www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy What draws you to the Eastern Divine Liturfy?

Greetings Everyone,

Wow I'm a bit nervous posting in the Main forum lol.

If some of you don't know me, I just recently joined the forum. I am a Latin Rite Catholic, but with a very deep interest in the Eastern Rites as well as the Orthodox Church.

This spring later on, Lord Willing, I will be attending my first Divine Liturgy and I am excited and looking forward to it.

What I would like to ask, is what draws you to the Eastern Divine Liturgy? Or what stands out to you and significant to you?

I would like to hear more about the beauties of the Eastern Divine Liturgies.

Thanks for answering my questions. [NOTE; If I am miscalling something, I'm doing it out of ignorance as I am very new in all of this.]

GB
AS

This thread may well become a very long one

It's also probably not the easiest one to answer either

I'll give it a shot.

For some unknown reason I'd always known that the 'East' existed and eventually I found Byzcath and started reading and asking questions [ sound familiar ? ]

Eventually I attended my first Divine Liturgy - and I understood not a single word but I knew exactly what was going on. This Liturgy was truly the work of the people - everyone took part - except me .

Once back home I asked more questions - lots more and I found that my own personal praxis was actually becoming more Eastern.

Eventually I met the wonderful gentleman who is now my GodPapa and he introduced me to the wonders of the Eastern liturgies in one very very busy weekend - total immersion it was

That was it - I was hooked !

Much later and after a lot of problems [ NOT open for discussion ] I was Received into the UGCC

Simple: When I walk out of Divine Liturgy, I know that I have prayed and praised and worshiped God to the best of my ability.

Why? How? It's a mystery. It's all a Divine Mystery.

For a decade, or so, I worshipped in a small Russian Orthodox house church, converted from a former shop. Every inch of the walls above waist height was covered in icons. The chapel had only the natural light that shone through the doorway, so it was lit with dozens of lamps and four candle stands. It was like worshipping in a cave chapel. As we stood in this tiny church the icons of the saints totally surrounded us, glowing in the light of so many flames. In the Liturgy, when during the litanies, we constantly heard the words - 'Calling to remembrance our most holy, most pure, most blessed, glorious Lady Theotokos with all the saints...' we had the icons of hundreds of these saints around us. In such a setting we have an intense sense of the whole church - saints and sinners - gathered together around the throne, like the figures in those beautiful Greek icons of All Saints, where the saints surround the throne of Christ within a heavenly circle -
[Linked Image]

In the liturgy we join that circle and there is no 'them and us'.

The synaxis/meeting of our Liturgy is not simply that of the worshipping community, but of the heavenly and earthly Church united. This is represented by the offering on the diskos/paten, where the commemorative particles around the Lamb form an 'icon in bread', representing the whole Chuch - living and departed - gathered around the Saviour: the Paschal Lamb. The tradition of presenting our own small prosfory with commemoration lists allows us and those we remember to be added to that 'icon in bread'.

When reminded that our offering is a 'rational service for them that in faith have gone to their rest before us: forefathers, fathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, preachers, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, ascetics, and for every righteous spirit in faith made perfect. Especially for our most holy, most pure, most blessed, glorios Lady Theotokos, and Ever-Virgin Mary...' we had a very intense sense of their presence. The saints weren't just a list of names, belonging to certain categories, they had faces in the icons, icons that we loved and before which we spent hours in prayer. This made the words of the Liturgy very powerful and meaningful and the presence of the saints in the celebration very real. When we came to celebrate one Liturgy we discovered that an old, dark almost indistinct icon of St Nicholas had become bright and clear since the Vigil the night before. We had an immense sense of St Nicholas being with us during that celebration.

I never had this sense of the saints at a Latin rite service. When a friend took me to see the church in the parish she had joined I wanted to ask her 'Where are the saints?' She was playing the organ for the parish mass and I sat with her up in the organ loft. By the end of the mass I still had little sense of the saints playing any part in the liturgy. It was very odd. Perhaps I simply missed things, but it seemed a world away from the Eastern understanding of the Liturgy, what it is and what it means.

The same things as the Tridentine Mass but with a mystical kick all its own.

First and foremost, as parts of the West emasculate all God-language ("inclusive language") it is delightfully refreshing to worship with those who unashamedly call God by His revealed name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Second, coming from a Reformation tradition it is wonderful to quite literally see the Scriptures held in high regard (The Little Entrance) and to hear them permeate the entire liturgy.

Third, coming from a Sacramental piety there is great peace in witnessing the liturgy being celebrated with integrity--a fulfillment of the Psalmist's injunction to "worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness".

Fourth, that beauty of holiness is reflected stunningly in the Iconography. The likenesses assure us that we are indeed singing the thrice-holy hymn with "angels and archangels and the whole company of heaven".

Finally, the Western rites have over-perfected abbreviation and truncation. I am guilty of this quite regularly: Following the minimalist rubrics a weekday Eucharist can be celebrated in less than half an hour and I do so out of pastoral concern for the very elderly who attend. But even at our most solemn liturgies we serve up a mere appetizer when compared with the feast of the East.

Christ is in our midst!! He is and always will be!!

I think the thing that draws me is the difference between "anamnesis" and "memorial."

I think we in the West treat the Divine Liturgy as something we do as a memorial--something related to events long past; something that we can abbreviate as we wish; for some, little beyond ritual. That's why we can take the spectrum of the sense of "memorial" and get to the symbolic only interpretation found in some Western communities.

On the other hand, my study and experience of the Christian East is of "anamnesis": the bringing into the present of an event that is still alive before the Face of God the Father. It's the sense of time, space, distance, and eternity becoming one experience of a reality that is the center of creation and eternity: the life-saving, life-giving Last Supper, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, and Second Coming happening simultaneously as we all stand in the doorway of the empty Tomb participating in Christ's Saving Action and becoming one with Him now and for all eternity.

After studying Eastern theology and having spoken with Eastern clergy, this is the difference that I have come to perceive. After participating in the Divine Liturgy, and sensing what God is doing and graciously allowing us to participate in, I come away exhausted trying to take it all in, but it's a bit like trying to empty the ocean into a thimble. There is always something more to appreciate, to absorb, to learn, to deepen one's faith. The Christian East lives its theology liturgically, not in the classroom. It's a one-foot-in-eternity, one-foot-in- the-current-age kind of thing for lack of a better explanation.

Bob

How marvellous. And how I envy you. But where in Glasgow(?) have you managed to find an EC Divine Liturgy? I'm also in Scotland (though somewhat further north of you) and am also Latin Rite but cannot find a DL anywhere.

I have to travel through to Edinburgh every week .

There is a Divine Liturgy in Dundee once a month served by our Priest - he, poor man, covers the whole of Scotland and goes down as far as Carlisle.

Nothing really, it's just the one my jurisdiction uses. Growing up, I just saw it as a series of coming in and out of the altar and of opening and closing of the doors. Now that I'm a choir singer, I'm beginning to understand better what's really going on.

Your priest, God bless him, is a busy man.
Edinburgh is a 2.5 hour drive for me but I can get to Dundee in about an hour. How could I get details of the Dundee schedule?

I really like the combination of attending the early morning Mass, then much coffee and then the Divine Liturgy. It stretches my spirituality in two directions.