Orthodoxy beyond the ghetto

[anglomedved]

Standing in the very naked St Klara Kirche in Nürnberg (Germany) last Monday, I was asking myself as an Orthodox: if I were a priest (out of the question as I am a divorcee) and was asked to celebrate the eucharist in a form of my choosing (again very hypothetical), in this building and for a majority native population (i.e. not the largely refugee populations of most Orthodox parishes in the west), what would it look like? Answer:

- liturgy:

- a traditional western rite (possibly reworded to de-emphasize the sacrificial aspect), or St John Chrysostom with some judicious cutting between the Gospel and the 'Lift up your hearts'

- all prayers, other than the priest’s prayer of confession, said out aloud

- communion of the faithful immediately after the priest

- priest’s position: west facing

- vestments: simple, of modern western cut, in good material

- utensils: plain but of good quality

- music: Gregorian or derivative, eventually znamini (if it works with the language)

- language: as much Latin (the traditional Church language of this part of the world) as I can get away with. But every word said, in Latin or the vernacular, to be understood and believed by the speaker, and intended to be understood by the congregation

- sermon: prepared beforehand, maximum 7 minutes

- other decoration: four or five large, good icons, eventually with an early western medieval feel to them

- movements: well defined and controlled (in particular any processions). Rehearsed where necessary

 While this is all totally hypothetical, and would feel culturally strange to a Russian or Romanian Orthodox visitor, I do not think there is anything inherently non-Orthodox in it. It would not be to everyone's taste, and would not suit every building either. But dare I suggest that this is perhaps what Orthodoxy is going to have to look like, and the quality it is going to have to aim for, in the west if it is ever to get beyond its ghetto status?