Europe on Pilgrimage
by Stojgniev O’Donnell

Intellectually, I am an anarchist. I never met another human who agrees with my ideas and my world view. But in my heart, I am a socialist. I like collectives. I like human beings interacting, whether they are harvesting fruit and vegetables, praying, preparing food, assembling widgets, or building wondrous architectural monuments. What a tragedy that Jews hi-jacked socialism in the nineteenth century and turned it into a weapon meant to destroy Christian civilization. Socialism has existed for centuries in small Christian communities, but the states that aspired to socialism in the twentieth century had really little to do with socialism. The problem with socialism is deciding who will dictate it.

August is a special time in Europe. Traveling by bus this past weekend (I’ll never own another automobile), I passed dozens of groups of Christian pilgrims, each from a different Slavic village, town, or suburb. The size of the groups averaged thirty people. Every group, representing a local parish, was preceded by a processional cross and by audio speakers mounted on wooden staffs. During their journey, the pilgrims enthusiastically sang hymns and prayed. Each group was accompanied by nuns and a priest in clerical garb. All ages were represented there, but many of the participants were in their twenties, radiant blondes predominating. There were also numerous pre-teens. As we passed them on the bus, waves and smiles of goodwill were exchanged.

August is a special time, because of the moderate weather here (not too many signs of global warming this year, though that will change in the future) which allows pilgrims to sleep on quarter-inch thick styrofoam pallets beneath these mild wide heavens. It is also the time of the Christian feast of uspenie, the Assumption to Heaven of Mary, the Mother of God. Not much there for Americans, with the whole aspect of Apostolic Christianity anathema for them. Yet for the Christians of Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe, it is a time of rest, prayer, fasting, and fellowship. The pilgrimage is also about laughter, shared experiences, the physical experience of a hike that may last hundreds of kilometers. How on earth could Americans appreciate that pilgrimage? You sleep in the fields or in the houses of strangers. You walk the whole day long. And you are celebrating a feast day of the Mother of God, whom most Americans regard as some kind of Satan.

The pilgrimages are a collective experience. In many towns, arrangements are made ahead of time for pilgrims to lodge with local citizens. Over the years, friendships spring up, as pilgrims year after year revisit their host families. The pilgrims and their hosts develop social networks, which they maintain for many years, perhaps their entire life.

The atmosphere of the pilgrimage is carnival-like, but entirely wholesome. Each generation is represented. While Europe increasingly is segregated according to age group, a sickness that has infested America since the 1960s, on the pilgrimage there are no apparent social divisions by age. Visiting a Gothic church, I observed the grounds packed with people of all ages, some relaxing, sitting or lying on the ground, while others could be found praying in the packed church. Giant pots of food and soup had been set up on makeshift tables. Local citizens who could not leave their jobs the several days required for the pilgrimage did their part by cooking and providing meals for the pilgrims. It was all quite socialist, a collective that functioned somehow of its own accord. Everyone had a part to play. Such an experience cannot occur in multicultural societies. It is about community, neighbors, about shared values. Such things were once possible in America, when people had shared values, but no more.

Pilgrimage is not a uniquely Christian event. It is also a hallmark of Islam. Other religions practice it, including traditional Jews (I do not use the term “orthodox” in relation to Jews, as it was stolen from Greek Christianity, and like so much of Jewish culture, represents a cultural theft. Talmudic Jews are not “orthodox” in any sense, not even with the smallest “o”). Yet there is something good, unique, and “well-balanced” about the Christian pilgrimage, at least to my European mind.

I was cheered this weekend by the smiling, joyful, boisterous groups of pilgrims meeting us on the highway and filling two lanes of traffic. They were making a statement, with their youth, with their faith and their collective identity. They are Crusaders of the 21st century, in the most positive sense. Though I hold a grudging respect for Islam and for those societies which rebel righteously against the evils of MTV, Coca-Cola, and Disneyland, I could not help then but contrast Islam and Christianity. This weekend there were no suicide bombers among the Christian pilgrims, nor sticks nor stones, no thoughts of violence. Just youth and goodwill and all the positive powers of a human collective. For many of the elite of America and Western Europe today, those Christian pilgrims are “extremists,” hapless, ignorant Slavs trapped in the darkness of the past. But their demonstration was, in reality, a very positive celebration of the good things of life, God’s blessings, and all the wonders of these moderate Central European temperatures of August 2007. I am grateful for their presence. They are my people, of my flesh and blood. God bless them!

August 2007, approaching uspenie with reverence and anticipation