http://www.serfes.org/orthodox/

http://www.serfes.org/spiritual/index.htm

Are there any Orthodox folks on the RRMB?

Only been to one service on a feast day, about 3 years ago. I went to a local cathedral just last week to pick up a couple books on icons and a small book about Orthodox saints (although there are like 7000).

Still learning about it, on my own. There wasn't much about it in school.

I found these sites online...

http://www.voskrese.info/spl/Xmystic.html

http://www.voskrese.info/spl/XdenysAreop.html

http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/GolitzinBiblio

Sometimes Orthodoxy frustrates me. They emphasize that they are the Original church, the only way, etc., yet they are as splintered and fractured as Protestantism with many sects pretending others don't even exist at all.

IOW, they're just like every other religion, right?

Something I have learned about religion...It is not the be and end all of faith experience. In fact religion without social justice and compassion is nothing at all.

Love is the answer. Entering into compassion, even toward those who are not that lovable makes heaven on earth exist...Love is a verb not a noun...

The mystical side of the Orthodox Church is what attracts me. It is like entering into a mystical union with all the universe, and those moments of entering into this kind of being, brings about joy, even for the flowers....

I just got back from Turkey. I visited several churches with some great examples of Eastern Orthodox religious art.

I find it to be a great artistic tradition. The churches were quite beautiful.

It seems to me that one of the big differences between Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism is that Orthodoxy has imbibed more "Eastern" influences... hence its more mystical focus.

Western Christianity, and especially some Protestant churches are afraid of mysticism...I have never understood that.

I mean, Yeshua was a mystic...

Some day, I plan on visiting the old Hagia Sophia. There is an undertaking to uncover the icons made over by the Ottomans when it was overtaken.

I was just there, Carmen.

Click to view attachment

A lot of the artwork is still visible. The irony is that Byzantine Iconoclasts may have destroyed more of the art than the Muslims, who often just covered it over, out of respect.

St. Sophia has always been a fasciation of mine. She used to be a Catholic saint also, but they did away with it at some point.

Just bought a couple Orthodox CDs in Russian and English today, so I can learn the different Tones.

Unbelievably beautiful.

My mother grew up Ukranian Greek Orthodox. She abandoned the faith while I was a child though.

Interesting experience -

So here I am in "south Georgia" (Seeker knows what I mean), dealing with my ill father again. He went into the hospital a couple weeks ago with a weak heart, was in rehab for a little over a week and came back to his assisted living center on Tuesady. So Monday, I had to go and fix up his new apartment because he needs a higher level of care, now.

You only deal with your own parent's morality once. He's looking it in the face right now, and I'm trying to come out of denial about it. So after I was finished with the apt, I wasn't feeling so hot, so I went for a drive, along a highway/street I hadn't been down, before.

Passed by a Coptic Orthodox church. The Coptics don't recognize the Greeks and vice versa.

Had the notion to stop and pray. Or act like I was praying. Or something, I don't know, since I don't believe in God or prayer. Went in the church and it was beautiful and Orthodoxy is *very* rare for these parts. I knew that the calming yet invigorating scent of lingering incense over the years was supposed to remind us of the presence of the holy spirit. I'm guessing most people there were Egyptian, but knowing this community, also likely from everywhere in the Middle East. I asked them if I could sit in their nave because my father is ill and I need to just sit in church and they were kind of like..uh yeah but ...wtf is this Black girl OBVIOUSLY NOT ORTHODOX doing.....here.....?

But they got one of the young fellows, and two other ladies there to read Psalms with me and say a prayer, invoking saints I knew and a couple that were new to me. The book of hours in the pew (this church had pews which suggests it was a perhaps different type of church before becoming and Orthodox one) was in Arabic, but they got an English-language one for me. Almost having converted to Anglicanism, I sorta knew the right times to genuflect and supplicate and whatnot.

Interesting thing is, if any of the people that community were to stop by an open AME church, the same thing would have transpired, probably in much the same awkward-yet-welcoming way.

It's very strange, being an unbeliever, yet having the "universal Christian" experience, in misunderstood places, at unexpected times.

I am Orthodox. In the last decade I have noticed a lot of converts, mainly drawn to it because it of the "mystical" elements.

People see it as splintered because of the differences between the way various ethnic groups worship. In America there has been a movement among the converts to wash the ethnic element away. Pretty disappointing imo.

I have seen Coptics regularly go to Greek Orthodox churches and American Orthodox churches. There are big differences though, Eastern Orthodox vs. Oriental Orthodox.

Yeah, I should have said the hierarchies don't recognize each other, didn't mean to imply the laity is the same way



Oh, yeah. It's dizzying, for someone on the outside. I'm still learning about it.

No, I meant splintered in the sense that the hierarchies don't recognize each other. I've known a couple converts, from Protestantism. Their reason -- and I see this a lot online -- is that they see Orthodoxy as somehow being more authentic, straight from Jesus/Apostles, etc.

There's a similar kind of "mysticism" that goes on among certain Pentecostals. But Orthodoxy, as we know, is much quieter. I prefer that lol.