Russia's floating churches to get movie treatment

Moscow, January 27 (Interfax) - Film crew of the Italian TV company Paneikon shoots a documentary about floating churches in the Volgograd Region.

"The new film starts with a story about genocide of atheistic authorities against the Russian Orthodox Church, its clerics and believers," film director Aniello Corialli is quoted as saying by the Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

Floating churches are built in Russia for missionary reasons. The Volgograd Diocese reminds that only several dozens of 700 churches that had existed in the region before the revolution managed to survive.

Only 43 parishes worked in the regions in 1991 and they were not able to radically improve the situation with Orthodox education. The church-ship offered an extraordinary decision to the problem. The first floating church St. Innokenty was built in 1998, it sailed the river until 2008 when its bottom was worn out.

Over three thousands of people were baptized onboard the ship for the time of sailing. Besides Italians, TV and film makers from Germany, Estonia, Australia and France also came to shoot the unusual ship.