[chipkluchi]

Some of you will be amused by my ignorance, but I have just been in central Moscow and was surprised to find that the famous cathedrals in the Kremlin and Red Square are still functioning as museums not as churches. (I refer to St Basil's, also as far as I could see the impressive churches around Sobornaya Ploshchad' in the Kremlin.) Does anybody know if there are any plans to restore any of these to Orthodox worship in the near future?

[WGfg4CCZ]

still functioning as museums not as churches St Basil's is something of a special case, and is rarely used as a church, though it has been and can be for special occasions (I've lived 7 of the last 10 years in Moscow and I've never been inside!) The churches in the Kremlin are all in use on occasion as churches (we went to a Patriarchal liturgy there a few months ago), though obviously they are also a big tourist attraction, and may well look more like museums when various tourist groups with their guides are wandering through. The very centre of Moscow (especially the Kremlin!) is rather over-supplied with churches, while new churches are being built in some suburbs which have been previously without a church at all. Outside Moscow, people can sometimes be far from a church, though small churches are springing up all over the place in the countryside, especially in the Moscow region, but also in other towns and villages further afield.

[chipkluchi]

Thank you for this explanation, Andrew. I think what surprised me most about the churches in the Kremlin was not the groups of tourists but the fact that there seemed to be no candles on sale, or even a stand on which to put them.

I certainly understand the need to focus on churches in the suburbs. Ekaterinburg and its satellites, which I know a bit better, are very badly off in this respect.

[chipkluchi]

Another question about Russian churches - the crosses on the cupolas often have what looks like a crescent (?!) where the normal Byzantine cross has a slanted crossbeam (the scales of judgement). I have often wondered what the origin of this is.

[asypecresty]

I believe this is done in churches where at one time was overtaken by muslims, turned into a mosque, and then again taken over by Christians and reverted back to its original Christian place of worship.

[flopay]

It is true that the crescent beneath the cross commemorates the victory of the Russian people over their Moslem/Mongolian overlords, but I don't think that it is necessary that the particular Church building was once turned into a mosque.

Fr David Moser

[chipkluchi]

Thank you for these replies. A connection with the Tatar domination and its overthrow of course makes good sense.