% + Dr.Chrysostomos, Arhiepiscop de Etna, California Visiting Profesor, UAUIM B c re!

ti "#ME $E%&EC'I#(" #( C)U$C) A$C)I'EC'U$E Let me emphasize, at the beginning of my remarks, that I am not an architect and am certainly not an expert in the field of Church architecture. I am by training a psychologist and an historian. However, as an rthodox clergyman, my theological background has obviously involved the study of issues that touch on matters related to Church architecture, the adornment of Churches, and the significance of places of worship in the liturgical life of the rthodox Church. !rom that standpoint, I can perhaps provide you with a few comments from a professional "outsider,# as it were, that may help you in your own formation of ideas and thoughts about what it is that you will be doing, at the end of your studies, as professional "insiders.# $y specific comments today are drawn from an article that I wrote in %&'( for the Sacred Art Journal, a rather popular )ournal for Church art and architecture in the *nited +tates. $y article was written in response to an article by ,obert Latsko, an -merican with deep interest in and knowledge of rthodox Church architecture, entitled, " rthodox Church -rchitecture in -merica and the .eed to /uild in Harmony with our 0heology,# which appeared earlier in %&'( in the same )ournal. $y response to this article was not in the form of a rebuttal of $r. Latsko1s presuppositions and ideas or of his article per se, in which he raises some very important 2uestions. Indeed, his conclusions are generally consistent with the 3atristic literature and with much of what our more traditional and learned rthodox theologians have observed with regard to Church architecture. ,ather, in my response I took umbrage with a few conceptual ambiguities in his conclusions and assumptions, and it is these which I would like to address today in my remarks, since the misunderstandings that can rise out of these ambiguities are misunderstandings that touch on a variety of areas in Church art and architecture. 4xamining these and analyzing them provides us with an opportunity to glimpse into some unclear areas of thought that abound in the rthodox world today. In my comments, I will follow the flow of $r. Latsko5s article, rather than create a response scheme of my own. +ince you probably have not read this article, it may seem that you are at some disadvantage in this sense. However, I will summarize his ideas and attempt as much as possible fairly to present them. *ltimately, moreover, it is not his specific theme that concerns us, except in the sense that it provides a spring6board for talking about some fascinating concepts in Church art and architecture which we do not always properly approach and articulate. I will also make my comments informally and in the context of personal observations gleaned from my readings. 0here is, in other words, nothing so technical, here, that we need more than a general statement about $r. Latsko1s various points. -t the beginning of his article, $r. Latsko points out that it is incorrect to imagine that Church architecture must conform only to that which is "old world,# tried, tested, and indisputably rthodox. In spirit, I agree with the thinking behind this statement. However, its formulation, as a confrontational idea, is to my mind wrong. In an historical sense, it is clear that such an attitude is foreign to rthodoxy, since the Church has engendered and embraced many divergent architectural forms over the centuries, many of which, while indisputably rthodox, are only half as old as the ancient /yzantine structures which served as the initial paradigms for rthodox Church buildings. It is, in short, wrong to perceive rthodox architecture as a single thing66at least in form66, or as something that is monolithic and historically or artistically uni6dimensional. 0his error is often made by non6 rthodox and rthodox themselves. $r. Latsko5s observation must be approached with great caution. 0he idea of an "old world,# in the first place, is a distinctly -merican idea, and not a very sophisticated one at that. It is a naive historiographical artifact. If, on one of the Latinized 7reek islands, one were to build a replica of

@ the famed ,otunda Church of +t. 7eorge in 0hessaloniki66a Church probably originally used as a pagan temple66, there would be an immediate reaction to this strange structure. /ut this reaction would not be to call the building "old world# or anti2uated, simply because of its ancient origins. $ore than likely, even the most naive and unlettered peasant would ask what paradigm the Church was built after. He would not retreat into an historical myth. 8hat we seek from older architecture in the rthodox Church is, in fact, not a structural model or blueprint to which we must blindly adhere, but a paradigm66a model of what it is that has housed the living 0radition of the past and that has brought it safely and authentically into the present. In this sense, though I have addressed a distinctly -merican phenomenon here, the thinking behind that phenomenon impinges on a misunderstanding that generalizes well beyond the experience of rthodox in -merica. 8hat we must understand is that while a single example or piece of architecture in the Church may not represent a completeness of development, there are most certainly various paradigms that do, indeed, represent such completeness9 the "best# of the sixth6century /yzantine Churches, the "best# of the Churches of the +lavic traditions, the "best# of the magnificent Churches of ,omania, or the "best,# too, of more modern rthodox Church buildings. 8hile there are those who would argue that such paradigms do not exist, they make this argument in opposition to the aesthetic consensus of the rthodox Church as it is understood both by the Church !athers and our better theologians. 0here is a criterion of )udgment, based on an analysis and careful consideration of the paradigms offered by each national rthodox tradition, that has been formulated and utilized by students of rthodox aesthetics and which reached ascendancy during the /yzantine era. 0his criterion can help us in developing a new tradition :$r. Latsko5s notion of an "-merican# tradition is, of course, too limited, and we should speak more generally of a contemporary rthodox style; that draws, perhaps, on all of these paradigms, )ust as these traditions66as it can be easily demonstrated historically66drew on one another. 8e should not ignore this criterion, which expressed itself theologically in a synthesis of 7reek classical and Christian thought and which was brought so clearly into focus by brilliant /yzantine thinkers and spiritual theorists. 0o dispute this point and to imagine that the /yzantines were limited, therefore, by culture or by an idiosyncratic outlook in their observations is to miss the catholicity of their contributions to theology on the whole and to aesthetics in particular. +uch an argument is tantamount to claiming that the principles of 4uclidian geometry do not apply to modern times, but are appropriate to their own age. 0rue it is, and properly so, that we have developed 4uclidian geometry into new and very sophisticated mathematical models< but this is because 4uclidian geometry was a building block on which these new structures were built. 0hese new structures did not discard the old assumptions, but developed from them logically. 0he idea that the past is an impediment to development derives from a mistaken understanding of the nature of discovery. -nd the criterion by which we )udge rthodox Church architectural paradigms comes forth, not from creative imagination, but from discovery and revelation. =0hose wishing to study further the nature of this criterion should consult Constantine Cavarnos5 essential and penetrating volume, Byzantine Thought and Art :/elmont, $-9 Institute for /yzantine and $odern 7reek +tudies, %&>';.? It is also true, as $r. Latsko says, that Holy 0radition is "living,# and that Church architecture is not, by virtue of being traditional, fixed in the past. 0his principle is, as such, absolutely accurate. /ut the 3atristic witness identifies the vivifying nature of 0radition with the action of the Holy +pirit and with the consensual unity of mind, belief, and even aesthetic perception that the Holy +pirit assures among rthodox Christians. 8e do not go beyond the past, again, by re)ecting it, but by building on it, incorporating it into our present6day experience, communing with its vital force, understanding the dynamic within it, and growing new branches on this essential trunk of past experience. Living 0radition is not "alive,# I should stress, by virtue of its being uni2ue to the moment, but lives within the wholeness of experience that links all of the past to the present, bringing together the past and present in something

C which is integrated and whole. It is like a person, there being no essential discontinuity between the present and past, except in the sense of evolution and growth according to a pre6determined pattern. 8hile $r. Latsko, in his article, seems to agree with many of these ideas, he rather too hastily dismisses the role of the "old world# in shaping and forming new expressions of Christian architecture that do not rupture the harmony of past and future and the consensual aesthetic bond which rises out of transfigured Christian perception. 0his haste of his is, unfortunately, too often a trait of modern Church architects and, for that matter, iconographers. It goes unnoticed and thus does essential harm to the ethos of the rthodox Church. -nd here is the point9 perception must be transfigured, if it is to be loyal to the past and authentic in the present. Let us return, for example, to the 7reek island with the newly6built model of the ,otunda Church of +t. 7eorge. In asking about the paradigm upon which the Church is built, the simple island believer is asking, more precisely9 "8hat +aints worshipped thereA# "8hat instances of Bivine intervention characterize the history of this ChurchA# "8hat is the spiritual history of this ChurchA# In other words, living 0radition reaches precisely into the heart of the Church, touching on the Church5s responsibility and purpose of transforming human beings into holy creatures, into "gods# within 7od. 8ithout the function of bringing us into communion directly with 7od, Christianity becomes effete and loses any ontological dimension. 0his is why rthodoxy exists9 to divinize man, to bring him to theosis. -nd it is, at one and the same time, the association of +aints with a certain Church paradigm, as well as their transfigured vision, that sanctifies that building. Holy men and women of pure vision saw 7od in such places, as they saw 7od in no other place, and both their vision and their sanctification, the latter verifying and actualizing the holiness of a place of worship, commend a certain paradigmatic Church to the !aithful. 0his commendation transcends personal taste, time, or the caprice of fashion. It touches on the catholic. It is apparent, from what he writes in his article, that $r. Latsko would agree with much of what I have written on this point, too. He also admits that we must go back and study what he calls the designers of "old world# Churches66and let us at this point dispense with this inaccurate terminology and speak of "traditional# Churches66and what it is that they intended to capture universally in each Church building. I would simply warn the naive observer that this desire to capture what is "universal from the past# is not sufficient. 8hat is universal is transformed, rising out of time and space and away from the personal. 0o seek what is old is not enough. It is essentially to holy men and women, to Churches associated with such holy persons, and to holy events that we must appeal to understand the Church5s past. 0hey are the "stuff# of spiritual authenticity and the content of living 0radition. -nd if anyone should think that I am saying, by way of this statement, that Icons, for example, are more authentic when painted by a holy man or woman, this is 2uite true. I do not hesitate to state it. 0hose who wish to build Churches, paint Icons, and capture the holy in a physical dimension must be sensitized to holy things themselves. -ny architect can learn to plan a building. -ny architect can execute that plan. -ny painter or artist can paint an Icon. 0his is inevitably true. /ut for a Church building to be what it should be, for an Icon to express and reify the world of transfigured vision66which is best and most authentically captured by those who are holy66, the architect or iconographer must contact this holiness, immerse himself in it, and draw from it. 8e can see clearly here, for example, why the iconographic canons prescribe prayer and fasting as practices necessary for the execution of Holy Icons. 0his applies especially to architecture, where it thus behooves us to concentrate our vision on the holy and transfigured, since a building, a physical structure, is in some ways more difficult to define, within the dimensions of human psychology, than an Icon or painting. 0he latter has, to some extent, living counterparts. 0o find "living# buildings to serve as models66this takes tremendous insight, searching, and vision. 0o bring a building to life is a far greater feat than bringing a painting to life.

D .ow, further to 2ualify $r. Latsko5s understanding of the "old world,# let me say that to the extent that we are drawn to the architectural paradigms of the past, we should not be drawn simply because of some national or even spiritual nostalgia< rather, our affinity for such things should come, to reiterate what I have been saying, from our sharing in the transformed aesthetic sense of the holy ones before us, the +aints. 0his is 2uite essential. If an architect gives spiritual life to a Church, not only must he know the meaning of that life, but he must put some of his own spiritual vision and experience into the Church. 0hat is what we see in the most compelling of Church architecture. It is this relationship which is the basis of our actions and movements within the Church and all things thereto related. -nd what does this relationship assume practicallyA It assumes a connection, a catholic continuity, between ourselves and those of the past. 0he paradigmatic importance of traditional rthodox architecture is known to us because we have not only immersed ourselves in holiness, as I said previously, but because we have shared in the holiness of these past masters. Indeed, to some extent we must ourselves become holy in such sharing, for such communication to take place. -nd here is the crux of my expansion of $r. Latsko5s comments. If we are to develop a new and inspired form of architecture in modern times, we must do so first by throwing ourselves into the life of the Holy 0raditions of the Church, producing +aints and transforming the very air, soil, and milieu of a place with the fragrance of rthodox holiness. I do not believe that we have reached such a point in most rthodox countries, as we emerge from the terrible ravages of history9 from the ttoman yoke, the 8estern yoke, the fascist Communist yoke, and the menacing yoke of witless modernism. 0hose who see spirituality in a superficial way may think that we have emerged from the influence of these forces. 0hose who wish to interpret the inspired aesthetics of the past with the fallen aesthetics of their own imperfection may, indeed, see something in rthodoxy that I do not. /ut I do not think that any sober spiritual !ather would attribute to the contemporary rthodox Church anything but a fighting chance for survival, let alone for the achievement of holiness on a massive scale. .or, indeed, would it even be healthy for us to imagine that a "theological# rebirth should improve these prospects, for it is, above all, this very separation and diversity in theological traditions which should not exist in rthodoxy. Bifferences in customs are possible only because of the essential unity afforded by theological uniformity. /ut more to the point, when it is possible for me to lecture in rthodox Churches where young people must ask66with wide6 eyed curiosity at discovering an ob)ect in the Church wholly unknown to them66what a komboschoini, or prayer rope, is, it is 2uite obvious that spiritual maturity is a long way off. 8hen the clergy have become more professional than they have become spiritual, lacking knowledge of basic ideas of pastoral psychology and theology, it is obvious, too, that we have much distance to cover, if we are to salvage our !aith :putting aside here, of course, the spiritual element and 7od5s power in the preservation of rthodoxy;. 0hese shortcomings are not the faults of those who do not know, but this lack of knowledge must lead us to be realistic about where rthodoxy is today. It is perhaps most important that, in his article, $r. Latsko concentrates his understanding of the Church building on the Liturgy. /y so doing, he focuses on the very holiness which I have established as a prere2uisite for the development of a contemporary Church architectural tradition. It is, to be sure, within the Liturgy that the ascent towards holiness takes form. /ut here, too, we must be circumspect. $any of the popular liturgical commentators in our Church today66in fact, many of the more popular theologians in general66come from among clergy who have been ill6trained and, in -merica, from communities which were )ust a few generations ago 7reek Catholic, bringing with them, as I have argued in numerous scholarly papers, an understanding of the Liturgy which is 2uite foreign to rthodoxy. -s the late Harvard and 3rinceton 3rofessor, !ather 7eorges !lorovsky, once commented, with regard to the tragic situation in -merica, these converts brought with them into rthodoxy "...their beloved /yzantine masses.# -nd they had no difficulty in doing so, since the rthodox whom they )oined had very little knowledge of their own genuine traditions. 4specially disturbing to many of

G today5s theologians, and some right here in the theological school in /ucharest, I must say, are those /yzantine liturgical commentaries which concentrate on the mystical aspects of the Liturgy, wholly at odds with the typological, dramatic reenactment which is the Liturgy par excellence for contemporary rthodox theologians, influenced as they are by the 8est, focusing, rather, on the Liturgy as a holy work that manifests itself in the world of time and space transfigured within the Church. 0hus, when $r. Latsko speaks of the Church being appropriate to the Liturgy because it is the place where creation is symbolized and where we create a vision of the Bivine, we can be easily led away from a purely authentic rthodox view of the lex orandi to the innovative liturgical theology of modern rthodox liturgical commentators. 0o some extent, the Bivine 4conomy and Christian salvation history are symbolized in the Liturgy. 0o some extent, there is, in liturgical worship, a created vision of the Bivine. However, more accurately, the Liturgy focuses on the Bivine Liturgy in Heaven :and this without the dualistic implications that simplistic reflection might evoke from some observers;, the service on earth paralleling, in an hierarchical way, as +t. Bionysios the -reopagite :"3seudo6Bionysios# according to many Latinized rthodox innovators; characterizes it, the Heavenly service. Bivine 4conomy is fulfilled, actualized, and timelessly placed forth in the liturgical services. Heaven, as it were, reaches down and touches earth, the Bivine indwelling, in its 4nergy, the material world, physical substance, and humankind. 0he Church is, then, not so much a place to act out the Liturgy, or for the worship of the Bivine, as it is a place where the Bivine, worthy of worship, is contained, held, and accommodated. 8e encounter the Bivine in the Church building. Indeed, it is not )ust rhetoric when we implore, during the Liturgy, that Heaven and earth be )oined< nor is it simply poetic imagery when the /ishop or 3riest asks that Holy -ngels accompany the clergy into the -ltar during the +mall 4ntrance. 0hese are true events66 events true above time and so genuine as to be encompassed only by symbol66, bringing the "now# into the timeless realm of "now,# "then,# and hereafter,# and space into an encounter with that which exists beyond its own boundaries. It is this Liturgy which we must accommodate in our architecture, containing within it the "*ncontained,# receiving 3resence, not creating it. ,ealizing this, we must approach the Church as an "Ouranos polyphotos,# as one of the Church5s troparia states it< that is, as a "splendorously shining Heaven,# demanding of us continuously a vision far greater than that which simple architectural genius can provide. $r. Latsko is certainly correct when, at the end of his article, he 2uotes -ndrew Clements5 rather 8estern vision of the Church, to the effect that a building which pushes aside the meaning of symbol is "architectural garbage#66though I am compelled to say that this statement is perhaps unnecessarily extreme in reference to houses of worship. I would add, as I have argued above, that one must concentrate on the 2uestion of the transmission and understanding of symbol itself, if we are to apply such statements to genuine rthodox architecture. !irst, it takes holy men and women, individuals endowed with a transfigured aesthetic sense, to speak of what it is in the past that is relevant and authentic :or catholic; and what it is that is part of that Christian experience which is everywhere and always present, in the words of +t. Eincent of LFrins. -nd secondly, it is incumbent upon us to acknowledge that the notion of "symbol# in rthodox theological terminology does not refer to what indirectly represents or expresses a Bivine 0ruth in image, but to things that actually contain a Bivine 0ruth, the symbol itself being caught up in the energies of that 0ruth, participating in the holiness which it attempts to grasp and accommodate. 0o paraphrase one great Church !ather, the symbol, paradoxically enough, contains in an uncontained way that which is ultimately uncontainable. *ntil we understand the Liturgy, holiness, symbol, and aesthetics with the deep profundity appropriate to rthodox theological thought, it is premature to speak of new rthodox traditions, whether they be theological :and this inappropriately so, as we have noted;, liturgical, or even architectural. - mature spirituality is a prere2uisite for the recognition, and indeed the establishment, of

> authentic rthodox paradigms, and66however much the admission may pain us66contemporary rthodoxy is too young in its struggle for survival, too close to the age of captivity, too limited, and too immature for such. In a time when monasticism, the barometer of spiritual life, is unhealthy< when /ishops eat meat< when fasting is thought to be a matter of choice and convenience< when rthodox converts do not even carry the names of rthodox +aints< and when all of these shortcomings in understanding the way of life and ethos that rthodoxy is are likely to be unwittingly reckoned "externals# or matters of little conse2uence66in such a time, rthodoxy, in its old age, is undoubtedly once again in its infant stages. +ome day we may speak of Church architecture in a "new# way, as $r. Latsko has suggested, along lines that encompass the consensual oneness of rthodox theology. /ut before we engage that cart, we would do well to put the horse of spiritual attainment and transfiguration at our disposal first. therwise, we shall go nowhere, arrogantly covering our ignorance in an rthodox theology turned rhetorical and in a spirituality of precise form devoid of any content whatever. .othing so destroys true rthodoxy as spiritual delusions, the mental "spaceships# which $r. Latsko so rightly condemns in some examples of modern rthodox architecture. I believe that we are at a time when patience and imitation must be our limited goals, waiting for the day when true participation in the fullness of the !aith66by virtue of our attainment to rthodox holiness66will bring contemporary rthodoxy to the threshold of that ancient newness which is part of rthodoxy5s timeless witness within time and space.