On the religious worth of bodily liturgical action

Abstract

A striking feature of the Eastern Orthodox liturgies is how much movement and touching occurs during their performance. For example, when participants in these liturgies enter into a church building, they do not simply look at the icons; they typically venerate them by kissing them. Call events such as these scripted movement-touching sequences. The question I pursue in this article is why movement-touching sequences play such prominent roles in the performance of the Eastern liturgies. The answer I offer is that the performance of these actions has religious worth. I then consider two models that attempt to explain why the performance of scripted movement-touching sequences has religious worth. After exploring and rejecting what I call the instrumentalist model, I develop what I term the authorization-appropriation model of the composition of the church's liturgies. According to this model, the religious worth of scripted bodily liturgical action lies (in part) in the fact that God has both authorized the composition of and appropriated the liturgical scripts that prescribe the performance of such actions.

Philosophy and liturgy part 1: Liturgy and philosophy of action

“…Cuneo () also considers the religious worth of bodily liturgical actions in a recent article which is not included in his Ritualized Faith collection. He writes that bodily liturgical actions “have religious worth, in part, because their performance is expressive of the religious attitudes, which themselves have religious worth.…”

“…He writes that bodily liturgical actions “have religious worth, in part, because their performance is expressive of the religious attitudes, which themselves have religious worth. More importantly, the worth of these actions is not wholly determined by the attitudes that agents are in … when performing these actions but also the attitudes that God has to their performance” (Cuneo, , p. 18).…”