A fundamental element of our existence as active and responsible members within the communal life of the Church, the Holy and Divine Eucharist is ‘the Sacrament which crowns Baptism and Confirmation, not only as the fullness of power and of the new life—which began virtually through Baptism and possesses within it the virtual power developed through Confirmation—but also The Eucharist entails the power of complete death to an existence separated from God, begun through Baptism and developed through Chrismation’1
Both a beginning and a bond, a gathering and a thanksgiving, a remembrance and at the same time a foretaste of eternal blessings, a sacrifice, a means or a medicine of immortality, the Holy Eucharist constitutes the ‘life-giving’ reality of the Church which makes Christ the Saviour present within us until the end of time. It is the means by which God, in His unspeakable goodness, ‘nourishes, edifies and strengthens us for the end’. Thus, the ecclesial body becomes a living entity, ever unifying and open to the future. The nourishment and life-giving power of the Sacrament transfigure and renew the image of the ecclesial body, making it active and moving towards goodness’2
Through the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, Christ the Saviour enters the most hidden recesses of our being, uprooting all passion and all weakness from there. It therefore entails the real and personal presence of the Lord within the one who wishes to receive Him. It is, therefore, ‘the Sacrament in which, under the appearance of bread and wine, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ Himself are imparted to the faithful, for the forgiveness of sins and for eternal life’3). And who, indeed, can still doubt this, given that the Lord Himself, standing amongst His Disciples, said at the Last Supper: ‘This is My Body… this is My Blood’4? ‘For this reason we are fully convinced that we partake of the Body and Blood of Christ,’ says Saint Cyril of Jerusalem. ‘In the form of bread, the Body is given to you, and in the form of wine, the Blood is given to you, so that through partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ you may be united with Him in one body and one blood. In this way, we also become bearers of Christ, for His Body and Blood are imparted to our members. In the words of the blessed Peter, we become partakers of the divine nature”5.
This is why describing this Holy Sacrament with our few and humble words is a profound and complex task, weighed down by the reality of the Saviour Christ’s real presence with His Body and Blood, in our own body and blood. Whilst in the other Holy Sacraments of the Church His presence is mysterious and unseen, in the Holy Eucharist He is visibly present with us. The Lord permeates our sacrifice of thanksgiving (Greek: eucharistia – the great thanksgiving) and offers Himself as a response and a blessing, as medicine and at the same time as nourishment, until the end of time. This beautiful communion begins, of course, with an invitation to supper. The first call is made by the Lord to ‘the lost sheep of the house of Israel’6). Having once been strengthened by numerous signs and wonders, they did not heed the call, taking offence at the Lord’s words: ‘Unless you eat My Flesh and drink My Blood, you have no life within you’ (2 Peter 1:4). They stood apart, still waiting at the door. Since ‘they did not understand the spiritual meaning of what was said, they turned away from Him, thinking that He was urging them to eat His body’7).
In this Holy Mystery, the baptised are called to constant renewal, to the renunciation of old habits, and to the fulfilment of the new righteousness. From the moment of Eucharistic communion with Christ, the believer is set free from all bondage, being raised up and established in the dignity of a child of the Heavenly Father. In this way, ‘by dying to the world and living for God, we shall spread a pleasant fragrance and find access to the Father through the Son’, for ‘Christ is our eternal High Priest, Who communicates His sacrificial state to us, through the Sacraments and through the Eucharist in particular, so that He may present us too as spiritual sacrifices before the Father’8
Being the very Body and Blood of the Lord, the Holy Eucharist enters into the natural constitution of the baptised person and, transcending the barrier of death, brings with it the prospect of union with Christ, who was crucified and rose again. Its place within the plan of salvation is understood from the perspective of complementary integration, positioning it at the centre of the other Holy Sacraments. This mystical-centred position is explained chiefly by its inexhaustible and eternal nature. ‘Christ is our Anointing, our Baptism and our Food,’ says Saint Nicholas Cabasilas. He is ‘present also in those who take part in the celebration of the Holy Sacraments, bestowing upon them His gifts; yet in each of the Sacraments He is present in a different way. He cleanses the baptised from the defilement of sin and imprints His image upon them anew. In those who are chrismated, He makes the powers of the Holy Spirit active, for His Body has become a treasure through anointing. But when He leads the believer to the Holy Table and gives him to eat of His own Body, the Saviour completely transforms the inner being of the recipient, bestowing upon him His very own personality, and the clay that receives kingly dignity is no longer clay, but is transformed into the very Body of the King; nothing more blissful than this fate could be imagined. That is why Holy Communion is the greatest of the Sacraments, for beyond it one cannot go any further, nor can anything be added. As a rule, one stage is followed by another; this by a third, and so on until the very last. After Holy Communion there is nowhere left to go; that is why you must stop here and consider how you might preserve, until the very end, the treasure you have acquired’9
I. ‘The Mystery of the Assembly’ in Christ and in the Church
In the early Christian centuries, the understanding of the Eucharistic Mystery was closely linked to the liturgical term ‘Assembly’. From the words of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, ‘when you come together as a church…’ (1 Corinthians 11:18), we learn that the purpose of this gathering was defined by the believers’ ability to ‘reveal and realise the Church’. Father Alexander Schmemann speaks in this regard of the primordial link between ‘the Assembly, the Eucharist and the Church’. Although from the perspective of scholastic theology this connection was neglected and, ultimately, almost forgotten, the Eucharistic meaning of the Assembly in the Church represents an ancient and genuine reality in liturgical practice, which we must not overlook. To understand the phenomenon itself, one must bear in mind the disconnect between dogmatic argumentation and the liturgical aspect of the Sacrament, and the implicit removal or isolation of this practice from ‘collective piety’. Father Alexander Schmemann thus points out that ‘the fundamental flaw in scholastic theology is that, in its treatment of the sacraments, it does not start from the living experience of the Church, from the concrete liturgical tradition, as preserved in the Church, but from its own a priori and abstract categories and definitions, which are not always in harmony with the reality of church life. From the very beginning, the Church has firmly professed that the ‘law of faith’ (lex credendi) and the ‘law of prayer’ (lex orandi) are inseparable and that one serves as the foundation for the other, in the words of Saint Irenaeus of Lyon: ‘Our teaching is in harmony with the Eucharist, and the Eucharist confirms our teaching’ (Adversus Haereses). But theology modelled on the Western tradition takes no interest whatsoever in the manner in which the divine service is celebrated by the Church, in its logic or in its order. Starting from its own abstract premises, theology determines a priori what is primary and what is secondary, and the secondary – which is of no interest to theology – ultimately appears to be the Divine Liturgy itself in all its complexity and variety; that is to say, it is precisely the Divine Liturgy through which the Church actually lives that becomes secondary’10
In the act of creation, the Holy Trinity ‘resolved to make human beings partakers of the divine life through Christ the Saviour in the Holy Spirit. When humankind fell through Adam, God did not abandon them, but granted them, on many occasions and in various ways, the means of salvation. In the last days, the Father sent His Son into the world, ‘who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation’ (Colossians 1:15), to become our Redeemer from the bondage of the devil and of death”11.
In preparing baptised believers for eternity, the Church’s Eucharistic Mystery is likened to a ‘sacred, heavenly framework’ which constantly actualises ‘the model of the Saviour’. From this, we understand the Church’s full participation in, and its identification with, the salvific events accomplished by the Son of God in the world. Its origins, however, are traced back to the foundation of the ages. ‘The Church is a consequence of the Incarnation of the Son of God, but its foundation is eternal, having its beginning in God’s plan beyond time. This means that, whilst the birth of the Church coincides with the Conception and Birth of the Saviour and its subsequent renewal on Golgotha, and its baptism on the day of Pentecost, its roots, of course, extend through time, indeed into eternity. Undoubtedly, by virtue of this fact, the Church can be traced back to the creative act of the Holy Trinity throughout history until the end of the ages, remaining for ever the Mystical Body of the Lord12’.
On the other hand, Orthodox doctrinal teaching makes it clear that, by virtue of its Eucharistic essence, ‘the Church is simultaneously above history, yet also within history’. By virtue of this, we affirm both an interweaving of time and eternity in this life and, at the same time, its transposition through sanctification into that which lies beyond time. Time and history therefore have both a Christological and an eschatological significance. The link between temporality and timelessness, between historicity and eternity ‘is simplified and is based on the harmony between unity and diversity, or between unity and multiplicity. Consequently, the Church is the primordial and permanent reality of man’s communion with the Most Holy Trinity, as a divine-human organism’13 From this perspective, the Church is affirmed by the author as “an objective reality, being a divine-human existence”. “For this reason,” states His Eminence Father Irineu Popa, it enters, like the Word of God, into the categories of human thought and must not be confined to the subjective categories of its perception through personal experience, but must constantly ascend towards Him Who is its unseen Bridegroom’14”. It should be noted that the existential reality of the Church must not be assessed solely from its unseen aspect, as there is a risk of excluding objective reality, nor solely from its seen aspect, in order to avoid tendencies towards institutionalisation. For a correct understanding of ecclesial dynamics and our existential integration into it, His Eminence Dr Irineu explains the ontology of the Church and its functional-soteriological dimension in the Person of Christ the Saviour, the Church being indeed a ‘divine-human institution’. “The Church is, therefore, the heart of the universe, the centre where all those who believe in and confess Christ the Saviour as Lord and God are shaped and prepared for eternal life. Thus, all people in the world are called to enter into it, for it is only within it that the perfect existence of human beings in the image of the Most Holy Trinity is found’15’.
The essential character of the ‘assembly’ is based on the concept of unity manifested in love, in accordance with the divine commandment: ‘Love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another’ (John 13:34–35). Although the perfect love of which Christ the Saviour speaks is fully shared in the heavenly Kingdom 16, ‘it exists in the world and in history, and its purpose is to transform the world into the Church and to lead it towards the eschatological state. Therefore, because the Father founded the Church, the Son strengthened it and the Holy Spirit sanctified it, the Church cannot be overcome even by the gates of hell (cf. Matthew 16:18). It is precisely for this reason that the unity of the visible Church, in which God is present and manifest, is so important, and that its mission for all time is absolutely essential”17). On the basis of the testament of Christ’s love, the sacrifice we offer at the Holy Altar in a liturgical manner becomes, first and foremost, a revelation of ‘the truth we carry in the depths of our being’. It is also a matter of conscience and “the precise knowledge of a higher purpose to which I devote myself”, being “permanently illuminated by a truth, a meaning and a person or community in which I find a reason to live and to serve”. Last but not least, it can be understood by virtue of the spirit of ‘freedom and voluntary decision-making with a view to achieving a goal, as a choice’18).
II. The cosmological dimension of the Eucharistic Mystery
The Eucharistic Mystery of the Church also establishes a cosmological dimension. This aspect is masterfully highlighted by Saint Maximus the Confessor, who sees the Church of Christ the Saviour as ‘an icon of the entire cosmos, consisting of visible and invisible beings, possessing the same unity and distinction as the cosmos itself’19 The analogy implicitly refers to the unifying attribute of ecclesial life, which endows the place of worship with the capacity to mystically embody the entire cosmological assembly of both the sensible and the intelligible. In this regard, Saint Maximus sees the Holy Altar as a foreshadowing of intelligible realities, unburdened by matter. On the other hand, in contrast to the Altar, the nave of the church is the complete foreshadowing of the tangible and sensible realities found in the material world 20. Inseparable in essence, the Church, humankind and the cosmos work together, being ‘objectively united with God’, so that we may say: ‘creation is a Church of a different form, undeveloped and not yet fully actualised, with the Church within it as a leaven that can help it develop to the state of a realised Church, but in its own proper sense’21. Building on this idea, Father Professor Dumitru Stăniloae proceeds to carry out the ‘analogical transfer’ of the liturgical reality in which the ‘Mystery of the Assembly’ takes place. He thus shows that “in the church building of the liturgical community, God is in the highest place, which is the Holy Table in the sanctuary, in the Body and Blood of Christ; at the summit of cosmic creation, He is present as the One from Whom all things come, Who sustains all things; and within the human being, as the foundation and the infinite horizon, perceptible in connection with the heart’22”.
In the symphony of Church-human-cosmos, Christ the Saviour is the One who gathers and unites. He provides the centre around which ‘heaven, earth and the whole of creation’ gravitate, ‘forming a blessed, indestructible and holy unity’. The Holy Fathers thus show in unison how and in what way “the Eucharistic Church, both heavenly and earthly, in a blessed assembly offers the Sacrifice of thanksgiving and prayer to the One and Eternal Lord and Master of all’. In this ‘Mystery of the Assembly’, the Christian relives the entire history of salvation. He finds himself, in a mystical way, alongside the Mother of God, the saints and the angels, praising the Eucharistic Christ. Communion in the Sacrament is made complete by the remembrance of those who ‘have fallen asleep for the true faith, our fathers and brothers’, who ‘complete with us the Eucharistic assembly and our shared ministry’23 That is why St John Chrysostom also says that ‘the divine Eucharist is man’s communion with the Triune God, which takes the form of communion with the saints’24).
The one who offers a comprehensive perspective on the cosmological dimension of the Divine Liturgy is, of course, Saint Maximus the Confessor 25. In the Mystagogy, Saint Maximus offers four interpretations or liturgical stages relating to the order of the Synaxis or Assembly within the Divine Liturgy. At the first stage of Maximus’s mystagogical interpretation (chapters 8–22), the faithful are brought into contact with ‘the principal moments of salvation from the dual perspective of Christ’s acts and their effects’. The bishop’s entry into the church signifies Christ’s first coming into the world as Saviour, from the Incarnation to the Ascension; the congregation’s return signifies their return to faith and virtue’. Here too, Saint Maximus offers explanations regarding: the biblical readings, the hymns from the choir loft, the departure of the catechumens (equivalent to the Last Judgement), the hymn ‘Thrice Holy’, the ‘Our Father’ prayer, the hymn ‘One Holy’ and the final communion26. In the second stage (chapter 23), Saint Maximus shows, in particular, how the soul is transformed ‘through the rites of the Eucharistic Liturgy, by departing from the material realm and entering into the mystical knowledge of the reasons behind the Economy of salvation, by initiation into the theological understanding of the Trinity, and culminating in union with God through a passive mystical knowledge that has become a deifying experience’27. The third interpretation (chap. 24) comprises the exhortation to participate in the Synaxis, where the work of the Spirit is fulfilled, ‘which begins with the banishment of unbelief, ignorance and sinfulness’, right from the moment one enters the church. The role of the Holy Spirit is paramount in this order of service; He is the One who imparts ‘the grace of faith in tangible symbols’ and enables them to be received into the heavenly Kingdom ‘through the grace of beholding the very archetypes of their mysteries’28 The fourth interpretation (the end of chapter 24) is summarising in nature, referring to the meanings of the church building and the rites of the Synaxis. On each occasion, Saint Maximus expresses a general (genikos) meaning of these understandings, centred on the stages of objective salvation, but also a particular (idikos) meaning of subjective salvation, expressed in the personal process of each soul along the axis of its Eucharistic becoming. Saint Maximus the Confessor shows here that the Holy Church is, on the one hand, ‘a type and icon of God’, but also ‘a type of the cosmos, of the intelligible and the sensible, having as the symbol of the intelligible cosmos the ieration, and the naos as the symbol of the sensible cosmos’. These two elements (the sanctuary and the naos) are again symbolically interwoven in the connection between soul and body. From this, Saint Maximus aligns his mystagogy with the principal moments of the Holy and Divine Liturgy: the first procession with the Holy Gospel represents ‘in general, the first coming of our Lord, and in particular, the return of those whom He leads, from unbelief to faith and from sinfulness to virtue’; the biblical readings – “generally proclaim the divine will and counsel… and, in particular, the teaching and entry into the faith of those who have believed”; The Holy Gospel “is, in general, a symbol of the end of this world, and in particular signifies the complete abolition of the old error in which they believed”; ‘the descent of the bishop from the throne and the leading out of the catechumens signify the second coming from heaven of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ… and, in particular, inspire perfect certainty in the faith of sinners’; “the closing of the doors, the procession with the Holy Gifts, the divine kiss and the recitation of the Creed generally signify the passing away of the sensible and the manifestation of the spiritual… and in particular the transition of the contemplatives from natural contemplation to the simple understanding of the intelligible (who no longer seek the divine and ineffable reason through the senses or through anything visible) and the union of the soul’s faculties with the soul itself, as well as the simplicity that unifies the mind with the reason of Providence’; “the utterance of the words ‘One Holy’ and those that follow, and partaking of the Holy and life-giving Mysteries, point to the future adoption and union, bond, divine likeness and deification, in which we shall all share, after all else, by the goodness of God’29”.
The mystagogy of Saint Maximus the Confessor is strongly influenced by the symbolism of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, from whom it borrows a distinctly symbolic and mystical character. Saint Maximus, however, speaks of a metamorphosis of man into the Eucharistic Christ. From this, he shows that divine grace is imparted to the faithful in its entirety, ‘all the more so because the Incarnate Word is present in the Eucharist’. Nevertheless, as in the case of the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, ‘this grace bears fruit in the one who has received it only to the extent that he is worthy of it, that is to say, if he possesses a firm faith, if he has attained purity from sins and passions, if he lives steadfastly in accordance with the virtues, and has risen to contemplation and knowledge’30
III. The ‘Ship’ of Salvation on its Way to the Eshaton
Father Alexander Schmemann shows that, in accordance with its authentic meaning, the place of worship or the liturgical space of the Church defines ‘the place of the gathering of the faithful and of the breaking of the Eucharistic bread’ (domus ecclesiae). This is, in fact, the essential element of both the substance and the dynamism of the Christian place of worship. ‘However complex its development may be,’ says Father Al. Schmemann, ‘the unifying and guiding factor is precisely the idea of gathering in the Eucharist’31 This mystagogical reality is expressed through its form and composition. ‘Here we have the Throne (the Holy Table) and the altar on the one hand, and the ship of the Church—that is, the place of assembly—on the other. The ship is directed towards the Throne (the Holy Table); in it lies its purpose and fulfilment. Yet the Throne, too, is linked to the ship; it exists in relation to it. Yet in current liturgical practice, the altar is presented as a self-contained sanctuary, accessible only to the consecrated, as a wholly holy space which, through its sacralisation, seems to emphasise that the laity are on the outside, that they are profane’32 This assumption, however, contradicts the reality and the cosmological necessity of the Church. Orthodox mystagogy thus shows that the life and purpose of the Church are closely linked to the Kingdom of Heaven. This aspect is very important for understanding the unitary nature of the Eucharistic Mystery. Thus, in its form as a ship or vessel, ‘the Church as a place of worship represents the visible reality of the universal Church’. In this way, we say that ‘the Church Militant (of the living) is the ship which, with Jesus Christ at the helm, guides us through history towards the Kingdom to come, that is, towards the definitive, perfect and eternal one, the church-sanctuary takes the visible form of a ship or, to use another term, of a seagoing vessel sailing towards the East, that is, towards the eschaton, towards the ‘calm harbour’ of our becoming in Christ’33”.
The architecture of the holy place of worship in the Orthodox Tradition is most often defined as ‘an elongated rectangle oriented towards the East’. The vessel or ship referred to above ‘sails through the eschatological dimension and heads towards the East’. This orientation, in its symbolic-mystical interpretation, is rooted in a permanent liturgical dynamic, with every element of the whole embodying within itself a salvific reality personified in the Eucharist. Thus, following its tripartite division (pronaos, naos and altar), the church becomes a Eucharistic furnace, engulfed by the fire of the Divine Liturgy. On this point, Saint Nicholas Cabasilas states that within the holy sanctuary ‘the entire service is like an icon depicting a single body of the Saviour’s work in the world, causing all its parts to pass before our eyes, from beginning to end, in their natural order’34
The liturgical dynamic in which and through which man is drawn has, evidently, a Eucharistic centre. The heart that beats within the Church, embodied in the Divine Liturgy, is none other than the Holy Eucharist, ‘the Mystery of the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of the Lord’. On this basis, Orthodox doctrine affirms the holy nature of the assembly of the faithful in the Church, within the framework of the Eucharistic Service 35. Hence, throughout his existence, the Christ-like person continually partakes ‘of the Saviour Christ’s victory over death and attains immortality in the Kingdom of God’. The eschatological state of his spiritual existence is only fully confirmed after the Last Judgement. This finality is, however, confirmed after the Last Judgement, when ‘all those in their graves will hear His voice, and those who have done good will come forth to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation’ (cf. John 5:29). Taking the funeral service as an example, we see very clearly ‘mourning mingled with the joy of hope in the general resurrection’. Thus, the funeral service seeks to present to us, through its dialogical hymns and prayers, the history of salvation in various forms, as well as the vision of the Kingdom of Heaven as a ‘home’ and a place of rest”36).
On the other hand, within the Divine Liturgy, the salvific events of the Resurrection and the Ascension of the Lord into Heaven are symbolically and mystically re-enacted. The hymnographers have successfully argued this point, taking into account the fact that, during the forty days between His two Royal Feasts, the Saviour offered His Apostles ‘many convincing signs’ concerning the Kingdom of Heaven, which are clearly recorded in Holy Scripture. These testimonies ‘attest to the fact that Christ the Saviour is the One Who truly meets with His Holy Apostles, without them having provoked or brought about these encounters’37 Through these encounters, the Lord opens the gates to His endless Kingdom. He also receives the definitive affirmation from the Holy Apostles concerning ‘His divinity, His Resurrection from the dead, and the new life into which they are included through faith in Him and through the worship they are bound to offer Him’38.
In the present reality of the church, a place of worship, the most fitting reflection of the Kingdom is the Holy Altar. Always facing east, it awaits the coming of Christ in glory. On the other hand, on the opposite side, facing west, are the entrance and exit doors of the church. Here too, on the wall, is painted the scene of the Last Judgement, which ‘symbolises the unevangelised world and indeed hell, the place from which God is excluded—a certain aspect of the modern world’. The Russian theologian Paul Evdokimov captures this aspect very well, pointing out that, at ‘Matins on Easter night, in the stillness of the waning Saturday, the priest and the congregation leave the church. The procession stops outside, before the western door of the church, where the lights are extinguished. For a brief moment, this door symbolises the Lord’s tomb, death and hell. The priest makes the sign of the cross over it and, by this power, the door swings wide open and everyone enters the church, now flooded with light, singing ‘Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and bestowing life upon those in the tombs!’ The gate of hell has once again become the gate of the church. The congregation advances and sings joyfully before the royal gates, which remain open throughout the service. It opens onto the great hope that matures in prayerful silence, onto the ultimate and ineffable mystery of the divine philanthropist. The symbolism of Easter Matins seems to suggest that it is both hell and the Kingdom of God, for Christ descended into hell to shatter all the doors and leave but one: the door which itself leads to the Father’s expectation, which He Himself bestows upon it”39
Returning to the communal dimension of the Holy Eucharist, it must be understood that, in its capacity as the Mystery of the Assembly, it is inextricably linked to the liturgical reality within the church building. Father Dumitru Stăniloae explains in this regard that ‘the gathering of human beings within the church building itself is intended to assist, through the liturgy celebrated in this place, in the direct and explicit sense of the word, to the fulfilment of their own liturgy in the broadest sense, within the cosmic naos’40
- 1
Rev. Prof. Dumitru Stăniloae, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, 3rd edition, IBMBOR Publishing House, Bucharest, 2003, p. 84.
- 2
Nikos Matsoukas, Dogmatic and Symbolic Theology. An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith in Accordance with Western Christianity, translated by Nicușor Deciu, Bizantină Publishing House, Bucharest, 2006, pp. 360–361.
- 3
Rev. Prof. Dr Dumitru Popescu, Jesus Christ the Pantocrator, IBMBOR Publishing House, Bucharest, 2005, p. 324.
- 4
See 1 Corinthians 11:23–25: ‘For our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying: “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took the cup, gave thanks, and said, ‘Take this and drink it; this is my blood.’”
- 5
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Baptismal Catecheses, IV, 3, translated from the Greek and annotated by Rev. Prof. Dumitru Fecioru, IBMBOR Publishers, Bucharest, 2005.
- 6
The Lord sent out the twelve Apostles for the first time, following a clearly defined route. Christ urges them, saying: ‘Do not go amongst the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans, but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Matthew 10:5–6).
- 7
Saint Cyril, IV, 4.
- 8
Rev. Prof. Dumitru Popescu, Jesus Christ Pantocrator…, p. 332.
- 9
Saint Nicholas Cabasilas, On Life in Christ, translated from the Greek and annotated by Rev. Prof. Teodor Bodogae, IBMBOR Publishing House, Bucharest, 2009, pp. 113–114.
- 10
Alexander Schmemann, The Eucharist: The Mystery of the Kingdom, translated from the Russian by Fr Boris Rădulescu, Bonifaciu Publishers, Bucharest, pp. 21–22.
- 11
†Dr Irineu, The Church Today, or the Relevance of the Church, Romanian Academy Press, Bucharest, 2018, p. 92.
- 12
His Eminence Prof. Dr Irineu Ion Popa, Waiting for the One Who Is and the One Who Is to Come, the Almighty, Mitropolia Olteniei Publishing House, Craiova, 2017, pp. 104–106.
- 13
His Eminence Prof. Dr Irineu Ion Popa, Waiting for the One Who Is and the One Who Is to Come, the Almighty, p. 110.
- 14
His Eminence Prof. Irineu Ion Popa, Ph.D., Waiting for the One Who Is and the One Who Is to Come, the Almighty, pp. 112–113.
- 15
His Eminence Prof. Dr Irineu Ion Popa, Awaiting Him Who Is and Him Who Is to Come, the Almighty, p. 114.
- 16
“O great and most holy Pascha, O Wisdom, Word and Power of God, grant that we may truly share in You on the day without night of Your Kingdom!” (The Canon of the Resurrection).
- 17
His Eminence Father Irineu Popa refutes here the theory of the German theologian Rudolf Bultmann, who maintained that ‘the unity of the Church is invisible’. The fact that ‘the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily’ in the Person of Christ the Saviour leads Orthodox theology to affirm a continuous dynamic of ecclesial unity. It is in this that man shares, by virtue of his deification, through ‘co-operation with the divine gifts that come to us from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit’ (Awaiting Him Who Is and Who Is to Come, the Almighty, pp. 166, 171).
- 18
Fr. Constantin Galeriu, Sacrifice and Redemption, Harisma Publishers, p. 19.
- 19
Saint Maximus the Confessor, Mystagogy: The Cosmos and the Soul, Images of the Church, translated by Rev. Prof. Dumitru Stăniloae, IBMBOR Publishers, Bucharest, 2000, Chapter II, p. 16.
- 20
‘In the same way, the totality of things brought into being by God through creation is divided into the intelligible cosmos, composed of spiritual and incorporeal beings, and this sensible and corporeal cosmos, magnificently woven into many forms and natures. In this way, it is like a kind of other church of God, not made by human hands, revealed with wisdom by this one, which is made by human hands. This whole has as its ie-ration (altar) the upper cosmos, intended for the powers on high, whilst the lower cosmos serves as the nave, within reach of those destined to live a life bound to the senses” (Saint Maximus the Confessor, Mystagogy, Chapter II, p. 16).
- 21
Rev. Prof. Dumitru Stăniloae, Spirituality and Communion in the Orthodox Liturgy, IBMBOR Publishing House, Bucharest, 2004, p. 23.
- 22
Rev. Prof. Dumitru Stăniloae, Spirituality and Communion in the Orthodox Liturgy, p. 25.
- 23
Archimandrite Hristofor Stavropulos, The Divine Eucharist – The Mystery of Mysteries, translated from the Greek by Rev. Dr Constantin Băjău, Apostoliki Diakonia Publishers, Athens, pp. 39–40.
- 24
St John Chrysostom, PG 50, 436.
- 25
Deacon Ioan I. Ică Jr, From Dionysius the Areopagite to Simeon of Thessalonica – The Complete Liturgical Commentaries, Studies and Texts, Deisis Publishing, Sibiu, 2011, pp. 197–198.
- 26
“The confession made by the whole congregation at the end of the sacred Liturgy, when they say: ‘One, Holy’ and what follows, reveals the assembly and union—beyond reason and understanding—of those mystically and wisely initiated into the hidden unity of divine simplicity, in the imperishable age of the intelligible, when, gazing upon the light of the unseen and ineffable glory, they too will be able to receive, together with the powers on high, the blessed purity. After this, at the end of all things, the communion of the mystery takes place, which transforms those who partake worthily into its image and likeness, by grace and participation, to the Good by essence, lacking nothing of Him, insofar as is permitted and possible for human beings, so that they too may be and may be called, through the working of the will and by grace, ‘gods’ (thesei), since the whole God fills them completely and leaves nothing in them void of His presence” (Saint Maximus the Confessor, Mystagogy, Chapter XXI, p. 35).
- 27
Upon entering into the Eucharistic Mystery, ‘the soul becomes the image and likeness of the hidden world, a pure, all-transparent mirror, unblemished, spotless, blameless, which captures, so to speak, the entire beauty of the archetype of the good, which shines within it in a divine and unchanging manner, just as it is, with the ineffable goodness of the unfathomable’ (Saint Maximus the Confessor, Mystagogy, Chapter XXIII, p. 39).
- 28
‘For the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which we believe we partake of in this life by grace through faith, we believe we shall truly receive in the age to come in their hypostasis, in accordance with the unshakeable hope of our faith and the sole and unfailing promise of the One who promised them, if we keep the commandments with all our strength. Thus, we shall pass from grace through faith to grace through vision, as our God and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself is transfigured within us, removing our corruptible attributes and bestowing upon us the archetypal mysteries, indicated by the sensible symbols here” (St Maximus the Confessor, Mystagogy, Chapter XXIV, p. 40).
- 29
‘Who, then, would be so slow and reluctant to embrace virtue as not to desire deification, since attaining it is so easy and acquiring it so straightforward? And the sure and inviolable guardian of these, and the easy path to salvation – without which, I believe, no one who possesses any good can preserve it intact – is self-care, through which, by learning to look upon and reflect only on those things that concern us, we avoid the harm that cannot come from others” (Saint Maximus the Confessor, Mystagogy, Chapter XXIV, pp. 41–43, 46).
- 30
Jean-Claude Larchet, Saint Maximus the Confessor: An Introduction, translated from the French by Marinela Bojin, Doxologia Publishing House, Iași, 2013, p. 228.
- 31
Alexander Schmemann, The Eucharist – The Mystery of the Kingdom, p. 28.
- 32
Alexander Schmemann, The Eucharist – The Mystery of the Kingdom, p. 29.
- 33
Valeriu Anania, The Open Book of the Kingdom. A Liturgical Guide for Priests and Laypeople. From Bethlehem of the Nativity to Jerusalem of the Resurrection, Pastoral Letters, with introductory studies by Jean Nicolae and Vasile Gordon, and a chronology by Ștefan Iloae, Polirom Publishing House, Bucharest, 2011, p. 55.
- 34
Nicolae Cabasilas, The Explanation of the Divine Liturgy, translated from the Greek by Rev. Prof. Dr Ene Braniște, IBMBOR Publishers, Bucharest, 1997, p. 9.
- 35
“In particular, this gathering reaches its climax in the receiving of the Body of the Son of God, who was crucified and rose again, and in His Blood, shed for us out of boundless love, so that we too may be filled with a similar love, with which we may respond to Him and welcome one another” (Rev. Prof. Dumitru Stăniloae, Spirituality and Communion ..., p. 46).
- 36
His Eminence Prof. Dr Irineu Ion Popa, Waiting for the One Who Is and the One Who Is to Come, the Almighty, published by the Metropolitanate of Oltenia, Craiova, 2017, Chapter III, A.3, pp. 983–984.
- 37
His Eminence Prof. Dr Irineu Ion Popa, Waiting for the One Who Is and the One Who Is to Come: The Almighty, Chapter V, p. 1559.
- 38
His Eminence Prof. Dr Irineu Ion Popa, Waiting for the One Who Is and the One Who Is to Come: The Almighty, Chapter V, A.5, p. 1562.
- 39
Paul Evdokimov, The Burning Bush, translated by Deacon Prof. Teodor V. Damșa, Mitropolia Banatului Publishing House, Timișoara, 1994, pp. 83–84.
- 40
Rev. Prof. Dumitru Stăniloae, Spirituality and Communion in the Orthodox Liturgy, p. 34.