Dear Gaudior and jbosl,
Who indeed would NOT call matins, vespers, etc. worship? Certainly not TeenOTIL nor I. Please reread our posts. All WE said was that the Divine Liturgy (or Mass) is the highest or most perfect worship. No one ever said, as jbosl has complained, that the Divine Liturgy is the ONLY form of worship. Scripture specifically states that prayers are an ACCEPTABLE form of worship, but it is not the highest, nor perfect, form. The perfect worship is the one that involves the Sacrifice of the Divine Liturgy/ Mass - simply because the Sacrifice involved therein is the PERFECT sacrifice. Would you agree?
And I dare repeat once again that if a prayer is to be regarded as worship, it must involve the specific notion of offering or sacrifice.
Matins, vespers, Liturgical hours etc. all EXPLICITLY involve the office of intercession, and they are thus indeed, acceptable worship.
See what happens when you don't "judge with right judgment" or don't "go and diligently inquire?"
All I'm saying is that we need more info, because it is what God commands of us to do whenever we form such judgments, ESPECIALLY if it involves the person of a bishop, as our canons, aside from Scripture, explicitly directs us to be especially careful when the honor of a bishop is involved.
Several here have already given circumstances that could mitigate that event as an actual profanation or desecration of the holy altar of God. I think we all need to reread Scripture to determine exactly what can be regarded as a desecration of the altar of God. Do we know for certain that these Hindi were not worshipping Jesus, though imperfectly, at His altar? Do we have a translation of exactly what it was these Hindi were chanting?
I recall visiting a Catholic Church with a friend when I went to school in Berkeley. I saw a Catholic priest (a rather infamous one, I hear, though I forget his name) who was perfoming a Buddhist prayer service at the altar. After the prayer service, my friend and I asked him how he could do such a thing (my friend was rather indignant). He explained that he believed that the God Christians worship is the same as the impersonal Force that Buddhists worship since both deities are infinite, immeasurable, eternal, etc., etc. I grant that perhaps I am wrong, but I could not judge what he did as a DESECRATION or the altar because he adjudged the Christian God and the Buddhist impersonal Force to be the same. In HIS mind, he was offering prayers to the Christian God. In my view, for his action to have been a desecration, he would have had to recognize that the Buddhist impersonal force is a DIFFERENT deity than the Christian God, YET offered up sacrificial prayers anyway. Isn't there a passage in the Old Testament where a pagan king offered sacrifices to the God of the Hebrews (I'm not talking about Melchisidech)? Isn't it true that Abraham was a henotheist instead of a monotheist?
There are so many factors involved before making a judgment of this kind that would potentially mar the character of a bishop and dishonor a historically significant altar of our God.
Of course, I think it is too much to state that there is nothing wrong with worshipping with non-believers. But, then, again, I define "worship" in a more rigorous sense than some here. When I think of "worship," I think immediately of the perfect worship.
BTW, I do not agree that the mere presence of a priest dictates an action involving that priest to be a sacrifice, and thus worship. There is no question of matins, vespers, etc., because the office of intercession is involved, but the mere presence of the priest does not guarantee it.
Blessings,
Marduk
