Sunday With the Old Believers

By: Diego Moppett

During my recent visit to the Church of Saint Nicolas du Chardonnet, the first thing that struck me as remarkable about my fellow churchgoers was the wide variety of ages represented. The second thing that struck me was the racial mix. While I had expected to be surrounded by a bunch of lily-white fossils, I was in fact surrounded by a rainbow of the black, white, brown, young and old. Indeed, the most remarkable thing about this congregation was how thoroughly unremarkable it seemed. These are no ordinary worshippers, you see. These are the hardest of hard-core Papists. So hard-core, I