Like your blog, BTW. Some good posts. I’ll include on the blogs tab I am making. Noticed you built it on Expression Engine. EE has a high learning curve for a first timer! Great platform but it takes a lot of back and forth to the comments page to finally figure out who it all works. I built OrthodoxyToday.org on it. Everything else is WordPress (great platform too).

The French have elevated the sneer to an art form. That’s why they cry hypocrisy over the Russian Orthodox Church being built while mosques are discouraged. Sooner or later they will have to modify egalite. The Russian Orthodox Church doesn’t seek the overthrow of Western civilization after all. Moreover, how would you transform the Pompidou Center into a mosque?

I just noticed my use of “obstrusive,” when I meant obtrusive. I did find that someone else had used the term.

As I was reading various articles on the web about the new Russian Center, I was shocked at how many Frenchies were complaining in the comment sections about the “double standard” that they see where mosques are socially condemned and discouraged but this Russian Center is being celebrated. I never would have thought of that. Of course, there is no demographic threat from Russian immigrants; Eastern European hordes are not radically changing French cities. Moreover, France and Russia have had a special relationship for centuries, and aside from a few spats here and there (Shorty’s invasion of the Motherland, for example), their history has been amicable. Consider the temples that the Romanovs financed as well as the splendid Pont Alexandre III. Orthodox Russia is closer to Roman Catholic France than the alien people, religion, and ways of the Maghreb. Moreover, Russkies have not repeatedly bombed Parisian metro stations and set fire to the suburbs, and that might make people besides the Front National a bit apprehensive. Regardless, the French Left does not like to discriminate, and so they issue charges of hypocrisy.

When I read about this yesterday, I had mixed emotions. It somewhat reminds me of Wright’s Greek Orthodox Church. For a contemporary structure, it is not terrible, but why do architects feel the need to dare something unprecedented? It’s a symptom of modern artistic narcissism. The temple itself actually looks normal, though covered with a lace structure. I suppose that it is a compromise, which allows the builders to justify traditional architecture. The lace structure might have solar panels; if so, it is the least ugly and obstrusive way of having such panels that I have seen. Moreover, the cover might be useful for processions on rainy days. The gardens look nice. Modern design can look less sterile and offensive when it incorporates gardens, and Paris excels at this combination, as you can see in the new parks from the last few decades.

I lived in Paris, and I know that it would have been nice to have a Russian parish on the Left Bank. Alexander Nevsky and Saint Sergius are charming but not terribly convenient for folks south of the Seine. As rue Daru continues to be under the Ecumenical Patriarch, I wonder if this new center is Moscow’s way of reasserting authority over the Russo-French community. Speaking of which, are there any plans to “reabsorb” the Russian Orthodox in Western Europe? Or is the Exarchate happy to stay under the E.P.?