Saturday, August 17, 2013

A collection of Fr. Alexander Schmemann's hilarious asides

From Stephen Manning, who studied with the Eastern Orthdox professor Fr. Alexander Schmemann at St. Vladimir's Seminary, via Opus Publicum and The New Liturgical Movement, come thee following comments by the good doctor:
  • About RC celibate priesthood: “I remember when the Church of Rome was a great church. Now everybody wants to have orgasms. Orgasm. Ech. Who needs it?”
  • A filip on groovy late 60′s post Vatican II piety: “Crowds of nuns with guitars, singing to the bloody Heart of Jesus.”
  • “At the World Council of Churches, the serious ecumenical theologians wanted to discuss Apostolic Succession. They went around from left to right, starting with the Quakers, ending, of course, with the Orthodox. I was the spokesman and I said, We may not agree about what Apostolic Succession is, but we know we have it.”
  • “Whenever I perform a weddding, I look at the bride and groom –you can see the trouble ahead–, and then her family, then his family: the secrets, the fights about money, about status…I sometimes think that we don’t need a wedding here, we need an exorcism!”
  • Coming back from Geneva, I was admiring the purity of Calvinism: the white painted church, the polite congregation in the pews, the towering pulpit, the Bible, just the pure Word of God. But then I got nostalgic for the flesh-pots of Orthodoxy: the conspiracies, the paranoia, the competitions, the jealousies, the whole mess.” 
[Hat tip to C.B.]

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