10 there to here

THE BULLETIN October 2010

Brussels identities from A to Z

Brussels is Belgium’s most devout city: whereas in the rest of the country no more than five percent

of the population regularly attends a religious service, in Brussels that figure is fifteen percent.

Canadian English teacher Caroline Smilne is one of them: every week she goes to an Orthodox mass

twice. “It’s pure fun,” she says

‘Spirituality is bullshit’: Caroline Smilne at the entrance to the Orthodox church (26 Rue Paul Spaak), where she attends mass twice a week

Orthodox

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“I first came to Brussels for my stud-ies in international politics. These studies provided me with the perfect excuse to get out of Canada. I had been living there all my life, and I was

eager to meet new people, in an international envi-ronment. Along with forty other students, I stayed in the capital of Europe for an intensive course, including a visit to the EU institutions. Just prior to that, we had spent a week in Paris, and I expected Brussels to be just as pretty. When I arrived here at Midi Station, I couldn’t believe my eyes: so much dirt and so much grubbiness. I couldn’t believe that this was the capital of Europe. It wasn’t as nice as I had expected, but I immediately liked the atmosphere.

I found it easy to meet international people in Brussels. My first few weeks here gave me an artificial impression of the city: the European Commission, the Parliament, the Metro, Café Delirium with its hundreds of types of beer. I didn’t get to know the city very well... I saw how people were dressed on

Avenue Louise and I imag-ined that this was how all Belgians dressed. On my second visit to the city, this image was adjusted. Then I began to wander through Brussels. That way I learned what this city is really like.

As a Canadian, I am familiar with the sort of community tensions which exist in Belgium. Quebec province will always be separatist but is never going to separate. Where I come from in Vancouver (British

Columbia), many people got away with not learn-ing French – I finally studied it at university. It’s just like the francophones in Belgium who hardly learn Dutch. So living in Brussels, where everyone is a poly-glot and where no single language takes precedence, is bliss. It’s enormously enriching. Very different from Quebec, where some people refuse to learn the other community’s language. That is also the case in the rest of Belgium, but Brussels, fortunately, has passed that stage: here, it’s the exchange which is important.

Brussels is an easy city to live in: affordable, close to everything, low rents. I really like the social atmos-phere: not cliquey at all, people are open and want to meet each other. Very different, again, from Paris, which might be more grand and more beautiful, but which is much more difficult to feel at home in. My boyfriend is Parisian, and when we go to visit his

‘Spirituality is bullshit’: Caroline Smilne at the entrance to the Orthodox church (26 Rue Paul Spaak), where she attends mass twice a week

Orthodoxfriends and family, it always strikes me how much stricter the social mechanisms are: you have a clique mentality there. In Brussels I feel completely at ease; in Paris I will always remain an outsider. The only thing that really bothers me about Brussels is the dog shit everywhere. People don’t take care of the city, there’s a lack of respect. Please clean up after yourself!

Twice a week, I go to the Orthodox church in Ixelles. I sing there, meet people, and my boyfriend is an acolyte there. It’s an open environment, where everyone is welcome. The Orthodox church in Brussels is very ‘Brussels’, by which I mean very inter-

national: mass is read in no less than six languages. The priest is a Belgian of Italian-Greek descent and a poly-glot, and the faithful are from every-where. Such a multilingual mass can take a long time – on Easter they go on for three to four hours. And you have to know that usually we spend the entire mass standing up – the chairs are for old people. But I think it’s pure fun. I was raised in Canada in a protestant household – when I told my parents I was going to join the Orthodox Church, they thought I would end up in a sect. Nothing of the kind, of course: the Orthodox faith is the purest one there is, and it fits me perfectly. The protestant community at home I found moral-istic and extreme; as a child it would always give me a bad, clamped-down feeling. Later on I would rebel against religion. But one day I had a hango-ver, and with a friend I walked into

an Orthodox church, just for fun. It turned out to be a revelation, a very profound experience.

But all this stuff about ‘spirituality’: what bullshit! You know, these people who say ‘I’m a very spiritual person’... How can you isolate that? There is no place for spirituality in orthodoxy: it’s about body and soul together, a holistic approach. And we focus on the good: you won’t see a crucified Christ with us. To me, faith is something entirely natural – I can’t imagine that life would simply stop at death. We all have this urge to live on, to conquer death, so I think death is a step on the way to the next stage.”

Interview by Veerle Devos & Kristof Dams

Image by Veerle Devos

In praise of: I love the bookshop Nijinski (15 Rue du Page) near Place du

Châtelain: you’ll always find interesting books there, the

atmosphere’s cosy and they play jazz. I love to sit and read there.

That, to me, is a perfect day.

Brussels has some lovely patches of green where you can hang out on sunny days. Right

near where I live there are the ponds of Ixelles. I also like the

Bois de la Cambre, Woluwe Park and the Royal Park.

Brussels markets: you’ll find food from across the globe there. My favourites are the Châtelain market on Wednesday and the

Midi Market at the weekend.

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