A few years ago in Greece, I realized that there were two types of churches here: the ones with the crucifixion Jesus, and others with the resurrection Jesus.
The churches with the crucifixion Jesus were the Roman Catholic ones. They were dark and brooding, even foreboding, dimly lit and covered in brown wood paneling; spartanly adorned in monochrome and austere images of ascetic saints.
At the focal point of the primary altar, there he hung: the son of God, gaunt face twisted in agony, stretched limb from limb with often gruesome levels of blood pouring from his body, more horror-movie spectre than heavenly savior. Is this a church or a funeral parlor?
The message of the crucifixion-Jesus church is that you ought to be ashamed. This gentle soul just came to share the gospel with the world, but humanity was so fucked-up that he had to sacrifice himself to be murdered in the most horrible fashion, just so your sorry ass could sit in that pew, scrolling on your smartphone, pretending to listen.
Ooh, look what you made him do! The king of kings and lord of lords is tacked up like an index card of all your sins, bleeding for you.
These stories embed themselves in the collective consciousness, surfacing when we make a mistake or don’t live up to somebody’s expectations. Of course you’re a failure; you’ve got blood on your hands, a whole species’ worth of n’er-do-welling to make up for. They become part of the mythology of humanity, the crosses we drag around to explain our sad stories—some outside our control, and others of our own creation.
But then there are the churches of the resurrection.
The resurrection-Jesus churches are the Orthodox ones, descendants of those founded by the Apostles in the eastern half of the Roman empire, which included not only Greece but the Balkans and Middle East. The Eastern Orthodox churches (also known as Greek Orthodox) split from the empire’s western, Roman Catholic half in 1054: a cosmic divorce called the “Great Schism.”
As with many separations, both sides are convinced they’re right, and the other is wrong, despite the fact that many of their practices and beliefs remain the same. But the Greek Orthodox differ in a few important ways.
It’s obvious from the second you step into their spaces: flush with brilliant color, bright light streaming in from large, stained-glass portals and skylights. They’re defined by massive domes, gaudy baubles that protrude from the buildings’ crown chakras into the sky. If you stand underneath them and gaze heavenward, you’re met with giant images of a very different Jesus—not frail and broken but vibrant and alive, flamboyantly adorned and sporting a gleaming halo.
This Jesus isn’t pinned down like he’s part of some metaphysical butterfly collection, but has burst from the chrysalis of his tomb in full resplendence, celestially ascending. Nor is he up there alone. He’s surrounded by a panoply of heavenly hosts, angels and saints with their own lit-up domes, all celebrating his transfiguration; the restoration of indwelling divine.
And this is the most important difference between the crucifixion and the resurrection Jesus: the resurrection Jesus, the Greek Orthodox say, came to Earth to help us realize that we’re divine, too. He isn’t positioned as some cosmic ruler here to save us dirty sinners as we grovel at his feet. He’s a Technicolor trickster who winks from on high, reminding you that you’re in on the joke. This deep inner knowing—what the Greeks call “gnosis”—is not something you learn from a priest, but rather, that you feel in your soul. It can be accessed by anyone who is willing to surrender themselves to the mystery, leaving the safety of the known behind; finding the others who see through the absurdity of their own predicaments; and dying to who they thought they were to be reborn in their true essence.
And once you are, you have to spread the word.
The Greek Orthodox seem to revel in the spectacle, something I can appreciate as a theater kid. Liturgies are delivered in lilting, lyrical Greek; churchgoers follow ordained orbits around the space, crossing themselves before images of glowing saints. On Sundays their doors are thrown open, attendees spilling into the streets as hymns soar into the cerulean expanse where sky meets ocean. And kids aren’t shut away, but part of everything, even receiving communion.
The crucifixion-Jesus churches go through similar motions, but seem a lot more somber; sermons are delivered in Latin drones, soundtracked by pipe organs. Children are baptized, then banished to the sidelines until confirmation, neither seen nor heard. Like the purgatory their faith believes in, they are stuck in some kind of bardo rather than being uplifted as portals to a precious sliver of existence most of us spend our whole lives trying to get back to.
In the churches of the resurrection Jesus, there is no purgatory; no cosmic waystation where you have to marinate in all your sins until your soul has been washed clean. There wasn’t a purgatory in the church I was raised in—but if there was, that might actually have been a blessing. Instead, it was hell or heaven; do not pass go, proceed to your final destination, where you will either kick back for eternity with your family and friends, or burn in damnation. This shaped the crosses I’ve been carrying, the patterns I was recreating: the story went that I was always getting close to finishing, then failing; forever being measured, and coming up short.
My family lived near a Greek Orthodox church when I was little, and sometimes we would wander inside the big yellow building with its celestial dome, where the kindly matron at the office would call me her “little baklava.” The church threw a huge festival every fall where booths filled with fluffy pitas and sizzling kebabs spilled into the streets, the air rich with scent and blaring bouzouki music. It all seemed so joyous, like the colorful pantheon I read about in my gold-leafed tome of Greek mythology; perhaps it was then that I decided I would visit this country one day.
As a kid, I knew we were all divine—I even went through a brief phase of dressing like Jesus—but that’s not what most of us are told living under American capitalism, which masquerades as a church of resurrection, but is all about crucifixion. As a result, some part of me still believes I’m damned no matter what I do, and is trying to prove I'm worthy of redemption. But the more I directly experience other ways of thinking, being, and doing, the more I see that’s just a story—and I’ve been living out some wack mythology.
These images are powerful, but they’re still just symbolism; in reality, we’re all divine, dying and resurrecting. So I stepped inside those big-domed buildings and allowed myself to be enraptured, drinking in the vibrancy and color, craning my neck skyward like a wondrous child. And when I saw that rosy-cheeked Christ with his Mona Lisa smile, I remembered what I always knew: that we were born forgiven.
OMG this is so spot on, I teared up at the end!