The Byzantines Call the Liturgy "Heaven on Earth"

A glimpse of beauty in an unlikely place: sixteen seconds, give or take, on This Week’s “In Memoriam”. The subject was the death of Alexis II, the Russian Orthodox patriarch. Stirring music from an Orthodox choir played in the background while the patriarch was shown at Divine Liturgy in a church that looked like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. Then, a cut to a simpler black and white shot, with an icon of Christ on the Eastern equivalent of Alexis's miter. There was a plaintiveness and simplicity to the figure of Christ and in His burden-sharer.