Will Reeves - Church visit #1

Church name: Saint Athanasios Greek Orthodox Church
Chuch address: 1855 E. Fifth Avenue, Aurora, IL 60504
Date attended: Sunday, October 11, 2015
Church category: Greek Orthodox

Describe the worship service you attended. How was it similar to or different from your regular context?

I appreciated the architecture, a feature secondary or irrelevant to most Protestants. It was indicative of a larger Orthodox value that the physical space where we worship actually matters. You could see the iconography and ornamentation, you could hear intentional cadence of the liturgy and the harmony of the choir, you could smell the incense, and you could touch and taste the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist. In evangelical churches, it seems that we primarily stress hearing and understanding a message, and maybe experiencing God in an emotional way through worship. This church promoted a different kind of experience of God than I was used to.

How did the worship service illuminate for you the history and contours of global Christianity?

The Orthodox definitely appreciate the history of the church more than Evangelicals do. The entire Sunday was a commemoration of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, a historical event about which most Protestants probably couldn't tell you anything. The weekly bulletin offered lyrics to a hymn commemorating Athanasius: "You are the pillar that supports the church of Orthodoxy. You proclaimed the dogma that refuted the Arian heresy, affirming that the Son and Father are one essence." In a similar vein, the surrounding iconography (including one of St. Macrina) afforded a whole new meaning to "the communion of saints." These historical and theological concepts - which Wheaton students restrict to the classroom and are foreign to most Protestants - are integrated into the weekly rhythm of Orthodox worship.

How did the worship service illuminate for you your personal identity as a Christian?

Our worship is very, very dissimilar to Eastern Orthodoxy. While it's interesting and somewhat encouraging to witness God working in a different environment (yes, I think he is working through these churches), I can't help but be disappointed at how fractured our relationship is with one another. Even talking to a regular attender after the service, there was an implicit defense mechanism threaded throughout both my words and his. He belonged to the "same church that the apostles started," while I promoted the idea that "the same God is worshipped in different places in different ways." I was trying to justify my Evangelical denominationalism, while he seemed convinced I had gone off track. He wanted his Orthodoxy not to seem out of touch with real life, while I viewed him as Pharisaical for elevating his practice above Jesus (whatever that means). Quite simply, it seems like our differences are far, far more evident than any common redemptive narrative we might share.