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Deacons
Cute but Don't Know Everything
[The following appeared on a recent (FEB 2005) internet forum.]
Screen name COPTIC
writes:
Yes, we do have Deacons as young as five years old--they are so cute standing there. I think in your church being a Deacon is not just for anyone right? Whereas in my church there are not many restrictions on who can be ordained. They obviously don't know everything and usually just stand there, but they do learn a lot if they are up there every Sunday with the older Deacons who direct them.
The Deacon
Responsible for the Altar Curtain?
[The following appeared on a recent (FEB 2005) very
active internet forum.]
Someone wrote: That's also the reason for the Iconostasis: in the early Church
here was a curtain to hide the altar from the faithfuls during the most
solemn parts of the liturgy. In the west, the altar became fully visible
only in the late XVIth Century (couter-reform and so on).
Which provoked the following response:
Not the situation that I was taught (by tradition, of course).
Turns our, at least from my sources, the "iconostasis" was an evolutionary
process, involving St. John Chrysostom who initially used a "railing" to
keep people from pressing too close to the altar. Over time, Icons were
hung thereon. As to the curtain, I BELIEVE it was also Chrysostom who used
to see fire descending upon the gifts at the invocation. On one occassion,
he prayed the prayers, and no fire. So he sought why God took this grace
from him, and he repeated the prayers. Still no fire. He looked around,
and saw his deacon (no offense meant, brothers - I spent 7 years in that
blessed office!) peering out at the congregation at a particular young
lovely. He ejected the man from the altar, repeated the prayer, and saw the
fire. That's when the curtain arose, NOT to separate THE PEOPLE from THE
GIFTS, but to provide a means to FOCUS THE CLERGY on the awesome task at
hand.
The Deacon, Not the Patriarch, is
Responsible!
The following was posted at:
Yahoo! Groups - typikon Messages -Message 6896 of 6915
For convenience, a local link to the full post is given below.
The event in question took place at Ravenna June 9,
2002.
Zenit News Agency - The World Seen From Rome
Orthodox Patriarch Taking a Step Toward Unity with Rome
According to the analysis of Archimandrite
George that follows,
it was the deacon, after all, who actually set the course of history.
The Immaculate Mysteries Were imparted to Papists?
A Great Scandal with Unforeseen Consequences
By Archimandrite George, Abbot of the
Holy Monastery of Grigoriou, Mount Athos
Recently, while in Athens, I was asked a host of questions by scandalized Christians, who, as they told me, saw the Oecumenical Patriarch and the
Archbishop of Albania give the Immaculate Mysteries to Roman Catholics during
the Divine Liturgy, which took place in Ravenna. Others also informed me that a
well-known journalist with new-age leanings praised the event.
I want to believe that both the Oecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew as well as
the Archbishop of Athens Anastasios did not realize that those approaching for
communion were heterodox.
The deacon, who was standing beside His
All-holiness
and Beatitude,
should have informed them that those approaching were heterodox,
if, of course, he understood the fact from the un-orthodox way in which they
made the sign of the cross. Or, to be most certain, he should have asked those
approaching if they were Orthodox. [emphasis added]
Read the full post here.
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