Wednesday Night - Part II

As we made our way to St. Mark's from the Metro station, we walked along narrow streets that were lined with parked cars and people. Pretty much everyone on these streets were headed towards the church. St Mark's Cathedral consists of a fairly large campus that is surrounded by large walls. After walking around half of the outer walls, we finally found the entrance to the church campus. The entrance had two gates, one that was wide, and one that was narrow. We found this pretty funny and decided to take the narrow entrance because "the gate to hell is wide and the road that leads to it is easy, and there are many who travel it. But the gate to life is narrow and the way that leads to it is hard, and there are few people who find it" (Matt 7:13-14). Once inside the walls of the campus, we found ourselves walking through a sea of people. After wading into the waves of people we saw the great walls of the Cathedral lit up to our right. Many people were just hanging out in the courtyard, sitting on the steps or on the grass, seeming to have no intentions of entering the actual church. They appeared to be there for nothing more than the community of those around them. We continued on past them and entered the church.

As we entered the church, a woman who was sitting on a bench just inside the church jumped up and greeted us. She then proceeded to lead us to the middle isle where another man met us and walked us towards the front of the church. Once we got close to the front, we were introduced to an English speaking Egyptian man who took us to the front pews. Everyone was staring at us as we were seated. The pews we sat in were equipped with headphones so that the message could be translated into English for us. Directly in front of us stood the choir, made up of young adult men and women. To their left was a massive chair/throne for Pope Shenouda to sit in after he made his entrance. On the far right hand side of the stage was where all the Abunas sat during the service. Abunas are the Coptic equivalent of priests or pastors. Just before the service began, a blind man was led up to our pew and sat beside us. The atmosphere prior to the beginning of the service wasn't the least bit pensive. There were many technicians running around setting up their cameras and microphones and such. At any given point during the service there were between 15 and 20 broadcast quality video cameras recording portions of the service. These camera men (and the men chasing after them carrying the cables) were never the least bit discreet in their work.

The service began when Pope Shenouda entered from a door on the right. As he entered, everyone stood and clapped and cheered with enthusiasm. This wasn’t like a cheer after the end of a good worship song. No, it was more like the cheer people do when their favorite sports team scores a goal. All the video cameras swarmed around him during his entrance and followed him up to his seat on the stage. After he was seated the choir sang a number of songs for a good half hour. These songs were more of a performance than a leading of the congregation in worship. After each song was completed, the congregation would clap an average of about three or four times per person and then promptly quit. I don’t think anyone actually counts how many times they clap after each song, but it is for a noticeably short period of time. After the choir finished their performance, they went and stood in front of the pope and got their picture taken with him and a few of the abunas.

The next portion of the service was a question and answer period where Pope Shenouda answers questions that people have written on pieces of paper, or have emailed to him. It was at this point that the blind man sitting beside us picked up a microphone and started translating everything into English. We put on our headphones, and there he was, chatting away. I had a terrible pair of headphones during the Q&A session so all I heard was what sounded like someone Kazooing into a microphone. I put on another pair of headphones for the sermon at which point I realized that the translator was, in fact, speaking English, not Kazoolish. The sermon was about grace. It was long and repetitive. Watching how people engaged with the sermon was fairly interesting. One man was sitting at the front, facing us. He promptly fell asleep during the sermon. During the sermon, one of the Abunas walked in from the left side of the church and went to take his seat on stage. To get to his seat he had to walk by the man who was sleeping. As he approached the man, the sleeper jumped up from his seat, bowed down and kissed the hands of the Abuna. The oh so very tired man seemed very excited to see this abuna, so much so, that he promptly fell asleep after he completed this religious ritual of his. The end of the service came quite abruptly. Right after the pope finished speaking, everyone stood up, and a number of people started jumping over pews in an attempt to get to the front of the church near the pope. It was sudden and complete mayhem. Technicians were madly trying to wrap up all their chords and put away their equipment, all the while people were rushing around frantically trying to get who knows what from God’s chosen representatives. It was an interesting atmosphere. I hope to return during the daytime some day so that I can take pictures of the massive church, and hopefully, St. Athanasius’ shrine.