Ainnir said:
LivenotoneviL said:
Okay... forgive me for my colonial ignorance. I've only portions of a couple of Ethiopian Orthodox liturgies where such dance doesn't occur, but now I see that kind of cultural integration - at least, if it's minimized.
But that inevitably leads to the question of when liturgical dance becomes abusive - when exactly in the West does integrating dance into the Liturgy become offensive to the eyes?
Minimized according to whose standards?
Also, it's not a Western jurisdiction; Western sensibilities don't apply.
Saint Justin Martyr:
"For there are excessive banquetings, and subtle flutes which provoke to lustful movements, and useless and luxurious anointings, and crowning with garlands. With such a mass of evils do you banish shame; and ye fill your minds with them, and are carried away by intemperance, and indulge as a common practice in wicked and insane fornication."
Saint Ambrose of Milan:
"And so one must be on one's guard, lest, deceived by any common interpretation of this saying, one should suppose that the movements of wanton dances and the madness of the stage were commended; for these are full of evil in youthful age."
"Is anything so conducive to lust as with unseemly movements thus to expose in nakedness those parts of the body which either nature has hidden or custom has veiled, to sport with the looks, to turn the neck, to loosen the hair? Fitly was the next step an offence against God. For what modesty can there be where there is dancing and noise and clapping of hands?"
Saint Augustine:
"This then the Martyrs desire for their enemies, "Let them be confounded and fear." For so long as they are not confounded and fear, they must needs defend their actions: glorious they think themselves, because they hold, because they bind, because they scourge, because they kill, because they dance, because they insult, and because of all these doings they be some time confounded and fear. For if they be confounded, they will also be converted: because converted they cannot be, unless they shall have been confounded and shall have feared."
But I think I'm being charitable in saying "minimized" for a completely different culture; I personally think the ideal - especially with dance in our culture in the West - is that it should be absolutely forbidden from Churches.
Here's one more quote from the Bible
Proverbs 15:1
"A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger."
Your post filled with avarice and saltiness is the spirit of Antichrist - even if my initial post of Inquisition is the same as such, or even as an inquirer into Orthodoxy, I need correction.