ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE

Exarchate of Parishes of Russian
Tradition in Western Europe

Spending time in church - act of faith or a hobby?

From 'Crisis of Exile' by Irina von Schlippe. The full text of the talk, given in May 2003, can be found here .

When I was about twenty-six and working at the BBC, my best friends there were the News Room journalists, supreme professionals and most kind to a beginner, but cynical and deeply puzzled (as well as critical) by my timetable being dependent on Church services. In fact, there was a concerted attack on this attitude until the moment when the leader of the pack suddenly said ‘Leave her alone, religion is her hobby’. ‘Oh,’ said colleagues, ‘oh, in that case, OK’. And that was it. I was free to go to church as they were free to go to the golf course.

I was profoundly shocked. Truly, deeply shocked at such a lack of respect, at such a lack of understanding, at such a defacement of the value of what I held most dear. But why then do I go to church? Do I really look so worldly, so flippant about Church, so people may think it is a hobby for me? This conversation happened in Great Lent, to make things even more offensive. And what is a hobby anyway, if one thinks seriously about it?

What does one do if one pursues a hobby? Well, one engages in an activity which brings pleasure and fulfilment more than anything else. True – attending an Orthodox Church service, singing and reading at it, gave me more pleasure than anything else. (Well, maybe pleasure was the wrong word, but it would do).

A hobby gives one membership of a world of people who are interested in the same activity. Yes, the Church definitely gave this; nowhere in the world could I find more people of a like mind. Even more important, I had in fact a ready-made community to fit my deepest need anywhere I went, thanks to the Orthodox Church.

A hobby allows one to express oneself to the best of one’s ability in the activity which is the all-pervading interest in life. It also pushes one to do one’s best at all times for the purest of reasons, for the sake of doing well at something one loves. Well, surely one’s life in the Church fits the picture if anything does.

Attendance at Church services brought me aesthetic pleasure: the singing, the mystical semi-darkness, the incense, the mysterious language (moreover presented in a chant rather than spoken) – all these touched chords which were never moved by anything else, and in a most welcome way. I was grateful for the fact that being in the choir and having a job to do prevented me from sinking into this atmosphere, losing myself in something which I sensed was a temptation rather than a fulfilment. But this element of pleasure was definitely there, and I knew that for many beginners it was a major attraction of our services – as it is in so many hobbies.

Intellectual stimulation offered by talks and discussions, with a ready-made community with which one could share one’s thoughts and a ready library of texts precisely suited to one’s interests…

On a purely selfish note – the opportunity to sing, to chant words of immense weight, carrying an eternal message, to participate in a common effort of presenting a service as perfect as we could make it – was so much more attractive than joining the Bach choir! But was it truly a service to God that I was engaged in, or was I primarily singing and chanting rather than praying?

Was my commitment to the Church really a hobby?

I brought the result of my meditations on the theme of hobby to Metropolitan Anthony – I had the good fortune at that time to see him often – and complained that it worried me that I thought that my News Room friends were right to a degree which was utterly devastating. The more I thought about, the more I saw that religion was truly my hobby in the traditional sense of the word. Surely there must be something else behind the hobby aspect!

Please note that the question of national feelings did not come into it at all, or that of family history, traditions, the teaching I received throughout my life. No, this question of hobby came as a pretty violent attack on me as a whole person in a working context, on me as a responsible adult in the world.

Metropolitan Anthony did not appear as deeply shocked as I felt myself, but rather entertained by this novel approach and encouraged me to carry on thinking, even to write about it if I really wanted to. I did not write, but I did continue with the meditation.

So I saw that the Church for me was definitely a social club, and a Russian social club in addition to the discussion club on spiritual matters. It was a place where my singing interests and skills could be accommodated. It was a safe haven in a world where an unattached young girl was constantly on the defensive. It was a continuation of my life in childhood and early adulthood in every way.

None of this was enough to justify my spending most of my free time in church when I was very busy in my job and was building a new life in my new country. Why then did I feel compelled to be a practising Orthodox churchgoer? Surely there must be something else in it, to explain this overwhelming commitment not just to the services, but also to a certain way of living, of thinking, of behaving? By then I was very much sensitised to the fact that everything I did or thought seemed to be conditioned by religion.

The shock was very deep and for a long time I was unable to make the connection with the real me, staying on the outside looking at myself with the eyes of the post-Christian world.

Then at last it clicked: what the Church was adding to the undoubted hobby aspects was its essence, the opportunity to commun-icate with God. And moreover this opportunity was not man-made but God-created: the Sacraments, one’s own participation in eternity as it unrolled in the present. The relief of finding this answer was immense.

Like everyone else, I had gone through the adolescent religious crisis – and what made me remain in the Church was not a religious decision but a typically Russian exile practical situation: the Orthodox Church was our heritage and I was needed in it, to sing, chant and run the children’s education programme. The purely religious angle had to be dealt with separately.

The Russian exile situation later also gave an answer to the religious angle, and this in an organised and most efficient way: through the doctrine of making all your life an extension of your Church life. Otserkovlenie mira is what the Russian Christian Stud-ent’s movement called it and being a youth leader in France I attended many conferences where this theme permeated everything.

Usually we all treat our Church life as something holy and totally different from our everyday life, possibly even alien to our everyday behaviour. Being shocked into analysing my Church life from an entirely secular angle, I saw that this separation is entirely wrong: in fact, our participation in Church life, that is in the practical manifestations of our faith, is an essential part of our spiritual life in the Church and in God. We need to accept that we have some purely worldly satisfactions and motivations for coming to Church, and then we will find that many of our worldly desires are acceptable and satisfied in Church as well. There is no clear cut distinction between the world of men and the world of God – and when this is perceived, then the divide between the world of God and the world of the Evil One becomes much more evident.

We will also find it much easier to concentrate on our spiritual life if we distinguish between the hobby (or social) angle of our Church attendance and the truly religious one. Our services would be much less disrupted by mobile telephones, private conversations, late arrivals and early departures, if people would realise and admit that their social needs exist and must be satisfied – then they would see the sense of concentrating these social needs into occasions outside the services. If they knew that such occasions exist, they could con-centrate on praying more easily. I wish we had social activities and a club attached to each of our parishes or at least designated as a desirable place to meet and socialise!

What then is this Otserkovlenie mira? I must admit that while I try to practise this in life, the definition eludes me. Father Vassili Zen-kovsky, Father Alexander Schmemann, Father John Meyendorff have talked about it often enough! And so does Metropolitan Anthony, even if he does not use the terminology.

You could say that it is the fusion of our Eucharistic life with our everyday practical life. Our life is one, whatever we do.