An Unexpected First Communion and “Becoming” Greek Orthodox – Part One

Okay, I guess I should say up front, that — spoiler alert — our family is still Roman Catholic, but after having spent a week and a half in Greece and experiencing their different rite of worship, we feel a kinship with them that we hadn’t before felt.

Maybe I should begin by saying that the Greek Orthodox are Catholic, but they are Eastern Catholics who split from the Roman Catholic Church in 1054 (not to be confused with Byzantine Rites that are Eastern Catholics who recognize the Pope), and there is a history of tension that still exists between them.

This tension is over a few differences, including but not limited to: Orthodox don’t recognize the authority of the Pope in matters of faith and morals, they have infant communion and confirmation, they don’t believe in Purgatory, they raise up icons as very important in worship, and in the Creed, the filioque clause was rejected by Orthodox. (Roman Catholics believe the Holy Spirit proceeds from the love of Father and Son. Orthodox, believe proceeds from the Father Alone.)

That being said, both have the TRUE PRESENCE of Jesus in the Eucharist and most Greek Orthodox we encountered are quite encouraging of Catholics to attend their services — though most Orthodox priests will not administer the Eucharist to Roman Catholics.

This latter point is important to the story, because we were aware of the strong resistance of Orthodox priests to administer the Eucharist to Roman Catholics, but we were also aware that Catholics can receive the Eucharist from a Greek Orthodox Church if allowed to do so — though they are not to consider attending a Greek Orthodox in place of their own Catholic Church for Sunday obligation.

To be honest, it’s a bit confusing, but suffice it to say, Catholics may attend and receive Communion (if the Blessed Sacrament is offered to them) especially in “emergency” circumstances, such as no Roman Catholic Church being around.

Which brings us to the day before we left for Greece on a family pilgrimage. I always reach out to the Catholic Churches in the areas that we will be staying in to get a heads up on mass times, etc…and wouldn’t you know it, the Catholic Church on Santorini informed us just hours before our departure that they had decided to forego all Masses due to COVID.

They did offer us “online mass”, as if online Mass is the same as in-person Mass. I hate to admit my first response was, “Oh, Hell to the No!” pardon my French, but there was no way we were going to watch Mass on our iphones on a family pilgrimage — no way!

So, we said a simple prayer, “Lord, please let us be able to receive you” and decided to continue as planned, trusting in the providence of God.

Honestly, we were so incredibly disappointed, and we even had certain children who said we couldn’t go on vacation if it meant missing Mass — but John and I were determined that even if we had to hunt down the nuns and priests (who were by the way still on the Island of Santorini) and send our youngest to beg them to allow us to go to Mass, we were GOING TO MAKE IT TO MASS.

The good news was that in Athens, Masses were available at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Dionysius the Areopagite. That was a huge blessing to begin our pilgrimage, and we were more confident than ever that we would be able to find a Mass in Santorini, somehow.

As an aside, we did hunt down those said nuns and priests in Santorini and even saw a priest poke his head out of the door when we made a visit to the Catholic Church on the island, but he was gone sooner than we could even catch his attention, disappeared behind a locked door.

The nuns wouldn’t answer their door to the monastery, but they did answer the phone when we called and told us the ONLY OPTION was online Mass.

I hate to say it felt like they were abandoning their flock, but it certainly felt like fear had caused those priests to abandon their sacred duty to minister to the sheep, even if we were just passing through.

I wanted to stand outside the Bishops door and scream, “Couragio!” Couragio!” but I resisted the urge and dared to believe God had different plans for us.

By the way, if you don’t have at least a few priests you can text with matters of faith, then you need to spend more time with priests — you never know when you’re going to need a question answered — case in point, we discovered the Greek Orthodox Masses and prayers services were open to the public, but we needed to confirm whether or not we could receive the Eucharist there.

The answer back was a “yes!” and so we knew we must try very hard to blend in with the locals so as not to draw too much attention to ourselves.

The plan, do whatever the locals did, which sounded like the perfect plan, except for the fact that we discovered that one of the drawbacks of not having a Supreme patriarch means that everybody ends up doing very different things at very different times and there is no easy way to blend in, when everybody is doing something different.

You see people lighting candles and place in the sand, and one woman who seems to run the place who randomly blows them all out and clear all the sand, you see people coming in and out as if to make a visit, others standing while the people next to them are sitting, people randomly walking up to the front to kiss the icons right next to where the priest is consecrating the Eucharist (that one definitely seemed more risky to me.) while everybody seemed to be doing different things and randomly crossing themselves (always right to left — that one I kept imitating, as if to say, “look at me, I really am Greek Orthodox.” ha, ha!)

Fake it till you make it, as they say, but more importantly, be open to seeing the beauty in a different tradition and also be open to making friends with the locals and learning from them. We had many discussions with the locals and our drivers and they helped us understand and feel closer to these people.

They were so happy that we had interest in their rite and they really welcomed us to attend and be part of it all, which is so beautiful and why I love being Catholic, even if in different rites.

My advice on not sticking out for those who worry about those things: if you are ever in a similar circumstance, my recommendation is whatever you do, do it like it’s exactly the thing you ought to be doing in that moment, even if it’s not. Confidence is key, it seems.

Having said that, I would also say be prepared for evening or morning prayers to be very long but really beautiful and completely unusual to the Western ear. They have one cantor who chants the words in Greek, in monophonic type pattern, using those lower decibels, for almost the entire service. Sometimes the priest joins in, but often the cantor is keeping the service moving as if it’s one long chant.

Also, be prepared to not have any idea of what is going on or even be able to discern between morning or evening prayer or the Holy Mass — later, we learned that in Santorini, daily Masses were not the usual except for special feasts (which we happened to be there for!), but morning and evening prayer services were daily events.

With those few simple tips, I would say you are ready to go to a Greek Orthodox service and begin to appreciate it for what it is, and that leads to our own foray into the world of all things Greek Orthodox….

Come back next week for Part 2…..