At the front of the church the sanctuary is separated by a wooden icon screen or iconostasis that consists of three doors: the Royal Doors in the center, the Deacon's Door on the south side and the server's door on the north. It is decorated with Jesus, the Theotokos, or the word used to venerate Mary as the mother of Christ, and the saints. Although some may construe the icon screen as something designed to keep the congregation separate from the priest and from God, it can be defined more fittingly as a link between where heaven and earth meet. Additionally, when the priest leaves the area of the altar and passes through icon screen, he often turns in the same direction of the congregation (east) in order to address God positioned within the sanctuary area (Roccasalvo, 1992: pg. 21-22). There is also a tetrapod before the sanctuary area where an icon is placed so that it may be kissed, and which, during feast days, holds the icon of the Saint whose feast day he or she is being venerated by.
Although the Byzantine Catholics do not use musical instruments during their services, they have hymns that are sung throughout most of the Liturgy. These vocal melodies are used for many responses and prayers and even the Gospel is chanted by the priest, a difference from the Roman Catholic church where it is simply read in a normal voice. A few of the hymns are sung in Slavonic, which is to the Byzantine Catholic Church what the Latin language is to the Roman Catholic church, and the alphabet of which was developed by St. Cyril and St Methodius. Another difference is the more frequent use of incense and the more continual use of body praising, which consists of bowing and the sign of the cross. And whereas the sign of the cross in the Roman Catholic church goes from left to right across the chest, in the Byzantine Church it goes from right to left. Overall, it seems that these additional features strive to draw the physical into the spiritual through the stimulation of our senses in order to make one become more aware of the sacredness of what is going on around them.
(Image taken from St. Ann's homepage)
Other differences include the Byzantine Catholic church's stronger history of hesychastic spirituality or hesychasm which comes from the Greek, hesychia, meaning quiet. This form of contemplative prayer was the way of the early Christian monks who lived an ascetic lifestyle in the desert. It consists of an aphophatic position in relation to God which derives from the Greek, apo, having a negative connotation, and phemi, to affirm. Thus it is an "attitude of mind which refuses to form concepts of God." In some ways this is very similar to Buddhist thought, and especially Zen Buddhism, which refuses to form conceptual images of enlightenment and instead seeks to experience it for one's self in order to affirm and understand it. On the other hand is cataphatic spirituality which affirms God through what it finds as perfection in the created world (Roccasalvo, 1992: pg. 16-17).
I enjoyed the Byzantine Catholic Liturgy and its more rhythmic pace very much. The whole Liturgy is very beautiful, from all the beautiful art adorning the walls and ceilings of the church to the smell of the incense and the sounds of the unanimously sung hymns. In two weeks I will be going back to a Slavic festival held there which I can't wait for. At that point I also hope to update with more pictures of the beautiful artwork of the church.
There was a funny story after leaving the church with the friends I had visited there to go to a local diner. One of their daughters found a snapping turtle under their car which I and my friend's husband wrangled out from beneath of. We threw it into my car and went to find a nice creek for it to dwell in.
Once we had stopped by our prospect creek my friend's husband took the snapping turtle out of the back of my car and proceeded toward the water source. At this moment a man in a red pickup came by honking his horn. He went slightly past me and on the back of his car I could see an image of a figure peeing on the letters PETA. As you may be able to guess by now, he wanted to consume the turtle we had just hoped to save. We ended up leaving the turtle on the other side of the guard rail near the creek and kindly told him that he could be the one to get it if he wanted to, which he promptly did after we drove off. More irony is accrued from this experience given the fact that I was talking about eating turtles as we were driving toward the creek.
To many this may perhaps seem an unfortunate occurrence. However, when we consider in what way this man was acquiring his food, naturally from the environment around him, and the fact that he would probably be slaughtering it himself, we should remember that for those of us who buy meat from commercial farms, we are even more to blame than we might this man. Although we may feel pity for the snapping turtle we may not harbor the same feelings for the chickens and cows that we eat almost every day, and even though they live in even worse conditions than this turtle must have in order to provide us with food. Furthermore, if this man was poor, this would have certainly been a valued find for him. Perhaps that day it was more important to provide a man with a meal than to save a turtle who had regardless lived a healthy life in a natural environment.
Next week I am hoping to journey to a farm which is also associated with a Sufi Retreat Center. I hope to learn more about the contemplative Sufi tradition and the practice of Dhikr, which I understand to be a meditative religious exercise.
Peace be with you,
Matt
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