The adventures of a developing academic who got a late start
There seems to have been a mini-explosion of video clips of CR doing their thing when I wasn’t looking. Here’s a nice, unembeddable one from their recent performance at Stanford. Wish somebody had done that when they sang at Bloomington Early Music Festival back in ’04; that was an incredible concert.
Here are some other good ones:
(Yes, that’s my chant teacher.)
And for a non-Byzantine chant selection:
The Holy Synod of the See of Antioch, after long discussion and deep deliberation of the Synodal decision of February 24, 2009, and with the recommendations of His Beatitude, the Patriarch, it affirms that the nature of the Episcopate is one and the same to all those who are consecrated as bishops.
The Holy Synod of Antioch affirms and reminds that all bishops of the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America are bishops who assist the Metropolitan,
And that, furthermore, any diocese of the one united Archdiocese, under any circumstances, cannot be considered an independent Archdiocese. The Holy Synod of Antioch alone has the prerogative to establish Archdioceses in the See of Antioch.
Issued June,17, 2009
Bp. MARK has already weighed in on this; we will see what actually happens, if anything. It strikes me that the Synod has perhaps said as much as they can without appearing to lay the hammer down on any person in particular — which, perhaps, means they haven’t said much of anything at all, except to say that AOCNA’s self-rule status is for all intents and purposes a legal fiction with no particular effect that they are willing to recognize. Perhaps this is a first move towards folding AOCNA back in as a more normalized part of the See of Antioch? I don’t know — I guess we’ll see.
This is only tangentially related to my usual topics, but I find my friend and Archives of Traditional Music colleague Patrick Feaster’s work on what he calls paleospectrophony to be fascinating, even if I am utterly unqualified to say much about it beyond “Wow, cool.” For obvious reasons, the section on how his technique can be used on neumatic musical notation is of great interest to me (although he has said that Byzantine notation would not work with what he does). Give it a look.
I really haven’t looked much, if at all, at Pascha at the Singing School since finishing the first draft back around New Years. There were some typos Megan pointed out that I fixed. There was the moment back in February where I thought to myself, “Hey, you know what the Chapel needs? A chandelier!” only to go back and realize that I had already, in fact, put a chandelier right there for all to see. There was the person who read it who very politely said nothing; somehow I managed to get out of them that a particular term was too close to a term used in a similar context in another book for their comfort. When I showed them my real-world source for the term I had used, indicating that I had not, in fact, plagiarized anybody and that the similarity was entirely coincidental, they loosened up and said some more useful things. (I am now getting around the uncomfortable similarity problem by using a different word that incorporates sound changes my wife worked out — and actually, I think I’m better off this way for a few reasons, some obvious, some not so much.)
Save these couple of minor details, I’ve really just let the manuscript sit in a drawer (well, okay, I’ve let it sit on my hard drive) for the last six months — but the time has perhaps come to see what the next step is.
See, I was finally able to sit down with the guy I’ve been trying to convince to draw some pencil sketches for it. I kinda had to wait for him to finish pesky things like his Masters degree. He’s done now, though, and he’s read the first draft. Happily, he also gets the first draft, and had some perceptive comments that indicated he understands what I’ve tried to do, and is interested in seeing how things might play out (both with the bigger story of which it is theoretically a part, and with the more immediate matter of trying to find an audience for this little window I’ve opened).
The thing is, for me, I’d hate to work with anybody on something like this and just say, “Here, draw this part, and this part, and this part.” I know I wouldn’t find that too terribly much fun to work on, and since John is actually a Real Artist and stuff (to say nothing of an iconographer who is maturing disturbingly quickly), I can’t imagine he would, either. I actually want him to be a co-creator, I suppose — somebody who engages the words on the page and maybe brings something to light in his illustrations that makes me think, “Oh, of course, John’s absolutely right, and that’s something that should be in the text, too”, even if maybe it’s a detail I don’t wind up using until down the road a piece. You know, the kind of thing that can only make the final product better in the long run. To that end, I’ve given him a number of details about the backstory of Pascha at the Singing School so that he can understand just what is actually happening in certain spots. J. Michael Straczynski is fond of drawing a distinction, with respect to certain moments in Babylon 5 that don’t get explained until much later, between knowing what happens and knowing what it means that something happens. I need John to be in on both.
Yes, I suppose it probably creates more work for me — but I think probably the submission draft will be far more cohesive in the long run for having a collaborator to force me to do it, so I can’t really say I see a downside.
With any luck, I may be able to send this out before the end of the year. Maybe I shouldn’t be in a rush to get my first rejection slip on this project, but there we go.
Today, as I mentioned might be happening a couple of weeks ago, I did a phone interview for one of the bigger Orthodox media presences regarding my choir schools piece in AGAIN. I still don’t want to give a ton of details until I know for sure exactly what’s happening, but what I can say is that it was fun, the people involved were really nice, and we had a lovely chat. I look forward to hearing how the whole thing gets edited together; I’ll say right up front that for all I know, I could sound like a complete, raving idiot, or I could sound like somebody with an interesting notion worth discussing further. One way or the other, I’m happy to have had two excellent opportunities, in print and in broadcast media, to talk about an idea that I’ve been trying to interest other people in for four or five years now. If the conversation dies here, it won’t be because I didn’t have an audience.
One thing I want to get out of the way now, however: I was initially referred to as “Dr. Barrett” (before we were recording, thank God), and somehow somebody seemed to have the idea that I’m an instructor of music at Indiana University. Neither is the case, I have never represented myself as either one, and I’d really hate for somebody to think I’m claiming to be something I’m not. I quickly made sure the interviewer understood that was incorrect, but for purposes of clarification:
I work at Indiana University, and I am doing graduate work here, but not in the School of Music, and at this time I only have a Bachelor’s degree in Music from IU, with Voice Performance as my concentration. I am not presently, and never have been, an instructor of any kind at Indiana University. I have had some private voice students, and I am the choir director and cantor at All Saints, but that is the extent of my activity as a music teacher at this time. At the moment I work for a unit on campus called the Archives of Traditional Music, but it is not in an academic capacity. I will be leaving this position at the end of next week anyway to be a full-time student again. At some point in the future it will be possible to call me “Dr. Barrett,” but not for awhile yet, and it won’t be in music.
Just so we’re clear. Like I said, I’d really hate for somebody to get the idea that I’m claiming some status that is not in fact mine to claim. I have too much respect for the people who do have terminal degrees!
Anyway — I will post more details as I have them.
This is credited as being from the “Ille Curator News Service”, but my guess is that it’s more likely from a publication called Caepa. Enjoy. (Hat tip to RightWingProf.)
I’m taking most of this week off. Megan’s grandmother on her father’s side passed away last Thursday — memory eternal, Frances — and while we’re not traveling for her funeral, it was evident that it would be beneficial for me to spend a few days at home. Plus, I have some vacation time I need to use or lose, and our friend Benjamin Czarnota has been here for a visit.
The other positive, if not exactly enjoyable, thing has been using the time to make use of my insurance benefits while I still have them. So, Monday, I got an eye exam — dilation makes me intensely irritable, by the way, because I can’t bloody read, but the upshot is that my prescription hasn’t changed — Tuesday I got a dental checkup and cleaning, and then, this morning, as a result of yesterday’s dental checkup, I got a root canal. For a variety of reasons, this was not entirely unexpected — let me simply say that delaying having one’s wisdom teeth removed by five years can have far-reaching consequences, and I do not recommend it as a course of action.
I am hopeful that tomorrow might not randomly involve invasive surgery.
Anyway, something very unexpectedly cool that happened today is that, after four years of talking about the whole choir schools thing and having people not get it and/or otherwise ignore me, the publication of the piece in AGAIN has generated interest from a rather unanticipated source. I got a phone call from the church today saying that such-and-such person from such-and-such entity had read my article, really liked it, and wanted to do an interview about the ideas I was discussing. I called this person back, we had a lovely chat, and it looks like this is going to happen in a couple of weeks.
Now, similar interest in a different piece has come from a different-but-similar source before, but this is different in that what’s been asked for is an interview rather than a reading, and the entity in question is taking responsibility for the recording and editing themselves. (Since I didn’t say anything else about that recording, I’ll say now that after posting the file to the FTP site specified, I never heard from the people in question again. I’m reasonably certain that what happened is that probably the quality I was able to achieve at home wasn’t up to snuff, which is not anything I take personally, but this particular institution not having the wherewithal to make its own recording arrangements is something that’s going to rather severely limit its potential contributors. Oh well). Anyway, I’m still not going to go into too many details until it’s a done deal and I know exactly what’s going to happen and when, but it’s still a rather exciting development, and we’ll see if it’s actually meant to be.
Gotta admit it — never been much of a Trekker. I’ve seen most of the movies multiple times (save Nemesis, which I never saw at all) and most of the them in the theatre at least once, I’ve seen some number of episodes of the original series at one point or another, and same for The Next Generation. I could never quite get into Deep Space Nine or Voyager, and I didn’t even bother trying with Enterprise. In terms of Star Trek being any kind of an influence on me, First Contact inspired me to give a go at coming up with a story that would wrap up the Star Trek universe once and for all. This wound up becoming an original story called The Ascension, a sort of Fugitive story set in a space opera universe, for which I actually went through the process of writing a full screenplay, 120 pages, three act structure and all, and subsequently tried to pitch as a spec script. I was able to fast-talk my way into getting a few agents to read it (including one who is now a producer of some note), but of course it didn’t go anywhere. Still, it was a great writing exercise, it taught me a lot about story structure as used in movies (which in and of itself was a bestowal of charity for me when it comes to judging movie adaptations against their source material), and it prompted my good friend and sometime editor Matthew Murray to tell me, “Hey, there’s this TV series that I think is similar in tone to what you’re going for that I think you’d really enjoy — it’s called Babylon 5.” And, sure enough, he was quite right — so perhaps we could say that Star Trek‘s biggest influence on me was to eventually get me, via a rather circuitous means, interested in Babylon 5 and the work of J. Michael Straczynski in general.
But I digress (what a surprise — can you tell I read Ain’t It Cool News a lot in my late teens and early twenties?).
Anyway, point is, while my life doesn’t depend on Star Trek movies by any means, I was certainly intrigued enough by the trailers and the reported premise, to say nothing of the cast, to want to see it opening weekend.
I enjoyed it a heck of a lot; in particular, I admired a lot the ability of the new cast to inhabit the spirits of their various characters without ever devolving into impersonations (and in the case of Bruce Greenwood, the ability to create a great onscreen character out of somebody who has mostly existed as offscreen backstory), and appreciated the film figuring out a way to have an in-story reason for a reboot without going to Crisis on Infinite Earths proportions of ridiculousness. I’m looking forward to future adventures with this particular crew, and I’m looking forward to Chris Pine growing into the captain’s chair. I also loved that the movie was able to do something that the original series could never do — have an official handoff of the Enterprise from Christopher Pike to James T. Kirk.
Most of all, however, I loved that the movie was more than just a Star Trek story — it acknowledged, and referenced, much of what has happened that is important in science fiction TV and movies since the original series. The design of Nero’s ship sure looked to me like an homage to the Shadow vessels in Babylon 5, the planetary drills also seemed to be a reference to the Vorlon planet-killers, and then the fate of George Kirk (and even to some extent how they reworked the story of Christopher Pike) had overtones of Jeffrey Sinclair. Much of the camera work seemed to reference Battlestar Galactica (the new one). Certain shots (one in particular, but to say which one would be a bit of a spoiler) were definitely nods of the head to Blade Runner. Nero’s tattoos were Darth Maul-esque, and then the space battles to begin with were the first I’ve seen in a Star Trek movie which seemed aware that there’s a space opera series out there called Star Wars which sets the bar for space battles. On that level, the movie is a love letter to fans of science fiction film and TV of all stripes, and I think it succeeds marvelously.
Anyway — looking very much forward to seeing how this version of the five-year mission plays out.
“Only the Orthodox Church is most firmly opposed to the spirit of this world.”
Now, if I could only get him to say that in an overly-pretentious mix of Greek, Syriac, Latin and German…
(Hat tip to the American Orthodox Institute.)
I mentioned earlier that I was researching the preparations that were going on in the 1970s for the Council that was supposed to happen at that time. Interlibrary loan hasn’t exactly been a ton of help; the acts of the preparatory meetings aren’t in any library that they can find, and then other publications are listed, but when a request is entered, it comes back as “unfillable”.
The one thing ILL has been able to come up with is the English edition of the collection of introductory reports of the Preparatory Commision, Towards the Great Council, prepared in 1971 and published in 1972. It’s a quick read, all of 52 pages. Here’s what the back cover says:
Preparations are under way for a Great and Holy Council of the Orthodox Church, the first since the seventh Ecumenical Council of 787. No date has been fixed as yet, but it could take place as soon as the long stage of preparation is terminated. In 1974 the First Preconciliar Panorthodox Conference should convene at Chambésy near Geneva. Its task will be to examine the six reports prepared by the Interorthodox Preparatory Commission in 1971 and presented in this edition, as well as to revise the catalogue of themes for the Great Council which was prepared by the First Panorthodox Conference at Rhodes in 1961.
The Great and Holy Council of the Orthodox Church is planned to be held in all probability some time during 1974 and, in preparation for its discussions, the Interorthodox Preparatory Commission, representing the various Orthodox Churches, was commissioned to draw up a series of statements on six topics proposed, in 1968, by the Fourth Panorthodox Conference.
Well. I guess when you don’t have an emperor to see that things come together or else, four decade delays can happen, right?
There is much in here that is interesting and worthwhile; I’ve already discussed the report titled “Fuller participation by the laity in the worship and life of the Church”, which is two pages (well, just over one when you figure in the space for the title on the first page) and amounts to “This is not an issue of great concern; if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
The first report, “Divine Revelation and the way it expresses itself for the salvation of man”, has some very interesting things to say about Biblical scholarship.
…our Holy Orthodox Church declares that Scripture, being divinely inspired, preserves unimpaired within itself the presence of the Holy Spirit, in those revealed truths which it narrates, teaches and expounds for man’s salvation. In its words it preserves intact the collaboration between the divine and human factor in such a way that, even should the human presentation and clothing of God’s word be imperfect, yet the substance of the divine content of the revelation is not impaired. The essence and distinctive character of both remain intact; the human element is to be investigated according to human methods, while the divine aspect is not to be formulated in a one-sided, individualistic, and subjective fashion, but all the details are to be judged in accordance with the entirety of Holy Scripture and Revelation, and this entirety in its turn is to be judged in accordance with the Tradition of the Church from the beginning, there being but one source for both the unwritten and the written divine word. […]…it must be acknowledged that the attempt to ascertain which is the genuine and original Greek text according to tradition in the Orthodox Church, and the publication of an edition of the New Testament embodying such a text, is fraught with difficulties. This is especially so inasmuch as there exist several families and categories of different classes of manuscripts, on which most of the editions have been based, without any one of them being adjudged entirely accurate, complete, and perfect.
There also exist in our Eastern Church, on a somewhat more official level, editions issued by the local Orthodox Churches, such as (among others) the edition brought out in 1903 by the Ecumenical Patriarchate. This did not have the same aim as the so-called critical editions, that is, the discovery and restoration of the original text of the sacred books; but its aim was simply to restore the most ancient text…as found in the ecclesiastical tradition, and most notably in that of the Church of Constantinople. …[O]ur Holy Orthodox Church should entrust to expert Orthodox theologians the task of editing the best possible scholarly edition of the original Greek text of the New Testament, so that the text so prepared may thereafter be recognized and accepted by the whole of our Holy Orthodox Church. (pp. 6-7)
Now, there’s an interesting thought — that the Orthodox should take a bolder, more central role in Biblical scholarship, and that we should maybe be looking to the Greeks to produce the definitive critical edition of the Greek text.
It is the remaining four reports, “Adaptation of the ecclesiastical ordinances regarding fasting to meet present-day needs”, “Impediments to marriage”, “Concerning the calendar and the date of Easter”, and “Economy in the Orthodox Church”, where we get into material that no doubt sparks arguments.
The report on fasting is actually an illuminating — and sourced — walk through the history of fasting practices in Orthodox Christianity. It ultimately recommends what I would hesitate to call a relaxation of fasting norms (although they use that word), but rather more of a pastoral acknowledgment that one size doesn’t quite fit all. This, of course, already happens frequently at the parish level; here the recommendation is that this be formally and universally understood as what is going to happen. One of the big specific changes the Commission recommends is something that the Antiochians already do anyway — eliminate fasting altogether between Pascha and Ascension.
It is clear that the Commission views this recommendation as being made for pastoral reasons, not for purposes of modernizing:
[We recognize] that most of the faithful in the society of today do not keep all the rules of fasting, on account of the difficult circumstances in which they live. Contemporary conditions demand a form of fasting that is less severe and shorter in length. Such a change is necessary in order to avoid creating problems of conscience such as result from breaking the strict ecclesiastical ordinances — problems which poision the spiritual life of the faithful. A change in the rules of fasting currently in force does not conflict with the basic principles of fasting. (p. 28)
What’s fascinating, though — and what rather dates this text — is the bit about “the difficult circumstances in which” the faithful live necessitating changes. I would argue that nearly forty years later, at least in America and perhaps elsewhere, people don’t keep the fasts for exactly the opposite reasons — because their circumstances are great. Archimandrite Joseph (Morris), current abbot of St. Gregory Palamas Monastery in Ohio, tells a story about how after a homily given during Lent, one of the “cradles” in his parish came up to him and said, “Honey — ” (“They always call you ‘honey,'” he muses at this point in the story) “– Honey, I heard you talking about fasting. That’s the old country. We don’t do that here.” What seems to be implied is that many of the faithful with ethnic ties to the faith associate fasting with the poverty they or their forebears were trying to escape.
The calendar discussion, of course, is already controversial; the Commission recommends solving the problem by adopting the new calendar and the current manner of reckoning the vernal equinox, arguing that it is
quite evident that the First Ecumenical Council considered the astronomical factor as of prime importance for determining the common date of Easter. It thus follows that all the Orthodox Churches following the decisions of the First Ecumenical Council, are abound to celebrate Easter on the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox, according to the most precise calculations that scientific astronomy can provide. In each case, this means employing the calendar considered by expert astronomers to be the most exact. (p. 37)
To its credit, the Commission “acknowledges certain local pastoral difficulties” with enacting and enforcing this idea, and “therefore proposes that the time and way of applying the resolution should be left to the discretion of the local Churches” (p. 38).
“Economy in the Orthodox Church” is doubtless the part that gets people in certain circles growling the “e” and “h” words. This is the issue the Commission seeks to address:
The problems concerning exactness and economy have attained vast proportions in contemporary Church life; for never before in the Church’s history have the issues of inter-Church and inter-confessional relations, of the rapprochement and union of Christians, and of ecumenical unity, been raised so persistently and in so many different guises. (p.41)
To that end, the Commission proposes, we may say the following about non-Orthodox:
The Church being one, all who are alienated from her may be considered as standing on different rungs of one and the same ladder leading up to her when they desire to return to the Church. More precisely, we could say that the Holy Spirit acts upon other Christians in very many ways, depending on their degree of faith and hope. It is consequently clear that Christians outside the Church, even when they do not maintain their faith intact and immaculate, none the less keep their link with Christ, through their unwavering hope in Him. These Christians rejoice ‘with the joy of hope’ (Rom. 12.12). They confess that, through hope, they possess Christ, the common Lord, along with all Christians, because the confession of Christ unites us all, He being our common Lord and the hope of our final salvation. (p. 45)
However,
all [of Orthodoxy’s] relationships with [the other Christian Churches and Confessions] are founded on the quickest and most objective clarification possible of the ecclesiological question and of their doctrinal teaching as a whole. [The Orthodox Church] also recognizes that rapprochement with them will be brought about on terms having as their centre the divine-human structure of the Church. Yet she by no means intends to forget the existence also of the multiple pastoral responsibilities belonging to the Church of Christ, comprising her duty to preach the Gospel ‘unabridged’, and to remove from the conscience of the faithful everywhere all manner of censure; for it is truly a scandal to them that Christians are divided, since ‘Christ is not divided’ (1 Cor. 1.13).
Our Holy Orthodox Church will in no way fail to apply akribeia [translated earlier as “exactness”] to those articles of faith and sources of grace which must be upheld, yet she will not neglect to employ oikonomia wherever permissible in local contacts with those outside her — provided always that they believe in God adored in Trinity and the basic tenets of the Orthodox faith which follow from this, remaining always within the framework of the teaching of the ancient Church, one and indivisible.
A further goal is, on the one hand, to provide a living witness to Christ and the true faith within a secular society and a world which for the most part does not follow Christ and, on the other hand, to lead all to the one Lord, the one faith, the one baptism, the one breaking of bread, the one God and Father of all (Eph. 4.5-6). (p. 50)
Thus, among the goals the Commission recommends, we find the following:
Within the bounds of economy — identified with the extreme loving-kindness of the Godhead — to find ways and means of applying this economy to the contemporary situation of good relations between the Christian Churches; with a view to furthering all aspects of common life in Christ: ecclesiastical practice, worship, common prayer, theological collaboration and consultation, etc., until the efforts of all the Churches toward union have been crowned with success.
And:
To act together on particular occasions, under the presuppositions accepted by the Orthodox Church…, in a spirit of mutual respect, striving, and cooperating in common for the edification of all in Christ. (p. 51)
Finally, the Commission maintains that, economy being the particular prerogative of the Orthodox Church and which “constitutes the only means whereby the church makes allowance for human weakness” (p. 51), these goals would constitute an application of economy “so that the work of man’s salvation on earth may come to fulfilment and all things may be reconciled in Christ at the last day” (p. 52).
If somebody would like to lend a hand in helping me unpack all of that, I’d be much obliged. It seems like there’s a lot there to which the people who feel strongly, one way or the other, about ecumenical activities might react, and I invite comments from all sides.
What is the most telling report of all in this little book, at least to me, is the section “Impediments to marriage”. Of particular interest is the two pages dealing with mixed marriages; we may sum up these two pages by saying, “We all handle this question a little differently, so we’re not sure what to do here.” It observes that each national church has a varying practice when it comes to mixed marriages, and that uniformity of practice would be good, but they are uncertain how to achieve that. Thus, “the Commission proposes that ways and means of applying economy in this matter be studied, and that in the meantime it should be left to the local Orthodox Churches to determine whether to apply economy under circumstances of necessity” (p. 35).
I had a professor of medieval history in my undergrad who said that a problem a unified Christendom ran into was that differing practices don’t have to be a problem, but that only works as long as they don’t have to be right next to each other, or as long as two groups in communion with each other but with different practices aren’t trying to evangelize the same people. Along related lines, in reading Clogg’s A Concise History of Greece recently, it became clear to me that part of the reason the various ethnic jurisdictions kept to themselves in this country for so long is because, well, they don’t like each other too terribly much (and not for bad historical reasons).
I am reminded of an edict from Rome I heard discussed a few years ago that Byzantine Catholic married priests are to stay away from the Vatican, because they will only serve to confuse the issue of priestly celibacy. Basically, the reality of different practices seems to be, “Sure, we can coexist and be in communion, but I’m afraid your difference in how you do things will only confuse my people if we interact too closely,” with a concomitant fear that efforts to standardize practice can only result in laxity (or rigidity, perhaps).
I have no idea how much this particular set of reports will inform the planned Council in its current form, but it is interesting to see what problems the Church hoped to solve at that time. The announced issues to be discussed this time around are as follows, per this article:
Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 seem to be directly related to what’s discussed in Towards the Great Council; we’ll see how much has changed in the intervening years when it comes down to actually talking about them.
Meanwhile, I’d still love to get my hands on the other preparatory materials from the 1970s in a way that doesn’t involve me having to travel to Geneva. If anybody has any thoughts, I’m all ears.
Leitourgeia kai Qurbana: Contra den Zeitgeist 