My readers are surely familiar with Father Doug Chaplin who blogs at Metacatholic (but has just hinted that he might stop – please don’t, Doug, your blog is great!). They may not be quite so familiar with Father Vsevolod Chaplin, although he has been described as a “heavyweight” in his own church. These two are brothers in the priesthood (even if they don’t officially recognise this), the first in the Church of England and of the Anglo-Catholic variety (hence “Father”), the second in the Russian Orthodox Church.

One looks inoffensive, the other scary. Which is which, do you think? But perhaps it is just because in Russia, unlike in the west, it is not traditional to smile during formal photos. Friends have joked that this is because in England and North America we say “cheese” when our photos are taken, which makes us smile, but in Russia they say “syr”, with the same meaning, which can be pronounced properly only with a face like the one on the right above.

I thank Vara for bringing to my attention the second Fr Chaplin, in comments at Voice of Stefan starting here. See also the discussion in the following comments. Vara has blogged about Fr Vsevolod several times, most recently here, and it is her picture of him I have included above. His first name means “Ruler of all” in old Russian, but presumably this is not intended as a blasphemous claim; rather he was named after several ancient Russian rulers.

As Vara commented at Voice of Stefan, the Russian Chaplin doesn’t seem to be scary in real life, as he is quite a humorist. Like Vara I loved his commandments of post-christian paganism, despite the less than perfect translation and the same scary photo provided by the renowned Interfax news agency. And like Esteban I laughed at his jokes, especially this one which could give a glimpse at the eternal destiny of the other Fr Chaplin:

An Anglican bishop, a righteous man, dies. St. Peter greets him in Paradise and shows him around the Hell.
– Here we have murderers, blasphemers, here are robbers. Here are those who sinned against their confession. Here are Orthodox who did not observe their fasts, here are Catholics who criticized the Pope, here are Baptists who did not read the Bible.
– Do you have any Anglicans?
– Yes, we have one…
– What did he do? (Anglicans are known for their liberal treatment of dogmas and church practice.)
– He did not know how to hold a knife and a fork in the right way.

(Updated 09/03/2011 with a new photo of Doug Chaplin because the old one had disappeared.)