Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 1970
The IHP group spent over six weeks based in Belgrade, and I once again lucked into finding a wedding ceremony to cover for my thesis project on religious ritual. There was a fair amount of tension in the air since the communist regime at the time just barely tolerated religious practice. Getting permission to photograph took several difficult discussions in broken English (theirs) and very poor French (mine). Somehow I got across the reason I wanted to make pictures of the wedding and in the end everyone was very cooperative.
The vestments were just about as elaborate as at the Hindu wedding and the pageantry was highly dramatic. Also the chanting—my impression was that one of the requirements to become an Orthodox priest must be to possess a basso profundo voice. The interior was also very dark, mysterious and murky. There were electric lights in a hanging chandelier and several wall fixtures, but they were barely brighter than the candles. The overall mood was solemn.
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