The pieties are the small things we do that amount to the constant movement and adornment of our Faith.
The pieties are the teachers of our souls and bodies.
The pieties are the slayer of the passions.
While it is not up to us to point or belittle, even in attitude, others who do not keep the pieties we have come to know, it is our certain goal to learn and be taught by the pieties into the fulness of the fulness of the Faith. When a catechumen or a new Orthodox Christian comes to the Divine Liturgy, and asks when and how to venerate the holy things, when and how to bow or make prostrations or cross oneself, I always tell them to find the old people, especially the old women, and especially those from the old country, the ones with their heads covered, and do what they do. With this practice one will seldom learn anything improper and will learn far more that is pious and appropriate to the fulness of worship.
Though we are always starting out small, a small rule of prayer, which may seem quite long to us at first and quite exhausting, and with perhaps a single icon, we soon find that we know the prayers by heart and can say them in but a moment, and that we long for the heart of the Church, her Saints, and desire to have at least one icon corner and at least one icon in every room of our dwelling, if we can afford them or receive them as gifts from the faithful. We speak with our father confessor, asking to extend the prayers, perhaps including psalms or saying one of the offices. We find that saying the Jesus Prayer as time and occasion permit and suggest leads us to a desire to obtain from our father confessor the guidance and permission to add it to our rule. In the meantime, we find ourselves crossing ourselves not out of a remembrance of instruction but out of thirst, dread, fear, reverance… out of piety. We begin to sing the hymns without self-consciousness or awareness of a text or of our performance but out of memory and increased devotion. In other words, we liturgize. We begin to add to our lives the many little pieties that transform, redeem, and save us and our whole lives.
We might bring a little box for the antidoron, and take it home to eat a little every morning with a sip of holy water. We might make cloths for our icons of the Theotokos. We make the sign of the cross over our beds before we sleep. We pray upon waking and lying down. We pray after our meals as well as before them. We remember the kiss of peace and the greetings. We begin to pray for others more than we did, and for the same things as we do in the litanies. We remember to kiss the Holy Scriptures or the Prayer Book or the book of the Liturgy in our icon corner. We remember to keep the lamp burning. We begin to handle the holy things with more reverance and remembrance. We pay attention to small things, just as “piety is in taking small pains”, as one of my fathers taught me. We grow in reading the Fathers, the Lives of the Saints, and the Holy Scriptures. We begin to keep the calendar more attentively, remembering the saints of each day, and perhaps adding the Scriptures for the day and the Troparia and Kontakia. We give a little more to the Church. In short, we ever grow, however gradually, into an adornment, a glory, a transfigured life, a divinized citizen of the Kingdom of God, bringing it a little more into our lives, and therefore bringing ourselves a little more into its glory. We spend our lives ever seeking theosis, ever pursuing the gift of tears, ever seeking to triumph over the passions, ever venerating all that is holy in thought, word, and deed.
This is not separate from believing the right doctrines. The theology that we hold has but one goal, our theosis. It is a practical. It is, as Vladimir Lossky says, “always and ever a means to an end.” In fact, our theology is best expressed not in words, since it is an apophatic theology, one of denial of positive statements about God. Rather, it is best expressed in piety, in actions, in all of the small things. It is these things, occuring outwardly to the salvation of our bodies, because of the Incarnation, but occuring inwardly in the closets of our hearts that overcome the passions, uniting us ever more to Christ and the Church, and transforming our souls, into meet habitations for the Holy Spirit, into potential Saints and Martyr-Saints.
One of the simplest forms of piety is remembrance. Remembrance teaches the mind and subdues the will, reigning in the passions, keeping our souls from yielding to temptation, conforming the inner man to Christ, conquering delusion and sloth and impiety and hubris and prelest. We remember, when we pass the icons, or cross in front of the altar or enter the Church, or speak of the Holy Trinity or of Our Lord or the Saints, or pass a cemetary to cross ourselves. We remember our sins, forgiven though they may be, remembering that we are dust, remembering the mercy of Christ. We remember the holiness of that which is holy — the lives and deaths of Saints, the Church and Her whole life, the Mysteries, the holy icons. We remember all reverance for others. We remember in our postures, gestures, speech, attitudes, and prayers.
The Divine Liturgy teaches us such remembrance. We remember at all times the Theotokos with Christ and all the Saints. When we receive Holy Communion, we strive, as often as we receive, to do so in remembrance of Christ, discerning His most pure Body and most precious Blood to salvation and not condemnation. We ask the Lord to remember us, like the thief. We sing of the Saints “Memory Eternal!”. Remembrance is a master of many pieties, a teacher of our souls and bodies, a guide and friend to help us in our deification.
It is easy today to forget, easy to shun or spurn or merely neglect from laziness, convenience, or disregard the pieties, the small things of Our Faith. We may pride ourselves that we have the right doctrine, attend the right liturgy, receive the right mysteries, belong to the right Church. Indeed, our Faith, Holy Orthodoxy, is the “Right Glory”. But without the pieties, these things become a mere legal fiction. Without remembrance of holiness, of sanctity, of the holy and of the sacred, we do not glory rightly.
One may look at the fasts of the faithful, the continual prostrations, crossings, the Eastern tones, and say that these are the things that distinguish Holy Orthodoxy, since today it is unpopular to point out that the theological and doctrinal dissimilarities of Holy Orthodoxy from the world’s religions are greater than we may be prepared to admit. But in truth, the pieties of the faithful are the sign of their doctrine, and vice versa. The Orthodox Christian prays nothing that may not be believed and believes nothing that may not be prayed.
It is the doctrine in action, the theology in practice that makes a St. Seraphim of Sarov or a St. Ephream the Syrian stand out, just as it is the right doctrine for which we glorify St. Photius or St. Mark of Ephesus. In short, we cannot separate piety and reverence from doctrine and theology. The former are the goal of the latter. So we refer to those who sing the love of God as theologians, and those who preach the divine docrine as righteous.
This premise tells us that there can be neither sufficiency in ourselves nor in the Faith without glorifying God in both doctrine and piety. There can neither be union with others nor with Heaven nor with ourselves without both.
This last fact indicates the paradoxical truth that the pieties, in all their diversity, are an essential part of the unity of the Faith and of the Faithful. Far from being optional additions to the Faith, they are essential (indeed, in Holy Orthodoxy, all that is Orthodox is essential). As an example of this, we recall that in repudiating the teaching of Nestorius, who refused to call Mary the Theotokos, the Church pronounced an anathema on any who would not venerate her as such, saying that this piety is essential to its teaching and the truth of the Incarnation. Likewise, in anathematizing the iconoclasts, the Church said not only that icons are right and good but that they are necessary and required – again, essential to the Church’s teaching and to the Incarnation. From these examples, we begin to see a model that we glorify God in the fulness of the fulness of Orthodoxy, the fullest expression that we can find or learn, the fullest breadth, and width and depth, that we can. In short, we glorify God with piety upon piety, so that our souls and bodies become little Heavens which cry out “Holy, Holy, Holy” around the throne of Christ in us.
Lastly, no one can keep all the pieties, nor is that their purpose. Can one venerate the icons or kiss the face in both the Greek and the Russian way at the same time? Nor should the pieties be seen entirely as something added to our lives. Often enough they are transformations of our existing practice. For instance, we cross ourselves when crossing the altar rather than let our arms dangle. This is not an addition but a transformation. We say “Christ is in our midst” rather than “Hello”. We kiss rather than shake hands. These things are not burdensome except to the extent that our wills resist change, our minds resist learning a new thing, or our emotions resist awkwardness relative to the world and prefer awkwardness relative to the Kingdom of God. As much as some of the pieties are spiritual feats that like atheletes we increase neither too quickly nor with laziness, other pieties transform our lives into fitting behavior for the Kingdom, according to a new polity, a new ethos, a new set of relationships and attitudes. In all cases, the pieties are part of our salvation.
The Orthodox Celts would pray Trinitarian prayers with almost any change of action, whether sowing seed or threshing grain. I have heard even of prayers, among some monastics, that accompany bowel movements. The pieties reject the notion that any action is neutral or beyond the scope of the Kingdom, or that in anything we have independence from the Holy Trinity, affirming that all things are occasions for faith. We spend our lives moving into this attitude. No runner would attempt the Boston Marathon at the outset of his career. We move at an individual pace, as we can, avoiding hubris, pride, independence, prelest, and spiritual delusion.
In the same way, we do not demand that others conform to our way, though we may show the needy a path in love, if they can receive it and seem to be searching. If we think there is need of correction, the simplest method is to let them watch the faithful. Not ourselves, since a piety is not pious if done as demonstration, but rather let them watch others.
Pieties are slightly different than local customs, incidentally. The pieties are not meant to be enforced in the sense of “we do it this way at our parish, and so should you”. If we are an American parish, for instance, we may have much to learn from Serbian, Israeli, or Ukrainian visitors, or those from other American parishes. Let us strive to learn, when we can do so in humility, rather than demand conformity. Likewise, even among longtime members of a parish, the pieties may differ whether because they are personal pieties, or because the Orthodox there have learned different ways in the course of their lives. That one says “forgive us our trespasses” and another “forgive us our debts”, or one says “glory be to the Father…” and another “glory to the Father…”, or that one fasts for an hour after Holy Communion, and another has coffee, or that one eats the antidoron all at once, and another takes it home to eat every day, is not cause for concern. We transform pieties into merely local customs when we insist that they are for all comers. There’s nothing wrong with local customs, and indeed they may be inspired by pious attitudes, but anyone’s salvation is ultimately unique. This does not mean that as visitors, we should wear miniskirts and AC/DC t-shirts, on the basis of our own preference, or feel free to go where we wish and touch what we wish at any time and in any way, in disregard of the pieties of others. Rather, we should prefer others to ourselves, each seeking mutual hospitality and each seeking to maintain those pieties learned in the course of his salvation, while adding to them from the rich treasure store of Holy Orthodoxy.
Personal ConfessionOne of my own peeves is women standing on the right and, to a lesser degree (because they’re not immediately in my field of awareness – you see how it has so quickly become about me), men standing on the left. I’m a big believer in keeping the proper tradition here. Keeping tradition is right, even if we don’t see a reason for it, or any harm for neglecting it. But in this case, all the reasons for this tradition are apparent when it is neglected. The conversations and distractions that occur between spouses or those who are dating are distracting to others, and deprive each party of opportunities to remain in prayer. I struggle to remain in prayer and unaware of the quiet commotion and inevitable swaying. Likewise, I struggle to remain conscious of my own failure, and to avoid assuming the failure of others. So far, I have managed to reduce the temptation to say something to merely moving to another area of the right half of the nave, asking mercy, and resuming prayer.
Sometimes I feel like inviting a man who I know would come and stand on the right, if he was aware of the tradition. I haven’t decided whether to invite him or not. As it is, I am still struggling with my own departure from piety, and must content myself with learning from his. In other words, one can be ignorant of many of the pieties and be more pious than me who thinks I know so much of them and really knows little, experientially, of the genuine article, that attitude of piety of the Holy Ascetics out of which the traditions have actually come. How does one keep the awareness of pieties enough to keep them oneself but avoid becoming a Pharisee through the awareness of others’ neglect of them? The answers to this are in the Desert Fathers, so you see my own comments on this are a mere pretense to the actual Faith.