Coming into the community of believers at worship should be disconcerting. It should leave the visitor with several impressions: whatever this is these people take it very seriously; I don't understand it; if I join I might have to change.
Our first visit to St. Anne's Orthodox Church was the first Sunday of Advent, December 2, 2012. In my (Andrea's) previous posts I've explained why we walked in the doors in the first place. Here I will describe (as best as words can) what happened that first visit. For the sake of fluidity (and length) I will do as little explaining as I can in this post. As questions pop up ask in a comment below and those will be topics of future posts!
We'd heard of standing the whole 90-min-plus service, with children, and that made us a little nervous. So during the week before Randy called the priest, Fr. Stephen, to introduce ourselves and ask how that works with little ones 4 and under. He said they are quite accustomed to small children as there are many of them in the parish. Most folks do stand through the service, but the young children and the frail usually do not. There is a lot of movement in the service, so taking kids out for a while or whatever won’t cause any commotion. There are liturgy books to pick up as we walk in, but he said we can probably expect to get lost a bit as there are many parts to the service. All in all Fr. Stephen put Randy at ease and we looked forward to visiting.
Growing up in a conservative, traditional Lutheran church I knew about Liturgy. (Although I must admit I didn't understand much of it.) I knew about the Hymn of Praise, Agnus Dei, Sanctus, Prayers of the People, Words of Institution, etc. I had read that Orthodoxy was very liturgical so I figured I had a "leg-up" on what to expect. Ha! As somebody said, "Regardless of what you expect going into an Orthodox service it will be totally different."
Icons. Candles. Incense. Vestments. Chanting. Singing. More chanting. More incense. What to do? How to take it all in? Lucky for us, gregarious little 6-year-old M.O. introduced herself and instructed us on venerating the icons and lighting candles. Later on the priest's wife, Mona, encouraged me to take the girls around and look at the icons and candles if they needed a slight change of scenery. She also said the girls were doing great and to not worry about them. So I didn't. Maddie really took to kissing the icons, especially the one at her level (to which adults have to kneel). It was great to have another little one just older than Maddie and her Daddy near that same easy-to-reach icon. I took my cues from him and didn't feel so out of place.
It was indeed hard to follow what was going on. We had forgotten to look for a liturgy book but, what with tending to the girls, we wouldn't have been able to follow along well anyway. Everything except the sermon was chanted or sung. And the chanting was emotion-less which made it hard to stay tuned-in. The priest and servers came and went in and out the three doors on the iconostasis--the wall that separates the altar from the congregation. There were only benches along the walls--the majority of the space was covered by oriental rugs for standing and the moving around of children, unhindered by pews or chairs. The people were by-and-large motionless on their feet except for crossing themselves and bowing. The children and those of us with children were as still as we could be, which wasn't very. And that was OK.
Everyone took it all so seriously. Yet the atmosphere was definitely comfortable enough for the girls' movement. Reverent yet casual. This is totally God's house. But God loves his children (whatever age). That was what I'd been looking for.
After the service we were invited to stay for the fellowship meal (a potluck which they have every Sunday). We were greeted by many people (but not overwhelmed). The Daddy Madeline and I had spent much of the service near, Lucas, sat with us for the meal answering questions and getting to know us. He admitted he'd assumed we were long-time Orthodox, of a more "old-school" variety, because of how well-behaved the girls were and since we spent so much of the service on opposite sides of the church (like more conservative Orthodox do--men on one side, women and children on the other). Many others had similar compliments on the girls' behavior. What an encouragement!
Lucas told us that Fr. Stephen and Matushka Mona, both coming from Middle Eastern cultures, had always put a big emphasis on family and children. Having seven children themselves they know and understand the joys and struggles of parenthood and have encouraged their parishioners to welcome families and assist with others children if the parents need it. That was what I'd been looking for.
So...what would you like to know more about? Comment below!
Very good blog post. One of the reasons I really love St Annes is because the children are not segregated from the adults when it comes to worship. One of my favorite things to see is when the children are so excited to want to venerate the icons.
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