On Sundays nights, New Haven’s Christ Church is dim and silent — but not empty. The air is heavy with the haze of woody incense, the darkness punctured only by the glimmering pinpricks of candles that line the chancel. Echoes of footsteps rise up towards the lofty wooden ceiling as people file in and take their seats. Not a word is spoken among them. Breaking this silence would feel almost transgressive; there is an otherworldly stillness here that begs to be preserved. Suddenly, a strain of song emerges, a pure and ringing soprano. In the echoing space, words are impossible to make out.I crane my neck in search of the music’s source, but it’s invisible in the darkness. The song, bursting from one voice into a soaring polyphony, seems like an instrument of the atmosphere itself.

This is the weekly Compline service, which takes place every Sunday at 9 p.m. and lasts only 20 minutes. Practiced in several denominations of Christianity, Compline is meant to be a sort of bedtime ritual marking the close of the holy day. At Christ Church’s service, there is no sermon, nor any form of speech at all — only the singing of hymns. Every week, the Compline is frequented by a small but consistent group of Yale undergraduates who find themselves drawn to it. Contrary to what one might expect, the students in attendance are largely atheistic. It appears there’s something about the Compline service that allows it to transcend the bounds of Christian liturgy.

“The Compline is often where I figure out the things that are bothering me and trace out the history of the foregoing week,” says Claire Saint-Amour, GH ’21, a regular attendee. The ritual creates a sense of meditative closure on a Sunday night, encouraging you to slow down and take a break from the frenzy of exams, rehearsals, and scheduled meals.

Saint-Amour, who grew up atheist, appreciates how the Compline service is open to those unfamiliar with Christianity. “I was very allergic to religion as a kid, just felt incredibly alienated by it. You turn up as an eight-year-old and you don’t know what to do with, like, the wafer and the grape juice, and you’re just like, oh shit, when do I talk and when does the priest talk?” Whereas traditional church services are governed by codified rituals, the Compline service is simple, requiring no audience participation. Saint-Amour likens it to an “osmotic membrane that you pass in and out of.”

Perhaps this feature is what gives the Compline service its transcendent quality. Saint-Amour explains, “I think it’s the anonymity… That’s what makes it possible to go there and feel like you’re having an experience that has something to do with the transcendent but not necessarily with a particular God.” I definitely understand what she is getting at. When I first arrived at the service, I instinctively scanned the faces around me, but the utter darkness kept me from recognizing anybody. This anonymity renders the Compline un-performative, divorced from the social dynamics that are nearly inescapable in other facets of life. To be anonymous is to escape yourself and become a part of something greater, whether that be God or an unnamed form of higher power.

Through this quality of transcendence, the Compline represents something that’s common among young atheistic people: the separation of the spiritual and the religious. The term “spiritual” is common currency, ascribed to any moving secular experience and often referring to bodily pleasure. Things that I’ve commonly heard described as “spiritual” include: a beautiful concert, a vigorous workout, a much-needed Sunday brunch after a long night out.

I discussed students’ connection to spirituality with Dr. Christiana Purdy Moudarres, GRD ’10, DIV ’12, the DUS of the Italian department, who organizes a semesterly trip to the Compline service for her class, “Dante in Translation.”

“I was a little wary of incorporating Compline because I wondered whether students would mistake it for some stealth form of proselytizing on my part. But I’ve found that when they do go, they don’t take it that way. They don’t see it necessarily as a religious ritual — they see it as spiritual. ‘Soothing’ is another word that’s often come up to describe it…” This quality of “soothingness” likens the Compline to the more everyday experiences of pleasure that could be described by young people as “spiritual.”

But perhaps that aspect of simple pleasure elevates, rather than trivializes, the ritual. “I think that’s part of the beauty of the compline service to this particular generation,” says Purdy Moudarres. “I don’t want to generalize, but many of my Dante students volunteer that they weren’t raised with any particular religious affiliation, and I can’t help wondering if that’s why they’re so open to the poem’s Christian matrix, which extends to Compline — they’re coming at it with fresh eyes…appreciating it as a beautiful sensory experience.”

A “beautiful sensory experience” — this is what Purdy Moudarres offers as an alternative to the quality of religiousness. The service’s combination of incense, darkness, and song creates an immersive experience for the body as a whole. Lily Weisberg, MC ’21, another undergraduate who attended the service with me, says that the Compline feels “more like going to an expensive spa than going to church.” The service’s unapologetic catering to the body makes Compline feel like the underground, slightly edgy after-party of the traditional Sunday morning liturgy.

“One of the things I like about Compline is that it calls into question this idea that Christianity is inherently dualistic, that it casts the body in a negative light,” says Purdy Moudarres. “That’s not what it’s about at all. My understanding of Christianity is just the opposite — it’s very much a glorification of the body.” When I think of Christianity’s disposition towards the body, I see El Greco’s gaunt, emaciated depictions of Christ, and the asceticism of monks. The Compline offers a different perspective: a celebration of, rather than a reprimand against, the power of the senses.

The Compline service offers something different for everybody, whether it be a soothing Sunday night ritual, a weekly auto-psychoanalysis session, or a chance to get in touch with some higher power. Either way, the service makes the case that the best way to access something greater than the body — something transcendent — is through the body itself.

Spiritual But (Not) Religious: Sunday Nights at Christ Church was originally published in The Yale Herald on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.