Anglicanism and Orthodoxy

I am always slightly amazed by my encounters with the Greek church and cannot help but reflect on what the Church of England and Anglicans more generally might gain from offering a similar rich form of spiritual life. One cannot help but notice the way in which Greek society, across the generations, is able to engage with the life of the church: icons are venerated and candles are lit throughout the day.

The post-Reformation settlement in England transferred our popular religious culture to Prayer Book and knowledge of the English Bible, and in due course an English tradition of hymnody was added to this. The difficulty that the church now faces is that much of this cultural inheritance is in decline, and that its very cerebral nature does not appeal to a post-modern world of signs and symbols.

A challenge for the church to think about is how we could offer something similar to the Greek church. Too often churches are only open for services, and sometimes when they are open there is little left for the visitor to provide an accessible form of prayer and engagement with God, unless they are habitual church attenders and communicants. We do not have a traditions of the veneration of icons in the same way, but making sure that each church is open during the day with candles and prayer stations might provide some way in which we could similarly engage with our society.

We have been too focused on a modern tendency to learn by hearing and reading, and it is time that we revisited the idea of learning by seeing and doing. It therefore may also be time for the church to rethink its default position for whitewashed church interiors, which communicate only an empty space, in favour of decorating churches with art that depicts the story of the Christian faith.