Sunday, February 22, A.D. 2009

Religion Blogs

As much of a natural Luddite that I may be, I love the internet. I remember the days when an answer to an obscure question might require hours of research at the city’s main library. Now, one can find such information online in less than a minute. Of course, such “old-fashioned” skills are useful, and the ease of online research may have some unfortunate consequences for the new generation. Nonetheless, I feel fortunate to have lived in both eras.

One of the more interesting opportunities that the world wide web affords us is the ability to encounter various points of view so easily. In the “real world” meetings places of classrooms, cafés, train cars, youth hostel lounges, and church meals, it takes a considerable amount of time investment to discover people who share certain interests and to build up a relationship so that such matters can be discussed. The internet facilitates this process, though the depersonalized medium has its own shortcomings. For example, many folks feel free to behave like arses in ways that they would not so act among flesh and blood associations. Still, the phenomena of discussion groups, blogs, and alternative news sites are quite exciting.

In tribute to this new medium, today and tomorrow I am offering some sites that I find interesting. You may enjoy them, too. On this Lord’s day, I offer some sites that focus mainly on religion, though with commentary about society at large, while tomorrow’s entry will concern sites about truth more generally. Besides these, I recommend my “blogroll” offerings in the left column of each subject area, as well.

Orthodox sites:

Ad Orientem
American Orthodox Institute
Energetic Procession
Glory to God for All Things
Journey to Orthodoxy
Living Theology
The Ochlophobist
Orrologion
Orthodoxy Today
Paradosis
Pravoslavie
Theandros
Two Natures

Roman Catholic sites:

Ignatius Insight
Inside Catholic
Thomas Peters’ American Papist
Fr. John Zuhlsdorf’s What Does the Prayer Really Say?

Posted by Joseph on Sunday, February 22, Anno Domini 2009
Orthodoxy • Liturgy • Patristics • Saints • Scripture • Ecumenism • Roman Catholicism • (0) Comments • Permalink

Sunday, February 8, A.D. 2009

Competing Claims

On the Christian Theology blog, Dante Tremayne expressed his frustration with Orthodox (non-) apologetics in “Can Eastern Orthodox prove they’re the One True Church?.” His basic complaint is that Orthodox arguments appear to be circular and that they all rest on the Orthodox claim to be the Church of Christ:

Therefore, what they say is the truth, is the truth. There is no higher authority or objective standard to which they appeal. Thus, when the church says that they are the True Church, it’s true, because they are the Final Authority, and they are the Final Authority because they are the True Church. This is a rather obvious tautological statement, and completely meaningless.

I attempted to respond with the following lengthy comment on his entry:

Dear Dante,

I am sorry to hear that you have found nothing but unhelpful and circular statements from Orthodox quarters. This doesn’t help, but let me say that the above statements do make some sense once you see the Orthodox perspective.

The basic Orthodox claim is similar to that of Rome: the Orthodox Church is the Body of Christ, spread throughout the Roman empire and beyond by the apostles, and nourished by the Holy Spirit throughout the ages. For the Orthodox, there is no sudden change—no apostasy, no turbulent switch—in Christian history. From Paul to Justin to John Chrysostom to John of Damascus to Gregory Palamas to today, there is a public continuous Christian community that lives in the light of Christ’s resurrection. Rome claims the same. Protestant communities, as you mention, also claim as much, but rather dishonestly.

How should we judge these competing claims? Well, we can look for continuity. It is not enough to find some sort of precedence—we must find a general and consistent acceptance of doctrines throughout the Christian era. If you do this, you will see that the Protestant confessions are aberrations in Christian history. It is true that Luther and Calvin found their inspiration in Saint Augustine of Hippo, but his peculiar views were quite singular, and they were rejected by the Western Churches for a thousand years after his death, despite his being the greatest Church Father who wrote in Latin. In the East, Augustine’s quirky theological speculations never influenced anyone. All of the great teachers in Christian history had their individual doctrinal musings. Favorite sons of the Orthodox Church Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus also had peculiar ideas. However, such views were simply their own and did not reflect the general consensus of the faith as inherited through the centuries from the apostles. As such, they were considered the private opinions of wise and holy men—but they were not doctrine. The East had an advantage in this, as most early Fathers were Greek speaking and writing—there was no lack of witnesses writing in Greek from any era of the apostolic faith. No one person and his theological idiosyncrasies could substitute for the general catholic faith that everyone held.

It is a common Orthodox contention that most Western errors resulted from this lack of patristic diversity in the West. As the Empire in the West crumbled, fewer people knew Greek, and the knowledge of the early Church was lost in a way that never happened in the Greek East. Moreover, with the onset of the Dark Ages and fewer educated folks in the West, the place of Augustine and the few Western Fathers held an inappropriate influence over the West. Furthermore, the bishop of Rome was forced to take on secular responsibilities as civil authority either crumbled or was taken over by heretical Arian. Over centuries, this aggrandizement of power perverted Rome—from the Orthodox perspective—and made it more about princely power than about guarding the ancient faith for the salvation of souls.

Therefore, the Orthodox acknowledge that Rome has ancient roots, but they hold that historical circumstances facilitated Rome’s slow departure from the apostolic faith. Rome also acknowledges its changes, but it argues that such changes were divinely ordained. To weigh the two, you should consider the relative arguments. However, I think that the burden of proof must rest on Rome, which changed and gathered great power by those changes. Did the papacy transform into a super-episcopacy due to the will of God or due to the self-interest of power hungry men?

The Roman position puts so much stock in the power and infallibility of the papacy because it then allows Rome to justify all other changes. To any question, “Why did the Roman Church change from the ancient practice to another?,” Rome can simply answer “Because the Holy Spirit works through the magesterium of the papacy and directs the Church through Christ’s vicar on earth, the pope.” In one stroke, Roman Catholicism self-justifies.

The Orthodox reject such papal authority and rest with the ancient apostolic and patristic consensus. Obviously, new questions always arise, and new answers must develop to address them. Yet, the Orthodox position is that these new answers are based in the consistent unchanged “phronema”—the mind set—of the Church. Roman theologians often accuse the Orthodox of being stuck in the past, but for the Orthodox, God’s truth isn’t constrained by time. The Word of God is eternal.

The “truth is a person” bit that you mention is not an excuse not to engage intellectually, though many Western Christians initially think that of Orthodox Christians. Rather, it is a typical Orthodox response to what they see as the hyper-rationalization of divine matters. For the Orthodox, theology is not an academic exercise; it is not an engagement with abstract concepts but rather an engagement with the living God. Out of pastoral reasons, Orthodox priests try to steer Western inquirers to consider their faith more like a life lived—in a relationship of love—than one of propositions to which one assents. Westerners often misunderstand this move, since their prior experience with such responses usually comes from the post-modern, post-doctrinal, post-Christian factions of their own religious tradition: “Only the closet atheists say such things.” Thus, they dismiss Orthodoxy as wishy-washy feel good mystical gobbly gook nonsense.

Concerning scripture, the Orthodox rightly treasure the Bible, but they do not see it as something separate from the rest of their heritage from God. The legacy of Abraham, the law of Moses, the prophets, the apostles, the first Christian communities, the martyrs, the great theologians of the early Church, the great councils, the wisdom of the desert monks, the hymnography, the liturgical riches, and the poetry of the Church—these are all aspects of the Christian life, lived in the community of Christ’s gospel. You may hear such and interpret it as denigrating the scriptures, whereas the Orthodox are, from their perspective, putting the Bible in its greater context. The Bible isn’t a document without a home; its home is the Church, where it was written, where it has been kept, and where it has been taught for two thousand years.

So, with apostolic succession, scriptural interpretation, and doctrinal positions, the Orthodox can point to any century in the past and state that Christians held the same beliefs then. They do not see the Fathers as distant authorities—Orthodox Christians are not ecclesial archaeologists digging around in dusty cathedral basements—but rather the Orthodox see the Fathers as familiar pastors and teachers. For this reason, the Orthodox do not have the same crisis of faith that many Westerners have when it comes to learning the great upheavals in Church history. The Arian controversy is touted as evidence against the Trinity by some Protestants and apostate Christians, whereas the Orthodox remember it in the way that our parents remember Vietnam . . . it’s a family memory. They know that Arius was wrong, and they know why he was so successful for so long. The intricacies of the conflict are not arcane matters but stories that one knows because they defined a significant moment in one’s personal past—and often such moments are painful and complicated.

This is not to say that Orthodoxy doesn’t have problems. Rather, it is to admit that the problem with Orthodoxy is Orthodox Christians, whereas the problem with Protestantism is Protestantism. Anything connected with fallen man will be tainted and disappointing. Nonetheless, God has given us a path, and it is available to all.

My presentation of an Orthodox defense is highly unorthodox in that it is overtly intellectual. The more immediate Orthodox response to an inquirer of Orthodox claims would be an invitation to see if you find sanctity and spiritual nourishment in the Church. For it is easier to trick the intellect of most people than to deceive their hearts.

I, myself, don’t find the historical arguments ultimately fulfilling. Sure, they might show that the Orthodox Church has more in continuity with the earliest Christians, but it does not establish that the earliest Christians were right. Why follow Jesus at all? For me, Orthodoxy makes the world make sense; it provides better answers to my questions than any other system. But that is my own path.

However, each person comes to God in a unique manner. I wish you the best in your search.

The comment obviously does not do justice to the historical complexity of Christian history. I have “been there and done that” with endless arguments over papal claims, replete with innumerable patristic references, scriptural commentary, conciliar minutes, and canon law case precedents in cross-diocesan judicial appeals. My basic opinion, sufficient for the present purpose, is that one can build a case for papal supremacy by employing extraordinary circumstances as normative ones. During all the Christological controversies, some bishops played ruthless politics for the sake of the faith while others did so for personal power. A pious bishop in exile often sought assistance wherever he could, and canonically questionable actions were taken and justified by the higher goal of defending the faith from heresy. Rome was usually a haven of sanity during these disputes; early Western Christians were not as a theologically interested, philosophically educated, or politically connected as their Greek brethren in the East. Hence, the Roman Church was blessedly boring while the major theological controversies raged across the Empire. It was often necessary, then, for orthodox hierarchs to seek Rome’s interference in ways that defied common practice. Papal supremacists see their justification therein. The will needs very little evidence to claim the inviolable correctness of its desires . . .

Nonetheless, the normal position of ecumenical Church government was decentralized and conciliar. Such is the Orthodox ideal to this day, though it has taken many forms, with the autocephalous system’s being the current organization. At any rate, the subject has become a moot point. Rome largely abandoned its orthodoxy centuries ago, and whatever primacy the bishop of Rome should have had has become an anachronism. Petrine fundamentalism aside, the Churches’ deference to Rome rested as much on the Roman Christian community’s sobriety and fidelity as on Rome’s status as the old capital, on its being a major center of power, communication, commerce, transportation, and ideas, and on its giving the world countless martyrs, especially Saints Peter and Paul. When Rome forsook its faith, it forfeited its special honor.

Posted by Joseph on Sunday, February 8, Anno Domini 2009
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Wednesday, December 24, A.D. 2008

Holiday Fraternity

It is Yuletide in Cincinnati, and, yesterday, I did the traditional downtown Christmastime annual tour with my mother. On the corner of Eighth and Plum Streets are four Cincinnati landmarks: the city hall, the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Saint Peter in Chains, the Isaac Wise Plum Street Temple, and an old Protestant Congregational church that has been turned into an office building. The Latin cathedral and the Jewish building face each other across Plum Street. As we arrived at the corner, we noticed a sign set up on the steps of Saint Peter in Chains that read, “Happy Hanukkah from your Catholic Neighbors.” I smiled and thought an “only in America” internal cliché. My mother had never before seen the beautiful Isaac Wise Temple, and I had hoped that it would be open, but all of the doors were locked. So, we visited the city hall and the cathedral. Upon leaving Saint Peter in Chains, we saw a fellow across the street open up the central doors to the synagogue. He also set up a sign out front that read something like, “Merry Christmas to the parishioners of Saint Peter in Chains from Isaac Wise Temple.” I smiled even more and knew that Tocqueville would be proud. Simple acts of goodwill go very far in creating an environment of tolerance and trust among people of diverse backgrounds, beliefs, and interests. Thoughtful gestures cannot substitute for virtue and reason, but they definitely help.

So, kudos to the parishioners of Saint Peter in Chains and to the congregation members of the Isaac Wise Temple. Would that the nation follow their lead instead of seeing every holiday as a turf battle in the multicultural wars.

Posted by Joseph on Wednesday, December 24, Anno Domini 2008
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Sunday, November 30, A.D. 2008

A Saudi Mosque in Moscow?

I have a lot of hope for Russia. While the West crumbles in its self-loathing, the nations that survived the Communist hell seem far more sane. Russia remains autocratic and dysfunctional, but I have little doubt that it will survive. Unlike Western Europeans, who seem content to watch their own people disappear from the world and have their populations slowly replaced by North African and Middle Eastern alien hordes, the Russians are at least trying to address their demographic issues.

Anyway, the following story confirmed my confidence in Russia’s rebirth:

“A Saudi Mosque in Moscow in Exchange for a Russian Church in Mecca?” by Paul Goble. Here are some selections:

The king of Saudi Arabia has announced that he is ready to support the construction of a mosque and Islamic cultural center in Moscow, a city with only four mosques for its more than two million Muslims. In response and probably to block this, Orthodox Christians in Russia have called for opening a church in Saudi Arabia. . . .

Given that Moscow has only four mosques – the same number it had at the end of Soviet times – but a Muslim population that may number as many as 2.5 million, Muslims in the Russian Federation were delighted by the offer and the attention from abroad it suggests. But many non-Muslim Russians were horrified that another mosque might be opened in their capital.

After the Saudi offer was reported, three Russian Orthodox groups – the Moscow section of the Union of Orthodox Citizens, the Radonezh Society, and the Byzantine Club – released an open letter to Saudi King Abdullah suggesting that there should be another mosque in Moscow only after a Russian Orthodox church was opened in Mecca.

Their appeal noted that “Saudi Arabia is building mosques in dozens of Christian countries” and then asked whether it would not be only just if permission were given to Christians to build a church within its borders for Christians living there, something Riyadh has been reluctant to permit (www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=documents&div=835).

And in support of their argument, the three groups cite the comment of Jean-Louis Cardinal Toran, the head of the Papal Council on Inter-religious Dialogue that “if Muslims consider it correct to have a large and beautiful mosque in Rome, then it is equally correct for Christians to have a church in Riyadh.”

The Orthodox groups also argued that it would be “very important” to lift the restrictions now in force against Christians visiting the Holy cities of Mecca and Medina,” to all visitors to Saudi Arabia to wear crosses, and to create special courses about Christianity in general and Russian Orthodoxy in particular.

Moreover, they suggested that if the Saudis want to begin broadcasting their television programs to the Russian Federation and its Muslims, then “it would be just” to offer “Your subjects the opportunity to watch Russian Orthodox channels and thus to learn that Christians don’t believe in three gods, don’t distort the Bible and don’t pray to idols.”

I especially like the Orthodox suggestion for the Saudi king to offer, “Your subjects the opportunity to watch Russian Orthodox channels and thus to learn that ‘Christians don’t believe in three gods, don’t distort the Bible and don’t pray to idols.’” Any Christian who has had a theological conversation with followers of Muhammad quickly learns how mistaken they are about fundamental Christian doctrines. I wonder if Moscow will cave . . .

Posted by Joseph on Sunday, November 30, Anno Domini 2008
Orthodoxy • Ecumenism • Muhammadanism • (1) Comments • Permalink

Sunday, November 23, A.D. 2008

What Could We Salvage in the West?

Back in my homeland for Thanksgiving break, I am surrounded by both the continuity and the ruins of German Catholic life. Throughout Cincinnati, there are abandoned monasteries and other religious institutions that have suffered from the Latin developments after the Second Vatican Council. I do not expect the forthcoming collapse of Rome, but I cannot help but think that her communion has become gravely ill.

I suppose that it is natural to concern myself with the ancestral religion. In my moments of fantasy, I even wonder what could be saved from the Western religious tradition if its flock ever turned en masse toward the Orthodox faith. I do not believe that such an unlikely event would occur—Western societies are more likely to become part of the Dar al-Islam than to return to the Orthodox faith of their distant ancestors. Yet, I am sometimes given to escapist meanderings of the mind—it is a coping mechanism that allows me to live in a civilization towards which a good deal of my soul holds contempt. So, I wonder what would it mean for the West to return to the Church.

Now, allow me to delve into my personal heresy here as I assert my agnosticism toward the ecclessiological status of the Latins. I do not claim to speak for the Church, and I do not think that there is any value in my private opinions on the matter, but I just cannot confidently dismiss the Latins. I definitely believe that they have developed some false and destructive doctrines. However, they have generally held fast to the apostolic faith, and their communion has borne much fruit during the last millennium. I am inclined to think of them as schismatics with cancerous ideas, but with the cancer relatively managed.

The West is complicated, as we should expect of a civilization and its religion. I think that all the Orthodox, Catholic elements are present in the Western tradition—the blood of the Church, to continue my anatomical metaphor—but these vital humors coexist with poisons. One can easily see this in ecumenical discussions between the Latins and us; for they are quick to affirm our positions with, “But we believe that, too.” For them, the great divide is only over papal authority and the filioque, which is why they tend to be optimistic about overcoming the schism. I suspect, however, that issues such as papal supremacy and the filioque are symptomatic of a much larger separation. As the Greek theologians say, the Western phronoma, or mindset, has abandoned the faith and whored among the heathen, having adopted an alien mentality in her lascivious exploits . . . I could not resist a reference to the Reformers’ pet image of Babylon. Anyway, the presence of the poison, or of an alien world view that has spawned for us the post-Christian world, does not exclude the presence of the apostolic life in the West, and this is the point that interests me. What can be saved from Western Christianity?

The Western rite has attempted to salvage the West’s religious patrimony, but it remains highly controversial after its one century in existence. Only two Orthodox Churches—Antioch and Russia—allow the Western rite. Moreover, there is no shortage of critics who denounce the Western rite as liturgical archaeology, reverse Uniatism, and a Trojan horse of occidental follies. You can read some of this criticism by priests Alexander Schmemann and Michael Johnson. I agree with the lex orandi, lex credendi principle, and we should carefully consider what the West has begotten. Should we allow the cancer to spread?

Of course, I do not pretend to know the best course to steer, but I am partial to allowing such seeking sheep to keep their customs, though my opinion is likely more founded on my esteem for tradition and hatred of loss and waste than on theological principles. Moreover, I have visited a few Western rite parishes, and the people, mostly converts from Anglicanism, are kind, pious Christian folk. Does their edifice have to be destroyed completely, or couldn’t we simply knock out and rebuild a few walls?

Over time, I think that the two liturgical traditions here might cross-pollinate into something more organically Western Orthodox—this process might even happen without the Western rite, as more and more people over the generations convert to Orthodoxy and as the Orthodox in Western lands absorb, digest, and transform the pre-existing religious culture.

So, what could or should be retained that is distinctive in Western Christianity? Please add your thoughts. Here are some of mine:

What about the Roman Easter candle? Wouldn’t it be a good idea to have this candle be the one first lit on Pascha in the altar and then brought out to light the people’s candles?

Russians have already largely adopted Roman liturgical colors; I think that bright red Pentecost vestments make more sense than green vestments. The red can be a different shade than the red vestments associated with other feasts.

The Greeks have already started using stained glass. I do not think that stained glass should replace mosaics or wall iconography, of course, but I think that stained glass windows could complement them.

This is more controversial, but in addition to our indispensable monastic culture, there may be room for something like the West’s religious orders. I do not know if the Orthodox would ever consider Francis or Dominic as saints, but something like the Franciscan and Dominican communities, but under the authority of the local bishop, would contribute something to Orthodox life. If we ever establish schools, hospitals, and orphanages as they are needed in Western lands, such committed workers for Christ would help immensely.

Posted by Joseph on Sunday, November 23, Anno Domini 2008
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Sunday, November 9, A.D. 2008

A Visit with the Copts

Until today, I had never before been to a non-Chalcedonian or an Oriental Orthodox liturgy.

In Saint Petersburg, Aaron and I visited an Armenian church, but we did not attend a service. There, I was fascinated by the photographs in the church’s narthex of the Armenian patriarch and Moscow’s Alexy together at various meetings. I suppose that it helps the Armenians in the middle of Russia’s old imperial capital to show the locals that their patriarch is friendly to their kind; the Russians have not been well disposed to the Caucasus in recent years.

Well, I have delayed attending an Oriental liturgy because the Non-Chalcedonian and the Chalcedonian Orthodox Churches have not been in communion for fifteen centuries. Though I suspect that the rupture was due to politics and semantics rather than heterodoxy, it is not really up to me to decide—and that whole “no prayer with heretics” bit makes a lot of sense to me.

Nonetheless, I just cannot see the fruits of “monophysite” heresy. I think that the one and perhaps the only promising aspect of ecumenism is the relationship between the two families of Orthodox Churches because they appear to have the same theological phronema. That the Copts, Ethiopians, Armenians, Syrians, and Indians have been separated from us for so long, that they have benefited from only the first three Ecumenical Councils, that they have been relatively isolated from the theological developments of the imperial East and West for most of Christian history, and yet they still appear the same as the Orthodox Church is powerful evidence that the schism has been one of ecclesial politics rather than heresy. Now, that does not mean that there are not troubling signs among the Orientals, but those troubling signs are endemic to sinful and foolish men. A cursory look at the Orthodox Churches reveals much that is less than ideal. However, the apostolic tradition remains strong in the non-Chalcedonian communion.

With this in mind, and knowing how damned I am anyway, in general, I decided to attend a Coptic divine liturgy.

From what Andrew has said about the Copts in Ohio and from what I have seen online, the Copts in America are quite interesting. They have absorbed the Protestant knack for ministering in the contemporary age—having active parishes with various ministries, outreaches, charitable activities, evangelization initiatives, and even parochial schools. Perhaps, their community has built up so much fervor and energy over the centuries of dhimmitude and persecution in Egypt that, once free here in America, they have exploded in their zeal. Saint Mark’s Coptic Church seems very much like this sort of active Coptic parish, and as they did not appear to be an ethnic enclave, I decided to visit them.

Saint Mark’s has two liturgies each Sunday—a trilingual liturgy in English, Coptic, and Arabic at 6:30 AM and a bilingual liturgy in English and Coptic at 9:30 AM. Yes, the liturgies do last just short of three hours. I went to the earlier trilingual liturgy. The parish complex was larger than I expected; I found a social hall, a gymnasium, classrooms, offices, a school, and, of course, the temple. When I went into the nave, I noticed that there were three altars, and the 6:30 liturgy was being held at the left altar. The nave was white and had an expansive dome in the middle. There were icons on all the walls but not many; the parish probably was still quite young. I did not much care for the iconographic styles—there were icons in the traditional Coptic style and others in what I would call the “Mormon” style. The Coptic style features exaggeratedly rounded heads; Andrew once sacrilegiously called one Coptic icon, “The Transfiguration of Charlie Brown.” I can take the traditional style; all icons are highly stylized, and traditional Coptic icons do have a certain beauty and sanctity to them. However, the “Mormon” style was disconcerting. I call it the Mormon style because it reminds me of Mormon religious art—imagine the Westernized Russian icons of the nineteenth century robbed of artistic quality and thoroughly smeared with contemporary Protestant sentimentality.

I walked over to the right of the left altar, thinking that is where I should stand, when an Egyptian fellow named Mina came over and invited me to stand by him over on the far left so that he could help me follow the service books. The liturgy was that of Saint Basil’s, which we use during Great Lent, but with the language issues and the different liturgical customs, I was happy to have assistance. I noticed soon after that the Copts’ arrangement is the reverse of ours—the men stand on the left and the women stand on the right. It was a good thing that Mina rescued me from that faux pas.

The initial service involved switching between a couple of liturgical books; I assume that we had a shortened version of matins followed by the hours. A deacon brought the priest a basket of large rounded loaves; they resembled our prosphora but they did not have any seals on them. The priest inspected the loaves and chose one. He took it, and, in front of the congregation, he rubbed it completely with water. Later, Mina told me that the priest chooses the best loaf for the Eucharist, and the water ritual symbolizes baptism. In the Russian Church, the preparations for the Eucharist occur within the altar; so, I do not know if a similar practice exists with us.

The liturgy rapidly changed languages; the priest, deacons, and people alternated, stanza by stanza, it seemed, English, Coptic, and Arabic. From the service book, I thought that Coptic looked like Greek but with some strange letters. I could not follow the Arabic at all, except for the occasional Allah and quds. The tones used were somewhat familiar to me, as I have been to an Arabic Orthodox parish before. Everyone belted out his apportioned parts. I have never witnessed such enthusiastic liturgical worship before. During parts of the liturgy, a deacon would strike together cymbals in a very Dionysian, hypnotic fashion; it reminded me exactly of the quality of Russian bells. As a side note, I have long thought that the Orthodox Church typifies the recommendations for music in Plato’s Laws and in Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy.

Here is an example of the cymbals that I found on YouTube:

Note how Coptic priests wear hats that look like Western bishops’ mitres.

Here is a video of Russian bells:

I’ll note random things that I found different and interesting at the liturgy . . . Saint Mark’s has a projector screen high above the altar so that people without service books can follow the liturgy in all three languages. I found this a bit unsettlingly similar to Protestant mega-churches, but I suppose that it makes sense. The sermon was much longer, too, than what I typically hear in a Russian liturgy, though Andrew tells me that the Arabs usually emphasize homiletics. In addition to the sermon, there was a reading of the day’s saints along with short hagiographies. There was also a reading of the Acts in addition to the epistle and gospel readings. There were no little or great entrances during the liturgy, but there was a procession around the nave following a cross, in the Roman fashion, at the end of the liturgy. When people went for communion, I noticed that they were barefoot. I knew that Christians in the Middle East removed their shoes, but I did not realize it at Saint Mark’s until communion. The men went to commune through a side door in the left altar, while the women went through a side door into the right altar. I was a bit shocked to see women in the altar; I wonder if they are allowed in the central altar. The women also were given small napkins with which they wiped their face. They placed them on a plate that a deacon was holding as they exited the altar. I could not see if the men had such napkins; perhaps, the deacons wipe their faces as in the Russian Church. The women also wore head coverings with crosses on them.

After the liturgy, the priest sprinkled everyone with holy water. I only see this on certain days in the Russian Church, but perhaps it is a weekly practice in certain parishes. When everyone went into the narthex, the priest was standing there with one of the earlier rejected loaves in his hand. As people came up to greet him, he would give them a piece of the bread—obviously antidoron. I never saw a deacon or acolyte supply him with another of the rejected loaves, but I assume that is what happens when he runs out of bread.

In the narthex, my Coptic guide Mina exchanged contact information with me and invited me to a variety of parish functions. He was worried that the service had been too long for me, but I explained that we also have lengthy liturgies from time to time. He showed me an announcement sheet for a meeting next week that dealt with the acquisition of land from an Islamic Society. Evidently, the Muslim organization does not want to sell the land to the Copts for their market price, and Saint Mark’s parishioners are intent on buying. I found that charming—the Copts are growing and buying neighboring land from an Muhammadan organization in America, but the Muhammadans do not wish to sell to the infidels—just as Muslim cab drivers refuse to take people to church services. I asked Mina how the Copts and Muslims get along here in America. He replied that they got along fine; “What can they do to us here?” A safe answer, for now . . .

Well, I wish the Copts well. They have been oppressed in dhimmitude for over a thousand years. May they succeed in the homeland and elsewhere in spreading the gospel of Christ, and may our Churches overcome their historical tangles and make one of Christendom’s oldest scandals no more than a memory and a lesson.

Posted by Joseph on Sunday, November 9, Anno Domini 2008
Ecumenism • Non-Chalcedonianism • (0) Comments • Permalink