Orthodox Church in America - Help for Readers

For Readers

Continuation of an article written by Dn. Sergius Halvorsen, offering helpful insights for readers. This article is copyrighted, and used by permission.

The Principles of Church Reading

Two fundamental principles governing Orthodox worship are beauty and intelligibility. As we said earlier, the word must be intelligible to be a word, and nowhere in the Liturgy is this more acutely relevant than during the reading of Scripture. If a word is mumbled, mispronounced, or inaudible, it is not a word for the hearer; it is just a sound. Here we should note that, as a rule, music in the Orthodox Church is always a musical word. We do not have organ preludes or orchestral performances in the Liturgy primarily because these musical forms, as beautiful as they might be, are wordless. Thus, for church reading to be effective, it must be intelligible. Yet we cannot make intelligibility the sole criterion for church reading, because authentic Christian worship also requires beauty.

Acknowledging that the study of beauty has taken up thousands of volumes, we can simply say that the effort to make liturgical worship as beautiful as possible derives from love: God's love for us and our love for God. When a family invites someone to their house for dinner, they generally make every effort possible to clean the house, fix a delicious meal, and provide a beautiful dining experience for their guest. Even if they lack a grand mansion, fine china, and gourmet ingredients, they still endeavor to do the best they can with what they have. They know that the entire meal—the food, its presentation, the setting of the table, the appearance of the house—is an expression of love for the guest.

This expression of love through beauty is also evident in our church buildings. Whether it be the great Hagia Sophia, a hand-carved Russian village church, or a small storefront mission in the United States, an Orthodox church building is always built and adorned as beautifully as possible. The beauty one beholds in the church building is a witness to the love for Jesus Christ concretely manifested in His faithful people. Likewise, the church reader is called to proclaim the Word of God intelligibly and beautifully as a concrete witness to the ultimate expression of God's love, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

For Readers

____________________________________

Go To:

The Practical Sides of Church Reading:

More Liturgical Information: