On Saturday evening I attended an ecumenical worship service in Tallinn. It was the Pentecost this past weekend so all the representatives of the Estonian churches were invited to join a youth service. I've found myself to be a member of the youth board of the Estonian Churches Council now so I represented our church there. The service took place late in the evening in a popular club for rock concerts - it's called Rock Cafe. And they sure picked a right place for the service because they needed a fancy sound system. Man, it was loud! And very youthful and cool and very Hillsong. The representatives of different churches sat in the first row (next to the loudspeakers) on the only chairs in the room with about 300 teenagers jumping and singing behind us. Phew, that was some experience indeed!
And this morning I saw my very first full-length liturgy in the Russian Orthodox church. The local church here in Tartu celebrates its 100th anniversary and again all the pastors were invited. I stood there in the orthodox church for 2,5 hours (I had opted for high heels in the morning - terrible choice) and took it all in, mesmerised - I had never seen so many big beards and white and golden robes, and the smell of incense, melting wax candles, icons, kissing of the hands of the metropolitan, old liturgical songs sung both in Estonian and old Slavic, the cantillating of the gospel texts, the procession around the church, the sprinkling of the holy water... Wow. I'm still well under its spell. And yes, my feet still hurt lol!
I wish I had had my camera with me both times but that would have been inappropriate. So I only dared to take a few pictures with my phone.
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| Clubbing with the archbishop of the Estonian Lutheran Church. |
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| The procession. |
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I'm back to my office now and listening to my favourite stuff - Arvo Pärt's Te Deum (he's Orthodox, by the way). Somehow it helps to preserve the spell of the morning liturgy.
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