Father,

What is the location of that train car turned church? Just curious.
Kathy Hanneman | 06.11.09 - 11:04 am | #

OK... I just gotta know where that train/church lives.
d.burns | 06.11.09 - 12:17 pm | #

Russia. Click the link at the end of the post (above) that says "Pic Source."
Fr Joseph Huneycutt | Homepage | 06.11.09 - 2:52 pm | #

Father bless,
My small, poor parish is trying to build a church at this time, and funds are low. Like your previous small parish, we, too, will probably be using an oversized garage for a while. I'll be sure to insist on having several screened windows installed to avoid your horrifying experience.
Angela
Angela | 06.13.09 - 6:13 pm | #

Does the Orthodox Church make use of a pall in their liturgy to prevent flies and such from flying into the wine? Perhaps this is one Latinization you should adopt in order to prevent such things from happening.

PS: Do you have any pictures of this chapel from teh inside. The Russian Orthodox Church has a boat chapel that goes from village to village. I remember going to Mass in Holland on a small boat chapel that would use the water ways to visit towns. Very cool! It was named after St. Nicholas (of course).

For pall info:
http://www.stjosephlnk.org/vessels2.htm
Andrew | 06.14.09 - 12:08 am | #

Thanks, Andrew. But, having served as an Episcopal priest before converting to Orthodoxy, I'm familiar with palls, veils, etc. (However, back when I was Episcopalian a fly would never have been allowed in church! My, how things have changed.)

Yes, Orthodox priests often place one of the folded coverings over the Chalice to help prevent such occurrences. Would that I had that day ...

As to the inside of the train car chapel -- click on the link at story's end that says "Pic Source".
Fr Joseph Huneycutt | Homepage | 06.14.09 - 7:26 am | #

Of, there are also the fans, the original purpose of which was to keep flying insects away from the Bread and Wine (as described in the Apostolic Constitutions).
FrGregACCA | Homepage | 06.14.09 - 9:56 am | #

Yes, of course. It was, as should be obvious, the negligent priest who was the culprit here. Not the flies.

(That said, I don't believe we had the fans yet in that 3-car cathedral.)
Fr Joseph Huneycutt | Homepage | 06.14.09 - 10:11 am | #

He's the Little Priest of My Single Wide Mission with the plywood iconostasis and dixie (cup) litya set.Let's bring three prosfora for the antidoron dish n' we'll say christos anesti to father redneck.
Andrew from Canada | 06.26.09 - 12:00 am | #

Seriously, could you not bury the flies????

I mean you don't lick the Cup do you? You rinse it out with water and the water is drained out into the earth, right? How about cloths that become stained with the wine. You don't suck the stains out, right?

heh heh. While I am having a bit of affectionate ecumenical fun with you here, its still a serious question. Surely there has to be some other approved option than eating the flies! Ewwww!
Anglican Peggy | 06.26.09 - 12:53 am | #

Anglican Peggy ... you're thinking too much!

Actually, the chalice is cleaned twice with wine, once with water -- all consumed, then wiped. (The water is nearly boiling.)

Communion napkins are washed, by hand, by the priest ... with the waters poured into the ground.

But, as you know, if you have to 'splain it, it ain't funny. So, on that note, just curious: Is there a Fly Funeral Rite available in any of your Anglican service books?
Fr Joseph Huneycutt | Homepage | 06.26.09 - 7:05 am | #

Your story about the flies, Father, brings to mind a similar story about bees. It's from the book that's the source of my online moniker: "The Death of Kyralessa", written by a Romanian Orthodox priest and author, Fr. Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu. Kyralessa is the name of a village in the book. (The terminology in the translation is somewhat Roman Catholicized.) With any luck, perhaps the flies recovered and had a similar experience:


"Like the peasant houses, the church is made of wood, but it is shaped like a clover leaf. Over the entrance there is an icon, at the bottom of which the traces of an inscription are still visible, although covered with paint: 'Church of the Holy Bees of Kyralessa.' That's the name of the church. And originally the painting on the panel showed a group of bees, some of them in religious dress, building a church, working with the tools of carpenters and masons, painters and goldsmiths.

"The icon represents an event that took place at Kyralessa. A long time ago the church stood on the banks of the Ozana, next to the bridge and the mill. One day after a violent summer rain, the river was so swollen that it swept away bridge, mill, and church. After that, Mass was celebrated in the open, on the site of the old church. One day a bee flew over the altar, and, while the priest was giving Communion to the faithful, it took a Pearl--a fragment of the consecrated Host--and flew away with it. Everybody was aghast. Normally the host is protected by a special cover, the rhipidia. But now there was no rhipidia; the river had carried away everything. Everybody was frightened of the consequences that might follow, for only the lips and tongue of man can touch a consecrated Host or a fragment of it. Canon law prescribes that if a crumb of the Host falls to the ground, the priest must pick it up, not with his fingers, but with his tongue. Then he must clean the spot on which the Host has laid by licking it. Often a fire is lit on the spot and then a shrub or tree is planted on it, or it is covered by a tile, so that no human foot might step on it. And now a sacred Pearl had ended in the mouth of a bee! The villagers were horrified.

"Then one day the Pearl was found. The bee that had taken it had deposited it in the center of its hive. Around this Pearl, as around an altar, the bees had built a miniature wax church. Then, knowing that they were not worthy of living in the same hive as God, they had left the beautiful little church on which they had lavished their wonderful skill, wax, and honey. When the villagers discovered the wax sanctuary with the fragment of Host inside it, they sold all their wheat, corn, eggs, sheep, and draperies, and with the money thus obtained, they built a church on the hillside, on the spot where the bees had built the wax church, which they took as their model and incorporated into the altar. That's how the church came by its name."


"The Death of Kyralessa" is a hard-to-find book, but delightful and well worth reading if you ever run across a copy. It's the first book I read that gave me a sense of the Orthodox ethos, not just as a set of theological principles but as a way of life.
Kyralessa | 07.08.09 - 10:34 pm | #

In the pre-Vatican II liturgy, missals for priest contained laws for EVERY thinkable occurrence. I do not remember the fly part. But ask a Trad Cath priest if he has one such missal to lend, will you?
Hans-Georg Lundahl | Homepage | 07.11.09 - 7:17 am | #

No thanks.
Fr Joseph Huneycutt | Homepage | 07.11.09 - 9:05 am | #