Church name: Holy Apostles Greek Orthodox Church
Church address: 2501 S Wolf Road
Date attended: October 9, 2015
Church category: Greek Orthodox
Describe the worship service you attended. How was it similar to or different from your regular
context?
The service we attended at Holy Apostles was a special
midweek service called a paraklesis. In
this service, the priest uses a liturgy beseeching the Theotokos for mercy and
deliverance, something I had never experienced before. This was characterized by phrases such as
“Theotokos deliver us from the numerous perils,” and “you always save your
servants.” It was interesting to me that
although the service started on time, most of the attendees did not arrive
until midway through. The congregation did not have anything with which to
follow along, nor were we acknowledged in any way until towards the end of the
service when the priest walked down the center aisle of the church with the
incense. There were a couple congregants
who seemed to know when we should sit, stand, and make the sign of the cross,
and the rest of us simply followed their lead.
Aside from these differences between Holy Apostles and my own Anglican church,
it occurs to me that while our churches employ many of the same elements of a
service, the Orthodox Church does them more.
By this, I mean that while we might spend some time in confession, this service
spent more time. While we might allow a
few sentences in prayer for the global Church, this church allows more.
We might use incense, especially on high holy days—the Greek Orthodox
use more.
How did the worship service illuminate for you the history
and contours of global Christianity?
The Greek Orthodox liturgy was much more historically aware
than anything I have experienced in Protestant denominations. We prayed first for more local concerns, as
one might expect, but this quickly broadened into prayers for the global
Orthodox Church and all servants of God. As the liturgy progressed, the priest
continued to remind us of the larger scope of Christianity by referring to many
of the ancient theologians we have studied in this course, such as Cyril,
Basil, and Gregory. This respect for the
impact that the earliest church fathers had in shaping our faith was something
I had not witnessed in the order of a Church service before. The art in the Church was another way in
which the history of global Christianity was referenced. All around the Church, the Greek Orthodox
tradition is reflected in the traditional icons, passed down over the centuries,
which are the very same across the globe.
How did the worship service illuminate for you your personal
identity as a Christian?
As I scanned the congregation that had come together on a
Friday evening for worship in Westchester, IL it occurred to me that the bond
that we share in Christ really does transcend all the differences between us. I found it illuminating to my personal
identity as a Christian to realize that although I might appeal to God in a very
different way, I am just as much in need of his grace. As I considered that each of the people
gathered in the Church had their own struggles to bring before God in this time
of prayer, I was reminded of the saints who have gone before us, to whom we are
also bound in Jesus’s name. It is so
encouraging to recognize that we are a part of this longstanding tradition and
that people have turned to the Lord in the face of pain and suffering for
centuries, however differently they might choose to approach Him.
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