Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T20:04:38.944Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the religious worth of bodily liturgical action

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2017

TERENCE CUNEO
TERENCE CUNEO*
Affiliation:
Philosophy Department, University of Vermont, 70 S. Williams, Burlington, VT 05401, USA
*
e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A striking feature of the Eastern Orthodox liturgies is how much movement and touching occurs during their performance. For example, when participants in these liturgies enter into a church building, they do not simply look at the icons; they typically venerate them by kissing them. Call events such as these scripted movement-touching sequences. The question I pursue in this article is why movement-touching sequences play such prominent roles in the performance of the Eastern liturgies. The answer I offer is that the performance of these actions has religious worth. I then consider two models that attempt to explain why the performance of scripted movement-touching sequences has religious worth. After exploring and rejecting what I call the instrumentalist model, I develop what I term the authorization-appropriation model of the composition of the church's liturgies. According to this model, the religious worth of scripted bodily liturgical action lies (in part) in the fact that God has both authorized the composition of and appropriated the liturgical scripts that prescribe the performance of such actions.

Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , June 2018 , pp. 155 - 174
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bradshaw, David (2004) Aristotle East and West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Breck, John (2001) Scripture in Tradition (Crestwood NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press).Google Scholar
Cabasilas, Nicholas (2002) Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, Hussey, J. M. and McNulty, P. A. (trs) (Crestwood NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press). (Referred to as Commentary on the Divine Liturgy.)Google Scholar
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (1981) Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite: The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, Campbell, Thomas L. (tr.) (Washington DC: University Press of America). (Referred to as The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy.)Google Scholar
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (1987) Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, Luibheid, Colm (ed.) (Minneapolis MN: Paulist Press). (Referred to as The Complete Works.)Google Scholar
Marinis, Vasileios (2014) ‘Piety, barbarism, and the senses in Byzantium’, in Promey, Sally M. (ed.) Sensational Religion (New Haven: Yale University Press), 321–340.Google Scholar
Meyendorff, Paul (1999) ‘Introduction’, in Germanus of Constantinople, On the Divine Liturgy, Translation, Introduction, and Commentary by Meyendorff, Paul (Crestwood NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press), 9–54.Google Scholar
Wolterstorff, Nicholas (1980) Art in Action (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans).Google Scholar
Wolterstorff, Nicholas (1995) Divine Discourse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolterstorff, Nicholas (2012) The Mighty and the Almighty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolterstorff, Nicholas (2014) The God We Worship (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans).Google Scholar
Wybriew, Hugh (2003) The Orthodox Liturgy (Crestwood NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press).Google Scholar
Yarnold, Edward (1971) The Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation: Baptismal Homilies of the Fourth Century (Slough MN: St Paul Publications).Google Scholar