Orthodoxy

Today, for the first time, I attended a non-Protestant church: St. Barnabas, an Antiochian Orthodox church in Costa Mesa. It was an interesting change of pace from my usual church, and gave me some things to think about.

I mostly really liked having a liturgy. It gave set, high quality to the service which I would really like to see in combination with many of the elements I like at my current church. It was also an old liturgy with huge tradition behind it and a lot of good, biblically-grounded text. Very refreshing for me, since I like the more poetic, older language better than modernized text. The choir was very good, and I really enjoyed having simple a cappella music rather than music played by a band. The downside, however, to having a liturgy is that it has little flexibility and therefore misses the modern hymns from Protestant tradition, many of which are very good. I would like a service that had a definite liturgy, but perhaps with spaces for hymns from the last few hundred years.

I'm not really sure what to think of the homily. It was a guest speaker today, but the subject of the homily was rather strange. As far as I could tell, it was about the angels, and how the angels are always present when man is speaking to God, so man never speaks to God alone, but in addition, there's some point when man represents the cherubim. Not really sure what it was about. On the Orthodox theology as a whole, I don't know very much, but there are a few fairly major points that I don't think I agree on. Is it enough to keep me away from the Orthodox church in the future? I don't know yet. I want to look into this more thoroughly.

In other respects, the people were quite friendly. Only confirmed Orthodox are allowed to take communion, but they have a sort of fellowship bread that visitors are allowed to eat. I didn't quite feel comfortable, but the guy sitting next to me brought one back for me, which I quite appreciated even though my brother had already brought one back for me, too. This guy didn't know me at all, but he was willing to serve me.

One thing that came up fairly often was people making the sign of the cross or kissing the icon which the priest held. As far as the latter goes, I'm definitely uncomfortable with that at this point, and it's something that, even if I decided I like the Orthodox church in other ways, I would probably not do for a long time. The sign of the cross is interesting, though. Near the end of the service, I started wondering why people make the sign of the cross (it is usually done when the Trinity is mentioned, I think), and why they touch forehead, chest, and shoulders. It's entirely possible that it's just the most convenient way to make a cross on your body, but it also made me think: Head, Heart, Hands. (Shoulders instead of hands, close enough.) My brother said he thinks it may also be connected to Father, Son, Holy Spirit. I think there are very interesting and important parallels between these two trinities in connection with the sign of the cross, and I'm glad the service spurred me to think about it.

Overall, I definitely enjoyed a change from my regular church. Grace EV Free isn't a bad church by any means; there's a lot that I really like about it. However, I think the change from a usual Protestant style of church, which is all I've experienced in 19 years, was helpful for me. It opens me up to a broader spectrum of worship and church history and perhaps helps me to figure out a little bit more what I like in a service. For those who haven't been to an Orthodox service before, I would recommend going to one in order to broaden your experience and understand a little better those people who come from different religious traditions within the universal Christian church.