kyrkbankarnas destruktiva karaktar

Pravmir har en artikel om hur anvandandet av kyrkbankar paverkar det andliga livet, gudstjansten samt den teologiska synen pa relationen prast-lekman. For en vasterlanning kan detta kanske i borjan synes smatt lojligt, nastan gulligt, men for osterlanningar ar det en brannande och hogst aktuell fraga, en fraga som t.o.m. kan avgora huruvida du stamplas som  ”traditionalist”, ”schismatiker”, ”modernist”, ”revisionist”, ”ekumenist” – med andra ord, huruvida du ar konservativ eller liberal. I ost har man i arhundraden – artusenden – firat gudstjanst pa ett visst sett. Utan bankar. Pa sina hall har man borjat infora detta, och det skapar en del problem. Manga praster ar oroliga for hur deras flockar paverkas. I foljande ljus maste artikeln lasas.

Har foljer ett litet utdrag:

The pews in our churches are a much bigger problem than the use of foreign languages, for pews silently speak louder than words. Pews outshout the greatest of preachers and the most effective of teachers. Pews skillfully contradict the most excellent administrator and the most caring pastor. Pews drown out the words of our greatest scholars. A parish priest can brilliantly teach his flock about the place of the Laity as members in the priestly Body of Christ and co-celebrants in the Divine Liturgy, while the pews his people are sitting in, with the subtle dynamics of liturgical drama, insidiously whisper the very opposite. ”Psst … all you really need to do is pay your dues, call yourself Orthodox, watch the Liturgy, and leave the full-time practice of religion to the paid professionals.” Neither unknown languages, nor choirs, nor even operatic compositions, could ever deprive the Laity of their active participation in the Divine Liturgy as members of the priestly Body of Christ. For they also serve who only attentively stand to pray. But when the Laity, as a mistaken gesture of kindness, were given pews so they could sit back, relax and watch the show, it was as if they had been deposed from their Sacred Ministry.

We’re not calling for fanatic ”pewoclasm.” Liturgical renewal must not be divorced from loving pastoral concern. But we do need to face it: the use of pews and rows of chairs in our churches is a liturgical distortion which powerfully distorts our self-understanding as Orthodox Christians. We need renewal in the Orthodox teaching that we come to church not to be entertained but to work, to do together the Work of the People, the Holy Liturgy. Perhaps we could begin that renewal by removing several front rows of pews, inviting the faithful to stand before the iconostasis from the Great Entrance through Communion. Then let us progress back as fast as is pastorally feasible to the traditional practice of having seats only around the periphery of the church interior for the elderly, the infirm, for mothers with babies, for the weak and for the tired. That practice is not ”merely traditional.” It expresses a vital and fundamental aspect of Orthodox liturgical teaching.

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En annan, kortare, artikel som ocksa var lite intressant ar ”Why the cults?”, som helt enkelt fragar sig varfor sa manga kristna under 1900-talet ock idag vander sig till New Age, Buddhism, ”kristna” sekter i stil med mormonerna etc.