Anna Karenina

1 prepared for communion: Only practising Orthodox Christians could be married in the Orthodox Church. To be a practising Christian meant to receive communion, and the necessary preparation for communion was the confession of one’s sins.

2 the ambo: A raised platform leading from the body of the church to the doors of the sanctuary.

3 The mixing of these trades ... : The sentence is a slightly altered quotation from the comedy Woe from Wit by the Russian poet, playwright and diplomat Alexander Griboedov (1795-1829).

4 suitor in Gogol: The suitor Ivan Kuzmich Podkolesin, in Gogol’s comedy The Wedding, jumps out the window and flees just before he is expected to propose.

5 icon for the bride: In the Orthodox wedding ceremony, the bride and groom enter the church preceded by two children carrying icons - an icon of the Saviour for the groom and of the Mother of God for the bride.

6 the iconostasis: In an Orthodox church this is an icon-bearing partition with three doors that separates the body of the church from the sanctuary.

7 the heated church: City churches are often very large and only part of them can be kept warm in winter. This wedding, since it is before the Great Lent, is taking place in the very early spring.

8 new ones?: Specially painted and decorated candles are held by the bride and groom in an Orthodox wedding. They are often kept afterwards, but, as they are costly and burn down very little during the service, they may also be given back to the church.

9 step on the rug: A small piece of fine cloth is placed in the middle of the church for the bride and groom to stand on during the actual marriage ceremony. There is a popular belief that whoever steps on it first will be the dominant partner in the marriage.

10 porch of the church: The Orthodox marriage service has two parts: the betrothal and the marriage proper (the ‘crowning’, during which attendants hold crowns over the heads of the bride and groom). The betrothal takes place in the porch of the church, the crowning inside the church itself.

11 kamilavka: A special round velvet hat worn by Orthodox priests; the Russian word is a distortion of the Greek kalimavka, meaning ‘beautiful hat’.

12 the Synod: At the death of the patriarch Adrian in 1700, Peter the Great reorganized the administration of the Russian Orthodox Church, appointing a Holy Synod of bishops, instead of a new patriarch, to preside over Church affairs, headed by a Chief Procurator who was a layman answerable to the tsar. The Church was thus regarded not as a divine institution but as a department of the state. This ‘synodal’ period of Russian church history lasted until 1917, when an all-church council elected a new patriarch, Tikhon (now St Tikhon).

13 ‘For thou . . . in love’: The extracts from the Orthodox marriage service in this chapter are taken from The Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church, compiled, translated and arranged by Isabel Florence Hap good with the endorsement of the patriarch Tikhon, published since 1918 in a number of editions.

14 ... would be happy: Another popular belief concerning the marriage ceremony. The crowns are customarily held above the heads of the bride and groom during the service, but it was thought that if the crown was actually put on the person’s head, it would help to make the person happy in married life.

15 ‘...reverence her husband’: Ephesians 5:33. The Slavonic version reads ‘fear’ instead of the milder ‘reverence’ of the King James version.

16 elaborate psalm: Psalm 128, beginning: ‘Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord; that walketh in his ways.’

17 see their children’s children: Tolstoy quotes snippets from prayers and petitions in the marriage service (see note 13, Part Five).

18 ‘Rejoice, O Isaiah’: At this central moment in the marriage service, the priest takes the bride and groom by the hand and leads them three times around the lectern, the attendants following them holding the crowns over their heads, while the choir sings certain verses, the best known beginning ‘Rejoice, O Isaiah’.

19 Tintoretto: Jacopo Robusti, known as Tintoretto (1518-94), was an Italian painter of the Venetian school.