My Big Fat Greek Sunday

So one of the things that our supervisors recommend that we do is to attend a worship service close to what the traditional religion we will be faced with once we get to the field (does this make any sense at all?). So, considering that the predominant religion in Romania is Orthodoxy, and there is a Greek Orthodox church in downtown Richmond, my small group and I went to a Greek Orthodox service today. Really only 3 of us in the group will be dealing with Orthodox, but some others wanted to go just for the experience...or to see what the difference is between Orthodox and Roman Catholic.

So we walked into the sanctuary and the first thing that I noticed was that the place smelled like Incense. I mean, if a hippie runs out of incense, they just need to hit up the local Orthodox church and be set for life. Anyway, we got there right at 10:00 which is what time the service was said to begin. There were only like 10 or 15 people in the whole sanctuary when we first got there.

The priest at the front had on a beautiful robe and was swishing the incense through the air. I saw some people walk up to the front of the sanctuary where they had icons (pictures of saints) with red candles. The people with the candle would walk up to the icon of choice, place the candle at the foot of the picture, and then kiss the picture of the saint at the feet. It was really sad because this showed me that they think a painting will answer their prayers.

The next thing I observed was that the liturgy was read out of a little book. The little book had liturgy in Greek on one side and in English on the other side. Sometimes the liturgy was read in Greek and then in English, and others it was read in only one or the other. Half of what was read/recited from the liturgy was spoken, and half was sung. I didn't realize that there was a choir in the balcony until the service was almost over.

Halfway through the service, they took communion. So people would go up to the front to receive communion and come back to their seats with huge chunks of bread. It was like....a mid-service snack, really. Some people came back to their seats with multiple pieces of bread to pass out to their children. Oh and they drank the wine (I'm sure it wasn't Baptist grape juice). Funny, I know.

One of the last things I noticed was what was going on in the little room behind all the pews. There was a glass wall with a door for people to come through once they had done their business in the foyer. They would walk up to the little podium with an icon on it, cross themselves, and then kiss the icon. I just kept wondering to myself how many lips have touched that piece of wood and how many diseases get passed around in that church.

Another thing I noticed in the service was that just about all the people in there had big Greek noses. A true sign that they were truly Greek. Oh and by the end of the service (which by the time it was over it was 12:00noon, meaning the service was 2 hours long), the place was packed out. I mean Standing Room Only.

Soon before the end of the service, a man with his two kids showed up in the pew in front of me. The kids were so misbehaved I felt really bad for the dad. And then I realized that the dad was calling his son "Nikko." Yes, the boy's name was Nikko. That was the highlight of my day.