Sunday Morning

I am at the Sunday service of the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church on Westnedge Avenue in Kalamazoo. Greek hymns fill the air, filtered through speakers, enveloping myself and two elderly women who perfectly fit the part of Greek matriarchs. They stare intently at their hymnbooks and I drill a hole into my notebook with my eyes. One pew up, where I should have sat (instead of, predictably, at the very last pew), the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is in the seat pocket. Two men and a woman sing praises to the Lord from a rotating podium that spins comically when they lose their place on the way to the next hymn. A man in a white cloak with the crucifix embroidered among other patterns on the back sings intermittently, in English, to the gilded crucifix in front of him. His back is to us. His voice lacks that certain accented rasp of a Greek elder. He is younger and fairer, and his hair is brown with the subtlest reddish tinge. It absorbs some of the color of the rich wood that frames the altar.

The Alpha and the Omega (Revelations, 22:13) stare down at us all from high on the far wall. Despite lacking the trappings of an Orthodox church in an Orthodox country, the Annunciation church still generates the feeling of being watched. Saints stare in at us from the stained glass windows, exhorting us to put a name to a face and a deed. The church's modest majesty is concentrated on the far end around the altar, where the man in white is now swinging a censer of incense. He walks up and down the aisle and the matriarchs—there are five, now—make the sign of the cross upon their chests as he passes. The incense smells like myrrh or something else old that you only hear about in old books and maybe once came across in a supplies shop for musty fortunetellers. The smoke turns violet where it curls in the light of the Alpha and the Omega.

Red electric lights shaped like candle flame glow above images of saints, Jesus Christ, and the Virgin Mary, except where one real candle flickers above an image of two haloed men conversing. Icons to be deferentially kissed are directly in front of each of the two rows of pews, and beside them burn a square of white candles with a cross picked out in the middle of each with red. Two crystal chandeliers are suspended above the aisle, flanked by lanterns reminiscent of the censer. The church is an echo chamber, for sights, symbols and sound. Iconography and hymnal chants amplify one another. Even with constant chanting, every disturbance is magnified by the intermittent silence: the creak of pews under restless bodies, paper turning, the squeak of my pencil, feet shuffling on the carpet—they belong to the greeter who eyed my notebook in between her perfunctory Good morning and mine.

Other languages add an undeniable mysticism to that which is already present in religious ritual. Words that I cannot understand reach out and pull on me. I wonder idly why the Catholics stopped saying the Mass in Latin, but then I remember why. One of the hymnal men says “the liturgy for today can be found in pages 64 to 65 of the Divine Liturgy books.” I reach over the pew in front of me and grab the liturgy book from the seat pocket. The cover is not attached and the rest of the book slides out from in between my fingers but I convey the book to my lap before it disintegrates entirely. The liturgy is in Greek on the right side and in English on the left. Pages 64 to 64 cover the end of the “We Have Seen the True Light” and the beginning of the “Benediction Prayer.” I think it odd to split the assignment, but what do I know? The man who spoke recites a tale about the persecution of the Christians and the imperfectability of man. It does not match up with what I am staring down at and I feel very lost and wonder if I misheard. Here I am, a young atheist without a drop of Greek blood in me, watching a ritual I do not understand in the slightest, surrounded by Greek matriarchs. One of the women gives me a questioning look as the might in white passes among us again with the censer, off to my left and up the aisle from behind (I am sure he can see me writing this) and again I do not rise to make the sign of the cross while everyone else does. My eyes meet with the closest parishioner and her look is right—what am I doing here?

Finally, children. They at least can be disrespectful in the way only children know how to get away with—by running their mouths. They can distract from my futile struggle to appear distanced without appearing ignorant. A mumbling under breaths occurs as the congregation is called upon to join in on a piece of liturgy.. I expected to hear the strength of conviction in their voices or at least for them to have it memorized. I don't know why—there's a lot of liturgy in these books. The children are restless but they are here at least, come to perform the Sunday chore. All say the Lord's Prayer in Greek and then in English, with only I and the youngest child in rebellion, I quietly and she incoherently noisy. Amen. It is time to receive communion. I read somewhere that it's against the rules to receive communion as a non-believer and I do not want to ruin the sacrament even if it makes me stand out even more. I avert my eyes as the woman who stared me down earlier heads towards me. “You can receive the bread if you'd like,” she says and immediately the restraints evaporate. I begin to rise but the man in white has already finished the service and disappeared. Standing in the middle of the aisle I am caught up in the current towards the exit but instead I am greeted and introduced and reintroduced a few times on the way downstairs for coffee and pastries.

“We maintain our faith first,” Elias Kokkinos tells me when I ask him on the way downstairs about being a Greek in Kalamazoo. They do not desire to convert anyone but they also do not want to isolate themselves. Elias takes pride in contributing to the continuity of the original Christian chruch. His manner of speaking is refined, brisk and business-like. He gives me his office phone number. He has a secretary with whom I can leave a message if he is not in.

Downstairs buzzes with socialization among plain wood paneling and white plastic floral tablecloths. The separateness of the upstairs, between priest and parish, me and them, has disappeared. Dennis Andruson tells a story to a Bulgarian about his grandfather, who fought communists in Bulgaria in 1919 (perhaps their ancestors shot at each other), before taking me aside to talk about his daughter. She has just finished a book about the history of Greeks in Kalamazoo, he says. He hands me a book spanning the history of Greeks in America from 1453 to 1938 and tells me to go ask the priest to borrow it.

The priest, the man in white, is now Father Raphael Daly, wearing black and speaking comfortably with some of the children. He jokes about their lack of enthusiasm and tells me that I may borrow the book Dennis recommended, but he would not be surprised if I did not bring it back. I say nothing but that I am interested in church architecture and history, and he says that martyrdom is not just historical, that “people were murdered for what we just did up there and it's not just historical.”

(less overbearing descriptiveness and a real conclusion forthcoming post-Greek Fest)