм,"--Temple--for that is the precise Old Testament connection which struck me again and again during my hour's visit inside.

After inspecting the Grand Church and visiting with the beggar woman near its golden door, I saw many men and women converging on a comparitively plain looking building to the east with a distinctive Byzantine structure--that is, like the ancient St. Sophia's in Instanbul (now a mosque since the fifteenth century Islamic conquest of the city) it has a domed structure rather than a square or cross-shaped structure. This is a very ancient form and architecture, much copied in the ancient world, including here in Kyiv, which, as I say, was patterned after the Byzantine Christian Churches of the first Millennium. (Since I was not allowed to take pictures of the interior, I have enclosed copies of pictures taken from a book I later purchased).

To continue the story of my visit, I followed the throng of worshippers to the side door of the Refectory, where I donated a small amount of money to the women holding donation boxes at the door, and joined perhaps a hundred or more worshippers inside. They stood facing the screen and altar in the inside of the domed structure. I was again impressed (as I was at St. Michael's of the Golden Domes) by the very, very pleasant smell of burning candles pervading the interior of the Refectory. The most striking feature of the service was the rich and beautiful singing of the priests. Several priests were dressed in black robes on the worshipper side of screen. The fabric covering veil and golden doors leading behind the screen were swung open wide, and three priests dressed in long white robes with golden capes or coverings over their shoulders came out toward the altar. The singing by the central priest was a beautiful chant in a rich baritone, to which all the priests would add cadenza-like choruses in as rich a harmony (four or five part or more--it was difficult to tell) as I have ever heard in my life. The singing was truly moving. The central priest had a metallic senser, smoking with incense, which he held in his right hand swinging, with a large golden cross in his left hand. He was a man of perhaps forty, with a very pleasing and smiling face, which radiated deep affection to the people he was serving. This was no routine experience for him, was my impression. After a long service, whose words I did not understand, the central white and gold-bedecked priest placed the cross from his hand on the altar. The white-robed priests then retired back behind the massive screen, closed the golden gates, and drew closed the curtain beyond, and that was the last we saw of them. The black-robed priests, however, continued to minister in the area of the standing worshippers. (Here, as at St. Michael's of the Golden Domes, I saw no seating for worshippers. They all stood.

The murals inside the dome of the Refectory are stunning. In particular, they seemed to depict incidents from the life of Christ as portrayed in the scriptures. Above the screen in the center was a mural of the Last Supper. On the wall to the left was a depiction of the Sermon on the Mount, and on the right (if memory serves) a portrayal of healings performed in a throng. There were many, many other murals, with intricate webs of design tracery, reaching essentially from the floor all the way to the top of the vast dome overhead. The diameter of the domed space must have been 150 feet or more. It is a very large and open space, illuminated brightly by a large golden chandelier with many lights hanging from three great chains in the center of the Byzantine dome. What impresses me about the Orthodox Churches I have seen are the murals, which are so lifelike and filled with rich and vibrant colors. And these murals are everywhere, including on the outside walls of Churches. They are truly stunning.

There is a long rectangular chamber running south of and entered by great doors from the domed structure. Here, again, are floor to ceiling murals along walls hundreds of feet long. At the rear of this chamber was a place for the sale of candles, icons and books. I also noticed two long tables at the back of the room where many women were writing upon long narrow paper slips--I presume they were writing down names of individuals, as these appeared in list fashion on this long narrow slips. I then observed, as these women took their lists to an altar at the head of the room, near the doors leading into the domed Refectory proper, where they joined another great throng of women, and a few men, who stood around two priests who were standing at a table-altar filled with loaves of bread, flasks of wine, candles and sensers with burning incense. The priests (these were dressed in black cassocks) were singing a beautiful hymn in harmony, joined by many of the common worshippers, some of whom held hymnbooks of a sort. Between the beautiful choruses--all a cappella, as had been the vocal music in the Refectory dome--the central priest would take the long slips of paper, and "singing" down the list, would read each handwritten line (again, I presume these were names of persons whom the women wanted prayers said for), then tear the sheet in half and place it on the table.

I spent more than an hour in the Refectory "Temple" and its adjoining chamber observing the services and inspecting the murals. It was truly one of the more interesting experiences I have had in some time, and brought to mind a flood of connections to passages in both the Old and New Testament, which I will not burden this record with, but may write about in my private diary.