Erin Modzelewski - Church Visit 1

Church Name:  St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church
Church Address:  893 N Church Rd, Elmhurst, IL 60126
Date Attended:  October 11, 2015
Church Category:  Greek Orthodox Church

At the beginning there was singing for quite a bit of time and most of it was in Greek, the priest was standing at the alter, but he was facing away from the congregation.  It was similar in that my church service usually starts with about thirty minutes of singing but the difference was that the congregation did not participate in the music at all, it was only the priest and the choir who sang. After that they moved into the liturgy which was different from my church because it is not liturgical but seemed fairly similar to a typical protestant liturgical service.  The biggest difference though was that all of the scripture reading, all of the creeds and prayers were done first in Greek and then in English.  The way in which they took communion was very different,  first they began by having a procession of the elements through the isles and then they had all of the children go first and take communion.  In my church, children don't typically take communion because they're usually in Sunday school at that time and the elements are definitely not given as much reverence.  

The whole service was very sensory, the sanctuary was full of icons and beautiful Christian artwork, there was incense burning throughout the service, there was a variety of music throughout and most of the liturgy was done either to music or had music going in the background and the congregation often responded physically by doing the sign of the cross quite often throughout the service.  This bodily-ness of the service and the way in was so sensory illuminated the way in which the historical and global church is so aware of our embodied-ness and embraces all the parts humanity both our minds and our bodies in worship.  The reverence that was given to both the eucharist and the scripture reading was also insightful into the ways that the global church has an honor and wonder at the mystery of God that the western church has in many ways lost.

Visiting this Orthodox church was a reminder of how much I value the community that I find in my own church.  During my visit, not one person went out of their way to introduce themselves to me or ask my name which I think mostly was because there was not space for that within the service but it reminded me how much I value that time within my church service where there is set aside time to meet someone new or say hello to friends at church.  This church visit was also a good reminder of how far we have come from the early church and how much our understanding of worship has evolved.  I now feel like I better understand the history of Christianity and Christian worship and I can see the way in which God can be worshiped in a variety of ways.