Metropolitan John Zioulas
Icon by the hand of Fr. Stamatis Skliris
The most eloquent proof of the eschatological character of the Eucharist and its identification with the foretaste of the Kingdom of God is the fact that from the beginning it has been associated with Sunday, as the most appropriate day for its celebration. We referred above to the Quartodecimans in Asia Minor in the second century who celebrated Easter on the fourteenth of the month of Nisan. This, of course, involved celebration of the Eucharist on a day other than Sunday, at least on Easter day. As is well known, this custom gave rise to the paschal controversy which threatened to divide the early Church because, apart from anything else, it created variations in the time of fasting in places such as Rome where Easter was celebrated on Sunday by the local Church, and not according to the practice of the Quartodecimans, who came from Asia Minor and were living in Rome in the second century. But it was not long before this custom gave way, and the celebration of Easter and performance of the Eucharist on Sunday became general. Evidence for connection of the Eucharist with Sunday could start with the Acts of the Apostles (20:7) and the First Epistle to the Corinthians (16:2) and proceed to Revelation (1:10), the Didache (14:1) and Justin (First Apology 67) who is clear on this question.
But why Sunday? What led the Church to this practice? What is the deeper theological meaning of this practice?
Sunday is the day of the Resurrection of Christ. The Christians regarded it thus from the beginning,[1] on the basis of the biblical evidence that the Resurrection took place “on the first day of the week” (Mark 16:2; cf. Matt. 28:1 and Luke 24:1). But the meaning that they gave to the Resurrection of Christ from the beginning was very profound, and was necessarily carried over both to Sunday and to the Eucharist which was celebrated on that day. It is worth noting some of the fundamental aspects of this meaning in order to understand better the relationship between Eucharist and Kingdom.
As the day of the Resurrection, Sunday is the eighth day. The reason is that the “new creation” begins on this day, when “our Christ appeared risen from the dead, it being forever, however, the first in terms of its significance. For Christ, being the firstborn of all creation, again became the chief of another race, that which is regenerated by Him. . . .”[2] St. Basil the Great throws light on the eschatological character of the “eighth day” in his work On the Holy Spirit (27:66), when he writes the following highly significant words, which we must not forget when we speak about the Divine Eucharist:
“Thus we all look to the east at our prayers, but few of us know that we are seeking our own old country, Paradise, which God planted in Eden in the east. We pray standing on the first day of the week, but we do not all know the reason. On the day of the Resurrection we remind ourselves of the grace given to us by standing at prayer, not only because we are risen with Christ and are bound to seek those things which are above, but because that day seems to us in some sense an image of the age which we expect. Therefore, though it is the beginning of days, it is not called by Moses “first” but “one” . . . as though the same day often recurred. Now “one” and “eighth” are the same, in itself distinctly indicating that day which is really “one” and truly “eighth” . . . the state which follows after this present time, the day which knows no end or evening, and no successor, that age which does not end or grow old. Of necessity, then, the Church teaches her own foster-children to offer their prayers on that day standing, in order that through the constant reminder of the endless life we may not neglect to make provision for our removal thither. Moreover, all of Pentecost is a reminder of the resurrection expected in the age to come. For that one and first day, if seven times multiplied by seven, completes the seven weeks of the holy Pentecost. And so it is a likeness of eternity. . . . On this day the rules of the Church have educated us to prefer the upright attitude of prayer, for by their plain reminder they, as it were, make our mind to dwell no longer in the present but in the future.”
We have quoted this lengthy passage in its entirety because it gives us quite clearly the eschatological meaning of Sunday and of the Eucharist which is celebrated on that day. We note in particular that for St. Basil, the avoidance of kneeling on Sunday[3] is necessitated not only by the fact that it is the day of the Resurrection, but also by the expectation of the age to come, so that our minds are made to dwell “no longer in the present but in the future.” This strong impetus toward what is to come, not simply toward what is above, brings the dimension of time into eschatology, and recalls what we have said above in commenting on the relevant passages of St. Maximus: the eschatology of the Divine Liturgy, like that of Sunday, is not a Platonic type of representation of a heavenly state, but a movement and progression toward the future. Maximus and Basil concur on this point.
It is noteworthy, again, that St. Basil refers to praying toward the east. For the east was not only the place of the original paradise, but also the direction from which the Lord is expected to appear at His Second Coming. As St. John of Damascus says, summarizing the reasons for praying toward the east:[4] there are many reasons, and they include the future coming of the Son of Man from the east according to the Gospel passage (Matt. 24:27): as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the “west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” So after quoting this passage, Damascene concludes, “Waiting for Him with longing, we worship toward the east”: in other words, because we are awaiting Christ’s final coming in glory, we pray facing east.
This resurrectional and eschatological character of the Eucharist has another consequence, too: during the Eucharist, the Church is bathed in light and adorned with all available splendor. A Eucharist in dimly-lit churches, ostensibly for the sake of devout concentration, is antithetical to its very nature. Unfortunately, the pietism which has crept into our consciousness and our worship has misled us into the mistaken idea that richness in vestments and in the decoration of churches is a bad thing. Just one simple observation shows how alien to the Orthodox tradition this idea is: the richest and most splendid vestments in our Church are to be found in our monasteries, and particularly on the Holy Mountain, the most important and authoritative monastic center for Orthodoxy. Why, then, does the genuine Orthodox monk, who according to the Sayings of the Fathers should wear such a shoddy and threadbare riason that he could hang it outside his cell door in the certainty that no one would be tempted to steal it—why during the Liturgy does this same man, as celebrant, put on the most splendid vestments, yet without being scandalized or scandalizing anyone else? Quite simply, because the eschatological character of the Eucharist remains vivid in his consciousness: in the Eucharist, we move within the space of the age to come, of the Kingdom. There we experience “the day which knows no end or evening, and no successor, that age which does not end or grow old,” in the words of St. Basil. We have every possibility for practicing our humility outside the Liturgy. We do not have the right to turn the Eucharist into an opportunity to show off our humility, or a means to psychological experiences of compunction. Besides, “He who offers and He who is offered,” the real celebrant, is Christ, and indeed the risen Christ as He will come in His glory on the last day, and those who celebrate the Liturgy are nothing more than icons of this eschatological Christ. And of course “the honor paid to the icon passes to the prototype.”
Thus, once again, much depends on whether in the Eucharist we simply refer back to the past, or whether we look to the last times, to the future.
How resolutely the Church refused to link the Eucharist with sorrow and compunction is shown by the fact that even on the days when the martyrs are commemorated, when she recalls their martyrdom, she celebrates the Divine Eucharist with the same splendor as on Sundays. It is known that from the first centuries it became the practice to celebrate the Eucharist on the feastdays of the martyrs,[5] and subsequently of all the saints. What is often overlooked is the fact that from the beginning the martyrdom of the saints was seen not just as a repetition of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, but as a revelation of the glory of His Kingdom. Already the description of the martyrdom of Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles (7:55ff.) makes clear the eschatological character that the Church recognizes in it: “he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God; and he said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” (The reference to the “Son of Man,” who is considered an eschatological figure in Scripture, is characteristic.) The same goes for the “Acts”—the martyrologies—of all the martyrs of the early Church.[6] The celebration of the Eucharist on saints’ days cannot be separated from the eschatological character of the Eucharist, which for that reason is always celebrated with particular splendor and involves the lifting of the fast.
[1] See, for example: Ignatius, Magnesians 9; Epistle of Barnabas 15:811.; Justin, First Apology 67, Dialogue 41 and 138; Tertullian, On Prayer 23; Eusebius, Church History 111.27:5; Apostolic Constitutions 11.59, V.20, 19, etc.
[2] Justin, Dialogue 138.
[3] The prohibition of kneeling on Sunday goes back to ancient times, as Irenaeus testifies in his lost work On the Pascha. See fragment 6 in the series Library of the Greek Fathers, published by the Apostoliki Diakonia, Volume 5, page 174.
[4] Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 13 (PG 94:1136).
[5] A. Fytrakis, Relics and Tombs of the Martyrs in the First Three Centuries (in Greek) (Athens, 1955), pp. 77ff.
[6] A moving passage, and one that reveals the eschatological character both of martyrdom and of the Eucharist, is the following extract from the martyrdom of Saint Agathonike, published by Harnack, “Die Akten des Karpus, des Papylus und der Agathonike,” in Texte und Untersuchungen, III, 3/4 (Leipzig, 1888), pp. 451f.: “A certain Agathonike was standing beside them (during the martyrdom of Papylus and Carpus); and seeing the glory of the Lord which Carpus said that he saw, and contemplating the heavenly invitation, at once she lifted up her voice: ‘For me too is this supper (τὸ ‘ἄριστον’, or ‘dinner’) prepared. And I too must eat my share of this glorious meal’.” The association between martyrdom and the Eucharist is clear, as is the eschatological character of both.
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