Holy Week in Khakasia

"What do we need to do?"

  This is the question I run into very frequently in all sort of areas of congregational life...but none more so than in the area of worship and ritual. I'm not sure how much of it has to do with the "hardening" of various norms that took place during the church's underground (and later semi-official) existence in the Soviet era and how much of it has to do with the "folk Orthodoxy" shared by many of our neighbors here, a piety that is very rule-based (while at the same time, ironically, not usually very serious about following all of the rules). In any case people are concerned that they do the "right thing"... ad are usually pretty sure that the solution be in the singular. 

  For that reason there is a certain barrier to working on renewing worship here. Church leaders recently dealt with the issue at a seminar for extension students in Novosaratovka, while during Holy Week I had the opportunity to work on this issue "on the ground" as I visited south central Siberia. 

 

With confirmands in Bograd

Palm Sunday in Kuragino

 The region's four viable congregations and other preaching points are served by three dedicated, competent lay ministers who continually seek out ways to improve their ministry skills and to gain knowledge that will help them fulfill their responsibilities. Together with them and Area Dean Vladimir Vinogradov, we decided that it would be good if I could visit them in order to provide them with some additional pastoral support and to introduce them to some of the options for enhancing liturgical worship during this special time of the year. 

  Maybe it's their Montana-like landscapes, maybe it's the people's warmth, but I always feel a bit like I'm coming home when I visit Khakasia. I was privileged to interact with them in an intense week of worship services, theological discussions, Bible study and planning for the future. The preachers, who now have mastered the basics of leading worship, were surprised and excited to hear about the ways our services can be enhanced or altered  on Lenten holy days. They saw and their congregations saw, as I had hoped, that a renewed experience of worship can help us feel closer to the events that took place in Christ's life and bring us deeper into our sense of what that all has to do with our lives.

  I hope that after this seminar lay leaders can feel more confident so that we might dream together of asking not "what do we need to do?" but "what might we be able to do?" 

Zoya Heintse, the region's coordiator, leading worship.