Liturgical Beauty in Practice

[The Liturgist]

One of the saying of the Assyrian rite bishop I mentioned before in my past, who I wrote about yesterday here...

The Shepherd who really did leave the 99 to go after the 1!

He said that the Lakumara "Was the oldest or one of the oldest hymms" in Christian history. ("You Oh Lord we confess, and you Jesus Christ we glorify, for you are the quickener of our bodies and you are the savior of our souls).

There technically is a hymn that is older that is quoted by saint Paul from Philippians (reminded recently of it in a David Wood video that I can't locate).

A Hymn to Christ? (Philippians 2:6-11)


I also recall the Copts have a hymm around Holy Week "which tune goes back to the time of the Pharos".

Philippians 2:6-11 is indeed recognized as a Scriptural canticle. That would be a good idea, by the way, a thread seeking from members a complete list of scriptural canticles, defined as songs or poems outside of the Book of Psalms. Perhaps you might do me a favor and post that in Christian Scriptures or General Theology; I would, except I am fatigued.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

Philippians 2:6-11 is indeed recognized as a Scriptural canticle. That would be a good idea, by the way, a thread seeking from members a complete list of scriptural canticles, defined as songs or poems outside of the Book of Psalms. Perhaps you might do me a favor and post that in Christian Scriptures or General Theology; I would, except I am fatigued.

Would the sermon of the mount qualify? There is suppose to be poetry from a Hebrew / Aramaic standpoint

 

[Paidiske]

@Paidiske - This parish of the Assyrian Church of the East in New South Wales might be an Eastern church you could visit and get something out of without compromising on your stance on open communion.

Interesting. They're in Sydney; if I ever get up there, I may have to visit. (Ironically I might feel more welcome there than in an Anglican church in Sydney...)

 

[The Liturgist]

Interesting. They're in Sydney; if I ever get up there, I may have to visit. (Ironically I might feel more welcome there than in an Anglican church in Sydney...)

Very possibly! Assyrians are extremely friendly. The first time I visited an Assyrian church, at lunch, after the Eucharist, an extremely elderly lady, who was by no means in a state of dementia, hugged and kissed me as if I were her own grandchild. One of the things I love about the Assyrians is how loving they are, and how easy going they are. I have also experienced this in many other Eastern churches, but the only church that is convenient to you that does not practice closed communion, but allows those who believe in the real presence to partake, is the Assyrian church.

 

[The Liturgist]

Would the sermon of the mount qualify? There is suppose to be poetry from a Hebrew / Aramaic standpoint

Yes.

 

[The Liturgist]

The 1971 Moravian Hymnal (one of the last traditional English language liturgies to be published) and earlier are available in the public domain, on the Internet Archive. Recently my friend @MarkRohfrietsch and I were speculating about what the Moravian Church was using these days liturgically, and while the complete 1994 Moravian Book of Worship is under copyright, which takes us to another thread I have posted, the following link provides access to a large subset of the book:

Selected Liturgies for Moravian Congregations | Moravian Church In America

I am happy to report that judging by this subset of the 1994 Book of Worship, a copy of which is en route to my house, that the Moravian liturgy retains its beautiful and distinctive character and organization, which I have to confess, I do not entirely know how it fits together; I think the named liturgies and the proper liturgies for Easter and other holy days, are for what one might variously call the Synaxis, the Liturgy of the Word, Ante-Communion, or the Liturgy of the Catechumens, or the Typika in Eastern Orthodoxy if celebrated without the Eucharist, and then onto this is attached at frequencies determined by the parish, and on occasions set by the parish, the Order for Holy Communion, and such other orders for sacramental services as may be appropriate. I intend to reach out to a Moravian cleric to find out the details. However, the important point is that what we see here is consistent with the 1971 and earlier Moravian hymnals; it also reminds me in its multiplicity of services for the Liturgical Synaxis, of the hymnal I have from the Augustana Lutheran Synod, and of the 1940s edition of the Methodist Book of Worship, but most especially.my beloved Devotional Services by the great Congregational minister and liturgist Rev. John Hunter, and its equally delightful successor, the upper high church Devotional Worship, implemented by his successor at the King’s Weigh House in London, Dr. William Orchard, who like me, was a passionate ecumenist, who sought unsuccessfully to turn the King’s Weigh House into an ecumenical “Bridge Church” between the Protestants and Roman Catholics, but neither side wanted that sadly (if they had, it would probably have survived), and having become a widower following the traumatic death of his beloved wife, he was graciously received into the Roman Catholic priesthood in 1930, which provided Dr. Orchard in his final years with respite from the isolation that widows and widowers so often live with.*

The Moravians, owing to a blend of Orthodox, Lutheran, Pietist, Anglican, and Non-Conformist English and American Protestant theological influence, and of Czech, German, and Anglo-American cultural influence, have developed numerous distinctive liturgical traditions which contribute to liturgical beauty, including a number of distinctive hymns, the practice of making exquisite three dimensional Christmas Stars, and other beautiful customs in celebration of the Nativity, and refreshingly simple cemetaries with plaques rather than headstones called God’s Acre, a name which I feel to some extent helps to communicate the doctrine of the General Resurrection (and in my staunch opposition to cremation, anything which reduces the cost of burial, such as the inexpensive plain wooden coffins or caskets the Orthodox Churches use, which many Eastern Orthodox parishes keep in storage for use as needed, not embalming where embalming is avoidable, or pointless in the case of closed-casket funerals or funerals of those severely maimed (the Eastern Orthodox will place an embroidered veil on the deceased, and this combined with incense ensures dignity for the deceased and comfort for the mourners), and the use of simple headstones or plaques in the case of the Moravians are all of benefit in tnis respect.

Of course I am sure many of you will disagree with my extreme traditionalist view on cremation, which is fine, and to be clear, I do not believe that cremation jeopardizes salvation (nor could I, since most of the loved ones I have lost have been cremated) or, God forbid, the ancient Egyptian Pagan superstition that the body must be preserved intact for a resurrection. Indeed, even if we are converted to energy by a nuclear explosion or by falling into a black hole, I believe God in His omnipotence shall gather the photons, and convert them back into matter**, the very mass of our bodies, which will then be resurrected, in the glorified and incorruptible form of our Lord after He arose from the dead. My opposition to cremation is based rather on the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox concept of liturgical beauty in the context of funerals, which involves the Last Kiss, and which Fr. John Behr gave a lecture on, which I can post a link to if anyone is interested (he is the emeritus dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary and now the successor to Metropolitan Kallistos Ware at Oxford, under whom he did his doctoral dissertation, teaching Eastern Christianity).

As an aside, between their vast programs on Anglican, Methodist, Quaker and Catholic theology, their work on Biblical studies, and the Eastern Christian Studies program as established by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and the Syriac Studies program as established by the emeritus Professor Sebastian Brock, who has translated so many wonderful books by Syriac fathers into English, such as the Hymns on Paradise of St. Ephraim the Syrian, Oxford is the place to go for anyone in the UK, or with the financial resources, looking to do postgraduate work in Eastern Christian Theology, Patristic Theology, or Methodist, Anglican, or Quaker studies; Patristic and Eastern Christian studies in particular benefit from the excellence of the programs established by Kallistos Ware and Sebastian Brock, which make accessible the full range of Greek, Slavic, Georgian, Armenian, Coptic and Syriac fathers, so that one is not limited to the Latin fathers, or beyond that, to St. Augustine, which sadly, in many seminaries, is the only Church Father who receives much attention, even today.

Moving back to Moravian liturgical beauty, in addition to their funerary practices, Christmas traditions, and distinctive hymnody, there is also a tradition of brass choirs, albeit not at the expense of organ music, and in the US, a beautiful architectural tradition, particularly in Winston-Salem North Carolina, of domed churches, many of which, being clad in copper like those of Europe, have now acquired an exquisite patina.

Lastly, to my knowledge the Moravians do cremation, lest anyone be confused by my segue into thinking that it represents the doctrine of any churches other than the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox and the Assyrians.

*In Ethiopia, it is customary for widows and widowers to become nuns and monks, albeit usually they continue to live in their house or in the community, and the community supports them with food and other essentials, as the early church did, and still ought to do in my opinion, with widows who did not want to remarry, and/or required financial support (furthermore, most of the Deaconesses of the Early Church were widows).

**which by the way, does happen in nature - matter can be formed from energy and vice versa under relativistic principles, and furthermore, an equivalence between the two exists, so if somehow one managed to capture a huge amount of photons and put them in some kind of reflective container, it would gain in weight; we also see the principle of relativity very clearly in solid and liquid fueled rockets, where the mass of the rocket fully fueled represents its potential energy, that is to say, how much thrust it can produce and for how long, which determines the maximum speed the payload, such as an unmanned spacecraft like the Voyager probes, presently the fastest-moving objects produced by human hands, can attain).

 

[Pavel Mosko]

The Moravians are really interesting. I enjoyed learning more about them with my Czechoslovak background. How they Revolutionized military tactics was one cool thing, they brought an end to the Knight with their use of early firearms, melee weapons and circled wagons.

 

[Paidiske]

I don't have time to reply at length now, but on the idea that incense provides "comfort," while I acknowledge the particular point when talking about the presence of the bodies of the deceased, I would note that incense in many contexts has become deeply problematic and anything but a comfort, due to allergies and sensitivities.

One of the most unpastoral choices I have ever seen made in a liturgy, was the insistence on the use of incense at a funeral, which saw one mourner standing outside the church door, because to come in would have meant a trip in an ambulance.

 

[The Liturgist]

I don't have time to reply at length now, but on the idea that incense provides "comfort," while I acknowledge the particular point when talking about the presence of the bodies of the deceased, I would note that incense in many contexts has become deeply problematic and anything but a comfort, due to allergies and sensitivities.

One of the most unpastoral choices I have ever seen made in a liturgy, was the insistence on the use of incense at a funeral, which saw one mourner standing outside the church door, because to come in would have meant a trip in an ambulance.

So my view is that if a funeral happened, and incense was used despite the knowledge someone intending to attend had an allergy to incense, and the solution was to shove them in the external door, that would be absolutely unacceptable.

For my part, all funerals I did were in the UCC, and most were memorial services as there had been cremations, with the cremated loved one interred separately or taken home by the bereaved, and all that were not involved the urn with the cremated remains being present, or the embalming of the loved one, and no incense was used.

A funeral has not yet happened in my new ministry, but it will, since I have some elderly laity, including two who suffered severe heart attacks, and some with a history of serious cancer, in remission thankfully, and one with a neuro-degenerative disease and my policy as I have said before is to do what the mourners desire, but I have preached against cremation in church and I have encouraged members, publicly and privately, to arrange for burial, and as many of my people are impoverished, I have connected them with resources, for example, Clark County buries in coffins anyone who cannot afford the services of a funeral home, as well as unclaimed bodies, and coordination with the Department of Public Health does allow for the use of that resource while still providing full funeral and graveside services, and equivalent resources exist in the other counties where members of my two congregations reside, and other members of more resources have made advanced arrangements involving inexpensive coffins.

Within Orthodox communities, I have never heard of anyone having an allergy to the incense they use, and it is used in almost all of their services. However, the Trisagion Prayers, which lack incense, usually, are an integral part of the Orthodox funeral services, as is the Burial, so anyone who was not Orthodox, had an allergy to Orthodox incense, and wished to attend, could go to those in complete safety. I have never heard of this being a problem, however,

There are different kinds of incense, and some kinds of incense used by Anglicans are made differently than what the Orthodox use, and I am allergic to it. For example, self-igniting incense, especially the many varieties of self-igniting incense used in Joss Sticks, in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese religious rites (syncretically, in Buddhism and Shinto in Japan, and in Buddhism, Taoism, and the traditional Chinese folk religion, including Confucian observances, in China, Korea and Viet Nam, as well as minority indigenous religions, I am moderately allergic to, in that I get an instant headache.

However, as far as an allergic reaction requiring hospitalization, with Anaphylactic Shock, where one might need to carry an Epi-pen; kyrie eleison; I have never heard of that in the Orthodox church, but I have heard of it in the case of Joss Sticks, and exposure to marijuana fumes once caused me to experience that.

I suspect incense allergies in Western churches are mainly to additives or the combustion material, rather than the core ingredient, which in the Orthodox church, is the resin from certain trees. There are also special varieties of charcoal used.

I follow problems in the Orthodox communion very carefully, so if this is a major issue, I would be surprised I hadn’t heard of it, but I do not claim omniscience, so this could ne a thing, and it might also be unknown to me because discussions of it are in modern Greek, Russian or other languages unknown to me. For example, I am aware of such shocking scandals as the drowning of a baby during baptism by an incompetent hieromonk in Moldavia, who was convicted of negligent homicide, but before his prosecution even began, he was immediately deposed (because killing anyone, even accidentally, is a disqualifier for Orthodox Holy Orders, so if an Orthodox priest were to kill someone while drunk driving, that would be the end of their career, and a disqualifier from becoming a priest).

On that basis, if Orthodox incense ever killed someone, it could disqualify all the clergy at the service, so based on that, if someone has a real allergy to sandalwood resin, which is one of the most common types of resin used in the manufacture of different varieties of incense, they need merely to communicate that to the clergy. Most Orthodox incense is made in monasteries and convents, along with the fuel used in the thuribles.

However, I have never seen an Orthodox church that is not filled with clouds of incense after a liturgy, even with the windows open, or heard of someone with a serious allergy to it, but if it did occur, provisions could be made.

It is also possible, and worth considering, that the prayers of blessing that accompany the use of incense do protect the laity, including people like me who are allergic to tobacco smoke and smoke from campfires, indeed, almost all smoke makes me sick, except liturgical incense of the type I have encountered in Orthodox churches and most Catholic and Anglican churches that use it, from adverse effects. This is not a fringe opinion; I know a retired OCA bishop and a ROCOR auxiliary bishop who hold this and certain related opinions, but on discussing the issue with them, both were also prepared to accommodate people who had a known allergy in a number of ways, if that ever happened, which they had never heard of.

So, the bottom line is what happened in the funeral you saw was an avoidable tragedy, as I can think of about ten different ways of preventing it, including some that would have allowed for the use of incense, and separately, I have never heard of anyone getting sick from the incense in Orthodox churches, but it is obviously possible, if exceedingly uncommon, and anyone with a known allergy should contact the parish they will be visiting for any reason and accommodations can be made.

If you yourself have a serious allergy to incense, you should contact the Assyrian church in Sydney if you ever find the opportunity to visit it, as Assyrian parishes frequently use plain sandalwood resin incense from a small stationary thurible, which the laity will with their hands conduct the fumes up to their face before partaking of the Eucharist, but this is not always done, and some Assyrian parishes don’t do it at all, for instance, I have never seen it at St. Mary’s Assyrian Church of the East in Detroit. I have no doubt accommodations would be made.

 

[Paidiske]

No, I personally have no allergy to incense, although I prefer to encounter its use in moderation rather than over-generous abundance, as it were. (There is such a thing as too much of a good thing!)

That said, I have known a fair few people with either allergies or sensitivities which caused breathing problems on exposure to incense, and what I've found is that they tend not to make this known to churches (they don't want to make a fuss or be seen as difficult), but just avoid attending those churches which use incense. So I would not be surprised if it were a "thing" for some Orthodox as well (or people who would like to be Orthodox) who simply end up not attending or attending elsewhere.

In the parish where I did my first curacy, for example, the use of incense was routine; I was chatting to one of our neighbours one day (she lived literally next door) and she was an Anglican who went to another parish to worship because she had an allergy to the incense. I suggested to the parish priest we should be willing to refrain from using incense in order to allow her to attend (it being entirely optional for Anglicans) but he was unwilling to consider that.

 

[The Liturgist]

No, I personally have no allergy to incense, although I prefer to encounter its use in moderation rather than over-generous abundance, as it were. (There is such a thing as too much of a good thing!)

That said, I have known a fair few people with either allergies or sensitivities which caused breathing problems on exposure to incense, and what I've found is that they tend not to make this known to churches (they don't want to make a fuss or be seen as difficult), but just avoid attending those churches which use incense. So I would not be surprised if it were a "thing" for some Orthodox as well (or people who would like to be Orthodox) who simply end up not attending or attending elsewhere.

It’s possible, but there are more substantial barriers to conversion to Orthodoxy than the incense; I think if someone wants to join, they would use antihistamines so as to be able to enjoy the incense, which would work, by the way, for the mild cases you describe (non-drowsy modern antihistamines like Claritin (cetirizine) and Allegra, I forget the generic name, are available, and there are even more advanced antihistamines, so the era of the only solution being the kind of first generation antihistamine is over, so we no longer hace to resort to drugs like diphenhydramine, dramamine, doxylamine succinate or hydrazine, which can make you drowsy, or very sleepy, and in the case of some, like doxylamine succinate, used in the US in the popular cold and flu remedy NyQuil, has a long half life in the body, which is good if one has a cold that one wants to sleep off the worst of, but which also makes one experience a lethargic feeling that lasts well into the next morning if one takes it at night; now, these are still heavily used for fast-acting relief of allergies, motion sickness, vertigo, and as sleep aids, but cetirizine and Allegra have been a great help to me personally in controlling my otherwise horrible allergies. For example, I am allergic to tobacco smoke, which until very recently, was a problem when living in Nevada, as we were basically the last state to allow indoor smoking in restaurants, hotels and casinos; while I do not go to casinos, I do like to eat out, and the smoking could be a real problem.

I had two of the worst colds of my life when I first travelled to Europe in 1997 by which time smoking was already restricted heavily in my native California, and banned on airlines in the US, the re-exposure to immense quantities of smoke everywhere, as Europe at the time trailed all of the US in terms of tobacco legislation; there were no vending machines in any European hotels I stayed at for soft drinks or candy as one would find in every American hotel back then, and many of them today (instead one had to use the minibar, if one was lucky enough to have one, although the pricing was less astronomical than in American hotels), but every floor at several hotels had a cigarette vending machine, something that been gone for a while in the US, and there were restaurants without separate smoking and non smoking sections, and I learned to avoid TGV and ICE trains (I was using a Eurail Pass) and take plain InterCity or EuroCity trains, or some regional trains, which had six-seat compartments (and still do, in parts of Europe), which was blissful, as there was no smoke in the non-smoking compartments, while smoke would waft through the articulated gaps between the open-plan cars on the ICE and TGV. Thankfully, smoking laws in Europe are now on a par with those in the US, except we have a new menace in the form of marijuana smoking, which in some cases is less restricted than cigarette smoking by businesses which don’t know the new laws, and second hand marijuana smoke makes me extremely sick, with migraine-like symptoms, without fail. I suspect first hand exposure would require the use of an Epi-Pen. The only protection I have against these allergens and various allergens in the High Desert comes in the form of non-drowsy antihistamines, like Cetirizine.

In the parish where I did my first curacy, for example, the use of incense was routine; I was chatting to one of our neighbours one day (she lived literally next door) and she was an Anglican who went to another parish to worship because she had an allergy to the incense. I suggested to the parish priest we should be willing to refrain from using incense in order to allow her to attend (it being entirely optional for Anglicans) but he was unwilling to consider that.

While getting rid of incense altogether would be unfair to people who like it, the common American practice of having a said service followed by a choral Eucharist, and having multiple Communion services during the week, and in some fortunate parishes, morning and evening prayer, and in some very fortunate parishes, choral mattins and choral evensong and/or compline and/or midday prayer provides opportunities for services without incense. Pre Covid-19, the most common order of worship in Episcopal and Anglican parishes in the US tended to be a said Eucharist followed by a choral Eucharist on Sunday morning, an occasional Sunday evening service, sometimes a contemporary Eucharist, for instance, at my retired friend’s parish, and a midweek service, usually on Wednesday, either a “Healing Service” with morning prayer or the Eucharist and Holy Unction, or a said Evening Prayer and Eucharist. Just before the pandemic, the Episcopal church closest to me had the two Sunday services, the Healing service on Wednesday morning, and also Morning Prayer on Friday. Now, the said services are largely gone. Usually they lacked incense, but not always, as they followed the pattern of the Roman Catholic Low Mass; incense is also uncommon in the Divine Office, although at my retired friend’s parish, I normally went to the Said Eucharist because the music program was really bad, except on Christmas Eve and Easter Sunday.

 

[Paidiske]

I think if someone wants to join, they would use antihistamines so as to be able to enjoy the incense...

I think expecting someone to take medications in order to be able to attend, rather than modifying the liturgy to be safe to everyone, is completely unreasonable, inhospitable and uncharitable, personally. Also possibly illegal in some places where we are required to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities (although I am not aware of a test case involving allergy as a disability, I think a reasonable argument could be made).

While getting rid of incense altogether would be unfair to people who like it, the common American practice of having a said service followed by a choral Eucharist... provides opportunities for services without incense.

Not necessarily. The particles can take a long time to clear from the air, especially in poorly-ventilated spaces, as many churches are. A building in which incense is regularly used may not be safe outside those service times for people with significant issues.

There's actually been quite a lot of work done on the use of incense in liturgy and its health impacts; I compiled a blog post summarising it here some years ago. I am amused, on re-reading it now, to see that my comments on the unlikelihood of the use of face masks in worship have not dated well in the era of Covid!

 

[The Liturgist]

I think expecting someone to take medications in order to be able to attend, rather than modifying the liturgy to be safe to everyone, is completely unreasonable, inhospitable and uncharitable, personally.

I agree entirely, and as I indicated, my conversations with Eastern Orthodox bishops make me feel that they would agree as well.

The reason why I mentioned antihistamines is that they could be the reason why I have not heard any complaints from converts to Orthodoxy, but more importantly, they also represent the only means in which someone who is allergic to incense could enjoy it. Cetirizine and Allegra are marketed for this very purpose, and are very inexpensive; basically, the idea is that people who want a cat or a dog but have allergies to them, or like a certain type of decorative plant that they are allergic to, or, in my case, I enjoy living in the desert but my allergies get inflamed by dust, and are aggravated by most air conditioning systems; I also inherited from my father an allergy to both chile peppers and peppercorn, and derivative products like salsa, Southern hot sauce such as Tabasco, ground pepper. which I love to use as seasoning and in soups, and other items, but if I forget to take an antihistamine, I will have a severe coughing fit 100% of the time, sometimes with nausea.

Also possibly illegal in some places where we are required to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities (although I am not aware of a test case involving allergy as a disability, I think a reasonable argument could be made).

Bearing in mind that I agree reasonable accommodations should be made to people with incense allergies, and that I do not consider antihistamines a reasonable accommodation, but rather, a means by which people who suffer from an incense allergy might be able to overcome it and enjoy incense, if and only if they so desire, I am as certain as a non-lawyer can be that litigation or legislation or executive action against incense, for reasons of protecting the disabled, would at present fail in the US, and recent legislation suggests a possibility such an approach also wouldn’t fly in the UK, flr reasons I shall explain (bearing in mind, this is hypothetical, because I don’t believe the Orthodox Christians would refuse reasonable accommodations for people with incense allergies, and I would oppose any group which did refuse such accommodations, and I suspect that such a refusal would be likely among some Asian religions that use incense in the form of joss sticks, for example, various Buddhist monasteries in the US.

For Orthodox Christians, the use of incense is essential to their faith, and in the US at least, the First Amendment freedom of worship would supersede the Americans With Disabilities Act, especially given the Supreme Court striking down California’s restrictions on worship services earlier this year, while leaving the door open for some Covid-19 safety precautions, a proportionality requirement was introduced, and it is probable that the restrictions on worship imposed in 2020 were completely illegal. Specifically with regards to an attempt at banning incense, that Supreme Court decision, as well as the seminal 1993 Supreme Court decision Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah in which Hialeah, Florida attempted to ban the Santeria religion (a syncretic Afro-Brazillian religion) on the basis of their practice of slaughtering chickens.

The majority opinion of the court that the ordinances of Hialeah were unconstitutional was written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, stating in the decision, “religious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent or comprehensible to others in order to merit First Amendment protection” and the ruling further declaring “ A law burdening religious practice that is not neutral or not of general application must undergo the most rigorous of scrutiny. To satisfy the commands of the First Amendment, a law restrictive of religious practice must advance" 'interests of the highest order'" and must be narrowly tailored in pursuit of those interests” and “ Where government restricts only conduct protected by the First Amendment and fails to enact feasible measures to restrict other conduct producing substantial harm or alleged harm of the same sort, the interest given in justification of the restriction is not compelling. It is established in our strict scrutiny jurisprudence that "a law cannot be regarded as protecting an interest 'of the highest order' ... when it leaves appreciable damage to that supposedly vital interest unprohibited."

Thus, if the Supreme Court followed precedent, absolute bans on smoke production, candles, cigarettes, and indeed any activity that released allergens into the atmosphere would be the only way to prohibit the use of incense in churches. The decision, along with the five decisions limiting and abolishing various restrictions imposed on religious worship in some states since the outbreak of covid-19, Tandon v. Newsom , is worth reading.

In the UK, incense was specifically given legal protection so as to be exempted from the general ban on psychoactive substances intended to counter designer drugs. Similarly, in the US, the Prohibition did not prohibit the consumption of wine in Holy Communion and other religious services, which is worth remembering as a legal principle even though the Prohibition itself was abolished as the Methodists, Baptists and other Protestants who fervently pushed for it, found the side effects in terms of organized crime and the failure of the law to stop alcohol related social problems, a commendable goal, not worth the price, thus FDR was elected, with the repeal of Prohibition a campaign promise. And also in the US, practitioners of certain Native American religions are allowed to use Peyote, a psychedelic substance made from the Button Cactus, traditionally used by native Americans for various religious purposes including vision quests. Peyote is, outside of this religious exemption, an illegal drug, and the Button Cactus has become an endangered species because of poaching, where drug dealers steal the cacti from nature reserves, tribal and government land to refine into Peyote for black market distribution, an act which threatens the availability of the substance for legitimate users.

Conversely, attempts by Rastafarians to get marijuana legalized under the first amendment because it is a sacrament in their belief system, being used in two types of their worship, Grounding and Reasoning, were unsuccessful, although the legalization of marijuana in much of the US renders this moot. Likewise, several attempts by LSD cults in the 1960s to prevent the prohibition of LSD on the same basis failed, and all subsequent attempts to reverse that prohibition, or to have other illicit substances legalized on the basis of freedom of religion, have also failed. So the religious exemptions granted for the use of Peyote and during the prohibition, of Wine, are the exception and not the rule, however, in both cases, the use of wine in Communion and in Jewish seders, sabbath meals and Chassidic ceremonies, among other exemptions to the Prohibition, and the use of Peyote, are ancient and well established traditions, and not the result of New Religious Movements arguably constructed around drug use in the case of the 1960s LSD cults.

For additional context, in the Prohibition, there was a process whereby any religious group could obtain an exemption by specifying what the alcohol was used for and the quantities in which it was to be used (the latter was impossible for the Chassidic symposia-like meals, but I believe they got permission anyway; Peyote had the specific context of being used by Native Americans, whose tribes are supposed to be sovereign under the treaties between them and the US, which we have shamefully walked over, just as the Irish and the Scottish Highlanders, the First Nations in Canada, the Aborigines in Australia and the Maori of New Zealand, and the Blacks in South Africa, as well as Indian immigrants and other “coloreds”, and indeed, though guilty of the same abuses, the Boers and other Afrikaaner populations in what became South Africa (ironically, despite the evil Apartheid dictator PW Botha being an Afrikaaner, during the Boer Wars, the first concentration camps were invented by the British to contain Afrikaaner women and children), have been abused in countries that were first established as British colonies.

Given this context, permission for the use of Peyote could be considered one of a number of special privileges granted to the Native Americans, which also include freedom to operate casinos in states where they form a compact with the state government, in what I regard as an inadequate and insufficient gesture indicative of what is at its best, a desire to make some ammends and/or assuage guilt over the violations committed against them, and otherwise among the more cynical, an attempt to placate the Native American populations and to ameliorate their sufferings in an inexpensive way that preserves as much as possible the status quo.

Not necessarily. The particles can take a long time to clear from the air, especially in poorly-ventilated spaces, as many churches are. A building in which incense is regularly used may not be safe outside those service times for people with significant issues.

There's actually been quite a lot of work done on the use of incense in liturgy and its health impacts; I compiled a blog post summarising it here some years ago. I am amused, on re-reading it now, to see that my comments on the unlikelihood of the use of face masks in worship have not dated well in the era of Covid!

So the solution in poorly ventilated spaces would probably be to do what hotels do in rooms that guests smoke in, and use commercial grade portable ionizing air filters between services, or hold the incense free services in a secondary chapel, if the church has one, or a room that could be converted to one, or the parish hall. I don’t think its fair to deny incense to everyone because one person has an allergy, but conversely I don’t think it would be fair to exclude that one person from incense; rather, I think the solution is a balanced approach where some services have it and some do not, and precautions such as using separate worship spaces or ionizing air filters should be taken. And I think that is a fair and balanced approach.

 

[Paidiske]

I am as certain as a non-lawyer can be that litigation or legislation or executive action against incense, for reasons of protecting the disabled, would at present fail in the US, and recent legislation suggests a possibility such an approach also wouldn’t fly in the UK...

I am honestly not sure how a test case would go here in Australia. I have seen churches required to uphold disability legislation in other ways. I suspect that if a test case were ever brought, the church would be required to provide an appropriate option, at least.

So the solution in poorly ventilated spaces would probably be to do what hotels do in rooms that guests smoke in, and use commercial grade portable ionizing air filters between services, or hold the incense free services in a secondary chapel, if the church has one, or a room that could be converted to one, or the parish hall. I don’t think its fair to deny incense to everyone because one person has an allergy, but conversely I don’t think it would be fair to exclude that one person from incense; rather, I think the solution is a balanced approach where some services have it and some do not, and precautions such as using separate worship spaces or ionizing air filters should be taken. And I think that is a fair and balanced approach.

Each parish or congregation would need to work out how to manage things in their own particular circumstances. What infuriates me is the attitude I have too often seen, of denying the problem and not being willing to do anything at all to make a person with allergies safe or welcome.

 

[The Liturgist]

Weird, these two images of the Arian Baptistry in Ravenna, which I am posting in this thread because I have been trying to do a post on the Baptistries in Ravenna in another thread, with glitches, for diagnostic reasons at the request of staff, morph together perfectly

 

[DarylFawcett]

in another thread

Try it in that other thread.

 

[The Liturgist]

Try it in that other thread.

Everything is working except I still cant post images from wikimedia. I tried posting this image of Socrates: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...ed.jpg/320px-UWASocrates_gobeirne_cropped.jpg

Can you try posting it?

 

[Philip_B]

 

[Philip_B]

I agree, the cropped image from Wikimedia was not accepted for some rerason

 

[The Liturgist]

I can't believe I didn't see this thread until now. Liturgy is one of my favorite things to talk about! I tend to be fairly high in my own personal preference, with some extra bowing and crossing thrown in. I would prefer incense regularly, although my parish likes to just use it a few times a year on the major feasts. I can deal with that. I would like to do ablutions at the altar as well, although that's rare because the deacon resets the altar after Eucharist when he's there.

In terms of style, I really admire "admirable simplicity" (to borrow the phrase from George Wayne Smith's book title). I think it's important to do liturgy well without being stuffy, to have fun but still be dignified, and not to get lost in a sea of symbols which don't mean anything. For example, the parish had a tradition of two processional crosses being used at a service when I arrived. We do that anymore. They also didn't understand exactly what the meaning of the vigil light was for the reserved sacrament and thus they blew it out during the week because no one was there to see it.

Another pet peeve of mine is liturgy that doesn't reflect the season. Advent and Lent shouldn't feel the same. The summer green season need not get monotonous. I am quite careful about crafting liturgy that stays within the rubrics (99% of the time...I will break them on very rare occasions like moving the nuptial blessing at a wedding with Communion to the end) but changes a bit from time to time. I do wonder whether parishioners "get" those changes -- things like the rotation of Eucharistic Prayers -- or not, but I believe they do notice whether the music reflects the calendar. I try to emphasize that seasonality in preaching, as well.

As for vestments, please don't even get me started. My wife is convinced that half my salary is spent on vestments to replace ill-fitting or just plain ugly sets that the church has owned forever.

So I totally missed your point about the monotony of color and ordinary time. Several churches in America used to break up ordinary time into effectively three seasons, Post-Pentecost, with Red Vestments, Kingdomtide*, which ended with the Feast of Christ the King on the last Sunday before Advent, with green vestments, and Epiphanytide, probably with green vestments, although I think that gold vestments (which are equivalent in meaning to green vestments in the Eastern Orthodox Church, in that they are used outside of the four fasting seasons when no other color is specified, in the Slavonic tradition; the Greeks tend to just follow light or dark, which is the only thing specified in the Typikon, so that many Greek priests have only gold and dark red vestments, but others have a full set and follow the traditional colors, which were refined in the Russian Orthodox Church).

Speaking of which, another way to break up the “monotony of color” in Ordinary Time is to closely follow the Anglican calendar, and use traditional Western Rite vestment colors whenever a feast occurs on Sunday, or a major feast is proximate to Sunday. I would also follow the tradition observed among the Orthodox and Spanish Catholics of using blue on Marian feasts and feasts of angels, for example, Michaelmas. In this manner, ordinary time as a period of solid green-ness can be eliminated.