Arsenios
Well-known member
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2018
- Messages
- 3,577
- Location
- Pacific North West
- Gender
- Male
- Religious Affiliation
- Eastern Orthodox
- Political Affiliation
- Conservative
- Marital Status
- Single
Frequency of Communion varies a great deal even within the EOC... Some Churches, mostly Eastern Block one
ut sometimes more for those coming on pilgrimages...
The Service of the Divine Liturgy takes 1-2 hours, depending on the Priest, and the Prosphora Loaves are 6-10" in diameter, according to the number of Communicants, and are baked as a ministry by certain parishoners, mostly women, but not always, a process that takes them 2-3 hours, yielding several loaves, [Lambs] carrying the impress of the seal impressed on their tops:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosphora
Here is a well made Lamb:
The wine we use is made in monasteries, normally, although we can and do use Manischewitz Wine if we run out... We do not purchase this wine - It is given to us at no charge... So the cost in dollars for us is basically the cost of the flour and salt and yeast and water... A pittance of coin... [We bury our dead similarly for the cost of the boards to build a pine box... The rest is but blessed labors...]
My particular parish (of about a hundred souls) is very blessed to normally do three Divine Liturgies a week, plus two services daily, morning and evening [Orthros/Matins plus Vespers] - We do more services than most by a lot - approaching a monastic level of services while still somehow managing to function in the world... Our Priest has a lot of his faithful now living in monasteries as monastics, in part because of this frequency of services...
Biblically, I remember Paul locked up in the basement of the prison, rejoicing in his afflictions while doing the songs in the night, when an earthquake loosed the chains, and the guard was about to fall on his sword because they had gotten away, but was dissuaded by Paul and converted... Monasteries do this kind of services throughout the night while we sleep... And our little parish does, normally, a 3AM and then a 4AM Service on Monday mornings when we get to join with the Monks and Nuns in Spirit and pray locally for all those sleeping and those awake... It is a hidden ministry, a Grace-bestowing blessing of the Christian Faith on the world...
The Church Canons forbid more than one Communion Service at the same Altar or by the same Priest on the same day... And the Lord's Prayer does state: "Give us this day our Super-Essential Bread..." So daily Communion, or at least fairly frequent Communion, is a good thing... In persecutions, such as the Gulags of Russia, they went years without Communion, often to death... Yet if they could set aside a little bread and juice, the prisoner-clergymen knew the services by heart, and kept them alive silently within their souls in the brutality of those peresecutions where most died...
Arsenios
ut sometimes more for those coming on pilgrimages...
The Service of the Divine Liturgy takes 1-2 hours, depending on the Priest, and the Prosphora Loaves are 6-10" in diameter, according to the number of Communicants, and are baked as a ministry by certain parishoners, mostly women, but not always, a process that takes them 2-3 hours, yielding several loaves, [Lambs] carrying the impress of the seal impressed on their tops:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosphora
Here is a well made Lamb:
The wine we use is made in monasteries, normally, although we can and do use Manischewitz Wine if we run out... We do not purchase this wine - It is given to us at no charge... So the cost in dollars for us is basically the cost of the flour and salt and yeast and water... A pittance of coin... [We bury our dead similarly for the cost of the boards to build a pine box... The rest is but blessed labors...]
My particular parish (of about a hundred souls) is very blessed to normally do three Divine Liturgies a week, plus two services daily, morning and evening [Orthros/Matins plus Vespers] - We do more services than most by a lot - approaching a monastic level of services while still somehow managing to function in the world... Our Priest has a lot of his faithful now living in monasteries as monastics, in part because of this frequency of services...
Biblically, I remember Paul locked up in the basement of the prison, rejoicing in his afflictions while doing the songs in the night, when an earthquake loosed the chains, and the guard was about to fall on his sword because they had gotten away, but was dissuaded by Paul and converted... Monasteries do this kind of services throughout the night while we sleep... And our little parish does, normally, a 3AM and then a 4AM Service on Monday mornings when we get to join with the Monks and Nuns in Spirit and pray locally for all those sleeping and those awake... It is a hidden ministry, a Grace-bestowing blessing of the Christian Faith on the world...
The Church Canons forbid more than one Communion Service at the same Altar or by the same Priest on the same day... And the Lord's Prayer does state: "Give us this day our Super-Essential Bread..." So daily Communion, or at least fairly frequent Communion, is a good thing... In persecutions, such as the Gulags of Russia, they went years without Communion, often to death... Yet if they could set aside a little bread and juice, the prisoner-clergymen knew the services by heart, and kept them alive silently within their souls in the brutality of those peresecutions where most died...
Arsenios
