why complain about webcasts now?

A largely unhelpful essay on "The Eclipse of the Tactile in Times of the Epidemic." It is, of course, preceded by the imperative hook "Don't Touch It!"

 

Yes, the epidemic is bad. Yes, it is a wretched thing that we cannot be together and celebrate the Eucharist as a community. Yes, many things are lost when we meet together online.

 

But now is not the time to complain about the internet, and its ability to provide platforms where we can meet at least photonically, if not molecularly. In a time of plague, it is important for the faithful to meet as best they can. It is not a time, as the author suggests, to simply discontinue liturgy, or services, or classes.

 

Yes, in the old days, there were no such things as morse code, or telephone, or TV, or the internet that could bring immediacy over the distances. Yes, back then before realtime communication, the Fathers did not use the Internet.

 

But I wonder if they would have if they could have. I know for a fact that there are elders in Greece who talk at length with their spiritual children, because it is the only thing available.

 

And that's the thing. What is available, if we cannot be with each other face to face? Some of us clergy are able to broadcast, one way, Facebook or YouTube broadcasts of Liturgy, Orthros, Vespers, and other services. My own diocese (ACROD) recently broadcast for 12 straight hours the one-half hour Moleben to the Cross (which is particular to our Carpatho-Rusyn tradition).

 

Others of us broadcast on two way meeting platforms, upon which the people can say "Amen," or sing together with the cantor and priest.

 

How can this be anything less than a blessing? How can it, in a time of plague, be the subject of dreary, dyspeptic academic critique? Why, if temples are closed because of Christian protection of others from infection, would anyone complain?

 

All these broadcasts are a blessing. Prior to this pandemic, they were a blessing to shut-ins, who felt, in a way, connected to the community.

 

We are all shut-ins now, Prof Manoussakis.

 

And while we cannot have the best, at least let us have the least.

Comments

[Greg Pavlik]

I would go a few steps further. These webcasts have opened up visibility into the cycle of prayers and the richness of monastic life that has essentially been invisible to the world in general and to most Orthodox as well. These are services that most of us would never have been able to attend, but we are now able to witness and in some sense connect with them throughout the cycles of the day and the seasons. It is also a deeper connection for many of us to our monasteries. Now along with a yearly visit and a monthly newletter, I can in some sense have a connection to the monasteries we support on a daily basis: while not the same as a visit, it certainly is more than a newsletter. I sincerely hope these continue even as the pandemics subside as a standard part of the Orthodox landscape.