They’re long because we’re doing something that can’t be rushed. We’re not attending a lecture or watching a performance. We’re participating in the worship of heaven.
Most Divine Liturgies run about ninety minutes. Vespers takes forty-five minutes to an hour. If you come on a feast day or during Holy Week, you might be there two or three hours. I know that sounds daunting if you’re used to the crisp sixty-minute services common at First Baptist or the contemporary service that wraps up in forty-five. But Orthodox worship operates on different assumptions about what we’re doing when we gather.
We’re Being Transformed, Not Informed
Protestant worship in Southeast Texas tends to center on the sermon. You sing a few songs, hear a good message, maybe take communion once a quarter. The service is designed to teach you something or inspire you, then send you out to live for Jesus. That’s not wrong, but it’s incomplete.
Orthodox worship aims at something bigger. We call it theosis, becoming like God by grace. That doesn’t happen through information alone. It happens through participation in the life of God, and that takes time. The Liturgy isn’t primarily about what you learn (though you do learn). It’s about what you become.
When we sing the same hymns week after week, when we hear the same prayers, when we stand through the whole service offering our bodies as living sacrifices, something happens to us. The words work their way into your bones. The prayers become your prayers. You start thinking in the Church’s language. That’s the point.
Fr. Alexander Schmemann wrote that the Liturgy is the Church’s “fundamental activity” because worship is how we’re joined to God. Not joined to information about God. Joined to God himself.
We’re Praying for Everything
If you time it, you’ll notice we spend a lot of the Liturgy praying. We pray for the bishop, for civil authorities, for travelers, for the sick, for the departed, for those who’ve asked our prayers, for the whole world. We pray the same litanies every week because these needs don’t go away. There’s always someone sick. There’s always someone traveling. The world always needs peace.
This isn’t filler. We genuinely believe these prayers matter. When the deacon says “For the peace of the whole world, for the stability of the holy churches of God, and for the union of all, let us pray to the Lord,” we’re actually asking God for those things. Every single week. Because every single week, the world needs peace and the Church needs stability.
You can’t do that in thirty minutes.
Time Works Differently Here
Our culture treats time like a commodity. We spend it, save it, waste it. Efficiency is a virtue. But the Liturgy doesn’t operate on efficiency. It operates on what the Greeks called kairos, God’s time, the time of salvation breaking into our ordinary chronos.
When we celebrate the Liturgy, we’re not just remembering what Jesus did two thousand years ago. We’re entering into it. The same sacrifice offered once for all on Calvary becomes present on the altar. Past, present, and future collapse into this moment. That’s why we say “Christ is risen” even in October. In the Liturgy, it’s always Pascha. It’s always Pentecost. It’s always the eighth day, the day that doesn’t end.
You can’t rush that. You wouldn’t want to.
What About When You’re New?
Look, I get it. You’re not used to standing for ninety minutes. Your back hurts. You don’t know when to cross yourself. You lose the place in the service book. The repetition feels tedious because you don’t know the words yet.
That’s normal. Everyone feels that way at first.
Here’s what helps: come consistently. If you come once a month, it’ll feel foreign every time. If you come every week, the Liturgy starts to sink in. You’ll find yourself knowing what comes next. The prayers will start to mean something because you’ve said them enough times to notice what they’re actually saying.
And don’t feel like you have to master everything at once. Follow along as best you can. Sit when you need to (we’re not legalistic about standing). Ask questions after the service. Fr. Michael has heard every confused inquiry imaginable. He won’t think less of you for asking why we do something three times or what that word means.
The length isn’t a test of endurance. It’s an invitation to slow down, to let go of clock-watching, to be present with God and his people for more than a few minutes a week.
It’s Worth It
I won’t pretend the adjustment is easy, especially if you’re working rotating shifts at the refinery and you’re exhausted on Sunday morning. But here’s what I’ve seen happen: people who stick with it start to crave the Liturgy. They miss it when they can’t come. The length stops feeling like a burden and starts feeling like a gift, a chance to step out of the frantic pace of ordinary life into something ancient, something that connects you to Christians in every time and place.
We’re not long for the sake of being long. We’re long because what we’re doing matters too much to abbreviate. Come see for yourself.
