"I am the door. By me if any man enter in he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture." - John 10:9 At every parish where I have had the pleasure of attending services, there is always a small group of people who find their way all the way up to the church building but don't actually attend services. At one parish it was a group of male gypsies who talked on cellphones or smoked cigarettes. At another it was a few Protestant husbands who, though they never attended services, opened the parish doors for people as they filed in. At yet another parish the men stood in the narthex and chatted until it was time to receive and then got in line. Latin or Greek Catholic, Eastern or Oriental Orthodox I see the same small throng of men standing next to the front door, but not standing, sitting, or kneeling amongst the people. If it were me (and I can only speak for myself here) this option would be an unsavory one. The boredom would be immediate. The anxiety of som...
I find it curious that the enthronement was done entirely in Arabic. The Antiochian presence in the UK includes a lot of refugees from the Anglican descent into apostasy -- I'm in the UK on sabbatical and worship with the Antiochian Orthodox community in York when I visit my daughter, who lives there, services entirely in English except for the Our Father being prayed in as many languages as are the native-tongue or preferred language of prayer among those present (last time English, Greek, Arabic, Slavonic and Arabic), with the core of the community being entirely converts from Anglicanism. I'd be surprised if cradle Orthodox from the Levant outnumber English converts among the Antiochian communities in England.
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