Lümanda Russian Orthodox Church of Our Lord lies close to
the Vilsandi national park on the coastline of the island of
Saaremaa. According to one local, it has a congregation of five.
Surrounding it is a dry-stone wall reminiscent of the type seen in
Yorkshire in England, a very common local feature.
The earliest mentions of Saaremaa come from the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when it was home to a fierce group
of Eastern Vikings. The German crusade into the Baltics in the
twelfth century eventually saw them conquered, but only after some
hard fighting.
One of Pärnu's older churches is St Catherine's
Church (Katariina kirik). In the eighteenth century, when Russian
Empress Catherine II passed through the city and saw the shabby
wooden apostolic orthodox church located at the same place, she
commanded this version to be built. It then housed a garrison.
Still under the authority of Moscow's patriarch,
the interior is typically light and ornate, gold being the colour
that resembles the Russian Orthodox depiction of the Heavenly
Kingdom.
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