Greek Orthodox Church

Today I had a really cool experience. I went to a Greek Orthodox Church downtown for a paper I have to write in my History of Christianity class. I went with my friend Deborah from school, we stuck out like 2 sore thumbs...hee hee. We walk in, we're both wearing black dress pants and a dress shirt, and we noticed that we were the only women wearing pants! So embarassing, everyone was staring at us, well it also could have been that we were standing on the side of the room with all the men, which we quickly realized. Also all the women were wearing scarfs over thier heads, which obviously we did not have either. Anyways, so one oleder lady sortof took us under her wing and showed us where to stand, she also told us when to stand and when to sit, because the whole service was in Greek. Although I didn't understand the lauguage it was really cool to see all the rituals that they do in thier service. I noticed when we first got there they were doing a ceremony to dress the "priest" I'm not sure if that's what he's called. Also as soon as you walk in there's two podiums on each side of the centre isle red carpet, each one had a picture on it, I'm pretty sure one was Jesus, the other looked like it could have been a saint or something. Anyways, as people arrived they would strand at each podium, cross themselves and kiss the picture two times. Even the little kids, it was so cute! Their parents would lift them up. After that the men would go stand on one side of the room, and the women on the other. There were a few times that I heard the "preist" speak english. Through the whole service he was sortof chanting/singing and when he spoke in english i relaized that it was scripture he was resiting. One passage that stuck out was, "Love the Lord your God with all you heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself". I forgot to mention, the church was absolutely beautiful. On each wall there were georgous stained glass windows, and between each window were paintings of different saints including st. francis, and there were one or two of mary, and a few of Jesus. Also on the walls between the windows were vases with incence burning. In the middle of the ceiling was the biggest chandalier I've ever seen, it was incredible..sooo beautiful! At the front of the sacntuary, where the "priest" and other church members stood there were alot of candles and incence burning.
Anywho....really what I got out of the whole thing was that, in the history of our faith there is so much tradition and ritual, that's all part of how Christianity began. I know that I've been gulity about complaining about tradition and all that jazz in my own denomination, but being at the church this morning, not even understanding what I was hearing, I could still feel the presence of God and worship him. It showed me that no matter how traditionalised church is or how contemporary church is...it doesn't change my relationship with God. So..that's my thoughts for today.