How We Worship

From St Innocent Orthodox Church (bold and italics have been added)

The Eastern Orthodox understanding of worship begins with the scriptural understanding that there are other heavenly or spiritual beings: angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim. The Scriptures teach that in worship, believers are surrounded by and worship within this communion of heavenly hosts. As the Prayer of Entrance says, "O Sovereign Lord, our God, Who appointed in heaven the orders and armies of angels and archangels for the service of Your glory, grant that the holy angels may enter with us to serve and glorify Your goodness with us." Or, as the prayer during the Thanksgiving acknowledges of God, "for this liturgy which You are pleased to accept from our hands, though there stand before You thousands of archangels, and myriads of angels, cherubim and seraphim, six-winged, many-eyed, soaring high on their wings; singing, proclaiming, shouting the Hymn of Victory."

In other words, we should worship God on earth as he is shown to be worshiped in heaven. As the letter to the Hebrews tells us, there is "a heavenly pattern" behind the liturgical life of the Church of then (Israel) and now. If we consider the Old Testament pattern and the visions of heavenly worship found in Isaiah, Ezechiel and Revelation, several elements are consistent:

• use of light, candles, candelabras


• use of vestments, crowns


• thrones


• incence, smoke


• liturgical (fixed) prayers, patterns and expressions


• physical movements (bowing down, prostrations, etc)

These are the elements found in Orthodox worship. However strange they may seem to one raised in the Western/Protestant Christian tradition, they are soundly Scriptural and hark back to the earliest apostolic times.

Worship in the Kingdom
Consistent with the earliest Christian beliefs, worship involves this heavenly host because Christian worship takes place in the Kingdom of God before the heavenly throne (see, for example, Isaiah 6: 1-8). Also gathered around the throne are all the Saints who Christians remember and who join in the worship. Christians pray for those who partake of the gifts of the Eucharist, and say "Furthermore, we offer to You this spiritual worship for those who in faith have gone on before us to their rest: forefathers, fathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, preachers, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, ascetics and every righteous spirit made perfect in faith, especially for our most holy, most pure, most blessed and glorious Lady, the Mother of God and Ever-virgin Mary". Christians throughout the ages have affirmed the "great cloud of witnesses" (Heb. 12: 1), those Saints who have gone before. Christians pray for them even as they believe and expect the Saints pray for them.

The Physical Dimension of Worship
The Scriptures teach that God created human beings as physical as well as spiritual beings. To deny this physical aspect of being human is to deny the nature of the creation. The challenge is to affirm this physical aspect of being human in a manner which is edifying and which builds up and conforms the believer to the image of Christ.

Furthermore, the Incarnation of Jesus, the taking on of human flesh and possession of both human and divine natures, is the ultimate affirmation of the inherent goodness of creation. To deny the physical side of being human, or to affirm the spiritual at the expense of the physical, is simply not Christian. In Orthodox worship all senses are involved, through the smell of incense, the sight of candles and icons, the hearing of prayers and music, and the taste of the Eucharist.

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