“One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in His temple” (Psalm 27:4).

The ferocity of the Communists in the 20th century, urbanization and economic development in the 21st, and elements now have endangered the manifest beauty of the Lord as it was embodied by our pious ancestors in magnificent wooden churches of the Russian North.

Common Cause is the name of an extensive public project designed to take on this challenge of our time. It has been on for 15 years and received the blessing of Patriarch Kirill. Since then, 450 expeditions have been made, 360 churches examined and evaluated, and 168 of them have been restored.

 “Is not this the carpenter, the Son of Mary…?” (Mark 6:3) – Literally following in the steps of Jesus, these young men and women from all over Russia and abroad dedicate their energies, skills, finances, and vacation time to hard work, far away from their homes, toiling at the conservation and restoration of priceless architectural and spiritual treasures, a common inheritance of the entire Christian world and civilized mankind.

Carpentry, indeed, is the most commonly needed occupation of the participants in the project, but the range of necessary skills is hard to encompass: it includes everything from complicated engineering to environment protection, from iconography to health care. You can take a glance at what the Common Cause is all about, watching videos below and viewing other materials on the website of the project.