St. Mark of Ephesus 1392-1444
We say it, I think, twelve times as a symbol of the Apostles, to whom this divine prayer (referring to the “Our Father) was first delivered.
The “Lord have mercy” is said…forty times as customary before the Prayers. The number has a special value, because God is expiated through fasting for so many days. (An Exposition of the Church’s Daily Prayer, 2)
Many who either do not understand or who despise the traditional/liturgical worship service of the Orthodox Church do so because, for one reason, they do not understand the very nature of worship. Christ says in Matthew 16 that nothing will prevail against the Church. This is how the Church worships: without being prevailed against by the non-Orthodox’ unbelief.
Many Evangelicals say that liturgical worship is “canned” and “dry.” Liturgical celebration is only canned and dry to those that do not involve themselves in it. The Orthodox Church worships regardless of who is and is not worshiping. It does not take a break, slow down or change its form because of one man or many men’s unbelief.
A problem with our society today is that many men have begun to fabricate their own worship service based on their lack of belief. They believe that the worship of the Church should spontaneously interact with where they are currently in their level of spirituality. There happens to be hundreds of thousands of these types of Christians in our society, today. They are completely unaware of the historical reality of the Church and how we are to worship, so they attend whichever church they feel comfortable at - usually the one that connects with their secular culture.
Most non-Christians and modern Christians are not comfortable worshiping liturgically. The entire service seems canned to them! But it is not the service that is canned, it is the unbeliever that is canned. They are canned because they were taught not to grow and become one with the entirety of the kingdom of Christ. They are canned because someone has limited their capacity to know and give to God. A modern teacher has infiltrated their soul with doctrine and polemics that create a top-stop in their minds and hearts.
The Orthodox Church worships regardless of how you worship; regardless of whether you worship or not! The Orthodox Church assumes a worship service for the Christian who desires to grow in Christ, to come into full communion with Him. Non-Orthodox and immature Christians should first learn about worship before they jump to conclusions about its nature. If they do jump to conclusions without being discipled they risk being lost to the spirit of contemporary “Christianity.” Contemporary Christianity’s worship is geared for the non-Christian (in the name of evangelism), therefore any non-Christian or new Christian will inherit the feeling of being whole within their service. They can indeed be filled, but in their very limited capacity (remember, they have a “top-stop”).
Orthodox worship is not what Protestants refer to as “discipleship,” or even, in many ways, “evangelism;” although both certainly do happen within the service. In discipleship the Church comes down to the new believer’s level, giving certain amounts of attention and information as the person grows: a one-on-one relationship. But worship does not involve the Church fragmenting DOWN to the catechumen’s spiritual level, it involves raising the Church UP to God. This is why the calling of the priest is so important! He is bringing us up to God, to worship and serve God – to give Him our hearts, hence the Anaphora within the Liturgy: “Priest: Lift up your hearts. People: We lift them up unto the Lord. Priest: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is meet and right so to do.”
Priest: Singing the victory hymn, proclaiming, crying out, and saying…
People: Holy, holy, holy, Lord Sabaoth, heaven and earth are filled with Your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna to God in the highest.
(The Holy Anaphora, The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom)
The Triumphal Hymn is a combination of the angelic hymn which Isaiah heard when he received his calling as a prophet, and the hymn with which the people received the Theanthropos in the Holy City of Jerusalem ‘as He was going to His voluntary Passion’. By singing this hymn at the Divine Liturgy, we are imitating both the angels and the people of the Holy City.
On the lips of the angelic powers, the Triumphal Hymn, as they sang it round the holy throne of God, had a double significance. It was a hymn of praise to the Trinitarian God, and at the same time a prophecy: “This hymn is not only a doxology, but also a prophecy of the good things that were going to spread throughout the world…The whole earth is full of His glory… (Isa. 6:3) When was the earth filled with the glory of God? When that hymn came down from heaven to earth, and mankind on earth formed one choir with the heavenly powers, raising the same melody to God and offering a common hymn of glory.” [St. John Chrysostom, Commentary on Isaiah, 6.3, P.G. 56.71] (Hieromonk Gregorios, The Divine Liturgy: A Commentary in the Light of the Fathers pp. 229-230)
Socrates Scholasticus ca. 380
We must now however make some allusion to the origin of this custom in the church of responsive singing. Ignatius third bishop of Antioch in Syria from the Apostle Peter, who also had held intercourse with the Apostles themselves, saw a vision of angels hymning in alternate chants the Holy Trinity. Accordingly he introduced the mode of singing he had observed in the vision into the Antiochian church; whence it was transmitted by Tradition to all the other churches. Such is the account [we have received] in relation to these responsive hymns. (Church History Bk. 6.8)
In this article, Metropalitan Hierotheos S. Vlachos speaks of how Christianity is a type of psychotherapy; how certain liturgical aspects of the faith heal the soul and conform us into the image of Christ!
The Greek word for soul is psyche, so do not let the word psychotherapy or even psychology scare you. My intentions of using this paradigm is not for modern reasons - to delve into the modern industry and academia of psychology, but in order to properly embrace the study and formation of the soul we must actually refer to it and the very need for a categorical study of its usage (Christianity has actually shied away from this arena, when we should be dominating it).
The psyche is the inner, non-material part of humankind. It demands cultivation and renewal through liturgical actions. When we give to God in our worship, we should anticipate the cultivation and renewal of our soul. Orthodox worship is designed to put our souls at rest, not to excite our souls and pump us up.
Orthodox worship puts us in contact with the living God and the history of this God. God’s plan pans throughout all time and we should include ourselves into this eschaton. Remember, the New Covenant did not stop at the Church of Acts, it continued throughout the First Century on, and we need to have succession from this time, not separation!
Ancient liturgy places us in ancient communion. Modern liturgy places us in modern communion. Christ’s power is in the ancient. You can be assured of this by simply opening the Bible. It is an ancient work, and liturgy is inseparable from this work. Modern liturgy (pop music and historically standardless utterance) is grown from a modern culture that is not at all theocratic or even prophetic. It is fueled by Hollywood and other secular avenues. Why would one want to offer praise through secularism? And why would one want to be cultivated through secularism?
The cultivation of our souls demands the sacred, the Holy, and the oneness of God! The Church has worked very hard over the centuries to make certain that the icons, the altar, the hymns, etc., are all palatable to the soul, able to conform us to the image of Christ. As we give to God in our worship, God gives back to us a renewed heart, ready for battle, ready for what the enemy attempts to destroy us with. If you want to do great things for Christ, you must be willing to delve into great things theologically, and the worship of the Orthodox Church is all things theological!
I love the way St. Paul describes Christians as “bondservants.” Other translations besides the NKJ use the word slave, but bondservant seems much more appropriate since it is not associated with modern slavery. To be a bondservant of Christ means that we are indeed bound to our servant-hood. We are not slaves in the modern sense of not having freedom, but we are slaves in the spiritual sense of having freedom yet under the certain care and tutelage of Christ.
When we worship God on the Lord’s Day we become bondservants to Christ through the ordained liturgy of the Church. There is indeed a difference between ordained liturgy and just good liturgy. Good liturgy is good because it looks good on paper, like a thesis. But ordained liturgy, which we shall refer to as bondservant liturgy is good because one really and truly becomes bound to it – covenantaly speaking. Bondservant liturgy is done under the succession and law of Christ’s Church-historical under the care and authority of a bishop. Some may be a little leery on the use of the bishopric here, so please allow me to explain.
I love this article on carpet and church. If we are the ancient Church, then we need to look, feel, and sound like it…literally.
by Jeffrey Tucker
Every parish struggles with acoustical problems, some because of the large space, but some because of the wholly unnecessary existence of carpet in the nave and sanctuary. Many parishes have made the huge mistake of carpeting their church space because someone on someone on some know-nothing committee thought that the carpet made the place feel warmer and friendly—like a living room—and perhaps too, someone found the echoes of children crying or hymnbooks dropping to be annoying.
Sadly, carpet is a killer of good liturgical acoustics. It wrecks the music, as singers struggle to overcome it. The readers end up sounding more didactic than profound. And even the greatest organ in the world can’t fight the sound buffer that carpet creates. All the time you spend rehearsing, and all the money paying a good organist or buying an organ, ends up as money down the carpet drain.
Elementary errors are involved in the decision. When the church is being constructed and tested for sound, it is during a time when it is empty of bodies. The decision makers stand around and note that a new carpet won’t make that much difference. Once installed, it only appears to muffle the sound of steps and things dropped. But once the place is packed with people, something new is discovered. The sound is completely dead—dead in the sense that it doesn’t move. This is not the sound of liturgy.
This is when the acoustic engineers are brought in, usually from some local firm that specializes in studio recordings or some such. What they will not tell you is that you can save the expense of massively pricey sound systems and mixing tricks simply by pulling up the carpet. They don’t tell you this because they are not in the carpet removal business. Their job is to make the existing space sound better. Sadly, this means sometimes tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment, the effect of which is to make it impossible for anyone to be heard unless surrounded by microphones.
Again, this is no solution at all. Chant will never sound right. The organ becomes a complete waste. The instruments and vocal styles that work in a space like this belong more to the American Idol genre of music than sacred music. This is a true tragedy for any parish seeking to reform its liturgical program. I’m very sorry to say this, but it pretty well dooms the reform. You can chant and play Bach all you want but you will never be able to overcome the acoustic limitations.
What to do? The decision makers need to gather the courage to take action. Pull up the carpets immediately. It might leave concrete or wood or something else. It might be unsightly until the time when tile or new concrete or wood can be installed, but the mere appearance alone will call forth a donation perhaps. What’s important is that immediately the sound will be fixed, and the parish will have save untold amounts in paying the acoustic firm. Not only that: funds will be saved from future carpet cleanings, repairs, and replacements.
Much of this information I learned from Reidel and Associates, a firm that does consulting on worship spaces. I ordered their pamphlet about sound called “Acoustics in the Worship Space” by Scott R. Riedel (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1986). It is quite technical and very informative. Here is what he says about floors on page 17.
The floor is typically the building surface that is largest and nearest to worshipers and musicians. It is important that the floor be reflective of sound, particularly near musicians, since it provides the first opportunity for much sound energy to be reinforced. Carpet is an inappropriate floor covering in the worship space; it is acoustically counterproductive to the needs of the worshipers.
The mood of warmth and elegance that carpeting sometimes provides can also be provided with acoustically reflective flooring such as quarry tile or wood that is of warm color and high quality. The notion that the worshiper covers the floor surface, making its material composition acoustically unimportant is false. The large floor area of the worship space bas great acoustical influence. Appropriate floor materials include slate, quarry tile, sealed wood, brick, stone, ceramic tile, terrazzo, and marble.
Walk and Ceiling. Durable, hard-surfaced walls and ceiling are also essential for good acoustical reflections. The ceiling is potentially the largest uninterrupted surface and therefore should be used to reinforce tone. Large expanses of absorptive acoustical ceiling tile are to be strictly avoided. Appropriate wall or ceiling materials include hard plaster, drywall of substantial thickness, sealed woods, glazed brick, stone, med and painted concrete block, marble, and rigidly mounted wood paneling.
The construction of walls, floors, and doors should retard the transmission of noise into the space from adjoining rooms, from the outdoors, or via structure-borne paths. Sound attenuators or absorptive material may be fitted to heat and air ducts to reduce mechanical noise also.
Some may consider using absorbing materials such as carpeting or acoustical tile to suppress noise from the congregation. Noise from shuffled feet or small children is usually not as pervasive as might be feared. It is unwise to destroy the proper reverberant acoustical setting for worship in deference to highly infrequent noisy behavior.
Let me now address the issue of noise. A building in which you can hear your footsteps signals something in our imaginations. It is a special place, a place in which we are encouraged to walk carefully and stay as quiet as possible. Pops, cracks, thumbs, and sounds of all sorts coming from no particular direction is part of the ambiance of church, and its contributes to the feeling of awe.
It was some years ago that I attended a concert of organum—three voices singing early medieval liturgical music—at the National Cathedral in Washington, a vast space. There were only three small voices near the altar, and I was at the back and the people singing looked like tiny specs. Moving my foot a few inches created a noise that could be heard for 20 feet in all directions, loud enough to drown out the music. As a result, everyone sat in frozen silence, fearing even to move a muscle. This went on for more than a full hour. It was a gripping experience.
The closer we can come to creating this environment in our parishes, the holier the space will sound and feel. I’ve personally never heard an echo that is too extended for worship. It is possible I suppose but I’ve never experienced it.
One final point about Church acoustics that needs to be added here. The Introit of the Mass is not: “Please turn off your cellphones.” This line is increasingly common at the start of Mass. This really must end. Yes, it is a good thing for people to turn off cell phones but instructions to that effect are not what should be the first words one hears at the start of Mass.
And please consider that people are not dumb as sticks. Cell phones are a normal part of life now, and we are all learning to keep them off in any public lecture or event such as a worship service. These things take care of themselves over time. For someone’s cell phone to ring ends up being a warning to everyone else for the future.
