Praying with the Senses: Contemporary Orthodox Christian Spirituality in Practice ed. by Sonja Luehrmann†

Abstract

Reviewed by: Praying with the Senses: Contemporary Orthodox Christian Spirituality in Practice ed. by Sonja Luehrmann† Irina Paert Sonja Luehrmann†, ed. Praying with the Senses: Contemporary Orthodox Christian Spirituality in Practice. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018. 264 pp. (illustrated). Following the ground-breaking volume edited by Chris Hann on Eastern Christianities from an anthropological perspective, this book is a step forward in the process of breaking with the stereotypes that surround Orthodoxy. It continues the program initiated by Hann in studying Eastern Christianity through ethnographic studies and provides a mature response to the challenges presented in the earlier studies. Focusing on prayer, eight authors engage in a fascinating conversation about various aspects of Orthodox approaches to communication with the divine, emphasizing the material, the practical, and the sensory. The volume engages in a subtle way with the dichotomies that characterize Western Christianity—individual versus communal, logos versus icon, ritual versus theology, institution versus charisma, and so on—dichotomies that are not issues for Eastern Christianity. The volume is exemplary of scholarly collaboration, evident in the ways parts of the book intersect with and cross-reference each other, suggesting effective dialogue and reciprocal learning. Vlad Naumescu draws on examples from his research on Greek Catholics in Ukraine, Old Believers, and the Malabars in India, borrowing the metaphor "mystery and mastery" from an Indian priest and exploring an ethical tradition of Orthodox faith that is passed not through moral prescriptions, but through tradition embodied in holy figures. Drawing parallels between the Protestant born-again experience and the renewal of faith among Orthodox, Naumescu emphasizes that tradition is "the primary source to draw on in order to flourish in the present and [it] provides scope for creativity, expanded agency and virtuous conduct" (45). In his study of the role of media for Orthodox in Greece, Jeffers Engelhard makes a distinction between the marked and unmarked mediation: while the former (electronic, broadcast, and digital media) normally requires spiritual discernment, the latter ("natural" media for Orthodox sounds and messages, such as incense-laden air, human voices and bodies, and bells) does not. He explores how, in Greece, in the moment of post-crisis austerity in 2013, the marked media manifested the "push back to church" for many younger generation Greeks. Angie Heo's contribution on icons in Egypt explores the centrality of the icon in personal identity. Icons are the visual tools for identifying the unknown, an aggregate of various signs of personal identity. She employs Peter Brown's concept of a holy man as a living icon to characterize the popular saintly figures and points out that, while on earth, the holy men and women hide their divine attributes from others to avoid turning the living icon into an idol. Luehrmann's own essay on reading prayers straddles the familiar dichotomies between the individual and the communal by focusing on the anthropology of reading set prayers. Finding a surprising parallel with the evangelical practice of speaking in [End Page 244] tongues, she argues that praying by the book offers "a shift to automatic thinking, marking sacred time and the simultaneous possibility of communal experience and private withdrawal" (136). Yet, unlike the charismatic prayer in tongues, the repetition of the words of people who prayed before brings believers together in a transtemporal community, connecting the living and the dead. The parts of the essay on the role of baptismal names, the importance of paraliturgical akathisto, and the lack of prayers for stillborn infants or those who have committed suicide are brilliant insights enriching Orthodox studies from an anthropological point of view. Jeanne Kormina's essay on practices of prayer in the context of what she calls "religious nomadism" stands out in this volume as she employs a clearly spelled-out model rather than metaphors, distinguishing the fixed, stable form of belief (with the focus on a territorial parish) from the "nomadic," fluid one represented by the pilgrims who believe without belonging. The competition of these two models is illustrated by a case study in which the "fixed" is represented by a priest, while the "nomadic" by Nadiezhda, an active female pilgrim. The process of domestication of Nadiezhda, a "nomadic believer," Kormina argues, occurred as she...