Although I am "Roman Catholic", I had the pleasure to attend the Christmas mass, 8 January 2008 in a Greek Orthodox parish in Ottawa (attached at end of account the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople), there accompanying my friend Ken who is Orthodox 21 years and who needed a ride. I loved the church and the liturgy.
The church has a dome with an image of Christ Pantocrator who are watching us dive. There are thirty icons. I had time to go round by worshiping my way and I found several that were very beautiful. The characters of the iconostasis (the wall separating the choir from the nave) are life size. I recognized Christ and the Blessed Virgin on each side of a central arch door opened and two archangels located on two side doors closed.
In front of the church, there were two beautiful lecterns on icons (one of Jesus and Mary), decorated on three sides of a kind of stole. The faithful came to venerate them by inclination, by kissing, by lighting a candle and putting beeswax on stanchions supporting each thirty candles lit. At the rear of the church, there was also an icon of the Nativity in worship.
The celebration of the Mysteries was done according to the rite of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (mostly in English but also in Slavonic). I noticed that the elements main mass were there, but packaged and ordered differently. The role of the deacon was very important prayers, incense multiplied, etc.. The singing of the choir was very harmonious. The prayers were very long and we were standing most of the quarter past two that it lasted.
marked differences with our Catholic way of making me hooked. The "I believe in God" said "I believe in the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father." (Point!) Epiclesis, prayer that asks the Spirit to come on donations for change the body and blood of Christ, was pronounced after the story of the institution of the Eucharist. It seems to me that taught me that transubstantiation takes place during the recitation of the words "This is my ...." I wonder what is the precise moment for the Orthodox? Communion is in both kinds: the consecrated Bread form of small pellets soaked in the consecrated wine was caught with a small spoon and deposited in the mouth. Small children also communed. There was even a baby carried in her arms as her mother gave communion.
Do not communicate hurt me. It hurt every time a prayer spoke of unity. The disunity of Christians in general bother me. I have nothing against the diversity of rites, the diversity of traditions, diversity of expressions of faith, but it seems to me that the prayer of Jesus for us to be "one as he and the Father are One" is a conviction disunity among our fellow Christians. I offered my sorrow for the visible unity of the Church. Our baffles steeples are a scandal, a stumbling block for the people we want to evangelize. ("When you hear you, you come talk to us!")
I'm not in favor of intercommunion in general, because it is a form of lying. This means that our differences are superficial and that in the background we are similar. In fact, the substantive differences are serious enough to not receive communion from the same family table. I welcome the points where we meet, but I can not understand why we can not even agree to celebrate the day of Easter on the same day.
The various churches all claim: "I believe in the Church one, holy, catholic and apostolic." What does that mean exactly? It's beautiful words in the air! Christ is not a polygamist! I think that he will not celebrate the marriage of the Lamb as his fiancee will not really "one, holy, catholic and apostolic."
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