At the Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Alexander Nevsky, on a street named for Peter the Great, communicants pondered an Olympic Games without Russia, and a Russia without the Olympic Games.

It was the hour of the Holy Liturgy on a rainy morning and bells echoed off the golden domes above. But for whom they tolled – for blameless sportswomen and men undeservedly stripped of their chance to compete on the global stage, or for the remorseless shattering of the peace of Europe by a belligerent judoka and czar – was no easy task to discern.