Relevant Beauty

I’ve noticed in younger Orthodox Churches (I’m thinking of new missions, etc), both Eastern and Western Rites, a tendency to imitate the decorating styles of “the Old Country” – even when there is no Old Country. We imitate their art and their architecture as if it were the only way to do things. I just wonder why we do this. There are ways to do things, modern ways of understanding beauty, both East and West… why do we cover our walls in imitation of someone else’s culture? Yes, I know that at one time even western rite parishes (in Orthodox England, etc) were all covered in art, but now we think of beauty differently. Our idea of honoring God with beauty needn’t at all imitate Tsarist Russia or Ottoman Greece and the Levant: unless our ideas of beauty are not good enough.

Catholic Monastery in France

Orthodox Church in Denmark

I love both these spaces in their ornate simplicity. Our churches needn’t be Overstimulating Media Screens.

Just sayin…

Author: Huw Raphael

A Dominican Tertiary living in San Francisco, CA. He is almost 59. He feeds the homeless as a parochial almoner and is studying to be a Roman Catholic Deacon. He is learning modern Israeli Hebrew and enjoys cooking, keto, cats, long urban hikes, and SF Beer Week. View all posts by Huw Raphael

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«The only thing secular is sin.»
– Robert Hugh Benson

Doxos is the blog of a Roman Catholic Christian working out his salvation in San Francisco, The California Republic. The first post on Doxos was made in October of 1998. The pages were manually coded. Then there was a “life subscription” to blogger before they sold it to Google. That profile still says 2001. Then there was a thing called “pmachine” and, finally, WordPress. We’re coming up to the 25 Anniversary of this Domain. That’s scary.

Your Host worships here and here. He is a life-professed Dominican Tertiary and studying to be a Roman Catholic Deacon. He also blogs really simple sentences in Hebrew here.

To read a “full profile” on of your host, mash here.

This blog contains a good number of things, sometimes religious, sometimes not. Please remember me in your prayers.

Seduxisti me Domine et seductus sum.

I who have written this story, or rather this fable, give no credence to the various incidents related in it. For some things in it are the deceptions of demons, other poetic figments; some are probable, others improbable; while still others are intended for the delectation of foolish men.
(Closing lines of the Táin Bó Cúalnge)

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Author: Huw Raphael