Cathedrawl of the Epiphany, Irkutsk (sorry, the video doesn’t work)
I’ll never forget the morning my wife rushed into the bedroom with news she’d just heard on the radio: “The Soviet Union is gone! It doesn’t exist anymore!”
The USSR. “Your grandchildren will live under communism!” Cold War. Khrushchev pounding his shoe.
And then one day it went away.
God is not mocked. Not by the Soviet Union or anybody else.
This is the Cathedral of the Epiphany in Irkutsk, Siberia, and this is the music of its bells.
Built in the 17th century, the cathedral survived 70 years in the Godless Soviet wasteland, the communists having shut down religious services and converted it into a bread factory.
When I was growing up, there was no hope whatsoever that the Soviet Union would ever pass away. But it did! I was still in bed when Patty came running upstairs with the news: “There is no more Soviet Union!” It was as if God had simply plucked it off the table.
He can do things like that.
And the bells, so long silent, ring again. God hears them. He did not forget them, nor His people who were waiting for the day when they could hear them, too.