| These Christological commitments and debates imply a concept of the relationship between God and man, a theology of «participation» which would, through the creative synthesis of Maximus the Confessor, serve as a framework for the entire development of Byzantine Christian thought until the fall of Constantinople to the Turks. Thus, between the patristic age and later-Byzantine theology, there exists an essential continuityas the present study will attempt to showspanning almost exactly a millennium of Christian history in the East, from the Council of Chalcedon to the fall of Constantinople. This continuity does not express itself, however, in any formal authority or pattern which would have been acceptable during that entire period. It lies rather in a consistent theological way of thought, in a consistent understanding of man« " s destiny in relation to God and to the world. «God became man,» Athanasius writes, «so that man may become God.» This fundamental statement of Alexandrian theology, which was to dominate the entire theological discussion about «deification,» prompted many problems. Pantheism, escapism from history, and Platonizing spiritualism are the obvious dangers, and, though orthodox Chalcedonian theology generally remains aware of them, it implies the positive concept of man as a being called to overcome constantly his own created limitations. Man»«s real nature is considered not as »«autonomous» but as destined to share divine life which had been made accessible in Christ. In this concept, man» " s role in the created world can be fulfilled only if he keeps intact the «image» of God which was part of his very humanity from the beginning. From the Christological controversies of the fifth century to the debates on the «essence» and «energy» of God in the fourteenth, all the major crises of Byzantine theological thought can be reduced to one or the other aspect of this basic Christian issue. Authors as different as Leontius of Jerusalem and Gregory Palamas, Maximus the Confessor and Symeon the New Theologian, Photius and Nicholas Cabasilas, can here be found in basic agreement. |
| Orthodox theology regards the sacraments as sacred actions through which the encounter between God and the human person takes place. In them our union with God, in so far as it is possible in this earthly life, is realized; the grace of God comes down upon us and sanctifies our entire nature, both soul and body. The sacraments bring us into Communion with the Divine nature, animating, deifying and restoring us to life eternal. In the sacraments we experience heaven and a foretaste of the Kingdom of God, that Kingdom which we can only ever become fully a part of, enter into and live in, after our death. The Greek word mysterion («sacrament» or «mystery») comes from the verb myo («to cover», «to conceal»). This word was invested with a broader meaning by the church Fathers: the incarnation of Christ was called a »sacrament», His salvific ministry, His birth, death, Resurrection and other events of His life, the Christian faith itself, doctrine, dogma, worship, prayer, church feast days, the sacred symbols, and so on. Of the sacred actions, Baptism and the Eucharist were preeminently named sacraments. Dionysius the Areopagite spoke of three sacraments: Baptism, Chrismation and the Eucharist; while the rites of clerical consecration, tonsuring a monk and burial were also listed among the sacraments. Following the same order, St Theodore the Studite (ninth century) referred to six sacraments: Illumination (Baptism), the Synaxis (Eucharist), Chrismation, Priesthood, monastic tonsuring and the burial rite. St Gregory Palamas (fourteenth century) emphasized the central place of the two sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, while St Nicholas Cabasilas (fifteenth century) in his book The Life in Christ provides commentaries on the three sacraments: Baptism, Chrismation and the Eucharist. At present the Orthodox Church regards Baptism, the Eucharist, Chrismation, Penance, Holy Unction, Marriage and Priesthood as sacraments; all the other sacred actions are listed as rituals. However, it ought to be borne in mind that the practice of numbering the sacraments has been borrowed from Latin scholasticism; hence also the distinction made between " sacraments» and «rituals». Eastern patristic thought in the first millenium was unconcerned about the number of sacraments and never felt the need to enumerate them. |
| Much that is said about the role and function of male deacons is applicable also to female deacons. Indeed, in scriptural and patristic literature, the Greek word diakonos can denote either a male or a female deacon. Moreover, in manuscripts containing the sacrament of ordination (especially the Codex Barberini and the Constantino- politan Euchologion), the rite for male deacons bears striking resemblance to the service for female deacons. In the past, women deacons served in dynamic ministries as educators, evangelists, spiritual mothers, and social workers; questions regarding their liturgical role remain. However, contemporary perception and practice with regard to the female diaconate will not advance smoothly unless the church understands the role and function of deacons in general. To this day, the Orthodox Church regards the diaconate as an essential part of the ordained ministry, without which the pastoral ministry would be incomplete. Thus, a comprehensive vision of the sacramental ministry recognizes the central role of the bishop as bond of visible unity; it respects the critical role of the presbyter in celebrating the presence of Christ in the local community; and it realizes the complementary role of the deacon in completing this circle of unity within the local community. The diaconate further provides occasion for appreciating the diversity of gifts among the laity as the “royal priesthood.” By means of ordination to the diaconate, such gifts may be embraced and ministerial dignity can be conferred upon certain members of the laity, whose skills would be incorporated and integrated within the community. As a result, such persons would be empowered through the imposition of the hands and by the grace of the Spirit, their various charismata and professional contributions recognized and intimately bound with the altar. They would support – and not substitute – the priestly ministry of the church. While the diaconate clearly changed in scope and function over the centuries, it has always remained in essence true to its origin, at once distinguishing and combining the liturgical diakonia and what the Council of Neo-Caesarea (ca. 314) called “the pattern of philanthropy» In general, however, it was the liturgical function of the deacon that gradually assumed greater prominence, becoming both elaborate and impressive. This change – or decline – in the diaconate is already evident in the 14th century when Nicholas Cabasilas, the formidable liturgical commentator of Byzantium, is reticent about the function of deacons in his formative books on the sacraments of eucharist and baptism. Thus, while the diaconate survived in the Eastern Church, it did so in a limited and specific form. |
| Contributors include Professor of Comparative Religion Marios Begzos, 402 Christos Yannaras 403 and other physicists and theologians. 404 ecclesiology: unity and diversity An understanding of the Church centred on the Eucharist has now generally replaced the idea that it is an institution which incidentally performs sacraments. Starting from Nicholas Cabasilas " s saying that the Church is " indicated» in the Eucharist, there is an emphasis on the Church becoming what it is when it celebrates the Eucharist. It is on the Eucharist that all the other parameters of the community – structure, administration, morality, sacraments – depend for their meaning and the form they take. In this perspective, the Eucharist is not simply a spiritual medicine to fortify believers in their spiritual struggle: it is the event from which every member of the Church draws his or her identity. It is a manifestation and foretaste of the Kingdom which will be fully realised in the future, in its cosmic dimensions. 405 Church membership does not mean recruitment into an ideological faction, but above all a change in one " s mode of being. The church event itself should form an icon, a manifestation and realisation of the trinitarian mode of being. This point, and particularly the use of the Trinity as a model for human life, has sparked debates about patristic thought and the possibilities for using contemporary personalistic categories in theology: the biblical theologians Ioannis Panagopoulos (1938–97) and Savvas Agourides have both expressed disagreements, from differing viewpoints, with the positions of Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pergamon and Christos Yannaras. 406 Another issue is raised by the view (introduced principally by John Romanides 407 ) that the Church is a " hospital» where humans are healed of their passions, their existential sicknesses. The consequence of this view seems to be the belief that, in reality, to be a member of the Church is not simply to accept the faith or participate in the eucharistic community, but depends on one " s degree of spiritual progress (through the stages of purification, illumination and deification). |
| Sacramental life in the church is the pathway to salvation for a believer for, as Lossky puts it (1991: 181), “In the Church and through the sacraments our nature enters into union with the divine nature in the hypostasis of the Son, the Head of His mystical body.” By means of the sacred mysteries, the faithful are born, formed, and united to the Savior, so that “in him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17.28). Orthodox catechisms today usually list seven sacraments or mysteries of the church: baptism, chrismation, Eucharist (the sacrament of sacraments), repentance or confession, holy orders, marriage, holy unction or the anointing of the sick; but this seven-fold enumeration is a late (17th century) development, made under the influence of western scholastic theology. Different church fathers and theologians have counted them in different ways (John of Damascus referred to two, Dionysius the Areopagite to six). Although the orthodox tradition avoids labeling the sacraments in terms of what are the most or the least important, baptism and the Eucharist remain the cornerstone of the sacramental life of the church. Baptism confers being and existence in christ and leads the faithful into life, while the Eucharist continues this life. Nicholas Cabasilas describes this in the following terms: “Through the sacred mysteries, as through windows, the Sun of Righteousness enters this dark world ... and the Light of the World overcomes this world” (1974: 49–50). A EUCHARISTIC CHURCH It is the sacrament of the Eucharist that constantly builds up the church as the body of Christ. As St. John Chrysostom maintains: “We become a single body, according to Scripture, members of his flesh and bone of his bones. This is what is brought about by the food that he gives us. He blends himself with us so that we may all become one single entity in the way the body is joined to the head” (Hom. Jn. 46 ; PG. 59. 260). The sacrament of the Eucharist is the main key for approaching orthodox teaching on ecclesiology. |
| This is the reason why people today read the lives and words of contemporary saints, in the hagiographic sense, where they are struggling for their salvation, such as that of Fr. Paisios, Fr. Porphyrios, Fr. Sophrony, Fr. Ephraim Katounakiotis, and many others who are known and unknown, who are now deceased. These are our guides and our models, without dismissing and undermining the institution of the Church. – There are many people who are seeking an Elder with special gifts to guide them, which if nothing else, is hard to find nowadays. – This naturally happens. Because people today, like people of every age, seek people who will show them the way and path of salvation, the method that leads to holiness and internal completeness. It is not a method based on logic, technique and ethics, but it is a combination of the Mysteries and the ascetic life. People seek “living organisms” and not simple teachers and academic theologians. Just as biological life is imparted from living organisms and not dead ones, because no dead organism can impart life, the same happens in the spiritual life. One who loves Christ with their entire existence, namely psychosomatically, can impart this love to others. Anyone who knows the path to a destination, they can also point the way to those who seek it. I find the opportunity here to say that there are three pillars of the spiritual life, as interpreted by the sacred Nicholas Cabasilas. This appears at the consecration of a church, where the Sacred Altar is consecrated by the Bishop, who puts relics of Martyrs into it. So the axis of the spiritual life is threefold: the Bishop, the Altar and the Saints, and these three must operate properly for an ecclesiastical mindset to exist. A Bishop who is not associated with the Divine Eucharist and does not recognize the Saints, or the Divine Eucharist without the Bishop and the Saints, or love for the Saints without participating in the Divine Eucharist and being in union with the Bishop, do not constitute an Orthodox ecclesiastical mindset. |
| The Eucharistic Context of Pastoral Response to Contemporary Challenges in Marriage, Family, and Sexuality Source: Eastern Christian Insights [Introductory Note: The short paper below was my presentation at a recent symposium on contemporary pastoral issues in sexuality held in the Netherlands.] The celebration of the Eucharist provides a necessary context for understanding the pastoral response of the Orthodox Church to contemporary challenges in marriage, family, and sexuality. As St. Nicholas Cabasilas commented on the Eucharist, “its aim is the sanctification of the faithful.” Likewise, the aim of the union of husband and wife is their sanctification, their participation in the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. Even as the Church enters mystically into the eschatological reign in the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, the married couple become participants in the heavenly banquet through their common life in Christ. Through both Eucharist and marriage, human beings participate in the fulfillment of their ancient vocation to become like God in holiness. Themes of offering, sacrifice, blessing, and communion are intrinsic dimensions of both sacraments. These holy mysteries also manifest the fulfillment of basic human desires and needs for life and love. Bread and wine become nourishment for eternal life, while conjugal union becomes an entrance into the heavenly bridal chamber. Due to the physical dimensions of each practice, communicants and spouses share as whole persons in the restoration of their humanity as they direct their hearts for fulfillment in God. Since the “one flesh” relationship between husband and wife serves as a sign of the relationship between Christ and the Church, their union is to become nothing less than an icon of the salvation of the world. (Eph. 5: 31-32) After describing how the “one flesh” union of marriage includes husband, wife, and child, St. John Chrysostom notes that “Our relationship to Christ is the same; we become one flesh with Him through communion…” St. |
| Beyond the necessary intellectual engagement, the Church Fathers, the liturgy, and the tradition of Christian asceticism (qq.v.) express broader and higher meanings for theology, among them: 1) prayer (q.v.), “he who prays is a theologian,” says Evagrius of Pontus (q.v.); 2) glorification or praise occur particularly in the celebration of the liturgy, both on earth among human beings and in heaven with the angels; 3) the vision of God (q.v.) is anticipatory in this life and unendingly unfolded in increasing perfection in the age to come; and finally 4) God himself who is the threefold unity of the Trinity. This rounded vision of theology as intellectual, scriptural, liturgical, and experiential was classically formulated in the Byzantine era, and exemplified with particular force in the writings of Gregory Palamas and Nicholas Cabasilas (qq.v.) in the 14th c. Under the impress of the West following the end of the Empire, Orthodox thought suffered a “pseudomorphosis”-borrowing once more from Florovsky-and its theology, at least the latter as printed in official church manuals, took on the shape and flavor of a third-rate Scholasticism (q.v.). The rediscovery of the patristic inheritance owes to two sources, the monastic revival stimulated by the Philokalia (q.v.) and the welcome assistance of Western historical scholarship, two streams that began to converge in Russia in the late 19th c. and early 20th c. Outside the frontiers of its fixed theological inheritance, Orthodoxy gives considerable play to theological expression and opinion, to “things said theologically,” theologoumena. For example, the application of the mystery of Christ to contemporary Christian life is traditionally Orthodox, but today is usually categorized under moral theology-a relatively new phrase in the Orthodox lexicon. During the era of the Fathers the Church had been content with the ascetic tradition, on the one hand, and insistence on the basic norms of Christian behavior, exemplified in homilies on the preparation of the catechumenate for Baptism (q.v.), on the other. |
| Patriarch Euthymios (r. 1375–1393), the last Bulgarian patriarch before the Ottoman conquest ended the Bulgarian patriarchate for the second time, ardently promoted hesychastic mystical prayer. He also initiated and led a great pan-Slavic literary revival, based on a return to the original Greek sources and to the original translation work of Saints Cyril and Methodius. On July 17, 1393, the Bulgarians were vanquished in battle by the Ottoman Turks. Bulgaria, like Serbia, became completely integrated into the Ottoman realm. The Bulgarians did not regain their independence until the early 20th century. Liturgical Developments Patriarch Philotheos Kokkinos of Constantinople (r. 1353–1354 and 1364–1376) consolidated the adoption by his Church of the monastic typikon of the Saint Sabbas Monastery in the Holy Land. This helped stabilize the Church’s worship patterns to such an extent that the order of worship in the Church in the 14th century was virtually the same as it is today. In his Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, Saint Nicholas Cabasilas gave a symbolical interpretation of the liturgy that is still applicable today. The liturgical commentaries of Saint Symeon of Thessalonica (d. 1429), which also provide detailed information about Church worship, are also still relevant. Saint Symeon’s writings reveal that at this time in the marriage service, the Holy Eucharist was still being given to the bride and groom if they were Orthodox Christians, and the blessed “common cup” was given only to those who were not allowed to receive Holy Communion in the Church. And for the first time, the prothesis (proskomedia), as a separate rite preceding the liturgy of the Word, appeared in the liturgical books. The West The West in the 14th century saw the “Babylonian Captivity” of the Papacy in Avignon, France (1309–1377), when the Papacy became virtually subject to the kings of France. Then, in the very next year after the return of the Papacy to Rome, the “Great Papal Schism” began, with two rivals claiming to be the legitimate Pope. And from 1409 to 1414 there were three rivals all claiming to be the true Pope. These humiliating developments helped lead to the rise of the Conciliar Movement, which became a powerful force in the Western Church in the next century. |
| J. Meyendorff, Gregory Palamas, p. 121—126. 320 См. Епифанович. Преподобный Максим Исповедник и Византийское богословие, с. 65, прим. 5. 321 Maximus the Confessor, Quaesf. ad Thai, PG 90:408?C. 322 В Западной Церкви наряду с Никейским Символом Веры признаются и употребляются так называемые Апостольское Кредо и Кредо св. Афанасия. 323 Theodoret of Cyrus, Haeret. fabul. compendium, 5:18; PG 83:512. 324 Богородица (греч) 325 Gregori Palamas, Hom. in Present., 6—7; ed. Oikonomos (Athens, 1861), p. 126—127: trans, in EChurchQ 10 (1954—1955), No. 8, 381—382. 326 Там же, 2; p. 122. 327 Sophronius of Jerusalem, Oratio, II, 25; PG 87:3248A. 328 Andrew of Crete, Hom. in Nativ. B. Mariae; PG 97:812л. 36. 329 Nicholas Cabasilas, Hom. in Dorm., 4; PG 19:498. 330 Gennadios Scholarios, Oeuvres completes de Georges Scholarios, edd. J. Petit and M. Jugie (Paris, 1928), II, 501. 331 John Chrysostom, Hom. 44 in Matt.; PG 57:464; Hom. 21 in In 2; PG 59:131. 332 Человеческое (лат.). 333 Из Стихиры на Господи воззвах, служба на Рождество Христову 334 24 декабря, вечерня; The Festal Menaion, trans. Mother Mary and K. Ware (London: Faber, 1969), p. 254. 335 25 декабря, утреня; там же, с. 269. 336 Святый и Великий Пяток, вечерня 337 6 августа, Преображение, вечерня; Festal Menaion, р. 476—477. 338 Константинопольский Собор 680 г.; Денц. 291. 339 «Человеческое», «божественное» (лат.). 340 Maximus the Confessor, Expos, oral, domin.; PG 90:877?. 341 См. Ин. 9:1—38. 342 John of Damascus. De fide orth.. Ill, 15; PG 94:1057?C. 343 Денцлер 222; Анафема 10 Собора 553 г. 344 По-славянски: «…распныйся же Христе Боже… , един Сын Святыя Троицы…». 345 Leontius of Jerusalem, Adv. Nest.. VIII, 9; PG 86:1768л. 346 Marcel Richard, «St. Athanase et la psychologie du Christ selon les Ariens», Mel Sei Rel 4 (1947), 54. 347 Charles Moeller, «Le chalcedonisme et le neo-chalcedonisme en Orient de 451 a la fin du VI siecle», in Grillmeier-Bacht, I, 717. 348 John of Damascus, De fide orth.. Ill, 21; PG 94:1084в-1085А. |
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