WORLD Etiquette: Ask and you shall receive

Several leaders said guests should feel free to ask questions.
WASHINGTON POST
Mohamed Magid remembers the first time he attended a Christian service and attempted to sing along with the congregation.
"I tried to follow the hymnbook, but I didn't know how to do it," said Magid, spiritual leader at All Dulles Area Muslim Society in Sterling, Va. "No one told me I was supposed to sing one line in each section."
Few Christians have probably considered that the lyrics don't appear sequentially as they do in a book of poetry, which might confuse a person of a different faith or culture.
But many Christians are equally perplexed the first time they attend a Muslim jumaa, Hindu fire ceremony or Jewish Shabbat service. And members of the major branches of Christianity -- Roman Catholicism, Protestantism and Eastern Orthodoxy -- have plenty of differences.
Brought traditions
Immigrants have brought traditions virtually unknown to most Americans a generation ago. Through new relationships at school, the workplace or the neighborhood, people are being invited to religious celebrations totally foreign to them.
How to participate without offending the host or compromising one's own faith is a challenge being addressed by religious leaders and events planners through a variety of means, from explanatory programs to open houses to specially trained ushers.
"The most fundamental rule is to ask ahead of time if you don't know what to wear or what customs you should be aware of," said the Rev. Clark Lobenstine, founder and executive director of the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, a consortium of nine faith traditions. "Asking is deeply appreciated by the host."
Guests also should feel free to call or visit the house of worship ahead of time to ask about matters of religious etiquette, several religious leaders said.
But they said hosts also share the responsibility of educating guests about dress codes and liturgical practices by including instructions in invitations or through e-mail, letters or phone calls.
Wedding programs
Weddings are one of the occasions that people of different faiths are invited to attend, and detailed written programs have become de rigueur, said events planner Martha Bindeman.
"A program gives people something to read and understand before the procession starts. It tells not only who the cast of characters is" but why they chose their readings and what parts of the ceremony mean, she said.
Georgia Chahalis and Gabriel Uruburo had a special reason for preparing programs for the 100 or so guests at their wedding last weekend at Sts. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church in the District of Columbia.
Chahalis, 23, is Greek Orthodox, and Uruburo, 25, is a Latino Roman Catholic.
The Greek wedding ceremony is different from Roman Catholic and Protestant ceremonies, most notably because the bride and groom don't exchange vows, said the Rev. Theodore Chelpon, who presided at the couple's wedding and performed a ritual involving the donning of white crowns connected by a ribbon and other elements that many other Christians might find unusual.
Chahalis and Uruburo knew non-Greek friends and other family members would not understand the wedding ceremony, and they distributed a program describing each step in the 40-minute service.
The priest allowed a non-Orthodox ritual at the end of the liturgy, the lighting of a unity candle that is part of the Uruburo family tradition.
Different ceremonies
Bindeman, the events planner, said she helped with a wedding several years ago of a Hindu woman and a Jewish man. They had back-to-back outdoor ceremonies. A program explained such details as why the bride's and groom's clothes were tied together during the Hindu ceremony, and why the couple recited seven blessings during the Jewish ceremony (for which the bride had changed from a red dress into a white gown).
Some rules of etiquette have more to do with cultural and ethnic traditions than with religious doctrine or theology.
Magid, imam at the Dulles, Va., area mosque and a native of Sudan, said all mosques require men and women to wear conservative clothing and ask women to cover their heads. As a rule of thumb, when attending any kind of worship service at a mosque, it's best not to offer a hand in greeting to men or women unless the other person offers first, the imam said. Hugging typically is restricted to women embracing women and men embracing men, and men should never try to kiss the bride.