A Visit to St. Symeon Orthodox Church in Birmingham, AL

Two weekends ago, I traveled to Birmingham to my old church parish for my Goddaughter’s wedding. It was a beautiful occasion and emotional for me as I felt like it was my own daughter getting married. I have watched her grow from a baby and even though I moved away when she was young, I visited some and was able to see her during our church camps once a year for 5-6 years as a teen as she and her friends would spend a week at our house in the summer. I am very grateful for that special time and her visit this past summer. I am hoping she will visit with her new husband as we are on her way from NC (where she is moving to) to AL.

The church building and interior are beautiful. The old church building (when I attended there) is now the church hall and where the reception took place. It is wonderful how the parish has grown, the choir is one of the best I have heard (you can search them on YouTube) and composed of a lot of those teens that used to come to church camp. It’s fun to see those teens as adults now, most are married with one or two children.

In the Sacrament of Marriage, different things have a biblical symbolism.

• rings: symbol of betrothal
• candles: symbol of lamps of 5 wise maidens, receiving Christ (the couple holds a candle each)
• crowns: signs of glory and honor, symbol of martyrdom
• joining of right hands: when going around the table with the priest, the hands are joined with a handkerchief: symbolizes oneness of the couple
• common cup: the couple drinks for a common cup of wine: remembers the wedding miracle at Cana
• the walk: around the table:  Christian living centers around Christ, 1st steps as a married couple

The iconography in the church has been painted by a Romanian couple that paints the icons on canvas and then pastes them to the wall. The church is mostly finished but as you will see with the picture below, it is not all the way completed. The iconography is quite beautiful and depicts saints and events in Christ life. The icons remind us and teaches us about the faithful in the events depicted and testify that God took upon himself the form of man. Icons reminds us to pray as they are a visual reminder of the presence of God and his saints.

The church is not only where the faithful gathers but is the mystical Body of Christ to which we are joined.

This church reminds me of some of the churches we visited in the Republic of Georgia where most churches have walls covered with painted icons and many of those churches are centuries and centuries old. Here is one of my blog post our trip there. And in this post, you can here some Georgian chant: it is beautiful!

A bientôt!

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