Liturgy and Architecture

Growing up in the Orthodox Church, I frequently heard about the unchanging nature of Orthodoxy.  This idea was often applied to our liturgical practices and used to defend or justify practices which seemed to lack purpose any more.  Doesn’t matter since Orthodoxy was unchanging, liturgical baggage had to be continued because it had become part of Orthodoxy.  The mindset is very conservative, saying the current practices cannot be changed.  [If you ask many Orthodox why they do a particular liturgical practice, often you will get an explanation that tells you when the practice originated in history. The answer will tell you why the practice was adopted in the 14th Century, but doesn’t tell you why we are still doing it today.  If you ask Orthodox why bishops dress with a miter and Byzantine vestments, you might learn that many of these things were imposed by the Turks on the Orthodox when the Byzantine Empire was conquered by the Ottomans.  But that doesn’t explain why Orthodox who were never under the Ottomans feel they have to wear vestments which were to remind the Orthodox that they were conquered and part of the dhimmi.  Nor does it say why Orthodox today continue to follow this practice.  Why not resort to more ancient practices or practices which better reflect the Orthodox understanding of liturgy and the Body of Christ?]

Some church historians note that Orthodox conservatism and refusal to change had hardened over time, but didn’t represent the attitude in the early centuries of Orthodoxy.  In fact, many historians of liturgy would say early Byzantium and Greek Orthodoxy were the sources of much liturgical change and innovation as compared to other ancient Christian traditions.  The static attitude of the past few centuries is thought by some to be more related to the huge social and historical upheavals the Orthodox experienced – the Turkish conquest of Byzantium and the more recent Bolshevik revolution in Russia.  As events beyond their control took over the lives of Orthodox, the Orthodox tried to preserve their past even by petrifying things liturgically.  My dogmatics professor from seminary, who was himself quite traditional, used to say the church becomes reactionary only in times of decadence.  When the church is healthy, it is alive liturgically and allows the liturgy to change in order to best reflect eternal truths to the current generation.  Thus for him, the liturgically conservative attitude grew because the Church itself was decadent and weak.

These thoughts came to my as I finished reading Liturgy and Architecture by Louis Bouyer.  Bouyer, a brilliant Roman Catholic scholar, was writing in 1967 in the aftermath of Vatican II.  The Roman Church was just beginning its liturgical upheaval and Bouyer was writing to offer some guidance to the Church about liturgical change and the architecture of the church building.  He had a rather favorable impression of the Orthodox Church.  And he like many historians pointed out that of all the ancient Christian traditions, the Greek Byzantine tradition in its earlier centuries were very creative and innovative in changing the liturgy to reflect its true purpose.  He notes the Byzantine architects got it right in abandoning the basilica as the normative shape for a church building.

“When this has been understood the first thing which must be evident is that the temple, which is to house the church congregated into one, with the living Christ in the midst of her, should tend to create such a conjunction, or at least have nothing which can be a hindrance to its achievement.  Whenever it is possible all those relics of the basilica which tend to divide the congregation into separate blocks – those who are in the nave and those who are relegated to the aisles, and where there is a transept those members who are in both parts of the transept – should be discarded by architects, as they were discarded by the first Byzantine builders.” (pp 92-93)

The church building for Christians is to help us experience a community in which the living Christ stands in her midst.  And the people are one Body.   The church building is the place where we experience the intersection and interfacing of heaven and earth, the divine and the human, the spiritual and the physical, the angelic and the secular, the living and the dead, saints and sinners.  All comes together in Christ and is bound together by Christ.  The building is to help us experience this healing and reunification of all that had become alienated and separated and divided by human sin.  The building as well as the liturgy should help us experience the union of all in Christ.  “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:27-28).

Bouyer describes the ancient Byzantine Orthodox as leading the way for changing things liturgically and architecturally to make the building and the liturgy our main means for experiencing the unity of all in Christ.

“If we only realize the pattern of worship which these different forms all tried to embody, we are today as free as were the great Byzantine architects to invent new forms for our own times, as long as they will prove as well adapted to their purpose as those of the past.” (p 87)

Orthodoxy was not in its heyday intransigent and ossified, but was vibrant and making liturgical changes to help it fulfill its ministry.   The unity of all of the people of God was a main purpose of both liturgy and church building.  The shape of the building itself was to foster community, not division.

What Bouyer describes as the liturgy of the early church is an effort to overcome all divisions and to unite all the people into one Body.  The clergy weren’t praying on behalf of the people or for the people, but with them.   All were praying together.  As Bouyer describes it the bishop or presiding clergy really stood in the midst of the congregation and led the liturgical motions, which the people also did with the presiding celebrant.  [For example, when the celebrant said, “let us lift up our hearts” and raised his hands in prayer, so did all the people.  The clergy was neither acting on behalf of the congregation nor telling them what they should be doing.  The clergy did what everyone then also did.]   The clergy don’t give the people a blessing, but only pronounced God’s blessings on all.  The clergy need the blessing as well.  The clergy didn’t have power the rest didn’t but claimed and proclaimed what was common to all.   The clergy didn’t act on behalf of the people (in place of them) but only with them.  The clergy were part of the community and could act as clergy only within the gathering of people.  The presiding clergy weren’t busy with all kinds of liturgical priest craft that the people didn’t participate in, but rather, for the sake of order led the prayer that all were saying with the clergy.  All the people were engaged in the same action (liturgy means common work of the people) of submitting themselves (community) to God.  They were being transformed from being individuals into being members of the the Body of Christ.  All are co-workers with the clergy and Christ.  We become Christ in the Body as community not as individuals.

Obviously, a lot changed in Orthodoxy over time.  Hopefully, Orthodoxy will become healthy enough to change again.

The Great Doxology

“First of all every holy rite begins with the doxology:  ‘Blessed is the kingdom of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ Intercourse with God consists of thanksgiving, doxology, confession, and petition.  The first of these is doxology, because when grateful servants approach their Master it is fitting that they should begin not by pushing their own affairs into the foreground, but should concentrate on those of their Master.  Such is the nature of doxology.

In petitioning we have in mind the advancement of our own interests.  In confession we seek to be delivered from evils, and accuse ourselves.  In giving thanks we clearly rejoice in the good things which we enjoy.  But in doxology we lay aside ourselves and all our interests and glorify the Lord for his own sake, for his power and his glory.  And so the very nature and the appropriateness of the act demand that the doxology should come first.  Immediately we approach God we recognize the inaccessibility and force and grandeur of his glory, and are filled with wonder and awe and similar feelings.  This is indeed doxology.  We go on to recognize this goodness and love for mankind, and this gives rise to thanksgiving.

Then we consider his exceeding goodness and the liberality of his love for mankind, counting our own wickedness as the first and sufficient proof of that generosity and liberality, for whatever our shortcomings he continues to crown us with blessings.  This is something which is near at hand within us, before our very eyes, and it proves to us more than anything else how much God loves mankind.  And so we remember our sins before God, and this is called confession.  The fourth element is petition.  It follows that we can be confident that our requests for our needs will be granted, for we have just learned something of God’s goodness and his love for mankind.

He who has been good to those who were still sinners will surely be more so to those who have repented, and have become righteous by avowing their sins, according to the words of the prophet: ‘First confess yours sins in order that you may be justified.”  (St Nicholas Cabasilas, A COMMENTARY ON THE DIVINE LITURGY,  pp 43-44)

We Partake of the Body of Christ to Become the Body of Christ

“At the Divine Liturgy we live the mystery of the Church, because each eucharistic community is the one flock which offers its gifts to the one Shepherd (John 10:16) ‘with one mouth and one heart‘ (cf Acts 4:32 and Rom 15:6).  We are nourished on the holy Body of Christ, on Holy Communion, and the Church is made manifest as the Body of Christ.

‘With this we are nourished, with this we are mingled, and we have become the one Body of Christ’ (St John Chrysostom).  Communion in the holy Body of Christ creates the communion and unity of the Church: ‘As we partake of the holy Body of Christ, so we too become the Body of Christ’ (Nicholas of Methoni).”  (Hieromonk Gregorios, THE DIVINE LITURGY: A COMMENTARY IN THE LIGHT OF THE FATHERS, p 88)

The Prayer of Manasseh

This is the 5^th post in this blog series meditating on Psalm 51.  The previous post is David the Image of Repentance.

The 51^st Psalm presents us with a particular vision of repentance which I believe is reflected in the Liturgy of the Orthodox Church.  This understanding of repentance does not demand that we think of ourselves as vile, worthless worms wallowing in the mire.   Nor does it envision us as being angels in the flesh.  Rather it views us as being human – created in God’s image and likeness, created to have dominion over creation, created to be united to divinity and share in the divine love and life.  We are created to be the temple in which God dwells on earth.   Yet, we also have free will which means we are not automatons who are programmed to do what God wants.  Rather, we have to choose to do God’s will if we want.  We are conscious beings who can realize our willful disobedience to God as well as our mistakes.

Psalm 51 as a prayer of repentance shows us to acknowledge our sins and errors, to “man up” as it were and own our behavior, admitting to God when we are wrong.  We have the example in Adam and Eve of what not to do when we sin (Genesis 3).   For they failed to admit to their wrong doing and tried to place blame outside of themselves.   King David, on the other hand, shows himself to be every bit the sinner that Adam was, yet he places himself before God, the merciful judge, and trusts himself to whatever God decides.   David does not despair, deny God or his sinfulness, engage in self-pity, think everything is inconsequential, become nihilistic, or spiral out of control.   Instead, David despite his personal failings continues to recognize the Lordship of God.  David sees his own behavior as of limited value and consequence, still occurring within the confines of God’s universe.  So though he is God’s chosen king, he recognizes his choices are not always right and he still has to answer to the Lord.  Repentance consists of understanding this right relationship with God, with creation and the rest of humanity.  Repentance is a course correction, right-sizing, recalculation, re-evaluation, self-examination in which one recognizefs God’s rightful lordship and one’s own servant role even if one is emperor.  In praying Psalm 51, we are recognizing our need for God to be God and to do everything in our life that we need God to do for us to be rightfully human.

There is another prayer of repentance in Orthodoxy that is similar in content and structure to Psalm 51 which can be found in many Orthodox prayer books and in the compline service.   It is a prayer of repentance of the King of Judah Manasseh mentioned in 2 Chronicles 33 which describes an incident in the 7th Century BC.  “During his distress, Manasseh made peace with the Lord his God, truly submitting himself to the God of his ancestors.  He prayed, and God was moved by his request. God listened to Manasseh’s prayer and restored him to his rule in Jerusalem. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was the true God” (vs 12-13).  As with King David’s sin and Psalm 51, repentance for Manasseh yields a restored and right relationship with God.  The focus is not on Manasseh’s remorse and regret but on his submitting to the Lordship of God.  However, scholars think the prayer itself comes from the 2^nd Century BC since it is not found in the ancient Jewish texts.   The prayer begins:

Lord Almighty, God of our ancestors, God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their righteous children, you made heaven and earth with all their beauty.  You set limits for the sea by speaking your command.  You closed the bottomless pit, and sealed it by your powerful and glorious name.  All things fear you and tremble in your presence, because no one can endure the brightness of your glory.  No one can resist the fury of your threat against sinners. But your promised mercies are beyond measure and imagination, because you are the highest, Lord, kind, patient, and merciful, and you feel sorry over human troubles.  You, Lord, according to your gentle grace, promised forgiveness to those who are sorry for their sins.  In your great mercy, you allowed sinners to turn from their sins and find salvation.

As with many Orthodox liturgical prayers, the opening of Manasseh’s prayer speaks only of God and all that God has done or is doing.  The purpose of this opening is to establish the Lordship of God – it tells us to whom we are praying and why we recognize this God as our Lord.  Then the prayer continues:

Therefore, Lord, God of those who do what is right, you didn’t offer Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who didn’t sin against you, a chance to change their hearts and lives.  But you offer me, the sinner, the chance to change my heart and life, because my sins outnumbered the grains of sand by the sea.  My sins are many, Lord; they are many. I am not worthy to look up, to gaze into heaven because of my many sins.  Now, Lord, I suffer justly. I deserve the troubles I encounter. Already I’m caught in a trap.   I’m held down by iron chains so that I can’t lift up my head because of my sins.  There’s no relief for me, because I made you angry, doing wrong in front of your face, setting up false gods and committing offenses.

Manasseh’s prayer, more than Psalm 51, accepts the notion that “I” being a sinner am unworthy of my title of being human.  It acknowledges that sin is very powerful in this world, and that “I” have not resisted its power.   This prayer more openly accepts that since God is the Lord, “I” deserve judgment and all that is happening around me is related to or effected by my sin.  Whereas Psalm 51 only speaks of the mercy of God, Manasseh sees God’s anger and accepts it as a just reaction to his behavior.

 Now I bow down before you from deep within my heart, begging for your kindness.  I have sinned, Lord, I have sinned, and I know the laws I’ve broken.
I’m praying, begging you:
Forgive me, Lord, forgive me. Don’t destroy me along with my sins. Don’t keep my bad deeds in your memory forever. Don’t sentence me to the earth’s depths, for you, Lord, are the God of those who turn from their sins.  In me you’ll show how kind you are.  Although I’m not worthy, you’ll save me according to your great mercy.  I will praise you continuously all the days of my life, because all of heaven’s forces praise you, and the glory is yours forever and always. Amen.

The conclusion of Manasseh’s prayer is more in line with Psalm 51, though expressing things more in the negative.  Manasseh tells God what he needs God to do: forgive me, don’t destroy me (but do destroy my sins!), don’t remember my sins forever, don’t condemn me.  Manasseh has hope that God will show kindness and save him.  His response, like David’s, will be to praise God.  Repentance leads to praise not just to self-denigration.  If one repents one spends the remaining time of one’s life giving glory and praise to God.  Repentance leads us to the Liturgy where we give thanks to God and praise God for all the blessings God’s bestows upon us.  This is true repentance – not remorse and regret, but thanksgiving and praise of God.

St. Maximos the Confessor expresses this same truth:

 “Every genuine confession humbles the soul. When it takes the form of thanksgiving, it teaches the soul that it has been delivered by the grace of God. When it takes the form of self-accusation, it teaches the soul that it is guilty of crimes through its own deliberate indolence.  Confession takes two forms. According to the one, we give thanks for blessings received; according to the other, we bring to light and examine what we have done wrong. We use the term confession both for the grateful appreciation of the blessings we have received through divine favor, and for the admission of the evil actions of which we are guilty. Both forms produce humility. For he who thanks God for blessings and he who examines himself for his offences are both humbled. The first judges himself unworthy of what he has been given; the second implores forgiveness for his sins.”  (THE PHILOKALIA, Kindle Loc. 18272-80)

Next:  What does God Ask of Us?

For the Peace of the Whole World

The first three petitions of the Orthodox great litany have a common theme:

In peace, let us pray to the Lord.

For the peace from above and for the salvation of our souls…

For the peace of the whole world…

Biblical scholar Michael Gorman comments:

the peace of the church is not merely for insiders, for life within the body of Christ; its inner life spirals out into the world. Paul already makes this centrifugal dimension of the church peace clear early in his writing career when he urges the Thessalonian believers to practice peacemaking (1 Thess. 5:13b) by “not repay[ing] evil for evil” and by “do[ing] good to one another and to all” (1 Thess. 5:15), which reemphasizes the prayer of 3:12: “And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all.”  (Becoming the Gospel: Paul, Participation, and Mission, Kindle  4097-4101)

It was the heavenly hosts who announced to the world that the coming of the Messiah meant peace – between God and humanity:

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!”  (Luke 2:13-14)

As others have pointed out, Jesus  in the Beatitudes said “Blessed are the peacemakers,” not the peace lovers.  Our task is not merely to love peace, but to make it.  We pray for peace for the world, and agree to be those who make it happen.

The Eucharist: Power to Make Divine

Writing in the 2nd Century, St Justin Martyr (d. 165AD) describes the Liturgy with which he was familiar.  We can see in his description of the Liturgy common elements with how the Liturgy is still being celebrated today in the Orthodox Church.  He also emphasizes at the beginning that in the Liturgy the Christians are praying for everyone in the world, not just for Christians.  Christianity saw itself as a light to the world, not a light for Christians only.  They were the salt of the earth, not to be kept isolated and pure in a salt shaker, but being part of the world – the entirety of which Christ came to save.

We pray in common, for ourselves and for everyone…to attain to the knowledge of truth and grace…to keep the commandments…When the prayers are over we give one another the kiss of peace. Next, bread and a cup of wine mixed with water are brought to the president of the assembly of the brethren. He takes them, praises and glorifies the Father of the universe in the name of the Son and the Holy Spirit, then he utters a long eucharistic prayer as a thanksgiving for having been judged worthy of these blessings.

When he has finished the intercessions and the eucharistic prayer all the people present exclaim Amen. Amen is the Hebrew word meaning “So be it”. When the president has finished the thanksgiving and all the people have responded, the ministers whom we call deacons distribute the consecrated bread and wine to all who are present and they take some to those who are absent.

(from Olivier Clement’s The Roots of Christian Mysticism, p. 107)

Holy Communion and the Forgiveness of Sins

“It is important to realize how significant this was for Jesus and his contemporaries. For the oriental, table-fellowship was a guarantee of peace, trust, brotherhood; it meant in a very real sense a sharing of one’s life. Thus, table-fellowship with tax collectors and sinners was Jesus’ way of proclaiming God’s salvation and assurance of forgiveness, even for those debarred from the cult. This was why his religious contemporaries were scandalized by the freedom of Jesus’ associations (Mark 2.16; Luke 15.2) – the pious could have table-fellowship only with the righteous.

But Jesus’ table-fellowship was marked by openness, not by exclusiveness. That is to say, Jesus’ fellowship meals were invitations to grace, not cultic rituals for an inner group which marked them off from their fellows …”

(James G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament, p. 176-177)

The Blessedness of the Parish

“Let the chief pastor weave together his homilies like flowers,

let the priests make a garland of their ministry,

the deacons of their reading,

strong men of their jubilant shouts, children of their psalms,

chaste women of their songs, chief citizens of their benefactions,

ordinary folk of their manner of life. 

Blessed is He who gave us so many opportunities for good!

Let us summon and invite the saints, 

the martyrs, apostles and prophets, 

whose own blossoms and flowers shine out like themselves – 

such a wealth of roses they have, so fragrant are their lilies:

from the Garden of Delights do they pluck them,

and they bring back fair bunches

to crown our beautiful feast. 

O praise to You form the [saints who are] blessed!

(St. Ephrem the Syrian, Ephrem the Syrian: Selected Poems, p. 177)

Living the Creed

“And doctrine, if it is to be prayed, must also be lived: theology without action, as St. Maximus puts it, is the theology of demons. The Creed belongs only to those who live it. Faith and love, theology and life, are inseparable. In the Byzantine Liturgy, the Creed is introduced with the words, ‘Let us love one another, that with one mind we may confess Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Trinity one in essence and undivided.’

This exactly expresses the Orthodox attitude to Tradition. If we do not love one another, we cannot love God; and if we do not love God, we cannot make a true confession of faith and cannot enter into the inner spirit of Tradition, for there is no other way of knowing God than to love him.”

(Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, p. 201)

There is no Christian: There are Christians

“Cyprian appropriately commented:

‘Before all things the teacher of peace and the master of unity would not have prayer to be made singly and individually, as for one who prays to pray for himself alone. For we say not “My Father, which art in heaven,” nor “Give me this day my daily bread,” nor does each one ask that only his own debt should be forgiven him; nor does he request for himself alone that he may not be led into temptation, and delivered from evil. Our prayer is public and common; and when we pray, we pray not for one, but for the whole people, because we the whole people are one.’ 

...Prayer is not efficacious unless the members of the community are reconciled to each other. One thinks in this connection of Matt. 5:21-26, where the religious act of sacrifice is to be put off until one is reconciled to a brother or sister. The “kiss of peace” in the traditional liturgies, a sign of reconciliation preceding communion, has been a traditional expression of this idea that religious acts without concord with others are done in vain (cf. Cyril of Jerusalem). One recalls Didache 14.2: ‘But let not anyone having a dispute with a fellow be allowed to join you (in the assembly) until they are reconciled, so that your sacrifice not be defiled.’”

(from Dale C. Allision, The Sermon on the Mount, p. 118)