TUPELO, Miss. (AP) - Plenty of Christian traditions have their fondly held roots: the Presbyterians back to Scotland, the Catholics back to Rome, and so on. But the Orthodox Church is the root, the original church started by the Apostle Paul in the book of Acts.
“The divine liturgy and mass we hold has been the same for 2,000 years,” said Constance Kershe, a San Diego native now living in Tupelo. “There’s so much symbolism. It’s truly the church from the beginning.”
Tupelo is home to its own Orthodox congregation, St. Paul Orthodox Church. The congregation began with a select group gathering in each other’s living room, but has recently risen from the designation of mission to a fully recognized church under the Eastern Orthodox Diocese of Memphis.
“Orthodox churches are spread out all over the world, but we are still one,” said St. Paul member Paul Sudduth. “So when we read about ISIS beheading 22 Coptic Christians, those are our brothers.”
Father Don Berge is an Orthodox priest stationed in Hernando, but he ventures to Tupelo on Sundays to conduct services. Entering the worship space feels like a step back in time. Icons of saints cover the walls, and the warm smell of incense permeates the air.
“We don’t worship the saints, but we venerate them as the people who laid down the church for us,” Father Kersh said. “In the Orthodox faith, you’re baptized in the name of a saint, and given a portrait of that saint. That’s what’s so cool about this church in particular. Members brought the icons on our walls from their own homes.”
St. Paul is home to 28 families, but started with just a couple, including founding member Brad Thomas of Plantersville.
“I found an Orthodox community online, and they put me in touch with the diocese out of Memphis. We met in each other’s homes, at first,” Mr. Thomas said.
As the group grew, they began meeting in the extra space of a local hotel, even at the American Family Association for a time. When they came into their current space, two-thirds of the building’s segments were occupied by other businesses, but as tenants moved out, St. Paul’s bought up the vacant space and now commands the whole building.
“Before I found the Orthodox faith, I always felt something was missing,” Mr. Thomas said. “Boy, was I right.”
In a rapidly changing world, Mr. Thomas said, the Orthodox church has held fast to the original values that would eventually be termed “Judeo-Christian.” The church’s views are stern on divorce, homosexuality and abortion, as you might expect from an institution that began before 200 A.D.
After its inception, the church spread to form five major centers in Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, Alexandria, and Constantinople. Groups splintered off occasionally, but the Roman patriarch separated from the other four in what is known as the Great Schism in 1054. Rome’s head, the Pope, claimed supremacy over the other branches, but long-fuming differences in theology also contributed heavily to the split.
“The Orthodox churches still have patriarchs,” Father Berge said, “but they don’t function like the pope. They’re more like chairmen of the board.”
Even with so much history behind them, the members of St. Paul are much more concerned with the Orthodox church’s place in the present day.
Tupelo native and St. Paul member Ephraim Bowick said about half of the church’s members were converts. Mr. Bowick himself converted to Orthodox at age 16, having grown up in a predominantly Methodist background.
“It really couples your faith with history. Orthodoxy isn’t a denomination, it’s pre-denominational,” Mr. Bowick said. “What hooked me was that you have people from Finland, Russia, South America, who speak different language and live in radically different cultures. But their faith is the same.”
In addition to denominational converts, Mr. Bowick said the Orthodox church seems to attract a fair number of atheists and agnostics as well. Mr. Sudduth said he was such a case.
“My mother was Baptist. My father was Presbyterian,” he said. “I was confused. An Orthodox friend of mine used to argue all the time, and when he told me the church of Antioch still existed, I didn’t believe him. But he took me to a midnight Pascha service in Memphis in 2001. I’ve been Orthodox ever since.”
The Orthodox church’s mission now, Mr. Berge said, is to make its brand of faith more widely available in places like America, where it is still relatively scarce.
Though Orthodoxy is the second largest body of Christians in the world, numbering over 250 million followers, their biggest concentrations lie in Russia, Greece, Syria, as well as perhaps less-expected countries like Ethiopia and Japan.
Aside from the language, Father Berge said, the Orthodox service in Greece is the same worship service in Japan, the same service attended by Catherine the Great of Russia.
“The worship doesn’t change because the faith does not change,” he said.
For Athanasios Papadimitriov, who immigrated to Houston from Greece in 1997, St. Paul’s is a breath of home.
“There’s nothing better,” Mr. Papadimitriov said. “Good service, good people, anyone is welcome.”
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