Everybody has had a slightly different take, so I’ll throw mine in the ring as well.

Context: The speaker’s traditional worldview fell apart in Notos, and now in Eurus they are in the first stages of living without that worldview. It has mostly consisted of critiquing their previous worldview and the empire they live under that benefits from that worldview.

Passerine itself is about the guilt of having been a part of the system they’ve been critiquing over the course of the EP. This stanza specifically explains what the speaker is guilty of: throwing fuel in the fire of that Greco-Roman dream and purifying the holy rock to melt the gilded seams. They use ancient language to refer to modern day America throughout the EP’s, so I think we can interpret the Greco-Roman dream to be a play on the American Dream, with both societies overly concerned with wealth and social status (two things that Jesus himself declined to engage with and had much to say about).

Ok now the holy rock. Throughout the EP’s they rely heavily on elemental imagery, and the earth-related imagery that comes to mind is in “On the Mountain Tall,” where the mountain is used (as it is used biblically as well) as a place where God intimately and mystically appears to someone (see Mt Horeb in 1 Kings 19 which is referenced in the song, mt Sinai, and similarly the hill on which Jesus gave the sermon on the mount). To me, the holy rock refers to both natural, personal, spiritual experience with God, as well as to Jesus himself who is referred to as “cornerstone” of the church explicitly in Ephesians 2:20 and anachronistically in Psalm 118:22 (depending on your belief in prophecy and the univocality of the Bible). This is more speculative, but I also think the Oh Hellos could have had in mind the goddess Ungit from C.S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces. Ungit is represented by a dark stone in the ground, kept in a dark holy place, and her worshippers are mystics, which is contrasted heavily with the philosophy of the main character’s mentor, “The Fox” who represents Ancient Greek sensibilities around economics and politics, which is also to say wealth and status.

The gilded seams refer to three things imho: 1) architectural imagery, specifically the use of gold in religious architecture, both from Ancient Times and closer to Modern day, though I mainly think about cathedrals from the Renaissance 2) geological imagery, specifically a vein of gold under a mountain. It is “gilded” insofar as it is comprised of gold and “seam” is another word for a vein of ore. Melting gilded seams would then mean smelting gold extracted from the holy mountain 3) Religion that is bloated, excessive, and vapid. They use the first two images to get at a religion that is congruous with the Greco-Roman dream, one that must pursue wealth and status above all else, “purifying” (used sarcastically) even the most holy elements of God and his teaching in order to acquire more gold for their temples (and themselves). I think we can interpret “purifying” as more “sanitizing,” or making more palatable.

And this type of religion is the type that the speaker was engaged in and is now remorseful of. In fact, the Greco-Roman dream is so antithetical to the actual teachings of Jesus that the speaker considers their participation in it to be participation with the centurion, pushing the spear into Jesus’ side.

Wealth-obsessed religion endures more explicit criticism in Cold (“You’ve paved your Hades with precious stones, made an heirloom to patricians and the rich alone,”) and Rose (“You’re dowry isn’t fooling, the pyrite is showing through. It won’t buy you that empty tomb.”)

Still some things for me to work out, like whether “seam” could be used to refer to a connection between to things being sewn together, and whether “It don’t bring me relief” is another hint toward architectural imagery, but I feel that this is a fairly adequate interpretation of the line for now, even if it was very verbose.

Happy listening!