The Church Teaches us to be Watchful and not SpeculativeBehold, the Bridegroom comes in the middle of the night, and blessed is that servant whom he finds watching; but unworthy is the one whom he finds slothful. Take care then, my soul, not to be overcome with sleep, lest you be given up to death, and be shut out of the kingdom; but rouse yourself and cry: Holy, holy, holy are you, O God; through the Mother of God, have mercy on us.
The Book of Revelation is an Ecclesial Book
“Apocalyptic theology developed originally in the proto-Christian tradition of the Syrian-Palestinian location. In this tradition the truth does not appear as a product of the spirit but as a "visit" and "scene" (see John 1:14) of the eschatological and meta-historical reality, which infiltrates into history in order to open it to the fact of communion. This creates a vision of the truth, not in the sense of the platonic or mystical viewing, in which the soul or the mind of man link to the divine, but in the sense of reproducing new relations, a new world, the destination of which is taken up through a community.”
-Metropolitan John of Pergamon
The Book of Revelation is Profoundly Liturgical because the...
The Eucharist, heart and center of Christian Liturgy, is always understood in its authentic perception as a proleptic manifestation of the Kingdom of God, as symbol and image of an alternative reality, which was conceived before all creation by God the Father in his mystical plan (the mysterion in the biblical sense), was inaugurated by our Lord, and is permanently sustained by the Holy Spirit. -Petros Vassiliades
The Book of the Apocalypse is a liturgical book. By ‘liturgical’ we mean that it takes a view of the world with specific characteristics. It is a movement, a dynamic reality. It is not a static reproduction of a fixed prototype as it was conceived by Platonism. It is neither recycled nor reproduced eternally. Like the Byzantine Eucharistic liturgy, it is a movement towards an end, a final purpose. Its natural resources are thus neither endless nor purposeless; they are ‘sacred’ in that they have a sacred purpose for which they exist. Each of its elements, no matter how small, is sanctified through the sacred purpose which lies within it. It is a relational reality. No part of the world can be conceived in itself apart from its relation with the other parts. The world is thus like a picture, and this is how St John sees it in the Apocalypse, particularly in chapters 4-5. If you remove or destroy one bit of it, you destroy the whole picture. It needs a priest, someone who will freely unify it and refer it back to its Creator. Man is the ‘priest of creation’, the one who is called to treat the world not only with respect but also with creativity so that its parts may form a whole and this whole may transcend its boundaries by being brought into relation with God. This makes the human being indispensable for creation. The axiom promoted by most ecologists that Man needs nature, but nature does not need Man does not have a place in a liturgical view of the world. On the contrary if we take seriously what natural science now calls ‘the anthropic principle’ we must give to the human being an indispensable role in creation. It is a role not only in the world’s preservation but also its cultivation so that its ultimate meaning and purpose may be revealed (apokalypsis) through the human being.
-Metropolitan John of Pergamon
Apocalypse & Anaphora
At creation the world awaits its prince in the person of man and is subject to him; and likewise in the process of return to the Creator, the world progresses through man and with man. Once man finds his own destiny, which is to glorify God, he guides the entire creation to its destiny, which is equally to glorify God. Once man sanctifies the temple of his being, he sanctifies the temple of the whole world… Creation which because of the fall of man “groans and travails” with him, eagerly awaits the revealing of the sons of God…it is waiting to return, together with the sons of the kingdom, into the hands of the Creator…The human presence within the world transforms the world into a realm of Liturgy…With man and through man the world too attains to the Altar above the heavens. On the dread Altar, the world-the bread and wine-receives the blessing of the life-creating Spirit and becomes Eucharist. Man communes in the “eucharistic food,” in Christ, and becomes himself a constant Eucharist, a thanksgiving. In the Festival of the true Light, all things are transformed into Eucharist. There man and the world attain their intended goal, and prepare for the ultimate End. Hiermonk Gregorios
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