FIFTEEN YEAR OLD Dasha was excited recently when she saw that Russian television was about to run a serialisation of Jane Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice, made by the BBC. I had shown her a video of it last year when I was teaching her English. She had loved the ballroom scenes, silly Mrs Bennett, creepy Rev Collins and, of course, the darkly handsome Mr Darcy. But she hadn't understood the language very well. Now here was a chance for her to see the programme again with a Russian voice over.
"No," said her mother, Valya, "out of the question. It's Lent."
"But Mum," wailed Dasha, "It isn't fun. It's English literature."
"Well," said her mother, "we'll see what Batushka [the priest] has to say. But I think the answer will be `no'."
Western Christians had already celebrated Easter. But members of the Russian Orthodox Church, which keeps a different calendar, are still in the middle of Lent, a time which they take very seriously. Not for them a little symbolic fasting in Holy Week but a whole 40 days of denying themselves meat, fish, milk products, eggs, sweets, alcohol, sex: indeed just about any pleasure you can think of even, apparently TV drama.
They call it "The Great Fast" to distinguish it from shorter periods of self denial before other church feasts. "`The Great Fast' is much easier than it used to be in the olden days," said Valya cheerfully. "Then you had to sit quietly at home, reading the Bible. You were not even supposed to laugh until Christ has risen".
Dasha was not consoled by this piece of information and went away to sulk.
I found myself sympathising with the teenager. The golden onion domes and icons of Russian orthodox churches look very beautiful but the religion itself seems authoritarian to the western mind.
Valya laid the table with fried potatoes and pickled cabbage, the only Lenten food she can afford, as fresh fruit and vegetables are very expensive, and tried to explain to me the joys of Russian Orthodoxy.
"It's all about smirenie (humility)," she said. "Obedience to the will of God actually frees you. You westerners cannot understand this because you are all so selfish and individualistic."
And then she added with a laugh, "Your St Patrick even lets you drink beer before Easter," for she had seen the drunken St Patrick's Day celebrations which have become a spring fixture in Moscow, thanks to the Irish business community.
I did not argue with Valya. I know that her religion brings her great comfort and her life is hard enough in the brutal new capitalistic Russia. Deserted by her husband, she is struggling to bring up two children on the meagre wages she earns as a cleaner. She is grateful to the Church of the Nine Martyrs, which she attends regularly, not only for spiritual sustenance but also for parcels of food and second hand clothes.
And I will certainly not promote - problems in Valya's family by showing her or her daughter an article which appeared last week in the Moscow Times. But I think it will interest people in "post Catholic Ireland".
According to the newspaper, young Russians, tired of the authoritarianism of the Orthodox Church, are flocking to a church which they see as being much more liberal and attuned to the modern world - the Roman Catholic Church. The Church of St Louis, a little Catholic church which stands in the shadow of the enormous granite KGB building and which used to cater for Poles, Irish and other expatriate Catholics, was reported to have been packed by young Russians on Easter Day. Not that I was actually there myself, I must confess. But I do know somebody who was.
Natasha (25), a viola player from the Moscow conservatory, has been attending Mass at the Church of St Louis for about two years now. "It's not the religion of my forefathers," she said. "But I find the Catholic Church liberating. It speaks to people of my generation".
Music to the ears of the handful of Catholic priests working in Moscow. But the Vatican, which only recently established relations with Russia after centuries of being perceived as the headquarters of the enemy, must tread carefully, for the Russian Orthodox Church is highly sensitive about the poaching of souls.
On the other hand, in the view of some Orthodox Christians, the Russian church itself must start to reform. Church going was fashionable in the last days of communism because young people saw it as a form of opposition but now attendance is falling off. The bearded patriarchs may have to change if they are to attract youngsters like literature loving Dasha.