I spent the evening tonight with many Orthodox Christians, including Fr Patrick and Bishop Joseph (who is the Bishop of the West Coast Chancery of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North American). I attended the Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts (which, I was told, was one of the longer Orthodox services – about two and a half hours). It was my first Orthodox service, and it was definitely a multisensory worship service; the music, the chanting, the icons, the incense, the priestly garments. We stood for most of the 2.5 hrs and read through an enormous amount of Scripture. It took a while for me to figure out when to stand, to sit, to get myself prostrate, to make the sign of the cross (which, incidentally, Orthodox Christians do it the opposite direction from Western Christians who do the sign of the cross, does anyone know a theological reason for that?
The service was really good though, and the Bishop gave some wonderful comments about the Great Lent, about holiness, about illumination (& deification: God became like man, so that man could become like God) and about Mel Gibson’s Passion. He is very supportive of the film and encouraged all those who were able to see the film. Fr Patrick also introduced me as a wonderful young man, who he was great friends with, who was heading to Princeton.
After the service, we all had dinner together at the church. Bishops. Russians. Romanians. Bulgarians. Bosnians. (Looking for diversity in rural areas? Go to an Orthodox church!). Teachers, priests, construction workers, ex-Yugoslavian National Team soccer players. It was really wonderful…the laughter, banter, conversations that were occurring in this small Orthodox church. I was definitely experiencing fellowship and community – two things the Orthodox have down pretty good. I think that as I look at possible churches to work at after Seminary, smaller churches is definitely where it’s at for me. It felt really good to be with this diverse group, eating, drinking wine and sharing our lives together…