Sunday, June 3, 2012 - Pentecost!

Sunday, June 3, 2012

            We went to Liturgy at the Annunciation Cathedral in Tirana. We got there around 7:45, right before the Orthros Gospel. The service was 95% Albanian and 5% Greek. His Beatitude liturgized along with Bishop Andoni, Bishop Nathaniel, eight priests and two deacons. Bishop Nathaniel told me that there is a hierarchical Liturgy there every Sunday. If for some reason His Beatitude is not around, one of the other bishops serves. We saw Bishop Asti as well but he stood in the Altar – he didn’t serve.

Kneeling Vespers immediately followed the Divine Liturgy. Most of the prayers were read in Albanian. Three of them were read in Greek (the last one of each set), and they were each prayers that I recognized: 1) “Blessed art Thou, O Almighty Master,” from Paschal Compline; 2) “Lord, O Lord, Who deliveredst us from every arrow that flieth by day,” from Great Compline; and 3) “ Great and Most-high God, You alone possess immortality and dwell in unapproachable Light…,”one of the priestly Vesperal prayers that I recognized because Fr. Hopko says it aloud at the monastery during Vespers.

After Vespers we went to coffee hour across the street and saw a lot of people, including the bishops, the missionaries – both American and Albanian – and the university students. After that we headed back up to the Tabor Center where we had lunch with the youth of Tirana (of all ages). Then we split up into small groups and had discussions with translators (expand). We finished a little after 4:00 and were supposed to leave at 5:00 to go to Elbasan, do a youth program there, and then to attend the feastday vigil at St. John Vladimir Monastery. Around 4:20 I decided to sleep for 20 minutes in order to not be exhausted at the vigil. I set my alarm for 4:45. When it went off I had not fallen asleep so I got up and turned it off, then lay back down. Big mistake. I woke up at 5:49 to an empty center except for some of the ladies that work here. I asked for Theodhori, the owner, who speaks Greek, called Fr. Luke, who told me that they pounded on my door (I later found out for 15 minutes – I can’t believe I slept through it!) and now I’d have plenty of time to sleep. Theodhori taught me the word for taxi in Greek (besides ταξί which apparently is a translation from English). I told him if the taxi driver speaks Greek or English, and if I could get lek (Albanian currency), I might be able to. Otherwise not.

As Theodhori was driving me into town with his wife and two sons (not sure why – but Theofani the three-year-old is so cute!), he called a guy named Niko who works at the Metropolis and speaks Greek. Niko and his family were on the fence about going but soon decided they would go and that I should not take a taxi. Theodhori took me to their house and waited outside with me for ten minutes while we waited for them to come out. I had thought it was Niko whom I had talked to the other night and was surprised to see this Niko because it wasn’t who I expected. Oh well, it was a ride, and I was able to communicate. He also speaks a good amount of English (unfortunately for me, because it wasn’t absolutely essential to speak Greek). We took off around 6:20 on a winding ride through the mountains, a bumpy road that sometimes didn’t have a guard rail. It was kind of scary. We got there Around 7:40, I think.

Fr. Luke had warned us that the vigil would be unlike anything else we had ever experienced. That said I was really expecting something totally unlike anything I had ever experienced. However, it wasn’t as crazy as I guess I thought it could have been. Yes, it was crazy, there were people, there were vendors outside, there were people standing around holding lit candles, there were people smoking outside, talking loudly, moving in the church, but in all that I was not phased. I like order in church but for some reason it all seemed natural there, and it wasn’t as excessive as I imagined it would be. It reminded me somewhat of the Feastday Vespers at the Panagia Monastery in Petras, outside Karditsa in Greece, where I was in 2008. It was a shock to me then but here I was expecting it.

Since we had already done Monday’s Vespers after Liturgy in the morning, the vigil started with Small Compline at 10 pm. That was followed by the Small Paraklesis to the Theotokos which everyone joined in chanting. It is a well-loved service in Albania, as in Greece and America. It beats me though why we didn’t do a Paraklesis to St. John Vladimir since it was his feastday.

After Paraklesis they started reading the Pre-Communion prayers, and Fr. Luke signalled us to make our way to the tiny room next to the Altar where the reliquary of the Saint was. There is lots and lots of cotton that is stuffed inside the reliquary. Once a year, on his feastday, a group of clergy open the relics, take out the old cotton and put in new cotton. Fr. Luke had told us about this before and told us to make sure we squeezed ourselves into the little room to see it. Bishop Andoni vested in epitracheilion and omophorion, along with a large number of priests who wore their epitrachelia. Bishop Nikolla also participated but was not vested.

Fr. Luke got quite a bit of cotton as they took it off the relics, and then tore pieces of it to give to all of us who were in there. It was really a tight fit, but worth it. Stelio got the whole thing on video, holding his camera above eye-level. I could not figure out what was happening half the time so I definitely want to see that video from a better angle!

When all the cotton had been removed we got to venerate the relics. I think the Saint’s skull is enclosed in a metal case, but I’m not sure. That’s something I want to see on the video. I could not see the rest of the relics from my angle, just the skull which I got to venerate – but my lips touched metal, so I’m confused. In any case, it was a great blessing to be in there. Some of our group didn’t get over there quickly enough and wasn’t inside. I felt bad for them.

As soon as the old cotton was taken off, the bishops started putting new cotton in, until it was almost overflowing. They closed the reliquary and locked it, draping the red cloth over it again.

After Pre-Communion Prayers came Orthros. We cut the Polyeleos, the Orthros Gospel and the Canon, doing only the Katavasiae. I was confused. I thought the point of vigils was to do a complete Orthros. However, by that time I was exhausted, it was midnight, and I was kind of glad that the service didn’t drag on until dawn.

Bishop Andoni, ten priests and two deacons served the Divine Liturgy. We did an Artoklasia at the end of the Doxology, right before the Liturgy. I guess that was because we hadn’t done Vespers so we stuck it at the end of Orthros. I’m not sure. That confused me. The first priest and the second deacon were monks from a monastery in Montenegro, I believe. They did some Serbian and the deacon even did some Greek! Anthony told me afterwards, “I never thought I’d be so happy to hear Greek!” It made it more familiar hearing a few petitions in a language we recognized. Everything else was in Albanian.

Two high-points of craziness occurred during the Liturgy. We began around 1am (by which time I was a zombie, and couldn’t believe we still had a full hierarchical Liturgy ahead of us).

By the time Liturgy started a lot of people had left, outside was a bit quieter, and there was much more order in the church, I guess because it was mainly the people left who wanted to be there for the Liturgy, and not everyone else who just came to hang out.

There were some exceptions, though. A group of rily teenagers/20-somethings was hanging out, talking and smoking in the front doorway – just enough outside to not be smoking in church, but close enough to feel like they were inside. The noise from the front door escalated during the Artoklasia, and then during the Great Litany it got pretty bad. Fr. Gerasim who works at the Holy Cross high school looked pretty annoyed. He was standing at the bishop’s throne with the other priests and when it got too loud he purposefully pushed through the center aisle (filled with people) and sternly said something to the boys in the back which I think took them outside and made it a bit quieter.

During the Trisagion Hymn and the Epistle there was some commotion outside the right door of the church. It was either the same group or another group of young’uns who were having fun with an ATV. They would start it and all try to climb on, and then fall off and turn the ATV off. This kept happening and some well-meaning people tried to close the side door to keep the noise out but the νέοι wanted it open so it kept getting opened and closed. Finally during the Gospel the noise got really bad and the door was finally closed for good. Through the closed door we heard a lot of laughing and the ATV rev up and go really fast around the church, close to the front door and up the hill. Finally there was some more quiet :)

Liturgy ended around 2:30. We hung out in and outside the church talking to some of our friends until around 3:00 when Fr. Luke came out of the Altar and was ready to go. We got back to the Tabor Center around 4:10 and I turned the light out a little after 4:30am. We could already see the slightest glow of the rising sun behind Mt. Dijty (sp?).