I want to attend the liturgy

[belovucic]

I am very interested in the Eastern Catholicism and I want to attend an Eastern Catholic liturgy. But what I need to know? What should I do during the liturgy? When you have to make the sign of the cross? What do you say when you get the holy communion?

 

[RyanBlack]

I am very interested in the Eastern Catholicism and I want to attend an Eastern Catholic liturgy. But what I need to know? What should I do during the liturgy? When you have to make the sign of the cross? What do you say when you get the holy communion?

First of all, be at ease. Don’t worry about being unfamiliar with the Divine Liturgy and not knowing what to do at what time. When I first started attending DL about 6 1/2 years ago, I just imitated what others did. There will be numerous times when the faithful make the sign of the cross, bow, etc. As I said, just imitate others. In the East, we cross from right to left, instead of from left to right, but if you forget, don’t worry. You say nothing when receiving Holy Communion, except that the priest might ask for your name. After you receive, you would make the sign of the cross, but there is no spoken response. The most important advice I have to offer is to be at ease, go with an open mind, and a prayerful heart.

 

[5Loaves]

Most Eastern Catholic Church parishes are used to having visitors especially from the Latin Church. Most parishes, but not all, are fairly small and know who is a visitor. Someone hopefully will come up and welcome you. Just listen and watch and cross yourself when others do if you wish to do so. Different Churches have different practice for crossing oneself. St. Elias UGCC has a lot of useful information on their website including a section on The Sign of the Cross as practiced in their church, in their Church Etiquette section. Many people have found this piece helpful: 12 Things I Wish I’d Known…First Visit to an Orthodox Church by Matuschka Frederica Mathewes-Green. If you are planning to go to a Byzantine Catholic Church our Divine Liturgy is the same as the Orthodox Matuschka Frederica speaks of, with some slight variations which occur in different parishes.

It sounds like you already know the parish you plan to visit. This Find-A-Parish By Location site may still be useful.

P.S. If the parish uses service books and they give you one try to avoid looking at it during the Liturgy. My EC parish and the Russian Orthodox I go to do not have service books. There is a great deal of repetition in the Liturgy and you will quickly be able to pick up on parts where you can chant along. You will come away having seen and heard much more if you don’t have your nose in a service book. You can read up on the parts of the Liturgy here in general or in detail before hand.

And expect lots of incense.

 

[ConstantineTG]

I am very interested in the Eastern Catholicism and I want to attend an Eastern Catholic liturgy. But what I need to know? What should I do during the liturgy? When you have to make the sign of the cross? What do you say when you get the holy communion?

Just follow what everyone is doing. I have attended a Chaldean Holy Qurbana and I have no clue what is being said. Just followed everyone. I always sit somewhere near the back to have a good view of everyone and just follow along.

 

[Cecilianus]

A cynical recommendation would be to just act clueless and you’ll fit right in!

Actually, there is no set way to behave in an Eastern Church. We stand whenever we feel like, we sit whenever we have to (though please stand during the Anaphora, the Eucharistic portion of the Liturgy). Some people follow the guidelines set in the pew books for sitting and standing, but others (like me) ignore them and stand the whole time, except during the Epistle and homily. It’s very common to see one or two people standing in the middle of a church when everyone else is sitting. We don’t really believe in uniformity.

In more traditional churches without pews, people will walk around during the Liturgy, venerating the various icons on the walls.

One thing I would recommend is that you venerate (kiss, and then make the sign of the cross) the icon on the four-legged table (called the “tetrapod”) in front of the iconostasis when you enter the church, before you leave, and whenever you walk past it (to receive Communion, for example). Also, DO NOT stick your tongue out before receiving Communion. Jesus will roll right off your tongue onto the floor.

The reverent body language for us is to stand, rather than to kneel (kneeling has a different meaning for us, and is forbidden on Sundays by our canons), and it is also considered respectful of the Eucharist to receive a piece on unconsecrated bread cut from the same loaf, called the antidoron, which will be offered in a basket by the acolyte immediately after you receive Communion (or sometimes at the end of Liturgy). It is a way of bridging the gap between the Uncreated (Holy Communion) and the created (the food you will eat later on in the day), to sanctify and prepare your mouth for its secular feasting.

If the priest stands in front of the icon screen after Liturgy with a cross in his hand, you are supposed to go up and kiss it. He will say “Christ is in our midst”, and you respond, “He is and ever shall be”.

Finally, immediately after receiving Holy Communion, kiss the red cloth that was held under your chin.

That’s all you really need to know. The proper posture for receiving Holy Communion is with your hands folded over your breast, as if you wanted to receive a blessing instead of Communion in a Latin-rite church. I recommend just listening to the Liturgy the first time rather than trying to follow along. Have fun!

 

[TimothyH]

A cynical recommendation would be to just act clueless and you’ll fit right in!

Have fun!

Made my day.

Isn’t that all of us before God though?

-Tim-

 

[Cecilianus]

Made my day.

Isn’t that all of us before God though?

-Tim-

Sure is!

 

[5Loaves]

A cynical recommendation would be to just act clueless and you’ll fit right in!

In more traditional churches without pews, people will walk around during the Liturgy, venerating the various icons on the walls.

This doesn’t happen in my parish (no pews) or in in the Russian (no pews) or Antiochian (many chairs on the sides of the temple and lots of open space in the middle) Orthodox I’ve gone to so apparently there is variation. When people arrive they venerate icons and light candles but once they arrived in these parishes people do not wander around. I think it was on this forum where we had a thread in which this was discussed.

Finally, immediately after receiving Holy Communion, kiss the red cloth that was held under your chin.

We kiss the chalice base.

I recommend just listening to the Liturgy the first time rather than trying to follow along.

I agree, although there is a lot of repetition and it’s easy to join in once you pick up on what is being repeated.

 

[Cecilianus]

There’s variation.

 

[5Loaves]

Just got home from the festal Vigil for St. John Maximovitch at Holy Virgin Russian Orthodox Cathedral. We were only able to stay for Vespers, and so left before Orthros. People continued to arrive during the entire two + hours we were there. As they arrived they venerated the casket with the remains of St John, and Holy Icons. Other than that veneration when first arriving there was no milling around. It’s a large cathedral so there was plenty of room to mill around for the first hour or hour and a half. By two hours the place was pretty full but still one could easily have moved around.

 

[mardukm]

This talk of non-uniformity —

I have visited three different EO parishes. At each one, I noticed there were whole families and groups who came just to venerate an icon, then leave (in all instances, they came late, and left early).

I gather this is not the norm, but is this considered within the scope of “acceptability” for what is “non-uniform?”

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[5Loaves]

This talk of non-uniformity —

I have visited three different EO parishes. At each one, I noticed there were whole families and groups who came just to venerate an icon, then leave (in all instances, they came late, and left early).

I gather this is not the norm, but is this considered within the scope of “acceptability” for what is “non-uniform?”

Blessings,
Marduk

My experience is too limited to answer this, tho in my experience with Russians (mostly OCA), and one Antiochian in No CA I haven’t seen this coming solely to venerate the Holy Icons then leaving. The Greeks are hemmed in by pews so whether that affects them I don’t know but again haven’t seen this. However, people in my parish who have traveled in countries of origin of our Churches and to the Holy Mountain say they have seen this coming solely to venerate the Holy Icons then leaving.

Did you listen to St. Vasa’s talk at the most recent Orientale Lumen Conference? Like her Latin Catholic students, I found it interesting that the priest heard confessions during all of the DL in the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Vienna, heard them up until the “The Holy Things for the Holy!” at which point he left to go to the Holy Place and then returned back to hear more confessions.

During dinner the other night with a Dominican brother he was noting that in the DL as with the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite there is no “people’s part”, there is only the Priest, Deacon, Choir parts. The only places in the OCA Order of DL, which we use in my parish, that are designated other than Priest, Deacon, Choir are the Symbol of Faith/Creed and the Lord’s Prayer which are designated “People”. In my parish even these are chanted on some infrequent occasions solely by the Reader or a choir member. In the OCA Order of DL which, again, we use in my parish, even the Communion Prayer “I believe, O Lord, and I confess…” the red designates the part is said by “PRIEST (facing the people)”

 

[ConstantineTG]

Someone shushed my kid for moving about last week

 

[dvdjs]

My experience is too limited to answer this, tho in my experience with Russians (mostly OCA), and one Antiochian in No CA I haven’t seen this coming solely to venerate the Holy Icons then leaving. The Greeks are hemmed in by pews so whether that affects them I don’t know but again haven’t seen this. However, people in my parish who have traveled in countries of origin of our Churches and to the Holy Mountain say they have seen this coming solely to venerate the Holy Icons then leaving.

Did you listen to St. Vasa’s talk at the most recent Orientale Lumen Conference? Like her Latin Catholic students, I found it interesting that the priest heard confessions during all of the DL in the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Vienna, heard them up until the “The Holy Things for the Holy!” at which point he left to go to the Holy Place and then returned back to hear more confessions.

During dinner the other night with a Dominican brother he was noting that in the DL as with the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite there is no “people’s part”, there is only the Priest, Deacon, Choir parts. The only places in the OCA Order of DL, which we use in my parish, that are designated other than Priest, Deacon, Choir are the Symbol of Faith/Creed and the Lord’s Prayer which are designated “People”. In my parish even these are chanted on some infrequent occasions solely by the Reader or a choir member. In the OCA Order of DL which, again, we use in my parish, even the Communion Prayer “I believe, O Lord, and I confess…” the red designates the part is said by “PRIEST (facing the people)”

 

[Patchunky]

it is also considered respectful of the Eucharist to receive a piece on unconsecrated bread cut from the same loaf, called the antidoron, which will be offered in a basket by the acolyte immediately after you receive Communion (or sometimes at the end of Liturgy). It is a way of bridging the gap between the Uncreated (Holy Communion) and the created (the food you will eat later on in the day), to sanctify and prepare your mouth for its secular feasting

Ruthenian and Ukrainian Catholic parishes do not follow this custom. This usually found in Orthodox churches.

 

[Cecilianus]

Ruthenian and Ukrainian Catholic parishes do not follow this custom. This usually found in Orthodox churches.

Yes, they do. Every Ruthenian parish I have lived in - in Minneapolis, Sugar Creek, and Columbus - had the antidoron, and so does the parish in Chicago. In older times (1950s-ish) the omission of the antidoron was a Latinization that the Ruthenians were still stuck in, but not today.

 

[Patchunky]

Yes, they do. Every Ruthenian parish I have lived in - in Minneapolis, Sugar Creek, and Columbus - had the antidoron, and so does the parish in Chicago. In older times (1950s-ish) the omission of the antidoron was a Latinization that the Ruthenians were still stuck in, but not today.

None of the parishes in Passaic that I’ve attended nor the ones in Pittsburgh Metropolia do it. Nor do the ones I have attended in Parma.

AMOF, the ones in Slovakia do not do it either.

Seems to be something that has been borrowed as a Russification.

 

[Cecilianus]

None of the parishes in Passaic that I’ve attended nor the ones in Pittsburgh Metropolia do it. Nor do the ones I have attended in Parma.

AMOF, the ones in Slovakia do not do it either.

Seems to be something that has been borrowed as a Russification.

Could be. Do you know if the Greek Orthodox do it? An article by Protopresbyter David Petras (davidpetras.com/page/liturgical_reform) in defense of the RDL attributes most of the objectionable elements to influences from the Greek Orthodox Church preferred over that of the Russian. Maybe this is one of them? I’m not a scholar and not ethnically Ruthenian; I don’t know what the “authentic” Carpatho-Rusyn practice is. I certainly don’t mind influences from the Byzantine rite in other countries as much as Latinizations or cross-ritual impositions; I was told that the practice of having the whole congregation venerate the Gospel at the Little Entrance is actually an Arabic practice that was borrowed by the Ukrainians. Given a choice between which borrowing I’d want influencing the Ruthenian Church, I really wouldn’t mind Russifications as much. I like the way the Russians do the Liturgy.

 

[Hesychios]

Yes, they do. Every Ruthenian parish I have lived in - in Minneapolis, Sugar Creek, and Columbus - had the antidoron, and so does the parish in Chicago. In older times (1950s-ish) the omission of the antidoron was a Latinization that the Ruthenians were still stuck in, but not today.

There is something different about the Ruthenian Catholic practice, although I don’t know exactly why.

As I recall the Ruthenian Catholic parish I attended had antidoran only on certain days, and that after the liturgy.

The Orthodox tradition I am aware of always has antidoran immediately available after reception of communion. I do not know what the Greeks nor ACROD do, just the Russians and Ruthenian Orthodox in the OCA.

 

[dvdjs]

An article by Protopresbyter David Petras (davidpetras.com/page/liturgical_reform) in defense of the RDL attributes most of the objectionable elements to influences from the Greek Orthodox Church preferred over that of the Russian.

Can you be moe specific. Searching “Greek”, I didn’t see anything like this in the link provided. In the response to the many, many objections of Fr. Keleher, this comparison arose only in conjunction with leaving the Royal Doors open.