The Blackberry Walk

I've had an interest in Eastern Orthodoxy for some time. I started watch Jonathon Pageau on YouTube back in 2019, and I've been a loyal listener to the Lord of Spirits podcast since around 2021; I've read books by Orthodox authors like Fr. Seraphim Rose; and I've had an interest in Orthodox theology, watching much on YouTube, and reading many a Substack article. There's a kind of culture surrounding Orthodoxy, and there has been for some years now, a culture of vitality, as if there's a real movement, a real energy there. I've sat on the periphery of that movement in Western culture gazing in for some time. But as any Orthodox will tell you, the focal point Orthodox experience isn't found through reading nor wrestling with beliefs; they'd say placing propositions at the centre of faith and worship is a Protestant accretion. No, the core of the Orthodox experience, they'd say, is participatory: that is, through the liturgy. And yesterday, invited by a friend who has made the leap to Constantinople, I attended a Greek Orthodox liturgy. Note, yesterday was a Saturday, not the regular day for church-going. It was yesterday because one Saturday a month, this Orthodox church has an English service. So apologies to any Orthodox readers in advance (if I have any...), my assessment may be skewed by virtue of the fact it wasn't a typical service. What I reckon I'll do is describe the service in detail, interspersing any interesting notes as we go. I'll begin with the church itself. I think I've written it here before, so I don't think I'll be doxxing myself saying this, but I live near Nottingham, and the church I attended was the Greek Orthodox church in Nottingham. The church appears to have been a Methodist church once upon a time? At the very least the architecture looked rather Methodist with it being in a Gothic style but made from brick. This leads to some novelties inside. An Orthodox church is typically domed, but a Gothic church is as far away from a domed shape as one could imagine. It is pointy and directional unlike the round wholeness of an Orthodox dome. However, the way in which this Gothic church was converted was rather impressive. The Gothic arches which formed arcades beside the nave were all painted with frescos of saints; and behind those arcades, on the walls of the church themselves, were hung very large paintings each depicting a period in the life of Christ. This series of paintings culminated on the ceiling. Though the exterior of the building was not domed, the interior indeed was, and there looking down was an icon of Christ Pantocrator, that is Christ after the ascension reigning from heaven. And from that central spot beside the icon of Christ hung the chandelier which unfortunately had electronic candles. Then, if we are to bring our eyes down from the ceiling again to eye level, rowed shoulder to shoulder around the whole perimeter of the church were icons, all in the old Byzantine style, their gold leaf shining radiantly. Some went to kiss them before the service as is the custom. Facing forward is the iconostasis, a feature not found in Western churches. The iconostasis is like a little room bounded by a wooden panel with several doors leading in. All decorated with icons, of course. There are side doors where I saw the altar boy dipping in and out doing preparations, and there was a central double-doored door where it seems only the priest was allowed to travel through. Finally, the church was lined with antique pews. These pews are not traditional, my friend informed me, but they are a fixture of many Orthodox churches in England since the churches they inherit are Grade II listed, and the pews can't be removed without much money, paper, and spilled ink. It wasn't long either before I discovered the superfluity of the pews, since I spent all of 5 minutes in the hour-and-a-half service sitting down. Then, the service itself. Let's start with the most primary of the senses, smell. The air was saturated with incense. For part of it, embarrassing as it is to say, I was worried it would trigger my asthma. The air was thick, and the mood of the congregation was thick too, sombre and serious. As an aside, I've heard it said before by the Orthodox online that music like the organ, but mainly targeting the more emotional music of contemporary Evangelicals, is meant to force some kind of religious experience by material means. And I feel there is some truth in this statement. I have little time for Evangelical rock music, and I can't help but feel the cringiness of it all has done harm to people's perception of the faith. But all that being said, incense no doubt plays this same role. And since our sense of smell is so much more primal and fundamental than music, I reckon it affects us in a far more primal and fundamental way that's harder to pin down than the effects of emotional music. All that being said, I have little problem with worship music, worship incense, or any other sensible sensory stimulus to be used in worship. We aren't Buddhists; and even they use incense. There is a fear among many that stimulating the senses feels like a kind of falsehood, as if any subsequent religious experience from worship is inauthentic. We're all a little addled with early 20th century psychology, ideas of hypnosis haunting us. Whereas in reality there is no reason why the Holy Spirit cannot work through these media. (This topic on causality I've been meaning to write for some time. Maybe soon.) Next, the spoken content of the liturgy. Snippets I could catch were very similar to what I was used to. Many phrases and moments in the liturgy are in common between the Salis liturgy, the ancient British liturgy upon which the Anglican liturgy is based, and the liturgy of St John Chrysostom which the Orthodox have sung since the 4th century. But though some of it was familiar, far more of it was foreign. The oddest part, it seemed to me, was that the laity spoke hardly a word throughout the service. The only part of the service the laity were invited to participate in was the Lord's Prayer, that's it. Instead there were chanters whose job was the sing the amens to the prayer and any other response the priest called for. This felt rather strange, and throughout the service I felt myself having to hold back saying 'amen' to each prayer. The custom amongst the Orthodox is not to respond verbally, but instead either cross yourself and bow. This I have mixed feelings on. It is an embodied action, and to each of the prayers, you symbolically crucify yourself as Christ was crucified, as if saying "like Christ, I pray for this unto death," which is a powerful sentiment. However, it certainly felt wrong. It could just be my Latin presuppositions, but a call is meant to be responded to by the called, not on behalf of the called, no? The reasoning my friend gave was that there are so many intricate and complex melodies which change for part of the calendar, that it would be very difficult for the melodies to be sung without teaching the congregation sheet music, and handing out booklets. This is likely the case. But call me a dirty iconoclast, I don't mind call me all you want, but isn't the liturgy then getting in the way of worship? No Orthodox would ever agree with such a comment, of course. During my visit, there were very few chanters, and the response was quite thin. My friend assured me that this was only because it was the English service, and that usually there quite a crowd all singing different harmonies. It would be interesting to hear that. Also, the Greek version is meant to be far more poetic and rhythmed than the English service, I hear. One final point on the topic of the spoken content, and then we'll move on. There was a kind of disinterested voice the spoken sections were said in, which was surprising at first, but began to click after a while. The purpose of the disinterested voice and the singing (other than reflecting the beauty of God) is to anonymise those partaking, I reckon, so that you experience their station talking rather than that individual. For contrast we can look at an Evangelical mega-church. At one of these mega-churches, you'll have a celebrity pastor renowned for their enthusiasm and oratory, and they become the focus of the service, their personal flair and enthusiasm. The traditional understanding, an understanding the Orthodox emphasise strongly, is quite the opposite: the priest is a kind of stand-in for Christ presiding over the service, and his personality is put aside to assume that role. To add, for much of the service the priest does not face the laity but rather towards with his back towards them as he faces the golden container where the sacraments are stored. The sacraments play a far more central role to the liturgy than in any other tradition. That isn't to say in other traditions the sacraments are secondary, not at all, but rather that the sacraments are the point of the ceremony. Behind the iconostasis, the priest and the altar boy spend time throughout the service preparing the sacraments, and throughout the service more prayers are heaped upon the bread and wine. And this isn't a wafer, this bread; it is proper risen bread: another point of contention between East and West. The East say the bread is risen because Christ is risen, which is a pretty sensible understanding. The sacraments were paraded around the congregation over the course of the liturgy. First the bread, each time it passes you you cross yourself, bow, then turn ninety degrees before it passes you again; then the wine, where you do the same. Then for communion the chunks of bread are floating in the wine, and are given to you by a long spoon. I wasn't eligible for communion of course, not being Orthodox, but the priest offers extra bread, off cuttings of the communion loaf, which don't contain the body of Christ but are nevertheless blessed. I received some of this bread. You walk up, cup your hands and put them out before the priest, and kiss the priest's hand as he gives it to you. The bread was rather dense white loaf, perhaps a little stale. I mentioned kissing the priest's hand, which might be one of the more alien aspects to Orthodoxy here in Britain. We aren't a kissing culture, and with the new generation even greeting kisses are becoming an uncomfortable amount of contact. But in Orthodoxy, and I suppose in Orthodox cultures, kissing is very much a part of the culture. You kiss the priest's hand as a sign of respect, but most importantly you kiss icons. There were two icons in the entrance, one Madonna of the Holy Virgin with the Christ child and another I can't quite remember, but it may have been of the crucifixion; these two icons I crossed myself before and kissed. It felt like an oddly natural thing to do, in truth. The icons had a faint sweet smell to them, which could've been from frankincense, or maybe from some anointing oils, I'm not quite sure. Before we conclude, I'd like to talk about the people I met. Several guys my age, around a dozen or so, had come up from Leicester specially for the English service, and then there were a few more who attended regularly who were friends of my friend. At the end of the service, we were all invited to some back room behind the main church which was truly expansive, just going on and on. There, prepared for us by a Yiayia of the congregation was a selection of food and even a specially made cake - all free from animal meat and animal produce for lent, of course. We sat there, had some tea and cake and chatted. The first thing of note - at least to me, someone with a chronic interest in demographics - was that no one there was ethnically English. There were Greeks, of course, and others of Eastern European descent, one Middle Eastern guy who converted from Islam, a few black guys, and one Irish. No doubt the fact that most of the people there had come up from Leicester for the day skewed my sample set - Leicester is a diverse city - but nevertheless, Orthodoxy appears to be appealing not to the Anglos of England like it is to the heritage Americans in the States. Perhaps this is part of why they are Americans and we are English. I heard also that there were currently fifteen male catechumen at the Greek church there, and five female catechumen; and that all five female catechumen entered the church as girlfriends of the men. This is quite heartening to hear. The Orthodox wave is certainly a masculine movement, and the worry is that all these men who find Christ in the Orthodox church end up having to choose between faith and marriage. That women are joining the church means the still nascent Orthodox movement will have longevity in England and won't be a passing fad. All the men there were jacked-up, smart, and well read. They talked about oecumenical councils, theology, and conspiracy theories. The name Jay Dyer came up a few times, which should be no surprise to any readers who know of his work. To conclude then, I probably won't become an Orthodox Christian soon. Probably. There is a real sense of vitality surging through the culture at present bringing people in to the Orthodox church; and I have a great respect for that. But I can't shake the feeling that a people are tied to their liturgy and modes of worship. The British have our mode of worship and our traditions which are to be followed; that those traditions look quite shaky right now is a travesty to be sure, but that is no reason to abandon them in favour of a house whose foundations look far stronger! I will continue to have great respect for Orthodoxy, and I may well attend another service in the future; and also I will continue to have an interest in Orthodox understandings of scripture, for I think there is much for us to learn and incorporate from the East. Nevertheless, my feet shall remain firmly in the Anglican church.