… as far as im concered we are not missing anything. Icon screens big deal who really needs one. …Also, the Divine Litergys are celebrated as they should be open and with musical accompanyment.
Since you grew up in the Latin Church I assume that this attitude in part reflects a lack of catechesis from the Eastern Church during your time there.
When you say the DL is celebrated as it should be I assume then that there are at least the main holy Icons of the Mother of God and of Christ God marking the locations of the Royal doors and Deacons’ Doors so that at minimum the movement in any out of the Holy Place is represented as it is intended.
There are ECC/OCC whose tradition doesn’t include the Iconostasis but you are in a UGCC parish and the Iconostasis is part of that tradition. There is much wonderful writing on the Divine Liturgy but for the moment maybe you can read through the entire article which I offer a small quote from here.
The invisible made visible is at the core of our spiritual life. As with other elements the Iconostasis both reveals and conceals. Not only does the Iconostasis play an integral role in the mystical representation of the temple we worship in, but the the movements of the deacons and the priests through the Deacons’ Doors and the Royal Doors are also an integral part of the worship, speaking to us in important ways during worship.
I’ve been in conferences or when the DL is served in a Latin Church, where present are only the main Holy Icons of the Mother of God and of Christ God marking the locations of the Royal doors and Deacons’ Doors. It made me feel so bereft, like going into a modern Latin Church that looks just like a protestant church because it’s been so stripped of all the mystical elements.
My tiny parish has only a very basic Iconostasis, which none the less is “solid” when the curtain is drawn across the Royal Doors . Like the great value in our fasting traditions, which some of the UGCC seem to have largely eliminated, this revealing and concealing which the Iconostasis and the movement though its doors provides is also part of a sense of preparation and anticipation, as does fasting, that is so rich in the Liturgy. I also worship in a small Russian Orthodox parish and they have a beautiful more complete Iconostasis which has the full 12 Feasts, and above that a row that includes more saints. Our Holy Icons are of course windows to Heaven and all these wonderful Icons engage us in that mystical relationship in a profound way. Luckily my parish has many Holy Icons around the temple.
I assume your parish celebrated the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy on the first Sunday of Great Lent, including a procession with your Holy Icons. Maybe it would be useful for you to learn about iconoclasm and this great victory over it. When people have suffered and been willing to become martyrs over something in our faith we do well to consider that prayerfully. The courageous hiding of Holy Icons in the former Soviet Union is truly awe inspiring.
I’ve never heard of an organ in an EC church, but these forums are an unending source of new information.
The Holy Fathers envisioned the church building as consisting of three mystical parts. …the church is the earthly heaven where God, Who is above heaven, dwells and abides …St. Simeon the New Theologian, the [Vestibule] corresponds to earth, the [Nave] to heaven, and the holy [Altar] to what is above heaven [Book on the House of God, Ch. 12].
Following these interpretations, the Iconostasis also has a symbolic meaning. It is seen as the boundary between two worlds: the Divine and the human, the permanent and the transitory. The Holy Icons denote that the Savior, His Mother and the Saints, whom they represent, abide both in Heaven and among men. Thus the Iconostasis both divides the Divine world from the human world, but also unites these same two worlds into one whole a place where all separation is overcome and where reconciliation between God and man is achieved. Standing on the boundary between the Divine and the human, the Iconostasis reveals, by means of its Icons, the ways to this reconciliation.
