Let us Stand Aright: Against the Pews
A Church which is founded on Christ and strengthened by Holy Tradition, that is, the Church councils and the lives of the Saints, is not one to introduce new traditions which have no basis, foundation, or connection to that Tradition which has been passed down to us from the time of the Apostles. These innovations have their foundation outside of the Orthodox Church, separated from the Tree of Life which is Jesus Christ, and as revealed by the Holy Scriptures, we must acknowledge that that which is founded in corruption is by its very nature a contradiction to that which is life giving: the Church of Jesus Christ. For Saint Paul declares: “And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?” (2 Corinthians 6:15). The ethos of the Orthodox Church must be maintained, and that which alters the ethos is a foreign agent to the body seeking its destruction.
Since the early 1900s, the Orthodox has been gradually introducing pews into its parishes. As seen here pictured, a pew is a long bench with a back, placed in rows in the main part of the parish where the laity would sit or stand at. If it was not evident from such a late origin relative to Orthodox history, this is an innovation which is foreign to Orthodox worship. It has its origins in the post-schism roman catholic church, appearing to have begun in a more rudimentary form in English churches in the late 1200s. Since their very inception, it appears seats in churches were causing problems for the faithful. As it is quoted by the synod of Exeter, presided over by Bishop Quivil in 1287, “We have also heard that the parishioners of divers places do oftentimes wrangle about their seats in church, two or more claiming the same seat; whence arises great scandal to the Church, and the divine offices are sore let and hindered: wherefore we decree that none shall henceforth call any seat in the church his own, save noblemen and patrons; but he who shall first enter, shall take his place where he will.” So pews have always been the origin of issues in church, but even worse than that is the fact that the Holy Fathers of our Church have no knowledge of this innovation. Saint Andrew, Saint Photius, Saint Augustine, Saint Athanasius, and Saint Mark of Ephesus, never knew anything of sitting in chairs during certain portions of the Liturgy or when you were tired. You stood in Church, period. How would the very namesakes of the Divine Liturgies celebrated by our Church react to this development? Would Saint John Chrysostom or Saint Basil the Great approve? Of course pews would not really become that popular until a while after the protestant reformation. Since protestants exist as a protest to the latins, they tried to get as far away from anything the roman catholics were doing, which often meant getting rid of the Liturgy entirely. Instead they replaced the worship which was handed down from the Lord with some music, some scripture readings, and long sermons. They secularized Church life, replacing the sacraments, which require an active role in the Church from the faithful, with preaching, which requires a passive role from the faithful. Since the laity had very little reason to stand, and the services were becoming longer, the perceived burden of standing began to weigh heavily on them. Pews therefore became a necessity for most protestants, and this influence spread so rapidly that it encompassed the whole of Europe and flooded into the lands of the roman catholics. When we import pews from an almost wholly secular origin, and especially from a place where the unraveling of the Liturgy is a focal point, we essentially give ourselves over to this unraveling and allow it to influence us in ways we cannot always see.
The purpose of the pew is to seat the faithful at certain points in the Liturgy, if they get tired, if they are elderly and struggle to stand for long periods of time, or if they are children so that they may be more grounded in one spot and not bring disturbances to the Liturgy. While this may sound good natured, it is like a wolf in sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7:15). Already in the mission of the pew, we are presented with two glaring issues which harm the soul.
The first issue of the dreaded pew, which is presented by its mission, is the perception that the liturgical life of the Church is conforming to our level of comfort. Why must there be an area to sit for the faithful on the occasion that they get tired of standing? It presents an idea of Orthodoxy that it can be relaxed or in some way altered because we are tired. The implications of this far supersede merely having a seat in Church. If Orthodoxy is altered by our slothfulness to the extent that we cannot celebrate the Liturgy in the same way as our Fathers, what will that testify of our faith when it is our time to face persecutions? If we are lax in how we worship Christ, will we be lax when it is time to confess Christ before the agents of the devil? And what of the times of occupiers, who do not kill us, but instead choose to give economic incentive to forsaking our Lord? This is what the Turks and Arab Muslims did when they occupied the lands of Orthodox Christians. “Simply leave Christ your God and follow Muhammad, and you will not be taxed as much, and you will be given more work opportunities, and you will be allowed in the government!” When the pressure is on us, we cannot afford to submit to laziness. It is the same as a pew, for when the pressure is on our legs from bearing our own body weight, we cannot say to Christ, “I will alter my worship of you on behalf of my own tiredness.”
The second issue of the nightmare that is the pew is the attempt at controlling the faithful in their liturgical praxy. Many justify pews in that it will be easier to control the young children who may play around or may be a bit unmanageable during the Divine Liturgy. This is not only harmful in action, but harmful in mindset! It desires power over others. It is a small seed but can grow into a vicious and poisonous thorny vine of lust for power. Just as Saint John Chrysostom said, “Nothing will divide the church so much as the love of power.” Spoken likewise by Saint Ephraim the Syrian, who composed this prayer: “O Lord and Master of my life, give me not a spirit of laziness, vain curiosity, love of power and idle talk.” Even more directly applicable to priests, Saint Augustine says “In the family of the just man who lives by faith… even those who rule serve those whom they seem to command; for they rule not from a love of power, but from a sense of duty they owe to others — not because they are proud of authority, but because they love mercy.” The parish is a family, and will a priest say he desires to restrict the freedom, which is in Christ, of his family? The explicit desire to restrict the faithful is bad enough, but even more detestable is the unintended results of the pews. Think about the lighting of the candles and the kissing of the icons. The pew makes these actions more of a hassle, which places upon the faithful an undue burden on liturgical life. When someone leaves their pew or goes back to it, they must pass other people who are also on the pew, which interrupts the liturgy for them and for the person moving. Moreover, the life of the Church is full of prostrations. We prostrate before Christ our God when the Eucharist, which is literally Jesus, is presented before the people. How can these prostrations happen with the pews unless we move away from them? We could move away from them, but then that disrupts the entire purpose of the pew, meaning it would be better if we simply removed the pews entirely. The average person is not going to move away from a pew to do a prostration due to the fact that nobody else is willing the join them, and they will become a distraction for the Church during the Liturgy even though this is what the pews sought to stop in the first place! Avoiding prostrations in the Orthodox Church is impossible. Our prayer books, our liturgical rubrics, our penances are all full of them. The prostration humbles the layman, placing him on the ground and reminding him that he is dust and will return to dust. The pew restricts this. Moreover, it makes Forgiveness Vespers practically impossible, as it mandates prostrations before each other. The pew turns Church into television, calling us not to actively participate in the Church, but to watch it from a place of comfort as the clergy perform the Liturgy on our behalf. The pew, therefore, directly influences our behaviour, our spirituality, and our liturgical life in a disastrous way.
It has been said by some that the pews are necessary for the elderly who are less capable of standing for long periods of time. While the intent may be pure, it poses a question: Why must the rest of the faithful be burdened by pews filling the main space of the Church on the behalf of the elderly? In Orthodox Churches that do not have the poison that is the pew filling the majority of the Church, there are chairs or benches which line the walls of the Church for the elderly or sickly. This way, the faithful are not restricted by the pews, and the elderly are effectively accommodated. Introducing the pew is an exaggeration of the issues which the faithful face to such an extent that the proposed “solution” introduces even more issues.
As the pews have introduced something new, that which was there before must now be changed to conform to this new disease. Canon 20 of the infallible and dogmatic First Ecumenical Council held in Nicaea, “Forasmuch as there are certain persons who kneel on the Lord’s Day and in the days of Pentecost, therefore, to the intent that all things may be uniformly observed everywhere (in every parish), it seems good to the holy Synod that prayer be made to God standing.” In introducing the pews, which is not done universally, we violate the Holy Canons of the Orthodox Church which stipulate uniformity on this issue. Many have incorporated the pews in worship in a disastrous way. Where the 90th Canon of the Ecumenical Council of Trullo demands that we are not to kneel on Sundays due to our observance of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, some have incorrectly ignored or not taken note of this canon and have introduced kneeling on the pews. The pews are by their nature a work towards the violation of the canons of our Church. Why do we maintain these pews?
Think about the Divine Liturgy, why are we told to “Stand upright” multiple times during the liturgy? It is because we do not have a casual relationship with God, but a personal and formal one. This is why we have Liturgical Languages such as King James English, Koine Greek, and Church Slavonic. We cannot talk to God the same way we would talk to our friends. This is the same as it pertains to standing or sitting during the Liturgy. We do not sit when talking to God because it treats the conversation as casual, and God as merely our friend. We stand before God because the Liturgy is one of the people and the clergy. Although it is the clergy who stand directly next to the altar, the priest proclaims in the Second Prayer of the Faithful that -WE- stand before the Altar of God, that we might all offer a sacrifice of praise to Him. If we are all at the Altar spiritually, why would we sit when those who approach the Altar stand? Are we also not told to be bold before God? This is why the priest prays during the Anaphora that the Eucharist be for the remission of our sins and boldness before God. This is why the priest prays before the Lord’s Prayer that we may be granted boldness to call upon the Heavenly God as Father. And what of the fact that the beginning of the Anaphora, the climax of the Divine Liturgy, we are told to stand aright and stand with fear? Is this not all worship of the same God? Which must we change our way of worship with the pew in that we migrate from not standing to standing? The command to stand aright is a reminder, not an initiation. The whole Liturgy we stand in the fear of God, in the same way that we will stand before the awesome judgement seat of Christ.
Liturgical innovations such as the pew will pave the way for even worse liturgical innovations that our Church Fathers knew nothing of. For example, how many saints can you recall reacted to plague by limiting Church attendance and mandating a change in attire for the faithful, covering their faces with masks?
From a practical point of view, the pew is a harm to the Church. The price of the pew is a burden to the parish. The average price of a professional pew is about 65$ per square foot of pew. If a parish were to get 20 10-foot pews, 10 for each side of the Church, the parish is now down 13,000$ for these pews which, as discussed before, are only bringing harm to the Church for extremely little benefit.
The pew should be removed from the Orthodox Church, all parishes. They should be sold or stored away until they can be discarded in a way that benefits the parish. If the parish doesn’t mind the financial loss, and seeks only to be rid of the flaws of the pew, then they could be donated or destroyed. Whatever the case, they must be removed from the parish immediately.
Thank you.
Kaleb of Atlanta
