My Mother

Today is a Soul Sabbath, when we pray for our dead.  Yesterday would have been my mother's birthday and the 13th of this month will be her anniversary.

Of your charity, please pray for the repose of Stella.  She was not an Orthodox woman but she loved the Lord.

"Comprise"

Are you familiar with the experience of a word, or person, or song, or some other thought that hasn't entered your consciousness for some time suddenly surrounding you, seemingly with no connection between the sources?

This happened to me yesterday with the name Gargamel.  I heard it on the television while I was at the computer and recognised it as a name from childhood, but couldn't remember from where.  As I looked up, I realised that it was an advert for the 2011 film The Smurfs.  Gargamel was the villain in The Smurfs cartoon, which was a staple of my childhood.  Later on that evening, reference was made to Gargamel in a programme aimed at people of my generation, who would be expected to remember The Smurfs.  It brought back fond memories of the various children's programmes that I used to watch, followed quickly by my usual lament that children today are subjected to nonsense that simply doesn't compare to the treasures that my generation had.

Another recent - but less felicitous - example is something that is usually just a minor annoyance to me but by no fewer than six examples of which I have been bombarded over the course of the past week.  While my writing is by no means from free of errors of spelling, punctuation, grammar, syntax, and vocabulary, I feel that I must address this one because it really grates on me more than most.  I do not know why: it just does.

When speaking of any collective body or other subject made of constituent parts, it is proper to refer to those parts as together composing the whole.  It is also proper to speak of this in the passive voice, by saying that the whole is composed of those constituent parts.

The problem comes when people replace the word compose with comprise, which has the effect of turning the sentence into nonsense due to the reverse meanings of these words.  To compose is for individual elements to come together to form a complete article, which can be said to be "composed of" those elements.  To comprise is for a body or other article to embrace or include within its make-up its various constituent elements.

Therefore, it is correct to say:

My science class is composed of students from around the world.

However, it makes no sense to say:

My science class is comprised of students from around the world.

The intended meaning is properly expressed by:

My science class comprises students from around the world.

That is to say, the science class includes in its make-up students from around the world.  It comprises them: it is not comprised of them.  In fact, it is difficult to imagine what the expression "comprise of" could possibly mean.

That's all.

Mirfield

When I was an Anglican, I used to make an annual personal retreat of a few days to the House of the Resurrection.  As many will know, this is the mother house of the Anglican monastic Community of the Resurrection.  I would go each year for four or five days surrounding the feast of the Conception of the Mother of God.

For a suburb-dweller from South Manchester, accustomed to 20-hours-a-day public transportation, meals available at all hours of the day or night, and the hustle and bustle of city life, a Yorkshire village in December was an entirely different world.  It was a very easy journey.  I lived near to Manchester Airport at the time so only needed to walk to the airport to get the train to Huddersfield.  From there, it was a short walk to Huddersfield bus station, and this is where there was the first sign that I was about to enter something entirely alien to my experience:

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The Paschal Zadostoinik

I just came across this.  Christ is risen!

New Converts, Beware!

I begin to compose this post with a few disparate ideas floating around in my mind. Perhaps by the end they will have bounced off each other and arranged themselves into some sort of coherent structure.

As I have said in the past, before I first made contact with an Orthodox priest and began worshipping at an Orthodox parish, I learnt much about Orthodoxy through books and the internet. For all of the good such learning brings, the method can have its disadvantages, one of which, in my case at least, was that when I arose from the font a new creature I did so with all sorts of ideas of what the Church ought to be, how She ought to look and conduct Herself, how She could do things better.

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Paraliturgies

I love the litugical cycle of the Church's days, weeks, months, and years.  I think that having a fixed liturgical calendar in some way reconciles our life and existence in fallen time to the saving work of Christ, and bring us into the eternal Eighth Day of the New Creation.  Largely for that reason, many of my posts reflect my love for this cycle of prayer and worship.

However, that does not mean that I do not find great value in those prayers and devotions that do not fit into this established pattern of the hallowing of time. There are many of them - some of them beautiful, some not so beautiful - but they all flow from people's hearts and stem from a desire to be drawn closer into communion with God and each other.

Two of my favourite paraliturgical services are Molebens and Cross-Processions.  My absolute favourite is the Processional Moleben, which combines the two, and is highly festive in character.  A Moleben is simply a service of prayer and supplication, and may be offered for any of a number of intentions but my favourite form is the General Moleben, contructed from excerpts from Matins, with propers inserted according to a particular celebration, whether it be the parish's patronal feast, a pilgrimage to a holy site, a visitation of holy relics or an icon, or whatever else.

I think that the primary reason that I love this so is that it that it is fairly simple ceremonially.  That may seem like a strange thing for me to write but I do mean it. It means that I can immerse myself in the prayer without having to think about what comes next, how to communicate that to others who need to know, and so forth.  It also means that, on festive occasions when there are visitors from elsewhere, there is no confusion because some are accustomed to Greek-style, some Russian-style, and others none at all.  It just sort of happens and we get on with the business of praying.  The second reason is that it comes with a very pertinent dose of Scripture, usually highlighting things about whatever is being celebrated.  There is usually at least one psalm, often an Epistle, and almost always a Gospel (which is boldly proclaimed outdoors if there is a procession, in which case there may even be as many as four Gospels).  The third is that, it being a prayer service rather than something strictly liturgical, the clergy stand among the laity rather than ministering in the altar, and the practical participation is much more on the vocal offering, which brings everybody together in a different way from more liturgical offerings, where we each have our distinctive roles that come together into one act of service to God.  In addition to the litany responses, there is the "God is the Lord" responsory, which the people belt out, before going immediately into the troparion of the celebration, which can itself be repeated over and over again if there is a procession.

This is important.  I do not think that there is a western equivalent to the troparion, which is a short, thematic hymn unique to each saint or feast, and which becomes something of a battle hymn of the people during services on that day.  Everybody will know the troparion of his parish's patron saint because it will be sung at nearly every Divine Liturgy in the parish, and the troparia of certain feasts easily roll off the tongue after having been Orthodox for a couple of years.  Stand in the middle of a gathering of Orthodox people and sing the line "O Lord, save thy people" or "When Thou wast baptised in the Jordan, O Lord" to tone 1 and you'll see what I mean.

When the procession is included, and there is a station made at each of the four sides of the church, where the people are blessed with the Cross, the festal icon, and holy water, while imploring God's mercy with joyful hope. 

I love it.

On Liturgical Languages - part 2

I have been a fan of Innocent (Dr Clark) Carlton since my early days of life in the Orthodox Church.  He is the author of The Truth: What Every Roman Catholic Should Know About the Orthodox Church.  Having come from an Anglo-Cathlolic background, where much of what I had been taught and many of my assumptions had been moulded by the culture of drawing on flawed Latin understandings in order to combat protestantism within Anglicanism, this seemed to be written for me.  It was a great help to me in understanding some of the core differences of doctrine and culture in more than a superficial way between that and the Orthodox Faith.

Imagine my delight, therefore, when, about eighteen months ago, I discovered his podcast on Ancient Faith Radio.  He does a series called Faith and Philosophy, which provides much food for thought.  I enjoy many of the episodes, (although his and my understanding of how best to apply our faith to the politics of our time may not exactly be in harmony).  The most recent to date deals with the question of the form of English to be used in the Orthodox worship of God.

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Temple Theology and the Christ

As I was travelling about a couple of weeks ago, while looking for something else, I came across a very promising podcast entitled Our Great High Priest: The Church is the New Temple, and began to listen to it.  It was an address delivered by Dr Margaret Barker at St Vladimir's Seminary, about the Temple in Jerusalem and the Messianic fulfilment in the Person of the Saviour and lived in the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church.  Unfortunately, I was on the train and my phone's battery was low, so I stopped only a few minutes into the talk.  I then proceeded to forget all about it until last night, when I listened to it in its entirety.

It can be heard here and a transcript may be read here.

I found this absolutely fascinating, both for some of the facts that had previously been unknown to me and also for the affirmation of the Christ as the fulfilment of th Law and the Prophets, and the actualisation of our faith in this in Orthodox worship.

I strongly recommend listening to or reading it.  So much of what we see and do in church finds its meaning in what Dr Barker has discovered that her work certainly serves as a channel for us to deepen our understanding and appreciation of what we are as the people of God.

Has anybody else encountered Dr Barker's work?  What of her books?

Book Review: A Practical Handbook for Divine Services

Last Spring, Holy Trinity Publications, (the publishing arm of the monastery in Jordanville), made available A Practical Handbook for Divine Services.  This is  really a compilation of detailed instructional notes for the priest and deacon (with a few notes for servers) at Vespers, Matins, and the Divine Liturgy in the Slav-Byzantine tradition, penned by the late Abbot Gregory (Woolfenden), a priest and liturgical scholar from the northwest of England.  A number of the clergy of the Moscow Patriarchate's Diocese of Sourozh, to which Fr Gregory once belonged, remember these and other liturgical notes with gratitude, for Fr Gregory used to hand them out at diocesan clergy meetings, and many a new clergyman would have been lost without them.

I bought a copy of this book last summer and found it immensely helpful in understanding some of the actions of the priest and deacon at our divine services.  It is particularly helpful to me as somebody who, while knowing the general roles, does not have much experience of services at which a deacon is present and serving.  Despite the fact that our services rely heavily on the deacon and can seldom be offered fully without one, the reality is that most Orthodox people - clergy and laity alike - are unaccustomed to having a deacon present, and when one is fulfilling his duty, it shows: priests who are accustomed to doing everything themselves forget where the end of their role lies and where that of the deacon begins (or perhaps, due to having served only a short diaconate, they never learnt in the first place), choirs forget (or are possibly unaware of) the different responses and methods that are employed when the Liturgy is served with a deacon, and so forth.

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Jesus Christ!

At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

- Philippians 2:1-11

Why do people use the name of the Saviour as an expletive? And why do they think it acceptable to do this, particularly in conversation with Christians?

The Saviour's name is held in such high regard among Christians that many terms used by us to refer to Him stem precisely from not wishing to utter the name of Jesus casually. So we say things like "the Lord", "Our Lord", "Christ", "the Saviour", and such like, all out of reverence for the Holy Name. Indeed, in the Western tradition, there is a holy day in the Church calendar set aside for honouring The Most Holy Name of Jesus, and indeed, the people bow their heads during services when it is uttered in prayers. So when we hear this holy name being cheapened, used commonly and sacrilegously, it is offensive in the extreme, and I wince every time I hear somebody exclaim 'Jesus!' as an expression of surprise, frustration, or anger.

Then there are the variants. "Jesus H. Christ" is bad enough a distortion but the first time I heard somebody say 'Jesus f***king Christ!', my mouth fell open in disbelief.

Why do people do it?

I understand that most people who do this may not be Christians, but quite aside from the question of whether they believe in the Saviour and have a personal reverence for his holy name, there is the simple matter of basic good manners. Since when is it socially acceptable to take something that is sacred and revered in somebody else's religion and degrade it in conversation with that person? It simply shows contempt for the sensibilities of others. Surely well-bred people, even if they do not believe in God, have some respect for others.

Please tell me I haven't got that wrong as well.

The Procession of the Cross

This coming Sunday (the 1st of August by the Church calendar) is the feast of the Procession of the Cross in the Byzantine Rite. It is one of the few occasions in the year when, at the Divine Liturgy, the Trisagion is replaced by the hymn:

Before thy Cross we bow down, O Master, and thy Holy Resurrection we glorify!

This feast has not fallen on a Sunday since I have been Orthodox, and, being part of a small mission parish with a working priest, I have never celebrated this feast in Church. Indeed, despite knowing of its existence in the calendar of the Church, I have never really known what it is about. So, in preparing this Sunday's Liturgy, I thought I would do a little exploration. Here is the explanation of the feast by one Fr S. Janos, taken from my Holy Trinity calendar iPhone app:

In the Greek Chasoslov (Orologion) of 1897 is explained thus the derivation of this feast: "By reason of the sicknesses, often everywhere occurring in August, from of old customarily it was done at Constantinople to carry out the Venerable Wood of the Cross along the roads and streets for the sanctifying of places and for the driving away of sicknesses. On the eve (31 July), carrying it out from the imperial treasury, they placed it upon the holy table of the Great Church (in honour of Saint Sophia – the Wisdom of God). From this feastday up to the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God, making litia throughout all the city, they then placed it forth for all the people to venerate. This also is the Issuing-forth of the Venerable Cross". In the Russian Church this feast is combined also with a remembrance of the Baptism of Rus', on 1 August 988. In the "Account about the making of services in the holy catholic and apostolic great church of the Uspenie-Dormition", compiled in 1627 by order of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Philaret, there is provided suchlike an explanation of the feast: "And on the day of the procession of the Venerable Cross there occurs a church-procession for the sanctification of water and for the enlightenment of the people, throughout all the towns and places". Knowledge of the day of the actual Baptism of Rus' was preserved in the Chronicles of the XVI Century: "The Baptism of Great-prince Vladimir of Kiev and all Rus' was on August 1". In the practice now of the Russian Church, the service of the Lesser Sanctification of Water on 1 August is done either before or after Liturgy. Together with the Blessing of Waters, there is made a Blessing of Honey (i.e. first-honey for the Saviour: "Saviour of the Water", "Saviour Moisture" [apparently in place of the vinegar and gall offered Him on the Cross?]). And from this day the newly harvested honey is blessed and tasted.

While August may no longer be a time particularly associated with various ailments, there is no time that our souls and bodies are not in need of healing, and when due honour is not due to the Saviour and the precious and life-giving Cross on which He died, and now that the Cross has become for Christians a sign of life rather than death, I particularly love the offering of sweet honey as a replacement and even a reparation for the bitter gall.

So I have purchased my honey and I thoroughly look forward to this Sunday, urging as many of you as possible to join in this celebration.

Why choose Google+ over Facebook?

This is one of those occasional posts that have little to do with matters of faith. However, as most of the people I know through church circles do use Facebook, this seems as good a place as any. (Also, Blogger, part of the Google emporium, is hardy about to ban me for suggesting people leave Facebook for Google).

I joined Google+ last week and have, since then, found it to be far superior to Facebook. Currently, I run both accounts but I only plan to continue doing so until a reasonable proportion of my regular contacts set up Google+ accounts, at which point, Facebook will be used only for the parish group, and perhaps not even that.

In the meanwhile, here are the reasons why I prefer Google+:

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On Liturgical Archaeology

There are many objections to the Orthodox Western Rite. Many are founded on ignorance and can simply be either disregarded or educated away according to mood or circumstance, (such as the lady who flat out refused to believe that anything but the Byzantine Rite was ever used in the Church and tried to convince me that the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom was commonly used in England prior to the Schism). Others do actually have some basis in reality and in genuine concern for the proper passing on and living of the Orthodox Faith and for the spiritual well-being of Orthodox people. These deserve more attention and ought to be taken on board to one degree or another. There are yet others which cannot be so easily categorised because their proponents see them as so self-evident that, in expressing them, they do not often go beyond a brief statement, expecting that this will be readily understood and agreed upon by all right-thinking people, (i.e. people like them). The truth is that this simply serves to further polarise already opposing viewpoints. Then listening stops as, due to human weakness, both sides become defensive and dig their heels in.

One example of this is the position that holds that the restoration of pre-schism western services for use in the Church is "liturgical archaeology". This sort of disparaging terminology may serve as a self-congratulatory mantra among those who already agree with each other but to those who remain to be convinced, it simply shows a lack of respect and a dismissive attitude. Reliance on such belittling expressions instead of actual reasoned and coherent thoughts also suggests a severe lack of confidence in a very weak argument. This may be an inaccurate assessment but it is precisely the picture painted by the way in which this is often presented.

So, let us examine the reasons why people perform this "liturgical archaeology".

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New Guide for Altar Servers

Available here is a free download of a guide for altar servers at the Divine Liturgy in the Slav-Byzantine Rite.


It started life as a guide for servers at my parish, particularly now that, for the frst time since we moved into our church and found ourselves with the space and resources to perform the services more fully, we seem to have a modest but slowly growing number of servers. I was encouraged by a friend to produce something for more general guidance, that could be used in any parish. This seemed like a worthy project with potentially useful results, and I was flattered to be thought capable of such a venture, so I began to amend it accordingly.

However, after some efforts in that direction, it began to become apparent that, not only would the inclusion of all the myriad of possible variations be incredibly time-consuming and turn the guide into a study book for use at home rather than the handy, practical guide that it was intended to be, which could be quickly glanced at during the course of a Liturgy, but also such a venture would be beyond my knowledge and capabilities. Also, it meant that some of the directions that would be needful for my parish's servers due to the peculiarities of our building and circumstances would have to be omitted, thus reducing its usefulness to the very people for whom it was intended in the first place.

In the end, a little saddened that I could not go ahead with the bigger project, I decided to revert to the original plan. The result is a guide for the servers at my parish, based on what I understand to be standard Russian Orthodox custom but adapted to our local use. Please feel free to take as much or as little from it as you find helpful, even if that means none at all.

Western Rite Developments

Well, it all seems to be happening!

After decades of existing as a handful of scattered monastic communities and hermitages, it seems as though the Western Rite within the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad is well on its way to being much more firmly established.

First, we got the informal decision of the Synod of Bishops that all Western Rite communities in ROCOR would be given stavropegial status - itself a great blessing, for it freed bishops from having to look after communities whose rite and culture they did not understand and communities with unsympathetic bishops striving to survive against all odds, generally making things easier for everybody concerned and removing some of the barriers that the previous unhelpful situation placed before those who might otherwise explore Orthodoxy as a spiritual home. After all, who wants to join an isolated mission whose ecclesiastical status is volatile and whose stability is precarious at best?

Then a number of parishes and missions started to apear: some of them newly founded, some of them developed from study societies, and some of them received from independent jurisdictions. The most signficant of these were perhaps the reception of the former HOCACA at the end of last year, and the encouraging news of the discussions with the Orthodox Church of France. This is all very encouraging, although it does raise some questions about the haste of things and the stability and formation both in the Faith and the priestly life of those being received.

Now, within the past fortnight, we have received news that the Council of Bishops has established a Western Rite Vicariate, giving much greater structure and stability to the Western Rite effort, and quite possibly addressing the matter raised in the previous paragraph, as now people are actually being received into something that is integrated and should now begin to operate as a unit. The recent meetings and proposed conferences, I am sure, will add to the stability, structure, and growth into a functional family.

Now, to top it all off, if anything makes a bold statement that the Western Rites of the Orthodox Church are as full and legitimate an expression of the Holy Orthodox Faith as any other, it is not that their forms of services are blessed for use, or that they come directly under the jurisdiction of the First-Hierarch himself, or even that those who belong to those rites are increasing in number, but rather the remarkable fact that ordinations are now being done at a western Pontifical High Mass, by an Orthodox bishop in western vestments, and using the Roman ordinal. I am almost sure that this combination is a first in modern Orthodox history and it speaks volumes, opening the way for people to trust the Church in its western expression with the salvation of their souls. May we soon begin to see Orthodox Saints whose lives have been formed in the Western Rite - the true test of its Orthodoxy.

I am truly delighted by this as an Orthodox Christian with western roots, who loves the western hymns, liturgies, and Saints, and I hope that this will also prove to have great missionary potential across the world but particularly in these isles where many of those Saints once sang those hymns and prayed those liturgies.

I thoroughly look forward to further developments and the video footage that we have been promised of this weekend's ordination. Please pray for Dom Joseph of Christ the Saviour Monastery as he is to be ordained to the diaconate.

I leave you with a photo-video collage from 2007, which brings back memories.