Special Features Glory and Mercy by Dr. Mary K. Farag-Gall Fall 2018
“Glory” and “mercy.” We say these words repetitively, frequently when we gather for Church services. Why do we repeat the words “glory” and “mercy” so incessantly? What does glory have to do with mercy? What does mercy have to do with glory? In a service of Vespers alone, I counted sixtyone instances of “glory,” and sixty-two instances of “mercy.”1 In a relatively short service, we hear “glory” and “mercy” repeated about sixty times each! Bear in mind that in the tally of “glory,” each “alleluia” is included. With every “alleluia,” we send up glory to God. “Alleluia,” like “amen,” is one of the very few words that we have retained from Hebrew worship. “Alleluia” means “Glory to God.” “Glory to God.” “Lord have mercy.” These words are incessantly on our lips together when we gather as a church. Let us contemplate on what “Glory to God” and “Lord have mercy” have to do with each other, especially when we gather as church.
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Our forbears in the fourth and fifth centuries thought about glory and mercy a great deal: luminaries like St. Gregory of Nazianzus and St. John Chrysostom. In the time of the great Church leaders we look up to so much, churches were lavishly adorned. Not only cathedrals in urban centers like Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) in Constantinople, but even rural churches, churches far away from the imperial cities, were lavishly adorned. Entire ceilings would be gilt with gold. Floors would be covered in painstakingly laid mosaic. Walls would be lined with marble and/or detailed paintings of nature, civilization, scenes of Scripture, great heroes of the Faith. Not a single square inch would be left without a thought. The highest craft, the highest care was also devoted even the very structures of churches. Architects and engineers shaped the sanctuary like a flower sometimes. The entire church could be a multilayered octagon. Even the dome could be shaped like as an octagon.
What were these Christians of late antiquity doing lavishly adorning their churches? Were Christians squandering the wealth of the faithful on ornamentation? Didn’t Christians care about charity? Didn’t Christians think the needy came first? These exquisitely built churches were built for God, but these churches were built for the needy, too. Before we go into what this means, we need to start using the very words that people like St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. John Chrysostom used to describe a church. Fourth and fifth century Christians would refer to a church building as a house, a house for God and His saints to dwell in, to live in. What should God’s house, God’s living quarters, look like? Well, we know God to be the greatest benefactor. The gifts of God abound in ways we cannot even imagine. We also know God to be allglorious. Glory, light beaming, glittering beyond what our eyes can handle. The house of someone like that is going to be infinitely extravagant. When a church would be inaugurated, when everyone would gather to cut the red tape so-tospeak and celebrate the establishment of a house of God, poets would compose verses and hymns for the occasion. These poets would try to convey in words how the newly-built church expresses the glory of God. One poet wrote that the gold and the mosaic glitters and shines so much, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between day and night in the church! During the Advent season, we sing, “O House of Ephratha / The Holy City / The Glory of the Holy Prophets / Beautify the house / In which the Divine One is born.” Beautify the house. Beautify the house. This was serious business for architects, engineers, artisans of all kinds, the laity, the clergy, etc. All took pains to beautify the house. But beautifying the house wasn’t just about giving glory to God. Theologians of old reveled in polyvalence of meaning, layers and layers and layers of meaning when it comes to God and His Church, endless layers of meaning. Beautifying the house also meant giving the church building a voice. Letting the church building
