The Inward Mission of Our Church

by St. Justin Popovich

It is very, very difficult indeed for infinite and eternal life to make its way into the human soul—so narrow—and even into the narrower human body. Held behind bars, the inhabitants of this earth suspiciously stand their ground against anything coming from without. Cast into this prison of time and space they are unable—from atavism or perhaps from inertia—to bear being penetrated by something outlasting time, outlying space, something which surpasses these, and is eternal. Such an invasion is considered to be aggression towards them and they respond with war. A man, given the fact that he is being corrupted by the "moth" of time, does not like the intrusion of eternity into his life and is not easily able to adapt himself to it. He often considers this intrusion to be sheer unforgivable insolence. At certain times he might become a hardened rebel against eternity because in the face of it he perceives his own minuteness; at others he even experiences fierce hatred towards it because he views it through such a human prism, one that is all too earthbound, all too worldly. Plunged bodily into matter, bound by the force of gravity to time and space, and having his spirit quite divorced from eternity, the worldweary man takes no pleasure in those arduous expeditions towards the eternal, toward what lies beyond. The chasm existing between time and eternity is quite unbridgeable for him because he lacks the strength and ability needed to get across it. Thoroughly besieged by death, he covers with scorn all those who say to him, "Man is immortal; he is eternal." Immortal in just what respect? In his mortal body? In what respect eternal? With respect to his feeble spirit?

In order for a person to be immortal he must, at the very core of his sense of self, feel himself immortal. For him to be eternal, in his center of consciousness of self he must know himself eternal. Without doing this, for him both immortality and eternity alike will be conditions imposed from the outside. And if at one time man did have this sense of immortality and awareness of eternity, he had it so long ago that it has since wasted away under the weight of death. And waste away it really has; we learn this from the whole mysterious makeup of human beings. Our whole problem lies in how we might rekindle that extinguished feeling, how we might revive the wasted-away awareness. Human beings are not in a position to do this; nor, indeed, are the "transcendent gods" of philosophy. It is something to be done by God, who incarnated His immortal Self inside man's sense of himself and incarnated His eternal Self within man's self-awareness. Christ did precisely this when He was made man and became God-human. Only in Christ, in Him alone, did man feel himself immortal and know himself eternal. Christ God-human, in His Person, bridged that chasm between time and eternity and restored relations between them. For this reason only he who is organically made one with Christ God-human, one with His Body, the Church, can be the one to feel himself really immortal and know himself in truth to be eternal. Whereby, for man and humanity, Christ composes the one and only passage and transition from time to eternity. This is why in the Church, the Orthodox Church, Christ became and remained the one and only way and the single guide from the former to the latter, from the sense of one's own mortality to the sense of one's immortality, from self-awareness of what is transient to self-awareness of what is eternal and without dimension.

The ever-living personality of God-human Christ is precisely the Church. The Church is always personality, God-human body and spirit. The definition of the Church, Her life, Her purpose, Her spirit, Her plan, Her ways, all these are given in the wondrous Person of God-human Christ. Hence, the mission of the Church is to make every one of her faithful, organically and in person, one with the Person of Christ; to turn their sense of self into a sense of Christ, and their self-knowledge (self-awareness) into Christ-knowledge (Christ-awareness); for their life to become the life in Christ and for Christ; their personality to become personality in Christ and for Christ; that within them might live not they themselves but Christ in them (Gal. 2:10). The mission of the Church is still to bring about in her members the conviction that the proper state of human personhood is composed of immortality and eternity and not of the realm of time and mortality...and the conviction that man is a wayfarer who is wending his way in the sway of time and mortality towards immortality and all eternity.

The Church is God-human, eternity incarnated within the boundaries of time and space. She is here in this world but she is not of this world (John 18:36). She is in the world in order to raise it on high where she herself has her origin. The Church is ecumenical, catholic, God-human, ageless, and it is therefore a blasphemy—an unpardonable blasphemy against Christ and against the Holy Ghost—to turn the Church into a national institution, to narrow her down to petty, transient, time-bound aspirations and ways of doing things. Her purpose is beyond nationality, œcumenical, all-embracing: to unite all men in Christ, all without exception to nation or race or social strata. "There is neither Greek nor Jew, their is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28), because "Christ is all, and in all." The means and methods of this all-human God-human union of all in Christ have been provided by the Church, through the holy sacraments and in her God-human works (ascetic exertions, virtues). And so it is: in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist the ways of Christ and the means of uniting all people are composed and defined and integrated. Through this mystery, man is made organically one with Christ and with all the virtues: faith, prayer, fasting, love, meekness, through compassion and giving alms, a man consolidates in this union and preserves himself in its sanctity, personally experiencing Christ both as the unity of his personality and as the essence of his union with other members of the body of Christ, the Church.

The Church is the personhood of the God-human Christ, a God-human organism and not a human organization. The Church is indivisible, as is the person of the God-human, as is the body of the God-human. For this reason it is a fundamental error to have the God-human organism of the Church divided into little national organizations. In the course of their procession down through history many local Churches have limited themselves to nationalism, to national methods and aspirations, ours being among them. The Church has adapted herself to the people when it should properly be just the reverse: the people adapting themselves to the Church. This mistake has been made many times by our Church here. But we very well know that these were the "tares" of our Church life, tares which the Lord will not uproot, leaving them rather to grow with the wheat until the time of harvest (Matt. 13, 29-30). We also well know (the Lord so taught us) that these tares have their origin in our primeval enemy and enemy of Christ: the devil (Matt. 13, 25-28). But we wield this knowledge in vain if it is not transformed into prayer, the prayer that in time to come Christ will safeguard us from becoming the sowers and cultivators of such tares ourselves.

It is now high time—the twelfth hour—time for our Church representatives to cease being nothing but the servants of nationalism and for them to become bishops and priests of the One, Holy Catholic, and Apostolic Church. The mission of the Church, given by Christ and put into practice by the Holy Fathers, is this: that in the soul of our people be planted and cultivated a sense and awareness that every member of the Orthodox Church is a Catholic Person, a person who is for ever and ever, and is God-human; that each person is Christ's, and is therefore a brother to every human being, a ministering servant to all men and all created things. This is the Christ-given objective of the Church. Any other is not an objective of Christ but of the Antichrist. For our local Church to be the Church of Christ, the Church Catholic, this objective must be brought about continuously among our people. And yet what are the means of accomplishing this God-human objective? Once again, the means are themselves God-human because a God-human objective can only be brought about exclusively by God-human means, never by human ones or by any others. It is on this point that the Church differs radically from anything which is human or of this earth.

These means are none other than the God-human ascetic exertions and virtues. And these can be successfully practiced only by God-human, Christ-bearing ascetics. God-human virtues exist in an organic kinship. Each has its source in the other and they bring one another to completion.

First among the ascetic virtues is the effort of faith: The souls of our people must pass through, and constantly be passing through, this exertion; meaning that these souls may then be given up to Christ as having no reservations and being without compromises; having extended down to the God-human depths and ascended to the God-human heights. It is essential to create in our people the sense that the faith of Christ is a virtue beyond nationhood, being œcumenical and catholic, trinitarian; and that for someone to believe in Christ entails their waiting on Christ, and only on Christ, with every event of their lives.

The second ascetic virtue is the God-human virtue of prayer and fasting: This being a virtue which must become the way of life of our Orthodox people, becoming the souls of their souls, because prayer and fasting are the all-powerful, Christ-given means of purging not only the human personhood but also society, the people, and the human race at large, of every defilement. It is prayer and fasting which are able to cleanse our people's souls from our defilements and sinning (Mt. 17:19-21; Lk. 9:17-29). The souls of our people must fall in step with the orthodox life of prayer. Prayer and fasting are not to be performed merely for the individual, or for one people, but for everyone and everything ("in all and for all"), for friends and enemies, for those who persecute us and those who put us to death, because that is how Christians are to be distinguished from the Gentiles (Mt. 5: 44-45).

The third God-human virtue is that of love: That love which knows no bounds, which does not question who is worthy and who is not, but loves them all; loving friends and enemies, loving sinners and evildoers, without however loving their sins and their crimes. It blesses the accursed, as the sun does, it shines both on the evil and the good (Matt. 5: 44-46). This God-human love must be cultivated in our people because its catholic character is what sets it apart from other self-proclaimed and relative loves: from that of the pharisaic sort, the humanist, the altruistic, the nationalist, and likewise from animal love. The love of Christ is all-embracing love, always. By prayer it is acquired because it is a gift of Christ. Now the Orthodox heart prays with intensity: Lord of love, this love of Thine for everyone and for all things—give it to me!

The fourth ascetic virtue is the God-human virtue of meekness and humility. Only he who is meek at heart can appease fierce hearts that are in uproar: only he who is lowly in heart can humble proud and haughty souls. To be "showing all meekness unto all men" (Tit. 3:2). But a person becomes truly meek and humble when he turns his heart of hearts into the Lord Jesus, humble and meek, He being the only true "meek and lowly in heart" (Matt. 11:29). The soul of the person must be rendered meek by Christ's meekness. Every person must learn to pray: Meek, gentle Lord, assuage my fierce soul! The Lord humbled himself with the greatest humility—he was incarnate and became a man. Should you be of Christ, then humble yourself as a worm: embed your flesh in the pain of all who are in pain, of everyone sorrowing and in grief; in the trial of everyone who, impassioned, is thus tormented; and in the trauma of every animal and bird. Humble yourself lower than them all: be all things to all men, but be of Christ and according to Christ. When you are by yourself, then pray: O humble Lord, by your humility, humble me!

The fifth ascetic virtue is the God-human virtue of patience and humility: Which is to say, to endure ill-use, not to render evil for evil, to forgive in total compassion all assault, slander and hurt. This is what it is to be of Christ: to feel yourself perpetually crucified to the world, persecuted by it, violated and spat upon. The world will not tolerate Christ-bearing men just as it would not tolerate Christ. Martyrdom is the state in which a Christian brings forth fruit. This must be imparted to our people. For the Orthodox, martyrdom is purification. Being Christian does not simply mean to bear suffering cheerfully, but to pardon in compassion those who cause it, to pray to God for them as did Christ and the archdeacon Stephen. And so, pray: Long-suffering Lord, give me forbearance, make me magnanimous and meek!

Our Church's mission is to infuse these God-human virtues and ascetic exertions into the people's way of living; to have their life and soul knit firm with the Christ-like God-human virtues. For therein lies salvation from the world and from all those soul-destroying, death-dealing, and Godless organizations of the world. In response to the "erudite" atheism and refined cannibalism of contemporary civilization we must give place to those Christ-bearing personalities, who with the meekness of sheep will put down the roused lust of wolves, and with the harmlessness of doves will save the soul of the people from cultural and political putrefaction. We must execute ascetic effort in Christ's name in response to the cultural exercising which is performed in the name of the decayed and disfigured European being, in the name of atheism, civilization, or the Antichrist. Which is why the major task of our Church is the creation of such Christ-bearing ascetics. The watchword which should be heard within our Church today is: Let us return to the Christ-bearing ascetics and to the Holy Fathers! To resume the virtues of Saint Anthony, Saint Athanasios, Saint Basil, and Saint Gregory, of Saints Sergios and Seraphim of the Russians, of Saints Savva, Prochios, and Gabriel of the Serbs, and others like them because it was these God-human virtues which brought about Saint Anthony, Saint Gregory and Saint Savva. And today only Orthodox ascetic efforts and virtues can bring about sanctity in every soul, in the soul of all our people—seeing that the God-human objective of the Church is unalterable and its means are likewise so, since Christ is the same yesterday, today and unto all ages (Heb. 13:8). Herein lies the difference between the world of men and the one in Christ: the human world is transient and time-bound, whilst that of Christ is ever whole, for evermore. Orthodoxy, as the single vessel and guardian of the perfect and radiant Person of God-human Christ, is brought about exclusively by this extension of virtues by grace, through entirely God-human Orthodox means, not through borrowings from Roman Catholicism or Protestantism, because the latter are forms of Christianity after the pattern of the proud European being, and not of the humble God-human being.

This mission of the Church is facilitated by God Himself because among our people there exists an ascetic spirit as created by Orthodoxy through the centuries. The Orthodox soul of our people leans towards the Holy Fathers and the Orthodox ascetics. Ascetic exertion, at the personal, family, and parish level, particularly of prayer and fasting, is the characteristic of Orthodoxy. Our people is a people of Christ, an Orthodox people, because—as Christ did—it sums up the Gospel in these two virtues: prayer and fasting. And it is a people convinced that all defilement, all foul thoughts, can be driven out of man by these alone (Matt. 17:21). In its heart of hearts our people know Christ and Orthodoxy, they know just what it is that makes an Orthodox person Orthodox. Orthodoxy will always generate ascetic rebirth. She recognizes no other.

The ascetics are Orthodoxy's only missionaries. Asceticism is her only missionary school. Orthodoxy is ascetic effort and it is life, and it is thus by effort and by life that her mission is broadcast and brought about. The development of asceticism...this ought to be the inward mission of our Church amongst our people. The parish must become an ascetic focal point. But this can only be achieved by an ascetic priest. Prayer and fasting, the Church-oriented life of the parish, a life of liturgy: Orthodoxy holds these as the primary ways of effecting rebirth in its people. The parish, the parish community, must be regenerated and in Christ-like and brotherly love must minister humbly to Him and to all people, meek and lowly and in a spirit of sacrifice and self-denial. And such service must be imbued and nourished by prayers and the liturgical life. This much is groundwork and indispensible. But to this end there exists one prerequisite: that our bishops, priests, and our monks become ascetics themselves. That this might be, then: Let us beseech the Lord.

From Orthodox Faith and Life in Christ, (Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 1994), pp. 21-31.

The Wisdom of Saint Symeon the New Theologian

Icon by the hand of Fr. Stamatis Skliris

"For those who believe in Him, Christ will become all this and even more, beyond enumeration, not only in the age to come but first in this life, and then in the world to come. Thou in an obscure way here below and in a perfect manner in the Kingdom, those who believe see clearly nonetheless and receive as of now the first-fruits of everything they will have in the future life. Indeed, if they do not receive on earth everything that was promised to them, they do not have any part of foretaste of the blessings to come, their higher hope being set on the hereafter. However, it is through death and the resurrection that God in His foresight has given us the Kingdom, incorruptibility, the totality of life eternal. Given these conditions, we unquestionably become partakers of the good things to come, that is, incorruptible, immortal, sons of God, sons of the light and of the day, inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven, since we carry the Kingdom within."

O Master, Lord of heaven and earth,
I know that I have sinned before You,
more than any human being,
more than even the irrational animals and reptiles,
and I am not worthy to ever receive any mercy from You.
Therefore, I would not have dared
to draw near or to fall down before You,
O King, lover of man,
had I not heard your holy voice saying:
I do not at all desire the death of the sinner,
but that he may return and live.
And again: There is joy in heaven
over one sinner who repents.
I remember, also, the parable of the Prodigal Son,
which You have said, O Master,
that when he returned,
before he had drawn near to You,
You, O compassionate one, came to him
and fell upon his neck
and kissed him affectionately.
Hence, taking courage from the ocean
of your goodness,
I have come near to You
with pain, sadness, and grief in my heart,
even though I am still hardened
and wounded sorely and lie in misery
In the depths of the Hades
of my transgressions.
But, from now on,
I give you my word, O Lord,
that as long as You order me
to remain alive and in this body,
I will not forsake You,
nor will I turn back,
neither will I ever touch vain and evil things.
But You, O my God, know my weakness,
my wretchedness, my faintheartedness,
and my old predispositions,
which are going to torture and oppress me.
Therefore, as I fall before You,
help me and forsake me not;
neither allow me to be ridiculed
and mocked for long by the enemy,
for from now on I am your servant, O Good One.

Saint Gregory Palamas and the Transfiguration of our Lord

Reflections on the Lord's Prayer

Πάτερ ἡμῶν, ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς· ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου, ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου, γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου, ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς. Τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον. Καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν, ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφίεμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν. Καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν, ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one. 

Πάτερ ἡμῶν, ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς / Our Father, who art in heaven

The Father is the sole origin of all things.  He is the origin of the Son and the Spirit as their begetter and source, coeternal, co-infinite, limitless, coessential, and undivided.  He is the origin of all created things, as the one who produces, provides for, and judges them through the Son in the Holy Spirit. –Saint Thalassios

The Body of Christ language used by the early Christians was applicable equally to the historical body of the Christ (born of the Theotokos), the Eschatological body of Christ (Sits at the right hand of the Father), the ecclesial body of Christ (the Church), and the Eucharistic body of Christ ("This is my body...").  This is true because they are one and the same!  This is not metaphor; this is the reality of the presence of the uncreated Logos in Creation.  This reality of the body of Christ is fully and always Trinitarian.  Beginning with the good will of the Father the pre-eternal Cause of Son and Spirit, the holy Spirit opens creation to receive the Father's Word.  Remember at the Annunciation the Father sends the Holy Spirit to "overshadow" the Virgin Mary in which she conceives Christ.  At Pentecost the Holy Spirit descends upon the early followers of Christ making them the body of Christ, the Church.  At ever Liturgy the Episkopos/Priest, an Icon of Christ, prays to the Father to send down the Holy Spirit making the Bread and Wine the Body and Blood of Christ.  This Trinitarian "movement" does not end with the presence of the Son.  The Son reveals the Father.  If we have seen Christ we have seen the Father.  Where can we see Christ?  We must remember Emmaous, Christ is recognized in the Breaking of the Bread, the Synaxis!  Now, as members of the Body of Christ, we are "without confusion and without division" united to the Only-Begotten Son and only in this are we sons and daughters of God the Father. -Micah

ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου / hallowed be Thy name

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 made known to us through Jesus Thy Servant.

–Didache of the Twelve Apostles

For the name of God exists in hypostatic form as the only begotten Son. -Saint Maximos

ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου / Thy kingdom come

The Kingdom of God exists in hypostatic form as the Holy Spirit. -Saint Maximos

γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου, ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς  

Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven

 

²⁰ When they came to the nations, wherever they went, they profaned My holy name—when they said of them, ‘These are the people of the LORD, and yet they have gone out of His land.’ ²¹ But I had concern for My holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations wherever they went.

²² “Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for My holy name’s sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went. ²³ And I will sanctify My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst; and the nations shall know that I am the LORD,” says the Lord GOD, “when I am hallowed in you before their eyes. ²⁴ For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. ²⁵ Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. ²⁶ I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. ²⁸ Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. ²⁹ I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. I will call for the grain and multiply it, and bring no famine upon you. – Holy Prophet Ezekiel 36

Τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον     

Give us this day our daily bread

51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh." 53 So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; 54 he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. John Chapter 6

Kαὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν,ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφίεμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν  
and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.  Matthew 6:14&15

Καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν, ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ  

 and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

The omnipotent God summoned us from the void. By nature we are of the void; yet even from God we expect consideration and regard. Suddenly the Almighty reveals Himself in boundless humility. The vision floods our entire being and instinctively we bow in adoration. Even this does not seem enough but however much we try to humble ourselves before Him we still fall short of His humility.

Prayer to this God of love and humility rises from the depths of our being. When our heart is filled with love for God we are wholly aware of our closeness to Him- although we know full well that we are but dust (cf. Gen. 3.19). Howbeit, in the visible form of our nature the immortal God described the likeness of His invisible Being, and thus we apprehend eternity. Through prayer we enter into Divine life; and God praying in us is uncreated life permeating us.

In making us in His image, after His likeness, God placed us before Him, not as action of His, entirely subject to Him, but as fact (datum) even for Him- as free beings And by virtue of this, relations between man and God are based on the principle of freedom. When we take advantage of this freedom and commit sin, we thrust God aside. This liberty to turn away from God is the negative, tragic aspect of free will but it is a sine qua non if we are to take hold of the life which is truly divine, life which is not predetermined.

We have the diametrically opposite alternatives: either to refuse God- the very essence of sin- or to become sons of God. Because we are made in the likeness of God we naturally desire the divine perfection which is in our Father. And when we follow Him we are not submitting to the dictates of some extraneous power: we are merely obeying our own impulse to assimilate His perfection. ‘Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect’ (Matt. 5:48). -Elder Sophrony of Essex

Christ: the Hidden Pearl of the Old Testament

Christ is the “treasure which was hidden in the field” [Mt 13:44], that is, in this world—for “the field is the world” [Mt 13:38]—[a treasure] hidden in the Scriptures, for he was indicated by means of types and parables which could not be understood by men prior to the consummation of those things which had been predicted, that is, the advent of the Lord. And therefore it was said to Daniel the prophet, “Shut up the words and seal the book until the time of the consummation, until many learn and knowledge abounds. For when the dispersion shall be accomplished they shall know all these things” [Dan 12:4, 7]. And Jeremiah also says, “In the last days they shall understand these things” [Jer 23:20]. For every prophecy, before its fulfillment, is nothing but an enigma and ambiguity to men; but when the time has arrived and the prediction has come to pass then it has an exact exposition And for this reason, when at this  present time the Law is read by the Jews, it is like a myth,  for they do not possess the explanation of all things  which pertain to the human advent of the Son of God;  but when it is read by Christians, it is a treasure, hid in a field but brought to light by the cross of Christ, and explained, both enriching the understanding of men and showing forth the wisdom of God and making known his dispensations with regard to man and prefiguring the kingdom of Christ and preaching in anticipation the good news of the inheritance of the holy Jerusalem and proclaiming beforehand that the man who loves God shall advance so far as even to see God and hear His Word and be glorified from hearing his speech to such an extent that others will not be able to behold his glorious countenance [cf. 2 Cor 3:7], as was said by Daniel, “Those who understand shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and many of the righteous as the stars forever and ever” [Dan 12:3]. In this manner, then, I have shown it to be, if anyone read the Scriptures.” (AH 4.26.1)

 -Saint Iraneaus

Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann on the Liturgical Ethos of the Church

Excerpts from St. Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly, 1964, Vol. 8, #4

 And the means of this sanctification of life and the world is precisely the liturgy. For in liturgical worship we are not only put "in contact" with God, but are given the vision of the Kingdom of God, as fulfillment in Him of all that exists, of all that He has created for Himself, and also we are made partakers of that new Reality. And having seen and tasted of the "heaven and earth as full of His glory" we are then to relate all life, all activity, all time to this vision and experience, to judge and to transform our life by it. Thus the very "other-worldliness" of the liturgy makes it a real power of transformation in "this world." This has always been the liturgical experience within Orthodoxy . . . Not that this experience has always and automatically led to positive results and really transformed human existence—there were probably as many sins and deficiencies in the "Orthodox" societies as in any other society—but, as I wrote elsewhere: "... self-satisfaction was not one of them. Toward the end of the Byzantine period, it was as if the whole Church were decked in black monastic garb and had taken the road of repentance and self-condemnation. The stronger the outward victory of the Church and the more solemn, rich and magnificent the outward forms of Christian Byzantinism became, the more strongly sounded this outcry of repentance, the entreaty for forgiveness: 'I have sinned, I have transgressed' · .. The surpassing beauty and splendor of St. Sophia; the holy rhythm, seeming to measure eternity, of the liturgical mystery that revealed heaven on earth and transformed the world again and again into its pristine cosmic beauty; the bitter sadness and reality of sin, the awareness of constant downfall—all this was the ultimate profundity of this world and the fruit of the Church within it.  It means that, the whole life was at least seen and judged in the light of the Kingdom as manifested in the liturgy; it means also that there was within that world a hunger and thirst not only for the "right things" but for the total perfection announced by the Gospel, and last but not least, the certitude that if not for the weakness and sinfulness, that perfection is the only destiny worthy of man, the "image of God's ineffable glory."

The liturgical restoration must then begin at the very beginning: with the restoration of Baptism as the liturgical act concerning the whole Church, as the very source of all liturgical piety which, in the past, was first of all a baptismal piety, a constant reference of the whole life to this mystery of its renewal and regeneration through the baptismal death and resurrection. This means, first, the celebration of Baptism within the eucharistic gathering of the Church. It is enough simply to read the texts of baptism and chrismation to understand that they organically lead to the fulfillment of the sacrament of initiation in the sacrament of the Church, that they are the entrance into the eucharistic fulness and fulfillment of the Church. It means also the preparation of the whole community (and not only of the immediate relatives) for the baptism, a "baptismal preaching" in which the liturgy of baptism: exorcisms, blessing of water, anointment with the "oil of gladness," immersion, the white garment and chrismation would be revealed again in their "existential" meaning for the whole Church as the community of baptized men, would ~ referred to life. And this means, finally, the explanation in terms of baptism of repentance which is the fundamental dimension of the Christian life, its openness to Divine judgment, its ability to be transformed by grace.
  
The second area of liturgical restoration is certainly that of our eucharistic piety. Of the many important problems involved here, the most urgent one is that of the proper understanding of communion. From its reduction either to a "religious obligation" to be performed once a year, or to an individual act of piety, completely disconnected from the liturgy as a corporate act, we must return to its true liturgical nature, and, first of all, to its relation to the Eucharist as offering and thanksgiving. The present eucharistic piety can very well exist within a perfectly secularistic worldview because it is nowhere related to life as a whole. It is a contact with the "super-natural" that has nothing to say to, or about, the "nature." And only if we rediscover that the bread and wine of the Eucharist are, first of all, our very life, our "nature," our whole work and its whole matter .... offered to God in Christ, returned to God in order to become again what God meant it to be from the very beginning—communion with God, only if we thus relate our whole life to the Eucharistic offering, can we understand the act of communion as God entering our life in order to fill it with His transforming grace. To take the same example—when a "Church Committee" will understand that its meeting is a direct continuation of the Divine Liturgy, its fulfillment in life, and not a "business session" dealing with the "material" problems of the parish, radically distinct from the "spiritual" ones which were dealt within the service, our piety will begin to undermine secularism. But what an effort, what a real conversion of our whole liturgical consciousness is needed to achieve this!

  Then, the whole liturgical experience of time, so obviously central in the structure of worship, in its rhythm of preparation and fulfillment, fast and feast, liturgical seasons, etc., must be "deciphered," i.e. understood and explained in their relation to the real time of our life, to all time, and not only to the "sacred" hours we spend in Church. I have said above that we are rapidly becoming a "Sunday" Church, but even if we succeed in adding to Sunday a few more "days of obligation," this by itself will not change the secularistic view and experience of time, its total autonomy from the days and hours of worship. For the liturgy is sanctification of time and not of certain moments of time. And it sanctifies time by referring it—by means of the liturgy of time—to that event, the Coming of Christ, which transformed time, made it a meaningful pilgrimage towards the Kingdom of God. The liturgy of time has always had a double rhythm: that of repentance, preparation, effort, expectation—and this in liturgical terms, is the function of fasts, eves, vigils; and that of fulfillment and joy—and this is the feast. They represent and convey to us the two fundamental dimensions or experiences of Christian life. It is rooted, first of all, in the joy of knowing Christ, of being with Him, of remembering Him. And it is rooted, also, in the "bright sadness" of repentance, in the experience of life as exile and effort. Both are extremely essential and to restore the liturgy of time is, therefore, to restore this basic rhythm. It is not true that people do not come to Church on holy days because they have no time. One always has time for what one enjoys. People do not come to Church because they quite literally do not enjoy it and they do not enjoy it because the very reality of joy is absent from our teaching and preaching, from the way we present the liturgy in terms of obligations, of musts and must-not. I mentioned before, that there is always something going on in the evening in the parish hall. Yet evenings have always been the basic liturgical "time" in the Church. And if, by a slow and patient effort, we could restore—in ourselves, first of all—the joy of this "liturgy of time," reveal and "put across" its heavenly beauty, be it the beauty of penitential services, the spiritual beauty of repentance, or the beauty of joy, as revealed in the feasts, not only will people "come back," but they will understand the importance of these services for their "secular" life as well.

(IV) Fr. George Florovsky: Redemption as Baptism and Eucharist

Icon by the hand of Charalambos Epaminondas

In the death of the Savior the powerlessness of death over Him was revealed. In the fullness of His human nature Our Lord was mortal, since even in the original and spotless human nature a "potentia mortis" was inherent. The Lord was killed and died. But death did not hold Him. "It was not possible for him to be held by it" (Acts 2:24). St. John Chrysostom commented: "He Himself permitted it. ... Death itself in holding Him had pangs as in travail, and was sore bested … and He so rose as never to die.¹²⁷ He is Life Everlasting, and by the very fact of His death He destroys death. His very descent into Hell, into the realm of death, is the mighty manifestation of Life. By the descent into Hell He quickens death itself. By the Resurrection the powerlessness of death is manifested. The soul of Christ, separated in death, filled with Divine power, is again united with its body, which remained incorruptible throughout the mortal separation, in which it did not suffer any physical decomposition. In the death of the Lord it is manifest that His most pure body was not susceptible to corruption, that it was free from that mortality into which the original human nature had been involved through sin and Fall.

In the first Adam the inherent potentiality of death by disobedience was disclosed and actualized. In the second Adam the potentiality of immortality by purity and obedience was sublimated and actualized into the impossibility of death. "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (I Cor. 15:22). The whole fabric of human nature in Christ proved to be stable and strong. The disembodiment of the soul was not consummated into a rupture. Even in the common death of man, as St. Gregory of Nyssa pointed out, the separation of soul and body is never absolute; a certain connection is still there. In the death of Christ this connection proved to be not only a "connection of knowledge"; His soul never ceased to be the "vital power" of the body. Thus His death in all its reality, as a true separation and disembodiment, was like a sleep. "Then was man’s death shown to be but a sleep," as St. John Damascene says.¹²⁸ The reality of death is not yet abolished, but its powerlessness is revealed. The Lord really and truly died. But in His death in an eminent measure the "dynamis of the resurrection" was manifest, which is latent but inherent in every death. To His death the glorious simile of the kernel of wheat can be applied to its full extent. (John 12:24). And in His death the glory of God is manifest. "I have both glorified it and will glorify again" (v.28). In the body of the Incarnate One this interim between death and resurrection is fore-shortened. "It is sown in dishonor: it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness: it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body: it is raised a spiritual body" (7 Cor. 15:43-44). In the death of the Incarnate One this mysterious growth of the seed was accomplished in three days — "triduum mortis."

"He suffered not the temple of His body to remain long dead, but just having shown it dead by the contact of death, straightway raised it on the third day, and raised with it also the sign of victory over death, that is, the incorruption and impassibility manifested in the body." In these words St. Athanasius brings forward the victorious and resurrecting character of the death of Christ.¹²⁹ In this mysterious "triduum mortis," the body of Our Lord has been transfigured into a body of glory, and has been clothed in power and light. The seed matures. The Lord rises from the dead, as a Bridegroom comes forth from the chamber. This was accomplished by the power of God, as the general resurrection will, in the last day, be accomplished by the power of God. And in the Resurrection the Incarnation is completed, a victorious manifestation of Life within human nature, a grafting of immortality into the human composition.

The Resurrection of Christ was a victory, not over his death only, but over death in general. "We celebrate the death of Death, the downfall of Hell, and the beginning of a life new and everlasting."¹³⁰ In His Resurrection the whole of humanity, all human nature, is co-resurrected with Christ, "the human race is clothed in incorruption."¹³¹ Co-resurrected not indeed in the sense that all are raised from the grave. Men do still die; but the hopelessness of dying is abolished. Death is rendered powerless, and to all human nature is given the power or "potentia" of resurrection. St. Paul made this quite clear: "But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen… For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised" (I Cor. 15:13, 16). St. Paul meant to say that the Resurrection of Christ would become meaningless if it were not a universal accomplishment, if the whole Body were not implicitly "pre-resurrected" with the Head. And faith in Christ itself would lose any sense and become empty and vain; there would be nothing to believe in. "And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain" (v. 17). Apart from the hope of the General Resurrection, belief in Christ would be in vain and to no purpose; it would only be vainglory. "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept" (7 Cor. 15:20). And in this lies the victory of life.¹³² "It is true, we still die as before," says St. John Chrysostom, "but we do not remain in death; and this is not to die… The power and very reality of death is just this, that a dead man has no possibility of returning to life… But if after death he is to be quickened and moreover to be given a better life, then this is no longer death, but a falling asleep."¹³³ The same conception is found in St. Athanasius. The "condemnation of death" is abolished. "Corruption ceasing and being put away by the grace of Resurrection, we are henceforth dissolved for a time only, according to our bodies’ mortal nature; like seeds cast into the earth, we do not perish, but sown in the earth we shall rise again, death being brought to nought by the grace of the Savior."¹³⁴ This was a healing and a renewing of nature, and therefore there is here a certain compulsion; all will rise, and all will be restored to the fullness of their natural being, yet transformed. From henceforth every disembodiment is but temporary. The dark vale of Hades is abolished by the power of the life-giving Cross.

St. Gregory of Nyssa strongly emphasizes the organic interdependence between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. The Resurrection is not only a consequence, but a fruit of the death on the Cross. St. Gregory stresses two points especially: the unity of the Divine Hypostasis, in which the soul and body of Christ are linked together even in their mortal separation; and the utter sinlessness of the Lord. And he proceeds: "When our nature, following its proper course, had even in Him been advanced to the separation of soul and body, He knitted together again the disconnected elements, cementing them together, as it were, with a cement of His Divine power, and recombining what was severed in a union never to be broken. And this is the Resurrection, namely the return, after they have been dissolved, of those elements that have been before linked together, into an indissoluble union through a mutual incorporation; in order that thus the primal grace which invested humanity might be recalled, and we restored to everlasting life, when the vice that had been mixed up with our kind has evaporated through our dissolution… For as the principle of death took its rise in one person and passed on in succession through the whole of human kind, in like manner the principle of the Resurrection extends from one person to the whole of humanity… For when, in that concrete humanity which He had taken to Himself, the soul after the dissolution returned to the body, then this uniting of the several portions passes, as by a new principle, in equal force upon the whole human race. This then is the mystery of God’s plan with regard to His death and His resurrection from the dead."¹³⁵ In another place St. Gregory explains his meaning by the analogy of the broken reed, cloven in twain. Whoever puts the broken parts together, starting from any one end, then also, of necessity, puts together the other end, "and the whole broken reed is completely rejointed." Thus then in Christ the union of soul and body, again restored, brings to reunion "the whole human nature, divided by death into two parts," since the hope of resurrection establishes the connection between the separated parts. In Adam our nature was split or dissected into two through sin. Yet in Christ this split is healed completely. This then is the abolition of death, or rather of mortality. In other words, it is the potential and dynamic restoration of the fullness and wholeness of human existence. It is a recreation of the whole human race, a "new creation" (ή καινή κτίσις),¹³⁶ a new revelation of Divine love and Divine power, the consummation of creation.

One has to distinguish most carefully between the healing of nature and the healing of the will. Nature is healed and restored with a certain compulsion, by the mighty power of God’s omnipotent and invincible grace. One may even say, by some "violence of grace." The wholeness is in a way forced upon human nature. For in Christ all human nature (the "seed of Adam") is fully and completely cured from unwholeness and mortality. This restoration will be actualized and revealed to its full extent in the General Resurrection, the resurrection of all, both of the righteous and of the wicked. No one, so far as nature is concerned, can escape Christ’s kingly rule, can alienate himself from the invincible power of the resurrection. But the will of man cannot be cured in the same invincible manner; for the whole meaning of the healing of the will is in its free conversion. The will of man must turn itself to God; there must be a free and spontaneous response of love and adoration. The will of man can be healed only in freedom, in the "mystery of freedom." Only by this spontaneous and free effort does man enter into that new and eternal life which is revealed in Christ Jesus. A spiritual regeneration can be wrought only in perfect freedom, in an obedience of love, by a self-consecration and self-dedication to God. This distinction was stressed with great insistence in the remarkable treatise by Nicolas Cabasilas on The Life in Christ. Resurrection is a "rectification of nature" (ή άνάστασις φύσεως έστιν έπανόρθωσις) and this God grants freely. But the Kingdom of Heaven, and the beatific vision, and union with Christ, presume the desire (τρυψή έστιν της θελήσεως), and therefore are available only for those who have longed for them, and loved, and desired. Immortality will be given to all, just as all can enjoy the Divine providence. It does not depend upon our will whether we shall rise after death or not, just as it is not by our will that we are born. Christ’s death and resurrection brings immortality and incorruption to all in the same manner, because all have the same nature as the Man Christ Jesus. But nobody can be compelled to desire. Thus Resurrection is a gift common to all, but blessedness will be given only to some.¹³⁷ And again, the path of life is the path of renunciation, of mortification, of self-sacrifice and self-oblation. One has to die to oneself in order to live in Christ. Each one must personally and freely associate himself with Christ, the Lord, the Savior, and the Redeemer, in the confession of faith, in the choice of love, in the mystical oath of allegiance. Each one has to renounce himself, to "lose his soul" for Christ’s sake, to take up his cross, and to follow after Him. The Christian struggle is the "following" after Christ, following the path of His Passion and Cross, even unto death, but first of all, following in love. "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren… Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (7 John 3:16; 4:10). He who does not die with Christ cannot live with Him. "Unless of our own free choice we accept to die unto His passion, His life is not in us," says St. Ignatius.¹³⁸ This is no mere ascetical or moral rule, not merely a discipline. This is the ontological law of spiritual existence, even the law of life itself.

 The Christian life is initiated with a new birth, by water and the Spirit. First, repentance is required, "ή μετάνοια," an inner change, intimate and resolute.

The symbolism of Holy Baptism is complex and manifold. Baptism must be performed in the name of the Holy Trinity; and the Trinitarian invocation is unanimously regarded as the most necessary condition of the validity and efficacy of the sacrament. Yet above all, baptism is the putting on of Christ (Gal. 3:27), and an incorporation into His Body (I Cor. 12:13). The Trinitarian invocation is required because outside the Trinitarian faith it is impossible to know Christ, to recognize in Jesus the Incarnate Lord, "One of the Holy Trinity." The symbolism of baptism is above all a symbolism of death and resurrection, of Christ’s death and resurrection. "Know ye not, that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6:3-4). It can be said that baptism is a sacramental resurrection in Christ, a rising up with Him and in Him to a new and eternal life: "Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead" (Col. 2:12) — συνταφέντες αύτώ έν τω βαπτίσματι, έν ω και συνηγέρθητε δια της πίστεως της ενεργείας του θεού του έγείραντος αυτόν έκ νεκρών. Co-resurrected with Him precisely through burial: "for if we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him" (2 Tim. 2:11). For in baptism the believer becomes a member of Christ, grafted into His Body, "rooted and built up in Him" (Col. 2:7). Thereby the grace of the Resurrection is shed abroad on all. Before it is consummated in the General Resurrection, Life Eternal is manifested in the spiritual rebirth of believers, granted and accomplished in baptism, and the union with the Risen Lord is the initiation of the resurrection and of the Life to come. "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord… Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus might also be made manifest in our body… Knowing that He which raised up the Lord Jesus shall also raise us by Jesus, and shall present us with you… For we know, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven … not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up by life" (2 Cor. 3:18; 4:10, 14; 5:1, 2). We are changed, not only will be changed. Baptismal regeneration and ascesis are joined together: the Death with Christ and resurrection are already operative within believers. The resurrection is operative not only as a return to life, but also as a lifting up or sublimation into the glory. This is not only a manifestation of the power and glory of God, but also a transfiguration of man, in so far as he is dying with Christ. In dying with Him, man also lives. All will rise, but only to the faithful believer is the resurrection to be a true "resurrection unto life." He comes not into judgment, but passes from death to life [John 5:24-29; 8:51~}. Only in communion with God and through life in Christ does the restoration of human wholeness gain meaning. To those in total darkness, who have deliberately confined themselves "outside God," outside the Light Divine, the Resurrection itself must seem rather unnecessary and unmotivated. But it will come, as a "resurrection to judgment" (John 5:29; εις άνάστασιν κρίσεως). And in this will be completed the mystery and the tragedy of human freedom.

Here indeed we are on the threshold of the inconceivable and incomprehensible. The "apokatastasis" of nature does not abolish free will. The will must be moved from within by love. St. Gregory of Nyssa had a clear understanding of this. He anticipated a kind of universal "conversio" of souls in the after-life, when the Truth of God will be revealed and manifested with some compelling and ultimate evidence. Just at that point the limitations of the Hellenistic mind are obvious. Evidence to it seemed to be the decisive reason or motive for the will, as if "sin" were merely "ignorance."¹³⁹ The Hellenistic mind had to pass through the long and hard experience of asceticism, of ascetic self-examination and self-control, in order to free itself from this intellectualistic naivete and illusion, and discover a dark abyss in the fallen soul. Only in St. Maximus the Confessor, after some centuries of ascetic preparation, do we find a new, remodelled and deepened interpretation of the "apokatastasis." All nature, the whole Cosmos, will be restituted. But the dead souls will still be insensitive to the very revelation of Light.

The Light Divine will shine to all, but those who have deliberately spent their lives here on earth in fleshly desires, "against nature," will be unable to apprehend or enjoy this eternal bliss. The Light is the Word which illuminates the natural minds of the faithful; but to others it is a burning fire of the judgment (τη καύσει της κρίσεως). He punishes those who, through love of the flesh, cling to the nocturnal darkness of this life. St. Maximus admitted an "apokatastasis" in the sense of a restitution of all beings to an integrity of nature, of a universal manifestation of the Divine Life, which will be apprehended by every one; but it does not mean that all will equally participate in this revelation of the Good. St. Maximus draws a clear distinction between an έπίγνωσις and a μέθεξις. The divine gifts are dispensed in proportion to the capacities of men. The fullness of natural powers will be restored in all, and God will be in all, indeed; but only in the Saints will He be present with grace δια την χάριν. In the wicked He will be present without grace, νεκράν την χάριν. No grace will be bestowed upon the wicked, because the ultimate union with God requires the determination of the will. The wicked will be separated from God by their lack of a resolute purpose of good. We have here the same duality of nature and will. In the resurrection the whole of creation will be restored. But sin and evil are rooted in the will. The Hellenistic mind concluded therefrom that evil is unstable and by itself must disappear inevitably. For nothing can be perpetual, unless it be rooted in a Divine decree. Evil cannot be but transitory. The Christian inference is the opposite indeed. There is some strange inertia and obstinacy of the will, and this obstinacy may remain uncured even in the universal restoration. God never does any violence to man, and the communion with God cannot be forced upon or imposed upon the obstinate. As St. Maximus puts it, "the Spirit does not produce an undesired resolve, but it transforms a chosen purpose into theosis."¹⁴⁰ For sin and evil come not from an external impurity, but from an internal failure, from the perversion of the will. Consequently, sin is overcome only by inner conversion and change, and repentance is sealed by grace in the sacraments.¹⁴¹

Physical death among mankind is not abrogated by the Resurrection of Christ. Death is rendered powerless, indeed; mortality is overcome by the hope and pledge of the coming resurrection. And yet each must justify that resurrection for himself. This can be done only in a free communion with the Lord. The immortality of nature, the permanence of existence, must be actualized into the life in the Spirit. The fullness of life is not merely an endless existence. In baptism we are initiated into this very resurrection of life, which will be consummated in the last day.

St. Paul speaks of a "likeness" unto the death of Christ, τω όμοιώματι του θανάτου αύτου (Rom. 6:3), but this "likeness" means more than a resemblance. It is more than a mere sign or recollection. The meaning of this "likeness" for St. Paul himself was that in each of us Christ can and must be "formed" (Gal. 4:19). Christ is the Head, all believers are His members, and His life is actualized in them. All are called and every one is capable of believing, and of being quickened by faith and baptism to live in Him. Baptism is a regeneration, άναγέννησις, a new, spiritual, and charismatic birth. As Cabasilas says, Baptism is the cause of a beatific life in Christ, not merely of life.¹⁴² St. Cyril of Jerusalem lucidly explains the true reality of all baptismal symbolism. It is true, he says, that in the baptismal font we die and are buried only "in imitation," only "symbolically" (δια συμβόλου). We do not rise from a real grave (ούδ’ αληθώς έτάφημεν) and yet, "if the imitation is in an image, the salvation is in very truth," έν άληθεία δε ή σωτηρία. Christ was really crucified and buried, and actually rose from the grave. The Greek word used is οντως. It is more and stronger than simply αληθώς — "in very truth"; it emphasizes the supernatural character of the death and resurrection of Our Lord. Hence He gave us this chance, by "imitative" sharing of His Passion to acquire "salvation in reality" (τη μιμήσει των παθημάτων αυτού κοινά χήσαντες). It is not only an "imitation," but rather a participation, or a similitude. "Christ was crucified and buried in reality, but to you it is given to be crucified, buried, and raised with Him in similitude" (έν ομοιώματι).¹⁴³ It should be kept in mind that St. Cyril mentions not only the death, but also the burial. This means that in baptism man descends "sacra-mentally" into the darkness of death, and yet with the Risen Lord rises again and crosses over from death to life. "And the image is completed all upon you, for you are the image of Christ," concludes St. Cyril. In other words, all are held together by and in Christ, hence the very possibility of a sacramental "resemblance."¹⁴⁴

St. Gregory of Nyssa dwells on the same point. There are two aspects in baptism. Baptism is a birth and a death. Natural birth is the beginning of a mortal existence, which begins and ends in corruption. Another, a new birth, had to be discovered, which would initiate into eternal life. In baptism "the presence of a Divine power transforms what is born with a corruptible nature into a state of incorrup-tion."¹⁴⁵ It is transformed through following and imitating; and thus what was foreshown by the Lord is realized. Only by following after Christ can one pass through the labyrinth of life and come out of it. "For I call the inescapable guard of death, in which sorrowing mankind is imprisoned, a labyrinth" (την άδιέξοδον του θανάτου φρουράν). Christ escaped from this after the three days of death. In the baptismal font "the imitation of all that He has done is accomplished." Death is "represented" in the element of water, and as Christ rose again to life, so also the newly-baptized, united with Him in bodily nature, "doth imitate the resurrection on the third day." This is just an "imitation," and not "identity." In baptism man is not actually raised, but only freed from natural evil and the inescapability of death. In him the "continuity of vice" is cut off. He is not resurrected, for he does not die, he remains in this life. Baptism only foreshadows the resurrection. In baptism we anticipate the grace of the final resurrection. Baptism is a "homiomatic resurrection" to use the phrase of one Russian scholar. Yet in baptism the resurrection is in a way already initiated. Baptism is the start, αρχή, and the resurrection is the end and consummation, πέρας ... and all that will take place in the great Resurrection already has its beginnings and causes in baptism. St. Gregory does not mean that resurrection which consists only in a remolding of our composition. Human nature advances towards that goal by a kind of necessity. He speaks of the fullness of the resurrection, of a "restoration to a blessed and divine state, set free from all shame and sorrow." It is an apokatastasis, a true "resurrection unto life."¹⁴⁶

It must be pointed out that St. Gregory specially emphasized the need of keeping and holding fast the baptismal grace, for in baptism it is not only nature but also the will that is transformed and transfigured, remaining free throughout. If the soul is not cleansed and purified in the free exercise of will, baptism proves to be fruitless; the transfiguration is not actualized; the new life is not yet consummated. This does not subordinate baptismal grace to human license. Grace does indeed descend. But it can never be forced upon any one who is free and made in the image of God, it must be responded to and corroborated by the synergism of love and will. Grace does not quicken and enliven the closed and obstinate souls, the really "dead souls." Response and co-operation are required.¹⁴⁷ That is just because baptism is a sacramental dying with Christ, a participation in His voluntary death, in His sacrificial Love and this can be accomplished only in freedom. Thus in baptism the death of Christ on the Cross is reflected or portrayed as in a living and sacramental image. Baptism is at once a death and a birth, a burial and a "bath of regeneration," "a time of death and a time of birth," to quote St. Cyril of Jerusalem.¹⁴⁸

 In the Early Church the rite of Christian initiation was not divided. Three of the sacraments belong together: Baptism, the Holy Chrism (Confirmation), and the Eucharist. The Initiation described by St. Cyril, and later on by Cabasilas, included all three.

Sacraments are instituted in order to enable man to participate in Christ’s redeeming death and thereby to gain the grace of His resurrection. This was Cabasilas’ main idea. "We are baptized in order to die by His death and to rise by His resurrection. We are anointed with the chrism that we may partake of His kingly anointment of the deification. And when we are fed with the most sacred Bread and do drink the most Divine Cup, we do partake of the same flesh and the same blood Our Lord has assumed, and so we are united with Him, Who was for us incarnate, and died, and rose again… Baptism is a birth, and Chrism is the cause of acts and movements, and the Bread of life and Cup of thanksgiving are the true food and the true drink.¹⁴⁹ In the whole sacramental and devotional life of the Church, the Cross and the Resurrection are "imitated" and reflected in manifold symbols and rites. All the symbolism is realistic. These symbols do not merely remind us of something in the past. Through these sacred symbols, the ultimate Reality is in very truth disclosed and conveyed. All this hieratic symbolism culminates in the august mystery of the Holy Altar. The Eucharist is the heart of the Church, the Sacrament of Redemption in an eminent sense. It is more than an "imitatio." It is Reality itself, veiled and disclosed in the Sacrament.

It is "the perfect and final Sacrament," says Cabasilas, "and one cannot go further, and there is nothing to be added." It is the "limit of life" — ζωής τό πέρας. "After the Eucharist there is nothing more to long for, but we have to stay here and learn how we can preserve this treasure to the end."¹⁵⁰

The Eucharist is the Last Supper itself, again and again enacted, but not repeated for every new celebration does not only represent, but truly is the same "Mystical Supper" which was celebrated for the first time by the Divine High Priest Himself, "in the night in which He was given up or rather gave Himself for the life of the world."

The true Celebrant of each Liturgy is Our Lord Himself. This was stressed with great power by St. John Chrysostom on various occasions. "Believe, therefore, that even now it is that Supper, at which He Himself sat down. For this one is in no respect different from that one. For neither doth man make this one and Himself that one, but both this and that are His own work. When therefore thou seest the priest delivering it unto thee, account not that it is the priest that does so, but that it is Christ’s hand that is stretched out."¹⁵¹ And again in hom. 82, 5, Col. F.44: "He that then did these things at that Supper, this same now also works them. We hold the rank of ministers. He who sanctifieth and changeth them is the Same. This table is the same as that, and hath nothing less. For it is not that Christ wrought that, and man this, but He doth this too. This is that Upper Chamber, where they were then."¹⁵² And "Christ now also is present, He who adorned that table is He who now also adorns this… The priest stands fulfilling a figure, but the power and grace are of God."¹⁵³

All this is of primary importance. The Last Supper was an offering of the sacrifice of the Cross. The offering is still continued. Christ is still acting as the High Priest in His Church. The Mystery is all the same. The Sacrifice is one. The Table is one. The priest is the same. And not one Lamb is slain, or offered this day, and another of old; not one here, and another somewhere else. But the same always and everywhere. One very Lamb of God, "who ‘taketh’ the sins of the world," even the Lord Jesus.

The Eucharist is a sacrifice, not because Jesus is slain again, but because the same Body and the same sacrificial Blood are actually here on the Altar, offered and presented. And the Altar is actually the Holy Grave, in which the Heavenly Master is falling asleep. Nicolas Cabasilas put this in these words: "In offering and sacrificing Himself once for all, He did not cease from His priesthood, but He exercises this perpetual ministry for us, in which He is our advocate with God for ever, for which reason it is said of Him, Thou art a priest for ever."¹⁵⁴

The resurrecting power and significance of Christ’s death are made manifest in full in the Eucharist. The Lamb is slain, the Body broken, the Blood shed, and yet it is a celestial food, and "the medicine of immortality and the antidote that we should not die but live forever in Jesus Christ," to use the famous phrase of St. Ignatius.¹⁵⁵ It is "the heavenly Bread and the Cup of life." This tremendous Sacrament is for the faithful the very "Betrothal of the Life Eternal." Because Christ’s Death itself was the Victory and the Resurrection, this Victory and this Triumph do we observe and celebrate in the Sacrament of the Altar. Eucharist means thanksgiving. It is a hymn rather than a prayer. It is the service of triumphant joy, the continuous Easter, the kingly feast of the Lord of Life and glory. "And so the whole celebration of the Mystery is one image of the whole economy of our Lord," says Cabasilas.¹⁵⁶

The Holy Eucharist is the climax of our aspirations. The beginning and the end are here linked together: the reminiscences of the Gospels and the prophecies of the Revelation, i.e. the fullness of the New Testament. The Eucharist is a sacramental anticipation, a foretaste of the Resurrection, an "image of the Resurrection" (ό τύπος της αναπαύσεως; the phrase is from the consecration prayer of St. Basil). The sacramental life of believers is the building up of the Church. Through the sacraments, and in them, the new life of Christ is extended to and bestowed upon the members of His Body. Through the sacraments the Redemption is appropriated and disclosed. One may add: In the sacraments is consummated the Incarnation, the true reunion of man with God in Christ.

Ο Christ, Passover great and most Holy! Ο Wisdom, Word, and Power of God! Vouchsafe that we may more perfectly partake of Thee in the days of Thine everlasting Kingdom. (Easter Hymn, recited by the priest at every celebration.)