Cool vestments and more

St. Pachom

Do any of your churches do any of the following:
Wear golden badrashils? Or even another color.
Wear tonias for raising of incense?
Chant the psalm in Coptic EVERY time?
Wear, not linen tonias, but almost Byzantine like sticharions? Like the material that fancy priests and bishops wear.
Chant the reading introductions and conclusions in Coptic?(especially apetjeek)
Do the proper commemorations (Pinishti, maybe Evshes, even just the regular deacon response for the departed etc)
Shere Maria tiouro?
Mention any other awesome, out of the ordinary, or just proper customs your church follows.

I might sound pathetic for some of these and bold for other. Please let me know.

EsmoEpchois

One custom my church follows is that we could finish a liturgy in 45 minutes and probably even shorter if needed

St. Pachom

Dude, totally not what I meant haha.
But I like that you're okay with mentioning that. I like long liturgies.

EsmoEpchois

Lol I know I was just messing. We don't do any of the things you mentioned above but still I must add, it doesn't feel like our liturgy is missing anything. Not that I wouldn't love to say and do all those awesome things, its just that since I have not really experienced it, I feel as if I'm not missing anything. I am content with my liturgy for the most part.

ophadece

Unfortunately the congregation here complained to abouna that the liturgy may sometimes take more than 45 minutes from the sermon onwards and abouna had to abide by what they said. I'm starting to actually lose faith that prayers, hymns and Coptic music is essential for the congregation to strengthen their or better say my own faith. I used to feel very differently when I attended tasbeha fully without skipping any parts. I also know the argument that pope Kyrollos didn't use to pray long liturgies although his status and spiritual life may have given him such an excuse. The Lord ordered to pray all the time without grumbling or getting bored.

Now please tell me if I should start a new thread for this, but I'm being serious, no sarcasm or fun intended but I am getting worried more and more. Please help me with your thoughts and opinions and of course prayers

Oujai

St. Pachom

Of course I'll pray for you. It's good to start a new thread as I want this thread on topic. I think it depends on the congregation. If you can teach the kids alot of congregation responses in Coptic then you have secured a good future, if they only know English, or the other language of the land, your church is doomed as far as the language goes. If they only know arabic, then they're probably shielded from their opinion being counted and you can teach them coptic, and they will sing in Coptic and like it. I believe salvation can definitely be won without coptic, but I'd rather have Coptic and salvation. As for hymnology, I believe it has to stay if the church is mainly serving Egyptians and their kids. The tunes abd hymns must stay in that church. They express what the words can't. I heard a whole talk about it from a priest. As for missionary churches, you try to present them liturgy with hymns, and if it doesn't work THEN, as a semi last resort, you alter the singing. That's my 3.4 cents til we have a new thread.

Ophadece, could you answer the questions I originally posted?

mabsoota

missionary churches? aren't we all supposed to be involved in mission?

or are there some churches excluded from the great commission in matthew 28 to go into all the world...?

:-O

personally i love to go to my church's early morning weekday liturgy (80% arabic and most of the rest coptic) when i can start work a bit late, and then i can indulge my love of church hymns. i also like to sleep, so i don't do this every week!

but the rest of the time, i consider myself to be on a mission to love people into the church.

EsmoEpchois

@mabsoota,

Of course you are correct that every church is a missionary church, in the words of His Grace Bishop Youseff, SUS. But these "missionary churches" (they do not call themselves missionary churches) are just churches without the cultural barrier. If you have ever heard of Fr. Anthony(Franthony.com) of STSA church in Fairfax, Virginia, or Fr. Bishoy Salama(brother of His Grace Bishop David, NYNE) of St. Maurice and St. Verena church in Canada. These are "missionary churches." There services are for the most part all in English. They are very mission and community outreach intensive and I believe they're great because they allow people to accept orthodoxy without having to accept Egyptians.

St. Pachom

I just got into this conversation with someone. I have concluded that Orthodoxy's purpose in all countries(if not already the case) is to help establish a firm foundation for an Orthodox Church for that country in its language. Therefore, Coptic, Slavonic and whatever other liturgical languages there are, might not exist in the "American Orthodox Church" (once there is ONE). I'm just too stubborn to let the language go. I guess my original questions aren't as interesting as this discussion.

minatasgeel

@EsmoEpchois n @St. Pachom, let's not talk about any "missionary" stuff here....stay on point....even though I don't get what does "just proper customs your church follows" mean....proper??? ya3ny if i don't say apetjeek in liturgy everyday god will not accept our sacrifice on the altar?! I am not waiting for a response just because it will bring more tangent talk for no reason....i just had to speak my mind for the last five mins :-)

St. Pachom

Thank God. You know what I mean. If God accepts the repentance of a sinner, he accepts the Liturgy of 45 minutes. I'm just asking and hoping this: "Does anyone actually do that stuff?" if they do it's a blessing if not it doesn't retract blessings. But isn't it sad that there's a bunch of hymns and responses I've never even heard. Like skipping the responses for the Commemoration. Those are kind of important in my opinion. More important than Apetjeek. I feel that sometimes my church is hymnally lacking and other times it is abundant with hymns depending on who I speak to. I'm just curious ;)

mabsoota

hi, i started a new thread so we don't derail this one!

http://tasbeha.org/community/index.php?p=/discussion/15187/orthodox-mission#Item_1

:-)

God bless u all dear friends

tenoosht

Wear tonias for raising of incense? - In our church the deacons who are serving in the altar during raising of incense wear their tonias (so that when the curtain is open, no one goes in the altar unless wearing a vestment)

Chant the psalm in Coptic EVERY time? - We chant it in English (with the tune) every time lol

Chant the reading introductions and conclusions in Coptic?(especially apetjeek) - We chant one every week (either Pavlos Efvok, Apetjeek Evol, Katholikon, Praxis, or the long Psalm)

Do the proper commemorations (Pinishti, maybe Evshes, even just the regular deacon response for the departed etc) - If it is the feast of a saint mentioned in Pinishti, we say Pinishti,

Shere Maria tiouro? - We always start Shere Maria Ti Ouro but have only completely finished it a handful of times

lfahmy

@tenoosht

What church do you go to lol

That's awesome

St. Pachom

"What church do you go to?"

I think this needs to be answered haha

menakiro

ok
we wear tonias in the raising of incense only in Nahda el Adra
golden badrashills? in egypt
chant coptic psalm everytime? in my dreams (no one knows how to say it) (but we are going to learn it in the khourus)
sticharions? nope
reading intros and conclusions? do not know
proper comemrations? only if someone is dead do we say "pray for our Fathers"
shere maria teouru? thats if abone even lets us finish tenousht
but abona passes out orbana in vespers
and we try to do full tasbeha every satuerday
just pray for us to do more stuff like you said

qawe

EsmoEpchois said:

@mabsoota,

Of course you are correct that every church is a missionary church, in the words of His Grace Bishop Youseff, SUS. But these "missionary churches" (they do not call themselves missionary churches) are just churches without the cultural barrier. If you have ever heard of Fr. Anthony(Franthony.com) of STSA church in Fairfax, Virginia, or Fr. Bishoy Salama(brother of His Grace Bishop David, NYNE) of St. Maurice and St. Verena church in Canada. These are "missionary churches." There services are for the most part all in English. They are very mission and community outreach intensive and I believe they're great because they allow people to accept orthodoxy without having to accept Egyptians.

I felt the need to clarify this for the public record:
They're churches without the cultural barrier but they're also churches without the Orthodox barrier either.

Several bishops have objected to the heretical teachings/practices that take place at these 'mission' churches.