Items of Interest December 26, 2011 Issue

Inflation is a blessing to Russian church

John Walsh

The Independent (UK), August 26, 2011

We’ve heard of the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant. It’s time for the Church Inflatable. In the Russian parish of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the local priest has been frustrated by the lack of a Catholic church. Local planners denied him permission to build one of bricks, and his flock are sick of worshipping in a rented hotel room. So Fr. Krzysztof Kowal asked his Polish pal Robert, a professional maker of inflatable slides, to help. He’s now constructed a blow-up church, a Gothic structure in red and orange. As it says in the Bible, Blessed are the churchless for they shall inherit a bouncy castle . . . .

John Walsh

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