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The Embodied Spirituality of Church Slavonic

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The Embodied Spirituality of Church Slavonic Stephen Pax Leonard THE WORD AS AN ICON: THE EMBODIED SPIRitUALitY OF CHURCH SLAVONIC abstract How do Russian Orthodox Christians frame their understanding of semiotic ideologies of worship? That is to say, how do worshippers interpret liturgical language ‘signs’ and how do these interpretations colour their views as to which language is ‘right’ for the Church? There are to be found two semiotic ideologies of worship in Moscow. There are traditionalists for whom the liturgical language is embodied; it becomes the language of God through its vocalisation and enactment. Then, there are those who believe that Church Slavonic is not an indelible part of Russian Orthodox life and that in terms of its semiotic status its relation to the world it represents is an arbitrary one. Those who invoke the former, folk understandings of semiotic praxis perceive the Holy language as an icon or experiential portal that makes the presence of God more presupposable. Conceptions of language and linguistic register vary intra-culturally. Fieldwork showed how different perceptions of form map onto consciousness, raising questions of intentionality as assumptions about who is speaking (God or the priest) are bound up with the form that is used. Keywords: liturgical language, embodiment, semiotic ideology, worship, icon ‘I am interested in the power of words from an interlocutor can set the ethnographer and images over their beholders. I am off on a long journey of epistemological interested in the voice of the word, not the discovery. For this interlocutor, Church Slavonic meaning of the word’ (Husserl 1958: 242). (what he called старый русский ‘old Russian’) words spoken by a priest during a church service INTRODUCTION were experiential portals for they facilitated a closer relationship with the divinity. In his The title of this article ‘the word as an icon’ came view, the icons hanging on the walls of the from a discussion with a Russian Orthodox church served a similar function.2 They were worshipper in Moscow. In response to a question gateways to spirituality, and like removing the about proposed reforms of the liturgical icons, if you changed the language of the church language, he responded by saying that changing you changed the spirituality of the people the language of church services in Russia would (Shargunov 2008: 17–26; Kaverin 2008: 7–16). be unacceptable for the ‘words were icons’.1 As It was such deeply held essentialist views is so often the case with fieldwork, one utterance regarding the ideological status of the liturgical suomen antropologi | volume 45 issue 3 autumn 2020 30 Stephen Pax Leonard language that formed the starting point for for the interiority of speakers with reference to this ethnographic research. It should be noted Russian Orthodox Christians’ interaction and that his comments only related to the language spiritual engagement with the Church Slavonic used in the church, and not for instance when language. Panchenko (2019) has recently reading the Bible in Church Slavonic at home. published a series of articles relating to semiotic The broad question relevant to anthropo­ ideologies and religious practice in Russia. It is logical theory I am asking in this article is, hoped my work on language and experience will how do Russian Orthodox worshippers frame complement this body of research. their understanding of both linguistic and Firstly, a few words should be said about semiotic ideologies of worship? By linguistic Russian Orthodox liturgical practice and the ideologies of worship, I mean the package of ever­changing status of the Church Slavonic beliefs that instruct church­goers that using language. The Divine Liturgy is celebrated in a certain language is appropriate in relating accordance with a standardised traditional ritual their thoughts to God (and indeed God relating and is always chanted; the chanting highlights our thoughts to them). In order to answer this, the sensory and aesthetic dimensions of the I will need to make reference to both linguistic liturgical language. Even now that some reforms and semiotic ideologies of worship (Keane have been implemented, the liturgical texts must 2018: 64–87) because the evidence relates not still be in Church Slavonic. The idea is that just to the motivation behind the choice of idiom a spiritual language leads the believer towards (linguistic ideology) but also to the perceived a spiritual consciousness. At the priest’s discre­ semiotic status of the liturgical language as tion (and priests’ views on what should be the used in the church. It should be borne in mind language of church services vary considerably), that my informants did not themselves speak large parts of the service can now be conducted explicitly of ‘semiotic ideologies of worship’: in Russian as opposed to the liturgical language this is simply my means of unpacking what their which for reasons of its linguistic conservatism reflections on the liturgical language meant is fully understood by a small minority of implicitly. worshippers.3 One strategy to get around the According to Keane (2018: 64–87), semi­ problem of intelligibility is for a parishioner to otic ideology builds on the notion of language hold a Russian translation in their hands whilst ideology by focusing on the dynamic inter­ listening to the service. I often witnessed this connections among different modes of signifi­ during my fieldwork. Readings from the Old cation within a specific context. At stake here Testament as well as from the Acts and Epistles is the relationship between the exteriority of the Apostles which are part of the New of language and its implications for the Testament can now be in Russian. The same interiority of speakers (Keane 1997b: 674–693; applies for readings from the Gospel and for the Leonard 2020b: 271–296). Keane used semiotic reading of the entire text of the Four Gospels ideologies to describe the efforts of Dutch during Holy Week.4 Protestant missionaries in Indonesia to It is fair to say that Church Slavonic has ‘disenchant’ language, and thus his model is been an important feature of Orthodox Slavic of particular relevance here. I will answer linguistic consciousness for centuries not just the question of the relationship between the vis­à­vis the vernacular but also the prestigious exteriority of language and the implications trinity of sacred languages (Latin, Greek, and suomen antropologi | volume 45 issue 3 autumn 2020 31 Stephen Pax Leonard Hebrew) (Goldblatt 2007: 149–192). The tend to support the use of Russian in church written form of Church Slavonic was designed on pragmatic grounds. I have no intention by the monks Kirill and Methodius so that of contributing to this debate in any way. My Orthodoxy could be disseminated among the intention is solely to use the ethnographic data Slavs whereas the spoken language was not I collected to add new dimensions to work initially connected to Christianity. Throughout conducted elsewhere on linguistic and semiotic the Middle Ages, the language was a literary ideologies of worship (Robbins 2001: 591–614; language, but is now an exclusively liturgical Keane 1997a: 47–71; 2008: 64–87). language (Uspenskyi 1987: 23). In the four­ In particular, I will take Keane’s (2018) teenth and fifteenth centuries, the sacrality of work on semiotic ideologies in a new direction Church Slavonic was intimately bound up with by using a phenomenological approach. This the notion that its letters were not symbols, but approach has been chosen because the ‘signs’ actual manifestations of the divine (Goldblatt of the liturgical language were ‘experienced’ in 2007: 160). As sacred texts of the divine spirit, it different ways depending on the worshipper’s was believed these signs became non­arbitrary opinion of the liturgical language’s ontological and the language of revelation. This view status. What is more, my interlocutors described appears to reverberate in subsequent centuries. metaphorically vocal sound in ways that The semiotic ideology of Church Slavonic has resembled the terminology of phenomenology. therefore a long, but only partially documented Parishioners’ views on the liturgical language’s history. Now that ecumenical heritage and ontological status coincided with their views on linguistic patrimony are arguably being used to liturgical language reform, and I felt that this meet political ends (Solodovnik 2014: 55–83; specific relationship was worth exploring in Leustean 2017: 201–216), the symbolic status a little more detail. of the Church Slavonic language is as important Phenomenology brings to the foreground as ever before. The views of contemporary the importance of what one might call ‘zones worshippers, as discussed in this article, have of perception’ in the background. By ‘zones of become more acute of late now that the partial perception’, I mean the subtle layers of spatial and reforms relating to the language of the church acoustic awareness that we might not encounter referred to above have been introduced. everyday. The starting point is the idea that It is worth noting that the ‘language debate’ ‘enactments of language are themselves modes in Russia pitted what I will call traditionalists of experiencing the world’ (Ochs 2012: 142; against reformists (this is an oversimplified Leonard 2021: 1–26). Phenomenology is the taxonomy—not everybody I worked with philosophy of experience, a method of reflective fell into one of these camps and even some attentiveness that focuses on the individual’s reformists did not wish to simply do away first­hand inner ‘lived’ experience (Merleau­ with Church Slavonic) and has been running Ponty 2012; Moran 2000; Heidegger 1962 for many decades now (indeed it goes back to [1927]; Konurbaev 2018; Leonard 2013: 151– the nineteenth century) becoming something 174). Phenomenology allows us to focus on of a cause célèbre (Fedotov 1991: 66–101; Kott the ways experience is embodied. By ‘embodied’ 2000: 32–64).
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