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.)
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