It is easy to misinterpret Christianity as a religion like any other but Fr. Lawrence maintains it is unique.

I sometimes cannot help asking myself three liturgical questions whenever I visit churches which serve the Liturgy in the “classic” pattern I learned in seminary—all of those questions quite rhetorical.

In the Gospel reading Christ even now stands in our midst to speak to our hearts.

We regard it as “Scripture”, a holy text, and of course it is. But it is also a personal letter addressed and written to people other than ourselves.

In the original usage, the Trisagion was sung as a refrain to Psalm 80. The cantor would chant verses of the psalm as all walked in procession and the people sung the Trisagion hymn as its refrain after every verse.

I sometimes cannot help asking myself three liturgical questions whenever I visit churches which serve the Liturgy in the “classic” pattern I learned in seminary—all of those questions quite rhetorical.

In the Gospel reading Christ even now stands in our midst to speak to our hearts.

We regard it as “Scripture”, a holy text, and of course it is. But it is also a personal letter addressed and written to people other than ourselves.

In the original usage, the Trisagion was sung as a refrain to Psalm 80. The cantor would chant verses of the psalm as all walked in procession and the people sung the Trisagion hymn as its refrain after every verse.

The decrees and canons of the Provincial and Ecumenical Councils today often sound odd in our modern ears.