Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: romain@pyramid.pyramid.com (Romain Kang) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Glasnost and the Orthodox Church Message-ID:Date: 27 Sep 89 08:37:20 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Pyramid Technology Corp., Mountain View, CA Lines: 24 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Off on a tangent, about a year ago, I saw a sermon where a priest talked about the Orthodox millenium, and told a story of visiting a Russian Orthodox church at their Easter in 1988: The common Orthodox practice on Easter used to be that at the end of the liturgy, the priest would go to the open great doors of the church and proclaim to the world, "Hallelujah! The Lord is Risen!" To this, the people waiting outside would answer, "He is risen indeed! Hallelujah!" This had not been done for over 30 years, because the local police would arrange for "hooligans" to wait outside, and when the doors opened, these scoundrels would rush in and vandalize the church. With the beginning of Glasnost, however, the church thought it might be safe to return to the old practice. So, on Orthodox Easter morning of that year, the old priest, clad in his splendid feast-day vestments, went to the doors at the end of the service and opened the doors. Awaiting him, sure enough, was a noisy crowd of people. Oh no, not again, sighed the priest to himself. Then, collecting his courage, he cried, "Hallelujah! The Lord is risen!" and waited for the worst possible thing to happen. The crowd yelled back, "Hurrah!"