The service had just begun, but in the dim light cast by candles, the old structure was already buzzing with activity.
Men and women entered in a stream, heads down, approached and kissed an image of Christ, and circled back to the heart of the church. A man in a ponytail bowed before a gold-trimmed painting of a saint, crossing himself several times.
As children clutched their parents' hands, a choir intoned a hymn that sounded straight from the deserts of Syria, and the members of Holy Cross Antiochian Orthodox Church in Linthicum gathered in the open center of the room.
It was the Great Vespers service of Palm Sunday, the first day of the holiest, most hopeful week of the year for the world's 225 million Orthodox Christians, 2.6 percent of whom live in the United States. The faith blends ceremony and mystery in a way worshippers say makes their faith less a doctrine than a living thing.
But at Holy Cross, one of four parishes of its kind in Maryland, the old gives rise to the new. Most members are in their 20s and 30s. About 70 percent are converts, including former atheists, Anglicans, Catholics and Buddhists. The group embraces Caucasians, Asians and blacks, ethnic Serbs and Greeks, and occupations from research biologist to homemaker to roof repairman.
For a faith often identified with Eastern ethnic groups, at Holy Cross it has a bustling, American feel. "The Orthodox faith is multicultural diversity," said the Rev. Gregory Mathewes-Green, the priest who founded the parish in 1993.
Members who call this the liveliest, friendliest church they've known said its personality wouldn't show itself fully until today. Services for Easter, or Pascha, are always "noisy, beautiful, joyful and wonderful," one member says, but "so chaotic [they] can overwhelm" newcomers.
On Palm Sunday, it was enough to see that a service meant to begin at 6 p.m. actually started in the afternoon, when members began arriving on their own, and continued after Mathewes-Green went home.
Willows and palmsAs the sun sank and the lights dimmed, the church on North Camp Meade Road, built in 1911, had a somber and a festive feel. It was festooned not just with palm fronds but also pussy-willow branches.
Even though Orthodox Christianity (also known as Eastern Christianity or Eastern Orthodoxy) took root in the balmy Mediterranean, it spread eastward through Asia, north into the Baltic region and elsewhere.
"Not a whole lot of palm trees in Russia," said Frederica Mathewes-Green, Gregory's wife and the khouria, or mother, of the parish.
In effect, Orthodoxy itself began with a split.
Believers say that in the early days of Christianity - during the 1,000 years after Christ's death - there was a single, authentic church whose followers generally worshipped in the manner described by Jesus' original followers, the 12 apostles.
That changed, they say, when Roman Catholics (insisting, among other things, that the pope should have universal authority) broke away in 1054 - a split that would spark the fracture of the faith into multiple other denominations.
Even on Palm Sunday last week, the Orthodox aimed to practice the "apostolic" faith. The Communion (consuming of bread and wine), atonal hymn singing, shaking of incense and "veneration" of icons on display were codified centuries ago, starting in the Book of Acts.
To newcomers, those often take a little getting used to. "It seemed surreal at first, kissing these pictures," said Robert Lowe, a Catonsville architecture professor who converted in 2005. "In time, you absorb their symbology. There's a meaning and purpose to everything."
Such exercise is thought to develop the nous - a Greek word suggesting one's native capacity to sense the divine in the warp and woof of daily life.
"In [Orthodoxy], union with God isn't for mystics on mountaintops," said Frederica Mathewes-Green, an author whose work includes numerous books on the faith. "By diligent listening or practice, each of us can know God directly. We can become attuned."
Charleston to CatonsvilleHaving started in the eastern Mediterranean, Orthdox Christianity spread through southern Asia, China and Siberia. Missionaries brought it to North America at Kodiak Island, Alaska, in 1794.
From there, it traveled south and east.
"The usual migratory pattern was reversed," Gregory said a bit proudly.
That path makes sense to the Mathewes-Greens. They also walked an unconventional path.
Gary (now Gregory) Mathewes and Frederica Green grew up in Charleston, S.C., in the 1950s and 1960s, and when they met, their belief systems were a blend of agnosticism and New Age hippiedom. They got married barefoot.
During their honeymoon - a backpacking trip through Europe - Frederica had what she calls a vivid conversion experience in a Dublin cathedral.
Half-embarrassed, she told her husband about it a week later.
"It'll pass," he said.
Soon enough, though, he found himself poring over the Bible, particularly the Book of Mark. (It's the shortest Gospel.) "This Jesus guy seems pretty powerful," he said.
To the Mathewes-Greens, a new idea, once planted, spawns change. They decided to attend Episcopal seminary and earned graduate degrees. She decided to stick with writing; he trained as a priest. A parish job brought them to Baltimore.
But in those days, the Episcopal Church was already changing in controversial ways. By the early 1990s, as the couple were raising three teenagers, some bishops were openly denying such Christian fundamentals as the Resurrection.
The couple disliked the drift, which struck them as reflecting the wider culture's superficial values. "We knew there had to be something more profound in Christian history than just going through the motions as we seemed to be doing," Frederica said.
Searching for a richer experience, her husband made his way to an Orthodox church in eastern Baltimore. He found the service "gripping, emotional and focused on the divine," the people so warmly welcoming he felt he truly belonged.
That was, in a way, an odd thing. "The people who, in a very real sense, welcomed me home were Middle Eastern - from a culture I barely knew," he said.
Mathewes-Green took courses in the tradition and qualified for the priesthood within a year. He assumed the name of a fourth-century poet-priest, St. Gregory the Theologian. Frederica started her first books on Orthodoxy. And with two borrowed icons and a rented space in Catonsville, they founded a church that has grown tenfold since.
JoiningIn prose a critic calls " Annie Dillard-like," Frederica Mathewes-Green has explored the mysteries of Orthodoxy in books, essays, National Public Radio commentaries and newspaper columns. She's a regular contributor to Beliefnet.com and National Review, where she's a film reviewer.
One element she finds interesting is Orthodoxy's "organic" quality - the way "an ordinary person saying the prayers, keeping the fasts, doing the Scriptures, can become a radiant, light-bearing saint."
That way, she said, regular people, whatever their extraction, can develop in such a way that their faith becomes contagious, not a matter of argument or doctrine.
At Holy Cross, a first-time visitor need not look far to behold, at the least, faces of welcome.
As children roughhoused on the lawn out front after one service, several adults spoke in surprisingly ordinary terms of a favorite, if personal, topic: their conversions.
"Everyone has a different story," said Lowe, 33, the architecture professor, "and they'll be glad to share it."
He'd finished his education and landed a job at a big firm, he said, when, with his father sick, he found himself surprised to be less than fulfilled by "earthly things."
His friend and future wife, Emily Jojorian, was a already member. She converted years earlier, when her father did, and was relieved to learn that, unlike Presbyterians she had debated theology with, Orthodox were comfortable with faith being essentially mysterious, and that "my Orthodox friends, who were without exception just very cool, loved the Beatles and watched 'The Simpsons,' like regular people."
Chanting in the church's choir for 12 years has deepened her faith, in part because "the theology of the church is in the hymns, embedded in every lyric."
Emily Lowe, 29, spoke of Byzantine chant and Orthodoxy in general in a PBS special about this time last year.
As the sun set and a chill rose, Kathy Beaulac and Sheena Mak emerged, laughing. They fell into friendly debate over one of those ordinary ethical questions that challenge the Orthodox, who want their faith to inform even the smallest decisions.
Beaulac, 39, who was raised in a nonreligious household, said the best idea when confronted by a panhandler is to offer a sandwich (she keeps one in her car for the purpose), since money may end up misspent.
Mak, 30, an ex-Catholic, favored charity without conditions. "How do you know what 'most' people will do?" she asked.
The argument dissolved when everyone spotted the sport bottle under a smiling Beaulac's arm. They'd been fasting for Great Lent ( vegan diet, no alcohol for 40 days), and for two days last weekend, were allowed to take a drink.
The bottle was full of red wine. "You can always count on Kathy," Beaulac said, and laughter resounded.
A feastThe season leading to Easter has been, as usual, one of denial, a strong thread in the fabric of Orthodox belief.
Great Lent is one of four major fasting periods, not to mention the tradition of fasting every Wednesday and Friday.
Observers work out the details of their regimen with the parish priest - no one is asked to live in discomfort - but the idea is to live vegan for half the days of the year.
Still, Gregory said, Orthodox Christians the world over are as mad for food and drink as for religious objects like censers (incense bowls), chandeliers and icons of the saints.
"We love food and love to eat," said Emily Lowe. "I'd hate to actually be a vegan. The whole point of fasting is that there's a feast after it. Depriving yourself for a time makes it that much better."
That was a good description of the season, by far the most sacred in the calendar. It reflects the time Christians believe Jesus, in conquering death, liberated humanity from the bondage of believing in the wrong things.
The congregation has assembled for services every night for the past week, a more intensive schedule than usual. After the previous weekend's respite, they even embarked on the year's most restrictive fast.
To members, Holy Week can feel like the last mile or two of a marathon.
But deprivation, they say, whets the appetite for the bigger stuff, and in the end draws everyone together.
The denial was to end at 11:30 Saturday night, when the church's flock of 180 were to begin Easter as they do each year.
The service begins in darkness, the choir singing English versions of Russian, Syrian and other hymns. Gregory Mathewes-Green enters, a single candle in hand. Then members pass that flame to one another, wick to wick, until everyone's candle is lit.
They head out the doors at midnight for a procession around the old stone building.
By the time they return inside, they find the church fully lit. Incense is burning, chandeliers are swinging, and the choir is booming "Christ Is Risen," a traditional hymn.
But they're not finished. They troop downstairs to a community room to feast on Ukrainian, Greek, French and Asian foods, all prepared by hand, and share drinks from around the world. There's crying, singing, shouting and pats on the back.
It feels, some say, like a return to life. .
"When you get through [Great Lent and Holy Week] and see this light on the other side, it's stunning," said Emily Lowe.
The party lasts all night.