By Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux
I worshiped this morning with my knees, my calves, and the balls of my feet. Standing at the back of the church, I watched the women in high heels and dared myself to match their (somewhat inexplicable) fortitude. I should be able to do it: my shoes, cheap cloth mary janes, were still not the four-inch wedges sported by a woman holding a baby. I saw her ankles wobble a few times, and watched another woman’s calf muscles tense and strain as she shifted her weight from one foot to another, invoking the intimate bond with the space that I was surprised to feel: I was uncomfortable. And although other churchgoers’ muscles may have been more inured than mine to the sensation of standing on hard stone for an hour and a half, I suspect that they were too.
There is a peculiar unity to the knowledge that your physical engagement with a space is happening in the same way as the stranger standing ahead of you. Your knees have the same dull ache; your noses breathe in the same incense; your ears absorb the same chanting. This happens, of course, dozens of times on any given day, and I’ve never felt a particular connection to the peo
ple next to me on the elliptical machine, just because we’re exercising the same muscles, or the other people walking through a garden, by virtue of a shared smell. But there was something about the combination of all of this shared physicality – and the fact that it involved some physical discomfort – that transformed the liturgy this morning into something larger than my individual experience.
This may also be due to the non-participatory nature of the liturgy itself; although there is near-constant music, the congregation does not sing, nor are there responsive readings, or any of the staples of a Roman Catholic or Protestant service. The most holy moment of the ritual takes place behind a curtain. And although the worshipers’ interactions with the icons allowed for more movement throughout the course of the service (the children who ran in and out of the church, tugging on their parents’ clothes and giggling to themselves, helped too), the engagement that I feel in other services through singing or kneeling or exchanging signs of peace was happening, literally, inside my calves.
This is all to say: I understood for the first time why the faithful (and, of course, those who are able) choose to stand during Orthodox services, even in high heels. Constant reminders of our physical embodiment are crucial to worship and to human unity in general, in part because of their intense inexpressibility. As Virginia Woolf once observed, far more articulately than I ever could: “English, which can express the thoughts of Hamlet and the tragedy of Lear, has no words for the shiver or the headache…The merest schoolgirl as she falls in love has Shakespeare or Keats to speak her mind for her, but let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry.”
The (very slight) pain that I felt this morning, though, was of the healing kind. It reminded me of the vulnerability of my body, but also of its strength. And, more importantly, it bonded me to the bodies of everyone standing around me, without sharing a language, a culture, or even fundamental religious beliefs. Later that morning, I helped the nuns clear away the scads of tiny cups strewn across the tables by the congregation, who stayed to chat and eat bread and drink the strong Greek coffee, and felt the same connection that comes with collective physical labor. I think there will be no lack of these intimate connections during these two weeks.
Hi Gregory,
Thank you so much for your thoughtful response! I did realize that Orthodox churches have later incorporated pews – but I didn’t know that standing was such an integral part of Catholic tradition. That’s definitely something to think with. I also did learn, during this week, that the laity is part of the choir, which complicated what had been (I now realize) a somewhat simplistic view of the way that the congregation participates in the service. But I think what I was hoping to convey was simply the way that participation differs (not that the congregation in Orthodox services are somehow more passive) – even the complexity of the music in Orthodox services and the fact that so much of the service does center around music makes the act of participation fundamentally different than, say, Protestant services in the U.S.
I was very struck by the internal worship that seemed to be going on around me, exemplified by the act of standing. When one’s body is so fully engaged with the surroundings, I find it much easier to cultivate what you call the “internal curriculum of spiritual practice” (a really wonderful way of describing it!). As someone who is used to Western churches, it jarred me quite a bit at first, but I certainly didn’t mean to imply that the worship was any less “real” – simply that it was perhaps more physically and internally complex, something that I realized as I stood through more and more of the liturgy.
Anyway – I’m still in a process of very engaged learning here at the monastery, and I really appreciate your lay perspective – of course practices here must be different, and it just makes me want to go to a parish church, especially one in the United States. Thanks so much for reading my post, and for commenting.
All the best,
Amelia
Amelia,
Thanks for sharing this reflection! I’m a friend of Matthew’s, and an Orthodox convert. I remember learning how to stand during liturgies as well. I later learned that this is the traditional Christian stance of prayer: either standing or kneeling, as prayer is an active effort, one engaged in by the Church militant, not a passive activity. I later learned that it was Calvin who first brought pews into the chapel, modeling the chapel after the scholastic classroom. The Catholics soon followed suit. Today, some Orthodox parishes have pews as well.
Anyway, I note this in part b/c of your comment regarding “the non-participatory nature of the liturgy itself,” and how the congregation does not sing or read or participate as in Protestant or Catholic services. Know that in many Orthodox parishes, the congregation does indeed sing along. Also know that, contrary to the Roman practice, an Orthodox priest cannot serve the Divine Liturgy without the laity present, in part because lay participation is deemed utterly essential.
Also, there are detailed writings and sensibilities about laboring towards sobriety, humility, purity of heart, and stillness (hesychia) in prayer during Orthodox services–though these sensibilities are not usually the one’s Western observers probably first associate with “real worship.” (And though we labor, as St Gregory of Nyssa insists, it is always God who “provides the increase”). So what may appear as disengaged silence may contain, for the pious Orthodox worshipper, a whole internal curriculum of spiritual practice. For instance, mental distractions during prayer–what the Fathers call “meteorismos”–are a sign of a dissolute and non-integrated heart. All of which is to say: when I attend liturgies, sometimes I sing along (esp. b/c I’m in the choir!); at other times, I’m working to pray with simplicity of heart, silently following the choir as they sing. One sort of silly image that helped me to connect with this notion of prayer with sobriety is the image of the serenity of the elves in the Lord of the Rings movies. The images of their poise and calm, with benevolence, were a ‘hook’ that helped me understand what the Orthodox are shooting for in worship. This same notion of sobriety, of course, is what the best Orthodox iconography captures so profoundly.
Also, services are typically celebrated a bit differently in monastic settings than in regular parish settings. For instance, in monastic settings, non-Orthodox are often not even allowed into the chapel. And it is typical in monastic settings for just the monks to chant.
Not sure if any of this is of interest, and forgive me for the length. If it is of interest, ask one of the monks about it, I’m sure they can speak more authentically about these realities than I can.
Best regards,
Gregory