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“Thicket of Idols”: Alexander Schmemann's Critique of Orthodoxy

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“Thicket of Idols”: Alexander Schmemann's Critique of Orthodoxy © 2019 The Wheel. STATE OF AFFAIRS May be distributed for noncommercial use. www.wheeljournal.com “Thicket of Idols”: Alexander Schmemann’s Critique of Orthodoxy John A. Jillions Introduction Father Alexander Schmemann died in theologians of the twentieth century 1983, long before the resurgence of the and had a profound effect on liturgi- Orthodox Churches in Eastern Europe cal theology and its lived expression could be realistically imagined, with across the Orthodox and wider Chris- what this might mean for the emer- tian world. His writing, teaching, gence of a powerful Orthodox voice liturgical celebration, sermons, con- worldwide. Today, global Orthodoxy versations, and presence had deep in- is more free than it has been in cen- fluence on so many people, especially turies and—despite continuing divi- his thousands of students, of whom sions—has the ability to start coming I am blessed to be one (I studied at together to find and speak in its own St. Vladimir’s Seminary from 1977 to voice, as the Holy and Great Council 1980). in Crete 2016 at least haltingly demon- strated. But this raises the question: For ten years before his death, Father 1 Alexander Schme- what message will this new and po- Schmemann kept a personal journal mann, The Journals tentially muscular Orthodoxy bring to that was later translated, edited, and of Father Alexander the world? published by his wife Juliana.1 As his Schmemann, 1973– journals reveal, Schmemann deeply 1983 (Crestwood: SVS Press, 2000). Schmemann, the longtime dean of St. loved and was shaped by his expe- Subsequent referenc- Vladimir’s Seminary in New York, rience of the Orthodox Church, but es given in text. was one of the leading Orthodox he was also deeply critical. While he 20 was a masterful observer and critic of in a thicket of idols. To be attached Western society and Western Christi- to the past always leads to idolatry, anity, he reserved his most trenchant and I see many people living by the critique for the Church he knew best. past, or rather, by many pasts” (18). And in this, as Vigen Guroian has said, This theme is repeated relentlessly Schmemann was “undoubtedly the throughout the journals. In February harshest self-critic among Orthodox 1977 he writes: theologians.”2 Schmemann’s funda- mental criticism was that Orthodoxy I realize how spiritually tired I am had become an idol to itself. It had of all this “Orthodoxism,” of all the thus eclipsed Christ. And because of fuss with Byzantium, Russia, way its allergy to self-criticism, Orthodoxy of life, spirituality, church affairs, had become incapable of seeing, ad- piety, of all these rattles. I do not mitting, and repenting of its fault. The like any of them, and the more I Orthodox Church would fall short of think about the meaning of Chris- the joyful eschatological vision of the tianity, the more it all seems alien Gospels until it put the idol of Ortho- to me. It literally obscures Christ, doxy to death. pushes him into the background (146). The first part of this essay will ex- amine Schmemann’s journals for the And yet such self-criticism finds no various streams of his critique and place for consideration in Orthodoxy. will argue that the doubts, criticisms, Schmemann’s key contention is that and questions he first raised private- the very notion of self-criticism is sim- ly many years ago still need serious ply absent from historic Orthodoxy. public attention as Orthodoxy seeks to find its voice, message, and mission An Orthodox person will not say, in the twenty-first century. However, will not acknowledge that Or- if Father Alexander’s vocation as a thodoxy can be decadent, that a prophet (a title he himself would have great part of the heavy volumes eschewed) led him to speak clearly, of the liturgical Menaion consists convincingly, and critically about the of imitative and often meaningless realities he saw, he was much more rhetoric. An Orthodox person will ambivalent about proposing solu- condemn that very thought as he- tions. Without attempting to guess retical and sinful (315). what his solutions might be today, in the second part of this essay I will Without this faculty of self-criticism suggest that Father Alexander’s sharp change is impossible. “To change the critique can be channeled into posi- atmosphere of Orthodoxy,” he says, tive terms by refocusing the Orthodox “one has to learn to look at oneself in Church on Christ as scriptural, con- perspective, to repent, and, if need- templative, and self-emptying. ed, to accept change, conversion. But in historic Orthodoxy, there is a total Schmemann’s Critique of Orthodoxy absence of criteria of self-criticism” 2 Vigen Guroian, (47). Accompanying this absence “An Orthodox View The title of this essay is taken from of self-criticism is a “denial of any of Orthodoxy and Schmemann’s journal entry for No- reason, logos, analysis” (192) and a Heresy: An Appreci- ation of Fr Alexander vember 26, 1973: “‘Little children, “deadening of thought and vision” Schmemann,” Pro keep yourselves from idols!’ (1 John (329) that have produced lamentable Ecclesia 4.1 (Winter 5:21). Sometimes I see Orthodoxy immobility, narrowmindedness, and 1995): 86. The Wheel 16 | Winter 2019 21 provincialism. The Church is perpet- out of touch with reality. Schmemann ually looking backward to a mythic on a few occasions hints at the com- past rather than forward to the com- ic absurdity of the Byzantine picture ing of Christ and his Kingdom, thus of Orthodoxy, especially as it is dis- robbing Orthodoxy of its original played in the West, with its vestments, eschatological vision. Instead of liv- awards, titles, and jockeying for hon- ing the tension between history and or. It is comical, he says, “but nobody eschatology, argues Schmemann, Or- laughs” (330). thodoxy has settled comfortably for “hopelessly Constantinian” Byzan- In the East, people are often devoid tine and Slavic worlds that substitut- of any sense of humor; therefore ed spirituality for Christ (208). “What they are often pompous, proud, happened was the reduction of the prone to dramatize. I am always Church to a mysterious piety, the dy- sad when meeting people without ing of its eschatological essence and humor, often tense, easily offend- mission, and finally the de-Christian- ed. If we have to “be like children,” ization of this world and its secular- it is impossible to do so without ization” (317). By taking the focus laughter. But laughter fell and can away from Christ, says Schmemann, also be demonic. In dealing with church life itself was turned into an “idols,” however, laughter is salu- idol and became sin. “The depth and tary, since it allows us to see them the newness of that sin is that the in perspective (22). idol is the Church, the services, the- ology, piety, religion itself. It sounds Once the church becomes an idol, it is like a cheap paradox, but the Church subject to a bewildering array of temp- is most harmed and hindered by the tations. I found six broad sets of these Church itself, Orthodoxy by Ortho- temptations in Schmemann’s Journals. doxy, Christian life by piety” (167). These citations are only examples, to which many more could be added: Time and again, Schmemann points to the triumphalism, arrogance, and 1. Self-infatuation, pride and arrogance. pride of Orthodoxy, especially vis-à- vis the Christian West. This is a theme The goal of the Church has become that appears regularly in Schme- the Church itself, its organization, mann’s writing, as Vigen Guroian its welfare, its success! (329) points out: 2. Preoccupation with honor and rights. On the one hand, Orthodox tri- umphalistically claimed exclusive It is frightening to think that in possession of the ancient tradi- some sense, the Church also lives tion. On the other hand, the con- with pride—“the rights of the sciousness and behavior of the churches,” “the rights of the Ecu- Orthodox Christians belied this menical Throne,” “the dignity of claim and showed them every bit the Russian Church,” etc., and a as compromised to secularism as flood of joyless complicated and the Western forms of Christianity fearful “spirituality.” It is a contin- that they criticized.3 uous self-destruction (161). This triumphalism would be more ir- 3. Triumph of self-enclosed traditions that 3 Ibid., 81. ritating if it were not so ridiculously exclude the possibility of anything new. 22 Whether it’s Russians, Car- ville of klobuks, cowls, stylization, etc.” © 2019 The Wheel. patho-Russians, Greeks, Arabs, (284). May be distributed for noncommercial use. Albanians, Serbians or Roma- www.wheeljournal.com nians, there stands between them I feel like running away from and Orthodoxy (their own faith) a this kind of Orthodoxy with all sort of wall, impossible to breach its cassocks, headwear, pointless with preaching, books, or any re- ceremonies, unctuousness and ligious educational activity. And slyness; to be myself, not to play it is so because this wall essential- some artificial, archaic, dull role ly represents their perception of (304). the Church (already existing for centuries), of liturgical services, Schmemann is especially distressed of spirituality, of faith itself. It is that these pathologies so easily infect not only emptiness, an absence of newcomers to the Orthodox Church. knowledge or interest. No. It is a Here he comments on a recent con- kind of fullness beyond measure, vert: forbidding any intrusion into their conscience of anything new Why is it that the closer he came (326). into contact with Orthodoxy, the stronger was his longing for this 4. A psychological style that promotes dark, strange fanaticism, for accu- a religion of joyless “falsity and fear” sations and cursing? If only he was (294), escape and indifference to the the only one, but it happens with world.
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