Skip to main content

Religion City, Religions Complex

Image
By
We have now attended the Anglican Center’s worship services twice.  We are impressed by the determination of so many people to attend worship, braving arcane traffic patterns and crowds and security scanners and very long walks in unshaded sunny heat.  What is officially marked as “Religions Complex” but unofficially called Religion City is the square mile reserved for all non-Muslim religions to build their houses of worship. The Anglican Center serves the Protestant community, with over 30 different groups worshiping in various parts of the building throughout the weekend.  One neighboring building houses the Indian Inter-Denominational Christian Church (the several branches of the ancient Keralan orthodox church), while the largest building is the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Rosary.  Probably the two largest expatriate groups in Qatar are from India and the Philippines.  Within the same complex are also Coptic and Greek and Syrian Orthodox churches.   It does seem ironic that the local police last summer drastically tightened security, making it quite a chore to get to church, with no vehicles and only 2 pedestrian entrances, with Xray scanners and metal detectors and anti-tank barriers.  That certainly appears discouraging, and yet thousands of people politely and eagerly flock there on Fridays, overflowing the large parking lot.  In the midst of a severely Islamic country, the expatriates are determined to gather together to exercise their right to distinctive worship.
The Anglican service is a delightful mixture of old (robes, procession) and new (praise hymns, varied responses).  That worshipping community is the most amazingly diverse we have ever seen -- US, Canadian, English, Australian, South African, Nigerian, Kenyan, Jamaican, Asian.  At this service a baby was baptized with the liturgy partially in Maori, and a choir sang the offertory hymn in Swahili.  We like the group, though we plan to visit other (more specifically American) protestant services in the next few weeks as well.
Location: Doha, Qatar

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Riding the Bus often

By
From 201010 Saudi scenes It is ironic that this land of cheap gasoline has so much group transport -- buses. From 201010 Saudi scenes Our housing compound has a Toyota-Coaster bus that takes some to/from school (we usually go earlier and return later, on a similar bus that the school provides). Driver Yahya takes residents on the 90-minute trip down to the Big City shopping every Thursday morning. The above picture shows our group one Thursday, usually going to Ikea or the new Lulu's Hypermarket , or the Dhahran Mall. Coleman rides a different bus every day to and from school -- usually 100 minutes there, 80 minutes back.  His bus is evidently an old tourist bus, usually comfortable but a bit dusty.  The air-conditioning usually works too well.  I've ridden it with him several times, to attend business meetings at the district office. From 201010 Saudi scenes There he is, at 5:45am every morning, at the start of the bus run. Fortunately only about 20 stu...
2 comments
Read more

String Quartet Broken String

By
  We attended a marvelous concert last night, at the Porto Museum of Casa do Infante , a beautifully-renovated 1325 building near the river.  At one point it served as a customs house.  The government sponsors Portuguese musicians to return from other European orchestras to perform in their homeland.  We heard and saw this group play a traditional piece – Haydn string quartet Opus 20 #2.  Then the modern Benjamin Britten's Three Divertimenti – the stunning last movement of which they performed as an encore.  They performed (and I recorded) the Shostakovich Quartet #9, during which the first-violinist broke a string (it features several strongly-plucked chords!) and had to retreat&repeat! 
Post a Comment
Read more

Música Tunas e Boémia

By
  We attended an unusual concert last night:  Música Tunas e Boémia (bands and parties) University student folk-music groups — big groups of 40 and more each!  put on a great show of singing, playing, flag-twirling, tambourine-swinging, all at the major (private) concert hall.  The most unusual thing about it was that nobody used any electronic device (except for microphone amplification)—no electric guitar or keyboard, no big drum set…every instrument and prop was hand-held.  The singing was quite good, given the effort to synchronize 40 voices.  
Post a Comment
Read more