You're more than welcome. You're wanted.

The liturgy you will experience today is the Gregorian Rite, one of the approved forms of Western Rite Orthodoxy in the Antiochian Orthodox Church. It is the ancient Roman liturgy of the Christian West, carefully restored and celebrated in full communion with the Orthodox Church.

What does that mean in simple terms?

You will see a form of worship that many people from traditional Western Christian backgrounds will find familiar in shape: the procession, the readings from Scripture, the Creed, the great prayer of thanksgiving over the bread and wine, and Holy Communion. The prayers are ordered and reverent. The music is most often Gregorian chant — the quiet, flowing plainsong that has carried Christian prayer in the West for more than a thousand years. The atmosphere is intentionally calm and focused, allowing space for prayer rather than performance.

At the same time, everything you see and hear is fully Orthodox. The faith we confess is the faith of the Apostles and the Church Fathers. The Creed is prayed without the Filioque. The Eucharist is the true Body and Blood of Christ. The priest serves in the name of the Orthodox Church and under the authority of an Orthodox bishop. There is no difference in the Mystery itself — only in the liturgical language and form through which that Mystery is offered.

In other words, this is not a hybrid or a compromise. It is the Orthodox Church praying in the traditional Western voice.

You are welcome to participate as fully as you are able. Visitors are invited to stand, sit, and kneel with the congregation, and to join in the responses and the Creed. If you are Orthodox and prepared, you are welcome to receive Holy Communion. If you are not Orthodox, or if you are unsure, you are still warmly welcome to remain and pray with us. No one will single you out.

We know that liturgical worship can feel unfamiliar at first. That is all right. Simply be present. Listen. Watch. Let the prayers and the silence do their work. Over time, many visitors find that the quiet dignity of this liturgy becomes a place of deep peace and encounter with God.