St. Michael The Archangel Parish - Akron at 847 Crouse St, Akron, OH 44306-1125 US - Learn more About Us
Learn more About Us
WELCOME TO ST. MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL BYZANTING CATHOLIC CHURCH.
We are happy to welcome you to our web site. Please read the following information, which is based on a lecture given by Frederica Mathews-Green.
There are a number of things that are different about our worship than from the services of other churches, whether Roman Catholic, liturgical Protestant, or Evangelical. Here are a few things I wish someone had explained to me the first time I visited an Eastern Church.
1. A SENSE OF HOLINESS. If you are from a Protestant tradition, you may feel overwhelmed the minute you walk in the door of an Eastern Church. You will find yourself surrounded by a blaze of color in the vestments the priest is wearing and the icons that adorn the walls. The pungent odor of incense will assault your nose, possibly making you sneeze. Rich, deeply moving but unfamiliar music will fill your ears. All around you people will be doing things - lighting candles, kissing icons, making the sign of the cross, bowing, standing in prayer - everything but sitting still. To someone used to four bare walls and an altar and or pulpit, all this may seem pretty strange. It is important to remember that none of this is an end in itself. Everything we see, hear, smell, touch, taste, or do in the Eastern Church has one purpose and one purpose only: to lead us closer to God. Since God created us with physical bodies and senses we believe that He desires us to use our bodies and senses to grow closer to Him.
2. STAND UP, STAND UP FOR JESUS. In the Eastern Church tradition, the faithful stand through nearly the entire service. Really, in some churches, there are no pews, just a few chairs scattered around the edges of the room for the elderly and infirm. Expect some variation in practice: some churches will have well-used pews. If you find the standing too challenging, you are welcome to take a seat. It gets easier with practice.
3. BY THIS SIGN, PRAY. To say that we make the sign of the cross frequently would be an under-statement. We sign ourselves whenever the Trinity is invoked, whenever we venerate the cross or an icon, and on many other occasions in the course of the liturgy. But people are not expected to do everything in the same way. Some cross themselves three times in a row, and some finish by sweeping the right hand to the floor. Often before venerating an icon, people will cross themselves twice, bowing each time with their right hand to the floor, then kiss the icon, then cross themselves and bow again. Don't worry, that doesn't mean you have to follow suit. We cross with our right hand, touching forehead, chest, right shoulder, then left shoulder to end over the heart, the opposite of Roman Catholics. We hold our hand in this way: thumb and first two fingers pressed together, the last two fingers pressed down in the palm. Eastern people try to make everything we do reinforce the faith. Can you make out the symbolism? (The three fingers pressed together represent the Trinity; the two fingers against the palm represent the human and divine natures of Christ.)
4. WHAT, NO KNEELING? Generally, we don't kneel on Sundays. We do sometimes prostrate. This is not the prostration in the Roman Catholic tradition - lying flat out on the floor. To make a prostration we kneel, place our hands on the floor, and touch our foreheads between our hands. At first, prostration can make us feel embarrassing, but no one else is embarrassed, so after awhile it feels more natural. Sometimes we do this and get right back up again, as during the prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian, which is used during Lent. Other times we get down and stay there awhile, as during a portion of the Eucharistic Prayer. Not everyone prostrates. Some kneel, some stand with head bowed, or sit crouched over. Standing and feeling awkward is all right, too. No one will notice if you do not prostrate. In Eastern Churches there is an acceptance of individualized expressions of piety, rather than the sense that people are watching you and getting offended if you do it wrong. One former Episcopal priest said that seeing people prostrate themselves was one of the things that made him most eager to become a member of the Eastern Church. He thought, "That's how we should be before God."
5. PUCKER UP. WE KISS THINGS. When we first come into the church, we kiss the icons (Jesus on the feet and saints on the hands). You will also notice that some kiss the chalice, some kiss the edge of the priest's vestments as he passes by, the acolytes kiss the hand when they give him the censer, and we all line up to kiss the cross at the end of the service. We kiss each other. When Roman Catholics "pass the peace", they give a hug, a handshake, or peck on the cheek; that's how Westerners greet each other. In Eastern tradition different cultures are at play/ Greeks and Arabs kiss each cheek; the Slavs come back again for a third (in honor of the Trinity). Parishes with lots of American converts may give a hearty bear hug. Follow the lead of those around you and try not to bump your nose. The usual greeting is "Christ is in our midst," with the response, "He is and shall be." Don't be worried about getting it wrong. The greeting is not like the Roman Catholic, "The peace of the Lord be with you, nor is it "Hi. Nice church you have here."
6. BLESSED BREAD AND CONSECRATED BREAD. Only Orthodox can receive Communion in an Orthodox Church. You are in a Byzantine Catholic Church and if you are in good standing with the Roman Catholic Church, or if you are Orthodox, you may participate in all our services and receive our Sacraments (what we call Mysteries). The priest prepares the bread and wine to be used in the Liturgy in a ceremony called the Proskomydia before the liturgy. This bread and wine are consecrated during the liturgy and become the Body and Blood of Christ. Some bread is cut and set aside and placed in a basket, and is blessed by the priest and later distributed to the congregation. When we receive Communion we file up to the priest, standing and opening our mouth wide while he gives us the Consecrated Bread soaked with consecrated Wine from a gold spoon. He prays over us, calling us by our first name. If you are not ready yet for full participation in the Diving Liturgy, you can still have some of the blessed bread distributed in our church. This is the Antidoron. Its distribution recalls the ancient custom of the Agape and the practice of bringing the Eucharist to those who were absent from the celebration of the Liturgy. As we file past the priest and venerate the Cross, we come to an acolyte (server) holding the basket of blessed bread. People will take a portion for themselves and for visitors and Catholic friends around them. If someone hands you a piece of blessed bread, don't panic; it's not he Eucharist. It is a sign of fellowship.
7. NO GENERAL CONFESSION? In our experience, we don't have any general sins. They are all quite specific and personal. There is no complete confession prayer in the Liturgy. Eastern Christians are expected to be making regular private confession to Christ in the presence of their priest. The role of the pastor is much more that of a spiritual father than it is in the Roman Catholic Church. He is not called by his first name alone; but is referred to as "Father Firstname." His wife, if he is married, also holds a special place as parish mother. Another difference you will probably notice is in the Nicene Creed. In the Creed we affirm that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, but we don't add "and the Son," as Western Christians do. In this we adhere to the Creed as it was originally written. MUSIC, MUSIC, MUSIC. Most of the service is congregational singing. Traditionally, Easterners use no instruments. The constant singing can be a little overwhelming at first; it feels like getting on the first step of an escalator and being carried along in a rush until you step off ninety minutes later, It has been said that the Liturgy is one continuous song. What keeps this from being exhausting is that it's pretty much the same song every week. Relatively little changes from Sunday to Sunday; the same prayers and hymns fall in the same place, and before long you know it by heart. Then you fall into the presence of God in a way you never can when flipping from prayer book to bulletin to hymnal. NO SHORTCUTS. Is there a concise way to say something? Can extra adjectives be deleted? Can the briskest, most pointed prose be boiled down one more time to a more refined level? Then it's not Eastern worship. If there is a longer way to say something, the Easterners will find it. In Eastern worship, more is always more, in every area including prayer. When the priest or deacon intones, "Let us complete our prayer to the Lord," expect to still be standing there fifteen minutes later. The original Liturgy lasted something over five hours; those people must have been on fire with God. The Liturgy of St. Basil edited this down to about two and one half, and later, around AD 400, the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom further reduced it t about one and a half. Most Sundays we use the St. John Chrysostom Liturgy, although for some services (e.g. Sundays in Lent, Christmas Eve) we use the longer Liturgy of St. Basil. When you arrive for Diving Liturgy on Sunday morning, worship may already be in progress and you will feel chagrined at arriving late. You are not late; the priest, cantor, and some parishioners are just winding up Matins (Orthros), which began about an hour before. Divine Liturgy follows on its heels, with the posted starting time only approximate. Before Matins, the priest has other preparatory services; he will be at the altar for a total of over three hours on Sunday morning, "standing in the flame," as one priest put it. Eastern worship is not for people who find church boring. I'M JUST WILD ABOUT MARY. We love her and it shows. What can we say? She is His Mom. We often address her as "Theotokos", which means "Mother of God- gave birth to God". In providing the physical means for God to become man, she made possible our salvation. Not that we think she or any of the other saints have magical powers or are demigods. When we say "Holy Mother of God, save us," we don't mean 'save' in an eternal sense, as we would pray to Christ; we mean "protect, defend, take care of us here on earth." Just as we ask for each other's prayer, we ask for the prayers of Mary and the other saints as well. They're not dead, after all, just departed to the other side. Icons surround us, in part to remind us that all the saints are joining us invisibly in our worship. THE THREE DOORS. Every Eastern Church will have an iconostasis before the altar. "Iconostasis" means "icon-stand". The basic Iconostasis consists of three doors in the wall. The central opening, in front of the altar itself, has two doors, called the "Royal Doors", because that is where the King of Glory comes out to the congregation in the Eucharist. Only a bishop, a priest, and deacons who bear the Eucharist use the Royal Doors. The doors on the other sides of the two main icons of Jesus and Mary, will have an angel; they are called the "Deacon's Doors." Altar servers and others with business behind the altar use these, although no one is to go through any of the doors without appropriate liturgical reason. Altar service - priest, deacon, servers - is restricted to males. Females are invited to participate in every other area of church life. Their contribution has been honored equally with that of males since the days of the martyrs; you can't look around our church without seeing Mary and other holy women. In our Eastern Church, women do everything else men do; they lead congregational singing, paint icon, teach classes, read the Epistle, and serve on parish councils. ARE AMERICANS WELCOME? Flipping through the Yellow Pages in a large city you might see a multiplicity of Eastern and Orthodox Churches: Greek, Romanian, Russian, Carpatho-Russian, Antiochian, Serbian, Byzantine, Ukrainian and on and on. Is Eastern or Orthodox so tribal? Do these divisions represent theoretical squabbles and schism? Not at all. All these churches are one church. The ethnic designation refers to what is called the parish's "jurisdiction" and identifies which bishop holds authority there. There are some six million Eastern and Orthodox Christians in North America and 250 million in the world, making Orthodoxy the second-largest Christian communion. The astonishing thing about this ethnic multiplicity is its theological and moral unity. Eastern Churches throughout the world hold unanimously to the fundamental Christian doctrines taught by the Apostles and handed down by their successors, the bishops, throughout the centuries. They also hold to the moral standards of the Apostles - abortion and homosexual behavior remain sins. One could attribute this unity to historical accident. We would attribute this unity to the Holy Spirit. Why the multiplicity of ethnic churches? These national designations obviously represent geographic realities. Since North America is also a geographic unity, one day we will likewise have a unified national church. This was the original plan of all Russian Orthodox churches, but doe to a number of complicated historical factors, it didn't happen this way. Instead, each ethnic group of people immigrating to this country developed its own church structure. This multiplicity of jurisdictions is a temporary aberration, in the view of many, and much prayer and planning is going into breaking through these unnecessary walls. Our own St. Michael Byzantine Catholic Church in Akron and St. Nicholas Byzantine Catholic Church in Barberton belong to the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy (Diocese) of Parma, Ohio, where Bishop Basil is our Eparch. We also have Eparchys of Passaic, NJ, Van Nuys, CA and we all come under the Metropolitan-Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Pittsburgh, PA Other Eastern Catholic Churches in he Akron area include Our Lady of the Cedars of Lebanon Maronite Catholic Church in Fairlawn, St. Joseph Melkite Catholic Church, 600 W. Exchange St., Holy Ghost Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church, Brown St., St. Nicholas Byzantine Catholic Church, Barberton, St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church, Canton, and St. George Romanian Catholic Cathedral, Canton. Services in these churches will differ slightly in the music and language and a few other particulars, but the Liturgy is substantially the same, except in the Maronite Church. We wish it could be said that every local parish eagerly welcomes newcomers, but some are still so close to their immigrant experiences that they are mystified as to why 'outsiders' would be interested. Visiting several parishes will help you learn where you are most comfortable. You will probably be looking for one that uses plenty of English in its services. The Byzantine parishes of St. Michael and St. Nicholas, Barberton, are almost entirely in English. Eastern devotions, piousness and worship may seem startlingly different at first, but as the weeks go by it gets to be less so. It will begin to feel more and more like home, and it will draw you into the Kingdom of God. WE HOPE THAT YOUR FIRST VISIT to our Church will be an enjoyable one, and that you will come again. God bless you!