Alexander Schmemann: “Beauty is never necessary”

Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World:

And it is this joy of expectation and this expectation of joy that are expressed in singing and ritual, in vestments and in censing, in that whole “beauty” of the liturgy which has so often been denounced as unnecessary and even sinful.

Unnecessary it is indeed, for we are beyond the categories of the “necessary.” Beauty is never “necessary,” “functional” or “useful.” And when, expecting someone whom we love, we put a beautiful tablecloth on the table and decorate it with candles and flowers, we do all this not out of necessity, but out of love… As long as Christians will love the Kingdom of God, and not only discuss it, they will “represent” it and signify it, in art and beauty.

Via Jeffrey Overstreet