9 October 2014

Over three weeks now since I arrived in Albania.  As written earlier, I worshiped at Durrës Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Paul and Saint Astius two Sundays back. Earlier last week, a colleague of mine told me that she had met a woman at the gym whose husband is the pastor of a Reformed Presbyterian church. She wanted to know if I was interested in attending church there. I was. The worship at the Orthodox church was very moving and I am glad I had that experience. However, 3 hours is a bit long even for me! Especially when it is all in a language you cannot understand. I mean, my brain was crying out for some way to be involved in worship.

So my colleague got me the number of the pastor, Albert (Berti) Kona, and I contacted him during the week, and found where the church is located. It is somewhat further from my apartment than the Orthodox church, perhaps about 1 km away. The church, being more contemporary than the Orthodox church, has a website. Yes, it is all in Albanian, but you can use Google’s translate feature to read it all in English.

What struck me first was that Kisha Reformuar, Durrës (Reformed Church, Durrës) was not located in a building on its own, unlike the Orthodox church. It is what one could call a ‘storefront church’, the worship center being one unit among several units in a building. I have nothing against storefront churches. In fact, Christalaya, Koramangala could count as a storefront church since there is a school on the ground floor and residences on the second. And I have had some of my best worship experiences at Christalaya. Still the contrast between a cathedral, with its architecture and planning and orientation, and a storefront, which has to fit into preexisting structures was stark.

The second thing that struck me was the inside. Unlike the ornate inside of the Orthodox church, this church, in true Protestant style, was minimalist. At the front were curtains draped open. These were non-functional as the curtain rods did not extend across the room. There was no cross and no altar. Only a pulpit stood in the front, revealing the centrality of the pulpit and the sermon in the Protestant traditions, based on the principle of ‘sola scriptura’ (by scripture alone). In contrast the Orthodox church did not even have a pulpit and the homily was delivered from among the people. The contrast between the spartan decor of the Presbyterian church and the sensuous surroundings of the Orthodox church could not be missed. (Please note that I am not elevating either of these, just pointing out a remarkable contrast.)

Since I would not follow most of what was said, given that it would be in Albanian, Berti gave me an order of worship translated into English and a copy of a sermon on Psalm 139, the text on which he was going to base his sermon on the omniscience of God.

The service started with a call to worship and a short prayer, much like in most Protestant churches. Then came the Hymn, “Come Thou, Almighty King”. I had taken a copy of the order in Albanian as well and I tried to sing in Albanian since I knew the words of the hymn. It was quite a task, remembering the English meanings, but reading a Latin script text that had to be pronounced like the Albanians pronounce it and keeping time with the congregation. (An example of different pronunciation is the letter ‘q’, which in Albanian is pronounced as a soft ‘ch’, like in chicken.) I stumbled and stuttered through it, but it gave me an insight into how the musical meter works in Albanian and this helped me in the second hymn.

After the first hymn was the confession of faith. This was quite out of the ordinary. Most churches use either the Nicene Creed or the Apostles’ Creed as the confession of faith. In rare occasions some churches use the Athanasian creed, its length probably the reason for its rare usage. Here we recited a creed that I have never seen before, one based on Philippians 2.5-11.  While the passage from Philippians probably itself was originally an early creed, what we read this Sunday was a creed based on this passage. The lack of a mention of the Holy Spirit is likely why this passage was never used as a basis for any of the creeds developed after the various Trinitarian controversies and so I found it quite surprising that a creed based on this passage was being used.

Following this the sermon text (Psalm 139) was read and then came the sermon. Berti spoke for about half an hour, mostly in Albanian, throwing in some English words for my benefit. Due to the similarity between Albanian and Italian, and my slight knowledge of Latin (from which Italian is derived) I was able to follow his thoughts and ideas for the most part. Of course, the details were lost on me. But I did recognize the words “liberal” and “conservative” spoken often. And Berti seemed to be making a distinction between the “conservative” belief in the omniscience of God and the “liberal” belief that God does not know all things. More about this in another post.

After the sermon came the second hymn, a hymn I have never heard before. And it was translated into Albanian and sung in Albanian. So, while I was better with the pronunciation, as mentioned earlier, I kept tripping over the melody. Oh well, in time I guess all elements will fall in place. The service closed with a short prayer and benediction as in most Protestant churches.

The main impression I had from the service was that this was directed almost entirely to the intellect. And since I was not able to understand huge chunks of it, I was not drawn in as much as I had been at the Orthodox church, which was directed at the senses. The senses were deprived this Sunday and the brain could not be involved fully and so worship was truly very difficult. Reflecting back on my own sermons, I am immensely thankful to the worship teams (at Glendale Presbyterian Church, North University Park Church, and Christalaya) for filling in the sensory lack that would have been created by my cerebral messages.

After reflecting on my experiences in these two churches with such remarkably different foci, I realize that there is a worship place for all sorts of people. One tradition just cannot provide a worshipful experience to all the kinds of humans there are. And so, in my view, the different traditions are there so that we finite people can find some place where the strings of our hearts are plucked by a tradition that has a focus appropriate to the personality with which God has blessed us.

Alas, this is not how most of us view the various denominations. But that is the topic for my next post!