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
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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!"