Friday, November 18, 2005

You know you’re Orthodox if...

• On Wednesdays and Fridays you eat Japanese food.
• You are more comfortable standing in church than sitting.
• You can suck/vacuum up the crumbs of bread out of your hand without coughing.
• You can sing ison to any song (and you know what an ison is… LoL).
• Lent to you means peanut butter, tofu, soy, lots and lots of pita bread and hummus, and services at least five times a week.
• You’re used to skipping breakfast on Sundays.
• On your first encounter with long words, you pronounce them stressing the ‘next to the next to last’ syllable.
• You wonder why the Pope crosses himself backwards when you see him on TV.
• You wear comfortable shoes to church, because you know you’ll be standing a long, long time.
• To you, a ‘topless’ gal is one without a headscarf.
• You get great deals on Easter candy.
• You spend time figuring out the best way to remove smoke stains from your ceiling and wax from your walls.
• When you see a shopping-mall Santa, your first instinct is to hold out your hands to get his blessing.
• Before you pray, you say a prayer.
• You don’t flinch when someone throws water at you.
• When you first tell people who ask what religion you are, at first they think you’re Jewish. Oy!
• You’re experienced at removing wax from clothing.
• The service routinely starts at least 15 minutes late and lasts 2 ½ hours — and nobody around you complains.
• You consider any service two hours or under short/regular.
• You know you’re in an Orthodox church when the priest says, “Let us complete our prayer to the Lord”, and there’s still half an hour to go.
• At the end of Holy Week, you have rug burns on your forehead.
• Your Easter isn’t Easter without an all-night party (featuring 10 dishes of sausage with cheese).
• Your priest is married.
• You have seen all members of clergy in purple robes.
• You can differentiate between the eight different chanting tones.
• You typically celebrate a feast day by observing strict fasting.
• You celebrate feast days the night before.

My addition to the list…
• You address the City as Constantinople instead of Istanbul.
• You can say "Lord have mercy" 40 times without making a mistake.

Any more ideas?

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hahahaha...~ Interesting..interesting... =P

Fri Nov 18, 11:03:00 am 2005  
Blogger Iosue Andreas Sartorius said...

To think, had there been an Orthodox church closer than two hours away three years ago when I decided to leave the Anglican Communion, I might not be a Roman Catholic today! Not that I'm unhappy where I am, but Eastern Orthodoxy was my first choice at the time.

This post is very amusing, and, from what little I know, it's true for the miniscule Eastern Orthodox Church here in Korea as well. It's amazing how all those things are inculturated.

Also, I may be RC, but to me it'll always be Constantinople!

Sat Nov 19, 06:01:00 pm 2005  
Blogger Royston Anthony said...

my two-cents worth!

you know you are orthodox when you say 'for ages and ages.' instead of 'world without end.'

Sat Nov 19, 08:53:00 pm 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You know you're Orthodox when your kids are named after relatives in the Old Country and all have saints names.

Tue Sept 29, 10:54:00 am 2009  

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