Re: CHAT: Prayer Versions

>-Stephen (Steg), who hasn't gotten up to Christianity in his World
>Religions history class yet.
>
Alas! Rest assured that, when you get there, they won't tell you much about
Orthodoxy.  The lessons will be lopsidedly dominated by a west European
point of view that focuses almost exclusively on Roman Catholics and
Protestants.

Some things you might find interesting about the old USSR: the preservation
of Lenin's body was an attempt to imitate the miraculous preservation of the
bodies of some saints; the politburo was modeled after the Orthodox sobor or
synod, and the various republics represented there were the Soviet version
of dioceses; the Soviet voting procedure wherein the people either voted for
the official candidate or crossed out his name was modeled after the way the
church either approved or rejected a candidate for bishop by shouting Axios!
or Anaxios! (worthy or unworthy).  History textbooks won't tell you that,
because the western authors probably didn't know it!  A larger number of
Orthodox customs are perpetuated within Islam.    ~alypius