Religion Makes A Comeback At Baikonur

It used to be called Lenin, named for one of the most hard-core atheists of all time. But Baikonur's latest structure is a beautiful Orthodox Church -- where the elite of the Russian space program go to pray.

This is not your grandfather's cosmodrome.

James Oberg is a well-known space writer who has followed the Russian space program since you used to have to rely on hints, rumours, and the relative position of VIPs on reviewing stands to try to deduce what was going on in the closed society behind the Iron Curtain.

But one of Oberg's most interesting discoveries has been the new church at Baikonur in former-Soviet Kazakhstan. Its young priest, Father Sergey, started off with a handful of faithful in a storefront. Now, thanks to the hard work and fundraising of parishioners, there is a shining new church with a steeple and traditional onion domes.

Religion, Oberg explains, broke out of its chains at Baikonur as soon as the workers' paradise went out of business. Starting in 1994 with a request from a single cosmonaut, a tradition of blessing the crews for space launches -- ISS crews launch from Baikonur -- began. Few Americans are Orthodox, but most of the American astronauts also accept the blessing as well.

Nowadays, many Russian cosmonauts take icons -- the traditional saintly images of the Russian Orthodox Church -- up with them. An icon of St. Mary of Kazan is displayed in the ISS itself -- in the Russian-built section, of course.

In the Soviet days, this would have been an career-ending move, but today, given the freedom to believe, more of the spacefarers seem to believe than not.

This is no surprise to Father Sergey. Oberg quotes from an earlier interview that the padre gave to a Russian newspaper: "I am convinced that educated people are able to progress much faster on a spiritual ladder, and the Baikonur parish is a shining example of this."

What can we say to that but...

Amen.

FMI: http://www.mosnews.com/column/2006/01/06/space.shtml (Oberg's Story at Moscow News), www.jamesoberg.com

(NOTE TO READERS: Normally we wouldn't send you to another news site, preferring to do our own reporting on most items. But we can't beat Oberg on this story -- it's all his -- and we know you'd want to see it -Eds)