RUSSIAN CHURCHES

                Part I 

Jubilantly you prance

Across the Russian skies

Sculpted fanciful fantasies

You leap for joy

Dancing in the Presence

Your colorful cupolas

Stretch longingly heavenward

Like Spirit-filled tongues of flame

Filled with the fiery Presence

Which scarcely can you contain

You paint the myriad colors of divine Love

With your many-hued facades

With your many jeweled crowns

You bedeck the hallowed, hollowed spaces

With blue and gold balls

You create a majestic microcosm

For the Uncreated Creator of all

In you primordial Love finds expression

In you the mysteries of the cosmos are incarnate

In you the Holy Mysteries are manifested

You express the Inexpressible

You contain the Uncontainable

You define the Indefinable

You limit the Limitless

You Dance in the Presence

              Part II

Exult, you awesome holy temples

You, who contain the Uncontainable

To step through your portals

Is to pass over into another realm

And to stand in the divine Presence

While yet a mortal

Laugh, you ubiquitous holy icons

You, who make visible the Invisible

Through you the divine Beauty is encountered

The first-fruits of the Kingdom apprehended

Sing, you glorious iconostasis

You, who veil and reveal the Holy of Holies

Through you the Unapproachable approaches

Piercing the barrier, reconciling the irreconcilable

Dance, you majestic cosmic domes

You, who bend down the heavens to touch the earth

Through you the cosmic Reality embraces us

Drawing us to Itself in our heavenly ascent

Rejoice, you limitless space, now defined

Within you we enact divine dramas

That reunite separated, segmented existence

Within you we stand in two worlds at once

Surrounded by a vision of transcendent bliss

Dancing in the Presence

By Sister Ioanna
St. Innocent Monastic Community,
Redford, MI

From: DANCING in the PRESENCE, published by Firebird Videos, Audios & Books