Doxos

The Saints at SGN

Christ is Risen!

FREIND Of this Blog and my own friend, Donald Schell, has posted a piece over at the Episcopal Cafe on the icon of the Dancing Saints at St Gregory of Nyssa Church. Donald’s article documents the process in which the community engaged on the way, debating and finally selecting the images painted by Fr Dcn Mark Dukes on the walls around the Altar. (A full list is here.)

The committee’s work was an intentional process of local commemoration, formalizing the ancient church’s way of canonizing saints. We also deliberately acknowledged and borrowed from wider church processes of local commemoration, choosing, for example, names from a dozen recent new, unofficial saints that had been commissioned for niche statues at Westminster Abbey. To widen our own perspective on recent history, we phoned and talked with African American church leaders, with Hawaiian Episcopalians, and with church leaders in Africa and China.

My comments are posted over there, but, essentially, I note that SGN used the Orthodox, messy community process of discernment rather than the exact, legal step-by-step way that the Roman ecclesial community does it.

My own community writes about the Saints of North and South America, finding holiness from the Theotokos of Guadalupe to Cesar Chavez and beyond.

May all saints pray for us!

6 Responses to “The Saints at SGN”

Huw
May 23rd, 2009 at 6:25 pm

Of course the real question is what’s the sideline? Running back and forth between two countries, I’m barely able to tell which one I’ll be in on Sunday Morning: in this calendar year I’ve worshipped more in the Anglican Cathedral in Hamilton than in the local ECUSA parish and since Easter I’ve been in more Orthodox places, even. There is a sense of disconnect generated in part by my travels and in part by the lack of any priest here to speak any theological language other than broad-to-high liberalism which, all assumptions aside, doesn’t quite work for me. My ability to keep time commitments to anything other than the new indy community has answered that question already.

The young fogey
May 24th, 2009 at 8:05 am

There is a sense of disconnect generated in part by my travels and in part by the lack of any priest here to speak any theological language other than broad-to-high liberalism which, all assumptions aside, doesn’t quite work for me.

Like my indy friends Bishop Tim Cravens and his parishioners of course you didn’t buy it. You know better.

Huw
May 26th, 2009 at 12:02 pm

It’s this hard balance: *I* connect better with conservatives than with liberals. Usually the reverse is true of people who connect with me. While I know some might disagree, I think of the sexuality thing as no where near as important (or connected to) the issues of right-faith. Sadly most (but not all) of those for whom right-faith is important seem to think my sexuality is even more important.

The community with the most balance in this regard was SGN. In terms of right-faith they lived up to right-worship, I really believe. Others may disagree but I have to confess that the only time my own internal orthodoxy was mismatched there was when I was trying to force it on others.

bob
June 1st, 2009 at 1:54 am

Huw, you have more (far more) energy than I’ll ever have. How can you make yourself make so many jumps in such a short time, for that matter in a lifetime? I’m not being facetious at all. You’re going to hurt yourself. Have you noticed that working harder at this *gets* harder? Be lazy. Go where you know you’re supposed to be. The struggles of life are always going to find you and will til you die, but you know where you ought to be to carry on with them. And oddly you might find rest in the midst of the struggles. The Church isn’t a few electrons on a screen. You know better. No intention to offend you, I hope it doesn’t.