Underground Monk Mummies

Saturday is excursion day and I was running late. I ran up the escalators and out of Aresenalna station 25 minutes after the meeting time. After being angrily pelted by a few snowballs we were on our way to the Kievo-Pecherska Lavra, a huge and (apparently) very famous monastery.
Passing under the impressive 12th century archway we entered the monastic compound. The snow was falling thickly by this time and had covered the trees and roofs of the buildings. The golden domes shone brilliantly against the white of the snow. The icons with their inhuman proportions and oddly rendered joints stood in their grottoes and made the whole scene feel very Russian.
Although I am in Ukraine, Kiev may as well be a Russian city. Most everyone speaks Russian as their first language, though all advertising is done in Ukrainian. The monastery was Russian Orthodox and part of the Moscow “diocese” (if that’s what it’s called in the Orthodox church).
The Lavra is known for its underground caves where the holy relics of monks are buried. I was expecting to walk through an earthen tomb with open gravesites in the walls where centuries old corpses were decomposing and the skeletal remains of the monks sat in piles. But, as we made our way down into the caves I found that this was not the case.
Because this is a very holy site in the Orthodox Church, we were all given candles to carry and told not to take any pictures. The candles must be held between the middle and ring fingers of the left hand, I didn’t remember to ask the significance.
Down a dark passageway lit only by our candles, we made our way into the caves. A traffic jam of believers was holding us up and as I got closer I saw that they were all bending down and kissing a glass coffin. Inside was the body of some saint covered by an ornate cloth with jewels and embroidery.
As we moved on past more glass coffins, I was surprised to see that a few of the bodies had their hands uncovered and folded across their chests. The skin on the hands was shriveled and brown but otherwise intact. Believers would stand over the little caskets and bend down to kiss the feet, then move and kiss the body and then the face. Some of them would sit their foreheads on the glass for about 15 seconds. It was a bit creepy really.
This got me thinking about Lenin. His body is preserved in a crystal sarcophagus in Moscow, and visiting his mausoleum is treated as a very solemn affair, similar to visiting the monks’ corpses. It is clear that Lenin’s preservation was done in the same spirit and that his body was meant to remain as a holy relic of sorts.
One of the guys on the expedition had converted to Russian Orthodoxy and had also taken part in kissing the coffins and crossing himself before icons the whole time we were there. So, I directed all of my church questions to him. I asked how the saints’ bodies were preserved and why they weren’t decomposing. He said, “because they’re saints,” though I suspect there is some sort of embalming technique.
Someone asked our tour guide about the monks that lived here in the monastery and how one would go about joining. She explained that this monastery was very important and very rich and that not just anyone could sign up to be a monk here. She told us that the monks here drove Porsche’s and Mercedes and wore Gucci and Prada; she said that many of them came from family money.
That put a bad taste in my mouth.
“Daddy, I’m bored, can I become a monk?”
“Sure, son, whatever you like.”
Anyway, the monastery was beautiful and everything, but like most religious sites—the Vatican, these Russian monasteries, etc.—it felt like it was built more to the glory of political elites than to the glory of God.