The Service Learning Project I chose was attend a worship service different from my own religion. I am of Roman Catholic religion and I chose to attend an Eastern Orthodox service. I chose this project because I am eager to learn about other religious traditions. I chose the Eastern Orthodox service because I have been curious to learn how they are different from the Roman Catholic traditions. Also, because my husband is Eastern Orthodox, but he stopped attending church over twenty years ago when he left Russia. He decided to partake in this project with me since he never attended an Eastern Orthodox service in the United States. In order to prepare myself, I asked my sister-in-law questions and also did research on the internet. She advised …show more content…
The use of incense is because of Psalm 141: 2 “Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!” Another ritual that stood out to me the most was when the priest announced, “ Wis-dom! Let us attend!” prior to the readings and called on the congregation to attend. He was ask-ing for wisdom for us to open our hearts and minds and listen to the lesson. His prayers and peti-tions mention the church government, from the bishop all the way up the diocese that this church belong to. During the communion, the priest did offer non-orthodox members to come to the front for a blessing. He also has a bowl of blessed bread in addition to the sacred host. The priest also consumed the consecrated host at the end of the communion, unlike the Catholic church where the priest takes it before everyone else. “Mass” as its called in the Roman Catholic church, in Eastern Orthodox church is called the Divine Liturgy where all the reading is done in a contin-uous singing. We did not kneel during the service, we stood during the majority of the prayers and hymns. What I did miss was the sign of peace amongst each other, but it was mostly dis-played after the service was complete. Towards the end of the service,