Speaker 1: So for the subscriber only video for the month of November,
I decided to make a commentary on some aspects of
the restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral. And once in a
while we make these videos public because, as you might know,
you know, the fact that people subscribe to the Symbolic
World and you know, participate financially is what makes us go.
Speaker 2: We're not a big enough channel to you know, make money.
Speaker 1: With advertisement, and I also don't want to advertise products
myself on the channel. So because of that, people joining
the Symbolic World and participating is what helps us keep going.
And every month people get an extra video and also
a Q and A that you can participate in, and
some discounts on the courses and all the stuff that
we do. And so for your consideration, the subscriber only
video for the month of November, this is Jonathan.
Speaker 2: Peeschel, Welcome to the Symbolic World.
Speaker 1: Hello everyone, for our November Patreon video. We're putting it
out a little late this month. I thought that we
could look at the restoration of Notre Dame. You know,
when the fire of Notre Dame happened, it was a
very strange moment for me. I don't completely understand why.
I'm not usually a highly sentimental person, but when I
heard about the fire of Notre Dame and when I
saw the images, I just started crying. I just started
crying rather strangely and uncontrollably. And I sometimes I wondered later,
I wondered if it was because I could see that
this was a watershed moment, that in some ways this
was symbolic of what is happening in Europe, what is
happening to Europe's Christianity, and so, you know, and then
a lot of the weird we don't know if it's
gaslighting or the fear that, of course the fire would
be blamed on.
Speaker 2: Strangers of different faiths.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a lot of weird communication about
the fire and about what happened, and so you know,
that seems to have not been completely answered, at least
I see. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like it
has been completely answered. But despite that, after a big
which seemed to be a very scary discussion about what
the church would look like and it's restored versions, you know,
from turning it into a kind of you know, led
screened you know, modern museum looking building, Finally, it seems
like cooler heads prevailed and they rebuilt the church very traditionally,
kind of restored it to its former glory, except for
a few things. And that's what I'd like to talk
to you about. As you see in the image portrayed below,
there is this very strange thing here. This, of course,
is the altar for the church, and it stands out
very strangely, you know, right there in front of the
high altar, as this kind of strange modern looking piece.
And so I thought it could be an opportunity to
look a little bit at what happens when a lot
of the modernists try to reinterpret these kinds of symbols.
And sometimes I don't think it is on purpose, but
there is a kind of revolutionary intuition which plays itself
out in the work themselves. And if we're not careful,
then we are often making things no that are the
opposite of what they represent. And so this seems in
my opinion.
Speaker 2: To be the case.
Speaker 1: And so a lot of people maybe are watching this
now you don't know a bit about alters. I want
to talk a little bit about alters and what they
look like and what they what they are, what they
represent and then we'll consider this particular altar the way
that it was designed to see, you know, what exactly
could it be?
Speaker 2: Could it mean? Like what is it trying to show?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 1: One of the things that happened in the Middle Ages
is that the older altars, which in the Orthodox Church
we still have these older altars, which are kind of
rectangular or square, and are in the in the Holy
Place of the Church, in the sanctuary. And this, of
course is the ancient practice of the altars. The earliest
altars that we have in the Christian churches had this form.
They are of course described in a way that is
very similar to the way that the altars were described
with the Old Testament. All the altars that are described
in the Old Testament are square, and there's a reason
why they're square. They're square because they represent the Earth,
which is going to sound weird for a lot of people,
you know, because not the Earth, of course, as the
planet floating in the heavens, but the Earth and the
experience of the Earth, which is something like stable extension. Right,
So four directions extending in four directions. That's why the
Bible and many ancient people talked about the corners of
the earth, the idea that the earth is extension.
Speaker 2: It's also particularity.
Speaker 1: If you think about the difference between a circle and
a square, you can see, of course that a circle
is one it doesn't have corners, it doesn't have for
it has one, whereas the earth has, for it has
four corners.
Speaker 2: And it's very practical. Symbolism is very practical.
Speaker 1: It's very practical because actually, if you want something to
be stable and hold on the ground, you give it
four just like an animal has four legs in order
for it to stand properly on the ground, Just like
a chariot would have four wheels for it to be
stable on the ground. And you know that is why
a car has four wheels. All of these reasons are
very based in general experience, but they are also based
on this experience of the earth as the stable place,
as the place you know, on which we stand, and
it's it's represented as a square, this square, of course,
then we'll take its You know, there will be extensions
of this square in many places, whether it be buildings themselves,
whether it be the tabernacle itself, which is a rectangle.
You know, of course, the square is the perfect rectangle.
You know, in some ways it's the perfect extension, but
it's also know completely fine for altars and for these
types of structure to be rectangle in the sense that
they are just have this stability on the earth and
kind of represent this extension. Now, the symbolism of this
was reiterated in different ways in the in the ancient church,
because very old churches often have what we call a siborium,
and so a siborium is a shape is a kind
of canopy that is above the altar.
Speaker 2: So you can see here some rather.
Speaker 1: Old siboriums where the altar is placed of course in
again in the sanctuary, and then above the altar you
have a little architectural structure that will usually include either
a dome, so you can see the dome here on
top which which which is like a microcosm of the
entire church.
Speaker 2: So the entire church.
Speaker 1: Has a dome at the top, and then it's square
and it has four pillars that hold it on the ground.
And then the altar is beneath here and has this
square sense.
Speaker 2: Now, you can do this in many different ways. Right,
look at here, for.
Speaker 1: Example, how now the four pillars are integrated into the
altar itself. Here now you have four pillars that move
into a canopy. This canopy can be also represented in
many ways. You can have here an actual dome at
the very top, which is a microcosm of the heaven
above and then the earth below being held.
Speaker 2: Together into four pillars.
Speaker 1: You can have it in this way, which is you
have a dome on the inside, which now is more
like representing in some ways the church. If you have
the experience of the church inside. If you looked at
this space here, you know you have that same experience.
It's square, Sorry, you can't see the top of it.
And then there's the appse.
Speaker 2: On the inside.
Speaker 1: So you have this this frame and then you have
the circle and the inside and represent the heavens. If
you're not sure that they represent the heavens, there's a
nice reason why you would put stars up there, because
it does represent the heavens, you know, just like the
domes represent the heaven.
Speaker 2: And then with the earth below, you know.
Speaker 1: And so this is of course a little microcosm of
the entire world. All of it makes sense, you know,
And there are many types of practices. It's not like
there's just one way to do it. There's a variety
in way to do it, but that variety, you know,
nonetheless has a kind of coherence to it, which gets
represented in many ways in many iterations. Look at here,
like let me give you any little example, right, So
I didn't even notice this when I started the video,
but look at how in this particular church, which is
a church in Cleveland, Archangel Michael ORGANSLDAK Church. Maybe someone
watching the video is from this church. Look at how
they did the little alter the little tabernacle. So look
at how the little tabernacle is in some ways a
little microcosm of what we're talking about. So it's square, right,
and then it has a little dome at the top,
a little point at the top. It goes point some
of the ciboria that are here. Sometimes they'll have a
little roof at the top, like a little pointed roof.
And so whether it's round, whether it's pointed, you know,
whether you know, all of these things, you know are
variations on the basic understanding and the basic theme of
a microcosm of heaven and Earth and the altar representing
the stability. Now, of course, there's a difference between the
altars in the Old Testament and the altars in the
New Testament, and the difference is that we don't burn
things on them and we don't kill things on it.
And therefore and we also prepare. I'm gonna say, we
don't prepare, but we offer the food there, you know,
and it's bread and wine. And the table also represents
the that Christ used during the Last Supper. So it's
it's it's the kind of this joining of the symbolism
of the altar with the symbolism of the table for
the Last Supper, and then again the symbolism is all
joined together, and the coherence is just intuitive. Like it's
not like anybody has thought about I mean, yes, maybe, but.
Speaker 2: It's not like it's not like this everybody.
Speaker 1: Knew about about thinking about it this way. It was
just it it's so intuitive and it's so right to
do it this way that it just makes sense.
Speaker 2: You know that.
Speaker 1: Obviously, a table is also square. If you want to
eat on a table, you want the table to be solid,
and so most tables will have four legs.
Speaker 2: In order for them to be solid on the ground.
Speaker 1: There are alternatives, but most of the tables in the
world that you'll encounter will have that shape because it's practical,
but then also it's symbolic because it has this structure
of the earth as the stable ground. Okay, Now, in
the European Middle Ages they develop these altars that we
call high alters. And the high altars now were a
little different from the from the from the ancient altars.
They had the altar up against the wall of the
back of the church, as you can see here, you know,
and so instead of now having a rectangle in the
middle of the holy place, they kind of put it
up against the wall. It really did emphasize in some
ways the sacrificial aspect of the of the mass, you know,
whereas in the Orthodox Church there's obviously the sacrificial element,
but there's also this kind of communion.
Speaker 2: So if you have a.
Speaker 1: Church where there people are con celebrating, you'll see when
you look, you'll see all the priests kind of gather
around the table in order to partake in the meal.
Speaker 2: And here we have more of an emphasis on the
sacrificial aspect.
Speaker 1: And so the church, the the altar gets placed against
the back of the wall, and we develop what we
call a rarow dose, which is this back backing of
the of the altar with images that represent, you know,
some of the Christian symbolism. Some of these are absolutely
magnificent and beautiful, like this is a very very beautiful
image if you look at it, it's an apocalyptic, apocalyptic image.
So you see Christ, you know, in the heavens, and
then you see the altar with the lamb here at
the bottom. I'm pretty sure that's what i'm seeing. I
hope that's what i'm seeing. I'm not inducing you into error,
but I think that's what it is, because you also
have the lamb up here. So this beautiful imagery, and
the imagery of course usually will continue to have this
image of the ciborium, but in the rareroad dose it's
not one hundred percent again, but it's just natural that
the rareroad dose will have a pointed shape usually or
will have you know, a middle spire that will go
up higher. There will be like a little microcosm again
of the architecture of the church.
Speaker 2: But now in the altar space.
Speaker 1: Because in some ways you know this, the Church functions
at these as these embedded microcosms within themselves, and so
we developed the symbolism. Now as people know during Vatican Two.
They because they changed the direction of the worship. They
had the priests facing the people. They reintroduced the older
form of the altar, and then did it in a
weird way. They reintroduced the older form of the altar,
but then now had the priests standing behind the altar
looking at the looking west in order to kind of
interact with the people more, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And so the I don't have a picture of well.
Speaker 1: Actually I don't have a picture of a modern Catholic
Catholic altar, but the modern Catholic altars actually know I
do here and so here No, no, this is sorry, folks,
I'm messing you up here. And so yeah, the modern
Catholic altars look more like these. They have the altar
here and there's a space behind, very much like in
the Orthodox Church. But instead of the priest standing towards
the east, this preach is standing behind the altar and
looking west. Now, let's come to this. So why does
this make us uneasy? Now, if you've been paying attention
from the beginning of the video, you'll already understand why
it makes you uneasy. Now, if I'm going to give
them the benefit of the doubt, I will say that
one of the things they were hoping to do was
to create a kind of symbolism of a ship. Maybe
you don't see it from the top, but it's actually
a rectangle. It's not round, it's not a circle. It's
like a rounded rectangle that goes down like this. So
if I was going to give them the benefit of
the doubt, I would say that they're trying to represent ship,
you know. And maybe I don't know, but one of
the things for sure is that this is completely can
I say this, this makes no sense, like it just
makes no sense very very intuitively, which is that if
you see something around on the ground, your intuition is
that this thing is going to fall over.
Speaker 2: This thing.
Speaker 1: Is unstable, obviously because it's round at the bottom. It's
a wheel. This is not something that is stable and
is held down, you know. And so because of modern
our modern capacity to make these things, and because we
have the technical skill to do it, I'm sure this
alter is not going to fall over. It's probably held
in quite nicely underneath. But the experience of the altar
is that it is something like a wheel. It's something
that is going to turn it's something that's going to fall.
It is instability itself, because that's what.
Speaker 2: A wheel is. A wheel is change. You know, that's
not very hard to understand. A wheel is changed.
Speaker 1: And so when you see that, you know, and then
the fact that it is also done in its absolutely
minimalist modern style, will emphasizes again this wheel aspect of it,
which is that it is change, It is progress, it
is modernity.
Speaker 2: It is all those things, and it is.
Speaker 1: Obviously more that than it is an altar because it
also completely stands out, which is that it doesn't try
even to integrate into the space it has. This object
has no desire to be related to all the other
furnishings that are in this building and all the statues
and the images. It wants to stand out. It wants
to be something that you notice as being completely different
from everything else. And therefore, at every single level, the
style of it, the way it's the you know, the
the execution of it, and its shape all point to
the same thing, which is instability, change, you know, transformation.
All of the these aspects, which is not an image
of the earth that the altar is. You know, because
you think about how what an altar is an alter
is the place where you gather the things from earth
and you offer them up so that they receive the
blessing from heaven. And that's why the altar is square,
you know, in the the yam Kipper sacrifice, the if
I think it's in that particular sacrifice, you know, it's
very important.
Speaker 2: The corner of the altar are extremely important.
Speaker 1: They actually have horns like these, these horns at the
corners of the altar, and the priests will put blood
on the corners because you're trying to kind of bless
the extension of the earth, where the fullness of the
multiplicity on the on the that are stable multiplicity at
the edge of the earth.
Speaker 2: This altar is fluid. This altar is change.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, all of it just is completely coherent,
but coherent in the way that progressivism and modernism is,
which is fluidity, change, transformation, progress.
Speaker 2: All of that.
Speaker 1: And so you know, the weird thing too is that,
you know, it's like it's hard not to feel like
this is some also to some extent, a little bit
of a spiteful revenge, you know, a little bit of
a spiteful revenge from the people or by the people
that maybe would have hoped that this church would have
been restored in a modern way, would have been restored
with the modern idea and not just returned to its
former appearance. You know, I'm speculating here. Obviously, I don't
know if this was explicitly the intention, but at least
the sense of it is something like, oh, we'll restore
your church the way it was, but we'll get the altar.
We'll get the holiest place, you know, and we'll have
it and we'll claim it. You've lost, folks. It's like,
this is it. This is the future of the church.
It is changed and fluidity and all of that stuff,
you know, with the this altar clearly represents you know,
and so and you know, in terms of the idea.
Like I said, the most genuine its interpretation I could
make of this is that they're trying to make it
look something like a boat, something like a ship, but
that that just isn't right, you know. It's by the way,
it's interesting because even the arc to read the description
of the Ark of Noah, it's actually described kind of
as square, which is fascinating. It's described as a rectangle,
which is fascinating, but also you know, the church, the nave,
the church, the place where all the people gather together
is already called the ship.
Speaker 2: And you know it's like that's.
Speaker 1: It's not round, you know, it it is square because
it's also the earth at the same time, it's not
just this anyways, I think you understand what it is
that I'm trying to help you see, and so and
so even just the experience. So it's like, think about
people who walk into the church. You know, what is there,
what is going to be there experience? Their experience is
going to be look at all this, look at all
this wow, wow wow, and what oh what? Oh oh?
Speaker 2: I see what's that?
Speaker 1: Like? What why does that look so different from everything else?
Speaker 2: Uh? And that is embedded at every single level of
the execution of this object.
Speaker 1: And so anyways, I just wanted to give you a
little meditation so you can kind of understand how how
the strategy of let's say modernism. It doesn't mean that
things can't be modern, but it is this modernistic, revolutionary
approach to visual spaces, to architecture that create the type
of uneasiness that we feel when we see an object
like this, you know, PLoP down in a Gothic in
a Gothic interior with a bit of Baroque, with a
bit of Baroque excess in some of the statues. So yeah,
so I don't like it. I have to say that
I do not like it, but I'm nonetheless grateful that
they didn't do this to the whole church, even though
they did get the altar, and I am looking forward
to be back in Notre Dame.
Speaker 2: I was in Notre Dame.
Speaker 1: I was in Paris last year and with my kids
for the first time, was able to bring my kids there,
and I was quite sad that we could not go
into the church. And so I hope next time I
go to be able to visit. And so everybody, thank
you for your attention, thank you for your support, and.
Speaker 2: Talk to you very soon bybye.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy these videos and podcasts, please go to
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