Greek Un-Orthodox, by Thomai Hatsios
I left the church when I was twelve. It wasn’t for lack of spiritual interest. It wasn't because of their rituals. In fact, years later, the Greek Orthodox Christian Sunday rituals heavily influenced my installation and performance art. The art I was called to create included scent, sound, visuals, something to touch, something to eat—a part of the art taken into the body.
The day I left the church, it was over a simpler, more personal matter.
After I asked enough questions that they couldn't answer in Sunday School class, the teachers had banished me to the services upstairs with the adults. It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving and I was sitting with my mom, enjoying the service. The warm, glowing, reverent energy of Greek Orthodox services still moves me to tears. For hours, Greeks quietly sit or stand at the appropriate times, affording the scent and the sounds of the priest, choir and cantor the opportunity to realize their full glory. Frankincense and myrrh wave in a censer accented by the sound of tiny bells. The scent of candles burning, men's cologne, women's perfume, the hint of dry-cleaner chemicals from dressy clothes, freshly polished shoes, and masticha (Greek Chiclets) coming from an older aunt’s handbag, which always seems to have that new car smell, combine to create a unique church service aroma.
We sat hearing prayers, holding perfect posture longer than any other time in the week, in dress clothes that were always too warm or too cold, on slippery, cool pews. Prayers were sung in a nasally voice in a language few of us understood (Modern and Ancient Greek and Latin). As children we watched for the elderly women to show us when it was time to “do our cross” the “right way.” As if affirming the priest’s song, we placed thumb, pointer and middle finger together, pressed the last two fingers into palm, then made our cross, moving our right hand from third eye to sternum, to right shoulder, to left shoulder, then closed with a serious open hand on our chest. The cantor’s operatic voice enveloped us. With his song, I felt I had been soaked in wine and dipped into a tub of warm mud. The choir voices descended from above and behind us, as if heaven was clearing a path, welcoming our tired souls.
During more than an hour of holy water spraying, incense waving, and choir singing, the father, his altar boys and brothers worked behind the magnificent, ornate altar to prepare the communion. Under the supervision of the Twelve Apostles depicted in the larger than life-size Byzantine icons, our priest presented the climax of the show. At the front of the aisle between the pews, on a step separating audience from performance, he stood holding an ornate, golden chalice filled with holy, blessed wine and bits of bread, a red cloth (for dripping chins) and a tiny silver spoon to serve it with.
I was excited about receiving communion. For me the experience was not so much about it being anyone’s blood and body, but of the energy I felt from the ritual. It was a well-choreographed end to a great show, with audience participation. With good posture, we rose quietly to line up in the aisle. We were met by our gray-haired, delicately old-world and regal priest. The man who dipped our entire infant bodies into the marble baptismal tub, the same man who married my parents, took our chins into the palm of his hand, which was covered in red cloth. He whisper-sang a blessing to us individually, using our Greek baptismal names,"To onoma to patrou,
