The Eastern Church Five Years On, Part I: Teach Me Your Statutes

Almost five years ago, to the Sunday, I walked entered the Greek Church aloof to its mysteries and eager for an alternative to the insular world of worship which I knew. After some light digging online I found that I should not expect a holy water stoop nor a genuflection on entry to the church. I walked into a Melkite church in New Hampshire half an hour before the proper start to the Divine Liturgy, providing a sufficient cushion for getting lost. I approached the church with the trepidation one feels when leaving one’s element, like going away from home for the first time or going off to university. Vaguely, some rough, pulsating noise resonated from the opened windows of the parish; they sang words I could not discern.

As told, I found no holy water stoop upon entering the narthex nor anything toward which to genuflect. After the initial doors a stand bore an icon of the Dormition. I passed the icon and saw wonders. A great gate demanded all attention. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Blessed Mother, John Chrysostom, and Basil the Great looked upon me in blessing from four panels. Four cantors surrounded a podium to the left of the icon screen and two deacons stood around a similar podium to the right. They continued the hymn which I heard only faintly from outside, bowing to the floor at each refrain.

Blessed are You, O Lord, teach me Your statutes

The order of the angels was amazed,

When they beheld You, O Savior, among the dead,

Destroying the power of death, and raising Adam with You,

And releasing all from Hades.

Blessed are you, O Lord, teach me Your statutes

After four or five years living in the traditionalist segment of the Latin Church I found myself uncomfortably staring at true worship with no strings attached. Like the ancient Roman liturgy I came to love there was a “flesh of my flesh” sort of devotion and worship here, but bereft of any political affiliation or symbolic status on one’s opinions. Without the positive reinforcement that comes from selecting a satisfying position against one’s imagined foes, I was left to see this act of latria in a way I had viewed no other before it, as the worship of God for God’s own sake.

Very early in the morning the myrrh-bearers ran lamenting to Your tomb,

But the angel stood by them and said,

“Do not weep, the time for lamenting has passed,

Announce the Resurrection to the Apostles.”

Blessed are You, O Lord, teach me Your statutes

Hitherto, my understanding of the Church came from a narrow set of arguments that effectively said, “What preceded 1962 was original to the Apostolic tradition and your ideas are novel.” While that generally continued to be true in the limited sense I understood the situation in the Church, I had little knowledge, and no wisdom, for the actual Tradition of the Church properly understood. Other than St. Augustine, I had not seriously engaged a Church Father. Other than the Tridentine Mass, I had not seen a traditional liturgy, and certainly not in so normative a setting; the Tridentine Mass was always the exception in parishes. Like most traddies, I was a modern Cordelia Flyte: I knew little and believed it madly.

Since you gave birth to the Giver of Life, O Virgin,

You delivered Adam from sin,

And you granted joy to Eve instead of sadness,

For He Who took flesh from you, God and Man, restored to life him who had gone astray.

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Glory be to You, O God!

It is the purpose of this post and a short succeeding series to ruminate on my five years living, thinking, and worshipping in the Greek Churches. In short, it has been a slow withdrawal from the toxic political atmosphere prevalent in some corners of the traditionalist world and an introduction to wonderment at the act of worship of the Holy Trinity.

In this Melkite Church there was no sense of “right” and “wrong”, meaning that one side of opinions was right and the one I did not belong to was in error. There was simple worship of God. Having spent the past few years preaching the wickedness of removing the Introibo ad altare Dei prayers I was ill prepared to hear the Great Doxology sung at the end of the Orthros (Mattins) service and then witness the Divine Liturgy begin with such words as to arouse one’s long dormant spiritual imagination.

Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.