Half were older women offering a quick prayer the other half were middle-aged women, or grandmothers, with an adolescent kid in tow. As I stood in the back praying, I noticed that a few visitors would drop in.
Maybe it was the dark lighting in the church, but it looked like dried flowers - not unbeautiful, but peculiarly dessicated. Baroque is my least favorite church architecture, which puts me in a bad place in Habsburglandia. The Baroque interior of the church is not to my taste. Perhaps they have to worry about vandalism. I had the whole church to myself, though really only a little area at the very back, because most of the nave was closed off behind iron bars. I spent 45 minutes offering a particularly long Orthodox akathist (like a litany) in honor of the Holy Virgin on this feast day.
Out in the city, I stopped by the Paulanerkirche, whose building dates to the last 17th and early 18th century, to pray. We Orthodox Christians observe the feast as well, though we call it Mary's "Dormition" ("falling asleep"). Monday was a national holiday here in traditionally Catholic Austria: the Feast of the Assumption, which marks the death and ascension into heaven of the Virgin Mary.
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