Liturgy

Come and See

The center of Orthodox Christian worship is the Divine Liturgy. Other services sort of revolve around the central Eucharistic celebration. Liturgies are celebrated on Sundays and special feast days. (although they can be celebrated most days and are done daily in monasteries) Vespers, an evening prayer service, is normally done on Saturday nights and Matins or Orthros are sung before the liturgy on Sunday morning. Until we have a priest we will do Typica, which is basically the Liturgy without the parts for the priest.

What should I expect?

There is a great little article about ones first experience at a liturgy. IF you have never been to an Orthodox church or a ‘high’ literal church for that matter I recommend this short piece called. 12 Things I Wish I’d Known… First Visit to an Orthodox Church

What do I do?

The short answer is… pray. Among other things you will likely see a bit of commotion; people bowing, crossing themselves, lighting candles, and venerating icons. In Orthodox thought, these are all prayerful actions. There are scores of what we call ‘little ‘t’ traditions’ people do. As a Pan- Orthodox church you may see aspects of different historical expressions of Orthodoxy (Russian, Greek, Antiochian, ROCOR, etc ). Feel free to join in or just watch. A lot of these things are personal aspects and no one expects everyone to do the same things all the time. You will also likely see a lot of people standing for most of the service. This is the standard position of prayer in the church. If you need to sit, please sit. You will often see kids sitting on the floor playing or with parents venerating etc. That is great too. There are a few times that we are more still and specifically try to stand, like for the gospel reading and the processions. Often the deacon or priest will chant “let us attend” as a sort of liturgical signal.

Liturgy is the Eucharistic service and is a center point of worship as well as spiritual life. Join us

A temporary chapel is being constructed. Once finished, there will be in-person services (with appropriate precautions) that will also be streamed via zoom and facebook. More information can be found on our Services and Events page.