We seem to be sliding into a system where our priests get paid little to nothing to serve their people, while they find work to patch up the financial hole left by this compensation gap. I'd say of the men who graduated from seminary about the same time I did, that about half of them are not fully compensated for their priestly duties and have to work in a secular capacity either at half or full time. This puts a strain on the clergy families, almost always has an insalubrious effect on the parish service schedule, and sets up an unfair relationship of the priest with the parish.
At the same time people want beautiful buildings, nice appointments, good parking, and professional singing. And in many places the parish council's approach is to build up those things and only later work towards providing a livable wage to their priest. This builds into the growth plan no small amount of forced austerity and bifurcation of energy for the presbyter. We need to stop doing this.
Priests are attached to the parish, but not in the same way the foundation of a building is. You can't just pull the foundation out from under the church and have it stand, but a priest can depart at any time. A priest who is not being compensated fairly is especially capable of moving. You may very well not be able to get a replacement willing to serve under those diminished conditions. This isn't a rare occurrence. It happens all the time. Without a priest, all that hard work was constructed on a foundation of sand.
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
The modern priesthood
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Stanley Hauerwas, the American protestant ethicist and theologian once commented that the fact that the average American Christian would be more concerned that a medical doctor with insufficient education would be likely to harm him physically than that a poorly trained clergyman could harm him spiritually and, to the extent that that is true it just shows how many American Christians are practical atheists. I think the analogy carries here. No one would want to treat with a doctor who had to spend a large chunk of time fulfilling janitorial and maintenance duties around his office, had a second job outside his office which meant he had to fit his patient's appointments into his lunch breaks at his 9-5 and cram his surgery preparation and continuing medical research into the short time between when his kids go to sleep and he does himself. Why are we okay with priests that have to do the same?
ReplyDeleteThe reason is as a layman I do not need a priest to be "properly trained" to celebrate a valid Liturgy or to confess me. Most of them are average and that is ok. The only one thing that is based on their level of education are the sermons but you do not really have to listen to them anyway. Thinking that moral or intellectual stance of a priest matters to us would be donatism, wouldn't it?
DeleteI have seen a lot of untrained priests do an enormous amount of damage, and often create little "cults" within the Church by imbuing his own personal piety, loyalty, etc. inappropriately. I recall a particular question asked of a priest "who would you prefer as a confessor, a spiritual priest or a learned priest", and the answer provided was "the learned priest" surprising everyone -his answer was justified that the learned priest is going to bring years of experience in theology, pastoring, etc. whereas the "spiritual" priest is likely to imbue his own exalted spirituality, strictness, etc. in situations where it can do more harm than good. And lets face it: There are untrained priests who not only celebrate the liturgy poorly, but also dangerously.
DeleteFor untrained (or trained) priests (or monastics) to damage people with cultish behaviour it needs two sides to happen. When a layman does not seek anyone to give his will and mind to for nothing these gurus won't succeed.
DeleteOne of the two financial holes that desperately need to be filled in Orthodox Church life, in my opinion is that priesthood and whoever is fulfilling the role of music director in the parish. As a musician who holds a directorial position, albeit right now largely volunteer, the work necessary to service a liturgy and divine office that is over 90% sung by a cantor or choir, that the task of repertoire selection, rehearsal, etc. etc. is not the angelic choir where everything is wonderful and just somehow "happens". It doesn't just happen, trust me. It takes a lot of work just to render the services in a marginally tolerable manner.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, we, particularly in North America for some reason, have gradually let quality in the musical aspect of our services slide, inured ourselves to it and justified it with pious platitudes. We expect our churches to grow, and yet we hold a standard that NO person of reasonable tastes would ever take seriously. When we do find ourselves graced with a musician of reasonable skills and knowledgeability, we either call ourselves "lucky" or we quickly condemn as "the elites vs. the simple faithful". In such a dispute, in a world of "old time parishioners, koumbaro networks, deep pockets in parish politics" it is often the musician, often unpaid, who is the first to be thrown under the bus.
Yes, we need to take the issue of some sort of financial renumeration of the people whose backs the burden of running a Church is placed on.
De gustibus non est disputandum. I for example am against for professionalization of Church music, hiring directors and professional singers or using sophisticated compositions.
DeleteJohn,
DeleteI hear you on the music front but I have to respectfully disagree. The goal of the parish should be to support their priest and music "directors" should be purely volunteer. I am somewhat ambivalent on the building vs Priest argument. If you can't fund both then the parish needs to choose and situations will dictate what that means. Hear me out:
The tradition of the "music director" in the Orthodox Church is a more recent innovation. Traditionally parishes had a head chanter or proto-psaltis. This is true regardless of geography and it is not something exclusive to the Greeks. The Russian practice of singing was very much this model until the 19th century and it is still present in many parishes today.
I would say that if you are thinking of having to select "repertoire" and "rehearse" then you are doing it wrong. Instead you should be learning the chants which can easily be applied to unscored music and in fact that is the intent. A person should be able to sing Vespers, Matins, and the Divine Liturgy entirely from text and without settings of music and what happens is that it is no longer exhausting but peaceful and natural. Often times choirs get excited and anxious about the approach of Holy Week and Pascha but if they just sang a regular daily Matins there would be no need to freak out. It would all be familiar. The proto-psaltist trains others who easily stand in for various services and based on the number of singers who are there can sing as a small ensemble. This takes years of immersion in the church yet it is the most effective way of restoring the quality of the music and relieving the pressure people feel and restoring the beauty of the services.
Finally for my own situation I am an ordained Reader and I handle the singing while my wife pulls the relevant service texts (we both discuss when there is uncertainty or confusion and refer to our priest for the critical decisions). I work full time and we have young children. As with anything there is always an initial hurdle but once you get the hang of it you build tools to make it easy. We are in a new mission and I am working to get everyone on board with chant style singing so that on the one hand those who can sing can and if my family is away someone can easily step up. Should work force us to move again then it helps minimize the hole that is left. The last mission we left the music leaders stepped up. One person in particular was classically trained but spent several years singing with us. I think this is really important. If you have Western musical training you cannot simply jump into Orthodox music thinking you know everything. The ethos is completely different. It's not about "simplifying" the music but restoring it to what it was supposed to be. For example: Jettison the Bortiniansky and the Tsikovsky. It's great for concerts but has no place in a Church Service. Finally, I do not want to be paid.
What should be done? Make the position of the Reader as important as the Deacon and create a "Late Vocations" program that not only trains people in the Chants but also includes training in the Typicon (anyone who is a Music leader in a Church who refuses to understand the service Rubrics has no business singing. Full Stop. We have to stop this attitude of music only and leaving everything to the priest). Finally the diocese needs to put an importance on it and create a network and department that facilities this unique roll within the Church. Ordaining untrained Readers needs to stop. A system of mentorships and regional support needs to be formed.
cool story, scamandrius
DeleteThe chanter/choir master is very important. In at least some of the Slavic traditions, the changer accompanies the priest on such pastoral assignments as blessing homes.Stop and think, would we really want a priest going to a single woman's house to bless it, without someone else along? My late spiritual father, who was a monk, made it his policy never to visit homes alone; he always took his deacon or someone else.
ReplyDeleteChanter not changer
ReplyDelete