cross-posted from my substack.

It has become a tradition during the Trinity term of the Fellows Program at Theopolis to hold a feast in the style of a Georgian keipi. Food, served in courses, rounds of toasts orchestrated around specific themes (e.g. “eros” “death” “mothers” etc.), led by a tamada (kind of master of ceremonies meets hierophantic celebrant.

It has been customary, so far, for me to play the Dionysian rôle of tamada —indeed, tamada is not at all unlike the order of presbyter. One speaks and presides over a table speaking epideicticly, leading in choruses, collecting all into the Glad Presence. There is something Josephine about it: he who pharaoh exalted from the prison to the dual role of cup-bearer and bread-breaker; seneschal of the Kings’ gifts of bread and wine.

Before each round of toasts I announce the theme, expositing it, “pondering these things in my heart” like Mary, before I bless and break the theme, so to speak, and give it away to the gathered feasters. They then in turn each stand, as they will, and transform the theme, sub-creating from my general inspiration new anthems and words of praise.

Below, as a special treat, I offer the seven themes of this past summer’s keipi whose all-encompassing arrangement followed the seven heavens of the Ptolemaic cosmos.

1. Helios

The Sphere of the sun;
The great ever-burning field of Arbol in which the bodies of angels move;
The little ruler that God made to preside over the day and give us our hours;
Shamash and Samson break-forth like Zarech from the womb of Tamar;
Jacob rises at the fords of the Jabok;
Joshua implores the holding-up of the solar chariot over Gibeon,
and the five kings of the Amorites hide in the caverns at Makkeda;
Mary Magdalene encounters her Lord at the Garden tomb.

In this topic we celebrate new beginnings; births birthdays grand-openings, new things; fresh starts; earliest memories from childhood; and places when God gave you a fresh start.

2. Selene

The sphere of the moon, called Luna by the men of Latium;
Silver and brilliant against the evening firmament,
gray and lovely sometimes in the day sky;
Here is lady Wisdom in whom understanding and insight dangle like so many pearls
Strung in a wife’s raven hair;
It is the glory of God to hide a matter, ours to search it out;
Here is good magic used to break bad spells;
Elrond and Galadriel sailing westward on white ships.

In this topic we want to toast to those people or those moments in our lives wherein we were made wise… from mother telling you not to touch the stove because it was hot to that great book you read when you were twelve: raise a toast to those people and moments in which the God of Jacob made you grow in wisdom.

3. Venus

The sphere of Aphrodite;
Here is Love vast as the ocean, loving-kindness as a flood;
Augustine holding a flaming heart aureate in lightning from heaven;
Lordly Eros attended by so many cherubic cupids carrying the skirts
Of the Living Flame of Love;
Here is Marriage and friendship, who have met and kissed;
It is the smell of wax on beehives melting in hot sunlight;
Of warm air bringing-in the scent of midnight fruit and evening blossoms;
Red wine glowering in cut crystal;
Mandrakes given to the beloved in the valley of atonement coverings.

In this topic we want to toast the loves of our life: family, friends, spouses, former lovers whom God in his providence did not give us in marriage, pets, special creature comforts.

4. Jove

The sphere of Jupiter;
Glory, magnanimity, jovial shouts;
Loud trumpets pealing like the seven thunders;
Mysterium tremendum;
Moments so grand that we shake in the knees
And if one doesn’t die one must laugh;
Everything under the heading “regal”;
Our first memories of the faces of mother and father in all their early strength
Relative to our infant weakness;
Cities with banners; the wealth of Empires;
Cornucopia pouring-out on tables at feasts of the Christian year;
The shouting of the Ghost of Christmas Present;
Margaritas by the pool on a hot summer afternoon.

In this topic we want to toast the glorious and joyful things; in particular, we want to raise a toast to life’s brightest moments: birthday memories, that special thanksgiving from two years ago, the wedding you’re planning for next spring, discovering you were accepted to the Theopolis program.

5. Mercury

The sphere of quicksilver;
Pure language;
All that makes avenues between persons and things;
Concourses and pathways;
The realization that all existence is music;
The gift of logos from the Word himself which by some pagan misprision
was groped for in ignorance and found in shadows and shapes
in drama and dialogue and goat songs led by dithyrmabs in darkness;
Here is Poetry int he flesh, and chorales and parades;
David the Hermetic giant-killer, whose stones were flanged with nike’s wings;
Moses standing with the caduceus in a heap
of serpents in the wildlands beyond the Red Sea.

In this topic we want to toast music and speech; particularly specific songs, hymns, song-makers, musicians, speakers, authors, and poets. Where has the gift of word made you glad enough to raise a glass?

6. Mars

The sphere of Ares;
The realm of iron and dirt;
From dust to dust;
Of warfare and workmanship;
Of land and crops;
Sweat-shed and blood-shed;
Of swords hammered into ploughshares and leaden toy soldiers
smelted to make musket rounds;
The blade of Ehud left-hand, Gera’s son, disappearing into the belly of Eglon;
The tent-peg of Jael in the crown of the serpent;
The banner of the virgin, corn-blue and emblazoned with cream-colored lilies, flying
over the Arthur’s roman cataphracts on the field of Mt. Badon;
The ox-goad and the farmer’s yoke; a shovel
Turning new earth for seeds.

In this topic we want to toast courageous things: renovating houses, tilling earth, planting churches, fighting in combat, fencing, marital arts, having your life ruined at Theopolis, starting a family, starting a business, confronting a brother or sister in sin, standing-up for what’s right; remaining in places where God has called you even though you’d prefer to be somewhere else; blood sweat tears; cold martial diligence. Praise the things and persons in which you have witnessed bravery.

7. Saturn

The sphere of Kronos;
Time with all of the clutter of antiquity, both chronological and ritual
with all of its recurrences and systoles;
The unfathomable library of all that is, the archives of living and dying;
The Book that is brought to the Ancient of Days;
The terrible weight of memory;
Tears held in bottles;
Holy Saturday himself;
Here it is scrolled in heavy Merovingian capitals “Hic terminus est…
O quanta qualia sunt illa sabbata”
Graveyards and clocks and ledgers;
I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth;
And the last enemy to be defeated is Death.

In this penultimate movement we honor the endings of things; happy, heavy, hard and sad. The lord gives and the lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord; we stand under the shadow of the cross and raise glasses to those who have gone on before us into glory.

— — —

The keipi ends with everyone standing, everyone holds a fresh glass of the best wine served that evening (we serve the best wine last, like Him). We sing the old pascha anthem to a setting by the glorious Nikolay Kederov “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life.”

We do this, or something like this, as a network each year at the end of synod. And it is something we want to begin incorporating more and more into our corporate life at All Saints —maturing beyond the sheer bravery of “a toast!” and into even greater festal glory.

It is important to know that we do not feast like the old pagans, “eat drink for tomorrow we die.” Rather, we eat and make merry precisely because Christ has already died, and we with Him have been burried. Christian do not feast on the edge of the Grave, we feast already on the other side.