The Russian Bellingshausen Base on Fildes Peninsula, King George Island, is the location of Trinity Church, the only permanently-staffed Eastern Orthodox church in Antarctica and the southernmost Eastern Orthodox church in the world. The church is a 15 m-high wooden structure built in traditional Russian style. It can accommodate up to 30 worshippers. The structure was built out of Siberian pine. It was assembled on high ground near the coast by the staff of Bellingshausen Station. It can conduct weddings, and a marriage ceremony conducted here in 2007 was the first church wedding to be conducted in Antarctica.
It really is a very strange and beautiful structure -- built in an area that was totally unspoilt in 1965/66 when I was there, but which is now one of the most polluted areas in Antarctica, with no less than six functioning research bases, an airstrip capable of taking heavy transport aircraft, and junk lying about everywhere in the areas where old base installations have been abandoned......
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