On 17 & 18 February I attended the first Symposium hosted by the SF Orthodox Institute. The theme was the symbolism of the Diving Liturgy, “The Living Symbol”. The Institute’s online reports are available, and the three talks (and, I hope, the question periods) will be available at some point in the future via Ancient Faith Radio. The presenters were the Rt. Revd. Dr. Archimandrite Meletios Webber, of the OCA, the V. Revd. Prof. Archimandrite Irenei Steenberg of the ROCOR, and the V. Revd. Dr. Archpriest Josiah Trenham of the SRAOCANA.

I urge you to read the reports and, when available, to listen to the lectures. What follows is a decidedly biased reaction rather than a “book report”.

First off, the pan-Orthodox nature of the gathering was amazing: the presenters were from three different jurisdictions, as noted above. The attendees were from many more: there were members, as well, from the Serbian, Romanian and Greek jurisdictions. There were non-Orthodox present as well, although I think they were “really” catechumens (to judge by the questions they asked) and so, not-yet-officially, but converts nonetheless.

And that last bit is the important bit: while a few of the attendees have been Orthodox for longer than I’ve been alive, very few if any at all were “cradle”. I think this explains much of what follows. There were also present two ROCOR bishops as well. Although I want to say “convert craziness”, the Bishops’ presence assured me that nothing said went too far afield from, at least, the ROCOR line.

Convert issues aside, standing in a room with Orthodox Bishops who, a few years ago, condemned us all as modernist and ecumenical heretics was, itself, a joyful experience. While there see translation differences, singing our prayed together was a wonderful reminder of the universality of Orthodoxy.

Fr Mel gave an awesome opening talk on the meaning of “Symbol”: it invites us to participate in another reality (or, perhaps, the only real reality there is) that is already present. Several other points tied in the common sense of our churches as temples (also carried into Fr Josiah’s talk) and linked the church to both Jewish Temple and Synagogue traditions, although he made it clear he was no fan of Margaret Barker in this regard. I have read Father’s book on the 12 Steps, and although this was nothing like that, he was clearly the same priest.

Fr Irenei gave what was for me the most disappointing talk: farming the liturgy for “symbolism” without ever discussing where that symbolism comes from or why it’s needed (or not needed). I used to listen to Fr Irenei’s podcast on the Fathers and so was expecting at least that level of scholarship. I don’t find much joy in taking the vestments of the Bishop, eg, borrowed right from Byzantine and Turkish secular offices, and insisting that they are “really” Gospel events or parables being enacted. Pious folks pile so many layers of gobbledy-gook on the liturgy that in 60+ minutes of talking, Fr Irenei only got to the little entrance, expounding things that the average visitor to a liturgy would never notice. After 30+ years in various liturgies (Christian and Non-) I know from solid experience that most liturgical action starts because item A needs to move from here to over there. Person B is appointed to move item A. Father Z, visiting from a different parish says, “Hm, that makes good sense” and adds the change to his own parish practice. Eventually such a change makes sense to a lot of people or – in some cases – the Bishop decides it makes so much sense that he imposes it on everyone. Years later when no one remembers that Item A needed to be moved at all, they will ask why we do this… and some pious person will reply with a layer of mythology. Father Irenei only talked about the mythology.

But there was no discussion about what the rites actually mean (or how they evolved) and no discussion about when that symbolism got applied or what cultures the rites evolved in before they became codified under the mythology. The only fact mentioned in the process was that the Bishop’s liturgy is normative. A priest’s liturgy is the second choice. I had a pad for taking notes, but no notes were taken: there are many many such mythologies of the liturgy available. They were very useful for an illiterate public for whom the liturgy was the most-colorful theatre they’d ever see or hear. Not so much at all now. Do these stories only arise in places where the clergy and the people are not so fully educated? Did John Chrysostom ever have to “explain” the liturgy in such a way?

Fr Josiah’s talk was the most enjoyable, not the least because I’ve been reading his writings online for a long while and I was excited to hear him in person. He is a very engaging speaker: unlike the monks he spoke up, was able to present his ideas clearly and provocatively. His talk was based firmly on his own experience of the difference between worshiping in borrowed space and worshiping in a consecrated church. Not many facts, per se, but a whole lot of heart.

By way of my own presence: since catechism, I’ve not found an “adult ed” experience in Orthodoxy. Father Victor wanted to have a book discussion group on The Brothers Karamosov, and I’m not sure what happened to that group, but we only met twice. Since then, nothing, really. The most exciting “adult ed” moments I’ve found were in on-line book-bloggings where a group of bloggers discussed a book or movie. I was excited to hear of an Orthodox school opening in SF. Yes, I knew the organizers, from their writings and podcasts, to be from the “conservative” side of Orthodoxy, but there is always something to learn. In Orthodoxy the “Left” is the looseness with which cradle folks live and dance in their faith. The “Right” is mostly converts like myself taking unimportant things as Gospel Truth whilst forgetting the Gospel of Love. Our dance tends to look more like military formation marching and we look at the “Left” and think they are abandoning “the Faith once delivered to the Saints.” The “Left” looks at the “Right” and wonders why we are concerned with how many mentanias come before and after the icon is kissed while rushing forward to embrace the icon in some sort of messy, non-Anglo-Saxon, emotional display. We can’t forget either side. The Church Militant is built of both lazies and crazies with each holding the other in check and no few of either side become saints. I visited the institute because it was “the right wing” breaking out in Orthodoxy in San Francisco: ex evangelical convert-crazy combined with ROCOR’s traditional conservatism. I felt it would be good to pop in for a weekend.

Given the presenters and the intended audience, it will come as no surprise that there was a lot “Orthodoxy always…” and “Orthodoxy never…” There was appropriate abjuration of “liturgical archaeology” and “modernist reform”. There was condemnation of the WR in politically-careful terms. In other words, there was a lot of convert-friendly pious twaddle and pious codswallop; the latter being the former turned vicious.

There was an ongoing condemnation of some thinking as “Western” – with projection of our modern biases on the early Church and laughter at the possibility that modern folks might be able to learn something the Fathers didn’t know. I’m asking the wrong questions, or so I was made to think at the beginning of the weekend, about the time I decided I’d wasted my $70. This was not to be a scholarly discussion at all, but rather a mythological one. Which is ok: but I would rather attend adult Sunday School classes for free. My craving for scholarship and research will not be filled thus. But I’m glad electrical lighting and audio enhancement were not rejected as modern or western.

There was a *very* strong appeal to accept the Church as she was now, here, given to us and passed on without change – without any discussion of the changes that have occurred even in the last 100 years or acknowledgment of the one issue that, even today, keeps most of the church trapped in a time-counting system as outdated and useless as horary Astrology. Or, more honestly, the presenters’ own desire to cut off our western minds and replace them with something else. While saying things like “embrace the culture and baptise it” and “engage the language honestly” they also said things like “such thinking is too western, too scholarly.” They tried to draw a line between a “theology that defines and a theology that defends.” Such a division is too precious, too prissy. Tell me Nicea didn’t define! Was not the filioque a defense of the Holy Spirit?

As to knowing more than the Fathers, it sounds really presumptuous when you lay it out like that but then it must also be true: moderns have a lot more resources to hand than the Fathers did in a lot of areas. I wouldn’t visit Drs Cosmas and Damian today for anything more than a prayer meeting unless they had recently gone to school and were reading medical journals. I will ask for their prayers before I go for even a checkup. But we know more than they did. Likewise Astronomy, dates of the Vernal Equinox, etc. And sometimes this more-knowledge impacts what we know about the Liturgy or the Scriptures. This doesn’t deny the Holy Spirit’s ability to lead us to our salvation, each in our own time nor does it mean the Fathers are less than we are because we know more about some things (but not everything). I don’t find this offensive or even prideful: what is prideful is the ability to say everything I disagree with is, point blank, “Western” and therefore not-good. One speaker said “I don’t think that the Western Rite can support the fullness of the Orthodox Faith… I couldn’t catechize a convert with that.” Despite the fact that several synods of Bishops disagree with him… That sounds prideful.