Somebody says something (finally)!

The Moscow Patriarchate's representative in Europe concerned with oppression of Christians in Islamic world

Brussels, May 26, Interfax - Representative of the Russian Orthodox Church to the European International Organizations Bishop Hilarion of Vienna and all Austria urges to protects interests of Christian population in Islamic countries, the Representation's press-service has reported to Interfax-Religion.

Bishop Hilarion named Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia and Philippines among the countries where Christians were persecuted when the bishop was speaking at the European encounter Shared Values for a Changing Europe - Contributions of Cultures and Religions in Rovereto, Italy.

"Kidnapping and murders of Christian clerics have become the reality of every day life in Iraq. Converting into Christianity may result in death penalty in Afghanistan. There is no Christian church in Saudi Arabia," the Moscow Patriarchate representative stated.

Speaking about Europe, Bishop Hilarion drew participants' attention to Kosovo where the churches were violently destroyed and thousands of Christians, bereft of home, were consigned to exile.

According to him, the occupied part of Cyprus remains in tight situation as the churches are destroyed there and Christian population suffers badly.

The Moscow Patriarchate's representative pointed out that Turkey negated interests of Christian population and mentioned as an instance that Turkish authorities refused to open a theological school on Khalkis Island in spite of persistent requests of the Constantinople Patriarchate.

Bishop Hilarion hope that Christian-Islamic dialogue in compliance with words of Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia expressed in his letter to 138 Muslim leaders will not only work out theological questions but influence actual situation with Christian population in Islamic countries.

This definitely echoes Pope Benedict's comments almost two years ago, summed up here:

Benedict XVI undoubtedly wants to achieve better relations with Islam, but there is an important proviso.

It can be summed up in a single word: reciprocity. It means that if Muslims want to enjoy religious freedom in the West, then Christians should have an equal right to follow their faith in Islamic states, without fear of persecution.

This needs to become the mantra of European, American and other Christian leaders who live in security from large-scale persecution. Muslims make their feelings very clear every time somebody does something even slightly offensive. I don't expect Christians to riot in the streets or issue death threats/fatwas, as this is one of the essential differences between Christianity and Islam; however, there needs to be some equal but opposite outcry in Western and/or Christian countries when much greater atrocities than cartoons and misinterpreted speeches occur, such as priest beheadings, bishop kidnappings, child crucifixions, and 12-year-old girl gang-rapings. They will take us much more seriously if we actually act like we care.

Islam has a built-in system of government and law, called Sharia, upon which all governments and legal systems in majority-Muslim countries are, to greater or lesser extents, based. Islam, therefore, is just as much political theory as religion. Just as there were crackdowns on and close observations of the Communist Party during the Cold War and the American Nazi Party during World War II, there should be similar constraints put upon Islamic groups in America. CAIR is a good volunteer with which to get this started.

Islam is also a religion that believes, similar to other Western religions like Christianity and Judaism, in a universal brotherhood of believers. With this and the above in mind, I don't think that it is stepping too terribly far out of line to advocate a policy of reciprocity. If Muslim nations refuse to meet the basic demands issued by Christian nations, namely, that Christians within Islamic nations be allowed to worship freely, build their own churches, religiously educate their children and otherwise freely and openly practice their faith, similar constraints should be placed upon their Muslim brethren living in Christian nations. If it is a crime in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace and capitol of Islam, to carry a Bible in public, wear a Cross, or possess a Rosary, why should it be legal in the Christian world to carry a copy of the Koran, wear a crescent, or possess a misbaha?

This may sound harsh. The obvious (and obviously true) response to all of this is: we're better than them! It's a bit Machiavellian, but the ends here justify the means. The bigger, stronger, persecution-free Christians of the West need to stand up somehow for their oppressed brethren living under Muslim rule. Otherwise, the Muslims will continue to view Christians as infinitely divided and weak and unconcerned. And the conquest will continue.

When I do my own will

"An anchorite was living close to a monastery, and let a very austere life. Now it happened that some visitors came to the monastery and constrained him to eat outside the proper time. Afterwards the brothers said to him, 'Abba, were you not grieved by that?' He said to them, 'I am grieved only when I do my own will.' " - From The Desert Fathers.

Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev: St Isaac the Syrian, a theologian of love and mercy

Isaac was quite resentful of the widespread opinion that the majority of people will be punished in hell, and only a small group of the chosen will delight in Paradise. He is convinced that, quite the contrary, the majority of people will find themselves in the Kingdom of heaven, and only a few sinners will go to Gehenna, and even they only for the period of time which is necessary for their repentance and remission of sins: 'By the device of grace the majority of humankind will enter the Kingdom of heaven without the experience of Gehenna. But this is apart from those who, because of their hardness of heart and utter abandonment to wickedness and the lusts, fail to show remorse in suffering for their faults and their sins, and because these people have not been disciplined at all. For God's holy Nature is so good and compassionate that it is always seeking to find some small means of putting us in the right, how He can forgive human beings their sins - like the case of the tax collector who was put in the right by the intensity of his prayer (Luke 18:14), or like the case of a woman with two small coins (Mark 12:42-43; Luke 21:2-3), or the man who received forgiveness on the Cross (Luke 23:40-43). For God wishes for our salvation, and not for reasons to torment us' (II/40,12).

The teaching on universal salvation, which is so explicitly preached by Isaac the Syrian, has never been approved by the Orthodox Church. On the contrary, Origenist idea of the apokatastasis ton panton (restoration of all), which has certain resemblance with this teaching, was condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council. However, we would not completely identify Isaac's idea of the universal salvation with Origenist 'restoration of all'. In Origen, universal restoration is not the end of the world, but a passing phase from one created world to another, which will come into existence after the present world has come to its end. This idea is alien to Christian tradition and unknown to Isaac. The latter is more dependent on other ancient writers, notably Theodore of Mopsuestia and Diodore of Tarsus, who also developed the idea of universal salvation, yet in a way different from Origen's. On the other hand, it would not be fair to say that Isaac simply borrowed the ideas of his predecessors and inserted them into his own writings. Isaac's eschatological optimism and his belief in universal salvation are ultimate outcomes of his personal theological vision, whose central idea is that of God as love. Around this idea the whole of his theological system is shaped.

Nevertheless, Isaac's teaching on universal salvation evokes the following questions: what is the sense of the whole drama of human history, if both good and evil are ultimately to be found on an equal footing in the face of God's mercifulness? What is the sense of sufferings, ascetic labour and prayer, if sinners will be sooner or later equated with the righteous? Besides, how far do Isaac's opinions correspond to the Christian tradition and to the teaching of the Gospel, in particular, to the Parable of the Last Judgment, where the question concerns the separation of the 'sheep' and the 'goats'?

Read the entire paper here.

The War Against Christianity

by Hussein Al-Alak, Chairman of the Iraq Solidarity Campaign [original article with pictures here and here]

While I don't necessarily agree with his conclusion, I know from experience that what he says about what's going on in Iraq is accurate.

April 25, 2008

There is a war against Iraq's Christians taking place, at the behest of two allegedly Christ-loving regimes and one supposed Islamic government, with one commonality being their need to hide behind the walls of Jericho to carry out the persecution of men, women and children.

How else can any one describe the systematic ethnic cleansing of Iraq's Christians, who were born and raised in the land between two rivers, the land which gave birth to the founder of the three major religions and whose lineage of Judaism, Christianity and Islam is now the land which being destroyed at the hands of "god fearing" heathens.

It has been five years and still silence is the golden fleece for Britain and America. They have chosen to ignore the murders - the beheadings, the attacks, the forced displacement and increases in taxation upon the Christians for refusing to convert, the intimidation by militias upon women for not wearing a headscarf .

Most Christians in Iraq are Chaldeans, members of an Eastern Rite denomination that recognizes the pope's authority. Other sizable denominations include the Assyrian Catholic Church, which traces its roots to the 1st century. Iraqi Christians are also affiliated with the Church of the East, the Anglican Church and other Protestant faiths. Pope Benedict XVI and President Bush said that in a meeting last week they discussed the "precarious state" of Christian communities in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The Bishop of Mosul reported in 2006 that a "fourteen year old boy was crucified in Al Basra" and how members of the US/UK trained Iraqi Police forces, have assaulted "civilian passers-by with anti-Christian and racist slurs" - grotesque acts which apparently Britain takes seriously within its own borders, when addressing "institutional racism" in the police force and cases relating to honour killings against its own civilians.

But how the West has turned the other cheek, when Paulos Iskandar the Syriac-Orthodox priest was beheaded in October 2006, and how they failed to act when reports emerged from Iraqi newspaper Azzaman, when they reported that US troops were taking over churches and using them for military purposes, with over fifty percent of Iraq's Christians believed to have already fled.

In March this year, Paulos Faraj Rahho, archbishop of Mosul's Chaldean community, was found dead after being abducted. This month, Youssef Adel, an Assyrian Orthodox priest, was fatally shot in a drive-by attack in Karrada, one of Baghdad's safest neighbourhoods and home to Abdal's Holy Catholic Assyrian Church

Let's not forget the looting of churches, the bomb attacks carried out against congregations. Let's remember the priests, deacons and other members of the Christian Church who have become the victims of sectarian kidnappings, and how militias have taken their hatred of a multi-national society and left their victims' heads on the doorsteps of God's holy "house".

The Western response has been typically quiet, and in an effort to emphasise its multi-cultural credentials, the Socialist Worker reported how the, "highlight" of one Stop the War Coalition demonstration in "Red" Ken Livingston's London was Sheikh Zagani, foreign affairs spokesperson for Moqtada al-Sadr, who under the noses of New Labour, MI5, MI6 and the Foreign Office announced to 100,000 non-Burkha-wearing British people that, "We are the voice of humanity," but failed to mention the murders of Christians, Palestinians, Shiite, Sunni, the destruction of ancient sites, the collapse of the health service, the murder of academics, and growing illiteracy.

Asia News has also reported that the Iranian-backed Mehdi Army death squads, have been threatening women into the forced wearing of the "veil", with IRIN reporting how the Mehdi have also been responsible for the "hunting" down of women for "religious reasons or because they had criticised the militants" or, as one resident put it, "They accuse them [the women victims] of different things such as prostitution, or of being informants for Iraqi and US forces, or of not wearing a headscarf or for wearing Western clothes,"

Al-Sadr's forces have also been responsible for the murders of homosexuals, which they claim to be "sexual perverts", along with having murdered members of Iraq's Palestinians community. Unlike the Mehdi Army, which was brought to Iraq in 2003, the Palestinian community has been resident in the country since the creation of the state of Israel.

It is perhaps hardly surprising that the US and UK should fail to act upon the plight of the Christians, when most people in "liberated" Britain don't even know that under Saddam Hussain, the various religions were celebrated and not persecuted, and that many in the US still think that Saddam was behind the 9/11 twin towers attack.

At present, Iraq's Christians are one of the few communities left which do not have their own army to protect themselves, something that maybe the Christian community should consider as being essential, if only to assist and save the lives of religious minorities against slaughter in present-day Iraq.

Baptism / Chrismation Video

Only about three weeks late with this, but here's the video I put together of my wife's Baptism and the entire family's Chrismation on Holy Saturday:

Liturgy - The Structure of Ultimate Reality

This video is one of the coolest things I've ever seen

Slander

If you hear or see someone sin, keep from slandering him and judging him. You tell someone else about him, he tells it to another, the other to the third, the third to the fourth, and so everyone will come to know and be tempted. And they will judge the one who sinned, which is a very serious thing. And you will be the cause of all this, by publishing your brother's sin. Slanderers are like lepers that harm others by their foul odor, or like those stricken by the plague who carry their disease from place to place and destroy others. Keep yourself, then, from slandering your neighbor, lest you sin gravely and give someone else cause for sin.

- St. Tikhon of Zadonsk

Iraqi refugees [in Syria] cry out to Christians around the world for solidarity

Iraq and its Christians are a very near and dear subject to me. Every time I come across something about the Christians of Iraq, I'm sure to post it, and I will continue to do so in the future. It was through them that I rediscovered my own Christian heritage and first discovered the Orthodox Church. Please pray for the Christians of Iraq!

"Although I had been threatened many times in Iraq, I did not want to leave," says the Armenian Orthodox hairdresser Cayran. "But then my shop was burnt and the car of my husband, who used to work as a driver, was robbed. So we left everything behind and fled to Syria."

"Stories of lost loved ones, the sudden need to flee home and community and the hardship of life as refugees need to be told. And those who have the power to help end the tragedy of being a refugee need to listen.

At an April meeting of Iraqi Christian refugees and church representatives from around the world at the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East in Damascus, Iraqi Christians who are now refugees in Syria spoke as church members from the U.S., Germany, Lebanon, Pakistan and Sweden, along with the general secretaries of the World Council of Churches and Middle East Council of Churches listened.

What the church representatives heard were stories of incredible suffering in Iraq and overflowing hospitality in Syria. They heard about the pain of living in Iraq and eventually leaving. They heard of the strain the influx of 1.5 million Iraqi refugees have placed on the economy of Syria creating the need for jobs, safety and security despite the unanswered questions of what next for the Iraqis.

The prices for food and housing are skyrocketing, and it is extremely hard to find a well-paid job. "Even if there were no refugees, the economy would have to create thousands of job opportunities a year in order to integrate our young people who join the labour market," Samer Laham, director of ecumenical relations at the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, explained to the
visitors from abroad.

"Animals live better lives than human beings"

That evening many spoke of the trauma suffered by their children and the insecurity of their future. Cayran said her son cannot speak normally since he closely escaped a kidnapping.

"Animals live better lives than human beings in Iraq," said Samira, a Syrian Orthodox refugee. "At least they have the freedom to move. We were even too afraid to go to church because people were kidnapped from church."

One day, when she was still living in Iraq, Samira went shopping with her daughter. "Three gunmen stopped us. They pushed my daughter around and asked her why she was in the street without a veil. Since then, she did not want to leave home and she dropped out of university."

Aram, who had been a member of the Armenian Orthodox Church in Baghdad, said: "My wife and I knew some Christians who were killed. As our numbers were on their mobile phones, their murderers used them to call and threaten us."

Aram also told about the mistrust that is poisoning communities in Iraq: "We had some friends, who turned out to work for the Mahdi Army. We thought they were friends, but they took our pictures in order to have us killed."

Incidents such as the publishing of the prophet Muhammad cartoons in Denmark in 2005 benefit the extremists, who use them to justify their hidden agenda to kick "non-believers" out of the country, Munir from the Calvinist community in Baghdad is convinced.

"My family was threatened: either you leave within 15 minutes or we will kill you," Munir described his own experience. He added that they did not know how serious the threat was, so they went to his sister's apartment next door and waited. Really an armed gang arrived. "They raped our wives, and even my eighty-year- old mother was beaten." After Munir's brother-in-law, who had been kidnapped, was freed, the family left "immediately, without even taking any clothes with us," selling the apartment for a fourth of its value.

In exile, Christians turn to churches for help

But life in Syria is not easy, either, as the resources which refugees managed to bring with them are soon used up, and jobs are hard to find.

"I have a brother and a sister outside the region," Munir said. "We depend on them and are a burden on them. But they cannot afford to send us money all the time."

A psychological burden for many families is the knowledge that any emergency or illness will find them without protection. Kwarin, a father of four, left his job with a security company in Baghdad to join his family in exile and take care of his children. "My wife urgently needs an operation," he said, "but I have no money to pay for it."

While the refugees are grateful to Syria and the churches there for welcoming them, many feel let down by the international community. Frustration prevails with regard to the Western embassies who have rejected visa applications again and again. "Do they want that parents go back to Iraq and get killed before they allow the children to get out? Must our young women go back and be raped before they are allowed out?" one man asked angrily.

Cries of "No!" or even "Never!", both in English and Arabic, filled the room, as the question of whether they want to return to Iraq was put to the refugees. "Of course I want to go back to my country," a young woman from Basra explained. "But can you guarantee that I will not be killed? My relatives went back and were killed in one night."

Rev. Dr Volker Faigle of the Evangelical Church in Germany thanked the men and women who gave their testimonies to the WCC delegation for this clear message. "We cannot bring airtickets or visas along," he acknowledged. "But my church and the Roman Catholic Church in Germany will join hands and approach the government, the parliament and the European institutions to tell them what we have seen and heard. (...) When we return to our countries, we will think of you, we will pray for you and we will act for you."

The concern felt by Syria's Christian communities for their sisters and brothers in and from Iraq was tangible in all the encounters the WCC delegation had with church leaders.

Patriarch Mor Ignatius Zakka of the Syrian Orthodox Church, who was himself born in Iraq, told the ecumenical visitors about a priest of his church who had been killed just one week earlier, after he conducted the Holy Mass. "We do not want Iraq to be emptied of Christians but if they are in danger there, how could we tell them to stay?" asked the patriarch.

Many Christian refugees experienced that in Iraq belonging to a religious minority is dangerous. "Christians and other minorities are paying the price of the Iraq war," said Samer Laham, "because they are suspected of being traitors and of helping the allied forces - as if they were not an original part of the social fabric and had not shared the bread with their Muslim brothers since centuries. "

So when they arrive in the host country, Christians put most trust and expectations for help on the churches. Denominational boundaries, on the other hand, are easily overcome. "Our church is an open house for Iraqi either to hold their own services or to join ours, said the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch Gregorios III. He added that his patriarchate works hand in hand with an Islamic centre to care for Iraqi refugees, whether they be Christian or Muslim.

Pastor Boutros Zaour, of the Evangelical National Church, said "it is Syria's destiny to be hospitable to refugees, ever since the Armenians fled here from the persecutions they suffered in the Ottoman Empire."

"The personal stories the delegation heard were heartwrenching, " said Clare Chapman, deputy general secretary of the National Council of Churches USA, at the end of the visit. "We must pray for the Iraqi refugees and work together as member churches of the WCC and as citizens of our home countries, to address the conditions they daily endure. We must take our responsibility seriously, as people of faith, to do whatever we can to support them as they try to rebuild the lives they lost through no fault of their own."

Also see:

• WCC member churches in Syria
  
• Picture slideshow of the delegation

Ancient Christianity & Afro-America

Listen to Father Moses Berry talk about the upcoming (May 30 - June 1) Ancient Christianity Conference put on by the Brotherhood of Saint Moses the Black.

Also, take a look at the Brotherhood's website. The page on African saints, which includes a large icon showing them all as well as links to information about each of them, is great.

For the Orthodox Church to plant roots and grow in America, things like this are exactly what it needs.

Thanks to Father Joseph at Orthodixie for bringing this to my attention!

Chinese Orthodox Celebrate Pascha in Beijing

A little late with this one, but great news:

originally published in Russian by RIA Novosti
April 27, 2008
English Translation by Igor Radev

Orthodox Chinese Celebrated Pascha in Beijing

Beijing, April 27th — RIA Novosti, Kira Pozdnyaeva. Around 30 Orthodox Chinese from Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai celebrated Pascha with a lay service (without participation of priests) at the Roman Catholic cathedral of St Archangel Michael in the capital of the People's Republic of China, as reported by the correspondent of RIA Novosti.

The Autonomous Orthodox Church of China, formed in 1957, at the present moment does not have serving clerics. Approximately 13,000 citizens of China consider themselves Orthodox, mainly members of the Russian ethnic minority living in PRC, as well as Chinese.

In accordance with the laws of PRC, foreign clerics are limited in the possibilities of performing services for the citizens of China on her territory. That's why this service was celebrated by a special rite for laymen with no participation of a priest.

Since the Orthodox faithful in Beijing lacked their own prayer house, the church for the service was provided by the Catholics.

In the service, the 81 year old deacon of the Chinese Autonomous Church — Evangel Lu, who was born and baptized on the territory of the Russian Spiritual Mission in Beijing, specially came from Shanghai for the occasion to take part in the service.

Larger part of the people gathered on the Paschal Service were descendents of Cossacks — Albazinians, who carried Orthodoxy onto the territory in China at the end of XVII Century, when a group of captured Cossacks, defenders of Albazin Fort were brought in Beijing.

The Chinese Emperor, admiring the courage of these warriors, allotted dwellings for them, married them with Chinese wives and provided for a church to be opened.

This became the motive for Peter I to establish the Russian Spiritual Mission in Beijing, which for a long time took on itself the role of a diplomatic mission of Russia in China and existed till the 50s of XX Century, when it was finally closed. On the extensive grounds of the Russian Spiritual Mission is now situated the Embassy of Russia in PRC.

In 1918 there were around 10,000 Orthodox Chinese.

The Revolution of 1917 in Russia, had ousted hundreds of thousands Russian speaking refugees in China. The émigrés built hundreds of churches in Beijing, Harbin, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Hankou, Tianjin. In 1957, the Orthodox Church in China received its autonomy.

The "Cultural Revolution", which was marked by mass demolition of churches and cemeteries, desecration of Holy Relics and icons, persecution of the faithful, jeopardized the existence of Orthodoxy in China. Divine Services stopped to be celebrated for more than 20 years.

A Revival of Orthodoxy in China has begun in the 80s, when one church in Harbin was opened and a church was built in Urumqi.

Priest discusses Christianity in Baghdad

No matter how much you may agree or disagree with what this Priest has to say, whatever your politics, whether or not you support the war, please watch this video. I can affirm that his comments here aptly summarize the feelings of every Christian Iraqi I had the opportunity to speak with while deployed.

Antiochian Orthodox church preserves age-old faith

Having been chrismated on Holy Saturday myself, this is something I can identify with. The people in this article steal the words from my mouth. From MLive.com, a Michigan news blog:

Posted by Aaron Ogg | The Grand Rapids Press April 26, 2008 05:14AM

DORR -- In her candy cane-striped dress, Grace Phillips walks up to an icon stand bearing Jesus' image. Still too short to reach on her own, she climbs a stool and gives it a big smooch.

"We didn't have to force her to do that," said her mother, Karen Phillips, of Hamilton. "Even if we've done it already, she wants to do it again.

"She knows who's in that picture -- who it represents."

The kiss-happy 3-year-old fits right in. She wanders freely about the worship space, air thickened with incense from a fresh shake of the censer by Father Gregory Hogg. The aroma, along with the glowing candles, represents the presence and prayers of saints.

Amid this smell and sight, about 50 souls delight, finding one voice and filling Holy Cross Antiochian Orthodox Church, 1928 142nd Ave. in Dorr, with time-tested praise. Music with heart and no hymnals, sung with power but no amplifiers. A bright-eyed band of worshippers working from a 2,000-year-old set list.

This is now. This was then. This is forever.

Holy day
Today is Holy Saturday -- the day before Pascha, the Hebrew-derived name for Easter in Orthodox churches, which celebrates the holy day according to the Julian calendar. Most Western churches follow the newer Gregorian calendar.

On this day, Grace and her parents are to be chrismated. The senses, heart, hands and feet are anointed with oils representing the Holy Spirit. It is the way orthodoxy receives Christians of other traditions into the church.

The journey -- or as Gary Phillips calls it, "the pilgrimage" -- has been a hike for Mom and Dad and a short skip for their adopted daughter. Yet each path has led them to this place, this never-ending song, this unchanging truth.

"I'm done looking," Gary said. "I don't have to look anymore."

Gary Phillips described his Protestant experience as a "jigsaw puzzle," but more befuddling.

All the pieces were in the box, he said, but there was no illustration showing how to put them together.

"I'd always sensed that there was something missing and I haven't found it," said Phillips, 49. "All these little pieces have begun to fall into place for me."

He attended a Presbyterian church with his wife for about four years. She said she grew weary of changes. Familiar songs and traditions taken away. Diminished importance of ordinances -- what orthodoxy calls the mysteries, or sacraments -- such as communion and baptism.

More meaningful
They longed for more permanence, less conflict.

"The biggest part was the frustration doctrinally, " she said. "Everybody was right, but everybody was different in their teachings.

"Things were looking more like entertainment and performance rather than worship. I think we came away oftentimes feeling really frustrated and not feeling like we'd worshipped in a meaningful way."

The Phillipses have attended Holy Cross for about a year and a half. Karen's first service gave her a unique feeling, she said. Fulfillment.

"Everything was very different from what I'd ever experienced, " she said. "But I think the one thing that hit me more than anything else was I really had a sense that we worshipped God, even though I didn't understand everything."

Hogg, who opened the church in 2005 with six families, said it's a feeling shared by many newcomers.

"A refrain you often hear from new converts is, 'I have come home,'" Hogg said. "People have been in a number of different places, but they all find one in the same home and that's been quite a joy."

Of the parish's 45 members, only one grew up Orthodox, and two have been baptized at the church, he said. The rest are converts, including Hogg.

He was ordained into the Lutheran Missouri Synod in 1983. Soon, he became aware of "very troubling issues."

"Things that I thought were fixed were being called into question," Hogg said. "For me, religious faith has to be an anchor; the anchor is important to keep you grounded

"If you're not grounded, you drift."

About 20 years ago, he visited a small Orthodox mission church on Good Friday and was in awe.

"When I listened to the words of the liturgy, I thought, 'My God, they know the gospel,' and it was in its beauty and its truth. There is a place that has it.

"For the next 18 years, I kind of puzzled out how you sort out all of those things."

Now Karen Phillips, 49, approaches the threshold. She looks toward her chrismation with reverence and fear.

"It's a happy time, yet there's that little bit of fear aspect because it's not something to take lightly.

"This isn't funny stuff."

Meanwhile, Grace isn't missing a beat, and can't wait to receive her first Eucharist, Karen said. She happily sings liturgical prayers as Dad tucks her in at night.

"It's very much a little kids' religion," Hogg said. "The kids get it right away."

Prayers sung in triplicate. Parishioners crossing themselves in triplicate. Baptism, Easter and marriage processions in triplicate.

Brevity is not a trait highly regarded by Eastern Orthodoxy.

Sunday morning gatherings begin with "matins," or morning prayers, followed by another hour and a half of divine liturgy. Holy Cross' matins ran about an hour on Palm Sunday, but there is no prescribed time limit. Worshippers approach and revere icons, and sing a set series of established prayers.

"Have mercy on us, O God, according to thy great goodness, we pray thee: hearken and have mercy," sang Hogg.

"Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy," the congregation responded.

Singing service
The repetition invokes the holy trinity, Hogg said. The chant itself, like so many Orthodox practices, also bears historical significance.

That was the prayer early Roman citizens would chant "when the emperor came to town," he said.

Singing makes up most of a service. When asked why, Hogg answered with another question.

"Why not sing? Music is the language of love."

Peter Marth, 31, of Georgetown Township, chimed in: "All of this is Old Testament heritage. If you entered the temple, you would not hear speaking."

Kids dig the a cappella, the golden censer, and the colorful vestments worn by priests, Marth said. And seating arrangements are perfect for the fidgety: There are none.

Chairs are available for those who need them, and no one is discouraged from sitting, but most stand for roughly three hours.

"Not having pews is a great thing for kids," Marth said. He and his wife, Laura, have three children, age 8 months to 5. "If they have ants in their pants they can move around a little bit without disrupting everyone.

"It's just kind of a natural organism that's moving all the time."

Many rituals are holy as well as pragmatic. The golden fan used throughout the centuries that trails large processions was meant to keep flies away from Eucharistic elements, Hogg said. Also, 12 holes are poked into the consecrated bread. This not only signifies the 12 apostles, but it also "prevents bubbles in the bread," he said.

The faith is the same wherever you go, "from Damascus, to Dorr, to Santa Cruz, California," Hogg said. While Eastern Orthodox churches bear different names -- Greek, Russian, Antiochian and so on -- they denote ethnicity, not sect.

The difference between Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Christianity compares to that between a hospital and a courtroom, Hogg said.

"We're here because we're sinners and we're sick, and Christ heals us with his life-giving body and blood," he said.

"We're a family."

Great advice from Basil the Great

Honestly, the hardest thing in the world for me...

"The Christian ought in all things to become superior to the righteousness existing under the law, and neither swear nor lie. He ought not to speak evil; to do violence; to fight, to avenge himself; to return evil for evil; to be angry. The Christian ought to be patient, whatever he have to suffer, and to convict the wrong-doer in season, not with the desire of his own vindication, but of his brother's reformation, according to the commandment of the Lord." - St. Basil the Great.