To those of you who religiously check our blog for updates, I apologize about how infrequently we post. We’ve been mostly posting in chronological order. In another tab I have a draft about our time in Portugal that will hopefully be posted “soon”. At the moment, we are in Istanbul, Turkey and we left Portugal more than a month ago…

A few days back, Asher became very concerned that he would not be able to remember all things we were doing on this trip. To ease his concerns I offered to let him dictate a journal to me for ten minutes every night. This joint journaling has been going very well and gave me an idea. I thought I would try to publish a blog post within days of the events we are writing about. This is Asher’s and my journal entry about our visit to the Greek Orthodox Church last Sunday. I promise I’ll go back and finish the chorological posts – when I get to them…

The Patriarchal Cathedral Church of St. George

We got up early and took the train to Europe so we could go to the Church of Saint George. It is the principal Cathedral of the Greek Orthodox Church and is the Seat of the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Patriarch (Bishop) of St. George’s is effectively the Pope of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

It was hard to figure out when Mass was offered, in part because the Orthodox Church calls it Liturgy. Through lots of searching we found that a prayer service was at 8:00 and Divine liturgy started at 9:30. Since we wanted to see the Church as tourist anyway we decided to fulfil our Sunday obligation there.

We arrived at about 9:15

We hurried into the sanctuary not pausing to look at much on the way in. The Nave (the area where the congregation sits) was quite crowded when we walked in. On the right hand side was an elevated box with a throne like chair and and I think a Patriarch (or just an important Priest?) wearing ornate, red, black, and gold Orthodox liturgical vestments. In front of the throne, there were two lecturers’ podiums facing each other. At the podiums stood seven black clad lecturers; two senior lecturers and five junior lecturers (something like altar boys though I would guess they were all age 15 – 24).

At this point I should say that I know almost nothing about the Orthodox church and what I think I know could be wrong. If I use Roman Catholic terms that are wrong, please forgive my ignorance.

From the time we walked in, the Lectures were chanting prayers back and fourth in deep melodic tones. These chanted prayers where occasionally joined by Priests with golden vestments and or the Patriarch standing in the elevated box. The chanted prayers continued for almost two hours. If you promise not to judge us for recording part of the Liturgy, here is a short video.

Religious Attendance

We have been attending Roman Catholic Masses at least every Sunday on this trip. For the last three months those Masses have not been in English. The Roman Catholic Liturgy is more consistent than McDonalds so despite only speaking English we are all, even the kids, able to follow exactly where in the Liturgy we are at any time. This familiarity with Roman Catholic Liturgy did not help us follow the Orthodox liturgy. For two hours we mostly stood and listened to chanted prayers in what we later learned was Greek. The only words I picked up in two hours were “Kyrie eleison” and “Alleluia”. We know these from the Roman Catholic Liturgy but I didn’t understand anything else.

After about an hour, it seemed like there were readings from scripture similar to those in the Latin rite. The first two readings were chanted by the lecturers from the front of the Nave. Then a gold-clad priest came out of the Altar room with a gold covered Bible. He carried the Bible up to second story lectionary at the center of the Nave and read what I assumed was the Gospel reading. I’m not sure if the Orthodox Church uses the same reading schedule as Roman Catholics. On the train from Asia I had read the Catholic Sunday readings to Angie and the kids. The gospel was Jesus talking about separating the sheep from the goats – which was convicting.

Answered Prayers

After the readings the service continued for about an hour. In this time I noticed the tell tale signs of fatigue in my family. Chiara was increasingly bouncy, Asher was increasingly downcast, and Alexander frequently turned and gave me a demon inspired stare of distilled anger. Angie acted like a grownup but I had no doubt she was getting tired as well. This all inspired me to join in with the lecturers adding my own fervent silent prayers to their chants. I don’t know what they were chanting in Greek but I was fervently praying that Communion would be served soon. I am happy to report that God does answer prayers.

Communion

The church has a very decorative screen between the Nave and the Altar. It was heavily gilded in gold and covered with very cool looking icons of various sizes. In the center was a large door and when it opened we could see the Altar (table). When the door was closed we couldn’t see anything. This reminded me of the screen in the Old Testament Temple separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple. Between not knowing the order of the Liturgy, not understanding Greek, and not being able to see the preparations; it was almost a surprise when they brought out bread and wine for Communion.

Priests brought out a chalice and a platter of leavened bread pieces and the congregation rushed to form a line down the center aisle. We worked our way into the line and when we got close we saw that they were spooning the wine into the mouths of the faithful. There appeared to be small chunks of bread in the wine. Asher was first and he received the wine – which he later described as “horrible”. Chiara was next and I tried to indicate to the priests that she should just receive a blessing, because she has not received first communion yet. At this the priests were confused but finally someone said “Catholic?” to which I nodded. Then we were directed to the platter of bread and not offered the wine.

Church Treasures

After communion there was a a relatively quick benediction from the Patriarch and then the Divine Liturgy was over. Immediately after it ended a large basket of Bread was brought out and the congregation lined up once again to be given a piece of bread. We confirmed that it was not consecrated and then all had a piece – it was delicious.

After the marathon Mass we went to a cafe down the street for a delicious full Turkish breakfast and then we went back to the Church for some tourism.

Since the Cathedral of Saint George is basically the Vatican of the Eastern Orthodox Church there are some incredible treasures inside. The most interesting to us were:

The Relics (bones) of three incredible women including Mary Salome (we didn’t get a good photo). She was one of the women who brought myrrh to Christ’s tomb on Easter and discovered he wasn’t there.

Each of the Bishops was a Bishop of Constantinople and a Doctor of the Church. Their accomplishments include contributing to the Nicene Creed and the Theological concept of the Holy Trinity. Many people stopped to kiss these relics as we were leaving Mass.

It was very cool to see the Church and celebrate an Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy. That being said, two hours is a long time to listen to chanted Greek prayers you don’t understand. I promised my family we won’t go back until we learn Greek.