Ethnic Dancing: TOCs vs World Orthodoxy

[TedMann]

I once researched this in the Holy Fathers because I was scandalized when I learned that a new calendar Greek church was having a Greek dance festival. The Holy Fathers tell us not to dance.

[Maria]

I once researched this in the Holy Fathers because I was scandalized when I learned that a new calendar Greek church was having a Greek dance festival. The Holy Fathers tell us not to dance.

Do you have a link to the Holy Fathers to substantiate your claim?

Isn't there a difference between folk dancing and modern ballroom dancing? Folk dancing employs modest clothing and modest footwork. Modern ballroom dancing allows for immodesty in clothing and in movements. Dancing with the Stars is an example of how depraved modern ballroom dancing has become.

An example of folk dancing being good occurred during the Ottoman occupation of the Greeks. The Greeks approached the Ottomans and asked permission to teach their youth dancing using the guise that it was a very important part of Greek tradition and their religion. Modesty prevailed in this folk dance, and still is seen today. The Ottomans allowed the Greeks to have dances in their Church yards and halls. The youth were encouraged to dance to build their agility, stamina, and strength while dancing. When it came time for their war of independence, these youth and the men had the strength to win this war.

[TedMann]

There is no proof that dancing made the men strong to win the war. Maybe it was the grace of God. Maybe they were fit due to training. I don't remember where I gathered the patristic information from. But it seemed clear to me that the Fathers were against dancing in any sense. I'll see if I can find the information and get back later.

[Maria]

If you have seen Greek dancing, then you will understand. In today's Greek Dance competition, the men leading the dance do all kinds of gymnastic flips and martial arts. It does increase their strength, agility, and stamina.

[TedMann]

I believe all forms of dancing go against Christian piety. Here are some statements from Church Fathers.

Justin Martyr

And your public assemblies I have come to hate. For there are excessive banquetings, and subtle flutes which provoke to lustful movements, and useless and luxurious anointings, and crowning with garlands.

Clement of Alexandria

Praise with the timbrel and the dance.' This refers to the church meditating on the resurrection of the dead in the resounding skin.

Nay, in laying aside the artificial mask of solemnity, they are proved to be what they secretly were. After having paid reverence to the discourse about God, they leave within [the church] what they have heard. And outside they foolishly amuse themselves with impious playing, and amatory quavering, occupied with flute-playing, and dancing, and intoxication, and all kinds of trash. They who sing thus, and sing in response, are those who before hymned immortality,—found at last wicked and wickedly singing this most pernicious palinode, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.

A night spent over drink invites drunkenness, rouses lust, and is audacious in deeds of shame. For if people occupy their time with pipes, and psalteries, and choirs, and dances, and Egyptian clapping of hands, and such disorderly frivolities, they become quite immodest and intractable, beat on cymbals and drums, and make a noise on instruments of delusion; for plainly such a banquet, as seems to me, is a theatre of drunkenness.

Origen

We turn women away from an immoral life . . . and from all mad desires after theaters and dancing.

Cyprian (or Novatian)

The fact that David led the dances in the presence of God is no sanction for faithful Christians to occupy seats in the public theater. For David did not twist his limbs about in obscene movements. He did not depict in his dancing the story of Grecian lust.

Arnobius

Another crowd of souls is led in their wantonness to abandon themselves to clumsy motions, to dance and sing, and form rings of dancers. Finally, raising their hanches and hips, they float along with a tremulous motion of the lions.

Ambrose

For what modesty can there be where there is dancing and noise and clapping of hands? . . . But she who is modest, she who is chaste, let her teach her daughter religion, not dancing.

Augustine

The drunken man doth not offend himself, but he offendeth the sober man. Show me a man who is at last happy in God, liveth gravely, sigheth for that everlasting peace which God hath promised him; and see that when he hath seen a man dancing to an instrument, he is more grieved for his madness, than for a man who is in a frenzy from a fever. If then we know their evils, considering that we also have been freed from those very evils, let us grieve for them; and if we grieve for them, let us pray for them; and that we may be heard, let us fast for them.

(Several of these quotations were found in David Bercot's book, A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs)

[Lydia]

The Early Fathers were referring to dances that women, frequently against their will, were performing specifically to arouse men.
Folk dances and many forms of ballroom dances are modest, graceful and joyful.
Ted, have you never danced with your wife or daughter?
If David can please God with a dance, surely they are not all bad.

[TedMann]

The Early Fathers were referring to dances that women, frequently against their will, were performing specifically to arouse men.
Folk dances and many forms of ballroom dances are modest, graceful and joyful.
Ted, have you never danced with your wife or daughter?
If David can please God with a dance, surely they are not all bad.

Cyprian (or Novatian)

"The fact that David led the dances in the presence of God is no sanction for faithful Christians to occupy seats in the public theater. For David did not twist his limbs about in obscene movements. He did not depict in his dancing the story of Grecian lust."

I think you're making a distinction without a difference. The Fathers condemn dancing, period. You are the one distinguishing between Folk dance and other forms of dancing. I don't believe Folk dancing or any kind of dancing is modest or innocent. I would never dance with a wife or daughter.