Land that could not be killed

Where Communism rose and fell, a church is revived | Andrée Seu

Misha Japaridze/AP

The demise of a dominant historical status quo is sometimes presaged in the tiniest portents, with participants hardly aware of ushering in a new order. Around a.d. 30 a small delegation of Gentiles approaching the apostles for audience with their Master was the signal to Jesus that His task of saving the world was about to shift into high gear. ("The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.") In late December of a.d. 406, the freezing over of the Rhine began the end of the Roman Empire. (The barbarians would cross over into unsuspecting Rome.)

Likewise, Satan might well have shivered to see humble and unself-conscious goings-on by the Moscow River beginning in 1958. That's when Nikita Khrushchev ordered that the embarrassing swamp that was to have been Communism's glory be turned into a huge open-air swimming pool. For 30 years Moscovites came to bathe in its 27 degree Centigrade waters even in high Russian winter.