www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Pews

Dear Chuy:

When I first decided to post my gripe about not being happy with pews in our churches I had no idea that we would end up with a huge debate on the forum. For that I am sorry. That being said, it is a liturgical problem in that we need that free space to be able to bow and do prostrations all though I am getting the feeling here that some would like to dispense with them. Pews are a hindrance to that liturgical expression. Bows and prostrations are part of our prayer. Anything that interferes with that is a big deal in my opinion. We are asked by Rome to reclaim our liturgical patrimony. You may want to check out this link. I always harp on St. Elias in Brampton Canada, they seem to have done things right.

http://www.saintelias.com/ca/services/

In Christ:
Einar

Actually the idea that pews are a hindrance is bit of a boogey-man. The Ordo Celebrationis states:

"11. The small bow, inclining the head and shoulders slightly while making the Sign of the Cross without extending the hand to the knees or to the ground either before or after the Sign of the Cross is used on these occasions:

a) when one first enters the Altar to approach the Holy Table and when one finally departs from the Holy Table and leaves the Altar, while making the bows one also kisses the Holy Table;

b) at the beginning of any office when one says: 'Blessed is our God...' or, if there is no priest, 'Through the prayers of our holy Fathers...';

c) at the Trisagion (three times), and also when one says: 'We bow to your Christ...';

d) at 'Come let us worship...'(three times);

e) when one says three Alleluias at the end of the stichologia (three times, bowing once at each three-fold Alleluia);

f) whenever the three Persons of the Life-giving Trinity are mentioned together;

g) whenever one receives a blessing from the priest;

h) as often as one comes before the royal doors for reading or chanting, and when one departs from this place after this reading or chanting;

i) as often as one passes before the Holy Table and before the iconostasis;

j) as often as presribed by the rubrics.

At the beginning of the Gospel it is proper to make the Sign of the Cross upon oneself without inclining the head and shoulders.

It is also proper for the deacon to show reverence by inclininghis head and shoulders a little to the celebrtaing priest before leaving the Altar for the ektenies, and when the deacon returns to the Altar.

12. The great bow or the great metany, whereby one makes the Sign of the Cross upon himself, and prostrates his entire body to the ground, is used only during Great Lent and in the Service of Presanctified Gifts."

Pews certainly don't hinder anyone from making a small bow. While they do hinder people from making a prostration, given that 80-90% of a parish only ever attend Liturgy on Sundays/Feastdays when the 10-20% attend Presanctified or another Lenten service there is certainly room for those able to do prostrations to move to the aisle to do so.

Those that don't want pews and are without them should be thankful but should leave those that have them and want them alone. They are not going to sell anyone on how un-Eastern pews are when one can stroll across the street to the Orthodox parish and find them.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Deacon Lance speaks with great wisdom. The topic of pews has a long and tortured history here and I must compliment the contributors to this thread for keeping the discussion on a much kinder level than have many in the past.

To those who have pews, but wish they didn't, consider - do you have kneelers as well? If not, thank your patron saints, as it was not so many decades past that those were a fixture in many of our temples - a phenomenon that seems to be decreasing - God is good!

Many years,

Neil

Kneelers still exist even if they aren't used - and some are used

Pews in an ex-Protestant Church are often rather close together and even a small bow can sometimes be uncomfortable if one is less than sylph like.

Having experience of Churches with and without pews I , personally , know which I prefer .


I have memories of someone in the past volunteering to assist those that wanted to remove their pews , by travelling there with his electric saw , and using the wood so obtained , usefully
Oldies here may well remember and I am sparing his blushes by not naming him [ and think it would be wiser if others refrained also ]

Yes, that is true.

In an Eastern Church, I think that pews are against the Tradition. Out of economia, there can be some in the back etc. But: for the full experience of the Eastern Liturgy, it's pretty useful to be able to make a prostration (partial or full) without banging various body parts or bending like a pretzel because of pews.

But, that's just my two cents' worth. At the end of the day, there are lots more important things than pews to consider in the affairs of the Church.

With Love,

-- John

Thank you for the response. At least now I know WHY some feel they should be removed. Bowing is a non-starter at Saint Anne's. Even with the pews we have always had plenty of room.

Ample room for prostrations even with the pews has never been an issue either. Things are a bit tighter following the remodel though and I cannot say it will be as easy as it has been in the past. Time will tell.

The Holy See has most certainly encouraged the East to embrace and preserve its liturgical heritage. However if they do not negatively impinge on the liturgy, I'm not sure that removing pews just for the sake of having no pews is in any way keeping with the direction set by the Holy See.

Many years!

In that case, those "Roman Catholics" aren't Catholic, either--they have more married priests in North America than we do . . .

[/quote]
For me<no insult intended to our Latin brethren>There is not much beauty in the Latin liturgy, I feel like I am in a Protestant church.
[/quote]

The beauty and reverence of the Divine Liturgy was a major portion of what drew me. In all fairness, however, I have seen the Latin liturgy done beautifully and with reverence by Bishop Pepe of Las Vegas.


Especially if we have to figure out whether to remove them on the new or old calendar . . .

Anyway, to get to the point:

My former (latin) parish, Holy Family in Las Vegas, shares the common story of a priest being sent to start a parish with no resources, just to get him out of a bishop's hair. Starts meeting in a saloon, Bing Crosby runs across this and puts on a benefit to help them start building, etc.

What was built had the church with wooden pews on one side, and a lot of sliding walls. The rest of the building used portable, folding pews. The altar was built to face the center of the building, rather than the fixed pews.

Such pews could be useful as the in-between ground, so that they could be removed or spaced for liturgies with prostrations.

hawk, who doesn't stand on the floor during liturgies, as the false floor in the sanctuary would come up to his knees

Are you implying that the Temple is in dilapidated condition?
May I suggest a donation of lumber, nails, and elbow grease?

Pews=people sitting for most of the liturgy, save for a few times they stand (or kneel).

Why? If they were already existing, they would be great to have during the times when we actually do kneel, during and outside of the DL.

Nonsense. I would guess on any given Sunday we stand for 90%+ of the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom and sit for the remaining 10 % We don't kneel at all on Sundays.

Whether we want to believe it or whether we don't, pews (or rows of chairs) influence the way we think about the Church. Pews mold the way we think about the Liturgy itself. Pews affect the way we think about ourselves as Orthodox Christian lay people. Pews directly influence our spirituality and our behavior. The use of pews is shaping the future of Orthodoxy in North America.

Here are just some of the remarkable things a "mere addition" to Orthodox worship like pews accomplishes. A few of the following comments may come across as sarcastic. They are not. They are simply an open expression of what possibly a majority of lay people, and maybe even a few clergy, think in their "heart of hearts." These ideas have taken root among us in large part because pews have taught us to think them.

1) Pews teach the lay people to stay in their place, which is to passively watch what's going on up front, where the clergy perform the Liturgy on their behalf. Pews preach and teach that religion and spirituality is the job of the priest, to whom we pay a salary to be religious for us, since it is just too much trouble and just too difficult for the rest of us to be spiritual in the real world of modern North America. Pews serve the same purpose as seats in theaters and bleachers in the ball park; we perch on them (even during the Litanies which are the specific prayer of the People) to watch the professionals perform: the clergy and the professionally-trained altar servers, while the professionally-trained choir sings for our entertainment.

2) In teaching us to sit back and relax, pews give us the impression that any inconvenience, much less suffering no matter how slight, is foreign to the Christian life. Aren't you supposed to enjoy church and have fun as a Christian? Church is one of the few times we can take it easy and avoid real life. We don't come to church to work. (But doesn't the word liturgy mean precisely, "the work of the people"?) How many American Orthodox today have the "legs of steel" of old world Orthodoxy? Pews teach us to be spiritual wimps. "Could you not watch with me one hour?" asks the Lord. Would we who shrink from standing one hour, be willing to suffer for Christ, as millions of our Orthodox brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers in this very century have had to suffer?

3) Pews destroy the traditional feeling of freedom in church. With the installation of pews, we are no longer "bothered" with all the moving around which used to take place. You know, grandmothers lighting candies, children kissing icons, and the worshippers gathering around their priest like a family gathered about their father.

4) Pews fill up the open space in the middle of our temples, where the clergy and the people used to join together in a sort of sacred dance as the clergy, censing and processing, moved amidst the constantly changing configuration of the Laity.

Today this is reduced to the priest and servers marching in and marching out. How can we dance with pews on the ballroom floor? Pews transform worship for us into the merely formal and frosty affair that it has become in mainline American religion. The colder worship gets, the less attention we must pay to the unreal demands that religion, as our forebears knew it, puts on us. Certainly we can't allow our religion to become our way of life, if we expect to get ahead in the real world.

5) If children must be brought into the Church, at least they can play under the pews, where they won't be distracted by the ceremonies going on up front. Do kids understand all that anyway? Wouldn't they be better off in Sunday School coloring pictures and playing games, where they don't bother the adults while they sit back and enjoy the liturgical music concert?

6) Although pews are admittedly not a feature of the Orthodox liturgical tradition as our ancestors knew it, we're in America now, and here things are different. We need to be relevant. The more we can be just like the big and important religions in America, the more influence Orthodox Christianity will have. We can't afford to lose our big chance to mold American thought, and we will lose it if we cling to silly traditions with a little t, like pewless temples. And besides, is it not crystal clear that if we look too different we won't be able to achieve prestige, success and power in our society? Isn't that what life is all about?

7) Thanks to pews, on the weekdays of Lent we no longer have to endure those humiliating prostrations. Other [Christian groups] don't do that kind of thing in church, not even the Catholics. Why should we? And during funerals, pews spare us from gathering around the casket like we used to. Isn't the function of the modern funeral to shield us from the unpleasantness of death? The accepted modern American view is that we never really die—we just fade away.

These blunt observations are not meant to offend, but to hammer the point home vividly. The Liturgical Movement and the Orthodox liturgical tradition are both absolutely right: what we do in liturgical worship molds our thinking, attitudes and behavior. That's precisely why the issue of pews is so critically important. We hope this call for renewal will not be dismissed out of hand as "off the wall extremism," for this is not a "party" issue; it is a matter of life and death for American Orthodoxy. Pews are a spiritual carcinogen. Like Social Security in politics, pews may be an "untouchable" issue, but in spite of that, Orthodox America must begin renewal in this regard.

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.

From the Pascha, 1995 issue of DOXA


Alexandr

I think basically one has to start without them and keep to the plan, so that worship experience becomes an integral part of praying with all of the senses. I certainly agree and have stated my solidarity on this Forum on numerous occasions that St. Elias is a preeminent example of what the worship space and experience can and should be in our churches.

But it is a very sensitive subject as has been displayed once again here. It is very difficult pastorally for the clergy to go in retroactively to a parish that is used to them and take them out. In most cases I know of, the clergy ended up not taking them all out even in such retroactive actions. And as been correctly observed, even most Orthodox parishes in North America also have them. It is not a "Uniate" phenomena at all.

In the case of our apostolate the Latins offered us use their parish church through a very good RC priest friend who was the pastor of the RC parish at that time. Out of gratitude we did use it once or twice for services that we also invited the Latin community to as an introduction to Eastern Catholic worship.

For a longer-term solution I made a counter-offer of use of the parish's closed RC parochial school across the street and setting up a chapel with an iconostas in an east-facing room.

Benefits were many, but included not having to take down and set up - a great hassle for those who wish to set up a decent iconostas, an essentially semi-permanent location arrangement (the school is closed after unification with another RC grade school), and being able to start the liturgical life of the community "from scratch" in an open space without pews. As the administrator I intend to keep it that way.

I can pray with all my senses just fine in a church with pews or chairs for the faithful.


I still have no idea why a parish would remove perfectly good pews and/or chairs. It simply makes no sense. I can possibly see not buying them to begin with as a cost savings measure, but I cannot see the rationale behind removing perfectly good pews. As far as the "Uniate" slur, we don't need to read that sorta stuff...

How nice of you.

OK

Why? Well I guess in your case there is a cost savings in not having to buy pews or chairs so that might make some sense. Otherwise it makes no sense to me.

I will choose sitting during the reading of the Epistle and homily any day over having to stand and not only endure meandering individuals but my mind wandering away from what is being said because my mind is focused on how tired my legs feel.

You aren't getting it, are you? It really boils down to pews being an impediment to the full experience of Eastern worship. Please reread my post. And just as an FYI, Diak is Father Deacon Randolph a Ukrainian Catholic deacon. I don't think he is slurring anyone with the "Uniate" epithet.


Alexandr