Word: zagorsk
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...light rain is falling upon the Trinity Monastery of St. Sergius in Zagorsk. The monastery stands behind a fortress wall, half a mile around and 50 ft. thick, that protects the weathered stones and ancient relics of Trinity Cathedral. It is graduation day at the most important of the Soviet Union's three surviving Russian Orthodox seminaries. The 78 graduates, clad in black tunics and trousers, take their places in the cathedral before the ornate screen, hung with treasured icons, that separates the sanctuary from the congregation. Hundreds of candles shimmer against the gold and silver on the walls...
...Russian Orthodoxy. Congregations are getting younger. Applications for seminaries are increasing. About two-thirds of the new priests come from families that are indifferent or hostile to religion, a dramatic indication that youthful unbelievers are converting to Christianity, despite the atheist orientation of Soviet schools. The graduates at Zagorsk are about to take up their duties with a church that still maintains 11,000 active parishes after six decades of Soviet rule, often marked by systematic persecution. Official Soviet statistics admit two out of five burials are accompanied by a church service, and one out of six babies is baptized...
State supervision is reinforced by extralegal methods. Most of this year's graduates at Zagorsk were probably appreached at some point by the KGB secret police and asked to spy on colleagues. Some observers charge that promotion in the hierarchy tends to go not only to mediocrities but to men with known character weaknesses-which leaves them subject to blackmail...
Under normal circumstances, election as Patriarch of a church of 40 million souls would be the desire of a priest's lifetime. That is probably not so for Metropolitan Pimen of Kolomna, 60, who was chosen last week by the Holy Synod, meeting in Zagorsk outside Moscow, to head the Russian Orthodox Church. A pliable moderate who has been caretaker head of the church since the death of Patriarch Alexei 13 months ago, Pimen faces enough problems to tax an archangel...
Mustard in the Monastery. This month, in Moscow on an inspection visit and accredited as usual as a diplomatic "third secretary," Schwirkmann with four embassy friends decided to attend Sunday services at Zagorsk, the medieval Russian Orthodox monastery 42 miles from the capital. During the service Schwirkmann felt a blow on his left thigh, thought he had merely brushed against someone in the temple gloom, but then discovered a soaked spot on his left trouser leg. Afterward a bearded "guide," who introduced himself as an Orthodox seminarian, offered insistently to escort the party on a thorough tour of Zagorsk...