Download the salvific and binding character of orthodox worship

THE SALVIFIC AND BINDING CHARACTER OF
ORTHODOX WORSHIP
By His Eminence Archbishop Stylianos of Australia
In our previous article we analysed the dual function which the Doctrines and
the Canons of the Church have for the entire People of God since they both
oblige and guide towards Faith and Action. We had also stressed that sacred
Worship, as a third protective factor, summarizes and energizes the Doctrines
and Canons, sanctifying them through prayer and the Holy Sacraments.
As a result, the ‘offering’ of divine Worship ‘for all things and in all things’,
precisely because of this generality and catholicity, becomes the most active, the
direct and continuously experienced unassailable ‘protection’ of the faithful.
Consequently, as heretical and forbidden as it would be for one to ‘improvise’ in
the sphere of the Doctrines and the Holy Canons, in absentia of the formal
opinion of the Church, it is equally heretical and indeed sacrilegious to
experiment without theological soundness and reverence in the area of
sacred Worship. This, after all, is the reason why the main body of the Divine
Liturgy and the Services of the Holy Sacraments was constituted very early.
Furthermore, the ‘format’, the Schema, of public prayer in the Church was
consolidated with regard not only to the language and the texts, but also to the
melody as well as the Order of Services and the mode of movements and
gestures (typikon), into sacerdotal forms enriched by antiquity.
Here we should recall of course that all these external and ‘material’ elements of
Worship, though visible – yet transmitting to us invisible grace – are not,
however, ‘magical’ means directing us to some idolatrous ceremonialism.
Despite this, the very manner in which they have been structured so ‘prudently
and orderly’, that they might express in a God-pleasing way the genuine
phronema of the prayerful ‘Eucharistic Community’, does not allow for any
change or addition that might do an injustice to the spirit and the sacredness of
Worship.
The fact that for many centuries the whole body of the Church throughout the
universe unceasingly worshipped ‘the God of our Fathers’ through the same
‘forms’ with homologous and identical phrasal means, was not simply a matter
of external discipline or of superficially mimical uniformity.
It was and remains primarily an issue of the deepest conviction and
fundamental faithfulness to the uniqueness of the Church. And this uniqueness
is understood as ‘unison’ and ‘consensus’, not only amongst its earthly
members (horizontally) but also amongst those ‘in heaven’ (descendingly).
Only in this context can the unity of the Church be viewed as being beyond time
and beyond the world, whilst lived as an unfading continuity.
And it is well known that even the Protestants in the World Council of Churches,
strongly influenced by the expositions of authentic Orthodox theologians with
whom they have collaborated for whole decades, have been convinced to speak
about the unity of the Church as ‘catholicity in space’ and ‘catholicity in time’.
Following the above, it is incomprehensible how the Church of Greece, especially
in recent years, has risked blatant and most impious innovations in the sphere
of Worship which are in stark contradiction to the meaning of unity and
continuity of the Orthodox through the ages.
By this of course we do not refer merely to the vestments and the opulence of
the Clergy in general, especially that of the Hierarchs, during the Divine Liturgy!
More specifically we refer to the tasteless and altogether needless addition of
supposed ‘Ceremonies’ and ‘Services’ which in no way express but rather
radically offend the holiness and sanctifying power of Orthodox Worship.
A very recent and most characteristic example is the ‘ceremony’ performed on
the hill next to the Holy Monastery of Penteli in Athens and witnessed by Greeks
everywhere on television.
Three large Crosses, with three large Crucified Bodies. And the Prelate of the
Church of Greece surrounded by other Clergy, ‘taking down’ the Crucified Christ
– as if in Worship – and in continuation literally ‘parading’ Him with western
‘brass bands’ playing mournful worldly marches and ‘fanfare’, as if conducting the
funeral of a mere mortal!
And of course we cannot rule out that these theologically-deficient Clergymen
participating in such a ‘theatrical’ undertaking are under the naïve
misapprehension that in this way they are rendering the Holy Passion of Christ
‘more alive’! It also cannot be ruled out that this mistaken impression is
supported by the fact that they see the uninformed crowds following them
‘mesmerized’ and ‘weeping’. And one asks:
Do not the thronging multitudes react in exactly the same manner, ‘as sheep
without a Shepherd’, when viewing movies or theatrical performances that
have been chanced from time to time, especially in the West, out of clearly
profiteering motives by the show business merchants of everything sacred and
Holy?
Let us recall the recent film ‘The Passion of Christ’ by the Australian producer
Mel Gibson which of course did not provoke only the Jewish people. Even more
so, for different reasons, it raised the objections of many pious Christians.
For the Orthodox especially, the ‘Engomia’ hymns chanted each year by the
prayerful congregations of the faithful during the ‘Burial Lamentations’ are
absolutely didactic within the purely ecclesiastical climate and programme of
divine Worship.
In other words, it is not just the theological ‘singularity’ of the Sacrifice on the
Cross which prohibits whatsoever ‘re-enactment’ or ‘imitation’. Equally it is
prohibited by the express ‘astonishment’, even of the angels, as to how ‘the
Life was laid in the tomb’.
Of course these worshipful and hymnological ‘coordinates’ of the Church
express the characteristically Orthodox faith and teaching that the all holy Body
of the God-Man Christ did not experience ‘corruption’ during His experience of
death.
In closing with much anguish the above dutiful denouncements – whose deeper
injurious effect on the lay masses should not have preoccupied only the
courageously theologizing Professor Christos Yiannaras, although not part of a
Theological Faculty (!), - we call upon the Theological Schools of Greece, at
least, to assume their responsibilities at last with relevant ‘resolutions’ pertaining
to the above. By God’s grace we are not lacking in distinguished scholars of
Liturgics, not the least of whom is the prominent, recently retired and
internationally recognised Mr Ioannis Fountoulis.
This Article was published in the Greek Australian newspaper
TO VEMA June 2004