Exploring the Synaxis (Part 2)

-Saint Nektarios

The Liturgy as Anaphora

          The early Liturgy was also characterized by offering.  This offering of course was manifest in the Bread and Wine.  These elements were used because of the command of the Lord to, “do this in remembrance of Me.”  However, they were also used because bread and wine are unique to us as persons; they are an expression of culture.  They are also used for nourishment and are therefore an expression of life.  This means that we are not merely offering “food” but are offering our very lives.  They are an expression of man’s work; it is the fruit of labor, but a labor that is not in isolation, a labor that is a synergy-cooperation with God and with each other.  We may till the ground and plant the seed, but it is God who sends the rain and sun.  And finally it is an offering of all we have, a referral and orientation of all of creation to Him who alone can give it life and meaning.

In the preparations for the Divine Liturgy, that is in the cultivation of the earth which will provide the wheat and the grapes, and which in turn will become bread and wine through human labor and skill; in the elevation of poetry to hymns of praise, of painting to holy icons, of fragrance to liturgical incense, in the coming together and the being at peace which precede the offering of the Holy Gifts; in asceticism and prayer, that is, in all the labor of hands, mind and spirit, the faithful preserve the true orientation which God entrusted to them. (Nellas 125) 

We can find nothing of our own to give Him… that is why we take everything that is His own and offer it with gratitude… this total liturgical offering given in return to the Lord who is eternally slaughtered-an act of thanksgiving and freedom- forms the center of the mystery… This offering strips us of everything: we are lost (Matt. 16:25).  We cease to exist. We die.  At the same time, this is the moment we are born into life…” (Vasileios 59)

I would like to end this section with a few concluding remarks on the giving a receiving of gifts.  Within the Hymnography of the Church we come across the idea that Man’s gift to God was the person of the Virgin Mary who was herself a gift to Joachim and Anna.  Here we can perhaps imagine Joachim bringing his 3 year old child to the temple and using the word’s of Chrysostom’s Liturgy, “Thine own of thine own we offer to Thee.”  Another interesting parallel is encountered at the Annunciation where the Father sends the Holy Spirit upon the gift-Panagia and she is made Theotokos.  In the Liturgy the Priest prays to the Father to send down the Holy Spirit upon the gifts changing them into the body and blood of His Son.  The Body and Blood were themselves the gift that Christ was given by Man through the Theotokos.  In a certain manner therefore Christ in offering us His body and blood is saying, “thine own of thine own I offer unto you.”  We must remember that the gift we have freely given Him was itself a gift given to us.  Here we see that the very Gospel is itself a Liturgy of Anaphora and Eucharistia.

Exploring the Synaxis (part 1)

-Saint Nicholas Planas, Liturgical gratitude incarnate

The Liturgy as Eucharist

“Holding the gifts of his gratitude man ascends through the Divine Liturgy to the heights of God …the bread and the wine receives the blessing of the life-creating Spirit and becomes Eucharist.  Man communes in the Eucharistic food, in Christ, and himself becomes a constant Eucharist, thanksgiving.” -Hiermonk Gregorios

            Before the word “liturgy” was employed by the early Christians for the celebration of the mystery of Christ the word Εuχαριστiα: Eucharist (thanksgiving) was used.  This “Thanksgiving” was an attitude which defined early Christian worship.  It was a thanksgiving for every part of creation from the beauty of the stars to the bounty of the sea.  First and foremost it was an act of gratitude for the revelation and presence of Christ.  It is important to realize that this gratitude was not merely or even necessarily for Christ’s presence in the historical economia (Birth, ministry, last supper, death, and resurrection) but for His presence at and in the Eucharist itself by the Holy Spirit and as the unique revelation of the Father.  Put more simply it is primarily a thanksgiving for God Himself.  Metropolitan John Zizioulas says this when he writes;

The Eucharist is… an act of thanksgiving to God the Father ‘for your holy name’, which is a way of referring to God’s very identity, His personal existence revealed and made known to us through Jesus.  The most important gift to us, therefore, is the fact of God’s existence, his ‘name’…  He continues by saying, The essence of the Eucharistic Ethos, therefore, is the affirmation of the Other and of every Other as a gift to be appreciated and evoke gratitude.

Panayiotis Nellas takes this concept which is perhaps of a somewhat philosophical nature and expresses it in a simple yet infinitely profound manner when he writes that the,

…Eucharistic character [ethos] makes the faithful except life, their fellow human beings, the fruits of their labors, nature itself, as gifts that they then give to each other and that all offer up to God within the selflessness and joy of receiving and giving gifts.

This is seen in the earliest recorded prayer of ‘thanksgiving’ after the reception of the Eucharist in a text that is known as the Didache of the Twelve Apostles, a text that I would argue predates much of the New Testament canon.

We thank Thee, holy Father, for Thy holy name which You didst cause to tabernacle in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality, which You modest known to us through Jesus Thy Servant; to Thee be the glory forever. Thou, Master almighty, didst create all things for Thy name's sake; You gavest food and drink to men for enjoyment, that they might give thanks to Thee; but to us You didst freely give spiritual food and drink and life eternal through Thy Servant. Before all things we thank Thee that You are mighty; to Thee be the glory forever.

We also see in the teaching of the 18^th century Saint, Kosmas Aitolos that the primary gift of God is that He makes Himself know to us. 

“Our Lord and God Jesus Christ, the sweetest master, the creator of angels, my brethren, moved by the compassion and great love which he has for our race, has granted us and continues to grant us each day his immeasurable gifts. Behold how he's made us worthy this evening to glorify and honor him and our Lady the Theotokos.”

Even the definitive virtue of the saint and that which is seen as a primary characteristic of Orthodox piety as described by Elder Paisios is permeated with this notion of gratitude, but a gratitude that leads to an active offering which will be discussed in the following section.

"the reverent distillation of goodness; the radiant love of the humble man bereft of himself, but with a heart full of gratitude to God and his fellow man; because of his spiritual sensitivity he tries to repay even the slightest good that others do to him."

Abba Paphnoutios: Freedom & Grace

Chapter XI.

A question on the free will of man and the grace of God.

Germanus: Where then is there room for free will, and how is it ascribed to our efforts that we are worthy of praise, if God both begins and ends everything in us which concerns our salvation?

Chapter XII.

The answer on the economy of Divine Grace, with free will still remaining in us.

Paphnutius: This would fairly influence us, if in every work and practice, the beginning and the end were everything, and there were no middle in between. And so as we know that God creates opportunities of salvation in various ways, it is in our power to make use of the opportunities granted to us by heaven more or less earnestly. For just as the offer came from God Who called him "get thee out of thy country," so the obedience was on the part of Abraham who went forth; and as the fact that the saying "Come into the land" was carried into action, was the work of him who obeyed, so the addition of the words "which I will show thee" came from the grace of God Who commanded or promised it. But it is well for us to be sure that although we practise every virtue with unceasing efforts, yet with all our exertions and zeal we can never arrive at perfection, nor is mere human diligence and toil of itself sufficient to deserve to reach the splendid reward of bliss, unless we have secured it by means of the co-operation of the Lord, and His directing our heart to what is right. And so we ought every moment to pray and say with David "Order my steps in thy paths that my footsteps slip not:"⁴⁸ and "He hath set my feet upon a rock and ordered my goings:"⁴⁹ that He Who is the unseen ruler of the human heart may vouchsafe to turn to the desire of virtue that will of ours, which is more readily inclined to vice either through want of knowledge of what is good, or through the delights of passion. And we read this in a verse in which the prophet sings very plainly: "Being pushed I was overturned that I might fall," where the weakness of our free will is shown. And "the Lord sustained me:"⁵⁰ again this shows that the Lord's help is always joined to it, and by this, that we may not be altogether destroyed by our free will, when He sees that we have stumbled, He sustains and supports us, as it were by stretching out His hand. And again: "If I said my foot was moved;" viz., from the slippery character of the will, "Thy mercy, O Lord, helped me."⁵¹ Once more he joins on the help of God to his own weakness, as he confesses that it was not owing to his own efforts but to the mercy of God, that the foot of his faith was not moved. And again: "According to the multitude of the sorrows which I had in my heart," which sprang most certainly from my free will, "Thy comforts have refreshed my soul,"⁵² i.e., by coming through Thy inspiration into my heart, and laying open the view of future blessings which Thou hast prepared for them who labour in Thy name, they not only removed all anxiety from my heart, but actually conferred upon it the greatest delight. And again: "Had it not been that the Lord helped me, my soul had almost dwelt in hell."⁵³ He certainly shows that through the depravity of this free will he would have dwelt in hell, had he not been saved by the assistance and protection of the Lord. For "By the Lord," and not by free-will, "are a man's steps directed," and "although the righteous fair" at least by free will, "he shall not be east away." And why? because "the Lord upholdeth him with His hand:"⁵⁴ and this is to say with the utmost clearness: None of the righteous are sufficient of themselves to acquire righteousness, unless every moment when they stumble and fall the Divine mercy supports them with His hands, that they may not utterly collapse and perish, when they have been cast down through the weakness of free will.

Blessed Geronda Paisios

 In his presence one feels boundless peace and security. Near him everything is filled with light. Uncertainties vanish; one begins to love Christ, and to love life. One no longer fears death.

He literally overflows. That is an expression which gives some idea of the truth about him. He has a treasure of inexpressible joy hidden in an earthen vessel, small and fragile. And this joy overflows and spreads all around him, filling his surroundings with its fragrance. Light shines from his being. His inner rejoicing sometimes goes beyond his endurance, breaks his heart, and shows itself in tears and cries and gestures. And whether he speaks or whether he is silent, whether he sleeps or whether he is awake, whether he is present or whether he is absent, it is always the same thing that he says, the same thing that he is, the same grace and the same power. His presence or the memory of him, the feeling that he is near, or simply that he exists, of itself conveys something other, something uncreated, tranquil, penetrating. It is something which renews man, calms his nerves, extinguishes his anger, enlightens his mind, gives wings to his hope and prepares him for a struggle that gives quiet and peace to a whole people. (Archimandrite Vasileios from the book The Hymn of Entry,  according to the monks I met at Iveron Fr. Vasileios is here speaking about our blessed Elder Paisios)

Θεία Λειτουργία τῶν Προηγιασμένων

Η θεία λειτουργία των Προηγιασμένων είναι μία από τις ωραιότερες και κατανυκτικότερες ακολουθίες της Εκκλησίας μας. Αλλά συγχρόνως και μία διαρκής πρόσκληση για τη συχνή κοινωνία των θείων μυστηρίων. Μια φωνή από τα βάθη των αιώνων, από την αρχαία ζωντανή παράδοση της Εκκλησίας. Φωνή που λέει, ότι ο πιστός δεν μπορεί να ζει τη ζωή του Χριστού αν δεν ανανεώνει διαρκώς την ένωσή του με την πηγή της ζωής, το σώμα και το αίμα του Κυρίου. Διότι ο Χριστός είναι «η ζωή ημών».

 Ιωάννου Μ. Φουντούλη

From Passover to Pascha

1) The Shadow: Exodus from Egypt

(Exodus Chapter 15) Then Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to the LORD, and spoke, saying:

      “I will sing to the LORD,
      For He has triumphed gloriously!
      The horse and its rider
      He has thrown into the sea!

 ² The LORD is my strength and song,
      And He has become my salvation;
      He is my God, and I will praise Him;
      My father’s God, and I will exalt Him.

 ³ The LORD is a man of war;
      The LORD is His name.

 ⁴ Pharaoh’s chariots and his army He has cast into the sea;
      His chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea.

 ⁵ The depths have covered them;
      They sank to the bottom like a stone.

 ⁶ “Your right hand, O LORD, has become glorious in power;
      Your right hand, O LORD, has dashed the enemy in pieces.

 ⁷ And in the greatness of Your excellence
      You have overthrown those who rose against You;
      You sent forth Your wrath;
      It consumed them like stubble.

 ⁸ And with the blast of Your nostrils
      The waters were gathered together;
      The floods stood upright like a heap;
      The depths congealed in the heart of the sea.

 ⁹ The enemy said, ‘I will pursue,
      I will overtake,
      I will divide the spoil;
      My desire shall be satisfied on them.
      I will draw my sword,
      My hand shall destroy them.’

 ¹⁰ You blew with Your wind,
      The sea covered them;
      They sank like lead in the mighty waters.

 ¹¹ “Who is like You, O LORD, among the gods?
      Who is like You, glorious in holiness,
      Fearful in praises, doing wonders?

 ¹² You stretched out Your right hand;
      The earth swallowed them.

 ¹³ You in Your mercy have led forth
      The people whom You have redeemed;
      You have guided them in Your strength
      To Your holy habitation.

 ¹⁴ “The people will hear and be afraid;
      Sorrow will take hold of the inhabitants of Philistia.

 ¹⁵ Then the chiefs of Edom will be dismayed;
      The mighty men of Moab,
      Trembling will take hold of them;
      All the inhabitants of Canaan will melt away.

 ¹⁶ Fear and dread will fall on them;
      By the greatness of Your arm
      They will be as still as a stone,
      Till Your people pass over, O LORD,
      Till the people pass over
      Whom You have purchased.

 ¹⁷ You will bring them in and plant them
      In the mountain of Your inheritance,
      In the place, O LORD, which You have made
      For Your own dwelling,
      The sanctuary, O Lord, which Your hands have established.

 ¹⁸ “The LORD shall reign forever and ever.”
¹⁹ For the horses of Pharaoh went with his chariots and his horsemen into the sea, and the LORD brought back the waters of the sea upon them. But the children of Israel went on dry land in the midst of the sea.

2) The Truth: Exodus from Death

…Therefore, all flesh fell under the power of sin, and everybody under the dominion of death, for every soul was driven out from its house of flesh. Indeed, that which had been taken from the earth was dissolved again into earth, and that which had been given from God was locked up in Hades. And that beautiful ordered arrangement was dissolved, when the beautiful body was separated (from the soul).
Yes, man was divided up into parts by death. Yes, an extraordinary misfortune and captivity enveloped him: he was dragged away captive under the shadow of death, and the image of the Father remained there desolate. For this reason, therefore, the mystery of the Passover has been completed in the body of the Lord.
.this one came from heaven to earth for the sake of the one who suffers, and had clothed himself with that very one through the womb of a virgin, and having come forth as man, he accepted the sufferings of the sufferer through his body which was capable of suffering. And he destroyed those human sufferings by his spirit which was incapable of dying. He killed death which had put man to death.
For this one, who was led away as a lamb, and who was sacrificed as a sheep, by himself delivered us from servitude to the world as from the land of Egypt, and released us from bondage to the devil as from the hand of Pharaoh, and sealed our souls by his own spirit and the members of our bodies by his own blood.
This is the one who covered death with shame and who plunged the devil into mourning as Moses did Pharaoh. This is the one who smote lawlessness and deprived injustice of its offspring, as Moses deprived Egypt. This is the one who delivered us from slavery into freedom, from darkness into light, from death into life, from tyranny into an eternal kingdom, and who made us a new priesthood, and a special people forever.
This one is the Passover of our salvation. This is the one who patiently endured many things in many people: This is the one who was murdered in Abel, and bound as a sacrifice in Isaac, and exiled in Jacob, and sold in Joseph, and exposed in Moses, and sacrificed in the lamb, and hunted down in David, and dishonored in the prophets.
This is the one who became human in a virgin, who was hanged on the tree, who was buried in the earth, who was resurrected from among the dead, and who raised mankind up out of the grave below to the heights of heaven.
This is the lamb that was slain. This is the lamb that was silent. This is the one who was born of Mary, that beautiful ewe-lamb. This is the one who was taken from the flock, and was dragged to sacrifice, and was killed in the evening, and was buried at night; the one who was not broken while on the tree, who did not see dissolution while in the earth, who rose up from the dead, and who raised up mankind from the grave below.

-Melito of Sardis (d. 180 A.D.)

He came forth then, as God, with That which He had assumed; one Person in two natures, flesh and Spirit, of which the latter deified the former. O new commingling; O strange conjunction! the Self-existent comes into Being, the Uncreated is created, That which cannot be contained is contained by the intervention of an intellectual soul mediating between the Deity and the corporeity of the flesh. And He who gives riches becomes poor; for He assumes the poverty of my flesh, that I may assume the riches of His Godhead. He that is full empties Himself; for He empties Himself of His Glory for a short while, that I may have a share in His Fullness. What is the riches of His Goodness? What is this mystery that is around me? I had a share in the Image and I did not keep it; He partakes of my flesh that He may both save the Image and make the flesh immortal.
Such is the feast thou art keeping to-day; and in this manner I would have thee celebrate both the Birthday and the Burial of Him Who was born for thee and suffered for thee. Such is the Mystery of the Passover; such are the mysteries sketched by the Law and fulfilled by Christ, the Abolisher of the letter, the Perfecter of the Spirit, who by His Passion taught us how to suffer, and by His glorification grants us to be glorified with Him.

-St. Gregory the Theologian

3) The Icon: Exodus from our Passions

Then comes the Sacred Night, the Anniversary of the confused darkness of the present life, into which the primeval darkness is dissolved, and all things come into life and rank and form, and that which was chaos is reduced to order.  Then we flee from Egypt, that is from sullen persecuting sin; and from Pharaoh the unseen tyrant, and the bitter taskmasters, changing our quarters to the world above; and are delivered from the clay and the brickmaking, and from the husks and dangers of this fleshly condition, which for most men is only not overpowered by mere husklike calculations.  Then the Lamb is slain, and act and word are sealed with the Precious Blood; that is, habit and action, the sideposts of our doors; I mean, of course, of the movements of mind and opinion, which are rightly opened and closed by contemplation, since there is a limit even to thoughts.  Then the last and gravest plague upon the persecutors, truly worthy of the night; and Egypt mourns the first-born of her own reasonings and actions which are also called in the Scripture the Seed of the Chaldean removed, and the children of Babylon dashed against the rocks and destroyed and the whole air is full of the cry and clamour of the Egyptians; and then the Destroyer of them shall withdraw from us in reverence of the Unction.  Then the removal of leaven; that is, of the old and sour wickedness, not of that which is quickening and makes bread; for seven days, a number which is of all the most mystical, and is co-ordinate with this present world, that we may not lay in provision of any Egyptian dough, or relic of Pharisaic or ungodly teaching.

Well, let them lament; we will feed on the Lamb toward evening—for Christ’s Passion was in the completion of the ages; because too He communicated His Disciples in the evening with His Sacrament, destroying the darkness of sin; and not sodden, but roast—that our word may have in it nothing that is unconsidered or watery, or easily made away with; but may be entirely consistent and solid, and free from all that is impure and from all vanity. 

-St. Gregory the Theologian, 2^nd Paschal Homily

Saint Nicholas Kavasilas Concerning Panagia

She is the cause of all beauty and magnificence, and of everything that humankind honors with hymns. All praise is to be ascribed to her alone. Indeed, she has even to be regarded as the cause of our very existence as human beings. And not only that, but it is moreover because of the Blessed Virgin that heaven and earth, the sun and the whole universe, have come into existence and attained well-being ... Christ chose her to be his Mother not only because she is the best of mothers, but because she is, in an absolute sense, the best of all (III,2; II,8).

The Incarnation of the Word was not only the work of the Father, of his Power [the Son], and of his Spirit – the first consenting, the second descending, the third overshadowing – but it was also the work of the will and the faith of the Virgin. Without the three divine persons this design could not have been set in motion; but likewise the plan could not have been carried into effect without the consent and faith of the all-pure Virgin. Only after teaching and persuading her does God make her his Mother and receive from her the flesh that she consciously wills to offer him. Just as he was conceived by his own free choice, so in the same way she became his Mother voluntarily and with her free consent (II, 4-5).

It was right that her all-holy soul should be separated from her most sacred body – separated, and so united to the soul of her Son, the second light united to the first. Her body remained for a short time in the earth, and then departed thence to be together with her soul. For it was right that she should traverse all the paths which were trodden by the Savior, that she should shine upon both the living and the dead, and so in every way should sanctify our human nature, before receiving as her dwelling-place the region appropriate to her. Thus the tomb received her body for a little while, and then heaven in its turn received this new earth, this spiritual body, this treasure of our life, more venerable than the angels, more holy than the archangels.... So the Tree was restored to the Fruit, and the Mother to her Son (III, 12).