In Awe of Worship

Today I got the chance to tour an Orthodox cathedral in Russia.  It was amazing…there really are no words to describe it. I wish I could have taken photos, but the photos wouldn’t have done it justice anyway.  I’ll try to paint a picture with my words instead. 

When you walk in, there is a small room to get dressed properly, including women covering their heads and men wearing long pants.  Once you enter through the main doors, you enter into a full-body worship experience.  The smells of the incense fill the room.   The candles remembering each saint burn bright.  Every single inch of every wall is covered in decorative paintings and gold leaf.

As you walk to the main altar, you see a vast number of saints’ photos lining the walls of the front of the cathedral.  All of these saints have their heads pointed towards a giant painting of God, about 4x the size of the other paintings.  Above this is a painting of Jesus’ crucifixion, with 2 disciples looking at the cross.  In the space between God and Jesus are murals of Jesus’ life story, especially his miracles and parables.  Each painting in the whole cathedral is separated by elaborate gold trim, with intricate designs specifically carved into the gold. In addition to the front of the cathedral, this care and design is shown throughout the whole building, with walls stretching 50 feet high, at least 4 domes, pillars decorated with gold, and many different altars and icons to remember the saints.  To say this place of worship is spectacular and awe-inspiring would be an understatement. 

I stood at the front of the cathedral for about 5 minutes, just admiring the beauty.  It has been a long time since I have been so in awe of a place of worship.  The design and intricacy of the building, the smells, the dress code, and the clear desire for a full body experience every time a person (tourist or worshipper) steps into the building was astounding.  Everything about the place of worship showed how important their religion was to them.

And then I thought about the churches I have worshipped in before.  I thought about the design of the building: none of it was decorated as intricately. I thought about the dress code: I often would wear shorts or not my nicest clothes.  I thought about the songs we were singing: shallow lyrics with a modern rock band don’t often inspire awe among the congregation.  And I thought about how we were acting in that worship space: how many times have we checked our cell phones during the message, or fallen asleep, or started thinking about the ten million other things to do that day? 

Where have we Americans lost this awe-inspiring form of worship?  It saddened me to see how we have shifted so far away from the care in worship of our European brothers.  Every time I walk into a cathedral like this one I am filled with awe, yet very rarely in our modern, American churches do I have this feeling.  In our quest to be relevant, we have missed the awesomeness of God. 

I’m not sure how to change this, while still drawing people into a church.  These kinds of cathedrals may not hold as much meaning for everyone, just as some hymns are hard to connect with.  But today, I was really challenged by that cathedral, and I walked out of there feeling an awe and reverence for God that I haven’t felt in a long time. 

What can we do to present this same feeling every American worship service?  I don’t know.  We clearly can’t rebuild our churches.  But I do know that God is awesome, and he deserves the reverence shown in this cathedral, every day. 

Whether you are in a large cathedral, or just in your home, take some time to reflect on the beauty and power of God today- His power is always there, we just have to realize it.      

Luke Forshey

June 21, 2017