I attend an Orthodox church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Every Sunday, I also attend churches in Moscow and K’yiv, in London on the banks of the Thames, in Sydney Down Under, in Atlanta and Chicago and New York and Pittsburgh, and Paris and Warsaw and Tokyo and Nairobi and Buenos Aires and Mexico City and Vancouver and Toronto and Winnipeg and Jerusalem and Damascus and Athens and Belgrade and thousands of churches around the world. Every Sunday. I got a lot of frequent flier miles.
My Church is kinda big. About 215 million baptized members are in my church. We get new members every week but a lot of the established members don’t come as often as I would like. Ah well, I will see them for the Nativity of Our Lord and Pascha each year! This is disorganized religion at its finest. Several million come out to coffee hour each Sunday.
We also get a lot of unique established members. They have been members since oh let’s see…the beginning of time? They are messengers, aka Angels. They come in nine ranks: the Thrones, Principalities, Authorities, Powers and Dominions, Angels, Archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim. They are so beautiful how they worship God. This is Orthodoxy.
The saints are also there. St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil the Great, St. Vincent of Lerins, St. Ignatius of Antioch, the Apostles, St. Seraphim of Sarov, St. Nikolai of Japan, St. Mary of Egypt the list goes on and on…the Innocents, St. Tikhon, St. Raphael of Brooklyn, the list runs into millions. This is Orthodoxy.
Every week, the Liturgy is chanted in every language…at once. From Aleut to English to Japanese to Portuguese to Ukrainian to Zulu…the Pentecostals don’t know what speaking in tongues is! This is Orthodoxy.
And there is the laity. Glorified in their sainthood, yet at the same time known only to God. From tiny house churches in Asia Minor the first century after Christ, to the Cathedrals of Russia in the 21st century and beyond…everyone is here. During coffee hour, the Greeks argue with the Russians over who organizes coffee hour next week, the Serbians caught in the middle, the Ukrainians off to the side, sipping horilka. The Arabs shower everyone with love and affection and food, as only the Arabs can. And so it goes on, each group and nationality with their own quirks and issues and their own unique expression of the One True Church of Christ.
The Church. My Church. I love it.
