Posted By PastorM on February 8, 2010
Here’s a plug for the place where I drank my coffee today: Atmosfera, on the south side of B-dul 21 Decembrie, not far from Hubertus restaurant. I patronize a pretty fair number of coffee shops, and this is among my very favorites. It’s attractively decorated, the service is fast, and the coffee is reliably excellent.
Posted By PastorM on February 8, 2010
This morning, I dropped my son off at school, had my hair cut, and some pants altered, dropped my shoes off to be repaired and had snappy new advertising placards printed. (Look for them on the church door!) In between those errands, I drank a first-rate cappuccino, and bought a collection of essays at a used-book store. The prices were reasonable, the quality was excellent, and none of it took me more than a few blocks from the Piata Unirii.
Well, fine — I can hear a few readers saying – but it would have been just as easy to do the same things at one of the big malls. Wouldn’t it?
Actually, I’m not so sure. I like Polus and Iulius as much as the next guy, but don’t remember seeing a shoe-repair shop at either one. There are some stalls where people sell used books, but the selection is tiny compared to any of central Cluj’s cluttered anticariati. And if I had wanted a watch repaired, a French waffle on the sidewalk, or a quick museum visit, I could have done those things in the centru this morning, just as easily as anything else. But not at a mall.
Look, I’m not knocking the big shopping centers. But I am a little worried that their presence distracts people from the ease of shopping in downtown Cluj. There is plenty of parking in town, especially if you don’t mind paying a few lei. A lot of the shops are the same, and the bookstores — new or used — are far better in town than out. Not to mention the food, coffee and night-life.
So if you’re getting in the car (or calling a taxi) and planning a trip to the edge of town, consider a change of plans. The center will pay you back.
Posted By PastorM on January 19, 2010
Most of the churches in Cluj are celebrating the international Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. We kicked it off last week with an English-language service (with some prayers and lessons in both Romanian and Hungarian). Official visitors came from the Roman Catholic, Reformed and Unitarian churches, who are the closest partners of the Lutherans in this area. A Charismatic friend was detained at the last moment.
I have a small personal connection to the Week of Prayer. It was the brainchild of Paul Wattson, a monk who founded the Greymoor Monastery in Garrison, New York — a very short drive from where I was raised. In fact, I led a retreat for Lutheran deacons at Greymoor just a few months ago.
But despite this strong New York connection, this has never been an important observance in any of the New York parishes Terri and I have served. Oh, there are the big events — an annual lecture at a fancy Manhattan church, for example. But in most parishes, we add a petition or three to the Prayers of the Church, and move on. We pastors, and the pastors at most of our neighbor churches, are often just too busy to organize any special events to celebrate the ecumenical movement.
And that’s a shame. Literally, a shame.
Ecumenism matters. It matters spiritually, and it matters evangelically. Every pastor, at some point, has been talking to a new Christian, or a newly-returned Christian, when the subject of the many different churches comes up. And every pastor has dutifully started to explain the similarities, differences, and relationships among the different Christian communions — only to see the usually joyful face of the new Christian go blank, and then then fall with disappointment.
“But Jesus didn’t say, ‘Go do your own thing,’” they blurt out, with a frown. ”He said ‘I will build my church’ — singular — and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. Pastor, are you saying they did prevail?”
Of course not. For most of the past century, the ecumenical movement worried aloud, and often, about what was called the “sinful division” of the community we claim to be — the “one holy, catholic and apostolic Church.” Over time, these worries turned to something much more useful: a recognition that each of the the separated Christian communities has a charism, a gift, to offer the others. In our separation, we have grown stronger, and have the potential to make one another stronger as well.
Perhaps, pastors and theologians have started to say, we are separated for a reason — according to some divine order which it is our duty to discern. And perhaps that separation, great though it may seem to be, is not, upon close inspection, very large at all. We are separated by doctrine and order; but we are joined by our baptism into Christ. And God’s claim on us surely trumps our various claims about God.
Christian unity, it seems to me, is a paradox: it already exists, and always has; yet at the same time it is always a new thing, coming into existence afresh as Christians encounter one another in the world, exploring their differences and rejoicing in newfound similarities.
Posted By PastorM on December 29, 2009
The Remenyik Sandor Gallery, adapted for worship
Because the nave of the Lutheran Church can seat 400-500 people comfortably, a very small gathering of worshipers may feel lost in it. So lately, we have used the church’s art gallery as a worship space. It creates a more intimate, personal environment, which allows us to connect more easily with each other.
It is a wonderful place to join together in prayer and song. But the gallery is underground, in a beautifully renovated cellar — what in the customary language of churches is called “the crypt.” (It doesn’t have to mean a tomb. Any below-grade structure is customarily called by this name). So especially during this season, it reminds me of John Donne’s observation (in the Devotions or a sermon, I forget which) that “no man doth keep Christmas in the crypt.” Strangely enough, that’s just what we are doing!
Posted By PastorM on December 29, 2009
The "Two Towers" Reformed Church
Here are two that Terri and I pass every day, as we stroll down Bulevardul 21 Decembrie, on our way to the Lutheran church. She snapped these pictures after the recent snowstorm.
The “Two Towers” is the informal name for one of the largest of the city’s many Reformed churches.
The Orthodox Cathedral
The Orthodox cathedral, on Piata Avram Iancu, is by far the most recently-built of the major church buildings in Cluj. It was begun in the 2oth century, and completed in the early years of the 21st. This is reminder that, although Orthodoxy is the predominant form of Christianity in modern Romania, it is the Latin traditions — Roman Catholicism and Protestantism — that long held sway in Transylvania.
I wish that I had some snowstorm-pictures of St. Michael’s, the Roman Catholic cathedral a few blocks away. It is genuine Gothic, its oldest parts dating to the 14th century.
Posted By PastorM on December 29, 2009
Our first worship service was held on 13 December, the Third Sunday of Advent. I preached and presided at the Eucharist, assisted by Imola Lorincz, a student at the Protestant Theological Institute.
There were sixty people at this service, including a boys’ choir and many guests. The prayers were read by our friends Ed and Doug, who run an NGO that works with Romanian farmers. The lessons were read by Donna, who operates a boutique, and Adriana, a math teacher.
In this picture, Imola is wearing a cassock and surplice, traditional choir vestments in the Latin tradition. But because many Lutherans in Europe don’t use them, she was a little unsure of herself. She asked three times whether she was allowed to put them on. It was a gentle reminder that, although we are one church with one faith, we represent many different customs.
Posted By PastorM on November 25, 2009
Terri and I spend a lovely afternoon at the office of Agnus Radio, a station operated by the Reformed Church. It’s 88.3 on your FM dial here in Cluj, and also has a Hungarian-language website. (Click this link).
The station broadcasts one English-language program, on Thursday at 2:20 in the afternoon with a rebroadcast at the ungodly hour of 3:3o Friday morning. It’s called the “Back to God Hour,” even though the program only runs about 30 minutes.
Our new friend Arpad — relief worker, theologian and radio guy — even let us record a brief promo for our ministry. Listen for it this Thursday!
But here’s something important: the station manager thinks he may drop the English program, because he isn’t sure there is a need for it. So if you already listen, or if you’d like to start listening, please drop a him a line at: agnusradio@gmail.com.
Posted By PastorM on November 20, 2009
Here’s a nice new article about the English Ministry. It’s in Hungarian, but there’s a good picture, too.
Posted By PastorM on November 12, 2009
Our first English-language service of Holy Communion will be held on Sunday, Dec. 13, at 5pm. Please join us at the Lutheran Church in Cluj to sing and pray, to celebrate the sacred mystery of the Word made flesh and dwelling among us. If you can’t be here with us, please keep this ministry in your prayers that day.
But the ministry to English-speakers will begin sooner, with a series of Sunday Bible Studies at 5pm on November 29 and December 6. These will not be held in the church, but in the Sandor Remenyik Gallery, an intimate and inviting space on the church property. The Bible Studies will be a chance for English-speakers to sing familiar hymns, hear the Word in their own language, and enjoy fellowship with one another.
But here’s the thing. As many readers know, we had been planning to begin weekly worship on Nov. 29, the first Sunday of Advent. That date had been chosen as early as last spring; flyers had been printed; prayers had been solicited from all over the world. Church dignitaries had even made travel plans. So what happened?
It turns out that December 1 is Great Union Day, a national holiday celebrating the birth of modern Romania. And as on any holiday weekend, people leave town in droves, to visit their family, their village, or their favorite vacation spot. Even expats here for work or study will take the opportunity for skiing or sightseeing. Cluj, we are told, will be a ghost town.
Classic newbie mistake, and we made it, and we’re embarrassed. But we’re not proud — we rescheduled, because we want everyone who may be interested to join us for that first service.
And as for December 6, is is the annual Advent Fair at the Lutheran Church, a special event which follows the regular 10am service. Food, crafts, and fellowship will abound. The morning service will be in three languages — Hungarian, German and English — reflecting the breadth of the parish’s ministry. Holy Communion will be celebrated, and I will preach in English, with Bishop Adorjani translating. This is a big, joyous multicultural event, and we didn’t want to distract attention from it. So we begin our English services the following week.
Posted By PastorM on November 4, 2009
I wish this were a better picture. It’s a patch if highway en route to Csiksereda (or Miercurea-Ciuc), snapped hastily with a cellphone.
Still, it’s a reminder of just how beautiful the countryside is.