A Night with Women from the Greek Orthodox Church

An  experienced that happened in early November of 2012 in Amman, Jordan:  

               The Christian world in the Middle East has continued to be a foreign subject to me regarding my studies and exposure. After last week’s experience with the Coptic Church, I was able to see a church setting much differently than my own and come to the conclusion that there were some similarities between the Islam and Christianity in how sacred some things are. People’s mentality towards things can be similar but in the Middle East it seems that strong practicing Muslim and Christian women’s mentalities are very different.

                Turns out a group of BYU students have been going to the Greek Orthodox, Church of Our Lady, on a weekly basis to their week night Sunday school type of class, maybe more equivalent to an LDS institute class. They would go to practice their Arabic and learn more about the Christian culture. This particular night no one could go but one of the BYU girls. She couldn’t go alone so she invited me to head on out. It also was supposed to be their Halloween party. We show up to the church and quickly notice it is not a Halloween party (lucky I just used my scarf from Scotland as my costume) and rather a normal class similar to the class I went to at the Coptic church but there seemed to be many more people and the father was speaking into a microphone so that everyone could hear him. My friend Sally and I sat near the back after she looked for her friends but to no avail, she couldn’t find them.

               

                The sermon was about a huge array of topics. Some of the topics included doing good unto others and following the example of Christ. You could tell that everyone appreciated the Father very much because each time someone spoke with a comment or a question they would express gratitude for the Father. The chairs that Sally and I sat in were almost like thrones, a large wooden chair with arm rests. Turns out instead of pews, each chair was like this with not too much room between you and the chair in front of you. When the sermon was done, Lucy’s two women friends found her and began talking to her. Lucy introduced me to them and they seemed to cling to me as close as they could without touching me. While sitting in my throne like chair, they stood right in front of me so I couldn’t stand up or leave if I wanted to. In the Middle East, I have learned to keep a large bubble around me when it came to women, I would not allow them to get near me and me near them. This bubble that I have spent two months building was popped and I couldn’t do anything about it. I almost felt physically violated because their legs were right next to mine and I couldn’t do anything about it. They continued to stand in front of me as they talked to others around them. And to my dismay, the Father showed up and wanted to greet me. I wanted to meet him and speak with him but not in this setting. So I lifted my hand up over the person sitting next to me and we shook hands from a far distance. I was surprised he didn’t mention anything to the women and their distance next to my legs. I finally had to ask them to move so I could get up.

               

                These two women then wanted to invite Lucy and I out to coffee and tea at a restaurant type of setting. Lucy and I agreed but it seemed to take about 40 minutes to finally leave the church because the two women, including my friend Lucy were busy talking to people of both gender, hugging and farewell kissing non-stop. Lucy and I rode with one of the girls to this more modern café house. The two women were more free in there dress, shoulders were showing, lower cut shirts and they let their hair hang loose. This is again the opposite of the conservative Muslims that I have met, they reminded me a lot of normal American women with their appearance. I do not feel that these women were the type that you would consider “loose” but were at more liberty to dress the way they wanted and to speak with who they wanted. During our discussion at the café while they drank their coffee and Lucy and I our shakes, they both vocally mentioned they wanted to marry American men. I wasn’t sure that was a hint or not to me but it sure they liked how American men are more forward in wanting to date and having a relationship than Arab men are. They were fairly attractive women in their mid-30’s and seemed to love to gossip. Shortly after getting our drinks, another group of Lucy’s friends showed up and these two women kept to themselves. I was able to hear their speaking topics which were about the other girl’s clothes, how she was still single, and how she wore glasses. Honestly, I think they were jealousy of her because the other girl that just joined us, though maybe not as pretty as the other two girls, she seemed to be much more confident and happy. After a long two hours in this café we finally left without getting a ride from the one that gave Lucy and I a ride back so we took a taxi.

                This was a whole new perspective to women in a different social setting. I have met a good handful of Christian women from Jordan, most of them were Greek Orthodox, and they all seem to be fairly independent women. These two women seemed to be the rare of the rare in their interactions with me. I am not offended or upset, almost rather more amused by their interactions because they were so different than what I had expected to be the case. Though they may have been on the extreme side it was a good picture of the difference between a conservative Muslim woman and a Christian woman. The Christian women are more open in what they want to say, they dress more freely and don’t seem to have the pressure to get married or date like that Muslims do, or so it seems from this situation. 

Coptic Church in Amman

An account while I was in Jordan in October 2012

                The other night a group of me and a few other BYU students decided to go to a Coptic church. There was a rumor that they were having a service on Thursday night. Fridays are the day for Sabbath day worship so I thought this was a bit odd but I decided to go either way.

I had ever been to a Coptic church before but I have heard much and studied very little about them. As one of my bosses is Coptic, I hear things periodically but she is not a strong Coptic in the sense of actual practice. I also had read much about them in the news regarding Egypt. Often times it is about the Coptic’s events dealing with Muslims in Egypt; most of the time they are not good events. The Coptic religion originates and is mostly found in Egypt.  Regarding the Arab Spring, Christians and Muslims united together to overthrow the Mubarak Regime. There was peace and alliance but just a few weeks prior to the beginning of the Arab Spring there were bombings in Coptic churches to probably incite revolts and a battle for a sense of control. Now, almost 2 years after the fall of Mubarak, Christians and Muslims are back at it with each other. The Coptic Church has many similarities with other churches. It has its own pope, the Coptic language is used during services and they can claim origin to the early apostles of the New Testament.

As we arrived to the Coptic church building I noticed that it was near the brand new, almost multiplex style, mosque. The mosque was beautiful, across the street from it was a large but simple church. The church building stood about 40-50 feet tall with a Christmas light lit up cross on the top of its highest point. We walked around the street trying to find a gate to get into the church grounds. I thought it was odd the church had walls around it but then I realized the mosque across the street had walls and that most of my own church buildings in the in the States had walls. It took a few Muslims who were crossing the street from the mosque to tell us where the gate was to get in. Turned out there was a little slot you can put your hand in to pull the lever to open the door but we didn’t realize this until after we had to call over for a person to open the door for us. This individual that opened the door was fully robed in priest clothes and had salt and pepper colored beard. The beard probably was a foot long and a half foot cap topped his head. He didn’t seem to want to say much to us at this time because he pointed us in the direction where we should go and then went back to sit on his chair. On our way out, we saw him sitting next to a younger male member and seemed to be speaking Coptic to him, almost like bestowing a blessing upon the young man.

As we walked closer to the main door, you could look inside and see lights and even candles lit inside. We were pretty nervous at first, we weren’t sure if we should knock or just open the door. Out of our group I decided to just open the door and walk in. As soon as I opened the door you could feel like you stepped back about 1000 years. The church, though had modern paintings, it was filled with cascade windows and arches. The doors were of the finest large wood carvings I have ever seen. The pews of the church were more modern, you could see scriptures written in Arabic from the New Testament written on the back side. Each pew had its own scripture.  There was about a group of 20 people listening to a man sit in the front dressed in business casual. It seemed all of the others there were dressed in business casual attire, including the women. The women were not veiled and even spoke more openly than I’ve seen Muslim women in social settings. The person giving the sermon we later found out was a visitor from Egypt, we could tell he was from Egypt because of his Egyptian Arabic dialect. It was kind of refreshing to hear it because that was the dialect I was taught in school. I sat down behind the others listening in and I found myself not paying too much attention to the sermon being given but more rather to the art work. It seemed that there were pictures of many of the notable prophets in the bible everywhere they could find a place to paint. Each prophet seemed to look about the same, white beards, old looking (some young), and carrying a scroll (probably scripture). A few had certain key symbols with them, for example, Moses was carrying a staff and two tablets. In the front, there was a pew and a wood wall that didn’t reach the top (the vaulted ceilings were about 40-50 feet high). On this wood wall was a spot for each of the twelve apostles and in the center top was a large wooden statue of Jesus Christ. There also was a miniature statue of Jesus Christ in the center of the priest’s area and then on the left side of the wood wall. Overall, the church was very beautiful with amazing artwork all around.

We were obviously late to the sermon but we weren’t the only ones. Two young Arabs came walking in down one of the aisles between the pews. They walked up where the priest’s area begins and took their sandals off where the step begins. They stepped up and began to cross themselves which I thought was the normal but then they knelt and began to pray similar to how a Muslims prays in the mosque. I was really confused because I thought for a moment that these were Muslims coming to pray in the church, almost to make a point against the Christians but this was not the case at all. After kneeling and putting their heads to ground for a few seconds, they got back up and crossed themselves again. Then they went and kissed both of the smaller statues of Jesus Christ and then each chose a picture of an apostle and kissed that. I think one kissed Paul and the other kissed Thomas. They then went near the entrance and each lit a candle and placed it in the appropriate spot of sand located at just below eye level in a circular tub.

Another member who was observing the sermon then handed us envelopes with the church’s name on the envelope. We of course took them but then after it was handed to us, we noticed that this was for the sake of paying offerings. One of the military guys with us paid five dinar but the rest of us did not.

The sermon was done (finally), it seemed to have lasted a total of two hours, an hour before and after we arrived. After the sermon, each of the members there were so anxious to speak to us! They wanted to ask us where we were from, why we’re in Jordan, and most importantly, to have us over for coffee and tea for next week’s sermon. The fellowship they were lending us reminded me of the type of fellowship we as Latter-day Saints had done. It was quite interesting to see how much they similar to us in this aspect. Coptics are primarily from Egypt so most of the people there were from Egypt but a small hand few were from Armenia. Most Armenians will say they go to the Armenian Church and never anything else so it makes me wonder if these Armenians were going for another reason.

This was my first experience with a Christian church in the Middle East. It was interesting to see another Christian church in a different culture where Christianity isn’t the most practiced religion. The Christians seemed to mix a lot of their practices with the Muslims. The act of prayer that the two young Arab men did at the beginning seemed too similar to what a Muslim would do when he first enters a mosque and begins to pray. Christianity was fairly established in the Holy Land when Islam came around and I wonder if maybe Islam took similar practices from Christianity. The idea of respect for the sacred area seems to be universal between the two religions. It also seemed that being a Christian, no matter what sect you were, was just as good as any other sect.