The more (modern) western in outlook (theologically speaking) an Eastern Orthodox Catholic Christian becomes, the more vulnerable they are to Protestant ideas. This was a serious concern in those areas where Orthodox lived under (Latin) Roman Catholic governments. It’s not a good place to be. (Elements of 2nd millenium Latin) Roman Catholic theology is at the root of Protestant theology. – Michael (Hesychios) on Karl Keating’s Catholic.com message board.
While reading a long post on papal infallibility on the catholic.com message board I read this statement. I was struck me at how particularly truthful it was.
The Eastern people retained as their part in the liturgy listening to the lections (which the orthodox populations have always done with assiduity) and participation in some of the chants (though the admirable melodies of most of these were too difficult for the people and had to be left to the choir) — and the litany! It was natural this should be popular; it was the only devotion in the whole rite in which the laity as such now had any active part. From being used only at the intercessions which closed the synaxis it began to be repeated at other points in the rite, as an act of corporate prayer accompanying the liturgical action proceeding in mystery beyond the veil. It is now repeated no less than nine times in various forms, in whole or in part, during the Byzantine eucharist. With so many of the liturgical prayers said in silence, the litany forms the main substance of the people’s prayer.
There may be a certain evidence of liturgical decadence in this acceptance of the need to occupy the attention of the congregation with irrelevant devotions while the liturgical action — the eucharist proper — proceeds apart from them behind the screen. But even so, Westerns are hardly in a position to remark upon it. The Eastern litany is at least a corporate devotion provided by the church for the faithful, magnificently phrased and noble in its all-embracing charity. The Western ‘low mass,’ dialogued in an undertone between priest and server, is in a different way just as degenerate a representative of the old corporate worship of the eucharist. The faithful, it is true, can see the action and associate themselves continually with it in mind in a way that the Eastern layman cannot quite do. But the Western laity, unprovided with any corporate devotions whatever, are left with no active part in the rite at all. They listen and pray as individuals, adoring in their own hearts the Host elevated in silence, and then passively receive communion. All this throws the whole emphasis in Western lay devotion upon seeing, and on individual silent prayer. This question of ‘seeing’ is really at the basis not only of the difference of Eastern from Western eucharistic devotion, but of Western catholic and Western Protestant doctrinal disputes. Is what one sees elevated or ‘exposed’ — a significant word! — to be adored as such? Posed thus, apart from its context in the corporate offering, the question is distorted. But what caused it to be posed in this way in the sixteenth century, and made the reality of the Body and Blood of Christ a center of controversy in the West as it never had been in the East, was precisely the growth of low mass as the normal presentation of the eucharist to the laity during the mediaeval period.
Symeon, Archbishop of Thessalonica during the early fifteenth century (1416/17 – 1429), produced a typikon prescribing the conduct of Orthodox ritual in the Thessalonian cathedral of Hagia Sophia, including highly detailed instructions for performance of the Office.14 The work including Symeon’s commentary on the Office of the Three Children – the Dialogue in Christ – is primarily a catalog of heresies throughout Christianity’s history, with a special emphasis on the more recent impieties of the Latins.15 Chapter 23 of the Dialogue, “That it is Necessary to Portray Divine Matters
Piously and Righteously, and In Accordance With Tradition,” devotes itself primarily to the Catholic habit of “innovation,” kainotomia, in representational practice.16 Catholic innovation, in Symeon’s scenario, manifests itself in three distinct ways: in permitting non-iconic representations of divinity, especially plays; in creating and portraying the realm of Purgatory; and in adding the word filioque to the confession of the faith (which portrays the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father “and the
Son”). Here, as in the earlier Medieval period addressed by Kobialka’s study, the dispute centers on how one visualized divinity and (more importantly) produced its visible aspects. In Symeon’s view, it wasn’t just that the Catholics misrepresented the nature of the Trinity or the afterlife; it was that they had also sanctioned new technologies through which their flawed dogma was made visible to the laity.
Symeon begins Chapter 23 with a brief reminder of what Orthodoxy considered to be the traditional technology for realizing the visibility of the sacred, i.e., through the painted image or icon. His repeated use of the word ‘icon’ (eikon) and its correlatives, particularly the verb for making icons, ‘to iconize,’ (eikonizein), reflect Symeon’s understanding that the only non-written means to provide visual access to divinity is through images that have been valorized through traditional practice. In an echo of the iconodules of an earlier age, he notes that images communicate ‘as if by other [kinds of] writing’ (hōs grammasin allois), a reminder that in the Orthodox tradition the written word and the painted figure are equivalent.17
And because both media serve to make the divine visible, Symeon stresses the need
for clergy to control their production. The equivalence between word and image, in
turn, enables Symeon to group three seemingly unrelated topics — religious theatre,
Purgatory, and the confession of faith — into one Chapter.
Symeon’s first objection has to do with the vernacular practice, sanctioned by
the Catholic Church, of embellishing icons with what he regards as spurious
materials:
… they often portray holy images contrary to tradition in another way; and
they dress them up with human hair and clothes, instead of using the clothing
and hairstyles in icons, they dress them up with human hair and garments –
not the image of hair and garments, but they are the hair and garments of some
person, and not the icon and model (typos) of their prototypes.18
One of the reasons Symeon objects to hair and clothing is that such artificial touches
are “contrary to tradition,” neither practiced nor approved by the Church Fathers. But
what concerns him even more is the use of a specific person’s hair and clothing,
because they are things, objects from the natural world, as opposed to images of
things. Symeon believes such objects, because of their physicality, cannot function as
proper models (typoi) of divine prototypes.
Symeon’s chief concern is that physical objects might block or otherwise
obscure the laity’s access to divinity – an access that icons, through their careful
construction, makes possible. Icons do not provide access to divinity through their
realistic depiction but through their invocation of divine prototypes – an enterprise
that, in the Orthodox tradition, is incompatible with pictorial realism. Hence Symeon’s belief that the use of spurious visual/tactile stimuli distracts the laity from
the kinds of prayer and communion with the divine that Symeon regards as proper.
The unspoken message here is that accommodating the wishes of uneducated
laypersons, through permitting them to decorate an already worthy icon, constitutes
idolatry and may betray the very people the practice is intended to serve.19
Once this heretical habit has been delineated, Symeon describes the even more
abhorrent practice of representing divine matters using human beings “as if in a
drama” (hōs en dramati):
For contrary to the canons, they put men at crossroads and on platforms [lit.,
“plataion”], as if they were representing iconically things pertaining to the
Annuciation of the Virgin and Mother of God, and the crucifixion of the
Savior, etc. And one represents the Virgin, and they call that man Mary;
another is called the angel, …20
Introduced as it is after his discussion of hairy, dressed-up icons, Symeon regards
dramatic depictions of divinity as even worse. As for having men play women,
Symeon’s implicit attitude can be discerned in his explanation of why Latins have to
glue a fake beard onto the man playing the Almighty:
. . . since the Latins don’t hold shaving them to be effeminate and contrary to
natural law they put on fake ones, hence showing they contrive things as they
see fit. For if the prophets saw that God has a beard, iconically speaking, we
too have beards in honor of nature and according to what God intended.21
In an amusing reversal of the usual trope of ‘orientalization’ Symeon depicts Latin
males as effeminate, intensifying the insult to Western dignity by implying that the
man playing the Heavenly Father, being beardless, probably wasn’t a real man to begin with. Greek culture had distinguished men since antiquity by the growth of
their beards, a marker that (as Symeon indicates) had acquired Christian connotations
as well. For Symeon clean chins were markers of only two kinds of adults: women
and eunuchs. The Latin male’s habit of looking like a woman or castrato was
especially perverse for Catholic monks and clergy, who also performed in these plays
(see below), because they had supposedly renounced the care of their bodies to
become men of the cloth.22
The heretical use of human hair on sacred icons, now complemented by the
decadent use of human hair on androgynous, clean-shaven men masquerading as
sacred figures, lays bare the perversity of Latin sacred representational practice. But
Symeon’s critique addresses the dogmatic as well as the cultural level: as a preamble
to his critique of the filioque heresy, he critiques the Latin’s manner of representing
the Holy Spirit in performance:
. . . they portray the Ancient of Days holding onto a winged dove in place of
the Holy Spirit, thereby showing that they follow their own devices. For if
they believe the Spirit proceeds also from the Son, why don’t they portray the
Son sitting together with the Ancient of Days, so that both dispatch the
dove?23
Symeon points out that the Latins don’t even know how to portray their own heresy
properly on-stage. To create a false creed is one thing; failing to reinforce that fallacy
through other false practices like plays speaks to a fundamental incoherence in
Catholicism’s approach to sacred matters. Symeon is aware of the didactic and
propagandistic function of these sacre rappresentazioni, and shows how they have
backfired against their own practitioners.
Representing divinity through human beings on a public stage is foreign to
Symeon’s thinking; equally foreign is the use of special effects, intended to heighten
the ‘realism’ of the action. Symeon describes how Latins make use of the crude
apparatus of animals’ blood and guts in their Passion Plays, to create the illusion of
the crucified Christ.24 Taking Symeon at his word, these plays consist of using one
beast’s blood, stuck into another beast’s bladder, to provide fake blood for a fake
(and, of course, androgynous) Christ. All Symeon needed to do was compare this
debased human form of representation with the implicitly superior form of the sacred
icon:
What, then, is that man being crucified? And what is the blood? Real, or an
icon? And if it’s an icon, how on earth could it be a man and blood?25 For an
icon is not a man. But if they are really man and blood, then it’s not an icon.
So then, what is that man? And what is that blood? And whose is it supposed
to be, the Savior’s? Or is it shared? Bless me, how bizarre!26
The repetition of the term ‘icon’ here drives home the absurdity of the Latin
enterprise; no human being, and certainly no animal’s blood, can serve the icon’s
function, by virtue of their physicality. As an Italian translator of Symeon’s Dialogue
points out, this kind of representation places such a heavy emphasis on Jesus’
physical form that it effectively wipes out the consensus painstakingly established
through numerous church councils, stressing Jesus’ dual nature as both man and
God.27 It is in this context of lambasting Catholics for the use of public stages,
androgynous actors and crude props instead of sacred icons that Symeon discusses his
conduct of the Office of the Three Children; for it is only with the Office that Symeon
appears to be on shaky theological ground:
And if they should censure us for the furnace of the three children, yet shall
they not rejoice completely. For we do not light up a furnace, but candles for
lights, and we offer incense to God as is customary, and we portray an image
of [lit., “iconize”] an angel, we do not send down a man. And we offer only
singing children, as pure as those Three Children, to sing the verses from their
canticle according to tradition.28
The initial focus on how a physical site called a “furnace” is represented in the nave
of an Orthodox church indicates that Symeon is particularly concerned about the
perception that he has created a stage area for the Office. So he makes a point of
listing the more mundane details of traditional Orthodox ritual – the use of liturgical
lamps and the purification of the area with incense, signifying the presence of the
Holy Spirit – to emphasize what he regards as its proper liturgical setting. Symeon
argues that if the furnace were intended as a set for a play, he would have created a
realistic kiln complete with flames rising up to the skies as the biblical story calls for.
Symeon’s refusal to adopt western scenic conventions extends to his use of an
icon instead of a human being to depict the angel. The presentation of the “furnace”
as a sacred, liturgically-constructed performance area instead of a stage, the use of an
icon instead of an actor, along with the use of choirboys to sing odes from the canons
in the usual, liturgical fashion – they do not, Symeon implies, deliver lines like actors in a play – are cited to support Symeon’s contention that the Office is a liturgical
performance.
In accordance with the Byzantine tradition of liturgical exegesis, Symeon goes
on to describe the ways in which each class of performer in the Office symbolizes its
divine prototype:
And all these children sealed [in Christ] and holy, typify those Children. And
since all are consecrated, each typifies the one of his own rank. And while the
first hierarch typifies the Lord, the bishops typify the first of the apostles,
since they also possess their grace, and the priests the seventy; and the
deacons the Levites; and the other sub-deacons the rank of the prophets.29
Symeon insists that the performers in the Office are sanctioned liturgical performers
who, through their training and careful mode of self-presentation, model on behalf of
the divine participants in the eternal, heavenly liturgy. By identifying what he
regards as the iconic aspects of the Office’s performance, and by delineating the
divine figures the Office’s celebrants typify, Symeon lays out both the specific modes
through which divinity is made visible and audible to his congregation, as well as
how he intends this liturgical performance to be interpreted.
Perhaps because he dwells on the significance, or rather the signification of
liturgical celebrants, Symeon ends his treatment of Latin sacred plays by addressing
the issue of clerical actors. Although the presence of clergy as actors may justify
representations of biblical episodes in Catholic eyes, to Symeon their participation
only makes things worse. Given the condemnations of clerical acting from the
earliest ecumenical councils onward, Symeon needs only note that when it comes to
modeling on behalf of divinity, the clergy already know their lines, cues and
blocking: They model what is needed in these: in baptizing, in conducting services, in
washing each other’s feet, as well as the rest that the Savior told us, that is
given to priests and hierarchs to do. And the singers too, who are given
authority to read, do so in reading and singing.30
Symeon reminds Catholic celebrants that they already model through carefully
prescribed modes of ritual conduct, as established by Christ himself; theatrical modes
of representation were specifically banned.
In contrast to the practice of Latin plays, Symeon offers a familiar model for
Christian mimesis, albeit one that does not involve acting:
Nobody is capable of playing the Virgin birth-giver of God (Theotokos)
whether with respect to her chastity, or the reception of the Holy Spirit into
her flesh and the bearing of the Lord, as she alone did this, and by herself; but
he who imitates her example, living chastely and seeking to live as a celibate,
is also worthy of the reception of grace, as much as can be given. Moreover,
it ought to be desired by everyone to play her in these agreed ways.31
Here, Symeon openly embraces verbs associated with imitation — mimesthai, ‘to
imitate,’ and ekmimesthai, ‘to play’ – but with the twist that imitation now
encompasses a psychological practice, i.e., a life of chastity and spiritual purity.
Symeon agreed with his Latin counterparts on the virtues of imitation, but only when
it involved adopting the spiritual examples of Jesus and Mary.
Excerpt from the Dialogue in Christ, by Archbishop Symeon of Thessalonica
CHAPTER 23:
That it is necessary to portray divine matters piously and righteously, and in accordance with tradition.
But what else have they introduced, contrary to Church tradition? The holy and august images have been offered piously in honor of divine prototypes, and indicate iconically both veneration
in representing these holy images by the faithful, and the truth. For they represent the Word Made Flesh for our sake, and all of His divine works and sufferings and miracles and mysteries on our behalf, and moreover the sacrosanct image of His holy ever virgin mother, and His saints, and the very things of which the Gospel and the rest of Divine Scripture speak, as in other writings, they teach iconically, through coloring and the rest of the materials [i.e., of painting]. These men are always innovating, as is said, and they often portray holy images contrary to tradition in another way; and instead of using the clothing and hairstyles in icons, they dress them up with human hair and garments – not the image of hair and garments, but they are the hair and garments of some person, and not the icon and model (typos) of their prototypes. And they depict these things and dress them up contrary to piety, which is opposed to holy icons, as the canon from the sixth ecclesiastical council
establishes. For it prohibits depicting things that do not benefit simpler folk. And that which is contrary to canon law is not pure. And the Fathers do not practice this. But moreover, they
produce some things as if in a drama, contrary to divine law. For contrary to the canons, they put men at crossroads and on platforms, as if they were representing iconically things pertaining to the Annunciation of the Virgin and Mother of God, and the crucifixion of the Savior, etc. And one
models on behalf of the Virgin, and they call that man Mary; another is called the angel, and another the Ancient of Days, on whom they put white hair for a beard. For since the Latins don’t hold shaving them to be effeminate and contrary to natural law they put on fake ones, hence showing they contrive things as they see fit. For if the prophets saw that God has a beard, iconically speaking, we too
have beards in honor of nature and according to what God intended. So they act contrary to what God intended, shaving to the disgrace of nature, especially priests and monks, who defend this bodily vanity.2 Moreover, they portray the Ancient of Days holding onto a winged dove in place of the Holy Spirit, thereby showing that they follow their own devices.3 For if they believe the Spirit proceeds
also from the Son, why don’t they portray the Son sitting together with the Ancient of Days, so that both dispatch the dove?4 But instead, they should also send the Son to the one they call Mary. For the Spirit was not incarnated, even though it hoveredover the Virgin. Yet all these things are contrary to reason, alien to Church tradition, and designed to insult the mysteries and Christian piety. And
what things are modeled for the sake of Christ’s crucifixion? Putting blood from brute animals into animals’ guts, they substitute it for the Lord’s blood, to man’s hands and feet and chest, as
he pretends to be crucified. What, then, is that man being crucified? And what is the blood? Real, or an icon? And if it’s an icon, how on earth could it be a man and blood? For an icon is
not a man. But if they are really man and blood, then it’s not an icon. So then, what is that man? And what is that blood? And whose is it supposed to be, the Savior’s, οr is it shared? Bless me, how bizarre! These things are contrary to the holy icons and the Gospels and, moreover, the awesome mysteries of Christ. But why did they undertake these things? Which saint taught such things? Verily, these men
have made innovations in everything. And they do these things at crossroads and on platforms, setting out men contrary to canon law; and exhibiting dramas about matters beyond reason,
and about miracles which it is not right [to dramatize] and calling a dove, a bird, the Holy Spirit. And such men chant and respond these things on feast days.5 And the pretend Mary receives a stupid dove instead of the Spirit. And again, as we said, someone is crucified, called Christ by these men, the crucifixion is not real, and the shedding of blood from some animal is an insult to the flowing blood
of God. And yet the Lord commands that we commemorate the mysteries not in this way but rather as He Himself taught, through which He acts again and ministers himself; and the body and blood being sanctified are his. So then, aren’t things of this sort perilous, and extremely perilous? My man, if you wish to present these things and to teach men, minister as he handed it down to you; teach using
words, write using treatises, and make icons with colors, as is traditional. Wherefore also the truth is formed in a perfect image, like the writing in a book, and divine grace is in them, also, since the things imprinted are holy. But these men, turning away once and for all, rush headlong to forbidden
things. And if they should censure us for the furnace of the three children, yet shall they not rejoice completely.6 For we do not light up a furnace, but candles for lights, and we offer incense to God as is customary, and we portray an image of an angel, we do not lower a man. And we offer only singing children, as pure as those Three Children, to sing the verses from their canticle according to tradition. And all these children sealed [in Christ] and holy, typify those Children. And since all are consecrated, each typifies the one of his own rank. And while the first hierarch typifies the Lord, the bishops typify the first of the apostles, since they also possess their grace, and the priests the seventy; and the deacons the Levites; and the other sub-deacons the rank of the Prophets. And from another perspective the ranking heirarch typifies the Divine Word made flesh, the priests the higher-placed ranks, the deacons the lower liturgical powers; and the rest of the clergy, along with the Orthodox
laity, the lowest ranks. And all of them have rank according to their station, and a corresponding grace. Wherefore it is not unfitting for the children to portray those three Children, for it is possible to possess their grace. But to portray the Lord in a crucifixion, and to pretend he is killed, and pours forth blood, is neither truthful nor according to divine tradition. And for the Mother of God to be portrayed through a man or a weak woman, and to receive a dove instead of the Holy Spirit, is entirely
out of place. And to decorate the saints using someone else’s hair and garments, and dressing them up contrary to piety, is not handed down by the Fathers; simply put, to reveal divine things as if on-stage in a drama is not pious, not handed down, nor worthy of Christians. And if they should say that practicing priests perform these things, and therefore it is possible for them to model the Lord and his virgin mother – it makes no sense to perform in them. For they model what is needed in
these: in baptizing, in conducting services, in washing each other’s feet, as well as the rest that the Savior told us, that is given to priests and hierarchs to do. And the singers too, who are given authority to read, do so in reading and singing. Surely not in being crucified and shedding blood falsely or, worse, blood from an animal; unless someone is asked to shed his own blood as a true martyr, so that he is afflicted in the flesh as in the crucifixion with suffering and passions, (as Paul said), so that “The world is crucified to me, and I to the world,”7 and everyone ought to hasten to do this. And nobody is capable of playing the Virgin birth-giver of God (Theotokos) whether with respect to her chastity, or the reception of the Holy Spirit into her flesh and the bearing of the Lord, as she alone did this, and by herself; but he who imitates her example, living chastely and seeking to live as a celibate, is also worthy of the reception of grace, as much as can be given. Moreover, it ought to be desired by everyone to imitate her in these agreed ways. But if they say these things are like divine painted icons, their reasoning is unreasonable, since what is in images is truly an icon — the painted icon of Christ, the iconized blood, and the mother of God in an icon, and an angel, and an apostle, and a bishop and a martyr, and the Holy Spirit in the shape of a dove, and every icon, since icons and scripture are from divinity, is honorable and worthy of veneration: but the imitation of these things by
men is not pious.
