‘The sparrow has found a home and the turtle dove a nest for her; where she will lay down her chickens, namely your altars, Lord of Hosts, my king and my God.’
– Psalm 83:3 (LXX)
‘The soul walks at the pace of a camel.’
– Old Arabic proverb
This report is very late, I know. It is the result of forces very largely beyond my control: I celebrated the Christmas Liturgy on Friday night starting at 12.00 and ending at about 2.00, plunged into a meat fest and my first good (Spanish) wine of my Russian trip and eventually got into bed at about 5.00 am. On Monday night of this (now last) week, for wonderful reasons which you will have to wait a while to learn, I got into bed at about 2.00 am. On Tuesday morning I got up at 5.00, in order to celebrate a Liturgy at 6.30. I have not been so exhausted since my children were small! And on Tuesday evening, I boarded an overnight train at about 21.00 . . .
Back to the week before last: Monday morning started early for the trainee deacon, with a service in a small Church on the outskirts of Moscow. The nice thing about Churches in Moscow, big or small, is that there are usually a deacon or two around. And they are all more than willing to help you. On this occasion, however, there was only one elderly acolyte serving in the Altar, with no English to speak of. But we had Father Georgi Maximov, head of the mission department of the Russian Orthodox Church, as the presiding priest, and he was of great help to me in my hesitant attempts at censing, etc. Did it go well? I will put it no higher than saying that it was not a complete disaster!
On Tuesday morning early we went to the Dormition of the Theotokos convent, around the corner from where we live, for my second – and last – celebration as a deacon. The Church in which we served was redecorated after the Soviet period, in the Art Nouveau style. Art Nouveau frescos – is that not about 1920s? Yes! Yet somehow it works in this Church. In fact, I prefer it to many of the overgilded, over-elaborate Baroque Churches which are so prevalent in Moscow, with their sentimental Catholic looking frescos.
And there were a number of things which made this Liturgy very special for me. The first was the presence of a deacon who, although he only served as deacon for the fifth time, clearly knew the ropes. and helped me a lot. The second was that the Altar area had, the relics of famous saints instead of icons: St. Anastasia, St. Stephen the first martyr, and so on. And the third was the singing of the nuns. I have heard a lot of wonderful Church singing in Russia, as I have already told you. But I have never before heard a women only choir. And this choir’s singing was (as at my deacon’s ordination) truly prayerful, and profoundly moving.
After the Liturgy we were given yet another superb meal in the convent’s refectory, during which the abbess of the convent related to us the miraculous account of how the convent’s property was restored to it after the Soviet times
On Wednesday I was ordained. The Arabic saying that the soul walks at the pace of a camel (also) means that we may do things quickly – and the modern person is in a frightful hurry! – but that the soul takes unhurried time to realise what is happening to it. As I write this more than a week after my ordination, I can say that only now I am beginning to see glimpses of what has happened to me.
The process of my ordination was similar to my ordination as a deacon: several times doing a full prostration in front of the Holy Table and then kissing the Metropolitan’s omophorion and hand; then being lead around the Holy Table, kissing its corners; eventually kneeling by its side and praying under the omophorion whilst the ordination prayers are being read out; and then being vested before the congregation to shouts and songs of ‘Axios!’ (‘Worthy!’) and my heart’s whispers of ‘Anaxios’ (‘Unworthy’). But there were significant differences also. First, I had to take a much more active role in the service beforehand, reading Liturgies, taking part in the opening procession, etc. Here again was a very experienced deacon to reassure, help and guide me, despite his very limited English. (Later he explained to me his passion for motor bikes and I would see in a flash that he looked the part precisely: pot belly, pony tail, chin beard.)
And: During each Divine Liturgy there is what is called the great entrance, when the Holy Gifts (the plate with the communion bread and the chalice with the wine) are carried by the deacon and the priest from the oblation (offering) table (where it was prepared) to the Holy Table, through the Church in front of the iconostasis. During the Great Entrance the aër, the cloth used to cover the Holy Gifts, is usually folded and placed on the shoulder or arm of the deacon or priest (or tied around the neck of the deacon or priest in the Greek tradition). During my ordination my head was covered with the aër, and I walked with head bowed, holding the tapes at its ends, during the great entrance, ending up in front of the holy doors. The aër is symbol of the swaddling clothes of the baby Christ, but more importantly, His burial shroud. And so as I walked, I became a symbol of the offering to the people and of the dead Christ, a greatly humbling experience, and linked to the omophorion which would soon be placed on my head during the ordination prayers. Also the aër signifies the covering of Christ’s grace over His whole Church. When I die, the aër will be placed on my face, to indicate this closeness to the Holy Gifts of God.
I realised, as often realised in the past, my utter inability to properly appreciate the richness of the symbolism of what was happening to me.
And again, a veil should be drawn over the rest of the mystery of that first Liturgy, as it is too holy to be spoken of and in any event I do not have the words.
After my ordination I received a gift from the Metropolitan of a prosphora bread, the bread used to prepare the Holy Gifts. During the tea afterwards, I sat at his table and received a second gift: his blessing to visit Karélia, the area in the north of Russia which lies directly to the east of Finland. My adventures there will be recounted in my next report.
I have already indicated that I am still processing the full significance of my ordination. I have no doubt that it will be a process taking months, if not years. So the thoughts which follow are very, very preliminary. They are also attempts to catch butterflies with words.
In his The Journey of the Magi, TS Eliot’s narrator said that he had seen birth and death and had thought they were different; but, he said, this birth (the birth of Christ) was a hard and bitter agony for him, like his death. I had thought my life had vocations and that they were different – lawyer, writer, husband, father, friend – and that ‘priest’ would be simply another, different, vocation. I now realise that priesthood is a defining vocation, providing unity, meaning and context to the others. I have yet to discover how.
Also: my birth as priest is also a death. My future life will not be as before. Externally, this may not necessarily be the case, especially not at first: I will continue to practise my vocations as before, with the vocation of priest added to the mix. But I have been called to a service which takes precedence over all the others; and which will trump all other considerations and will determine what happens in the rest of my life. How? Once again, it remains to be discovered.
Part of this service is the celebration of the Divine Liturgy. For Protestant ministers, this may involve no more than leading singing, presiding over the fairly simple order of the service, with preaching being the most difficult task. In the Orthodox Church, learning to perform the celebration of the Liturgy is no simple task. It is akin to learning to dance. There are exclamations to be learnt by heart, movements to made with care, a flow to the Liturgy to be maintained. Watching a priest perform a Liturgy, even up close, cannot prepare you remotely for trying to do it yourself. You grow extra fingers, arms and even legs in an instant, none of which are under your control. You forget the words of the Creed. You lose your place in the service book repeatedly and page around frantically whilst the choir grows quiet and Everybody Is Waiting Just For You.
But all these are trivialities compared to your first realisation of what you are busy with. If I may be permitted to carry the analogy with dancing one step further: You may have all the steps and movements in control and even get ‘the feel’ of the music. But all that counts for naught when you dance with the girl of your dreams for the first time. All of a sudden you realise why David was constrained to dance before God.
Just so with the Liturgy. When for the first time you witness the miracle of the transformation of the bread and the wine into the Gift of Christ’s Body and Blood under your trembling hand; when you hold the very Body of Christ in palm for the first time; when for the first time you put the Body and Blood of Christ in the mouth of His servant or handmaiden, you are inexorably changed. How? I don’t know. I doubt I ever will fully.
During my studies I once watched a lecture by an English priest who concluded his lecture on the Divine Liturgy by saying ‘I am a priest. I celebrate the Divine Liturgy. It’s what I do.’ At the time I thought the statement somewhat ostentatious. I am now beginning to appreciate its truth.
I have begun reading a different set of preparation prayers to the ones I have thus far read before communion. They are the prayers read by a priest in preparation of celebrating the Divine Liturgy. One of the psalms I read contains the verse quoted at the beginning of this report. I feel as if the sparrow of my soul has found a nest for herself, a place to lay down her chickens.
I read the following quote from Fr. Stephen Freeman: ‘Fr. Alexander Schmemann famously said that sacraments do not make something to be what it is not, but reveals it to be what it truly is. That thought is also found in St. Basil’s liturgy, where, instead of saying, “Make this bread to be the Body of our Lord, and God, and Savior, Jesus Christ,” he says, “And show (manifest) this bread to be…etc.” In the sacraments, God is “pulling back the veil,” so to speak, and making known to us the purpose of His creation and our purpose within it.’ I ponder what this means in respect of my ordination.
My experiences during the rest of this week were defined by these thoughts and realities. On Friday night I celebrated the Divine Liturgy for the first time during the Festival of the Nativity of Christ, with a very experienced priest presiding. I was given a few Liturgies to do in English and some other, simple tasks. It was a typical Russian Nativity Feast in a typical parish. It was wonderful. Afterwards, we had meat for the first time in 40 days, and the wine I spoke about. But my most vivid memories of this feast are not of the food and drink, superb as they were. It is the reactions of people to ‘the few words’ I was asked to say, and my conversations with the people who I got to know during my training.
On the Sunday after the Feast of the Nativity we were again up early, for we were invited to celebrate the Divine Liturgy at the parish of the OCA in Moscow. I picked up a previous conversation with Father Christopher Hill, a man blessed enough to have served as acolyte under the late Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, and to have known Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, both of blessed memory. In Father Christopher I found a kindred spirit and have been invited to his house before I depart for Cape Town.
The last experience of this week which I want to share is a visit to the monastery of St. Andrew Stratelates, where we met a wonderful man and a saw a wonderful Church. We were given a tour of the Churches of the monastery by Father Dionisiy, the abbot of the monastery, a man who is expert in more languages and fields of Orthodox theology than you can shake a stick at. He spoke at length and fascinatingly about the schism in the Orthodox Church about the Ukraine. Also we took a liking to each other. I hope to speak to him frequently in future.
And right at the end of our tour, when we were already late for a farewell dinner at a restaurant, I saw one of the most unusual Churches of my time here in Moscow: thoroughly modern, thoroughly Byzantine, but executed with such simplicity, subtlety, sophistication, and such prayerfulness, that it took my breath away. I hope to return to this Church, to spend some time there just looking and wondering. And of course praying.
I close with a few pictures, as usual.
This report will be my last one in Moscow, as these last days are particularly hectic. I hope to compile a final report when I am back.
Feast.
