Nicene Creed Karaoke

In addition to handball on Eurosport 2 and Belorussian news, I've discovered more quality programming, on Православный Телеканал Благовест (Orthodox Channel "Good News"). Earlier, when I saw a priest on the screen, I just flipped past, but a few days ago I decided to give the priest a chance. And I discovered that Благовест is great going-to-bed TV.

Usually around midnight they have a kind of televised church service. A priest stands in front of some icons and chants passages from the Bible. Then the choir sings a song, and usually the priest chants again. At the end, they have the congregation chanting the Nicene Creed. I've experienced a similar procedure at actual services in church, but the difference is that on TV, all the words are on the screen. In church, the Nicene Creed is extremely hard to follow along with. I want to sing it with everyone, and I'm pretty familiar with it in English, but there's no way I can sing it in Russian, or maybe it's Old Church Slavonic. That's why the TV version is so awesome.

But the sing-along Nicene Creed isn't the only great thing about Orthodox TV. They have other interesting shows, like "Вечные Вопросы" (Eternal Questions). You can text message your spiritual questions and a priest will answer them. They answer questions like, "Is it ok to work on Sundays?", the answer to which, ironically, I missed because I was grading homework assignments (on a Sunday). Maybe I would send in my own questions, if I had a cell phone. Sometimes they show orchestra and choir music, and sometimes even a rock band, rocking out in front of a big banner with an icon-like face of Jesus on it.

While we don't get stars like Jack Van Impe or Benny Hinn on Russian religious television, I'll take chanted prayers while I'm going to sleep any day.