OCD
HEY! COOOOOOOL! Rod joins the long-standing tradition of Orthodox Converts (including yer host): judging everyone else to be shallow, misdirected and horribly wrong. Of course, I only have a blog to do it in… Rod’s got the Dallas News and a reading public as-yet unfamiliar with Orthodox Convert Disorder.
One has a similar liturgical experience at St. Seraphim Orthodox cathedral in Dallas – my church – where every Sunday, amid a panoply of colorful icons and clouds of incense, parishioners pray and sing the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. That rite, which is celebrated here in English, can be traced back to the famed patriarch of Constantinople, who assumed the office in 398.
Um. Rod? Sweetheart? Pumpkin? Sorry, no: don’t believe the hype. We have no proof at all that JC had anything at all to do with that liturgy, which is simply a Novus Ordo Missae to the earlier codification often attributed to Basil – but again, with no reason. Although mostly stable by the 10th, the form in which we generally recognise the Eastern Liturgy wasn’t finalised until the 12th century. John would have known nothing about those doors and curtains that obscure the altar from the People of God. And so all that ceremony (opening, closing, walking through doors, etc) would dumbfound him. And about half his liturgy took place – every Sunday – outside Hagia Sophia.
If your Archbishop follows the new ideas of the Patriarch of Constantinople in shortening the service, you’re doing something that started in the 1920s or 30s. You’re at the OCA Cathedral so you’re probably using a liturgy that was modernised (shortened and adapted) by the OCA in the 70s, and again in the 80s. And if Archbishop Dmitri allows liturgy to be celebrated the same way I saw him do it in SF, then your using a rite that would have scared some pious folks only 20 years ago – still does scare some, to be honest which is why some of them (a tiny minority of a minority), like me, end up hyperpious pockets of ossification where wee can pretend we’re doing it the way it’s always been done (in ROCOR, in the USA, since, um, the Carter Administration).
I do not at all deny the magic of Tradition. But those of us who freely selected it out of the marketplace of American religion are making the exact same choice that others do: “to provide a comforting psychological ambience and to illuminate the challenging path to truth and holiness.” All of us made a choice from a huge buffet: high church, low church, clap-happy mega-church, boutique ethnic piety, whatever… we picked the one that worked for us. If we are to believe what you were writing half a year or so ago, you picked one where you felt your children would be safe and where you felt loved and able to grow spiritually. Then you thought about theology.
That’s fine! That’s what we all do.
On this day of Pentecost we can see the Church in her awesome chaotic pluriform -divine inspired glory.
Let’s not make fun of all of us, k?
Category: orthoparadoxy, uberfrum
Discussion: You came too late to this party
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i guess you’re not attending services at the monastery anymore :)
Another reason for the mandatory 3-year vow of silence for new converts, this is just embarrassing. It’s one thing when the person is just annoying his neighbors and people who don’t know better and show up at his parish, another when he has an audience. Perhaps it should apply doubly-so to converts with the ability to communicate with the public at large [6 years, or merely more emphatically? my text is ambiguous and now I am ambivalent about which would be better).
Mr GZT – after the fact, of course, I’d agree. I’ll be 5 in a couple of weeks… er…
David – Not in a couple of weeks, why were you there?
Yeah, plus Rod seems to think that the Roman Mass was invented in 1570. Sigh.
I suspect, however, that for some, theology is the main item on the buffet that they choose, and they do so in spite of the smells and bells. I think some Orthodox converts have been initially attracted to the faith by what it teaches rather than the ambiance of the service. Some take a while to get used to the particular liturgical ambiance or piety in order for it to “work” for them.
Eric, I know you are right. I do not doubt that some are on a quest for Truth. But some – all that I know personally – picked (a) over (b) off the buffet for whatever reason. I’m not just talking about smells and bells. Some – like Rod – left where they were because they felt unsafe. Etc.
Ben – I hadn’t noticed that. I was pleased that the article didn’t fall into standard “East v West” stuff, but that 389 v 1570 comes really close.
I was one of the theology over practice people. My eyes still cross sometimes over liturgical practices.
Huw, on your note about the American smorgasbord. You are essentially claiming that no American can make a legitimate choice. All choices are purely personal because there is such a smorgasbord. But, then, I suspect that you would turn around and say that because some countries have very little choice (parts of Latin America and Russia), that they also cannot make a legitimate choice (unless you argue that a choice is only legitimate if you suffer persecution). So, how would you legitimate anyone’s personal choice?
You’re reading it wrong. *Rod* is “claiming that no American can make a legitimate choice.” We do, all make a buffet choice. Rod says that’s bad and that those who pick Tradition are above and beyond all that: as if the choice was buffet to the left or Tradition to the right.
Pshaw.
We’re all belly-up to the buffet. Pass me the steak, ok?
Actually this is even *more* true of the Young Catholics who have never experienced the Tridentine Rite. For them this something cool – not a “return” at all but something exciting and new and it annoys their post-hippie parents as much as the Novus Ordo annoyed the pre-hippies and please the hippies.
You write: We have no proof at all that JC had anything at all to do with that liturgy…
That’s simply not true. Students of the history of liturgy can tell you that we have every reason to connect the Divine Liturgy as we now have it directly with both St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom. Both liturgies reveal the particular idiomatic and theological emphases of their respective patron saints. To be sure, we don’t celebrate them now in exactly the same way they did, but there is indeed every reason to believe that key prayers (e.g., the anaphora) were in fact composed by these two saints.
For more on this, consult any of a number of sources on the liturgy, but for a relatively inexpensive, readily available, condensed yet scholarly-based presentation, read The Orthodox Liturgy: The Development of the Eucharistic Liturgy in the Byzantine Rite by Hugh Wybrew. He directly addresses this question of authorship on pp. 55-56. (His bibliography is also quite valuable for further study.)
You are right that he says Basil’s anaphora was probably written by Basil.
But on page 56 HW says that liturgical scholarship discounts the JC tradition “not least because Chrysostom’s name is not firmly linked with the Liturgy now known as his until relatively late.” Only one writer cited as “reopening the question”. I may read the passage incorrectly but it seems to my eyes that Wybrew is siding with the majority of liturgical scholars.
Manuscript available ascribes only three prayers (not the Anaphora) to JC. My “Nothing to do with” should be modified to “Mostly nothing” I’ll stand by that: but “no proof” seems to be the majority opinion.
The entire rest of the HY’s book documents the historical development of the rest of the liturgy beyond the Anaphora which has clearly changed a lot.
Well, I do think you’re reading the passage incorrectly. Indeed, he both mentions the one writer by name and describes his argument, while not giving the same benefit to the demythologizers. Even beyond that question, I strongly disagree even with your “mostly nothing.”
But, anyway, such confident and thoroughgoing statements of “demythologization” such as those in your post serve no one except perhaps the proponents of nihilism. The reality is that the Orthodox faith and worship are not the products of legend, or, as you put it, “hype.” In the end, an Orthodox Christian professes to “believe in… [the] Church.”
This seems to be a theme on this weblog, i.e., that there is in fact nothing one can trust or believe in, especially not if it’s Church tradition. At the bottom of the deconstructive urge is really simply nihilism.
Having just learned these two new terms in my reading, I was just thinking (as your reply arrived in the mail) that we are functioning from differing hermeneutics: yourself from a “hermeneutics of faith” and myself from a “hermeneutics of suspicion”. (I’m just trying those labels out, forgive me if they don’t fit exactly.) This, perhaps, explains our differing read of HW. He seems to me to take the rejection of JC as read – no need to explain it too much. “A majority say ‘no’, except for this guy, let me, for the sake of balance cite his ideas… and well… on with the show.”
The reality is that the Orthodox faith and worship are not the products of legend, or, as you put it, “hype.â€
The hype to which I refer is the growing body of pious blatherings created by us American converts. I freely include some of the early gushings of my convert-self in that collection. Most of it is filled with claims about “unbroken” and “uniform traditions” and “wow we do the same thing they did in the 4th century” kind of stuff. Hype, Andrew: perhaps not entirely untrue, but all with the flavour and showmanship of a sideshow barker. We start believing our own stuff and equating those claims with our faith.
You and I’ve discussed the faith “in the church” before and some of our mutual friends (including clergy) have sided with me – finding the idea rather strange. I’ve rejected that idea – would have even without my friends’ support – as it was not what I was taught “on the way in” and, apart from yourself and Frederica Matthewes Green, I was never offered it at any other time.
I haven’t perhaps, since that public discussion, fit the right mould to be called an Orthodox Christian by some. I’m quite happy to admit that I’m not even bothering to try any more:
The “About” pages of neither of my blogs make no claim to orthodoxy of any kind, I’ve not taken sacraments in an Orthodox church since early March, and as openly stated in the pages of this blog, I’ve been visiting various other denominations around town.
Could the distinction between [T]radition and [t]raditions somehow help us in this debate?
Is there a distinction between essential dogmas of the Faith and pious beliefs?
Is the idea that Chrysostom was the author, or compiler, or originator of the Liturgy that now bears his name a [t]radition (an old, pious, venerable belief), or is it an essential part of [T]radition?
Does the Church stand or fall with this belief? What is more important, the title of the Liturgy or the divine truths that it teaches, and the divine life that it conveys to the faithful?
Just some thoughts …
Another thought …
Is it possible that we scientific moderns completely misunderstand what ancient and medieval folks were doing when they ascribed certain works to famous authors?
We tend to think that such behavior smacks of fraud and dishonesty, and discredits the entire work.
But the Church does not endorse things based merely upon claims about who originated them. We don’t chuck the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (or, as some probably more rightly call him, Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite) into the garbage because some scholar proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that it could not have been a product of the first century?
The same goes with higher criticism about scriptural works. Does our Faith crumble when the scholars demonstrate that the first five books of the OT were probably not penned personally by Moses, or that some of the Epistles of Paul were penned not by the man himself but by a “Pauline school”?
Huw,
I’m very sad to read about your growing alienation from the Church.
I have other friends, too, who have reacted similarly to a too-intense convert community.
You’re right though, those pockets are relatively small (though active). There is a Much Bigger Picture out there.
Ben – I answer with affirmations to all the question you’ve posted, (I think: I’m just waking up here).
t and T would help immensely. Although as you know for quite some time I’ve been asking how we tell the difference: American ER Converts (again – *certainly* including myself) seem to want to make T out of every t.
But it’s not necessary for every ascription to be right: just for us who find out to not repeat them. The ancients were not telling lies: they were doing what they did to the best of there knowledge and ability as God led them.
We should do the same. How’s that?
Fr John, I do continue to thank you for your kindness. Well I know a bigger picture exists: I’ve met it here (in the internet) The irony is I should have stayed in SF. Yet, even as I write that, I know the community where I began is not the same any more either (and I don’t feel like going into the politics based on rumour).
But it’s not necessary for every ascription to be right…
That’s not really the same thing as what you initially said, which is that the modern liturgies have absolutely nothing to do with the men for whom they’re named. This isn’t a question of Tradition and tradition (a better term for the latter would simply be custom).
The other issue is what you termed the “hermeneutics of suspicion,” which I do think is an appropriate characterization, i.e., precluding the possibility of faith from the get-go. It’s essentially the Thomas Jefferson approach, mixed in with the identification of almost anything suspiciously supernatural as being the inventions of immature converts. Ironically, one could characterize the New Testament itself along those lines.
As regards belief in the Church, I’m a little surprised that some Orthodox clergy you know might reject that, especially since it’s in the Creed they recite at least weekly. The only way I can imagine rejecting it is if one identifies belief in the Church with belief in a magisterium, which is certainly not the Orthodox faith.
Anyway, since you’ve rejected Orthodoxy itself, I’m not sure why it is you continue the theology of deconstructive Orthodox convert self-loathing (in this instance based on a misreading of Rod Dreher, who wrote “traced to,” not “authored in every respect by”).
I honestly think that there is something much less stated underneath here, e.g., perhaps a rejection of the clear moral teaching of the Church, which thus leads to an attempt to chip away at everything else until there’s nothing really identifiably “Orthodox” left, all of it being the delusions of converts.
Or so it seems to me.
As ever, I do thank you for your analysis which comes with a tone most Clerical and uncharitable.
Or so it seems to me.
PS: not really the same thing as what you initially said, We’re engaged in a discussion here… it is logical that some points in my mind might change from beginning to end. I don’t find that totally shocking. Change happens.
Read and define the tone as you like. Ironically, I’ve long regarded your own contributions in precisely the same terms! I’m not really quite sure which parts of what I’ve written have been uniquely “Clerical,” though of course “uncharitable” most often in such discussions means “I disagree with you.”
For whatever it might be worth, charity through clarity is actually precisely my intention.
But the point is the point. Whether you think the analysis is right or wrong is of course your own business.
Regarding “change happens”:
It’s context-switching that is objectionable. You said A, so I responded with not-A, but then you reacted as if I’d instead written B, which is actually a straw man variant of not-A. That’s just dishonest.
After all, who wrote that ascribing the modern version of the liturgy to Chrysostom’s exact authorship is required for Orthodoxy? What honestly puzzles me is why you care what is required to be Orthodox, since you’re proud in your standing apart from the Orthodox Church.
Deep breath.
It’s a fun topic of discussion and I have a lot of Orthodox friends and readers.
Also, such topics are church geekery: a given topic on the blog and one I greatly enjoy.
Also, I’ve learned a lot about my own mistakes over the course of the last year and a half in this very conversation. Since the conversation has been so fruitful, I’ll expect to continue it.
Also I’ve learned that some of my readership find the previous “also” to include their journey as well so my learnings seem to be helping others.
I wouldn’t say “proud” but rather “honest” as in, I’ve moved to another stage of the journey: I’ve made no attempt to hide it, and I keep blogging about it for all the above reason.
We’ve now made this totally personal and are no longer discussing the post – although you may come up with some “pastoral” reason to say that’s important.
We need to drop this topic.
I believe we’ve hit the point where “did JC write the liturgy attributed to him” has been hashed up, yes?
The post was a personal attack from the start, and a rather sarcastic one, to boot! But I don’t think you really mean to veer the conversation away from personal attacks so long as what I write is characterized as clericalism (which is, again, ironically one of the local attitudes I’ve been fighting for the last three years up here in Little Moscow). But I suspect my sin here is simply in being ordained. Alas.
Just to be clear: I’m not your pastor and I don’t think of myself as your pastor. I wasn’t offering pastoral advice or comment, just the experience of having read your writing for several years, yea, even before that fateful day I became a clericalist by virtue of being ordained.
In any event, for me at least, it’s always been about the post, though bringing it into the greater context of this weblog’s theme of deconstructing Orthodoxy by means of the kinds of things converts say. The particular example here is an attempt to unmoor the Orthodox liturgical tradition from its ancient origins, which I think anyone with even a little education in such matters can tell you is dead wrong. And I do believe that this overarching theme does not stem from a real faith in Christ and love for His people but from a real rejection of His Church and a desire not to live by its life-giving, salvific path. That’s an ideological stance which almost always leads to this deconstructive mode of theologizing, irrespective of who happens to be following it. Whether that’s you or not is between you and God.
LOL, well we all know I don’t post to often, nor comment to often, and to be honest I really don’t feel like sitting here picking all this apart. But, I have to say Andrew as I have watched you respond over the years,is that your responses in most cases are neither charitable, nor a living example of the God you claim to profess, but instead prideful and judgemental. Books and history can say numerous things, but it doesn’t mean it’s the truth. I could write a book tomorrow, read it in a coffee shop, 50 years later throw it down into book form, and it would be completely different over those years passed, and the language would also be interpreted differently. So lets cut the crap, none of us really KNOW, in the end it’s all a product of faith. So lets get off our high horses, so that IF Orthodoxy is the true faith then people will see it in it’s members. But as long as people like you and Joey are out there cutting down everyone who doesn’t agree with YOUR form of Orthodoxy, then you will continue to see people leaving the church, as well as the faith, because in their mind it’s NOT the Church.
Excuse my bluntness, and my judgement, and I pray that God has more mercy on me than some of those who post here.
As you wish.
I’ve not left the Church – just not practising any eastern flavours of it at the moment.
If anything, I feel when I drew the box so tight as to exclude all the other flavours, I’d left the Church.
deconstructing Orthodoxy by means of the kinds of things converts say.
I do like that. I think I may have to make it a mission statement for the blog to replace the old one – “Anti-western Kookery”. I like that a lot.
It was, after all, the kinds of things Converts say (what I’ve called “hype” in this post) that looped me in. FMG, Peter Gilquist, bloggers, online mailing groups, etc.
I’m quite sure the community of people following God in the way of Jesus is still there under all the hype, I’m just moving back to a non-hyping pew.
Hmmm, sounds like a book in the making. 5 Minute K(c)ookery and other fine dishes.
Well, believe it or not, Todd, your roomie and I actually used to be quite chummy on the Internet (much was made about “Our Birthday,” for instance), but I think that you must have only seen the relatively more recent interaction. At some point, there was a decided turn in our interaction, which I’m fairly sure dates from when Huw posted rather nasty things about my confessor after he, as dean, denied the possibility of St. Raphael’s becoming WR. It hasn’t been good ever since.
You’re on the right time line.
But you’re missing half the story (not your fault)… the half that has nothing to do with the dean… or with you, even. And everything to do with the way such actions pushed buttons b/c they were “triggered” if you will, by another priest. I have not posted that half, because, as with others who share the story, it makes me so angry as to be unhealthy.
I try – and sometimes fail – to divide (in my mind) that one priest and the rest of the clergy. But the rest of the clergy can trigger those buttons very easily now. Even Fr G and Fr P whom I’ve met in person – the MOST unlike that priest possible – I did so with distinct fear.
I realise, Fr A, that one reason it is easy for you to trigger those buttons is because I’ve never met you in person – even after 5 or 6 years of online interaction. And forgive me for the projections. But that’s all I’ve got.
True it is very possible that you were quite chummy, but due to his own admittance it may have been because you both shared a very staunch ultra pious, superior religious outlook on the Orthodox faith. But what you failed to see was the interior struggle that he went through on a daily basis combating absolutism with the person that God created him to be. It was unhealthy, the same unhealthy that I have heard from many, and I am not talking about just Orthodox here. I think really what it comes down to is tact, which is why for the most part I keep quiet. I tend to be a pretty straightforward person, so most of the time I just prefer to keep my mouth shut, and sometimes I don’t. Maybe sometime you should think about what your going to say before just blurbing out a bunch of gobbly gook, and ultra religious babble. Most of the time I just skip over most of your posts, sometimes at the sacrifice of missing out on some good content, but most of that just gets covered over by a bunch of over zealous junk.
Well I am going to take my own advice now, and remove my fingers from the keyboard. Maybe you will be tempted to do so also.
Todd referenced a “very staunch ultra pious, superior religious outlook on the Orthodox faith.”
I can’t speak for Huw, but I can certainly say that that outlook has always repelled me. I’ve always gotten the impression that it repelled him, too. I think our association had less to do with the sectarian impulse and more to do with our running into one another on LiveJournal, back when the number of Orthodox Christians there could possibly have been counted on just a few hands. (He’s been there since 6/02, while I’ve been there since the year before.)
And thanks for the advice. I’ve always tried to behave that way, though obviously not to your satisfaction. Alas, it seems that no matter what one says, someone will think it “blurbing out a bunch of gobbly gook, and ultra religious babble.” I imagine this won’t be the last time.
Thanks, everyone for the discussion. I appreciate the tone, very much. And Todd, thanks very much for your support as it means rather a lot.
To pull it back on topic…
“All of us made a choice from a huge buffet: high church, low church, clap-happy mega-church, boutique ethnic piety, whatever… we picked the one that worked for us. ”
Avoiding the rest of the comments, please, or at least let your host have the last word.