Hello:

I am looking for scholarly material on the question of church pews (adding them and more particularly removing them). I have a vague memory that there was an article on the subject in SVQ some years back. If anyone has a citation for that article or for any other such articles I would appreciate hearing from you.

Thanks.

William M. Klimon
http://www.gateofbliss.com

Dear William,

Quite a number of years ago, Fr. Andrij Chirovsky, Director of the Sheptysky Institute at St. Paul's University, 223 Main Street, Ottawa, ON K1S 1C4 pubished an article on seating in churches in the journal DIAKONIA. It had if I recall a somewhat tongue in cheek title: Anathama sit. You might want to check the indices of DIAKONIA or better yet contact Fr. Andrij

e-mail: sheptysky@ustpaul.uottawa.ca

In my own parish of St. Elias the Prophet, we have been able to keep the pews out. The assembly as a whole stands for the services. There are benches at the sides of the walls for those who find that they cannot stand throughout. This really helps to unite clergy and laity in one single action. It prevents the mentality that the solea, ambo and altar are the equivalent to a stage, while the nave becomes the place of the audience.

In your research be certain not to overlook the "official" liturgical texts. For the Byzantine Catholics these have been published in Church Slavonic. You will need to refer to these for the rubrics as their is a tendency to publish English language texts with "revised" rubrics, especially when it comes to sit, stand and kneel.

Except for a the references to the priest going to the "high place" or synthronon during the readings and being seated there, along with references to the bishop sitting in the nave on the cathedra during the reading of the Hours and the Enarxis, the texts are relatively silent about sitting. There are references to the bishop sitting to the north-west corner of the Holy Table at ordinations during the triple procession prior to the laying-on-of-hands. The texts to the best of my knowledge are silent in regards to seating of the assembly in the nave.

In the West the practice of fixed seating, apart from seating about the walls begins to appear in the 13th century. (Of course there has been choir stalls both in the East and West prior to this date. But this is another matter altogether and should not be confused with nave seating.) Nave seating does not really develop until the Reformation Period. The concept of worship changed during this period and so did the liturgical-architectural scheme and its appointments. The focus is upon the Word of God with a strong "academic" bent. Notice how the reformers abandoned vestments and took to the wearing of academic gowns or attire to officiate at services. The nave began to resemble the academic assembly hall and the minister the learned professor.

The Post-Tridentine Catholic Church was to some extent influenced by the architecture of the reformers both positively and negatively. Fixed seating or in many cases movable chairs in the nave thus became the norm.

When the Eastern Christians came to North America, they adopted the practice of the "majority". I do not know of any serious study on how and why this transition took place. It is certainly worthy of extensive research.

I am quite convinced that the fixed pew changes the way in which we worship in a very radical manner. The pew tends to define and confine the assembly. It is a true barrier between the nave and the altar, between the clergy and the laity. It is also a barrier to the full celebration of the services according to the received liturgical texts. All the liturgical services are impeded by them. One of the perplexing problems is that there is so little discussion about this issue from a liturgical perspective.

The best of luck in your research. In Christ,

David Kennedy, Protodeacon

It is good to see someone else trying to find a way to get rid of pews. Someone directed me to an article about a year and a half ago on the subject but I've lost it since.

Anecdotally, Father Loya encouraged profound bows and such during last Sunday's sermon. He again made reference to the difficulty of worshipping when pews are in the way. Someday, I suspect, they will be gone.

I pray that the someday is soon.

Dan Lauffer

>>>It is good to see someone else trying to find a way to get rid of pews.<<<

A midnight raid with a ratchet wrench, a chain saw, and a jerrycan of gasoline would work just fine. Since Ruthenians value money way above kneeling, once the pews are gone, they will never be replaced.

Dear Friends,
Glory to Jesus Christ!

Although St Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church is very traditional Byzantine, it has pews.

Fr. Bohdan Lypsky of blessed memory once gave a talk to students about why our Churches should not have pews.

The students were so inspired that they immediately went to get hammers and other instruments from the caretakers and were quite serious about getting rid of the pews. They were stopped, however . . .

The problem in that church is that the floor is sloping and so the pews are needed, so I am told, to keep people from falling forward.

I think, though, that most of us need to be taught how to stand.

This may sound funny, but a Monk showed me how to flatten my feet, relax my leg muscles etc. I found that I could stand comfortably for a long time without even moving. Is this my imagination? Is this the proper way to stand?

Also, the Old Rite Orthodox place an embroidered towel or mat on the floor when they are making prostrations. Something to do with not soiling the right hand with which one makes the Sign of the Cross. Is this done in other Churches? Is it a good practice to adopt?

Yours in repentance,

Alex

In the immortal words of His Grace Bishop Kallistos, "Take them out and BURN them!"

The Liturgy (not to mention the other services, especially Presanctified) is a wholly different experience when the worshiper has freedom to MOVE.

It's appalling what pews have done even in the services where the directives still specify (in English) profound bows or prostrations. I've been in parishes where nobody is "brave" enough to hit the aisles, and "prostration" appears to mean "bow your head at the neck just a teeny bit." Perhaps we should turn the question around from "shall we get rid of the pews" to "Why should our churches be built so that the rubrics can't really be followed?


"Friends Don't Make Friends Pray In Pews" (I'm still gonna do those T-shirts one of these days....)

Cheers,

Sharon


Sharon Mech, SFO
Cantor & sinner
sharon@cmhc.com

Pews in church:
We will be in the process of replacing the carpets in both the chapel and main church and we plan to get rid of quite a few pews but not all, unfortunately. There are still some hangers-on who do not want to part with the pews no matter what.
JoeS

Dear Friends,
Christ is among us!
As I told the altar servers at their convention a couple of years ago; "Pews are Protestant!" If I could get the Bishop's support, out they would all go, only to be replaced with stalls along the wall.

When I remodelled the Byzantine Church in Minneapolis the loudest shout went up about removing several rows of pews from the back of the Temple and reconfiguring the remainder. In fact two years after the renovation and after I had been transferred a small cadre even called me to find out where the removed pews had disappeared to, they intended to replace them! Imagine!

At one of my current parishes, we have what what be the best compromise. At St. Andrew Church we have movable portable pews. We can rearrange them in order to provide for prostrations and movement during the Divine Services. It is not the best, but it is a reasonable compromise.

Perhaps our hierarchs will revise the "Rubrics" to direct standing except during the Homily. And ordering the removal of kneelers, another unneeded Latinization! Maybe they will even obey the First Ecumenical Council and forbid kneeling on Sundays too!
The unworthy priest,
Bryan

Joe,

Why the carpet? Doesn't that destroy the acoustics of an Eastern Church? Sadly, pews with padded seats were purchased against the wishes of Father Loya. Even though we have hard floors the pews soaked up a good deal of the acoustics. Why not leave the carpet off?

Dan Lauffer

"Pews in church:
We will be in the process of replacing the carpets in both the chapel and main church and we plan to get rid of quite a few pews but not all, unfortunately. There are still some hangers-on who do not want to part with the pews no matter what.
JoeS"

Interesting thread...

Burning is too good for the pews. It is over too fast. They should be made to pay for the terrible thing they have done to worship.

They should be sold to non-Orthodox Churches (pews fetch good money), and be forced to listen to heresy for the rest of their days.

They can offer rest and comfort to the heterodox in this world (in case they will not experience such in the next).

an amused, but un-Christian, Christian

>>>They should be made to pay for the terrible thing they have done to worship.<<<

Christian,
Those who want pews should carry them in a procession on Good Friday three times around the temple as their cross. If cantors have to stand, then they should too.

JoeS,
Carpets? We are such funny people making our temples into living rooms for couch-potatoes. We install carpets; then we buy microphones and sound systems so the people can hear the cantor. Kinda like that Hollywood Fitness center having valet parking or taxpayers paying lots of money for a school gym but send our children to school on a bus. Or like spending mucho bucks on lawncare and water utilities only to chop off the heads of those little blades of green grass. How did we end up so fickle? Oh, the layers and layers of costs we stack up for no reason!

Here is a suggestion: Get rid of the gymns and the buses and the valet parking at the fitness center and invite everyone to church to make hundreds of prostrations without the pews and carpet. What a workout!!!

Another suggestion: In other churches, pews were paid for at one time by family members. We should charge pew-lovers a fee to rent a pew or sit on a pew bench.

Joe


[This message has been edited by Joe Thur (edited 02-13-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Joe Thur (edited 02-13-2001).]

Bishop Kallistos is my favourite theologian.
(He explains the Faith so well!)

However, I disagree with him when he says, "BURN THEM!"

We are called to be agents of sanctification, not destruction.

Cut them up, saw them, plane them, sand them.
Geso, eggs, dyes, gold leaf. Holy oil. Incense. Lampadas aflame.

Turn this evil wicked furniture into Holy Ikons. The benches of hell become the windows to heaven!

In the Greek Community in Boston, a cathedral was built (at Parker and Ruggles Streets) near the Museum of Fine Arts on Huntington Avenue. Obviously, they had money. (The church is gorgeous. But unfortunately, no parking.)

A lot of poor, working-class Greeks in the South End had a long walk to the Cathedral. So they established their own community in the South End. (Most of them were democrats, supporters of Venizelos and NOT supporters of the monarchy like at the Cathedral.) They pooled their finances, and purchased a building from the Eastern European Jews, which had originally been constructed as a Unitarian church in the 1840s. It had a balcony on three sides, a mahogany 'screen' constructed by the Jews to house the Torah in a niche, a fabulous Hook and Hastings pipe organ- now on an historic register, and mahogany everywhere. The Unitarian WASPS moved out when the 'immigrants' invaded the neighborhood; the Jews bought the building in the 1880s, and the poor Greeks bought the building in the 1910s. My grandparents were among the founders of this church. It had pews; big, heavy seats with racks for the hymnals, and a massive pipe organ.

The people were grateful for a place to worship. Although it had pews and a massive pipe organ, it was their own place -- and it was a church building, not a renovated supermarket, nor a storefront or the living room of a 'parish house'. So the 'white bread' folks couldn't accuse them of worshipping in some converted warehouse space -- it was a church. Pews? Who cared.
When you're poor, you make the best you can. I know that this was the case with all our Constantinopolitan peoples.

We were poot; we gave from our poverty; we had (good) pride to make sure that we were considered legitimate among the churches; and we wanted a suitable place to worship.

I know that some folks consider the presence of pews, stained glass, pipe organs, etc. to be a denigration of the 'legitimate' Byzantine tradition. But when you are dirt poor (and my family and their 'patrioties' were!!) you did the best you could. And when you purchased a church from 'them', you took it, were grateful for the space, and hoped against hope that you'd be able to pay the mortgage.

Maybe I'm turning Chinese with ancestor-worship, but as I get older I have come to appreciate the absolutely INCREDIBLE efforts of our ancestors, whether Greek, Arab, Ruthenian, Ukrainian or whatever. They did the best that they could in light of their low-wage, blue-collar jobs; and they were so proud of the fact that they hung together and 'made it'.

And as the grandson of these incredibly generous, hard-working, and faithful people, I'm PROUD that they were able to purchase their own Temples, replete with pews and all the other accoutrements of Western Christianity. But it was THEIRS. And we did it.

So, yeah, pews aren't what we had in the old country; but it's what we got in this country through hard work and generosity to purchase facilities. And I'm very reluctant to say that what they did was 'wrong'. Let's not make judgments about our grandparents and what they did. I'm so PROUD of my Nana and Grandpa -- and their Slavic and Arab counterparts -- and I only hope that I have the cohones to accomplish what they did.

May the Lord bless the memories of all our Byzantine/Constantinopolitan ancestors. And may we enjoy even a fraction of their chutzpah in doing the work of the Lord.

Blessings, y'all!

Dear Dave,

Have you ever tried to cut or plane an old pew? Old Oak only gets harder and harder. After 100 years it is harder than rock! This good idea has been thought before, and many a sharp blade has been broken, many a saw destroyed in the attempt.

Really old ones make nice garden or cemetery benches, and can withstand the elements. But how many benches can really be used in the Church cemetery? And then they only remind you of the tragedy they caused. Who needs another reason to weep in a cemetery?

But no, nothing Orthodox (like icons) can or should be made of them at all. It is a lost cause. They are ideally suited only to the heterodox, sell them, let them go and shed no tear at the loss.

Christian

>>>>> <<<<<<<

It was a compromise. Carpeting this time will only be up the center and side aisles and into the ambo and sanctuary areas. It wont be under the pews as before. Even though Im on council Im relatively new to the parish and still "wet behind the ears" so to speak. I say "Get what's gettable (is that a work?) and be thankful for partial victories".
And yes, removal of any portion of carpeting would notably improve the accoustics.
JoeS