LEX ORANDI, LEX CREDENDI:

THE LITURGICAL WORSHIP OF THE EASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCH

A Research Paper

Presented to

Dr. Eric N. Newberg, Department of Theology

Oral Roberts University

In Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Class

THE 499—Senior Paper

by

Nicholas B. A. Heide

April 2016
 i

Contents
Chapter I: Introduction……………………….……………………………..……….....1
Chapter II: Liturgy……………………………………………………………………...2
Liturgy: The Worship of the Assembly…………………………………………...2
Early Evidence: The Didache……………………………………………..2
St. Justin Martyr…………………………………………………………...3
Apostolic Liturgical Tradition…………………………………………….5
The Use of the Senses in the Orthodox Liturgy…………………………………..8
Sight………………………………………………………………………9
Sound…………………………………………………………………….10
Smell……………………………………………………………………..10
Touch…………………………………………………………………….11
Taste……………………………………………………………………...11
Nous……………………………………………………………………...12
The Sacred Chant of the Orthodox Church……………………………………....13
Byzantine Chant………………………………………………………….14
Κοινωνία: Communion…………………………………………………..17
Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi………………………………………………..19
Chapter III: Eucharist…………………………………………………………..……...20
The Context of Communion……………………………………………………..20
St. Nicholas Cabasilas……………………………………………………22
St. Cyril of Jerusalem…………………………………………………….26
On the Body and Blood of Christ………………………………..26
On the Sacred Liturgy and Communion…………………………27
A Liturgy of Heavenly Worship…………………………………28
The Epiclesis……………………………………………………..29
Different Views on the Lord’s Supper……………………………….………….30
Chapter IV: Conclusion………………………………….………..…………………...34
Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………….35
 CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

This paper will examine the Liturgical worship of the Eastern Orthodox Church as

it pertains to the Mystical Presence of Heaven on Earth in the oblation and communion of

the Eucharist, and labor to answer the question of the nature of worship. The liturgical

theology of the Orthodox Church articulates the experience of Heaven on earth in the

celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy; thus, this paper will survey the liturgical practice of

the Divine Liturgy observed in the Eastern Orthodox Church, the common eucharistic

celebration of the Faithful. In following various witnesses of the Orthodox Way

throughout the ages, quotations will be derived from purely Christian sources, largely

from the Eastern Orthodox tradition. In an effort to highlight the focus of the Eucharistic

liturgy in Christian worship practice, this paper will begin by describing the experience of

the worship service in the Eastern Orthodox Church, along with its relation to the

corporate assembly, and will climax in the Orthodox Christian observation and

communication of the Lord’s Supper, as the ultimate model for Christian worship,

according to the Liturgical context of the Church. Due to the theological and historical

nature of this liturgical survey, minimal Biblical references will be utilized in order to

avoid the exposition of an exegetical study of the many eucharistic references in both the

Old and New Testaments. Scriptures which are referenced are taken from the New

Revised Standard Version of the Bible indicated in the Bibliography.

This paper will defend the argument that worship, for the Orthodox Church, is

inextricably linked with the oblation and celebration of the Holy Eucharist, the Sacrament

which must remain central to Christian worship, and has been maintained by the liturgical

practice of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

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 CHAPTER II: LITURGY

Liturgy: The Worship of the Assembly

Early Evidence: The Didache

“But every Lord’s Day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give

thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be

pure.”1 The Didache, or “teaching,” is a catechetical corpus of texts used to describe and

presumably mandate Christian practice, and its authorship is ascribed to the Twelve

Apostles; this instructional first-century document was re-discovered in 1883 in a

Constantinopolitan monastery, providing yet another early extra-biblical example of the

corporate Liturgical worship celebrated by the Christian faithful of the nascent Church.2

St. Athanasius of Alexandria is known to have numbered the Didache among the “books

not included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who are just

recently coming to us, and wish to be instructed in the word of godliness.”3 Preceding the

fourteenth chapter, which provides the aforementioned statute of the communal

observance of the Lord’s Day, is a list of other liturgical instructions including those

concerning Baptism, fasting, the Lord’s Prayer, the Eucharist, and the offices of Church

polity. It is even specified that “no one [should] eat or drink of your Eucharist, unless

they have been baptized into the name of the Lord.”4 The language employed by the

Didache, commonly accepted as a primary source regarding early Christian worship, in

no way indicates that the celebrations of liturgical activities employed by the Christian

faithful are to be performed in solitude. Rather, the worship to God of the Church

1
Roberts-Donaldson, The Didache (Washington, DC: Wyatt North Publishing, LLC, 2014), 20.
2
Ibid., 5.
3
A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Philip Schaff and
Henry Wace (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983), xii.
4
Roberts-Donaldson, The Didache (Washington, DC: Wyatt North Publishing, LLC, 2014), 6.

2
described in the Didache is assumed to be corporate and communal by nature. Thus, the

Christian liturgy necessitates the ecclesia, or gathering. It is with this standard in mind

that the late Fr. Alexander Schmemann of St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary

refers to the celebration of the Christian Eucharist as “the Sacrament of the Assembly” in

the first chapter of his theological work on the Lord’s Supper, The Eucharist.5

Schmemann remarks that “the nature and purpose of the gathering…is Eucharistic—its

end and fulfillment lies in its being the setting wherein the “Lord’s supper” is

accomplished, wherein the Eucharistic ‘breaking of bread’ takes place.”6 It is in

conjunction with this consistent concept of the Eucharistic and heavenly reality of the

Assembly of the faithful that St. Ignatius entreats the first-century Ephesians to “take

heed, then, often to come together to give thanks to God, and show forth His praise. For

when ye assemble frequently in the same place the powers of Satan are destroyed, and the

destruction at which he aims is prevented by the unity of your faith.”7

St. Justin Martyr

Another extra-biblical Christian text subsequent to the Didache, the First Apology

of St. Justin Martyr, written in the early second century, is one of the earliest

documentations of the Christian Church’s liturgical worship.8 In accordance with the rite

of initiation described by the apostolic “Teaching,” St. Justin indicates that the

administration of the sacraments of the Church begins with Baptism, describing the

sequence of events in his experience of liturgical worship from chapter 65-67.9 He

5
Alexander Schmemann, The Eucharist (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1988), 11.
6
Ibid., 11
7
Ante-Nicene Fathers, the Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts and James
Donaldson (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 55.
8
Ibid., 160.
9
Ibid., 185.

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proceeds to portray the sequence of events of the Sunday assembly, in which the faithful

gather together in common prayer, listening to the readings of epistles and prophets, and

ultimately, partaking of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.10 The apologist and martyr

describes the activity of the believer and his participation in the corporate worship of the

Church with the following anecdote from the Sunday Eucharistic liturgy:

Those who are called brethren are assembled, in order that we may offer hearty
prayers in common for ourselves and for the baptized [illuminated] person…so
that we may be saved with an everlasting salvation…There is then brought to the
president of the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water; and he taking
them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length…And when
the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent
[“amen”], those who are called by us deacons give to each of those present to
partake of the bread and wine mixed with water over which the thanksgiving was
pronounced…And this food is called among us Εύχαριστία [the Eucharist], of
which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things
which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for
the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has
enjoined…and we always keep together…we bless the Maker of all through His
Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday,
all…gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings
of the prophets are read…we all rise together and pray.11

Line by line, St. Justin reminds the reader of his Apology that the activities of the Church

which constitute its worship are inseparable from the gathering of the believing

community. With such an early emphasis placed on the catholicity and communal nature

of the Church’s worship, it logically follows that the historical precedent of ecclesial

practice described by St. Justin Martyr is reflected in subsequent adaptations of the

Christian worship service, such as in the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church. St.

Symeon of Thessaloniki, who was martyred in the early part of the 15th century, claims

that “what [Christ's Church] received from the beginning, it enacts continually and

10
Ibid., 185-186.
11
Ibid., 185-186.

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teaches what is beyond understanding through sacred symbols. Those things which are

visibly enacted have partaken of such great glory, and so they are marvelous to all.”12

These words of St. Symeon of Thessaloniki are reminiscent of those of St. Jude, when he

exhorts the Church in his epistle “to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted

to the saints” (Jude 1:3).13 Likewise, it must be noted that in his description of the

celebration of the Lord’s Supper, St. Paul reminds the Church of Corinth that he had

“received from the Lord what [he] also handed on to [them]” (1 Cor 11:23). Just as the

celebration of the Lord’s Mystical Supper is continuously inherited by the Church

through the apostolic expressions of its prayer and worship, so too is its unified identity

carried on in the traditions of its apostolic faith. This consistency is protected and

preserved by the collegial catholicity of the Orthodox Christian Church. It is in this

consistency that the rule of faith intersects with the rule of prayer, and the two comprise

the Christian experience.

Apostolic Liturgical Tradition

St. John of Kronstadt, a 20th-century champion of Orthodoxy, remarks regarding

the Divine Liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church, saying that:

If one were to put all of the world’s most precious things on one side of a scale,
and the Divine Liturgy on the other, the scales would tip completely in favor of
the Liturgy…There is nothing upon earth holier, higher, grander, more solemn,
more life-giving than the Liturgy. The temple, at this particular time, becomes an
earthly heaven; those who officiate represent Christ Himself, the angels, the
cherubim, seraphim and apostles.14

12
The Oxford History of Christian Worship, ed. Geoffrey Wainwright and Karen B. Westerfield Tucker
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 254.
13
All Scriptures are quoted from the NRSV.
14
Emmanuel Hatzidakis, The Heavenly Banquet: Understanding the Divine Liturgy (Colombia, MO:
Orthodox Witness, 2008), 40.

5
The worship of the Eastern Orthodox Church is most succinctly described as “liturgical,”

and not solely because of its methodical use of ancient liturgical texts for the celebration

of its prayers and sacraments; for it is not the liturgical structure of the Church’s rite itself

which brings believers into its fold. The Oxford History of Christian Worship records that

“liturgical worship has certain ethical presuppositions and consequences, since it is

properly the symbolic focus that both gathers up and irradiates the whole of life, at the

very heart of which is the relationship between human beings and God..."15 Therefore,

liturgical theology asks the question of what the Liturgy does, rather than what the

Liturgy is. In tracing the practices of liturgical theology, the aforementioned Oxford

History of Christian Worship states that the complexity of the symbolic system of

liturgical language is explored in order to interpret the meaning conveyed in Christian

worship;

In the twentieth century, liturgical theologians and practitioners worked in an

intellectual and cultural context that was marked by the linguistic turn in
philosophy, the hermeneutical approach in literary studies, the iconological
attention to meaning in the visual arts, and the preoccupation of sociology and
psychology with questions of identity. The case of Christian worship is
perennially rendered special by the fundamental fact that God, who is both
transcendent and self-communicating, is believed to speak and act through rites
that he has instituted and to receive the praise and the prayers that are addressed
to him."16

It is this inherent spirituality in the Liturgical celebrations of the Christian faith that

places the identity of the Orthodox Church in its Divine Liturgy, which is the worship

offered up to the Holy Trinity. Beyond the texts of historic liturgies utilized by the

assembly of the faithful, the Church is more genuinely concerned with the mass of its

community and that community’s relationship to its God and Savior; this relationship is

15
The Oxford History of Christian Worship, ed. Geoffrey Wainwright and Karen B. Westerfield Tucker
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 12.
16
Ibid., 16.

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one which is believed to be accompanied by the hosts of heaven. The reason that

Orthodox Christianity is identified by its rule of prayer is because of that inherent striving

for communion with the Lord Jesus Christ which defines its rule of belief. Fr. Alexander

Schmemann, in his survey of liturgical theology, For the Life of the World, explains that:

The Church itself is a leitourgia, a ministry, a calling to act in this world after the
fashion of Christ, to bear testimony to Him and His kingdom. The Eucharistic
liturgy, therefore, must not be approached and understood in “liturgical” or
“cultic” terms alone.17

For what is the Church if not the Assembly of its people, reaching toward its Creator in

order to offer its sacrifice of worship? In the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church, a

more cosmic reality is at play than simply the recitation of scripted prayers; for the life of

the world, the Orthodox Church holds steadfast to that consistency in which it has found

its broader identity. In the Church’s active participation in a very literal liturgical

celebration, such as the Sunday morning Divine Liturgy, mankind is commissioned to

employ its spiritual and liturgical integrity and to repent of any worldview which would

traverse the bounds of the apostolic tradition of the revealed Faith of the children of God.

It is essential that the continuation of the liturgical traditions of the Orthodox

Church be maintained, as each generation of the faithful only receives the baton from its

spiritual ancestors, and subsequently passes it on to its progeny. To echo St. John of

Kronstadt’s previously mentioned sentiment that the worshipping community is

transformed into a divine reality by the consistency of its worship beyond even the ages

of its saints, the liturgy connects its participants with others in the immanent worshipping

community, while also connecting those on earth with the transcendent hosts of heaven.

17
Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1973),
25.

7
This is the reason why, as described by Dr. Alexander Rentel in The Oxford History of

Christian Worship,

Today, modern Orthodox clergy in Paris, Sydney, San Francisco, Buenos Aires,
and Hong Kong, together with their concelebrants in the traditional Orthodox
countries, regularly utter in prayer an anaphora, attributed to John Chrysostom (c.
340-407), whose origin can be traced back to two great Roman-Hellenistic poleis
of late antiquity: Antioch and Constantinople. Similarly Orthodox communities in
both the old and new worlds of Byzantine Christianity continue to celebrate the
aggregate daily cycle of the divine office, which was forged by the end of the first
millennium in the monasteries and cathedrals of Jerusalem and Constantinople
and in the rugged gullies of the Palestinian desert.18

Regarding the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church, Fr. Emmanuel Hatzidakis

remarks, in his liturgical commentary, The Heavenly Banquet: Understanding the Divine

Liturgy, based on a much earlier work by St. Nicholas Cabasilas, that “our Liturgy today

is essentially the same Eucharistic service of these first Christians, which the Church kept

faithfully and transmitted to us in all its integrity.”19 While a very tangible reality

comprises the daily services of the liturgical Church, it is connected with the intangible

presence which it seeks to obtain. The great paradox of the Sacred Mysteries of the

Church is that by the employment of the temporal, the worshipping community of

believers is equipped to connect with the incorporeal.

The Use of the Senses in the Orthodox Liturgy

It was St. Thalassios the Libyan who said that “[God created beings] with a

capacity to receive the Spirit and to attain knowledge of Himself; He has brought into

existence the senses and sensory perception to serve such beings.”20 The characteristics

of Orthodoxy most often noted by many who first experience its splendor are those which

18
The Oxford History of Christian Worship, ed. Geoffrey Wainwright and Karen B. Westerfield Tucker
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 254.
19
Emmanuel Hatzidakis, The Heavenly Banquet: Understanding the Divine Liturgy (Colombia, MO:
Orthodox Witness, 2008), 39.
20
Nicodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Collection (London: Faber and Faber, 1981), 326.

8
appear sensory; these characteristics, however, delve beyond their surfaces to promote

the revelation of truth to a further degree. Each sense perceived amidst the complexities

of the Ecclesia unfolds to reveal beauties which are explained by normative Church

tradition and can be applied to the worship of the daily life of the Orthodox Christian.

The liturgical worship prescribed by the Church incorporates each of the God-given

human senses to immerse the worshipper in its heavenly encounter. This multifaceted

experience acts in sharp contrast to the iconoclastic nature of other forms of worship

found in less ancient religious traditions of Christianity which seem to lack the interactive

concept of an incarnational reality. The following section of this paper will introduce the

ways in which each of man's natural senses are utilized in the process of directing all

attentions toward the one true God according to the context of the Holy Orthodox

Church.

Sight

“And above [the ark] were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat”

(Heb 9:5). From the construction of the Ark of the Covenant to this very day, images

have been utilized as holy reminders of the heavenly. Commentary regarding the

Orthodox Christian use of the images known as icons is ubiquitous among those outside

of the Church. This predominant question is to be anticipated, as no Orthodox Catholic

setting is complete without a sufficient sampling of icons and often ornate vestments,

crosses, candlesticks, and the like. The Orthodox understanding of worship requires the

reality of an encounter with the Divine, therefore the ornamental beauty of vestments and

liturgical instruments helps to create an atmosphere reminiscent of celebration and glory,

9
while icons channel a person's attentions toward the worship of God Himself along with

the communion of those represented in these iconic depictions.

Sound

“Be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs

among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks

to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”

(Eph 5:18-20). Most Christians find common ground in the biblical and traditional use of

the voice and song in the making of the worship experience, and any who have heard the

eerie beauty of Byzantine music would be inclined to comprehend why Christians

throughout the life of the Church have composed such works to join in the exultation of

the angelic choirs. The whole of scripture, most notably the Psalms, is pervasive with

references to lifting up songs as praise to the Lord. In the understanding of the Holy

Church, our worship joins in the heavenly song of the angels and saints and, surrounded

by the great cloud of witnesses, the faithful never worship in small number. The majority

of each prescribed service of the Ecclesia (the Church or assembly) is celebrated in chant

and sung with all the joyful hosts of heaven.

Smell

“Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands

as an evening sacrifice” (Ps 141:2). Within Orthodox Christianity, the prayers of the

saints are often accompanied by the smoke of the incense. A customary practice of

Israelite and Christian worship for millennia, the Revelation of St. John describes the use

of incense in his heavenly vision:

Another angel with a golden censer came and stood at the altar; he was given a
great quantity of incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden

10
 altar that is before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of
the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel (Rev 8:3-4).

In keeping with the Orthodox practice of worship being truly catholic, incense is used in

the Liturgy and serves as a reminder of our prayers, as they rise to the ear of The Lord.

To the Christian who participates in the liturgical life, the sweet smelling smoke is an

immediate subconscious reminder of the holy.

Touch

“Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you” (2 Cor 13:12). One

common practice which tends to become rote to the Orthodox Christian is that of kissing:

icons, vestments, even a bishop or presbyter's hand. Kissing is a notably Middle Eastern

and Mediterranean practice which has found its way into religion throughout history.

Man offers a kiss to show love and respect, and even to take a moment to pause and

remember to revere his fellow creation. Most who first find themselves in an Eastern

Orthodox setting will quickly notice that the practice of venerating icons, or even

receiving a blessing from a priest, includes a kiss. It is customary to kiss a priest's hand

upon the reception of a blessing because it has touched the holiest things on earth, the

Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, and to kiss icons in order to honor the fact that

they represent the holiest things to ever occupy flesh, Jesus Christ and His saints.

Taste

“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s

death until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26). The most Blessed Sacrament and Mystery of the

Holy Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Church is the partaking of the Eucharist, the Body

and Blood of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in the Divine Liturgy. This bloodless

sacrifice to God and communion in the Lord's Supper is the central focus and main event

11
of the Divine Liturgy. The mystery of Heaven on earth is one which alters reality because

of the miracle of the incarnation, which never ceases to disrupt flesh and disturb death.

One who is made worthy by the merciful Grace of God to partake of this, His Holy

Communion, tastes its goodness to his or her very core. Naturally, the communicant

tastes the consecrated gifts of bread and wine on the tongue, and mystically, he or she

tastes the presence of the Holy Spirit in the heart. This encounter is altogether as real as

the majesty of Christ and cannot be summarized in all the books that could ever be

written about it. For those within or outside of Communion with the Church, regardless

of condition, Holy Bread called antidoron (or "instead of the Gifts") is also offered. This

acts as a blessing on par with Holy Water and is in no way a sacrament.

Nous

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your

minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and

perfect” (Rom 12:2). Beyond sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste, the understanding of

the soul is a most valuable sensory component in Christianity. Though the nature of this

discernment is not something which can be measured or tested, the nous, or

comprehension of spiritual reality, leads to theoria (illumination) and contributes to the

journey of drawing nearer to God in theosis. Through submission to God and walking in

a manner worthy of the Grace which He has so freely granted to mankind, the eye of the

heart begins to perceive truth. This truth is supplemented by each of the other sensory

perceptions and guides the beloved child of God into actual transformation. By means of

the transformation which occurs in the process of salvation, the Orthodox Christian

partakes of the Christ who trampled down death by death and put on His nature of

12
righteousness. God has created mankind in order that it may, in fact, know Him and

receive His Holy Spirit. In His mercy is the human race redeemed and in His grace is it

made His bride.

The Sacred Chant of the Orthodox Church

In the latter years of the tenth century, the pagan prince of Kiev, today revered as

St. Vladimir, sought to employ the world's true faith as the religion of his medieval

Russian constituents. To decide upon the religion which would comprise the official

means of worship in the land, Prince Vladimir commissioned a group of envoys from his

court to peruse the known world in search of the purest faith of mankind. His

representatives first observed the prayers of the Muslims of the Vulga, leaving them

dissatisfied. They then experienced the Mass as celebrated by the Western Christians of

the Germanies and old Rome, but were not as impressed as they had hoped. The next

destination of their quest for the future religion of the Russians was Constantinople; little

did they know that what they would find there would alter the lives of an inconceivable

multitude of people for ages to come. The envoys from the court of Kiev experienced the

worship of the Orthodox Christians in the great cathedral of Hagia Sophia, the Church of

Holy Wisdom. Remarking upon their encounter of the beauty of the Divine Liturgy in

that unprecedented basilica, the ambassadors claimed that they "knew not whether [they]

were in heaven or on earth, for surely there is no such splendor or beauty anywhere upon

the earth...only this [they knew], that God dwells there among humans, and that their

service surpasses the worship of all other places. For [they could not] forget that beauty."

This heavenly experience of the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church, celebrated in the

choruses and hymns of Byzantine chant, the readings of sacred scripture, and ultimately

13
the consecration of the Holy Eucharist, has led the regions of the Russian people through

over a thousand years of traditional Christianity, not without phases of trial and

persecution.21

This chapter will labor to answer the question of how the Byzantine Divine

Liturgy aligned itself with the preeminent theology of worship held by the Eastern

Orthodox Church. This essay will describe the nature of Byzantine chant as it pertains to

the liturgical worship of the Orthodox Church, followed by an explanation of the

communion which is expressed in the uniformity of worship surrounding the celebration

of the Eucharist. In defense of the popular Latin axiom, lex orandi, lex credendi, the

following section will establish that the way of worship is the way of belief, and that

Eastern Orthodox theology cannot be separated from its worship. The worship of the

people of God is a revelation of the worship of His heavenly hosts.

Byzantine Chant

Essential to the worship experienced in Orthodox Christianity, The Divine

Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is full of countless contextual examples of the inherent

doctrines held by the Eastern Orthodox Church regarding its theology of worship.

"Worship, for the Orthodox Church, is nothing else than 'heaven on earth'," as the cries of

the Divine Liturgy elevate the worshipper to a posture of joining in the sounds of

heaven.22 The language utilized in the prayers of the Divine Liturgy divulges the

expression of the Body of Christ on earth as the reflection of heaven which partakes in

the worship of the Holy Trinity. As the priestly celebrant pronounces the anaphora, or

21
Daniel B. Clendenin, Eastern Orthodox Theology: A Contemporary Reader (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 2003), 12.
22
Ibid., 16.

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oblation, over the gifts of bread and wine offered up to God, he recites the following

prayer:

There stand beside thee thousands of Archangels and ten thousands of Angels, the
Cherubim and the Seraphim, six-winged, many eyed, soaring aloft, borne on their
pinions. Singing the Triumphal Hymn, shouting, proclaiming, and saying: Holy,
Holy, Holy Lord of Sabaoth; heaven and earth are full of thy glory: Hosanna in
the highest: Blessed is He that cometh in the name of The Lord. Hosanna in the
highest. With these blessed Powers we also, O Master who lovest mankind, cry
aloud.23

As early as Exodus 25-28, the Lord provides Moses with concise instructions

regarding the worship of His people as a revelation of the worship of His heavenly hosts.

Rich with a myriad of images made clear in the fullness of the revelation of Jesus Christ,

this segment of the Exodus account clearly reports the crafting of cherubim, heavenly

creatures, in the gold of the Ark of the Covenant, and establishes that these cherubim will

accompany God in His revelation to the people of Israel. "There I will make Myself

known to you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the

two cherubim which are on the ark of testimony, about everything I will give you in

commandment to the children of Israel" (Exod 25:22). Thus, early in sacred scripture, the

people of God orient themselves towards an accompaniment of angelic beings in their

worship of the Lord.

The musical element of angelic worship is likewise described in Isaiah 6, a

passage which seems to describe the beauties of the Divine Liturgy of the Holy Orthodox

Church, as Isaiah vividly recalls that he was taken up in glorious splendor and heard the

songs of the heavenly powers as they sang, "Holy, holy, holy is The Lord of hosts; the

whole earth is full of His glory" (Isa 6:3); the prophet elaborates that this holy place was

23
Service Book of the Holy Eastern Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church According to the Use of the
Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America (New York: Antiochian Orthodox Christian
Archdiocese of New York and All North America, 2006), 105.

15
filled with the smoke of the incense as even a seraph handled the charcoal of this censer

with tongs from the altar (Isa 6:6). Thus, the divine impartation of sacred worship is

rooted deeply in the tradition of the people of God. Revelation 4 paints one of the most

vivid pictures of the heavenly liturgy as adopted by the early Church from St. John the

Theologian's insight into the courts of the Most High. "And from the throne proceeded

lightnings, thunderings, and voices" (Rev 4:5) according to the revelation of heaven to St.

John. This is the revelation of the worship of the faithful hosts of the heavenly realms. In

sacred scripture, worship is not just an expression of human creativity dedicated to God,

but it is an imparted revelation of the very glory of the Holy Trinity, sanctified in Him

and accompanied by His Holy Church.

The unbridled glory of the Lord infiltrates the Church's liturgies of worship to

Him. God’s creation has been restored and redeemed in His incarnation and resurrection,

and has been reunited to its fullest purpose, to partake of the divine nature (2 Pet 1:3). In

the redemption granted by Christ to His creation, the natural world is employed for His

worship. In her observation of the artistic majesty of Byzantine worship, most notably as

a reflection on the magnificence of Hagia Sophia, Liz James writes that "A Byzantine

church is a space that dominates the congregation; it is a space that appeals to all the

senses; and it is a space that places the body and the body's relation to the spiritual at the

centre of its display." She recalls the words of Patriarch Germanos, who mused on the

Divine Liturgy in the eighth century as he made the claim that "the Church is an earthly

heaven in which the super-celestial God dwells and walks about." James does not neglect

to attribute the harmonious synthesis of the sensory perceptions heightened by Eastern

Christian worship to the use of the tones of Byzantine chant: "Within the church...there

16
was the singing and hypnotic chanting of the liturgy, responses and counter-responses

from the congregation...the acoustics of the building...provided different echoes which

[were] employed during the religious service...taking in words as musical sounds.”24

Throughout the Medieval period, this sacred gift was organized and developed as

it was cherished by the liturgies of the Christian East as the divine impartation of the

music of heaven into the music of the Church. While the Orthodox church has produced

new choral arrangements of ancient Byzantine hymns, and translated their lyrics into

every vernacular which would chant them, the heritage of its musical integrity has been

maintained by the continual use of the eight common Byzantine tones. Such Byzantine

tones are among the many practices retained by the early Christian church from

synagogue and temple worship. Standard in Orthodox Christian belief is the idea that our

supplications and hymns are accompanied by those of the heavenly hosts.

Κοινωνία: Communion

Another essential pragmatism warrants the use of continuous tones throughout the

history of Byzantine worship, and that is the communion and perpetuity of the catholic

worship of the Church. The communal aspect of liturgical worship is experienced in a

variety of ways, from the harmony and sequence between the priest and the choir to the

catholicity and recognition shared between 6th-century Jerusalem and 16th-century

Moscow. In like manner, these various roles in the drama of the greater Christian

community maintain a common recognition of Christ as the head of the Church. The

same Eucharist is shared between the priest and his congregation, and is experienced by

the farthest reaches of the Church at large. St. Ignatius of Antioch reminds the Church of

24
Liz James, “Senses and Sensibility in Byzantium,” in Art History (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004),
525.

17
the Philadelphians of this unity in the following excerpt of his epistle: “Take ye heed,

then, to have but one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one

cup to show forth the unity of His blood; one altar; as there is one bishop, along with the

presbytery and deacons, my fellow-servants: that so, whatsoever ye do, ye may do it

according to the will of God.”25

The voices of the faithful chant in harmony, and the practices of the Orthodox

Church are executed in harmony. There is to be no discord in the Divine Liturgy of the

Orthodox Church, as each human partaker of the heavenly mysteries raises his voice to

heaven. The human voice, formed into being by the very breath of God, is the purest

instrument in existence, and in his epistle to the Ephesians, St. Ignatius exhorts us to

employ it, saying, “You must every man of you join in a choir so that being harmonious

and in concord and taking the keynote of God in unison, you may sing with one voice

through Jesus Christ to the Father, so that He may hear you and through your good deeds

recognize that you are parts of His Son.”26 He continues, in his encouraging epistle to the

church of Ephesus, to utilize language reminiscent of music, harmony, and Byzantine

chant to illustrate to his reader the theology intertwined in the Church's consistent and

traditional use of its liturgical music. This communal use of the common tones of

Byzantine chant emphasized the ecclesial practice of active and involved worship, a

liturgy which reminds one more of a chorus than a lecture. Again, Liz James provides

insight to the nature of the involved experience of the apostolic Divine Liturgy,

resounding the theme of its beauty in the following excerpt from "Senses and Sensibility

in Byzantium":

25
Ante-Nicene Fathers, the Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts and James
Donaldson (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995), 81.
26
Ibid., 51.

18
 It is apparent that pleasurable sensory experiences related to all five senses were
allowed and even encouraged within a Byzantine religious context and that
experiencing the church was portrayed as a sensory, corporeal experience,
underlining the bodily dimension to [perception].27

Such experiences promote the sanctification of man's sensory perception; these

serve to remind the faithful that their natures have been renewed and reunited to goodness

in the life of the resurrected Christ. This catholic truth marks the crossroads between

liturgical practice and religious belief.

Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi

"Lex orandi, lex credendi" is a phrase first coined by St. Prosper of Aquitaine

before the rise of the medieval period. This statement expresses the deeply universal truth

that "the way you pray determines what you believe," according to Alister McGrath.

More literally translated, "the rule of prayer is the rule of belief"; this distinguishes the

principle that worship and theology ceaselessly go hand in hand.28 This idea epitomized

the liturgical theology of the developing Medieval Byzantine Church, and it remains a

time-tested axiom to this day. The standard forms of the tones which comprise Byzantine

music are a reflection of the standardized forms of biblical and canonical orthodox

theology which provide structure to the Eastern Church unto the ages of ages. The

humility exercised in the posture necessary to conform to the revealed majesty of the

worship of heaven in the apostolic Church operates in tandem with the willingness to

conform to traditional apostolic teachings and to affirm the canonical Creeds of the

Church which is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. The community of believers

belonging to our one Lord Jesus Christ is the response to heaven which is maintained

27
Liz James, “Senses and Sensibility in Byzantium,” in Art History (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004),
529.
28
Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction (London: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 142.

19
through the ages by the continuation of the Church’s traditions taught by the Apostles and

their successors.

The history of prayer and the history of song operate hand in hand, from the

depths of the earliest days of the heavenly creatures of God to the far reaches of our

collective eternity. This symphony of faithful belief and sound practice is most mystically

expressed in the creative art of music. "Chanting is an angelic ministry for [it] gives joy,

but it is also prayer." St. Basil the Great teaches us that Byzantine chant is the "sweet

honey" with which the Church blends her words, delivering to the world a joyous

sweetness, and the faithful are the busy bumblebees that cultivate it from among the

flowers of creation. The Divine Liturgy cannot be imitated or simulated because it is the

true worship of the Kingdom of Heaven, the mystical union between Jesus Christ and the

Church which He delivered to and established upon the earth for all mankind. From the

hymns of the Tabernacle to the angelic cries of Heaven, the sounds of God's creation

echo most jubilantly in the chants of His faithful, the redeemed and sanctified, the One,

Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church of The Lord Jesus Christ. Lex orandi, lex credendi.

CHAPTER III: EUCHARIST

The Context of Communion

"For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on

the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he

broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the

same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my

blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat

this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Whoever,

20
therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be

answerable for the body and blood of the Lord” (1 Cor 23-27). St. Paul recounts to the

Corinthian Church the words of institution which our Lord Jesus Christ pronounced over

His last supper, His own sacrificial Passover, those very words which were held dear by

the tradition of the apostles and are retained by the Eucharistic Liturgy to this day; and in

this exhortation to his flock, the Apostle reminds them of the gravity of partaking of the

body and blood of the Word of God, and warns them of approaching it unworthily. The

“eucharist has traditionally been at the heart of Christian worship,” according to Edward

Foley’s historical survey of the celebrations of the Lord’s Supper, From Age to Age: How

Christians Have Celebrated the Eucharist.29 According to the Liturgical worship of the

Orthodox Church as articulated by Fr. Alexander Schmemann, “the Divine Liturgy or

Eucharist, [is] the very center of the whole life of the Church, the Sacrament of Christ’s

Presence among us and of His Communion with us. This sacrament is the essential

sacrament of the Church, for nothing in the Church can be achieved without communion

with Christ in the Eucharist.”30 It is in the actual partaking of the bread and wine as the

Body and Blood of Jesus Christ that the assembly of worshipping believers finds its

purpose and the Divine Liturgy its climax and intention. “We study those tangible aspects

of the liturgy that have always been important to the experience of worship,” according to

Edward Foley, in order to comprehend the way in which the worshipping assembly

perceives the doctrines of the Church by partaking of its Sacred Mysteries.31 Therefore, it

29
Edward Foley, From Age to Age: How Christians Have Celebrated the Eucharist (Chicago: Liturgy
Training Publications, 1991), vii.
30
Alexander Schmemann, Liturgy and Life: Christian Development Through Liturgical Experience (New
York: Department of Religious Education Orthodox Church in America, 1974), 25.
31
Edward Foley, From Age to Age: How Christians Have Celebrated the Eucharist (Chicago: Liturgy
Training Publications, 1991), vii.

21
follows that the only context in which the rule of faith may be truly nurtured is that of the

rule of prayer; the mystical reality of the worshipping community substantiates its

doctrines. In explaining the ways in which the liturgical life of the Church should be

examined, Fr. Alexander Schmemann clearly portrays the Eucharistic celebration as the

summit of all liturgical experience, saying:

The Sacrament of Eucharist is the “Sacrament of all Sacraments.” In it the

“church” (visible community) is changed into the Church, the Body of Christ, the
new People of God, the Temple of the Holy Spirit. This is achieved by means of a
sacrificial and eucharistic meal, instituted by Christ Himself, at which the whole
Church offers to God, in Christ’s name, the sacrifice of praise, commemorating
the Death and Resurrection of the Lord. And, having acknowledged the
transformation of the Bread and Wine, the elements of our offering and
“memorial” into the Body and Blood of Christ, the Church partakes of them in
perfect communion with Him.32

This clearly Orthodox Christian understanding that the Eucharist as the fullest expression

of the worship of the faithful people of God is one which extends far beyond the 20th

Century. Long before the writings of Fr. Alexander Schmemann and Edward Foley,

many saints of the Church such as Nicholas Cabasilas (14th Century) and Cyril of

Jerusalem (4th Century) described the reality of the Eucharistic Liturgy in similar

reverence.

St. Nicholas Cabasilas

While the theological expose of this 14th-century Thessalonian on the worship of

the Orthodox Church has proved a time-tested standard of liturgical theology, “very little

is known of the life of Nicholas Cabasilas…He was in any case living at the time when

the Byzantine Empire was convulsed by civil war” in the middle part of the 14th

32
Alexander Schmemann, Liturgy and Life: Christian Development Through Liturgical Experience (New
York: Department of Religious Education Orthodox Church in America, 1974), 25-26.

22
Century.33 In his famous treatise, A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, St. Nicholas

Cabasilas, a Byzantine lay-theologian describes the sequence of events comprising the

Byzantine liturgy and the related theological interpretations of said events within the

Eastern Orthodox Church. Cabasilas divides the structure of the Divine Liturgy of St.

John Chrystostom (the Liturgy used most commonly by the churches of the Byzantine

Rite, including the Eastern Orthodox Church, Byzantine Catholic churches, and other

Eastern Christian communions) into its traditional segments: the introduction and

Prothesis, the Liturgy of the Catechumens, and the Liturgy of the Faithful, followed by a

theological parenthesis which provides an interpretation of the content of the Church’s

worship.34 This section will describe the Liturgy of the Faithful, and its subsequent

theological implications, regarding the celebration of the Eucharist specifically.

St. Nicholas Cabasilas describes the celebration of the sacrament of the Eucharist

(here described as “the holy mysteries”) as inherently central to the religious system of

Christian worship, explaining that:

The essential act in the celebration of the holy mysteries is the transformation of
the elements into the Divine Body and Blood; its aim is the sanctification of the
faithful, who through these mysteries receive the remission of their sins and the
inheritance of the kingdom of heaven. As a preparation for, and contribution to,
this act and this purpose we have prayers, psalms, and readings from Holy
Scripture; in short, all the sacred acts and forms which are said and done before
and after the consecration of the elements.35

Here, the emphasis of liturgical theology is placed on the relationship of the faithful to

the Savior of which they partake, rather than the doctrines which surround its

explanation. From the Orthodox perspective of Cabasilas, the primary activity which

33
Nicholas Cabasilas, A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary
Press, 1977), viii.
34
Ibid., v-viii.
35
Ibid., 25.

23
occurs in the liturgical celebration of the sacrament is not the edification which comes

from the various sacred texts which surround it, but rather, the actual deification and

salvation of the people who gather unto the Divine Throne in the worship of the Holy

Trinity. To the Orthodox Church, what happens in the execution of the liturgical service

is both temporal and spiritual; while the prescribed elements which so beautifully

comprise the activity of the Church assembly are entirely tangible and visual, their

effectiveness on the soul of the communicant, mystically present in heaven, is entirely

incorporeal. Regarding the oblation of the elements of the Holy Eucharist in the

anaphora of the Liturgy of the Faithful (the segment of the Divine Liturgy in which the

presbyter sacrifices to God the offerings of bread and wine on the Holy Altar), St.

Nicholas Cabasilas maintains that “the souls of Christians, living and dead, benefit

through this sacrifice.”36 While the souls and minds of the present faithful are enhanced

by the religious observances of the elements of the Liturgy which surround the Mystical

Supper, as these things offer a pedagogical witness to the knowledge of God and His

Church, it is emphasized in Cabasilas’ Commentary that the spiritual impartation of a

mystagogical (the spiritual edification which is experienced by the communication of the

sacraments) witness to the Glory of God is the end goal of the participation in the Divine

Liturgy.37 Remarking on the deification which is affected by the communion of the

Eucharistic celebration in the greater context of the liturgical service, St. Nicholas

Cabasilas reminds his reader that the faithful are, after all, partaking of the redeeming

Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, explaining that:

There is another way in which these forms, like all the ceremonies of the Holy
Sacrifice, sanctify us. It consists in this: that in them Christ and the deeds he

36
Ibid., 30.
37
Ibid., 26.

24
 accomplished and the sufferings he endured for our sakes are represented. Indeed,
it is the whole scheme of the work of redemption which is signified in the psalms
and readings, as in all the actions of the priest throughout the liturgy; the first
ceremonies of the service represent the beginnings of this work; the next, the
sequel; and the last, its results. Thus, those who are present at these ceremonies
have before their eyes all these divine things. The consecration of the elements—
the sacrifice itself—commemorates the death, resurrection, and ascension of the
Saviour, since it transforms these precious gifts into the very Body of the Lord,
that Body which was the central figure in all these mysteries, which was crucified,
which rose from the dead, which ascended into heaven. The ceremonies which
precede the act of sacrifice symbolize the events which occurred before the death
of Christ: his coming on earth, his first appearance and his perfect manifestation.
Those which follow the act of sacrifice recall "the promise of the Father", as the
Saviour himself called it: that is, the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles,
the conversion of the nations which they brought about, and their divine society.
The whole celebration of the mystery is like a unique portrayal of a single body,
which is the work of the Saviour; it places before us the several members of this
body, from beginning to end, in their order and harmony. That is why the
psalmody, as well as the opening chants, and before them all that is done at the
preparation of the offerings, symbolize the first period of the scheme of
redemption. That which comes after the psalms—readings from Holy Scriptures
and so on—symbolizes the period which follows.38

Clearly, the Eastern Orthodox perspective promulgated by the aforementioned liturgical

commentary is one of eschatological proportions, as the Church mystically participates in

the sacrifice which was once and for all enacted on the cross of Calvary by the one

redeemer of mankind, Jesus Christ. It is therefore no surprise that such a heightened

explanation of the sacramental activity of the Holy Eucharist is accompanied by the

assurance that the gifts of bread and wine offered upon the altar to God truly and

mystically become the very Body and Blood of Christ. Thus, it is in the celebration of the

Eucharist that the faithful communicants of the Holy Church of Christ encounter

salvation face to face.

38
Ibid., 26-27.

25
 St. Cyril of Jerusalem

St. Cyril served his native Church of Jerusalem at the height of the Arian

controversy in the 4th Century, having been elevated from among the ranks of monastics

to occupy the episcopal throne; however, he did not oversee the local church before he

had bestowed upon Christian literature his Catechetical Lectures, which were designed to

instruct catechumens in their candidacy for Baptism, and ultimately, their reception into

the Holy Catholic Church.39 Cyril’s Catechetical Lectures employ a mystagogical

curriculum, as in them he employs the sacramental life of worship for the teaching of the

doctrines of the Faith. After describing the rites of initiation, including Baptism and the

Chrism, St. Cyril provides an apostolic description of the Eucharist and the Liturgy which

surrounds it; the early edition of the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church which Cyril

employs in his lectures is that which is ascribed to St. James, the first Patriarch of

Jerusalem.40

“On the Body and Blood of Christ”

In Cyril’s Lecture XXII, his fourth lecture “on the Mysteries,” On the Body and

Blood of Christ, he rouses an ardent defense of the real presence of Jesus Christ in the

Eucharist; taking the Lord at His word, the catechist makes the following statement:

Since then He Himself declared and said of the Bread, This is My Body, who
shall dare to doubt any longer? And since He has Himself affirmed and said, This
is My Blood, who shall ever hesitate, saying, that it is not His blood? Wherefore
with full assurance let us partake as of the Body and Blood of Christ: for in the
figure of Bread is given to thee His Body, and in the figure of Wine His Blood;
that thou by partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, mayest be made of the
same body and the same blood with Him. For thus we come to bear Christ in us,

39
A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Philip Schaff and
Henry Wace (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983), iii.
40
Ibid., xxvii.

26
 because His Body and Blood are distributed through our members; thus it is that,
according to the blessed Peter, we become partakers of the divine nature.41

Clearly, this early Christian leader of the Jerusalem Church did not shy away from the

claim that the mandate of Jesus Christ to “eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his

blood” (John 6:53) was in fact one of the many promises of the Lord which would come

to pass. St. Cyril continues to edify his listener, instructing the faithful that the

nourishment for their souls in the “Bread of Heaven” and “Cup of Salvation,” just as had

been promised by the Lord and preserved by the Apostles.42

“On the Sacred Liturgy and Communion”

In his next lecture “on the Mysteries,” entitled On the Sacred Liturgy and

Communion (Lecture XXIII), St. Cyril thoroughly explicates the Divine Liturgy,

following the reception of the newly illumined communicants by the sacramental rites of

Baptism and Chrismation.43 Commenting on the place of the Lord’s Prayer in the

anaphora of the eucharistic Liturgy of the Faithful, he relates the “daily (or substantial)

bread” with the Holy Gifts of the Eucharist, remarking, “give us this day our substantial

bread. This common bread is not substantial bread, but this Holy Bread is substantial, that

is, appointed for the substance of the soul…”44 The catechist’s observation of the Divine

Liturgy of St. James quite obviously records the Eucharist as the climax of the entire

setting of the liturgical drama. Fr. Emmanuel Hatzidakis, in The Heavenly Banquet,

remarks saying, “ultimately, the purpose of the Divine Eucharist is to lead the faithful to

a transformation of their lives after the likeness of God—to salvation—which, in the

Orthodox understanding, is union with God, which begins from this life and is fulfilled in

41
Ibid., 151.
42
Ibid., 152.
43
Ibid., 153.
44
Ibid., 155.

27
the life to come.”45 Union with Jesus Christ, and becoming “participants of the divine

nature” (2 Pet 1:4) is the apex of Orthodox soteriology, so it is consistent that the

Orthodox Christian sees the encounter with the mystical presence of Christ in the

communion of the Divine Eucharist as the centerpiece of his or her faith experience.

A Liturgy of Heavenly Worship

As is still chanted today in the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom in the

Holy Orthodox Church, St. Cyril records the hymn of the liturgy in which the faithful

sing, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Sabaoth. For the reason of our reciting this

confession of God, delivered down to us from the Seraphim, is this, that so we may be

partakers with the hosts of the world above in their Hymn of praise.”46 St. Cyril of

Jerusalem promulgates the standard Orthodox Christian sentiment that the liturgical

worship service of the Holy Eucharist is an experience of heaven on earth, and that it is in

the Divine Liturgy that man’s sensory perceptions encounter the Divine. Catechetical

Lecture XXIII describes the partaking of Holy Communion thus:

After this ye hear the chanter inviting you with a sacred melody to the
communion of the Holy Mysteries, and saying, O taste and see that the Lord is
good. Trust not the judgment to thy bodily palate; no, but to faith unfaltering; for
they who taste are bidden to taste, not bread and wine, but the anti-typical Body
and Blood of Christ…Hold fast these traditions undefiled and, keep yourselves
free from offence. Sever not yourselves from the Communion; deprive not
yourselves, through the pollution of sins, of these Holy and Spiritual Mysteries.47

Yet again, St. Cyril’s words champion the Orthodox way. His Catechetical Lectures not

only defend the belief in the Eucharist as the Body and Blood of Christ, but even exhort

the believer to actually approach and partake of the chalice of immortality, tasting and

45
Emmanuel Hatzidakis, The Heavenly Banquet: Understanding the Divine Liturgy (Colombia, MO:
Orthodox Witness, 2008), 40.
46
A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Philip Schaff and
Henry Wace (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983), 154.
47
Ibid., 156.

28
seeing that the Lord is good, never separating himself from the Holy Mysteries by

missing the mark of righteousness in Christ Jesus. These lessons of the catechist serve as

an apt reminder that the worship of which the Faithful partake is truly the worship of the

Hosts of Heaven as they surround the foot stool of the Lord and glorify Him.

The Epiclesis

The Liturgy of the Faithful, or the Liturgy of the Eucharist, is the latter segment

of the greater Divine Liturgy. This part of the Liturgy consists of three divisions: the

preparation, the Holy Anaphora (oblation), and finally the Holy Communion itself.48

Within the celebration of the Holy Anaphora, the Epiclesis, or invocation, is the pinnacle

of the Eucharistic assembly, and it is this invocation which St. Cyril of Jerusalem records

in Catechetical Lecture XXIII, recounting, “then having sanctified ourselves by these

spiritual Hymns, we beseech the merciful God to send forth His Holy Spirit upon the gifts

lying before Him; that He may make the Bread the Body of Christ, and the Wine the

Blood of Christ; for whatsoever the Holy Ghost has touched, is surely sanctified and

changed.”49 At this time, the celebrant priest makes bold “to call upon Almighty God to

send His Holy Spirit on us and on the Gifts offered,” and the transformation of the

bloodless sacrifice of bread and wine into the mystical Body and Blood of Jesus Christ

for the salvation of the whole Church.50 It is the epiclesis, the moment at which heaven

infiltrates earth and the offering upon the altar, is transformed mystically by the presence

of the Holy Spirit into the true sustenance of heaven, the Body and Blood of the incarnate

48
Emmanuel Hatzidakis, The Heavenly Banquet: Understanding the Divine Liturgy (Colombia, MO:
Orthodox Witness, 2008), 157.
49
A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Philip Schaff and
Henry Wace (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983), 156.
50
Emmanuel Hatzidakis, The Heavenly Banquet: Understanding the Divine Liturgy (Colombia, MO:
Orthodox Witness, 2008), 270.

29
Master of the Christian Church. This element of the Liturgy of the Eucharist transforms

not only the gifts of offering into the flesh of the Savior, but also the mere liturgical

practice of corporate celebration into the worship of the saints and heavenly hosts beyond

all time and space.

Different Views on the Lord’s Supper

When in the course of the study of liturgical theology, it is important to highlight

the variety of liturgical practice and belief which exists in different religious sects, and

recall that not every Christian liturgical ordo is in accordance with the teachings of Ss.

Justin Martyr, Cyril of Jerusalem, Nicholas Cabasilas, or the Apostolic Sees of the

Eastern Orthodox Church. Although the topics described in this text have referred

primarily to the practice and doctrine of the Orthodox Catholic Church, there are

expanses of liturgical theology and order which exist beyond the practical bounds of the

Byzantine Rite, and the differences are most clearly observed in their practice

surrounding the Sacrament of Sacraments, the Eucharist. In his liturgical overview, From

Age to Age: How Christians Have Celebrated the Eucharist, Edward Foley begins to

explore the understanding of Christian worship from the perspective of the faithful by

calling to mind the fact that, “while ordinary Christians did not always have access to

explanations that were provided, they did have their own experiences.”51 He continues by

explaining that the most natural approach to the study of liturgical theology is not to look

at the Church through the lens of the liturgical commentary, but to look at the liturgical

commentary through the lens of the authentic experience of the Church’s worship:

This approach allows us to consider seriously the liturgy as a source of belief and
theology. The Christian churches today acknowledge the ancient teaching that

51
Edward Foley, From Age to Age: How Christians Have Celebrated the Eucharist (Chicago: Liturgy
Training Publications, 1991), vii.

30
 worship is the source and embodiment of our common belief. At the same time,
worship has the power to shape and change our belief. More than any official
proclamation or systematic treatise, the liturgy announces who we are and who
we are to become in Christ. Liturgy, therefore, is the bedrock upon which we
build our theologies of God, church and salvation. Discovering how these beliefs
were embodied and perpetuated by liturgies of the past can help us to look
critically at contemporary worship and discover how liturgy is expressing and
shaping our faith today.52

Just as the Eucharist is at the center of the Divine Liturgy, the Liturgy (or way of

worship) is at the center of the experience of belief. This observation by Foley clearly

supports the foundational connection between the lex orandi (rule of prayer) and the lex

credendi (rule of belief). Fr. Alexander Schmemann is quick to remind the reader of his

Introduction to Liturgical Theology that “the Church has never believed that complete

uniformity in ceremonies and prayers is an obligatory condition of her unity,” an

observation which speaks to the various local traditions which throughout time developed

within the greater catholic faith.53 However, in the same introductory work, Schmemann

concedes that “the Eucharist must unquestionably be placed in the center of the first part

of liturgical theology, the essential nature of the Church being actualized in the Eucharist

as the Sacrament of the Church’s life.”54 With this principle in mind, it would be most

accurate to assess the treatment of the Eucharistic celebration by a faith community in

order to surmise its theology of worship. To provide a visual description of a simple

survey of four different Eucharistic perspectives beyond the faith of the Eastern Orthodox

Church, the following chart, taken from H. Wayne House’s Charts of Christian Theology

and Doctrine, “Four Views of the Lord’s Supper,” provides a brief description of four

52
Ibid., vii.
53
Alexander Schmemann, Introduction to Liturgical Theology (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary
Press, 1986), 20.
54
Ibid., 25.

31
samples of liturgically theological perspectives on the celebration of the Holy

Communion.55

Transubstantiation Consubstantiation Reformed Memorial

Groups Roman Catholic Lutheran Presbyterian, Baptist,
(Denominations) [Other catholic and other Reformed Mennonite
orthodox traditions] Churches
“Founder” of Thomas Aquinas Martin Luther John Calvin Ulrich Zwingli
position
Presence of Through The elements do not Christ is not Christ is not
Christ consecration of the change into the literally present present in the
bread and the wine, presence of Christ, in the elements. elements either
the bread changes but he is actually literally or
into Christ’s body present in, with, and He is present spiritually.
and wine changes under the elements. spiritually in the
into Christ’s blood. partaking of the
Christ is truly and elements.
substantially present
in the elements
themselves.
Significance of Spiritual food for the Recipient has the A A
Lord’s Supper soul; it strengthens forgiveness of his commemoration commemoration
participant and frees sins and the of Christ’s death of the death of
from venial sins. confirmation of his that bestows Christ. The
faith. Participation grace to seal partaker is
Christ is sacrificed at must include faith partakers in the reminded of the
each Mass to atone or the sacrament love of Christ. benefits of
for the sins of the conveys no benefit. The supper gives redemption and
partaker. spiritual salvation brought
nourishment and about in Christ’s
brings one closer death.
to the presence of
Christ.
Major Decrees of Council Augsburg Westminster Schleithem
Documents of Trent Confession Confession Confession

Smaller Catechism Second Helvetic Dordrecht

Confession Confession
Proper Priest Ordained Minister Pastor Pastor
Administrator Church leaders Church leaders
Participants Bread to church Believers only Believers only Believers only
members. Cup is (Some groups
withheld from the practice close
laity [Antiquated; communion,
this is no longer true] where participant
must be a
member of
denomination.
Others practice
closed

55
H. Wayne House, Charts of Christian Theology and Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992),
124-125.

32
 communion,
where one must
be member of
local church
assembly).
Interpretation of Literal Interpretation Literal Nonliteral Nonliteral
“This is my Interpretation Interpretation Interpretation
Body”
Points of 1. The Lord’s Supper was established by Jesus Himself (Matt. 26:26-28; Mark
Agreement 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20). [John 6:22-58]
2. Jesus commanded the repetition of the Lord’s Supper (Matt. 26:29).
3. The Lord’s Supper proclaims the death of Jesus Christ (I Cor. 11:26).
4. The Lord’s Supper imparts some type of spiritual benefit to the participant.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann summarizes the relationship between the confession of

the Christian faith and its practices of worship in making the claims that “Christian

worship, by its nature, structure and content, is the revelation and realization by the

Church of her own real nature,” and, more poignantly, that “without [worship] there is no

Church…worship is the purpose of the Church.”56 It is with these liturgical standards in

mind that we must maintain the integrity of the Faith of the Church by preserving its

worship of the Lord and Savior of mankind. Furthermore, “it is necessary once more to

consider the Church’s everlasting ‘rule of prayer,’ and to hear and understand in it the

‘rule of faith.’ This is the task of liturgical theology.”57 The integrity of these governing

principles of Christian worship is essential in the maintenance of the relationship between

the lex orandi and the lex credendi, and the apex of this system which hangs in the

balance of our faithfulness to the Way which was preserved by the Apostles is itself the

Church’s very center of liturgical worship, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

Schmemann observes this delicate balance in stating that “in early times the Church knew

56
Alexander Schmemann, Introduction to Liturgical Theology (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary
Press, 1986), 29.
57
Ibid., 29.

33
full well that the lex credendi (rule of faith) and the lex orandi (rule of prayer) were

inseparable and that they mutually substantiated each other.”58

CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSION

The Liturgical worship of the Eastern Orthodox Church is most fully expressed in

the Mystical Presence of Heaven on Earth in the oblation and communion of the

Eucharist, and labor to answer the question of the nature of worship. The liturgical

theology of the Orthodox Church articulates the experience of Heaven on earth in the

celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy observed by the faithful in the Eastern Orthodox

Church, in common celebration of the Lord’s Supper. The experience of the worship

service in the Eastern Orthodox Church, along with its relation to the corporate assembly,

finds its apex in the Orthodox Christian observation and communication of the Lord’s

Supper, as the ultimate model for Christian worship according to the Liturgical context of

the Church.

Worship, for the Orthodox Church, is inextricably linked with the oblation and

celebration of the Holy Eucharist, the Sacrament which must remain central to Christian

worship, and has been maintained by the liturgical practice of the Eastern Orthodox

Church. The way of worship is the way of belief; lex orandi, lex credendi.

58
Alexander Schmemann, The Eucharist (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1987), 13.

34
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