|
The Romance of Orthodox Worship
As the last rays of sunlight streamed throught the church's stained-glass windows, crystal chandeliers and flickering candles compensated for the waning daylight. A crop of about forty young adults filed into the nave, each carrying one delicate white candle and a prayer book. Their faces illuminated by the tiny flames, the crowd faced the iconostasis, the tall screen decorated with doors and tiers of icons that separates the sanctuary from the main part of an Eastern Orhtodox church.
That screen -- and the purple-and-gold-clad priest who, at times, turned his back to the congregation -- semed almost incongrous with this congregation of twenty-- and thirty--somthing worshipers, many of whom wore jeans or khaki pants. The contrast between ancient and modern became even more pronounced when the priest began to sing a cappella. He sang for most of the two-hour service, accompanied at times by a cadre of men at the right of the iconostasis and at other times by the entire congregation. The music seemed to morph into a chant, a mournful, almost mystical melody that wafted throught the church like the thick, sweet incense that saturated the April night air.
For all but a few moments during the service on this Monday night of Holy Week in 2001, the congregaton stood. They repeatedly touched their fingers to their foreheads and chests, making the sign of the cross at each mention of Jesus, the Trinity, or Mary. Some rocked gently back and forth, their eyes closed, their lips mouthing some songs.
In a back pew, Andrea Whitson sat holding her candle to her chest. The flame bathed her delicate features in a soft glow that left her looking much younger than her thirty-one years. As the haunting music and incense enveloped her, she seemed lost in adoration, utterly at home in the mystery, rigor, and reverence that is Orthodox worship.
It was not always that way. Like the white clapboard church where she worships in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Andrea Whitson used to be Protestant. Born in Texas and raised Southern Baptist, she joined an Episcopalian church eight years ago when she married her husband, John Whitson, who was also raised Southern Baptist.
Soon afte they married, Andrea and John Whitson both wanted out of their Episcopalian church. They were alarmed by the national hierarchy's dissent from St. Paul's teachings on sexuality and by the ordination of sexually active homosexual clergy. Things seemed to be unraveling, and the Whitsons wanted a church that stuck to conventional moral teachings while offering sacramental grace.
But when John Whitson's inquiries convinced him that a conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy was the answer, his wife recoiled. The prospect of conversion to Orthodoxy attracted her husband, who had studied church history. But it left her feeling angry and miserable. She could not understand why she should stand through a two-hour service shrouded in unintelligible symbolism and conducted in a foreign language. Fresh into their marriage, the Whitsons -- who were living in Texas at the time -- faced on of their biggest fights.
"He convinced me logically, but I didn't want to make the change," said Andrea Whitson, a pretty, soft-spoken woman who attended MIT and now works as a research analyst in Boston. "It was very foreign."
Andrea Whitson missed the comfort of her childhood experiences in the Baptist church. And visiting a Greek Orthodox church with her husband made matters worse. Church members peppered her with questions about her and her husband's ancestory. When they realized that neiter of the Whitsons was Greek, she recalled, "they literally said to us, 'Then why are you here?'"
Two days later, Andrea Whitson dreamed that she had returned to that Orthodox church. This time, she sense that Christ was enthroned on the altar. But she couldn't see him clearly because angels were blocking her view. She recognized that the angels were serving as doors, much as the iconostasis separates the altar from the nave. A piercing question arose from that dream: "Do you want to worship God in the way he wants to be worshiped or in the way that makes you comfortable?"
That question changed Andrea Whitson's perspective. She began to see Orthodoxy in a new light and to believe that she had found the liturgy that mirrored the heavenly scene of Isaiah 6, which describes a house "filled with smoke" and angels stationed above the Lord's throne. She was impressed by the reverence and seriousness with which the sacraments were conducted in the Orthodox Church. Unlike the members at her Episcopalian church, these church members did not have vague or conflicting beliefs about the Eucharist -- they believed that it contained the true presence of Jesus Christ. Confession was similarly serious business: the penitent stood in front of an icon and whispered his or her sins to the priest. Andrea Whitson said even her niece -- a young girl who attended a Southern Baptist church -- sensed the power of an Orthodox liturgy and the presence of God in the Eucharist. When she swa her aunt receive the Eucharist from the Orthodox priest, the little girl whispered, "That was really it, wasn't it?"
Once Andrea Whitson felt God's presence in the Orthodox liturgy and sacraments, she said, she could not return to the lecture-style service of a Baptist church without feeling that something was missing.
Now the Whtisons worship at St. Mary's Antiochian Orthodox Church of Cambridge, a formerly Protestant church brimming with formerly Protestant members, as well as Orthodox Christians who learned their faith in their Middle Eastern, Ethiopian, Slavic, and Greek homes. The services are helf in English, and they attract a vibrant young crowd of Orthodox Christians who rave about the church's mystical liturgies, awe-inspiring traditions, and time-tested moral teachings.
Excerpted from pgs. 57-60 of "The New Faithful: Why Young Adults are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy" by Colleen Carroll. (Loyola Press, Chicago: 2002). Available though most major bookstores or Amazon.com.
|
|
|
