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To: Agrarian; 1000 silverlings
The Slavic Gospel and Epistles have personal reading markings that were (and still are) followed by monks and pious laymen -- by following them, one reads a Gospel every week (i.e. goes through all 4, 13 times a year), and the rest of the NT (except for Revelation) about 7 times a year. The Psalter is commonly read through once every 3 weeks or so

I can tell you that those are few and far inbetween. I come from an Orthodox Slavic culture and rather than read Gospels and the NT the pious attend "spiritual sessions" with their "spiritual fathers." They are an open question and answer forum. I can honestly say that reading the Scriptures is an alien habit to indigenous Orthodox cultures and that the majority of housolds probably don't even have the "Holy Script" (Bible) or, if they do, it is prominently displayed among cherished books on the book shelf, possibly next to a small icon, but never removed.

The majority of peasantry (farmers in American jargon) wouldn't dare read the Evangelium (Gospels), for fear of not interpreting correctly, or God forbid falling into some kind of heresy, or even be bored, and most probably think of the NT as the Bible. Most of the knowledge of the faith is obtained through the litugry especially during great feasts and fasts, the icons, and spiritual sessions.

6,302 posted on 05/11/2006 5:22:49 PM PDT by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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To: kosta50; 1000 silverlings

I specified monks and some pious laymen. I certainly did not mean to imply that this is or was common practice.

For most of the history of the Church, manuscripts of the Scripture were precious hand-copied items. The phenomenon of having the people read readily available Scriptures for themselves at home was one that never existed until the invention of the printing press. This is something that Protestants forget -- everyone certainly didn't have a Gideon's bible in his cloak. The Scriptures were, in those early days, and for centuries thereafter, primarily something that was read publically in church settings.

That said, I am relating what Orthodox spiritual fathers are known to have instilled in their spiritual children in Russia, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, when the combination of readily available Bibles and a spiritual awakening was present.

The writings of and about the Optina elders talk about this emphasis on reading the Scriptures, as does St. Ignaty (Brianchaninov), and as does The Way of the Pilgrim. In Greece, the most prominent thing in Photios Kontoglou's private study was an analogion with a Gospel on it -- his knowledge of Scripture was legendary (he was a layman all his life.) Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) was affectionately known as "a walking concordance" when he taught in pre-revolutionary Russian seminaries, and inculcated that emphasis in those he taught.

St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco was trained in Serbian seminaries during the exile and was influenced by Metropolitan Anthony and by the great Serbian bishop Nikolai of Zhicha. One famous story about St. John is that there was a service with a very long reading from the Scriptures. The reader, feeling the service was going on too long, decided to quietly turn two pages at once, thinking no-one would notice that two pages were skipped. St. John stopped him in mid-sentence, and from where he stood, recited from memory the entire missing two pages.

At an Orthodox parish here in America, a visiting deacon from Russia about 20 years ago was invited to read the Gospel (not a short one). Too late, they realized that they only had an English Gospel, and that the deacon's English was quite poor. The deacon calmly took the Gospel, put it on the analogion, and proceeded to chant the entire Gospel passage in Slavonic from memory -- those in the congregation who knew Slavonic said he didn't miss a word.

I did not claim that these things are or were the rule in Orthodox countries -- if it came across that way, I did not mean it to, and I appreciate the correction. I simply was conveying that for those seriously pursuing the spiritual life in Orthodox countries (ones that were free from the Turkish yoke during the time of the printing press, that is), the personal reading of the Scriptures was encouraged, and it is strongly encouraged today to read, meditate on, and memorize the Scriptures.

It goes without saying that for every Orthodox Christian, one's understanding of the Scriptures is shaped by the liturgical services and the guidance of one's spiritual father. If one had a choice between attending the services every day and hearing the Scripture passages there vs. having the whole Bible in one's hands only to be turned loose without any guidance on how to understand it (as the Ethiopian eunuch noted, how can one understand unless someone explains?) -- well, I personally think that any Orthodox Christian would be wise to choose attending the services and going to confession, just as did the people in Kosta's account of life in the place where he grew up.


6,305 posted on 05/11/2006 5:58:30 PM PDT by Agrarian
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To: kosta50; Agrarian; 1000 silverlings
I can honestly say that reading the Scriptures is an alien habit to indigenous Orthodox cultures and that the majority of housolds probably don't even have the "Holy Script" (Bible) or, if they do, it is prominently displayed among cherished books on the book shelf, possibly next to a small icon, but never removed.

Acts 17:10  ¶And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews.

11  These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.

6,315 posted on 05/11/2006 7:39:30 PM PDT by Full Court (click on my name to see the baby!!)
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