The Holy Lance Church
These are photos from the church in Armenia, ex part of Soviet Union, now a separate country.
They have those unique churches that were caved in the mountain with the part of the original solid rock as the pillars and walls. These churches are more than 1500 years old and according to the history of this particular church the “Holy Lance” or “Spear of Christ”, the lance that pierced Jesus while he was on the cross to stop his sufferings was stored during 500 years in this place. The name of place is still “The Church of the Holy Lance”.
Russian Wooden Church, Abandoned Now
One of the example of cool wooden churches of Russian Orthodox Christianity, but abandoned during Soviet era…
Russian Cathedral for All Religions
This is yet another try to unify the people of different religions under one roof. Now in Russia, in Kazan city, the capital of Republic of Tatarstan, member of Russian Federation. It was build by a Russian architect and healer who according to his words once had a dream of Christ telling him to build this one.
It unifies 16 different religions: different branches of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and some more.
Christianity vs Paganism in Russian
These days there is kind of raise of old Slavic pagan traditions in Russia. The followers of paganism build copies of old pagan monuments of wood and stone and then gather for some rituals. According to their point of view they try to reconstruct the true religion of Russian people that was destroyed by early Russian Christian church 1000 years ago when it came to Russia and violently converted local pagan population to Christianity.
But it seems there are fundamental Christians even nowadays in Russia who don’t like the raise of pagan traditions and try to follow their earlier inquisitor predecessors destroying the pagan places. On these pictures one can see one of such modern Russian ritual place before and after the Christian followers visit.
Horse Stone
This is a strange structure standing deep in Russian forests on the Horse Island in the middle of small lake. It’s a small Christian church on top of a very large boulder. This boulder has a history too. Long before the Christianity came to Russia, this rock was used by local tribes as an idol, thousand years ago in 1000 b.c. It was called “Horse-Stone” and the island as we mentioned was called Horse Island. They sacrificed horses to it and when first Christians came they were shocked by bloody rituals of locals, but after they cleared up the place they decided to use the stone. Probably the main reason was to have it under control in order to prevent locals continuing with their pagan procedures around it.
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