Saint Anna Greek Orthodox Church

 Saint Anna Greek Orthodox Church in Sandy. Named for the mother of the Virgin Mary who is referred to as Anne in other Christian traditions.

Modern looking on the outside, inside it was being renovated, the carpet was stripped so concrete floors. There were icons and candles and incense, I wasn't comfortable with taking pictures inside the sanctuary.

Matins begins at 8, which is basically psalm singing by the priests and select others. Your supposed to arrive for the 9 am Divine Liturgy service at some point during this hour, though people continued to arrive after that past. When I arrived at around 8:48 there were maybe 20 people in the sanctuary, there was probably around 100 by the end of service. Attendees skewed older and female, but a healthy mix of family's, some of the children were at Church camp in Colordo. Many of the attendees, unsurprisingly, looked very Greek. Parishioner dress mostly semi formal. There was a choir, also dressed semi formal.

The priest faced away from the congregation for most of the service, like old school Catholics.

Musky incense smell, place was hot, AC out, they had fans going. The ceiling was exposed metal, bars, beams and such. Unnaturally faux fancy chandeliers hung there from.

Acapelia singing, there was a keyboard present but it was just used to set pitch.

The seats were among the comfiest I have encountered at a church yet, though they were largely a ruse. I would nickname this "Standing Church." Early on everyone around me started standing so I started standing and stayed standing for the next hour and 8 minutes, save for 3 short breaks, the longest of which was maybe 90 seconds. It was exhausting. (Some older people, young children and a pregnant woman sat more often.)

I'm usually not very critical of the services I visit but this was probably the least fun so far. It didn't really offer me anything, lots of standing, chanting type singing (which I like less then Christan rock), recitations, for most of it the priest talked in a ritual cadence that was hard to follow.

The communion portion started about 10:05 with the hosts being paraded around the sanctuary, along with a big gold cross, a gold dish thing, incense; by alter boys, priest and some others all in white robes. Your supposed to always be facing these emblems so you turn to follow them as they move around the room. 

After that you can sit. Most took this sacrament, I of course did not. Priest uses a ladel to spoon feed recipients the wine from an urn like container, then they were given the bread (it looked rather fluffy) to consume on their way back to there seats. This whole process starring with the proceasion took around a dozen minutes. The sermon didn't start until 10:17, lasted about 9 minutes, then 3 or so minutes of announcements (the Bishops coming next week), the congregation dismissed though most came up front again for what looked like a dab of Holy Water on the forehead. There may have been food or something outback because most people were exiting that way, but I went out the front to head home and lie down.

In a rarity nobody greeted me at any point while I was there.

The priest looked Bruce McGill or Glenn Beck like. Sermon used the geological concept of Pangea for a metaphor about the church breaking up, divisons in the church. He talked about the 4th Ecumenical Council (451 AD) which formally made Constantinople 2nd to Rome in authority, paving the way for later break. He talked about some obscure sounding distinction as to the degree to which God can be said to be of one substance, this theological disagrment (which I couldn't follow) apparently still divides the Greek Orthodox from other Orthodox sects like the Coptics and Armenians. He closed with the hope that eventually the other groups would get on the correct page about this and restore unity.

While the last bit was interesting,  for the most part the service was tough to stand through. The phrase "Let us be attentive" was used alot during the Liturgy, probably because of the temptation to zone out. It felt like the service was less about pence for sinning then penance for sitting. I might be willing to go to a different type of Orthodox service in the future, or one in a more ornate bundling, but I don't think I'll go to another service at Saint Anna's.

 https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/believing-adoption/

 

Through a Glass Darkly

Trying to Understand the Scriptures

https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/through-a-glass-darkly-trying-to-understand-the-scriptures/

 Several weeks ago I was in downtown Salt Lake and decided to stop in at the Church History Library (not to be confused with the Family History Library or the Church History Museum). When I was last there several years ago they had a display of documents related to The Book of Abraham. There were different documents on display this time and as is too often the case with Church sites I wasn't able to just look around on my own, but was intercepted by a (senior) missionary who inisted on showing me around and giving me the spiel.

Some of the documents on display were related to the 'translation' and publication of the Book of Mormon. The missionary described the translation process as being accompliahed by Joseph peering into a "hat like object." I thought to myself "hat like object?". Can a hat correctly be described as a "hat like object" when it is in fact just a hat? 

The missionary gave me a little guide book that talked about the various documents on display. In the entry on the original Book of Mormon manuscript the text talks about how most of that document was destroyed by water damage, having been improperly sealed in a buildings corner stone. This corner stone was in the 'Nauvoo House', which it describes as "a place appointed by revelation for the lodging of vistors." This awkward phrasing seems a way to get around the less flattering and more straight forward: 'Joseph put this sacred document in a poorly insulated corner stone of a hotel he owned because he got the Church membership to build it for him.' Ironically the Church has never been more honest about its history then it is now.

An Introduction to 'Under the Banner of Heaven'

 Making some waves in certain circles recently is the new HULU limited series 'Under the Banner of Heaven'. Based on the 2003 non fiction book of the same name by Jon Krakauer, of 'Into the Wild' and 'Into Thin Air' fame. UTBOH uses the story of a relugiously motivated double murder in 1984 Utah, as a jumping off point for a larger discussion of religious excess, with Mormonism as its case study.

The new mini series was adapted by Oscar winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (Milk) himself a former Mormon. Black insertes into the story a fictional LDS detective played by Andrew Garfield as an audiance surrogate figure.

Like the book before it the series has not been well recived by many in the broader Mormon community, which comprises a large number of Church's that trace their origins back to the teachings of Joseph Smith and The Book of Mormon. The Salt Lake City based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is by far the largest of these denominations.  

Our intent is to discuss the series as both entertainment, and to examin some of the historical, social and religious issues on which it touches.

 Eugene England Essays 

 So one of my ongoing reading projects is classic books about Mormonism. I recently finished sociologist Thomas F. O'Dea's 1950's tome 'The Mormons', which is perhaps best remembered for what it doesn't talk about, it's a "comprehensive" study of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that doesn't mention the black priesthood or temple bans, or black people at all. It doesn't appear to have occurred to O'Dea as being a subject worth mentioning. 

Still the book was long the classic introduction to Mormonism by and for a non-Mormon audience. A collage level text but meant for a general and literate audience, it is at least in its early chapters, perhaps the best written and least boring introduction to the Church which I have encountered. There are three things in it I'd like to point out: 

1) The book mentions how Joseph Smith was sealed to the spouses of close associates, something I don't think the Church officially acknowledge unit the online essays in 2013 & 2014, O'Dea's 'The Mormons' was published in 1957. So much of Church history is just hidden in plane sight. 

2) O'Dea makes extensive use of another researchers study of Mormon activity rates from 1949, according to that study only around half of the church membership was active and participating mid Century.  Recent numbers I saw for the present day indicates its somewhere between 25% and 37% with the higher number being a very generous interpretation. Unlike most denominations the LDS give their membership numbers based on members on the rolls, not active participants so activity rates must be estimated by ward sizes, number of priesthood holders with callings, ect.  

3) In the section where O'Dea is speculating on the challenges the Church will face in the future he predicts that the biggest source of stress on the institution will be its more intellectually inclined members, spot one sixty years early.