Glued-On Identity: Carrère's Mustache and Priests' Beards I. When Reality Collapses In Emmanuel Carrère's story "The Mustache" (La Moustache), the protagonist does something seemingly innocent—he shaves off his mustache. It was meant to be a harmless joke, a surprise for his wife. But something nightmarish happens: his wife, friends, colleagues—everyone insists he never had a mustache. Even photographs cease to serve as proof. Reality crumbles. The protagonist frantically rummages through garbage bins, collecting the shaved hairs—physical evidence of his former appearance, his identity. He finds them, shows them to his wife. She calmly responds: "Hair. Hair from your mustache. Is that what you wanted to hear?"—and then suggests he see a psychiatrist. What is happening? The protagonist discovers a terrible truth: his identity was glued to an external sign. When the sign disappeared, so did his certainty in his own existence. The mustache was not just hair—it was the anchor of his "self" in a world that suddenly refuses to recognize that "self." II. The Priestly Beard: Another "Glued-On" Identity Now let us turn to Orthodox priesthood. Why do priests wear beards? The official version is simple: they imitate Christ, depicted in icons with a beard. Additional justifications include Old Testament commandments (Leviticus 19:27, 21:5) forbidding the trimming of beards, the patristic tradition where Church Fathers saw the beard as a sign of masculinity and the natural order established by God, and monastic practice of avoiding vanity. But let us imagine: what would happen if a priest shaved his beard? He arrives at morning liturgy clean-shaven. The parishioners are shocked. "What happened, Father?" But this is not simply shaving. This is betrayal of identity. The priest's beard is not his personal choice. It is a collective contract about what a "real" priest should look like. It is an external sign to which an entire system of recognition is "glued": "Here comes Father." Without the beard, he becomes invisible to his role. Like Carrère's protagonist, the priest fears shaving his beard because he fears disappearing. III. The Christological Paradox But here a theological problem arises that overturns the entire logic of imitation. Christ wore a beard not because it was "Christian," but because He was a man of the first century in Judea. All men of His culture and time looked this way. The beard did not make Him special—it made Him normal, one of them, a contemporary to the fishermen of Galilee. Imagine: Christ comes to the synagogue in Capernaum clean-shaven, in Roman style. What happens? He is not recognized. He becomes alien. The Incarnation fails, because the Incarnation requires cultural recognizability. Here is the paradox: Desiring to externally resemble Christ, Orthodox priests do the exact opposite of what Christ did. Christ was a contemporary of His culture. Priests are museum exhibits.
Christ did not say: "Wear beards like Me." He said: "Go and teach all nations" (Mt 28:19). Teach—that is, speak their language, be understandable to their culture. IV. The Archaeologization of Christ: Frozen History Orthodox piety performs a strange operation: it tears Christ out of history and transforms Him into a timeless icon. The first century becomes not a historical point of Incarnation, but a normative model for all time. But this contradicts the very essence of Christianity! Christ did not freeze in the first century. He is the Eschatological Person, leading history toward the Kingdom. He is not an archaeological artifact, but the living Lord, acting in every epoch. Recall Zizioulas: personhood (πρόσωπον) exists only in relationships, in communion. Christ was in communion with His culture—that is precisely why He was recognizable, understandable, effective. A priest frozen in the first century breaks communion with modernity. True imitation of Christ (μίμησις Χριστοῦ) means not archaeological reconstruction of His appearance, but incarnation in one's own time and culture as radically as He incarnated in His. V. The Magic of the Sign: When Grace is "Glued" to Hair Why does Carrère's protagonist cling so desperately to his mustache? Because he identifies himself with an external sign. His panic is the panic of someone who has discovered that his "self" exists only as a social role, only as a recognizable image. The same with the priest's beard. The beard becomes a magical sign to which grace, legitimacy, priesthood itself is "glued." A priest without a beard seems "not real"—like Carrère's protagonist without his mustache. But this is ritual nominalism—confusing sign with reality. Bishop Chrysostomos of Etna wrote that hair and beard are "no more or less important to a priest than feathers are to a bird." A bird without feathers is a problem. But priesthood (ἱερωσύνη) is an ontological reality, granted in ordination, not theatrical makeup. The priest fears shaving his beard for the same reason Carrère's protagonist feared shaving his mustache: he fears disappearing. VI. Cassocks in the Streets: Continuation of the Paradox A similar problem arises with the cassock. When did priests begin to distinguish themselves by clothing from laypeople? In the apostolic period, priests wore ordinary clothing of their culture. Pope Celestine in 428 rebuked bishops who wanted to stand out by their clothing: "We should be distinguished from the people by our learning, not by our clothes; by our conduct, not by our dress; by cleanness of mind, not by the care we spend upon our person." The difference appeared only in the sixth century, and not for theological reasons: priests simply kept the old Roman clothing (long tunic, cloak), while laypeople switched to barbarian fashion (short tunics, trousers). The distinction arose accidentally, through cultural conservatism, not through theological principle. Today, a priest in a cassock on the street is not "imitating Christ," but imitating sixth-century conservatism. Christ did not wear a cassock. The Apostles did not wear cassocks. They wore the ordinary clothing of Palestinian fishermen and craftsmen—that is, they were culturally recognizable.
VII. Letter Against Spirit: Selective Hermeneutics Defenders of beards quote Leviticus 19:27: "You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard." But let us examine the context: Leviticus 19:26—prohibition of divination Leviticus 19:27—prohibition of trimming the edges of the beard Leviticus 19:28—prohibition of cutting the flesh for the dead These are all prohibitions of pagan practices. Jews were forbidden to copy the external signs of pagan cults. This is a contextual, not universal prohibition. If we literally apply Leviticus to beards, why not apply Leviticus 11 (kosher laws), Leviticus 19:19 (prohibition of mixed fabrics), Leviticus 25 (jubilee year)? This is selective hermeneutics—we choose from the Old Testament what is convenient for maintaining existing practice. VIII. Historical Irony In 1054, Cardinal Humbert included in his list of accusations against the Easterners: "While wearing beards and long hair you reject the bond of brotherhood with the Roman clergy." Consider the irony: an external sign of imitating Christ became a cause of Church division. The beard transformed not into a symbol of unity in Christ, but into a marker of tribal identity: "We are not them. We are authentic. They are apostates." This is a complete inversion of Galatians 3:28: "There is neither Jew nor Greek... for you are all one in Christ Jesus." The beard became a new circumcision—an external sign dividing "us" from "them." IX. Objections and Responses First objection: "But priests must distinguish themselves from laypeople!" Answer: Yes, they must! But not by beard or cassock. Canonical vestments, epitrachelion, cross, pectoral cross —these are signs of priesthood. The beard is not a liturgical element, not dogma, not a first-rank canon. The Apostles were distinguished not by beards but by the grace of the Spirit (Acts 6:3). Stephen's face shone "like the face of an angel" (Acts 6:15)—not because he wore a beard, but because he was filled with the Spirit. Second objection: "But this is Orthodox tradition!" Answer: Tradition (παράδοσις) is not the same as custom (ἔθος). Many Orthodox theologians recognize: wearing a beard is a pious custom, but not dogma. The tradition of serving in Church Slavonic is also "tradition"—but it can develop. The question is not "tradition or not?" but "Does this tradition serve the Church's mission in the 21st century, or does it hinder it?" When tradition becomes an obstacle to communion with culture, it ceases to be faithfulness to Christ and becomes faithfulness to itself—that is, idolatry. X. Provocation: What Does It Mean to Be Like Christ Today? What does true imitation of Christ (μίμησις Χριστοῦ) mean? Not archaeological reconstruction of the first century. But radical incarnation in one's own culture—just as Christ incarnated in His.
If Christ came to Tbilisi today, what would He look like? Would He wear a 19th-century beard and cassock? Or would He look in a way to be recognizable and understandable to people of the 21st century? Provocative thesis: A priest desiring to be like Christ should wear jeans and be clean-shaven. Not because this is "correct," but because Christ was a contemporary of His time. Christ did not come in His divine glory, inaccessible and incomprehensible. He came as a carpenter from Nazareth—recognizable, ordinary, one of us. A priest in cassock and beard in a secular society is the opposite of kenosis. This is demonstration of difference, not acceptance of humanity. XI. Eschatological Liberation At the end of Carrère's novel, the protagonist boards a ferry sailing into the unknown. He never learned the truth: did he have a mustache or not? Reality remained split. He remained in a nightmare of uncertainty. But for a priest, another ending is possible. An ending of liberation. Imagine: a priest shaves his beard. And discovers something amazing: his priesthood does not disappear. Grace does not leave him. He is still a priest—because priesthood is rooted not in hair, but in God's grace granted in the Sacrament. He is freed from "glued-on" identity. He ceases to be a museum exhibit and becomes a living witness of the Resurrection in the 21st century. He discovers that true imitation of Christ is not copying His appearance, but accepting His mission: to be a bridge between God and people, to speak the language of one's time, to be a contemporary of those he is called to shepherd. XII. Christ Demands Not Beards, but Freedom The Apostle Paul wrote: "For freedom Christ has set us free" (Gal 5:13). Freedom from law, from external prescriptions, from "glued-on" identity. The priest's beard is fear of freedom. Fear of being oneself without external props. Fear that without the beard, priesthood will disappear, grace will disappear, identity itself will disappear. But Christ did not call us to fear. He called us to the freedom of the children of God (Rom 8:21). Carrère's protagonist lost himself when he lost his mustache, because his "self" was an illusion built on an external sign. The priest can find himself by shaving his beard, because his true identity is in Christ, not in hair. And then, freed from the museum mask, he can become what he should be: a living, contemporary, free witness of the Risen Lord. Not an archaeologist depicting the first century. But a prophet incarnating the Kingdom in the 21st century. Just as Christ was not an archaeologist of Moses' age, But a prophet of the Kingdom in His present.
When the priest finally shaves his beard, he may discover what Carrère's protagonist never could: that his true face was hidden not beneath the mustache, but beneath the fear of being himself. And that Christ always wanted not copies of His appearance, but free children of His Kingdom.