Church Visit #2- Liturgical

Mariel Beausejour - Church Visit #2

Church name: Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church

Church address: 28W770 Warrenville Road | Warrenville, Illinois 60555
Date attended: October 5, 2014
Church Category: More Liturgical

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

As we entered the Eastern Orthodox church, centered mainly on the greek tradition, I was hit by the smell of incense, the brilliant colors of icons, painting in gold, and the crying of children. The church met all together, with kids in the back, making a bunch of noise, and the congregation reading a liturgy out of well-loved 3” binders. The choir sat at the back center of the church, and two choir members gave us their seats. The room was full of people, and seemed to be extremely racially diverse as well as having many young adults. (We later found out that an entire class was visiting from North Park, doubling the congregation size).

What did you find most interesting or appealing about the worship service?

The Icons were the most beautiful part of this experience for me. As a protestant, I have grown up in iconoclastic churches. We never have paintings of Jesus or other religious figures. If we do, it’s a rough sketch of Jesus’ eyes in the back of a power point slide. We were very lucky in that there were students visiting from North Park, and they have a questionnaire following the service. A man from the church explained the doors partitioning the central room from the “holiest of holies”-esque room with the altar. On each door was an image of the angel Gabriel, and on the other was an image of Mary. The doors symbolized Mary’s consent to the Holy Spirit and her choice to be Theotokos. I have never thought about the fact that Mary said yes to the Holy Spirit in that way before. It was very interesting.

What did you find most disorienting or challenging about the worship service?

I was surprised at how comfortable I felt. Perhaps the most disorienting part of the service was the processional of the priests through the congregation with incense while they prayed. It was interesting to see them in their formal garb, in a place which felt sacred and far apart from my experience, yet we prayed for our modern context by name: President Obama, the armed forces, the local mayors, etc. We were also seated in the choir, which is at the center and back of the small congregation. It was a great opportunity to try to follow along in the music and the liturgy. I have always attended fairly contemporary services without much liturgy, so it was very interesting to reading the same things they read every week, or once a year. I felt tied to the tradition of the church in a new way.

What aspects of Scripture or theology did the worship service illuminate for you that you had not perceived as clearly in your regular context?

The liturgy was very new to me. It is a historical liturgy of eastern traditions. It is the first time that I have felt tied within the tradition of Christianity through the very words I spoke, the place I spoke them, and the imagery that shaped that place. Sometimes, I think we get carried away in our contemporary setting, and we forget that we haven’t invented Christianity. It has been around long before we were born. It is not dependent upon our individual expression of faith.