Orthodox Spirituality as experienced by an Anglican visitor to Greece
THERE IS a story in the Orthodox Church that when Vladimir, Prince of Kiev, was still a pagan at the end of the tenth century, he sent out envoys to discover the true religion and to advise him on what should become the state religion.
The envoys first visited the Muslim Bulgars of the Volga, and found no joy among them “but mournfulness and a great smell”. In Germany and Rome, they found the worship and liturgy was without beauty. But when the envoys reached Byzantium, they were so dazzled by the splendour of the liturgy in the great church of Aghia Sophia they instantly decided that Orthodoxy should be the faith of the Slav people. “We knew not whether we were on heaven or on earth, for surely there is no such splendour or beauty anywhere upon earth. We cannot describe it to you: only this we know, that God dwells there among humans, and that their service surpasses the worship of all other places. For we cannot forget that beauty.”
The riches of Orthodox spirituality need to be understood in Ireland today, not merely because of the beauty of the liturgy but for practical and ecumenical reasons too:
* Full article available in printed copies.
Patrick Comerford
is priest-in-charge, Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin (Diocese of Limerick) Precentor of Limerick, and a former Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Church of Ireland Theological Institute and Trinity College Dublin.