St. George's Serbian Orthodox Church is a place we wanted to see and were we lucky to arrive shortly before it closed for the day and we had a brief visit.
We have visited one other Serbian Orthodox Church in Coober Pedy, South Australia. That one is underground and clearly not of the standard sort of orthodox church. So, this is the first 'regular' one we've seen.
The altar piece in the front is covered in gold and painted icons.
These are richly detailed and painted in a pallet limited to bright primary colors showing the subjects in a limited set of positions and poses. But, they are quite beautiful.
The ceiling is plain by comparison and the image there are dark and indistinct.
We saw no organ here, so while music (in the form of a chant) is a important part of the worship (and Serbian culture), it is sung unaccompanied.
The altar is really mesmerizing. And since the rest of the space is, by comparison, unadorned, it must be all eyes forward during services.
There were some side altars (I suppose that's what they are called) at either extreme of the main altar and these are quite impressive.
On either side of the center of the altar, we find images of Mary and Jesus again (as we saw above to one side). I do not understand the significance of the image on the stand in front of the image on the wall.
To the other side of the center is an image of Jesus and he also has another image on a stand in front of him.
I'm glad we were able to make our quick visit to this church.
the icons on the stand are called 'kissing icons.' they allow the worshipper to venerate the saint represented by the larger icon by kissing the smaller one. orthodox people are very much into expressing love for the saints in this way.
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