Saturday 12 March 2011

Danish service in the Old City

Today we went to the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in the Old City to attend a service in Danish by the Danish priest living here. It was funny to be among Danes again, most from Jutland as I could hear on their dialects - Denmark is a small country, but we still have many dialects; no wonder Arabic has so many then!

The chapel with small alter, glass mosaic, and screen with texts and psalms.

The ceremony was held in a chapel, not the main church (which would have been way too big), complete with Danish Psalm books for everybody, an organist (though on piano), and communion. What was special compared to cermons held in Danmark was that everybody introduced themselves in the beginning, because so many different people come every time; the projector with texts and psalm numbers; and the priest played guitar for some of the English prayer-songs. I didn't get a picture of him, but imagine a priest in white robes with a purple "scarf" with Jerusalem crosses on it, with a good ol' guitar.

The tower of the church as seen from the court yard - a very calm place,
when there's not a flock of children running around after candy.


Afterwards there was coffee/tea and biscuits out in the hall, and I got to talk with a nun, who has lived in Jerusalem for 45 years, knows Hebrew, both modern and Biblical, Arabic, Ethiopian, Aramaeic, besides Danish and English, and probably some more I didn't catch. Apparently she makes icons and sell them, teach languages, and right now work for the University in Copenhagen on editing a dictionary for Ethiopian (which is called something else). A very interesting lady indeed! I forgot her name, but will post it later when I get it.

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