We got herded into the room blindfolded. We knew that we had gone down some steps into a basement and that it was cool. Other than that, we weren't sure where we were or what was happening.

We heard chanting. Suddenly, the blindfolds were removed, and robes were hurriedly put on us. As we stood there blinking, we found ourselves in a candlelit room with various symbols on the wall. On the floor, was a great diamond around which we found ourselves arrayed. As we stood there, a ceremony began that would bind us to this brotherhood. The service was intoned by robed men reading from leather-bound service books.

The service involved not only responsive readings, but included arcane signs towards various sacred symbols, especially that of the diamond which we saluted several times. After an hour, we emerged from the ceremony having become full members of our new order.

Though it would be over a decade from that day until I shed my evangelical Protestant upbringing to embrace Orthodoxy, that first experience with liturgy in a fraternity rite of initiation was what began that journey.

There is a major misunderstanding concerning liturgy, sacred art, and sacred architecture. For some reason, many people assume that these things exist to serve the needs of the simple minded peasant folk who need a little magic in their lives. I've heard this explanation from Protestant thinkers many times. The liturgy was necessary to cow the uneducated peasants with its ritual and symbolism. According to this theory, with the explosion of learning following the development of the printing press, common people could move beyond such empty rituals to a true, intellectual embrace of the Christian faith.

A true faith which is symbolized by the Protestant form of worship, which is basically a Gospel sing followed by a lecture. The Charismatics threw in some shouting and dancing around, so their services have come more to resemble a pep rally for God. Either way, though, no set readings, no chanting, no pomp and circumstance, nor any other popish adornments are to be found. Just good, old fashioned singing and preaching in buildings which more closely resemble town meeting halls or theaters than any kind of traditional church structure.

However, something funny has happened in the few hundred years since Evangelical-looking groups first burst on the scene. For the most part, the common people have kept showing up and warming the pews in these bastions of low-church worship. But many intellectuals have fled from non-liturgical religion and wound up embracing atheism, political ideology, or entering into various secret organizations like Masons and other fraternities. Far from being necessary to make life meaningful for ignorant grandmothers, I think the last 300 years have conclusively proven that without the drama and mystery of the liturgy, Christianity becomes intolerable for intellectuals.

I'm not certainly not making the case that life without liturgy is good for the average Joe. It is just that the uneducated and the ill-traveled seem to feel the absence of transcendental meaning in worship less acutely. Many have a vague feeling that things aren't quite right, but the skills to articulate what is actually missing are usually required to provoke a change in life course.

For me, it was the college fraternity that first got me thinking about the role of ritual in the life of a community. The monthly chapter meeting in a college fraternity is a highly ritualistic event. The symbols of the fraternity are treated as sacred objects which are saluted much the way Orthodox Christians make the sign of the cross before icons. The fraternity ceremony is explicitly religious in nature, with the brothers of the fraternity wearing robes patterned on those of Roman Catholic monks. The readings are responsive in nature, as all read from printed service books.

Now, you might say that these are just silly college boys playing games. But, the questions is - over the last 200 years why did college men feel the need to create these elaborate rituals? And, why have successive generations of men gone off to college and embraced them? Sure, fraternities have keg parties and other fun things. But you could do all that without huddling in a sacred room and carrying out liturgical rituals. The fact is, however, that all college fraternities have these religious elements which are actively embraced by many young men, like me, who grew up in non-liturgical churches.

As my college career progressed, I found myself clinging to the rituals that the fraternity offered. When I left my fraternity in my senior year over personal disputes, I found that I missed that sense of mystery, that sense of connectedness, profoundly. Had I been offered membership in a Masonic Lodge at that point, I probably would have accepted it to replace what I had lost.

Fortunately, soon after graduating I went to Poland and lived there for several years. In Poland, I first came face-to-face with actual worship of God that looked like what I had experienced in my fraternity. I attended Mass from time-to-time, and was profoundly impressed by the sense of awe that was imparted to the faithful. In Poland, I first saw the majesty of the Christian faith, and was shocked by the diference between it and the faith in which I had been raised.

Eventually, in the United States, my Polish wife and I embraced the Orthodox Church. How that came about is a subject for a different day.

The fact is that liturgy is not optional. Liturgy fills a deeply human and universal need. When liturgy is removed from the people, as in the low-church Protestant sects, it deprives the faithful there of proper spiritual nutrition. They can function as a church, but the vital essence is missing that would give them true spiritual health. The most educated among them will be most sensitive to this missing ingredient, and will look for something to replace it.

Many will join secret societies, join Pagan cults, devolve into worship of the state and its military rituals, become ideological extremists, embrace a kind of nihilism, or convert to a liturgical church. The conversion factor is especially important in the United States.

Alexey D. Krindatch, a sociologist of religion, did a survey a few years back that tabulated responses from students at three seminaries of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese and the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). He was looking for differences and similarities between cradle Orthodox (raised from birth in the Church) and convert seminarians, especially those from an evangelical background. He found that while both Orthodox-born seminarians and the converts were relatively similar in religious upbringing, education and family income level, the former evangelicals "come from much wealthier families" that were very active churchgoers. More importantly for our discussion here, the ex-evangelicals were also more likely to have a higher level of secular education than the cradle Orthodox.

They probably also had pledged fraternities during their undergrad days.

American society has profound issues, but I think many of them stem from the loss of Christianity among our intellectual/creative class. It isn't that this group of people is less in need of spirituality than the average mechanic or salesclerk. Quite the contrary, in fact, as an intellectual without spiritual moorings is adrift in a sea of madness. To provide some kind of anchor, intellectuals are looking for and finding all kinds of outlets for their spirituality. The current fad of Pagan religions among intellectuals is just the latest visible result of the same religious void that produced secret societies in by-gone eras.

To deal with this, the Orthodox Church has to do.... nothing. Well, practically nothing. The Orthodox Church is completely, perfectly designed by God to provide spiritual sustenance to all people, whether they be peasants, workers, artists, or intellectuals. Alexander Solzhenitsyn can stand in the Divine Liturgy beside the most ill-educated person imaginable - and both will get exactly what they need from the service.

Which is why the future of the American intellectual class can easily be conversion to Orthodoxy en mass. What is needed to facilitate this is for the Orthodox Church to publicly, boldly, bear witness to what she is - the true deposit of the faith in all its glory and majesty. Americans, especially the more intellectual ones, are looking for the Orthodox Church. Our goal as Orthodox Christians should be to make their search as easy as possible.

Post Script

My son is 6 years old, and is learning the ropes as an altar boy. A few days before publising this blog, I had the opportunity to take him over to Vespers for him to serve. On the way to Church, he kept peppering me with questions about being an Altar boy.

Finally, I told him, "Son, I have no idea. I was never an altar boy."

He was shocked. "Why not, dad?"

"I didn't grow up Orthodox son. In the church I grew up in, we didn't have altar boys," I replied.

"Dad, that's crazy," my son shouted, "Who opens the door so the priest can go out?"

"We didn't have priests. We didn't have an iconostasis. We didn't have any of that," I explained.

"Well, how did you have church then?" my son asked increduously.

"We came in, sang some songs, listened to a sermon, prayed some, and went home," I said simply.

My son burst out laughing. "Our services are way more advanced than that!" he said between fits of hysterics.

---

 [Learning Liturgy in a Frat House]

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