by George Vidiakin, Associate Priest, St Helena’s Anglican Church in Larnaca (Cyprus)

Liturgy

Introduction

The Holy Spirit said: ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul
For the work to which I have called them.’

Prayer

O Lord, when your people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain Sinai in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”  And Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.” The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was. Amen.

Based on Ex. 20:18-21

Taizé Chant

Our darkness is never darkness in your sight. 
The deepest night is clear as the daylight.

Bible Readings

Exodus 11:4-6, 12:29-30

Moses said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the female slave, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt—worse than there has ever been or ever will be again.” At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.

Responsory

Christ is the head of the body, the church; 
He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, 
Christ is the head of the body, the church; 
he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead. 

So that in everything he might have the supremacy.
He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead. 

Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit.
Christ is the head of the body, the church; 
he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead.

Col 1:18

Gospel

Lk 2:16-18

So the shepherds hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the Baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.

Reflection

The winter brought chill
And winds from the steppe.
The newborn was feeling the cold in his crib
Inside of the hill.

To warm him, an ox came to breath in their midst.
Home beasts round the cave
Stood still in a daze
The manger was steeped in a warm floating mist.

Done shaking their sheepskins to shed the bed chaff
And remnants of millet seed,
The waking shepherds took heed
And peered through the dark from the top of the cliff.
<…>

Up close, not ever before revealed to them,
More hesitant than a bowl,
A star in flight to its goal
Was glimmering on the way to Bethlehem.
<…>

The glowing above was amazingly bright
And had some meaning, for sure.
Three wise men followed the lure
And hastened toward the unspeakable light.

Behind them were camels with gifts of goodwill
And donkeys, each tinier to a degree,
Descending in minuscule steps down the hill.

And oddly some visions arose quite as real
Of all future things that were later to be:
All thoughts and all worlds and all dreams to fulfill,
All destinies of galleries and museums,
All fairies’ capers and all sorcerers’ whims,
All things children dream of and all Christmas thrill.

All fluttering candles and all the gold thread,
All sumptuousness of the colorful frill…
…All wicked and wild, the wind swept from the steppe…
…All apples and baubles, all laughter at will.
<…>

Down that very road, through the same very scene
Came several angels who stayed in the crowd.
Their incorporeity made them unseen
But steps they were taking left prints on the ground.

A mass of humanity thronged by the rock.
The daylight just broke. It illumined the pines.
“And who might you be, folks,” asked Mary of them.
We’re shepherds by trade and stewards of the skies.
We’ve come to see both of you and eulogize.
“No, wait. You’re too many,” she said taking stock.
<…>

Day broke and was sweeping the stars off the skies
Like last tiny embers that someone forgot.
And it was the magi she took in the grot,
Of all the riff-raff in so many a guise.

He shone while asleep in his crib made of oak
As if a bright moonbeam inside a tree hole.
To give him some warmth, there was not a sheep coat
But bovine nostrils and the lips of a mule.

They stood in the shadowy dusk of the shed
And whispered but felt at a loss what to say.
Then someone from twilight stepped forth on the left
And patted a magus aside on the way.
He turned: right behind him, a star like a guest
Was watching the Virgin on that Christmas day.

Boris Pasternak, ‘The Christmas Star’ (transl. by Yuri Menis)

Canticle

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city.

On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. 

And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. 

The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 

They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night.

They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun,
for the Lord God will give them light. 

And they will reign for ever and ever.
And they will reign for ever and ever. Amen.

Rev 22:1-5

Grant us, O Sovereign Lord, the boldness to call You, the heavenly God, our Father, and without fear of condemnation allow us to say:

Our Father in heaven…

Let us bless the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

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Comment

From the very early days of my ministry I have been deeply shaped by some of the core ideas of the Reformation, especially, by the importance of making worship and faith itself relevant, comprehensible and clear to people, by the idea of the priesthood of all believers and full participation in worship for the whole congregation, by the idea of a personal encounter with Jesus who needs no intermediaries.

I was ordained in the Russian Orthodox Church and served as a parish priest of the Russian-speaking congregation in Limassol, Cyprus. After three years in Limassol I left the Russian Church for personal, political and theological reasons. I started attending an Anglican church in Larnaca, Cyprus. Very quickly I realized that it was the place where I truly belonged. The congregation comprised individuals who were very different from me in terms of culture, language and upbringing. Nevertheless, I became an active member of the congregation. I joined the Anglican Communion in March 2020. Initially I served as a reader, server, church warden and Synod representative of the parish, and in May 2021 I was licensed as an Anglican priest.

The Eastern Christian tradition with its solemn liturgies and special attention to spiritual life affected me a lot. But I have very carefully rethought it in the light of my Anglican experience. I firmly believe that I am able ‘to produce good out of the good treasure’ (Lk 6:45) of the Orthodox tradition. For example, to pay great attention to integrity, discipline, worship.

I very willingly became a member of a religious minority in the country whose population is 89% Orthodox. It could create serious tensions if I were a Cypriot because the local community can be rather conservative in its religious preferences. But the Russian expat community in Cyprus is, by and large, indifferent when it comes to religion. So, I personally haven’t faced any challenges because of my new Christian Anglican affiliation.

In terms of identity I am, above all, an Anglican Christian. But my experience formed a very specific vision of Anglicanism as a multinational and international, cross-cultural, worldwide community rather than merely a national established church. For this reason, I value the comprehensiveness, open-mindedness and multiculturalism in my Anglican experience. I believe that these make Anglicanism very special and different from other traditions.

The Liturgy

The liturgy I have written has a threefold structure and reflects on three key theological concepts.

The first part of the liturgy starts with Acts 13:2b, introducing the liturgy with a verse about the Spirit’s call. Secondly, it mentions Barnabas, the founder of the church in Cyprus, where I am currently based, and also Saul/Paul. Both apostles played a great role in proclaiming the Good News in Cyprus and are still very much revered among Christians of the island. Next, there is a prayer based on a passage from Exodus 20. It brings a very powerful image of Moses entering the divine darkness. This darkness is not something to be afraid of. It is dark not in a sense it is evil, but in a sense that it is incomprehensible for a human mind. As in the case of Moses, this darkness can be approached only in absolute trust in God. I have chosen a Taize chant which gives a sense to this divine darkness. Taken together, this first part of the liturgy speaks about the true knowledge of God.

The second part of the liturgy confronts ideas of God’s sovereignty, atonement and vulnerability. It consists of an Old Testament reading, a passage from Colossians in the form of a responsory, a gospel reading and a reflection. Its core idea is atonement, but this is presented in a very deliberate way. It starts with the description of the plague on the firstborn. In this passage, as in many other books of the Old Testament, God is manifested as a powerful sovereign and judge who punishes the Egyptian firstborn with no mercy. This dramatic Biblical story is usually regarded as God’s special blessing for the people of Israel. But it is also a story of a deep trauma inflicted by God on the people of Egypt (and, by extension, to all parents who lost their children). The responsory then brings in the idea that Jesus is the firstborn among the dead. The keyword which corresponds with the previous passage is the word ‘firstborn.’ Jesus himself is also a firstborn who died but was raised. In his sacrifice on the cross he brings together humankind and God.

In terms of scholastic theology, atonement was deemed necessary because human beings had afflicted or even insulted God. But can we put this concept the other way round and say that it was God who afflicted people with his ruthlessness? Can we say that, in the person of Jesus and in Jesus’s teaching, God made atonement and was reconciled with human beings? The coming of Jesus as a vulnerable baby highlights this sense of God’s vulnerability. To stress this, a poem by a Russian author Boris Pasternak (Noble prize winner in the year 1958), is used as a reflection.

Finally, the third part of the liturgy is a canticle based on Rev 22:1-5. It introduces the idea of the New Jerusalem: a place or, better, a condition of the creation when our world will change and completely turn to God. It ends with the image of an eternal light from God. Here, the invitation to the Lord’s prayer is taken from the Orthodox Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. It aims to reflect both the Orthodox context of the country in which I live and the Orthodox tradition of which I used to be a part.

I believe that this threefold worship expresses the Christian understanding of the sacred in a fresh but nevertheless very traditional way.

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Interview