Mass Celebrated Inside Kremlin
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MOSCOW — God officially returned to the Kremlin at dawn Saturday, when the first Mass was celebrated there since Russia handed back the ancient fortress’s onion-domed cathedrals to the Orthodox Church last week.
With a flourish of scarlet robes and a cloud of incense, bearded priests banished from the lofty Archangel Cathedral all memories of 7 1/2 decades of atheism in Russia’s oldest and most venerated center of government.
But a security regime dating from the Communist era was still firmly in place in the Kremlin.
“No entry without an official invitation,” said a pair of stern old men at the doors of the church.
“Even if God himself invited you, I don’t see you could have got past the guards at the gate,” one muttered.
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