The Triumph of Orthodoxy

This Sunday of Great Lent, the first, commemorates the restoration of the icons to the churches of the faithful. Perhaps the greatest debt the Eastern Church owes the Western Church is the preservation of icons and religious art, for it was the Popes of Rome who preserved the true faith of the fathers and upheld the veneration of holy images for the edification of the faithful.

As we heard today in church, "This is the faith of the Apostles, this is the faith of the Fathers, this is the faith of the Orthodox, this is the faith which has established the universe." We do not worship the icons; we worship the reflected grace and glory of God, which shone forth through the saints depicted in our icons, and the religious truths depicted therein. We venerate the icons, as we venerate our beloved family members long gone before us, whose photos and portraits we preserve. As Father Benedict preached in his sermon today, we are all called to be icons in the world; we are summoned to live a Christ-like life as an image of God's grace to us. If we are blessed, we may inspire other Christians; if we do not hew to our faith and duty, we may drive others to sin. Let us all strive to be true images of the grace and glory of God. Let us all be icons to one another.

The previous two paragraphs were a Facebook post made earlier today.  Tomorrow is the Feast of Annunciation, and I continue my personal quest of attending Liturgy for each of the Twelve Great Feasts of the Church this liturgical year.  Fortunately, my schedule of teaching at William Carey University allows me to attend the vesperal liturgy tomorrow night, because I had an exam scheduled for tomorrow night, which will go forward.  It is a blessing that my lesson plan fits the year so well.

Holding the icon of my patron saint, Saint Alexander Nevsky, I was reminded of the harshness and persecution experienced by the faithful, and the great fortune we enjoy in America living and worshiping freely.  Saint Alexander could not live freely even in his own country, and the Russian faithful suffered horribly under the Mongol yoke.  Today, we processed around our church, singing the Troparion of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, no doubt presenting a bizarre spectacle to the neighborhood, but free and joyous and blessed by God to worship Him in the fullness of the faith.

Lenten preparation

For Lenten preparation, I, for the first time in my life, subscribed to Schmemannism* and purchased from the parish bookstore Fr. Alexander's Great Lent: Journey to Pascha.  Together with that, and the Triodion (which I read every year- thanks be to God, Met. Kallistos and Mother Maria), and some few other works (The Master and Margarita, War and Peace, Fear and Trembling), I have my Lenten reading.

*I have been present at a service where a priest intoned the following phrase: "and quenched the flames of Schmemannism,"** so this is a big step for me.

**This may not be entirely true.^

^But it sounds good.

My journey to Orthodoxy, Part 2

Hattiesburg, Mississippi, is a strange place.  It's a university town, defined by its relationship with the University of Southern Mississippi and to a lesser extent William Carey University.  It's the county seat of Forrest County, named for Nathan Bedford Forrest.  And it's been my home for the past ten years.

I knew when I moved to Hattiesburg that there were no Orthodox churches for at least an hour's drive.  In 2003, I still drove to Jackson about twice a month to attend Liturgy at Holy Trinity Church.  The hardest thing was the discipline to attend divine services.  Once I slacked off on divine services, I slacked off on prayer.  I was caught in a world of hedonism and despair.  This really qualifies as my wasted youth, even though I was 27 at the time.

I found a ROCOR mission in Semmes, Alabama, and I attended sporadically.  It was a difficult thing to drive from Hattiesburg to Semmes, passing along US Highway 98 eastbound through the most depressing slog of two-lane garbage I'd ever seen.  But the church community was warm and welcoming, and Fr. Alexander and Matushka fostered a great Christian spirit.  During this time, I recovered some of my youthful interest and involvement in the church, and most of all, my interest in something other than the world.

Unforgivable unposting

I've drafted a few posts, and I haven't finished them to my satisfaction, so they are not up.  We have made it through the Nativity fast (the fast of St. Philip) and are at the eve of the second most important day in the liturgical year.

Tonight, I will be joining my church family in McComb at the All-Night Vigil of Christmas.  This service combines Great Compline (the final service of the liturgical day) with Matins and the First Hour.  All of the liturgical observances of Christmas Eve parallel those of Great and Holy Friday, and it is the day of the Nativity Fast that most relates to its Lenten analogue.

Tonight, the music will contain some of the greatest hymns of the Church.  Aside from the Nativity Troparion,  introduced in this service, we will sing "God is with us," an antiphonal hymn celebrating the imminent arrival of Christ in the Incarnation. The words of the hymn come from the eighth and ninth chapters of the prophecy of Isaiah, and recount the promise of the Messiah to come to Israel.

Matins begins directly at the end of Great Compline, which concludes with the Troparion of Nativity.  Matins begins with the choir singing "Glory to God in the Highest," which has deep significance liturgically, as this is among the preparatory prayers uttered by the priest before the Divine Liturgy begins, and also recalls the greeting of the angels to the shepherds at the Nativity.  Perhaps my favorite portion of the entire Matins is the Song of Ascent, followed by the Prokeimenon of the Nativity.

The Canon of the Nativity follows.  In the Canon, which is composed of eight odes (it is a historical curiosity that the second Ode is omitted), we hear the story of the Incarnation from the Old Testament story of creation (Ode 1), through the expulsion from Eden (Ode 3), to the founding of the Tribes of Israel from Jacob (Ode 4), to the Roman dominion over Judea (Ode 5), to the parallel stories of the Prophet Jonah and Christ (Ode 6), to the shepherds being greeted by the angels (Ode 7), to the story of the three youths and the pain of the Babylonian exile (Ode 8), and finally the wise men reaching the cave wherein Christ was born (Ode 9).

Following the Canon, Matins concludes with the singing of the Praises of the Lord, and the Great Doxology. The Doxology is the great catechetical hymn of the church regarding salvation and redemption; it is the counterpart to the Creed, which contains in it the fundamentals of the Orthodox faith.  The Doxology instructs us to pray constantly and seek forgiveness from God, and itself concludes with the Trisagion Hymn.

May God bless you all, and may we greet each other tomorrow on the day of the Nativity with the words of festal praise: "Christ is born; Glorify Him!"

Resumption of blogging

I suspended my blogging during the election season, because I was in such turmoil over the election.  Now that it is over, and I have hopefully not alienated too many people, I will resume blogging at my schedule of two to three times a week, and I will begin with continuing the story of my return to the Church, hopefully on Sunday.

My Journey to Orthodoxy, part 1.

My journey to Orthodoxy is not normally considered a journey.  I was born into an Orthodox family, and I was baptized about 40 days after my birth, and I grew up as an altar server, and singing in the church choir, and in general receiving a first-class youth of instruction in practical Orthodoxy.  I learned how to be a reader, and I learned chanting in the Greek, Antiochian, and Russian styles.

But in college, as is often typical, I fell away from the Church.  I stopped going to Liturgy regularly, and I was only an occasional churchgoer.  I attended church regularly when I was at home with my parents, but I had never been someone who didn't have a job in church.  I had never known how to worship without something to do.

And so for a long time I was C and E (Christmas and Easter).  And when I moved to Jackson, Mississippi, after law school, I began attending Holy Trinity and St. John the Theologian Greek Orthodox Church.  In contrast to the stereotype of old Greek parishes, I found a welcoming community struggling through the change from being a city church with a city congregation to being a city church with a suburban congregation.   Eventually, the church had to move away from its historic location on West Capitol Street to its new home in Ridgeland, and I pray God that they are doing well there.

After I moved to Hattiesburg, I again lapsed.

Forgive me, but I will continue later.  It's time to listen to two sociopaths lie to the country again.

Vespers, an appreciation

Fr. Lawrence gives a concise explanation of the historical importance of vespers.  I have been privileged over the years to serve vespers at our mission in Hattiesburg.  This week we have Divine Liturgy on Saturday, and Vespers Friday night.  I look forward to vespers, especially now that we have more regular attendees.

Vespers is the reminder of the Old Testament services in the temple.  It provides us a vital link to the Holy Fathers of the Old Testament, and in particular to the Jewish priesthood.  All Orthodox Christians are put into the priesthood now, and symbolically and mystically serve God in our collective worship.  As St. Basil's anaphora prayer says, "He procured us for Himself as a chosen people, a royal priesthood and a holy nation."  

The Vespers service is a reminder of the closed priesthood of blood and descent of the Old Testament, and mystically calls us to service in the royal priesthood of Christ, who is High Priest forever, in the words of the entrance prayer from the Christmas liturgy:  "Out of the womb before the morning star have I begotten Thee. The Lord has sworn, and will not change His mind: "Thou art a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek."

Vespers begins the liturgical day, and announces to us the story of the saint we commemorate throughout the day.  It is educational and pedagogical, and an excellent preparation for the coming liturgy.