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Russian Orthodox Church
Wiesbaden, Germany

by Katja Buckley

For my western encounters field research I decided to visit a Russian Orthodox Church in Wiesbaden. The Russian Church is also referred to as the Greek Chapel by the Germans. It sits on top of a hill called Neroberg and looks like a fairy tale castle from the distance. Driving up towards the church you can see the five golden onion shaped domes with the typical orthodox crosses. The cross looks like a variation of the “regular” Christian cross, but has a small vertical bar above and a small vertical bar tilted underneath it. I can only speculate as to what it means, and one of the assumptions I came up with was maybe 3 bars representing the holy trinity, or more likely for the top bar representing where the INRI plaque was, the middle one where Jesus was nailed to the cross and the bottom one for Jesus’ feet. The church was built as a tomb for the niece of the Russian Czar. She was living in Wiesbaden at the time and died shortly after giving birth to her daughter. She is buried in the chapel and the north wing of the church has a memorial with her remains. 

The church has four entrances but you can only enter from the west side of the building. Therefore when you enter the church you are looking straight at the icon wall facing towards the East. Behind the Icon wall is the Altar room, which is only open during services.  The Altar room is supposedly decorated in an “old testament” style while the new one is decorated in a “new testament” style.  The Icon Wall has 8 icons around the entrance to the altar room. Starting from the far right or south there is St. Nicolas, St. Elizabeth (also the saint of this church), the Archangel Michael fighting a dragon, and then Jesus immediately to the right of the entrance. On the left side of the entrance is Mother Mary with baby Jesus in her arms, the Archangel Gabriel, then St. Helena with the cross of Christ and then St. Katharine.  Above the entrance to the Altar room is a painting of the last supper surrounded by icons of various saints.  The third row of the icon wall is dedicated to the apostles Peter and Paul to the left and right, and the evangelists John, Mark, Luke and Matthew in the center.  Looking up at the dome of the chapel you can see the cherubim looking down and looking straight up at the center of the dome there is “the eye of God”. One thing that I found highly interesting was that there was no artificial light in the chapel. Only candles and the sun were lighting the inside. The church also was much smaller on the inside than it appeared from the outside. 

There were a few things I found that posed an interesting difference from a regular Roman-Catholic Church. There was no holy water at the entrance and that there was only one, very small painting of Jesus actually being nailed to the cross, where in Catholic churches you will find that the most. It also appears that female saints are more important in the Russian-orthodox church than in the Roman Catholic Church. There was almost an equal amount of female icons vs. male icons. 

Unfortunately I was unable to participate in a service. I was given very confusing information as to when the actual service would take place, but there were numerous people lighting candles and praying to the icons. I found it very interesting that the people actually prayed to the individual icons rather then just in the church. Whenever the people were done praying, they kissed the icon. The same thing when they lit the candles; the candle was kissed before it was lit and then placed next to the icon. I got a chance to also read the “rules” of the service. I do not remember each individual rule but here are some: 

• Women are not allowed to wear pants, shorts or short skirts or dresses 

• When entering the church you have to “cross” yourself three times (I assume again for the trinity) 

• There is absolutely no talking in the church, not before, during or after the service. 

• There will be no shaking of hands inside the church, nor will a woman’s hand be kissed. Kissing somebody’s hand is reserved for the priest (I unfortunately don’t remember whose hand he is supposed to kiss). 

• The worshippers are asked not to walk around during the service to light candles or to worship icons. This can be done after the service. 

When I entered the church I was amazed at the beauty and the richness of the interior. Even though the outside of the church was very impressive already, the inside was breathtaking. It was too bad that I could not participate in a service, it was still an amazing experience to see how different the inside of the Orthodox church was, compared to any other churches I have seen. 

I included a link to the website of the church so people can look at some of the pictures of the church. www.roka.germany.net/rokawiesbaden.html 

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