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Rushing Hymns during Liturgical Celebration
What is the Orthodox's Church stance on deacons or priests who rush you to pray or sing hymns because "mista3galeen" - ("we are late").
Surely, its wiser to not sing additional hymns and pray what you can properly?
For example. I went to my Church so early. I was nearly the 1st one in the door.
The priest came, and started vespers (matins) - that was rushed.
Then I wore as a deacon.
We then prayed the Agpeya. This was so rushed. I just barely opened my Agpeya and they had finished. - but that was OK.. perhaps I was slow.
Then came Apenchoise - the introduction to Agios Otheos. This was really really rushed. I mean, the deacon just speed read it. I couldn't pray.
At the end of the mass, I mustered the courage to talk to him, and said "are you aware that you rushed through Apenchoise? Do you know, when I sing this, I have to translate from Coptic to Arabic to English?" - He said to me "Listen! You don't understand, we are running late in the liturgy, and we have sunday school to give afterwards, and people work on Sundays!"
What the...???
Hello!!???
Is this normal? The reason why Im not catholic is because of the lack of respect I see sometimes in liturgy, but surely this also counts. There's nothing you can teach a kid in sunday school, tell them, educate them, or talk to them about anything that's more important than the actual liturgy. That has to be top priority?? no?
Comments
A church had two priests. One priest often rushed through the liturgy whereas the other would take his sweet time. The congregation concerned themselves with both and complained about both to the bishop.
The bishop called in the priests and asked them about the issue. The priest who rushes said "When I am in the presence of the Lord I just can't. I can't stand my unworthiness. I don't feel like I can be in His presence in my current state."
The other priest responded "when I'm in the presence of the Lord I don't want to leave. I don't want to leave the warm comfort"
Both were correct in what they said.
This does not excuse the aforementioned issue (rushing for Sunday School - or worse because people have work) but it's food for thought :)
Your story reveals an interesting dynamic. Deacons were doing their own thing even in the presence of Pope Kirollos. Whether they knew his reasoning or not is another matter. Anyway, today priests do run the show, is that right? St. Paul says no angel, or archangel can separate me from the love of God. But seriously though, what does singing hymns in the church and taking our time have anything to do with the love of the Lord?
Oujai
I was being sarcastic.. I agree with you 1000%
Oujai
oujai khan ebshois
http://tasbeha.org/community/discussion/15187/orthodox-mission/p7
I'm not sure if anyone else thinks our Church could benefit from augmenting or borrowing from something like the Lenten Triodion or the Festal Menaion. So if we need to keep the sound "Coptic" that could happen, as long as we fill out the existing poetry with poetic recensions from the other Orthodox. It's happened in the past (maybe even throughout the history of the Church) and maybe one day can happen again...if we are willing to look beyond ourselves or our nationalist sentiments.
Another possible cause of the suppressed beauty (which I think is the reason people want to rush, not only because they are moved by "fallen emotions", but because we are not doing things beautifully or have replaced beauty with utility) is the disconnect of space and usage context. It's instinctual and maybe we need to see if we really do have a liturigical pickle, and need to move towards a liturgical synthesis. So if we understand our liturgy as having a monastic recension we need to see why it works so well in the smaller monastic spaces and why it doesn't work in the larger Cathedral or Mega-Church (LED Screens and Projectors and head chanter solo microphones anyone?) setting. The latter is the general trend in the lands of immigration and maybe we're trying to put new wine into old wineskins.
"Egyptian Christianity began in Alexandria and was Greek. By the third century, however, there were numerous converts among the Copts, and the Scriptures and liturgy were already in the native tongue. But it was not until the rise of monasticism that the Coptic Church solidified as a native counterbalance to the cosmopolitan, theologically sophisticated, hellenic Church of Alexandria, whose speculative, spiritualizing intellectualism stood in marked contrast to the popular, traditionalistic piety of the South, a largely oral culture transmitted through sayings, proverbs, ritual, rather than through theological treatises. This monastic culture— concrete, popular, ascetic created the liturgy and offices of the Coptic Church. It is a highly penitential, contemplative rite, long, solemn, even monotonous, with much less speculative poetry, symbolic splendor and sumptuous ceremonial than, for example, the Byzantine tradition."
Fr Robert Taft, The Liturgy of the Hours, 250-251.
I wonder what could happen if we had more speculative poetry, symbolic splendor and sumptuous ceremonial liturgical life in the Coptic Orthodox Church?
anyway, led screens and all the other advances in the church happened everywhere in the church in recent years, down to the southern most parts of Egypt. Surely problems with poverty in Egypt are disappearing fast..
oujai khan ebshois
I also wonder if the whole controversy about Theosis (see http://tasbeha.org/community/discussion/15450/the-deification-of-man-hh-pope-shenouda-iii/p1 ) arose because we dont hear enough "speculative poetry" in our liturgical calendar and in the prayers of the liturgy. Yes they're there in handfuls if we look for them hard enough, but maybe because rich theological reflection in the hymns are a bit repressed and too far in between, we began to think that theosis was not central to Orthodox life.
So it can be read about in a book or by reading the fathers, but maybe we're not seeing, encountering and hearing it enough in our liturgical praxis.
And in regard to how we pray...
"So the real God, the Living One, will never conform to our expectations, whether good or bad. God has promised to be there, in these sacramental liturgical realities, but it is He who comes, not our fabrication of Him. So it's very interesting, I have a personal note here...my work as a liturgist will only amount to something if I can get my students to be in Church no matter how bad, how uninspiring, and how dull the service is. In other words if Chirst has promised to be there, who am I to play hard to get? Continuing with the lover kind of dynamic. Now if you take that linear logic to it's linearly logical conclusion, you're going to end up with folks who say "no matter how we do it God's here." You know the "ex opere operato" approach which is the bane of all liturgizing.
So again it's a matter of balancing the two, in other words, we have to be convinced that something is happening there and it's my duty, my obligation, my salvation to be there whether it's very exciting or it's nice or not, and at the same time, those of us especially who are in the ministry who are doing the liturgical ministry have to serve, have to sing, have to act as if it were just the opposite. In other words as if it really did depend on me articulating every word, me producing the most beautiful sounds a member of the choir, me caring for the appointments in Church being as aesthetically marvelous as they can be, but at the end of the day, it is about Christ having promised to be there. And so us saying "it's not going to be too good today" but I'm there anyway. Why? because this is not just an emanation of my consciousness."
Fr. Peter Galadza in a talk entitled "Liturgy: Where the Holy One Seeks Us" http://www.ancientfaith.com/specials/searching_sacred/liturgy_where_the_holy_one_seeks_us_fr._peter_galadza
if it was a two-sided talk then some of the people would lose interest because they are not as fluent, marginalized, not up to speed with what the topic today is, or not as well learned.
if it was all one line and tune being repeated over and over then there is no meaning for musical notes, poetry or one cantor.
if it was a mixture of hymns.. well I think you get the drift..
illiterate monks used to learn theology by heart through reciting hymns every day.. no talks, sermons, meetings, conferences, Sunday school, or nothing. Indeed if you listen to Fr Dawood you'll notice interesting things. For me I was unaware that the Gospel, or probably the whole Bible was not available until after the year 150 AD, and these were the strongest days in the church. Of course the liturgy was shorter PROBABLY, or contained fewer sections, but there were no talks or sermons either, and different regions had their own cultural mechanisms and rituals of praying, yet immigrants had no problems attending those churches..
oujai khan ebshois
Others have mentioned lex orandi and lex credendi in other discussions. In regards to Theosis, maybe we keep on appealing to the doctrine of theosis in the Church's lex credendi (hence all the appeals to the writings of the fathers...
http://tasbeha.org/community/discussion/15450/the-deification-of-man-hh-pope-shenouda-iii ) and to theological treatises which have to explain what should be expicate and poetically packed in our lex orandi too.
Maybe I'm missing the poetry that's there though but sometimes it feels like our liturgical prayers dont indicate expicately when certain feasts or various themes are presented in the liturgical cycle. Other times it appears that our liturgical praxis is more literal (as in they will just repeat word for word what was mentioned in the Gospel) without much theological speculation or poetry (think of the expositions in the Pascha week or the synaxar during the "minor" feasts).
If we think again about beauty, perhaps beauty has been repressed (therefore we have forgotten an important transmitor of theology) in the same way certain parts of our lex orandi have been repressed (ie processions for the Feast of the Cross, the Feast of the Patriarchs, and maybe even the blessing of the waters and actual rivers during Theophany). I wonder if we can we can one day uncover our speculative poetry, symbolic splendor and sumptuous ceremonial liturgical life in the Coptic Orthodox Church and share this with all the other Orthodox Churches?
I'll keep my often strange thoughts to myself and limit what I speak about on the forums. Sorry everyone for indulging in my fallen passions and maybe causing you to indulge in yours.
Blessed Fast of Nineveh everyone.
Cyril I welcome and love reading your posts and think you being up a point that is of extreme relevance. I believe you see more holistically and our brother Rem wants this to be a debate which is cut off from the rest of the integrated life of the church. I will not be posting anything further here as regards this topic