Structure of Orthodox Worship Services
Orthodox worship services may vary due to the what the service may be commemorating. The services are always sung or chanted and never said, with the exception of occasional sermons. Services involve chanted or sung prayerful dialogue between the priest and the congregants. The orthodox church uses different holy languages during services. Russian, Old Slavonic, Romanian, Greek, Arabic, Serbian, and Georgian can be heard in many prayers and litanies even if services are mostly in English. The services begin and end with the sign of the cross. The most common service is the Divine Liturgy which takes place during Sunday mornings. The Divine Liturgy is the Orthodox Christian sabbath service and centers around the consecration and transubstantiation of the Eucharist. Orthodox Christians use many series of long litany praying for the intercession and peace. Worship invokes all of the seven senses; its main purpose is to bring the worshipers closer to heaven with an experience of heaven on earth through the services. During vespers and matins services, many different series of psalms and other prayers are sung in a fast, movable way while other prayers are sung in the background evoking the urge to worship. The service structures are as follow: Rite of Entrance, Rite of Proclamation, and the prescribed Liturgy. Usually there are several litany: the litany of the catachumens, litany of the faithful, litany of Supplication, Litany of the Departed, and the Great Litany. There are also special hymns that reflect on the service such as the Hymn of the Theotokos or Mother of God Mary.
Read more about this topic: Eastern Orthodox Worship
Famous quotes containing the words structure, orthodox, worship and/or services:
“Communism is a proposition to structure the world more reasonably, a proposition for changing the world. As such, we have to analyze it and, if we deem it reasonable, act upon it.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“The gloomy theology of the orthodox—the Calvinists—I do not, I cannot believe. Many of the notions—nay, most of the notions—which orthodox people have of the divinity of the Bible, I disbelieve. I am so nearly infidel in all my views, that too, in spite of my wishes, that none but the most liberal doctrines can command my assent.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcæ, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveller’s cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“O, the difference of man and man!
To thee a woman’s services are due.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)