Erik Veker - Church Visit #1

Erik Veker - Church Visit #1

Church name: Holy Apostles Greek Orthodox Church

Church address: 2501 S Wolf Rd, Westchester, IL 60154

Date attended: 2/21/2016

Church category: Orthodox

Describe the worship service you attended. How was it similar to or different from your regular context?

Having not grown up in the church, the protestant service that I attended for the first time was a new experience. I didn’t know the order of the service but it made sense logically. They opened in song, they greeted one another, they gave and they listened to a sermon. I was able to understand the gist of it right away. What made my orthodox visit unique was that I was ignorant of the order of their entire service. The service being mostly in Greek, I wasn’t able to follow the way I usually do in church. I was very unfamiliar with crossing oneself, and I couldn’t figure out what triggered the physical response during the service. They crossed themselves fairly often so it made me think that it was in response to hearing the name of God. The experience was almost entirely sung by the bishop and the chanters at the front of the altar. The congregation came together in a pulsated manner. At the start of the service there was only a few people, but by the end it was almost completely filled with congregants. It is genuinely hard to find similarities with my regular context.

How did the worship service illuminate for you the history and contours of global Christianity?

Being at a Greek orthodox church confronted me with the reality of non-English speakers within our communities. The majority of the congregants spoke English, but there were several conversations that were being had exclusively in Greek. In our protestant tradition, it s less likely to reflect in the lives of the saints. This experience confronted me with iconography and the weight that church history bears on our theology and our worship. Global Christianity hasn’t been of much discussion where I come from. We tend to think of Missions as global Christianity when that’s not an accurate depiction of where the church is at universally. I am curious to discover more about the Orthodox tradition, specifically iconography and the use of incense in worship. The influence of Global Christianity and Historical Christianity has a bigger role than I am currently aware.

How did the worship service illuminate for you your personal identity as a Christian?

As a result of this service, I am able to see the lack of reverence in my own life. There is something deeply moving about congregational kneeling in prayer mixed with liturgical prayers of confession and exaltation. It illuminated my awareness of the work of God in a community I was previously unaware even existed.

Despite the different language, worship style and denomination, we worship the same God, revealed in the Incarnate Christ. He is the object of the all of our praise and devotion. I have a brief understanding of the use of icons, yet the practices involving kissing the icons still made me weary of placing too much emphasis on the saints as opposed to Jesus. My task throughout the rest of our time together is to grow in understanding the use of icons and to test it against the Word. In the meantime, I want to expand my simplicity in worship while maintaining the importance stressed upon the Son.