Selections from Seminary

So, what about Orthodox services makes them incompatible with live-streaming? There are a few aspects to this, and I will not attempt to cover them all at once. So, in this article, I will focus solely on one particular reason: physical presence is essential . I asked my kids about this, that is, I asked what would be the good and bad side of watching an Orthodox service online. Very practically, they said such things as, "you could not venerate the icons", "you could not be anointed with holy oil", and chief among them all, "you could not take the Body and Blood" of Christ at the Eucharist. I actually gave them a bit of a hard time about all this: why could you not venerate your icons at home while watching a service on the computer? Why could you not receive anointing with some of the holy oil we have on the icon corner? And their answer makes so much sense: if you are going to venerate your own icons at home and stand in front of them and pray, why ...

I was just reading through some of the reactions, on Facebook, to the question I posed about live-streaming Orthodox services. I am not trying to be provocative. I am genuinely trying to struggle my way through that issue to try to figure out what about it strikes me as so wrong. I think, in the end, what we are really suffering from is a case of the ol' CoronaVirus Blues. We are lonely. We are used to interacting with people, being out in the world, and being connected, and quite suddenly, and quite against our will, we are isolated an quarantined off. That is tough. Of course, with the internet at our fingertips, we can easily entertain our way through this, and though we know that is not generally a great idea, it is probably the first reaction of most of us: watch a show, two movies instead of one, gaming as long as I want because there is no school tomorrow, or even endless reading of CoronaVirus news. I know, I should pray more. This is a great opportunity to pick up my...

My first reaction to hearing of Protestant family and friends live-streaming services was somewhat emotionally detached. "I guess that is ok for them, but you could not digitally commune of the body and blood of Christ." Then, within a day or two, I started hearing of Orthodox churches streaming their services, and it has thrown me through a series of questions and thoughts about what the implications might be. We already have all these barriers between us and God...and to be clear, the barrier is us, not him. He is everywhere present; we are rarely fully present anywhere. It is already too easy to go to church where everything is set up for prayer and for my thoughts to be everywhere but prayer. Now, not being able to go to church, we are praying at home. Praying at home is usually going to be much more potentially distracting, if for no other reason than the church is designed to draw us into worship in every way: sight, sound, smell, touch, and even taste. Most homes d...

Could we say that iconoclasm is alive and well in modern America? Are there Catholics or Protestants in a rush to root out inappropriate images of saints and destroy them? Not really—though we could certainly get that impression from slightly-too-zealous anti-Protestant Orthodox Christians. And if I found myself making a case that my Protestant or Catholics friends and family were actually iconoclasts, I would lay most of the blame on myself for trying to make myself out as a victim and martyr. Now, I must say that most of the Protestants I know certainly are not comfortable with icons; they would not even dream of using icons in any way beyond possibly just religious decoration. Catholics? Well, I know a lot less, but I can say that one of my Catholic friends gave me an icon, which he bought at a Catholic retreat. He did not have a problem with icons, and evidently having an icon vender at a diocesan-sanctioned retreat was acceptable. Uncomfortableness or lack of use does not make...

This past Sunday, the first Sunday of Great Lent, we celebrated the Triumph of Orthodoxy, which (to state in an overly simplified way) is the restoration of the use of icons. With that in mind, I will post a couple of articles about the Iconoclasm movement which brought about the controversy. “History makes no sharp turns.” That is what my history professor back in college would say over and over. Just as with everything else in the quest to understand history, the story of the struggle over the use of icons in the Church is wrapped up in a tangled web of issues which delve into the spiritual, practical, political, monetary, military, cultural, linguistic, and class issues of the time. Though I will not treat of these issues at any depth, and you will undoubtedly be able to question some of the statements I make, a few of the issues involved in the Iconoclasm crisis of the 8th century in the Christian east have have some overarching themes which will help us to understand the strug...