On the one hand, eastern Orthodoxy is a quintessential religion of the book. It
regards its task as preserving established dogma and tradition,“changing nothing.”
It was guided by the works of the early Church—Old and New Testaments,
canons, councils and writings of church fathers until approximately the eighth
century, hagiography—and practiced a faith that was sacramental, liturgical, and
hierarchical. At the same time, eastern Orthodoxy preserved an enduring emphasis
on the contemplative side of Christianity dating back to desert father monks of the
earliest Christian centuries. Contemplation was always a purpose of monastic life in
Christianity, but medieval Catholic monastic orders also evolved an activist trad-
ition, reaching outward to do good works—teaching, tending the sick and elderly,
missionizing. But in Russia monastic life remained focused on prayer. Monks lived
lives of quiet contemplation, founding small eremitic outposts of men living in
single cells or larger cenobitic communities guided by rules of common life
(generally followingRulesfromfifth- and sixth-century Constantinople or Jerusa-
lem). Laymen participated in prayerful contemplation even in the liturgy.
Fundamentally Latin Christianity and eastern Orthodoxy preserved the same
Eucharistic liturgy, divided into the Liturgy of the Word (readings from Old and
New Testaments, hagiography) and Liturgy of Communion. But in Latin Chris-
tianity in medieval centuries the Liturgy of the Word took on a didactic character
with sermons and art; Pope Gregory the Great’s decree around 600 underscored the
goal of teaching the faithful by mandating that religious painting should be done in
a representational style to instruct the illiterate. In eastern Orthodoxy, by contrast,
visual expression (icons, frescos) was done in a two-dimensional style representing
“God’s reality”rather than profane life; espousing such an ethereal approach to the
visual was one of the ways in which the Church secured a victory over opponents of
religious imagery (iconoclasm) in the eighth century. In Orthodoxy images and
Eucharistic liturgy were used to create a mystical union of believer with God called
“theosis.” Contemplation and veneration (not worship) of images opened up
conduits of God’s grace and connection with the sublime. In liturgy, all the
human senses were drawn into the pursuit of theosis: the aroma of beeswax and
incense, the splendor of priestly robes and gold-leafed icons, theflickering of
candlelight, the soaring voices of choirs and celebrants, the touch of kissing
icons, the physical exertion of prostrations and repeated signs of the cross, even
the fatigue of intentionally long service and repetition of prayers and supplications.
The three-fold interior imagery successively unfolded the story of Christ’s incarna-
tion (see Figure 12.1). Scripture was read in thefirst half of the service, but sermons
were not a regular practice throughout the early modern centuries; liturgy was
repetitive prayer, chant, and ritual. As theologian John Anthony McGuckin argues,
all these sensory and kinetic elements were designed to physically exhaust the body
in order to place the worshipper in a space of inner calm, emptiness, and readiness
to connect with the Divine.
In addition to Eucharistic liturgy, ritual in other forms connected the people
with God in Orthodoxy. This was as much a religion of the sign as of the book, not
only because Russia’s populace was illiterate but also because worship required
embodiment (singing, kissing icons, prostrations, signs of the cross), not merely
Varieties of Orthodoxy 245