The Syriac Orthodox Church

This little Church dedicated to St. Mark is built atop one of the supposed sites of the Last Supper. In this case the “Upper Room” is down a flight of stairs under the chapel. The Syriac Orthodox Church had its founding under Peter in Antioch and has the oldest surviving liturgy of any Christian Church. Indeed, it was at Antioch that believers were first called “Christian.” See Luke 11:25 (I think—I don’t have my bible here). The liturgy is in Syriac Aramaic, which is significant because Aramaic was the common language of the entire eastern Mediterranean during the early Roman Empire, and thus would have been the language that the Lord spoke in Palestine. In the Church we were sadly too late for prayers, but we met Justine, the caretaker, who was a stout little woman of about sixty, who took us inside the chapel, unlocking the doors from a large ring of keys at her belt, and drawing back the red and gold emblazoned curtain to let us see the altar. She bade us sit on a bench while she gave us, in enthusiastic and slurring English, a history of her beloved Church. I made the faux paux of crossing my legs in the Church as we sat, which brought a stern reprimand—I now know one never crosses ones legs in an Orthodox Church, nor ever show the bottom of your shoes to a Muslim. Live and learn. Justine, among other things, told us of many miracles which have occurred in the Church in history before the altar of the Virgin Mary, off to the side, including, according to her account, an event of speaking in tongues a year ago and at about the same time an appearance of the Savior to a woman from France in the underground “Upper Room.” The event of the appearance is secondhand, as the Frenchwoman told her through translation. Her description of the event of speaking in tongues is more interesting, as she was one of the participants. She said that she speaks Syriac, Hebrew and English. One day a Russian man came into the church, who spoke only Russian. She said that she conversed with the man for over an hour “In English.” The man left, and then returned 3 months later. As they spoke upon his return she could not understand him, nor he her. He became angry and signaled for her to stop speaking and then retreated to the side altar to Mary. She said she prayed to understand why he was angry and why he would not speak to her in Engish. As she prayed a friend from Jerusalem entered who spoke both Russian and Hebrew. She had the newcomer ask the Russian man why he was angry. He told Justine, through the translator, that he couldn’t understand why she didn’t speak Russian to him as she had before. It was a very interesting account. Today, at the conclusion of our visit with Justine, before we inspected the underground “Upper Room,” (which was unremarkable, indeed had modern plastered walls) Justine sang for us the Lord’s Prayer in Syriac in the chapel, which was remarkable.