QL 96 (2015) 82-101 doi: 10.2143/QL.96.1.

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© 2015, all rights reserved

WORDS AND MUSIC BORN OUT OF SILENCE

Liturgical and Hesychast Influences on lex orandi and

lex credendi in Vladimir Lossky and Fr Dumitru Stâniloae1

Liturgy in its anamnetic-epicletic movement emerges, like music, out of

silence, and like music, lives in its performance, filling biblical symbolism
with life. As Fr Alexander Schmemann stated, in liturgy all our existence
is included into the “all-embracing vision of life.”2 Liturgy celebrates what
theology knows as reality, and out of this celebration conversion and the
mission of the church in the world grow. Schmemann interprets the rela­
tion between theology and liturgy on the basis of the Latin connection be­
tween lex orandi and lex credendi, the rule of prayer, and the articulation
of the content of Christian belief3 The actual axiom, lex orandi, lex cre­
dendi (the law of faith [is] the law of belief), or in its longer form, lex
orandi legem credendi constitua (the law of praying establishes the law of
believing), is an adaptation of the formula of Prosper of Aquitaine, a fifth-
century Western theologian. While defending Augustine’s teaching on
grace and predestination, Prosper argues that we cannot understand the
mystery of who can be saved independently of the request placed on the
church to pray for all. In this context he says: ut legem credendi lex statuat
supplicandi (that the law of praying establishes the law of believing). His
lex supplicandi, later used synonymously for lex orandi, refers to 1 Timo­
thy 2:1: “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions,

1. This study is a part of the research project “Symbolic Mediation of Wholeness in

Western Orthodoxy,” GACR P401/11/1688.
2. See Alexander Schmemann, “Liturgy and Theology,” Liturgy and Tradition: Theo­
logical Reflections ofAlexander Schmemann, ed. T. Fisch (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, 1990) 49-68, here 51-52.
3. See Alexander Schmemann, Liturgy and Life: Christian Development through Litur­
gical Experience (New York: Department of Religious Education, Orthodox Church in
America, 1993) 22; see also Bruce T. Morrill, Anamnesis as Dangerous Memory: Political
and Liturgical Theology in Dialogue (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000) 83; 90.
 Words and Music Bom out ofSilence 83

and thanksgivings be made for all people.”4 Schmemann followed the tra­
dition that interpreted lex orandi in terms of liturgy. Schmemann drew on
the eucharistie ecclesiology of Nicholas Afanasiev, and they both helped
modem Orthodox theology to re-appropriate its liturgical roots.5 And yet,
liturgy is not the sole expression of lex orandi, not the only way of prayer,
of attention towards God, even if perhaps it is the most important one.
In my paper I will argue that liturgy is not the exclusive expression of
lex orandi, even if liturgy is “the centre of the Church’s life and cannot be
substituted by, or placed on a par with, any other form of religious expres­
sion.”6 While expanding lex orandi with hesychast practices of prayer,71
will not see those either in terms of devotions or of popular piety, which
can be inconsistent with the teaching of the church,8 but rather as deep
expressions of the tradition of the Church, in which understanding of the
divine mystery is more fully and deeply understood, and in which prayer
for all is also included.
Exploring how the hesychast practices of prayer expand the notion of
lex orandi I will ask what impact it has then on the relationship between
lex orandi and lex credendi, and in particular on the possibility of an equal
mutual exchange between them. I will concentrate on the contributions of
two theologians of the Neo-Patristic renewal, Vladimir Lossky and Fr Du-
mitru Stâniloae. Their understanding of the relation between the apophatic
and kataphatic way will help us to expand the notion of lex orandi and to
rediscover the antinomic character of the lex credendi, foundational for the
discernment of what is and what is not Christian orthodoxy. If we use the
analogy of the relationship between words and silence, we can say that
with the help of Lossky and Stâniloae we will listen to how the music and

4. See Prosper of Aquitaine, De vocatione omnium gentium, 1.12: PL 51, 664C.

5. See e.g. Nicholas Afanasiev, The Church of the Holy Spirit (Notre Dame, IN: Uni­
versity of Notre Dame Press, 2007); Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World:
Sacraments and Orthodoxy (Crestwood, NY : St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1973); Liturgy
and Life.
6. Directory on Popular Piety and Liturgy (Congregation for Divine Worship and the
Discipline of the Sacraments, 2001) 5.
7. The concept of hesychasm comes from the Greek hësychia, which means stillness,
silence, peace. The hesychasts were people who sought for the life of prayer and attention
to God in silence. The roots of the movement go back to the Desert Fathers in Syria, Pales­
tine and Egypt in the fourth century. The desire for an unceasing prayer as well as specific
practices of joining physical and mental powers in prayer, and of invocation of Jesus,was
then given a doctrinal basis by the monk from Mount Athos and later bishop of Thessalo-
nica, Gregory Palamas (c. 1296-1359).
8. “Forms of popular religiosity can sometimes appear to be corrupted by factors that
are inconsistent with Catholic doctrine. In such cases, they must be patiently and prudently
purified through contacts with those responsible and through careful and respectful catech-
esis - unless radical inconsistencies call for immediate and decisive measures.” Directory
on Popular Piety and Liturgy (2001) 5.
84 Ivana Noble

the words bom out of silence create within the language of creeds, dogmas,
and the whole of Christian theology a space for participation in the reality
of God. Although in their writings on Orthodox spirituality or mystical
theology they do not use such an analogy and they do not employ the ter­
minology lex orandi and lex credendi, they both spell out how the life of
prayer impacts on the type and depth of the knowledge of God and vice
versa, how the knowledge of God has an impact on the type and depth of
the life of prayer.

1. The Liturgical Background to and the Impact of Hesychasm on

Vladimir Lossky’s Theological Methodology

Vladimir Lossky (1903-1958) was brought up in a cosmopolitan Russian

Orthodox family and was used to participating in liturgy since his child­
hood. An assumption that liturgy forms and informs the content of the be­
lief that one receives in the church was something taken for granted and
rarely thematised in his writings.9 His main interest lay in the input of con­
templation and of mysticism to theological knowledge. Mysticism and
dogmatic theology were not separate universes but were rather deeply and
intrinsically linked. This was something he discovered first during his stud­
ies under Lev Platonovich Karsavin at the University of St Petersburg, who
aroused in him an interest in the question of the Filioque, and led him to
the theology of the Church Fathers and to Western medieval philosophy
and theology. After 1922 when Vladimir followed his family into enforced
exile, he continued to pursue his studies, first at Kondakov’s seminar in
Prague,10 and then at the Sorbonne in Paris from 1927, where he graduated
in medieval philosophy with his thesis “Negative theology and knowledge
of God in Meister Eckhart.”11
At this time he was already active in the Brotherhood of St Photius,
where together with Eugraph Kovalevsky he worked on the project of what
we may call in today’s language the inculturation of Orthodoxy in the
West, and in particular, in France. After the split within the Orthodox
Church this group remained under the Moscow Patriarchate, and in this

9. There is an exception: see Vladimir Lossky, “Notes sur le ‘Credo’ de la Messe,”

Contacts 38-39 (1962) 84-86, 88-90; this can be found under Vladimir Lossky - archiman­
drite Pierre L’Huillier, Commentaire du Symbol de la Liturgie, in http://www.pagesortho-
doxes.net/foi-orthodoxe/credo-lossky-lhuillier.htm (accessed 14/8/2014).
10. His first work, “Negative Theology in the Teaching of Dionysios the Aeropagite”
came from there and was published in Russian in Seminar Kondakovianum (1929) 138-
144.
11. Published posthumously. See Vladimir Lossky, Théologie négative et connaissance
de Dieu chez Maître Eckhart (Paris: J. Vrin, 1960; 1973; 1998).
 Words and Music Bom out ofSilence 85

setting the Institute of St Dionysius was founded in 1945. Lossky taught

there dogmatic theology and church history, and further pursued his inter­
est in both Orthodox and Western mysticism.12 Lex orandi lived liturgi-
cally was dynamic enough to allow a responsible experiment. Drawing on
the fragments of an ancient liturgy of St. Germain, the Kovalevsky brothers
organised them into a liturgical structure which stood on the border be­
tween Eastern and Western traditions. This liturgy was Orthodox in terms
of all the required dogmatic content and at the same time Western in its
language and music.13 Thus, in fact, lex credendi, seen as the dogmatic
belief of the church, guarded lex orandi, seen as the liturgical expression
of the church’s life. At the same time, it was assumed that if in France the
local people were to grasp the dogmatic belief of the church, they would
have to learn it through a liturgy that would be accessible to them.
As a layman, Vladimir Lossky participated actively in this setting till
1953 when the Kovalevskys came into a painful conflict with the Moscow
Patriarchate which split the group.14 His main attention, however, re­
mained directed towards another expression of lex orandi, namely to “il­
lumination by grace which transforms our intelligence ... [to] true gnosis
[which] implies encounter, reciprocity,^#/* as personal adherence to the
personal presence of God Who reveals Himself.”15 Liturgy is also in­
cluded. Here, however, Lossky stresses what we may see as the inverted
dynamics between lex orandi and lex credendi. While the mystical gnosis
“constitutes the language of the world which is coming,”16 and in this sense
we can say that the mystical lex orandi forms the lex credendi seen in terms

12. In his short autobiographical book, Seven Days on the Journey through France,
going back to 1940, he argues that Russian Orthodoxy, to which he faithfully belonged,
was never an exclusive form of Christian spirituality or theology which formed his life. See
Vladimir Lossky, Septjours sur les routes de France (Paris: Cerf, 2001); Nicholas Lossky,
“Theology and Spirituality in the Work of Vladimir Lossky,” The Ecumenical Review 51
(1999) 288-293, at 288; Katerina Bauerovâ, “Zkusenost a teologie ruskych emigrantü,” in
Ivana Noble - Katerina Bauerovâ - Tim Noble - Parush Parushev, Cesty pravoslavné teo­
logie ve 20. staled na Zdpad (Brno: CDK, 2012) 259-296, esp. 279-282.
13. The Kovalevsky brothers were Eugraph, the talented composer Maxime (1903-
1988), and the historian Pierre (1901-1979). They cooperated also with Fr Lev Gillet (1893-
1980), and, at St Denis, apart from Lossky also with the monographer and iconologist Le­
onid Ouspensky (1901-1987). For more detail, see Maxime Kovalevsky, Orthodoxie et Oc­
cident: Renaissance d’un église locale (Suresnes: Les Éditions de l’Ancre, 1994) 83-88.
14. The Kovalevskys later formed the Orthodox Church in France, seeking a return to
Gallic roots. This church passed through several different jurisdictions (see “À Propos de
l’Église Catholique Orthodoxe de France: Questions posées par six théologiens orthodoxes
(Père Cyrille Argenti, Père Boris Bobrinskoj, Olivier Clément, Michel Evdokimov, Nicolas
Lossky, Jean Tchekan),” Supplément au Service Orthodoxe de Presse (SOP) 39 (June
1979), document 39.A, 1-18.
15. Vladimir Lossky, Orthodox Theology: An Introduction (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladi­
mir’s Seminary Press, 1978) 13.
16. Ibid., 14.
86 Ivana Noble

of theological teaching, the liturgical lex orandi is formed by the lex cre-
dendi. The mystical gnosis is eschatological, the theological teaching is
historical, and the liturgy grows from both. Theological teaching, accord­
ing to Lossky, has “to be adopted to space and time ... [and while never
forgetting contemplation] it must fertilize itself from instants of eschato­
logical silence and attempt to express, or at least suggest, the ineffable.”17
It is “[nourished with contemplation, ... does not become established in
silence but seeks to speak the silence, humbly, by a new use of thought and
word.”18 Referring to St Gregory of Nazianzus, St Symeon the New The­
ologian, and St John Damascus, Lossky claims that in this way “theology
becomes liturgical praise ... and ... disposes us to praise God.”19 Thus the
circle is complete, and lex credendi forms the liturgical lex orandi.
Now, let us consider in more detail the hesychast influences upon
Lossky’s understanding of the first aspect of lex orandi, the mystical ex­
perience, and how that in turn affected his theological methodology.
First of all, it needs to be mentioned that Lossky did not perceive hesy-
chasm as a private devotion, and thus, with regard to the content, as an
unreliable complement to the public liturgical life.20 Lossky had a first­
hand experience of spiritual life transformed by the Jesus Prayer, of both
the spiritual and theological tradition coming from Athos as well as from
Russia, from Optina in particular, and he was appreciative of how the tra­
dition was handed down through the startsi.21 This experience-based
knowledge impacted on his theological method. In a series of lectures of­
fering a historical introduction to Palamism which Lossky delivered at
Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes at the Sorbonne in 1945-1946 (published

17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Compare to the understanding of e.g. Rosary, Novenas, Stations of the Cross in the
Roman Catholic Church, characterised by repetition, a developed sense of communion with
the Saints, immersion into local culture, cultivating emotions, having few rubrics, but some­
times being inconsistent with the teaching of the Church. See Directory on Popular Piety
and Liturgy (2001) 5, 10.
21. Lossky was a friend of Archimandrite Sophrony. They shared work on Le Messager
de l’Exarchat du Patriarcat russe en Europe occidentale, and although Lossky later disa­
greed with some of the theological concepts of Sophrony’s spiritual father, St Silouan, the
two men remained in dialogue, and they shared spiritual interests. See Nicolas Sakharov,
J’aime donc je suis: Le legs théologique de l’archimandrite Sophrony (Paris: Cerf, 2005)
28-31, 108, 179-180. For an insight into Lossky’s knowledge of staretstvo, see Vladimir
Lossky, “Les startsy d’Optino,” Contacts 33 (1961) 4-14; “Le starets Leonide,” Contacts
34 (1961) 99-107; “Le starets Macaire,” Contacts 37 (1962) 9-19; “Le starets Ambroise,”
Contacts 40 (1962) 219-236. See also Vladimir Lossky - Nicolas Arseniev, La paternité
spirituelle en Russie aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles (Bellefontaine: Abbaye de Bellefontaine,
1977). Accessible on http://www.pagesorthodoxes.net/saints/ patemite-spirituelle/pat-am-
broisehtm (accessed 14/8/2014).
 Words and Music Bom out ofSilence 87

posthumously as The Vision of God) he defends the “immediate commun­

ion with God and all mystical experience”22 as a source of our knowledge
of God. At the same time he contrasted such experience to human projec­
tions of the reality of God:

Orthodox spirituality is equally opposed both to intellectual gnosis and to

the sensible perception of the divine nature, and seeking to surpass this
dualism of the sensible and the intelligible within created being, it has
tended toward a vision of God which draws the whole man into the way of
deification.23

He sees the possibility of such a vision of God first expressed in icono­

graphy, where, in the vision of the transfigured Christ, we encounter the
“luminous face of God turned towards each man.”24 Hesychasm comple­
mented his earlier and life-long interest in Meister Eckhart as well as his
experience of being rooted in Orthodox liturgical spirituality. The mysti­
cal/personal approach thus did not contradict or replace the mediated/com­
munal approach. Rather, as I have pointed out above, the two distinct ap­
proaches both contributed to lex orandi, and while the first gave the depth
and the grounding to lex credendi, the latter grew out of it.
Lossky saw in the hesychast mystical experience of the perception of
the divine deifying grace a way of re-orienting human lives towards the
eschatological reality. The vision of divinity “perceptible as uncreated
light,” is, according to him, “the ‘mystery of the eighth day’, it pertains to
the age to come, where we shall see God face to face.”25 And yet, through­
out his work he was aware of the danger of assuming for ourselves a level
of mystical knowledge that we might not actually possess, since it is given
in this life only to those who are radically united with God.26

22. See Vladimir Lossky, Vision de Dieu (Neuchâtel: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1962); in
English, The Vision of God (London: The Faith Press - Clayton, WI: American Orthodox
Press, 1963); the citation is from the English edition, 129.
23. Lossky, The Vision of God, 136.
24. Ibid., 137.
25. Ibid., 130-131 (Lossky’s quotation in the text is not to a specific reference).
26. Lossky quoting the Hagioritic Tome asks how light which is “neither material nor
spiritual, but divine, uncreated” is perceived, if not by senses or by intellect, and in response
cites: “That is known only by God and those who have had the experience of his grace.”
See Lossky, The Vision of God, 131, 132; the citation comes from Hagioritic Tome, PG
150, 1233D. At the same time Lossky is aware of the simple fact, that “the personal expe­
riences of different masters of spiritual life ... more often than not remain inaccessible to
us,” because we do not have a standpoint from which to understand them and even less to
judge them, but at the same time we can still be nourished by their fruits that continue to
live in the church. See Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church
(Cambridge: James Clark & Co., 2005) 20-21.
88 Ivana Noble

Following the Palamite heritage, he argued for the real character of the
communion between God and creation visible in the saints; whose lives
were transformed by the uncreated light. Theology, in his understanding,
had an anagogical task to lift people up to the call and task of theosis, help­
ing them to understand the nature and the limits of their understanding of
God, the world and themselves, and to see the dynamics of the journey of
theosis in “a proleptic experience of the eschaton.”27
Palamas inspired his idea of theological antinomies28 that enable us to
speak more precisely about the knowledge of the unknowable God, God’s
transcendence and immanence, and the unity in the trinitarian God. Pala­
mas, according to Lossky, gave “a dogmatic basis to mystical experience
... touching the mode of God’s existence” and the nature of deification.29
Lossky followed Palamas in proclaiming the paradoxical nature of theol­
ogy.30 Antinomy and paradox were used in Lossky’s work as synonymous,
both pointing to the fact that doing theology is not like dealing with a rid­
dle, which can be sorted out, harmonised, or reduced to one or another
solution. On the contrary, it is important to keep both sides of the an-
tinomy/paradox in place and thus to avoid both a dogmatic heresy or spir­
itual illusion or emptiness.

27. See Aristotle Papanikolaou, Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine-
Human Communion (Notre Dame, EST: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006) 24.
28. Lossky cites Palamas saying: “The divine nature... must be called at the same time
incommunicable and, in a sense, communicable; we attain participation in the nature of
God and yet he remains totally inaccessible. We must affirm both things at once and must
preserve the antinomy as the criterion of piety.” Lossky, The Vision of God, 127. The cita­
tion comes from Palamas, Theophanes, PG 150, 932D. Aristotle Papanikolaou points out
that the concept of antinomies, as well as the notion of apophaticism, came to modem Or­
thodox theology through Fr Sergius Bulgakov, even if he was not given credit for it, and it
was “Orthodoxised” by means of projecting it back to Palamas. See Aristotle Papanikolaou,
“Eastern Orthodox Theology,” The Routledge Companion to Modem Christian Thought
(London - New York: Routledge, 2013) 538-548, here 544; Brandon Gallagher, “The
‘Sophiological’ Origins of Vladimir Lossky’s Apophaticism,” Scottish Theological Journal
66(2013) 278-298, here 281.
29. See Vladimir Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God (Crestwood, NY : St. Vla­
dimir’s Seminary Press, 2001) 53-56, esp. 54.
30. He approached the paradoxical symbolism of the Holy Trinity in a similar way: the
paradoxical symbolism of the three and one, assuming and transcending the meaning of
ousia for the one identical divine nature and of hypostasis for the irreducibly unique char­
acter of each person. In Lossky there is no higher impersonal One, the abyss of divinity,
and likewise there is no break into the individuality of similar persons. See Lossky, In the
Image and Likeness of God, 113. In the Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church Lossky
states: “the highest point of revelation, the dogma of the Holy Trinity, is preeminently an
antinomy,” while at the same time it speaks of the personal “primordial reality” (p. 43). See
also Ivana Noble, “The Gift of Redemption: Vladimir Lossky and Raymund Schwager on
Anselm of Canterbury,” Communio Viatorum 52 (2010) 48-67.
 Words and Music Bom out ofSilence 89

It is important to notice that we also find here an inverted relationship

between lex orandi (including not only liturgy but also the mystical/per­
sonal experience) and lex credendi. More precisely, the dynamics between
the two allow the life of prayer to stand as a criterion for the content of
faith but also the other way round; the mystically grasped content of faith
is a criterion for the life of prayer. Lossky sees the antinomic relationship
directing both lex orandi and lex credendi towards a “mystical centre” as
foundational for both Christian spirituality and theology.31 In Lossky the
lyrics and the music coming out of that centre are explored through the
kataphatic and the apophatic way.32
The kataphatic way relies on symbolic knowledge that allows us to say
something about God by means of symbols and stories that are accessible,
based on a common experience. It draws on the presence of the divine en­
ergies in creation and most of all, in the incarnation,33 affirming our “un­
utterable” experience,34 and giving us a language to name God, to speak
about the wisdom, love and goodness of God, emerging through the narra­
tives and symbols in which the revelation has taken place.35
The apophatic way is not only the via negativa excluding who God is
not. It takes us through the process of intellectual as well as moral and
spiritual katharsis to the darkness illuminated by the love of the One whose
nature is unknowable.36 Thus the apophatic way, or as Lossky says, “the
apophatic attitude,” is a way of personal conversion, a change of heart. It
includes the letting go of idols, of our partial images of reality that claim
completeness but cannot deliver it, and makes space for the Holy Spirit,

31. See Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 9, 10-11, 13.
32. We can see this dynamics as a kind of a non-synthetic dialectic. I have borrowed
this concept from Tim Noble, The Poor in Liberation Theology: Pathway to God or Ideo­
logical Construct? (Sheffield: Equinox - Acumen, 2013) 153. This methodology is further
developed in Ivana Noble and Tim Noble, “A non-synthetic dialectics between the Chris­
tian East and West: A starting point for renewed communication,” Kommunikation ist
Môglich: Theologische, ôkumenische und interreligiôse Lernprozesse. Festschrift fur
Bernd Jochen Hilberath, ed. Christine Büchner et al. (Ostfildem: Matthias Grünewald,
2013) 273-281.
33. Lossky speaks of the incarnation as “the fullness of the divine manifestation and
the summit of all theophanies in creation,” Vladimir Lossky, “La théologie négative dans
la doctrine de Denys L’Aréopagite,” Revues des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques
28 (1930) 204-221, here 220.
34. Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 45.
35. Vladimir Lossky, Orthodox Theology: An Introduction (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladi­
mir’s Seminary Press, 1978) 32-33.
36. See Lossky, Orthodox Theology, 32; cf. Olivier Clément, On Human Being: A Spir­
itual Anthropology (London - New York - Manila: New City Press, 2000) 31; Papaniko-
laou points out that here in the end Lossky departs from the Dionysian metaphors of dark­
ness and embraces Palamas’s notion of transforming uncreated light. See Being with God,
23.
90 Ivana Noble

instructing us towards ever greater plenitude of life,37 towards a “personal

presence of a hidden God.”38 He says:

But here is the Christian paradox; He is the God to whom I say ‘Thou’,
Who calls me, Who reveals Himself as personal, as living. In the liturgy of
St. John Chrysostom, before the Lord’s Prayer, one prays: “And grant us,
O Lord, to dare to invoke Thee with confidence and without fear, by calling
Thee Father.”39

Thus we return to the liturgical aspect of lex orandi. The fact that
Lossky included the liturgical experience in the apophatic way, here at its
peak, points to the fact that Lossky perceived his liturgical and hesychast
experience as two sides of one coin and not as separated realities.40 Both
are focussed on an inner experience of truth where knowledge transcends
knowledge and ultimately leads to union with God, to theosis.
Lossky returned to the liturgical side of lex orandi in somewhat more
detail in a commentary on the Creed that he wrote shortly before his death
in 1958 and which was published posthumously. In the introduction, it is
made clear that the Creed is at the same time a dogmatic and liturgical text
- to use the vocabulary central to this article, it is at the same time lex
credendi and lex orandi, and as such is both communal and personal. Being

a solemn confession of the Christian dogmas, it is read or sung during the

liturgy, before we enter into the mystery of the eucharist. ... ‘I believe’ is
related to the following articles and give to this expression of a common
faith of the Christian people the value of a personal commitment of every
member of the Church who says with all the others: ‘I believe’ and further,
T confess’, T await’ (or T hope’).41

37. See Lossky, Orthodox Theology, 32-33; The Mystical Theology of the Eastern
Church, 238-239.
38. Lossky, Orthodox Theology, 32.
39. Ibid.
40. Lossky was often criticised for giving priority to the apophatic way, but he insisted
that these two ways were complementary. The apophatic way teaches us about God’s tran­
scendence, the kataphatic about God’s immanence; both together preserve the antinomic
character of spiritual experience as well as of theology. For the critique see Silviu Eugen
Rogobete, “Mystical Existentialism or Communitarian Participation?: Vladimir Lossky and
Dumitru Stâniloae,” Dumitru Staniloae: Tradition and Modernity in Theology, ed. Lucian
Turcescu (laçi - Oxford - Palm Beach - Portland: The Center for Romanian Studies, 2002)
167-206, esp. 167-176. For further criticisms see Colin Gunton, “Relation and Relativity:
The Trinity and the Created World,” Trinitarian Theology Today, ed. Christoph Schwôbel
(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995) 100.
4L Lossky, “Notes sur le ‘Credo’ de la Messe,” Contacts 38-39 (1962) 84.
 Words and Music Bom out ofSilence 91

Here the inner “unutterable” experience of truth42 nourishes the outer

confession of truth, and both “attempt to express, or at least suggest, the
ineffable,”43 and both become “liturgical praise ... and ... dispose us to
praise God.”44
Lossky succeeded in spelling out the deepest roots of mystical prayer
in the divine revelation while showing both the possibilities and the limits
of sensible and intellectual perception of the divine reality and the trans­
formation of theology into liturgical praise. At the same time, the dynamic
between the kataphatic and the apophatic way allowed Lossky to affirm
that the “mystical centre” is revealed both in liturgy and in hesychast
prayer and to grasp the relationship between lex orandi and lex credendi in
ways which allowed each of the aspects of lex orandi as well as lex cre­
dendi to be grounded by the others and to ground the others.45

2. Impacts of Hesychasm and of Liturgical Spirituality on Fr Dumitru

Staniloae’s Theology

Fr Dumitru Stâniloae (1903-1993) inherited a sense for lived liturgical

spirituality already in his youth. Being from a priestly family, he had ac­
cess from his childhood to the actual church celebrations, and to home
practices, and even to the sacred texts.46 During his theology studies, how­
ever, this experience came into sharp conflict with the neo-scholastic sys­
tems of thought that he would criticise for the rest of his life as a form of
uprooting.47
In Staniloae’s time as rector of the Theological Academy in Sibiu
(1936-1946), he wrote two theological works which determined his further
journey, The Life and Teaching ofSt. Gregory Palamas (1938),48 where he

42. Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 45.

43. Lossky, Orthodox Theology, 14.
44. Ibid.
45. See Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 13, 9, 10-11. Papaniko-
laou criticises Lossky’s approach for being “anti-philosophical” or “anti-rational,” saying
that for Lossky “humans were created for mystical union with God and theology must serve
this existential goal.” See Papanikolaou, “Eastern Orthodox Theology,” 544; compare to
his earlier work, Being with God, 12-30.
46. His mother was the niece of a priest, his grandfather was a chanter in church. For
more detail, see Ivana Noble, “Doctrine of Creation within the Theological Project of Du­
mitru Stâniloae,” Communio Viatorum 49 (2007) 185-209, esp. 186-189.
47. His first studies of theology, from 1922-1927, took place at Cemâup Seminary in
Northern Bukovina. In the following two years, while he prepared his doctoral thesis, he
spent extended times doing research abroad, in Athens, Munich, Berlin, and Paris.
48. See Dumitru Stâniloae, Via}a §i învâfâtura Sf. Grigorie Palama: Cu trei tratate
traduse (Sibiu: 1938 - reprint: Bucharest: Editura Scripta, 1993). This was the first study
translating Palamas’ texts into a modem language along with a commentary.
92 Ivana Noble

drew on the Palamite theological and spiritual principles, beginning with

the distinction between the essence and energies of God, and Jesus Christ
or the Restoration ofMan (1943),49 in which he rehabilitated Christology
from below. Here he claimed that it is only in the incarnation that can we
discover our authentic humanity.
Around the end of the World War II and just after, Stàniloae was asso­
ciated with the group Burning Bush that renewed the Romanian hesychast
tradition, especially the Prayer of the Heart.50 The group inspired Stàniloae
to start publishing the second translation of the Philokalia into Romanian.
When, in 1958, Stàniloae was arrested and subsequently sent to prison
for five years, both the practice of Jesus Prayer and knowledge of the spir­
itual heritage of the Church F athers proved very valuable.51 In prison Stâni-
loae, though an ordained priest, did not have regular access to liturgy, and
his life of prayer was forced to follow a different pattern, relying much
more on the hesychast sources. He was given the grace of permanent
memory of God, and with that, inner resources to oppose human destruc­
tion52 - resources which would later become key for describing the dynam­
ics of Orthodox spirituality and, through it, the dynamics of Orthodox the­
ology.
Stàniloae was freed from prison in 1963 with the help of international
pressure and was eventually allowed to teach and encouraged to publish,53

49. Dumitru Stàniloae, “Iisus Hristos sau restaurarea omului,” fnuarul XIX al Acade-
miei teologice “Andreiane” (1942-1943) 5-406.
50. The group consisted of monks, priests, as well as lay intellectuals, and was active
between 1945-58, when its members were arrested and accused of “conspiracy against the
communist state.” Both of its founders, Archimandrite Ivan Kulygin and Hieromonk Daniil
Theudorescu died during their imprisonment, Theudorescu in Auid, the same prison where
Stàniloae was held. See Alexandru Popescu, “Short History of Hesychasm in Romania,”
Petre fu}ea: Between Sacrifice and Suicide (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004) 279-285.
51. Stàniloae stayed mostly at Aiud, during the second phase of the so-called “re-edu­
cation” experiment. Re-education was a euphemism for stripping people of their identity,
including that of a victim, as they were tortured and forced to torture other prisoners, and
thus became co-responsible for the perpetrated violence. See Radu Mârculescu, Pâtimiri fi
Iluminâri din Captivatea Sovieticâ (Bucharest: Albatros, 2000), in Popescu, Petre JuJea,
63.
52. One of the few exception is a dialogue with Olivier Clément recorded in the Preface
to the French translation of Stàniloae’s Dogmatic Theology entitled Le génie de l’Ortho­
doxie (Paris: Desclée De Brouwer, 1985) 12, which is quoted by Ware: ‘“An experience
like any other’, he said later with a smile to Olivier Clément, ‘only somewhat difficult for
my family’. And he added that this was the only time in his life when he was able to practice
and to ‘retain’ in a semi-permanent manner the invocation of the Name Jesus.” Kallistos
Ware, “Foreword,” in Dumitru Stàniloae, The Experience of God: The Orthodox Dogmatic
Theology I: Revelation and Knowledge of the Triune God (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross,
1998) xiii.
53. For more detail, see Ivana Noble, “Doctrine of Creation within the Theological
Project of Dumitru Stàniloae,” 189-190.
 Words and Music Bom out ofSilence 93

though it took him more than a decade to write his mature theological
works. After his retirement in 1973, he dedicated his energy to completing
the Romanian Philokalia.54 His international reputation increased after the
publication of his masterpiece, the three volumes of Orthodox Dogmatic
Theology (1978),55 which included insights from his earlier works, bring­
ing the thought of Sts Maximus, Gregory Palamas, Irenaeus, Athanasius,
the Cappadocians and other Church Fathers into conversation with the is­
sues of his time. Three years later, in 1981, there followed his two volumes
of Orthodox Moral Theology and Orthodox Spirituality16 and, in 1986, his
work Spirituality and Communion in Orthodox Liturgy,51 57 which together
with his Dogmatic Theology form a mature body of his thought, to which
the main attention will be given now, as we look at the liturgical and the
hesychast influences on his grasp of the relationship between lex orandi
and lex credendi.
In Stâniloae’s work, the law of prayer includes both personal and com­
munal forms of prayer. Yet, like in Lossky, there is no distinction between
liturgy and devotion, with only the first being the source of the dogmatic
faith of the church and the second being seen as dogmatically unreliable.58
Stâniloae criticised the Catholic juridical point of view, which reduced
grace to created grace and made it subject to Church authority: “In Cathol­
icism, created grace, which is found in a depository at the disposal of the
Church - but which is not linked intimately to her being as the mystical
body of Christ, filled the Body of Christ and with the Holy Spirit, who
shines forth from Him in and around her - could be treated as self-standing
reality.”59 In Stâniloae’s theology, the Church is seen as an organic whole,
as an organism, which includes hierarchy and the mediation of the created
grace through sacraments,60 while at the same time, quoting Ephesians

54. After having translated and published the first four volumes whilst linked to the
Burning Bush group, he continued with the editing and with writing introductions to a fur­
ther six volumes between 1976 and 1981.
55. Dumitru Stâniloae, Teologia Dogmaticâ ortodoxâpentru Instituted Teologice I-III
(Bucharest, 1978). German and French translations came out in 1985, the first volume of
the English translation in 1994.
56. See Dumitru Stâniloae, Teologia Moralâ ortodoxâ pentru Instituted Teologice I-
III (Bucharest, 1981); Spiritualitatea ortodoxâ (Bucharest, 1981); in English, Orthodox
Spirituality: A Practical Guide for the Faithful and a Definitive Manual for the Scholar
(South Canaan, PA: St Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 2003).
57. See Dumitru Stâniloae, Spiritualitate §i comuniune in Liturghia ortodoxâ (Craiova:
1986; reprint: Bucharest: Editura Institutului Biblic §i de Misune al Bisrecii Ortodoxe
Române, 2004).
58. See Directory on Popular Piety and Liturgy (2001) 5.
59. Dumitru Stâniloae, The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology IV: The
Church: Communion in the Holy Spirit (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross, 2012) 121.
60. According to Stâniloae, “priests and bishops, who celebrate the mysteries and
preach, offer knowledge about Christ, who is in and above the Church. Their prayer, which
94 Ivana Noble

1:23, he emphasises “the fullness of Him [Christ] who fills all in all.”61
Christ comes through the Holy Spirit both in a mediated and in a direct
way, according to Stâniloae, and in communal as well as in personal prayer
“there is knowledge about Christ and about the faith in Him that comes
from the apostles.”62 Thus, lex orandi grounds lex credendi.
Lex orandi, which in Stâniloae’s terms is the Church’s practice of the
sacramental and spiritual life, is the foundation of the living tradition of
the Church.63 Thus, similarly to Lossky, Stâniloae works with two sources
of lex orandi, in his case, the communal liturgical, and the personal ascetic.
Lex credendi, the dogmatic formulas of the Church, then, are seen as “the
concise expression of this faith that was practiced or lived in the Church.”64
Because these formulas grew from both the personal and communal prayer
of the Church, they could be re-included there.65 The mutuality between
lex orandi and lex credendi is then expressed as follows: Stâniloae speaks
of the dogmatic faith “as an expression ofthe experience of Christ” and of
the mysteries (sacraments), as “the dogmatic faith applied.”66
Stâniloae’s relational understanding of the church and of the human
person is the key for understanding both the dynamics within lex orandi
and the dynamic between lex orandi and lex credendi. For him, the church
is “the objective place of salvation ... into which we are integrated along
with our subjective experience and upon which the real value of our sub­
jective experience is founded.”67 Each member of the Church “is bound to
the other persons and responsible for them.”68 This is how the very work
of Christ is activated through the Spirit and becomes proper to the human

occasions the coming of Christ within us, is offered in the Church, and that is why the
Church prays in them.” Stâniloae, The Church, 94.
61. Stâniloae, The Church, 80. The life of grace is something to which all members of
the Church are called. Stâniloae emphasises that faith in such life grows through the acquir­
ing and practice of virtues. In this way each Church member receives distinct gifts - not
just for themselves, but “they become useful to one another and to the Church.” By sharing
these gifts the unity of the Church is strengthened. Stâniloae does not have in mind just
juridical unity, but mystical unity, as he says: “Through them [the people who advanced in
virtues] the infinity of the divine life and light becomes transparent. From them shines the
power that often overcomes the power of nature.” Stâniloae, The Church, 118.
62. Stâniloae, The Church, 94.
63. Stâniloae says, “the living tradition of the Church - her practice of the sacramental
and spiritual life - [is] normative.” Stâniloae, The Church, 51.
64. Ibid.
65. “At the Ecumenical Councils the bishops always signed a dogmatic decision based
on their Churches’ faith and sacramental life, a faith and life that had been inherited through
tradition.... That is why these formulas were able to be included in the hymns and prayers
of the Church.” Stâniloae, The Church, 51.
66. See ibid., 63, 65.
67. Ibid, 53.
68. Ibid., 113.
 Words and Music Bom out ofSilence 95

subject.69 Stâniloae avoids the words “an individual,” as this, in his view,
excludes what is foundational for a human person, namely relationships.70
To explain his relational ecclesiology and anthropology, Stâniloae quotes
the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom: “That is why it is said of Christ that
‘the Lamb of God is broken and shared, broken but not divided’.”71
The liturgical celebration of the church is given central attention in his
two works, The Experience of God: The Orthodox Dogmatic Theology V:
The Sanctifying Mysteries, and in his Spirituality and Communion in Or­
thodox Liturgy. Both of the texts offer detailed expositions of the Christo-
logical and Pneumatological foundations of liturgy and the sacraments, of
cosmic symbolism, the role of the saints depicted on the icons, the chant
uniting the faithful over the ages; he also spells out the modes of Christ’s
presence in the church rites leading the faithful into communion with the
Holy Trinity. The book on sacraments explains the theological meaning of
each of the rites, the book on liturgy offers a detailed commentary on the
each part of the eucharistie celebration. In the Introduction to Spirituality
and Communion in Orthodox Liturgy Stâniloae expresses the relationship
between spirituality and liturgy as follows:

Generally, a true spirituality ... is nourished by a communion of prayer and

shows the identity of faith among more people. Only this communion
brings warmth to the spiritual life of each person. A spirituality attempted
alone becomes cold, dry, turning more into a theoretical reasoning which
engages the mind only, and even that occasionally. Communion belongs
inseparably to spirituality. The life of each individual grows in connection
to others, comes from others. This living spirituality, which embraces the
entire human being and is nourished by communication with others, thus
creates communion that is preserved in Christianity through the Holy Lit­
urgy. In Orthodox liturgy it receives a specific seal.72

69. Ibid.
70. See Dumitru Stâniloae, The Experience of God: The Orthodox Dogmatic Theology
II: The World: Creation and Deification (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross, 2005) 99. On the
rare occasions he uses the concept of the individual as an adjective, he does so in order to
reinstall relationality : “In my Orthodox spirituality book I presented the growing in spiritual
life of the individual Christian. But even there it was observed that such growth involves to
some extent the relationship to fellow human beings, as the cleansing from sins (sinful
habits) and growing in virtues, as a basis for pure prayer can only be realized while in loving
relationship towards fellow human beings.” Dumitru Stâniloae, Spiritualitate fi comuniune
în Liturghia ortodoxâ (Craiova, 1986; reprint: Bucharest: Editura Institutului Biblic §i de
Misune al Bisrecii Ortodoxe Romane, 2004) 7. The text cited here and in the following
footnotes is translated by Camélia Isaic.
71. Stâniloae, The Church, 113.
72. Stâniloae, Spiritualitate fi comuniune in Liturghia ortodoxâ, 1.
96 Ivana Noble

According to Stàniloae, spirituality takes a Christian on the path of his

or her own perfection, consisting of purification from sins and sinful incli­
nations, acquiring virtues and practising contemplation. But this per­
sonal/ascetic ascent towards God would not be possible if it was not ac­
companied by a liturgical/communal ascent. The liturgical ascent is “sup­
ported by the Risen Christ reunited with the faithful through the Holy Eu­
charist. ... [it] unites the Christians gathered in Christ also with the Holy
Trinity,” and strengthens their mutual bonds through Christ, making them
together the “inheritors together with Christ of the Kingdom of the Father,
having the Holy Spirit resting over them.”73 The bonds of communion in­
clude not only those who are living now but also those who lived before
us, and who, through the love of Christ which became their personal char­
acteristic, continue their life into eternity.74
In The Sanctifying Mysteries Stàniloae repeats that sacraments, the
“mysteries ... known within the tangible reality of the Church,”75 are pre­
sented as a certain order in which “He [Christ] imparts His grace to those
who believe in Him” so as to unite them with himself, and all of them in
himself.76
In both of the books, Stàniloae describes the meaning of this order and
links it with the theological reflection. For him it is good and important to
“unite the living experience of the Triune God in prayer and liturgy with a
theological reflection,” because theology deepens the meaning of the ex­
perience, while in turn the experience gives life to theology.77 The relation­
ship of the liturgical/sacramental grace to other forms of grace are then
more explicitly stated in Stàniloae’s ecclesiology.
“Through the Holy Eucharist one continuously receives power for na­
ture’s liberation from the weakness resulting from sin,”78 while at the same
time: “Through the Eucharist the unity among the Church’s members is
perfected.”79 Stàniloae stresses, however, that

they cannot approach it from the outset. They have to advance toward it, as
if on a ladder, through other mysteries - baptism and chrismation - and if
they fall into sin, through the mystery of confession. Through all these

73. See ibid., 8.

74. See ibid., 20.
75. Dumitru Stàniloae, The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology V: The
Sanctifying Mysteries (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross, 2012) 7.
76. Stàniloae, The Sanctifying Mysteries, 8. In the earlier volume Stàniloae emphasises
more strongly also the unity with all creation, see Stàniloae, The World, 198.
77. See Stàniloae, Spiritualitate $i comuniune in Liturghia ortodoxa, 15.
78. Stàniloae, The Church, 136.
79. Ibid., 61.
 Words and Music Bom out ofSilence 97

mysteries the human person is united with Christ, who is found in the
Church.80

At the same time, the advancing on the journey of liberation and ulti­
mately of theosis happens through the purification from vices and acquir­
ing virtues. Through those who advanced on this journey “the infinity of
the divine life and light becomes transparent.”81
The personal and the communal dimensions of prayer are closely linked
together both in liturgy and in the “process of a Christian progress on the
road to perfection in Christ,”82 in other words, the ascetic way of prayer
and life. Stâniloae says: “The Holy Spirit who enlivens the Church’s prayer
prays within me, and at the same time the Church also prays with me and
within me, and I in the Church. Not only the Church on earth prays within
me but also the saints, the angels, the Mother of the Lord.”83
While in his expositions of the liturgy and sacraments as well as in his
ecclesiology Stâniloae concentrates more on mediated grace, in his Ortho­
dox Spirituality he deals more explicitly with the hesychast understanding
of the uncreated and unmediated grace and with that of prayer as a pure
gift, beyond human natural operations. In this context he makes an ex­
tended use of apophaticism. He pays tribute here to Vladimir Lossky, who,
according to him, “brought apophaticism to Orthodox theological con­
sciousness as a dominant characteristic of Orthodox theology.”84 He criti­
cises him, however, for not including the final stage of apophaticism, “the
vision of the divine light.”85
The previous analysis of Lossky’s position shows that, on this point,
Stâniloae’s criticism is incorrect. Yet there is a difference between their

80. Ibid.
81 .Ibid., 118.
82. Stâniloae, Orthodox Spirituality, 21.
83. Stâniloae, The Church, 81. Stâniloae, refers here to the Canon for All Saints: ‘“The
fiery Cherubini, the many-eyed Seraphim, Thrones and Dominions, Principalities, Angels
and all the Archangels and holy Powers, together with the blessed Forerunner, with Proph­
ets and Apostles, with the blessed Hierarchs and all the righteous, pray for us so that we
may receive mercy!’” {ibid.).
84. Stâniloae, Orthodox Spirituality, 230-231.
85. Ibid. He states further: “Although Lossky knows the difference between the divine
nature and energies, he doesn’t concern himself with the vision of the divine light, but
speaks only in general of an unknowability of God lived somehow, which is also admitted
by more recent Catholic theology” {ibid., 236). The detailed analysis of Lossky’s Mystical
Theology is on 230-236. His criticism is, however, incorrect: as Archimandrite Jerome
Newville and Otilia Kloos, the translators of the Orthodox Spirituality, already note, Lossky
wrote a whole book on the theme {The Vision of God), which Stâniloae was not familiar
with. See 231, n. 66. We may add that traces of what will be defined as a third stage of
apophaticism are, as pointed out above, also present in other works of Lossky, to which
Stâniloae had access.
98 Ivana Noble

two positions. Lossky, more so than Staniloae, emphasises the simple fact
that “the personal experiences of different masters of spiritual life ... more
often than not remain inaccessible to us,” because we do not have a stand­
point from which to understand them and even less to judge them but can
still be nourished by their fruits that continue to live in the church.86
Staniloae speaks more from the experience of the illumination by the
divine light and from the radical participation in God of those who have
tasted the gift of unceasing prayer, as he did while in prison. Perhaps such
experience is so alien to any verbal expression that it stays like music with­
out lyrics, and when Staniloae attempts to fit it into the classical scheme of
spiritual progress - purification, illumination, unification - the result is
disappointing.87 Despite that, the testified experience caught in between
the lines, the music without lyrics, communicates an overwhelming su­
premacy of the divine grace, “the vision of the light” that does not come
“until the Comforter illuminates from above the one who is praying in the
upper room of the physical extremities and waiting for the promise of the
Father.”88 This obviously bears features of his prison life.
Apophaticism in Staniloae’s theological reflection of the spiritual ex­
perience, then, allows speaking of darkness and light together, the blinding
overabundance of light, something that he sees as an opposite to the defi­
ciency described by the negative theology. In Staniloae’s account of the
mystical experience, the apophatic way, however, is not complemented by
the kataphatic way, as it is conceived in Lossky’s theological methodol­
ogy. Here it is accompanied by a systematic attempt to describe how reality
looks from the point of view of faith and how this point of view is guarded
in Christian doctrine, as it explains the Scriptures as well as in liturgy or
art.89 While such attempts mirror to us something of God, at the same time,

86. See Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 20-21.
87. Similarly Staniloae offers a structured way of speaking about apophaticism. For
him the first two stages are identified with Western negative theology. The first is the ag­
nosia, the experience of the mind that God is above its capacities of knowing, which leads
to a disorienting darkness, “where we have left behind every mental operation, even that of
negation, but still we haven’t received light.” In this darkness, which is still, according to
Staniloae, human spiritual activity, one is gradually granted “an unexplainable feeling of
these [divine] energies,” creating space for silence. This is the second step of apophaticism;
it is not, however, the supreme step of spiritual ascent, as Stàniloae says it is in Lossky, but
is followed by the “supraluminous darkness,” which is “a darkness not because there is no
light in it, but because there is an overabundance of light.” See Staniloae, Orthodox Spirit­
uality, 236-238.
88. Ibid., 239; Staniloae cites Palamas, The Defense 2.3.35, 475-477.
89. Stàniloae says that here, like in the first two stages of apophaticism, we are dealing
with human mental operations. These include a “comprehension of God through nature,
history, Holy Scripture, art, dogma and in general through everything which is between us
and God either as an external reality or as a system of concepts and symbolic images.”
Staniloae, Orthodox Spirituality, 245. With regard to the kataphatic way he says that if “the
 Words and Music Bom out ofSilence 99

they “confront us with an infinite abyss” between what is accessible to our

minds and the divine reality. At the same time, Staniloae points out, they
do not even give us “the means to describe the abyss.”90
Our final question now is this: if we accept Staniloae’s expansion of the
lex orandi with the hesychast ascetic/mystical approach, what conse­
quences would it bring to lex credendil As was said earlier, for Staniloae,
dogmatic faith (lex credendi) was expression of the experience of
Christ.”91 Hesychast prayer included in this experience encounters with
both darkness and light which surpassed natural human operations and thus
were not fully graspable through the medium of human language. At the
same time, the witnessed faith cultivated by these experiences did not bring
agnosticism into lex credendi. Rather, Staniloae, citing Berdyaev, says that

the limits which are imposed by agnosticism do not exist. The gnosis which
searches for truth further and further afield and ever more deeply is an ef­
fective possibility, for the process of knowing God is a movement of the
spirit which has no end. But the mystery always remains and can never be
exhausted.92

The infinity that hesychast knowing - as participating in God - has

brought to the lex credendi, complemented, deepened, and expanded, ra­
ther than negated, the meaning of the symbolic language of the church’s
liturgical and sacramental life. It further helps to guard in the liturgy, as
“the dogmatic faith applied,”93 precisely this sense of limitlessness and
mystery, and it prevents the liturgy from becoming just human doing, a
kind of kindergarten party in honour of God.

3. Conclusion

In conclusion, we need to point out that while we were seeking for a more
holistic notion of lex orandi that would include the liturgical as well as the
mystical aspects of prayer, our two theologians did not give equal attention

world and Scripture are revelations of God, and they tell us something positive about Him,
it is clear that positive theology has its rights ... It is true that positive theology is the the­
ology of the finite, but far from excluding the infinite, it makes the ascent to Him possible.”
Ibid, 247.
90. Stàniloae, Orthodox Spirituality, 245.
91. See Staniloae, The Church, 63, 65.
92. Nicholas Berdyaev, Freedom and the Spirit (New York: Scribner’s, 1935) 65, in
Staniloae, Orthodox Spirituality, 246.
93. See Staniloae, The Church, 63, 65.
100 Ivana Noble

to both. Rather, with their help we could see why liturgy was seen as cen­
tral to a Christian life but also what was missing when lex orandi was iden­
tified only with liturgy.
For Lossky, Dionysius and Meister Eckhart (later complemented by the
hesychast tradition) helped to uncover the depth of the personally experi­
enced divine revelation, divine light, divine grace when seen as a source
of true gnosis. It was not individual or private, but rather it included the
whole person into the way of deification.94 Mystical/personal prayer,
which Lossky saw as a source of theological articulation, was counterbal­
anced by liturgical prayer, which was seen at the same time as communal
and as personal. The distinction between liturgy and private devotion,
common in Roman Catholic theology, did not apply here. According to
Lossky, the unutterable mystical experience (or in other places Lossky
speaks of the mystical gnosis)95 formed dogmatic theology, which in turn
formed liturgical praise.96 At the same time the mystical experience/gnosis
of God was also formed by the dogmatic basis, and together they partici­
pated in the eschatological mysteiy of the Holy Trinity. Lossky’s correla­
tion of the apophatic and the kataphatic ways then enabled him to place
liturgical expression amidst the mystical silence, and the contemplative
correction amidst the dogmatic/symbolic expression. Being rooted in si­
lence helped the theological teaching to speak, and then further, to sing
“the silence, humbly, by a new use of thought and word.”97 His use of the
antinomies in theology helped him to use schemes - but also to break them
- and to be satisfied with the paradoxical coexistence of the “attempt[s] to
express, or at least suggest, the ineffable.”98 99
In Stâniloae, both the mediated and the direct experiences of Christ
form the living tradition of the Church, which is then expressed in the dog­
matic faith of the Church, lex credenda." Thus we can say that, like in
Lossky, there are two sources of lex orandi: in Stâniloae’s case, on one
hand the liturgical/communal celebrations of the sacraments and on the
other hand the personal/ascetic ascent leading to the mystical union with
and in Christ. Sacramental liturgy, for him, represents “the dogmatic faith
applied.”100 Its order of grace is tangible within the church. The knowledge

94. Lossky makes an extensive use of St Maximus, who would speak about the neces­
sity of mediations in and above creation, as a condition for deification. These include rela­
tionships of different capacities within human person, but also relationships to others, to
the whole of creation and to God. Lossky, however, concentrates most on the wholeness of
human person. See Lossky, The Vision of God, 134.
95. See Lossky, Orthodox Theology, 13-14.
96. See ibid., 14.
97. Lossky, Orthodox Theology, 14.
98. Ibid.
99. See Stâniloae, The Church, 51.
100. See ibid., 63, 65.
 Words and Music Bom out ofSilence 101

of God that it communicates is mediated, symbolic and participatory. It

initiates and strengthens the union with Christ in the church. Through the
ministry of the priests and bishops, who celebrate the mysteries and preach,
the knowledge about Christ is mediated. This knowledge, Stàniloae insists,
is both within and above the church. Furthermore, Stàniloae stresses that
the church prays with and within me, and that I pray in the Church. This is
how the communal and the personal dimensions of prayer are linked.101
The hesychast tradition of personal/ascetic attention to God led Stàniloae
to appreciate the experiences of the otherness of God and of prayer as a
pure gift beyond our natural capacities. The transcendent reality here pre­
dominated over the sacred, the immediate knowledge of God over the me­
diated one. The uncreated grace, however, becomes visible in and through
the person who has acquired a higher level of unity with Christ, of deifica­
tion. The divine life and the divine light become transparent in them.102
And yet this, too, happened for the sake of the Church, and no one could
achieve such stages without taking relationships to others along, without
being bound to others, and ultimately to the whole of creation.103 This type
of ascetic effort and pure prayer brought to lex credendi a sense of the
divine otherness and infinity. And through lex credenda, this ascetic prac­
tice, like in Lossky, found its way back into the liturgy.104
We can say that Lossky and Stàniloae, each in their different ways, pre­
sent a shift and a path from looking at God as a concept to experiencing
God as lived reality - one which is salient to both Orthodox and to Western
readers alike. In Lossky we have the account of spiritual practice and the­
ology - like a song, having its lyrics and its music, its kataphatic and
apophatic expressions. In Stàniloae there is a stronger shift towards the
apophatic - towards the melody without words - at the higher level of per­
sonal spiritual life. Both Lossky and Stàniloae bring hesychasm within the
lex orandi and in their different ways help us to perceive the mutuality
between lex orandi and lex credendi in light of the experience of God.

ETF-UK Ivana Noble

Cema 9
CZ-11559 Praha 1
Czech Republic
noble@etf.cuni.cz

101. See ibid., 94, 81.

102. Ibid., 118.
103. Ibid, 113, 118; The World, 99.
104. See Stàniloae, The Church, 63, 65.
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