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Advice on inquiring at my local parish with four young children

Call me Nic

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Hello all,

It's been a long time since I've posted anything on CF. The last time I was active on the site, I was a member of a Baptist church. Since then, things have changed for me in my faith and the Lord has led me in a new direction. That direction is to search out Orthodoxy. I want to visit my local parish with my family as an inquirer of the Church, which has been a couple years in the making if I'm being honest. A couple years ago, I made a friend from work that is Orthodox and had converted from a protestant denomination several years prior and when he invited me and my family, I visited the Parish he's apart of with my wife and three young children. For me, the Liturgy very much stood out and the way the worship occurred and was performed, it was very apparent to me that it is distinct and different from anything I had ever experienced before. There was a certain holiness to it that I had never before witnessed in my life, if that makes sense. The problem I had during that visit was that my children (which were four years old at the time), were very difficult to keep under control without disturbing the others during the service. It was one of the reasons my wife and I were ever hesitant to return, because we felt embarrassed and overwhelmed by that dynamic. The thing is that now I can't resist the fact that I've been called to return and inquire about the Church and having looked into the faith on my own since then, I've come to the conclusion that I have to pursue it - there are so many tenants and doctrines of the faith that have come to make complete sense to me. There are still a couple things I wrestle with doctrine wise, but ultimately, my wife and I have to visit and then meet with the father of the local parish where I live and start this path. The only problem is I'm anxious about visiting with my family. The last time we had only the three kids, but now we have four. The eldest three are 7, 6, and 6 years old, and the youngest is about 10 months. What are the common strategies for families such as mine that attend Liturgy? I don't ever want to be a disruption to the others during the service, and the strategy of coming late is not something that I would really prefer, especially being inquirers of the Church with the intention of starting down this path. Also, to be fair, now that the eldest three are older, they may behave better and more naturally, but I'm not sure since Liturgy tends to be way longer than any of the protestant services we have attended in the past. The parish I will be attending has a service that is about two and a half hours long.

From what I can tell the one that I will be attending is a smaller mission and so I'm not sure if they have a room dedicated for children that become angsty and bored or disruptive. Any advice, strategies or tips? My children will behave when we correct them, but only for so long since their attention spans are so short at that age. Having to continually correct them during the service is the part I'm particularly concerned about, even if I try to do it as quietly as possible.

Thank you in advance for your time and responses. :)
 

jas3

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In my experience - probably the most limited of anyone who'll respond to you in this forum, so I look forward to seeing what others have to say - it's generally accepted that kids are going to be a little restless, especially visitors' kids who aren't used to the length of the services, and similarly it's understood that you're going to have to correct them repeatedly. Just know that the other parents there know what you're going through and sympathize with you. It might be worth calling the priest and getting his advice on specific things to try as far as letting the kids take a break in the narthex, letting them have an activity book, etc.
 
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ArmyMatt

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reach out to the priest and let him know your situation so he can give you advice. then show up. don’t worry too much about kids being kids. they bless us with their holy noise.
 
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gzt

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I'm curious when you say the service is 2.5 hours -- it's normal for the liturgy to be 1.5-1.75 hours, 2 hours tops, and that would be unusual. Are you including matins/orthros in that? I'd really recommend that, if you have a pile of kids just getting used to going to church like this, that you focus on just the liturgy until they're more acclimated. Obviously if the local priest suggests otherwise you should follow his lead, but you have to start by biting off what you can chew.
 
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The Liturgist

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I'm curious when you say the service is 2.5 hours -- it's normal for the liturgy to be 1.5-1.75 hours, 2 hours tops, and that would be unusual. Are you including matins/orthros in that? I'd really recommend that, if you have a pile of kids just getting used to going to church like this, that you focus on just the liturgy until they're more acclimated. Obviously if the local priest suggests otherwise you should follow his lead, but you have to start by biting off what you can chew.

Actually a hierarchical divine liturgy is often two and a half hours, as is All Night Vigils of the sort ROCOR and other Slavonic churches prefer.

Also if one attends both Orthros and the Divine Liturgy in a Greek or Antiochian church that can amount to two and a half to three hours, depending on how abbreviated Orthros is.

I myself strongly support attending the Divine Office where possible, but what one sees in many churches with longer services is parents with young children showing up prior to the reading of the Gospel, which is often regarded as being sufficiently “on time” for communion, but one should always check with their priests.

By the way, canonical Old Rite Orthodox routinely have lituegies of four and five hours in duration, and are able to stand throughout them. An Orthodox visitor to Russia during Holy Week in the 16th century remarked at how the end of the Paschal Divine Liturgy, he and fellow members of his group were doubly elated, both about the Resurrection and about being freed of the obligation to stand for such lengths of time, and remarked “as for the Russians, their feet must surely be made of iron.”

The Western Rite Orthodox of the AWRV and ROCOR tend to have liturgies long by Western standards, but short by Orthodox standards, since most of their liturgies are based on the Roman Rite which is known for its brevity. However I am very thankful we have these, and also the Old Rite Orthodox, because I believe, as did St. John Maximovitch, that God can be truly glorified using the Western liturgies.

Among our Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian friends, and those of the Eastern Catholic churches, while Syriac and Armenian liturgies, Byzantine Rite Catholic liturgies, and those of the Assyrian Church of the East are the same length as a typical EO liturgy, the Copts have services which can be quite long, if one arrives for the Hours of the Agpeya and the Morning Raising of Incense, but like in an EO church numbers steadily increase. The Ethiopians have the longest services of any church in the world, with members standing in prayer for many hours at a time, and Parish feast days and Holy Week services can last 24 hours. In the US, a typical Sunday service begins at 6 AM and ends at noon. However the pattern of the congregation growing dramatically as the morning progresses holds true. However some Eastern Catholic churches such as the Maronite Catholics and Chaldean Catholics often have shorter liturgies than was historically the case, with the Maronite liturgy falling victim to excessive pruning post-Vatican II.

Fortunately nearly everyone now provides chairs for the elderly and also for people like me who are recovering from illness.
 
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gzt

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I mean sure, I'm quite familiar with hierarchical liturgies, but they're talking about the typical Sunday morning liturgy at their parish, which will fall in the parameters I listed almost everywhere.
 
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