His picture was all over town. Billboards, telegraph poles, bus stops – all had the same poster pinned up. It looked like the biggest and only show in town – and it was on Sunday in the local church. His All-Holiness Archbishop Anastaris of Albania1 was to be the main celebrant at the Eastern Orthodox worship. This highly revered, respected and holy person was for the first time celebrating the Holy Liturgy in Crete, the Holy Communion – and it was not to be missed!
We all went – that is the 60 people attending the Central Committee of the Conference of European Churches. Protestant, Anglican, Old Catholic and Orthodox, to quote the strap line which indicates the official labels given to the 125 churches in membership, stretching across most of Europe’s linguistic, cultural, religious and political boundaries. But so did many of the townspeople including the town council – all looking somewhat uneasy in their shiny suits (all male of course) on a hot June day, struggling to share the one seat available among many, trying to look inconspicuous yet given where they were seated in full public view, nigh on impossible.
In fact everyone, apart from a few elderly people who were provided with chairs, stood for the whole of the worship. Some people came and went as they chose, as is the custom in Orthodox worship, but many stayed for the whole of the two-hour service. Those of us who were not of the Orthodox tradition were not permitted to share in receiving the elements, but many others didn’t either. Orthodox theology says that Holy Communion can only be shared when there is complete unity, for the Communion is its sign. Some people went to receive a blessing and to be prayed for.
However for me one of the most moving moments was when blessed bread was shared and all were allowed to take. Priests stood with large baskets and people took as they wished for themselves or for others, to eat now or to take home.
Here was worship in which the priestly order worshipped on your behalf, much of it hidden from your sight, and interceded for you in and through the great liturgy. Worship is not about being understood, or being enjoyed or being relevant. It is about the great mystery of faith, the awe and wonder of God, the connection of heaven and earth, the meeting of earthly life with eternity.
It is about being in God’s presence in a way we rarely experience in many Methodist services. For worship has no beginning or end according to the Orthodox understanding. It is continual and forever, it is eternal and never ceases – so there is no “call to worship” and one can enter and leave it at any point. You are never late or early. You can revere the saints as seen in the many icons, you can pray to them and kiss them for they will intercede on your behalf with God.
Orthodox worship, as with Orthodox faith, is Trinitarian and no one part of the Godhead is celebrated more than another. As one enters the eternal liturgy one is being engulfed in the mystery of faith, faith on which the world is built and of which the Orthodox Church is the guardian and upholder, protector and sustainer. Orthodox understanding is that the liturgy is the mission and witness, and in the liturgy the mystery of God the Holy Trinity is celebrated and adored. So at the cessation of this particular liturgy His All Holiness blessed the gathered congregation, received children in his arms, sprinkled holy water and received kisses of joy, and the thanks of the mayor and town council for gracing them with his presence.
So across Europe worship comes in very distinctive forms. If for millions of
Orthodox Christians the liturgy is the norm so for millions of Roman Catholics it is the Mass, and for Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostalists and Reformed Christians, preaching has a central place alongside the singing of hymns and extempore as well as responsive prayer. For Anglicans and Lutheran Christians the Eucharist and other liturgical forms are the normal worship practice.
Of course within these generalisations there are many distinct differences and emphases. The German Methodists (as well as others) tend to sit to sing and stand to pray – very strange to those from the British tradition to whom sitting to sing detracts from the hymnody. However the wonderful egalitarian place of music is something we can learn from. The organist begins the worship with a prelude and the congregation prepare in silence as they listen, only then comes the spoken word by the worship leader. The chatter stops when the music begins at the appointed hour! Invariably the organist concludes the worship in like manner, and the congregation do not move until it is over. The choir do not have a separate place to sit but emerge from among the congregation, and return to their places after they have sung – usually to a very high standard (true of organists as well) led by a choir leader, a different person from the organist or pianist.
Music in the German tradition is taken very seriously and adds significantly to the quality of the worship. So well, in fact that at the Kirchentag2, I experienced a brass band of 1000 players – all in tune and conducted from a high scaffolding tower! The congregation was probably 100,000 – in the open air, of course. This was in the city of Hanover. The opening of the Kirchentag consisted of three services in different parts of the city happening simultaneously. They attracted, so we were told, 370,000 people and closed the city to all other comers and traffic.
This year, on Palm Sunday I preached to a large congregation of Roma gypsies in Alsozsolca, north-east Hungary. The church (shaped like a very large dining room) was packed with children, young people, parents, grandparents and babes in arms. The music came from the worship band – the windows were open so the music rocked and vibrated around the neighbourhood. When we arrived we too were caught up in the music and we were lifted with the vibrancy of the worship. It had already being going on for thirty minutes! The singing was passionate and the congregation really expectant and welcoming of their distinguished visitors!3 Afterwards I noticed they were re-hanging the doors – taken off to create more space and allow the 100 or so congregation in the room and the vestibule to see!
Afterwards we walked around the village and heard that 90% were unemployed, saw the extremely poor housing conditions and roads made from baked mud. The church is 55 years old this year, and now has its first local Roma pastor, Laszlo Erdei Nagy4. He was recently ordained into that role having completed his theological studies at the Baptist seminary. Here were people who were economically very poor but possessed a richness of spirit that communicated itself through the generations, and which challenges us who economically want for very little but so often whose spirituality needs enriching and enthusing.
These are three stories of worship from across Europe. I could write about the multi-lingual nature of some worship where the use of more than one language is common practice. In Palermo, Sicily two different sermons are preached – one in Italian, the other in English; in Graz like in some other European cities, simultaneous translation (German / English) is provided each week. Or how religious art is common place in Swedish Methodism.
Variety is the spice of worship one might say! Worship across Europe comes in every shade and variety that one can think of, as does its quality. In some traditions, it can be particularly severe, formally serious, joyless, and cold – to be endured rather than enjoyed in which God’s judgement seems to outweigh God’s love! In others it is loud, emotional, energetic and passionate – experienced as charismatic and participative. Sometimes it is silent and meditative in which the visual plays as much a part as the verbal, other times it can be traditional and thoughtful, stimulating the mind more than the soul. Some of it expresses the faith of very small vulnerable communities like the Iniut people living across the stretches of northern Scandanavia, worship that to a western European is very strange and barely recognisable. Some worship expresses the formality and grandeur of the state occasion, or the major Christian festivals.
My privilege is to have experienced most of this in all its richness and diversity, in languages common and strange. Yet if I am to express one point of worship that leaves an indelible mark it is being in a congregation that crosses the boundaries of culture, language and generations and when the worship leader invites us all to say the Lord’s Prayer, each in our own language. Then we are joined to the saints in heaven as well as the saints on earth, and God’s name is glorified and praised in words common to all Christians of whatever tradition, language or age.
Colin Ride is a Local Preacher in Yorkshire and a professionally qualified youth worker. He is Europe Secretary of the World Church Office where he is responsible for Methodist and Ecumenical relationships across Europe, for the support of mission personnel in Continental Europe and for the development of new mission initiatives. In his previous post he was a Methodist Training & Development Officer in Yorkshire with responsibilities for adult learning and training, and the establishment of new youth work initiatives.
footnotes
1 Vice-President of the Conference of European Churches, 2003-2009
2
Kirchentag – literally means “church day”. But this bi-annual
religious, cultural and social (even political) five day Protestant
event began in 1948. It attracts hundreds of thousands of people from
all over Germany. Every other year there is a Roman Catholic
Kirchentag, and occasionally an ecumenical Kirchentag.
3 The Revd Dr Martyn Atkins, President of the Conference 2007-08, Mr
Colin Ride, Europe Secretary, Pastor Istvan Csernak, Superintendent,
United Methodist Church, Hungary.
4 Laszlo is financially supported through the National in Mission
Appointments programme, a programme of the Methodist Church in Britain,
managed through the World Church Office.
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