grace and peace: Things You'll Never See in an Orthodox Church, Part 6

20080927

Things You'll Never See in an Orthodox Church, Part 6

5 comments:

Mike said...: I like your "Things you'll never see in a Orthodox church" series. Where in the world do you find these?

The one with like the big black papier mache puppet looking things reminded me of the man and woman jew in the Running of the Jew in Borat...; 9/27/2008
Anonymous said...: Am I correct in assuming that in Part 6 of "Things you'll never see in an Orthodox church" you were talking about the woman 'priest'? I'm not sure I heard correctly, at the beginning, but it sounded like she was playing fast and loose with Scripture, too. I echo Michael ... where do you find all the clips ... how many dozen "Youtube" bits do you have to plow through to find just the right one? Really am enjoying your series.; 9/27/2008
Matt said...: Mike,
I'm glad you like them. I have tons more, too. Some of them will just make you shake your head.

Speaking of Borat, I wanted to post a video of the scene with him in the Pentcostal church, but I haven't been able to find it online yet.

Mom,
Actually, there are several things in that scene that are foreign to Orthodoxy. The most obvious is the female priests. Women can, and do, hold prominent positions in the Orthodox Church, including as members of the clergy (deaconess), but never as priests or bishops.

The second thing is the words of the Eucharistic Prayer. There are four versions of the Eucharistic Prayer that Roman Catholics use. This one in the video starts out sounding like the third one:

"On the night he was betrayed, he took bread and gave you thanks and praise. He broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said: Take this, all of you, and eat it: this is my body which will be given up for you. When supper was ended, he took the cup. Again he gave you thanks and praise, gave the cup to his disciples, and said: Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me."

The people in the video got the first three words right, and then went off into something else: "On the night before He met(?) His death, Jesus came to table with the women and men He loved..."

The third thing isn't about the video per se, but involves a rewording of the Eucharistic Prayer that the RC church adopted since the 1960's: "this is the cup of my blood...It will be shed for you and for all..."

Compare that to:

Matthew 26.28: "...this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.."

Mark 14.24: "...This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many.."

Luke 22.20: “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you."

Orthodox Divine Liturgy: "...this is my Blood of the new Covenant which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins."

The fourth thing is the guitars. Instrumental music is extremely rare in Orthodox worship.

How do I find these clips? I just search Google videos or YouTube, and, in the words of Borat: "Great Success!!!"; 9/27/2008
Anonymous said...: Matthew, why isn't "make a joyful noise ... with the harp, and cymbal..." part of the Orthodox church service?; 9/27/2008
Matt said...: Is your question about why there are no instruments?

It's because Orthodox worship is modeled after the Temple worship. They didn't use instruments in the Temple, except to drown out the bleating of the animals being sacrificed...which, of course, Christians don't have to deal with.; 9/27/2008

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