1. La biserica.

    More along the religion theme: After almost eight months in Moldova, I finally got myself to an Orthodox service.  Let’s just say, any time I’ve felt a Catholic mass went on too long, or I complained about sitting at the Christmas mass… well, I take that all back now.  It all pales in comparison.

    I walked into the service 2.5 hours late, which is apparently totally normal and accepted.  I was there for almost three more hours.  Yes, a 5.5 hour service. Oh, but you think you get to sit for 5.5 hours?  Au contraire.  Only the most sick and the most elderly are able to sit.  Everyone else stands.  The.  Entire.  Time.

    Beyond that level of physical discomfort, I must say that this service was the most culturally uncomfortable time in my entire tour here in Moldova.  Navigating public transportation, being yelled at by babas in Russian, getting used to veceos of all varieties, falling on the ice in front of my students, and even being inadvertently forced to lead a wedding party in the hora before I knew how to dance the hora… none of these cultural experiences and the discomfort they induced compared to this service.  I was so afraid of offending someone - of partaking in some super sacred ritual, or of doing something maybe women aren’t supposed to do, or something along those lines…  I’ve been to Catholic masses in many many languages, but the service is always the same. Here, I understood the language, but it did nothing to help.  There’s no prompting from the priest.  People just do things at arbitrary times, and sometimes only certain groups of people, and it all happens seemingly without rhyme or reason.

    I entered and vowed to stay in the back, out of most people’s lines of visions.  But Colita came to get me and told me I had to come to the front to light a candle.  Even this had its seemingly specific process - which candles were okay to remove to make room, which candles you could use to light your candle.  I handed mine to Colita and just watched.

    After that, it was a lot of the priest reading from scripture and us just standing.  The priest was standing in the doorway of a back room behind the altar.  After a time, he went into the back room, closed the door, and drew a curtain.  He and the other priest were gone for about 20 minutes.  During this time, a group of women spread throughout the church that I think were the choir began to lead us in song, which were more along the lines of melody-less cantations.  After a while, a man came out carrying a tray with a tea pot and two tea cups that he brought to some other room.  The head priest then returned to the altar.  A thought crossed my mind.  Did the priests just take a tea break?

    Anyway, at this point, a number of people walked up to the altar and crowded the altar.  The children knelt in front and everyone else leaned over them, pressing into one another.  I got swept into the crowd and joined in before realizing only about a third of the church had come up.  Oh great, what have I gotten myself into now?  The priest then read a list of names that people had paid to put on the prayer list, but he stood at a pulpit that faced away from the congregation. At intermittent times during the list, the choir of women would break out into song - just the same two words sung over and over again, but again, seemingly without reason.  Sometimes they’d wait one second, sometimes ten, before picking it up again.

    After this was done, the priest brought out what I can only assume was the Eucharist - a plate and a chalice covered in a cloth.  I never saw what was under those cloths.  Anyway, during this time, everyone pressed even closer together as the priest lifted them up and showed everyone.  This went on for about ten minutes, after which the crowd, to my relief, dispersed.  I walked to a new place in the church, thinking, okay I’ll just stand here the rest of the time and be sure to hang back from any more crowds approaching the altar.

    There was another exodus some minutes later.  It was during this time that I realized I had stationed myself in an all male section.  Maybe this was coincidence - I mean, one would hope that someone would tell me I was in the men’s only area - but who knows.  All the men in the area abruptly approached a picture of Jesus, kissed it, and then returned to their places.

    Eventually, the service came to an end, culminating with everyone lining up to get blessed by the priest.  Even this seemed to have some nuances that made me feel it would be better for me to stay out of it.  Everyone was blessed and then kissed a cross in the priest’s hand in two places.  After that, they walked around the church and kissed a number of pictures of saints.  Finally, the picked up a handful of bread by the door.  Apparently, they aren’t allowed to eat before the service, and cannot eat afterward until they’ve had this bread.

    (Speaking of food, at intermittent times during the service, women would walk around and hand the children candy and cookies that they quickly pocketed for post-service snacks.  Even I benefited from this inexplicable gift-giving.)

    Last but not least, Colita and a number of other people waited for a ceremony called ‘The Disrobing.’  No one informed about what this entails, and my questions were met with confused looks - obviously a Catholic American should know what an Orthodox ceremony called ‘The Disrobing’ entails.  Anyway, after the fact I learned that Colita has had trouble sleeping, and if you have little ailments like this, you can undergo this ceremony three times to cure yourself.  But no worries, Colita was not disrobed.  The priest, instead, took off all his priestly garments and laid them across the tops of the heads of the people, who were again all pushed together.  He talked for a while, blessed them, and took his clothes back, and that was that.





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