Bishop Kallistos Ware on the Divine Liturgy (Part One)

your eminence fathers friends thank you for your welcome our theme during these days together is the inner meaning of the Divine Liturgy and for my first talk tonight I have chosen as title liturgy what does the word mean st. Nicholas Courvoisier us in his classic commentary on the Divine Liturgy says this is the final mystery and beyond this it is not possible to go nor can anything be added to it and a great Eucharistic priest in Russia early in the 20th century Saint John of Kronstadt says the Eucharist is a continual miracle so our purpose in these days together is to reflect in common on this final mystery on this continual miracle the Divine Liturgy is to us as priests very familiar and there is a danger that it may become too familiar our hope during our time here together is to look at this familiar theme with new eyes Plato said the beginning of truth is to feel a sense of one so let us seek together during these days to reawaken a sense of wonder as we reflect on what all of us know so well let me begin with a fundamental question what is the church here for what is its unique and distinctive function what makes the church different from before example a youth group an old people social circle or an ethnic Club what does the church do which nobody and nothing else can do phone answer we may look at the first beginnings of the Apostolic Church what happened in Jerusalem immediately after the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost when 3,000 converts were baptized the answer is given in acts 2:42 they devoted themselves to the apostolic teaching and fellowship to the breaking of bread and prayers here then is the essential irreplaceable task of the church to break bread not only to proclaim salvation in Christ through words of preaching but to make that salvation immediately available through communion in the Lord's body and blood at the Last Supper Jesus instructed us not say this but to do this fundamental to the church's existence on earth is not a verbal message but an action the action of the Eucharist it is the Eucharist that creates the church the church is a Eucharistic community when the church celebrates the Divine Liturgy then and only then does it become truly itself church unity is not imposed from above by power of jurisdiction but established from within through shared participation in Holy Communion and here we may take as a key text 1 Corinthians 10:17 because there is one loaf we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf and notice there how son Paul uses the word because and the word for between communion in the one Eucharistic loaf and membership in the one ecclesial body paul asserts not just a parallel or an analogy but a causal connection because we all partake of the one Eucharistic love therefore we are one body in Christ how then are we to understand this action of the Eucharist that is creative of the church's very existence the source and foundation of its unity so first of all I'd like to start with the word liturgy there is a Chinese proverb which says what would you do if you were emperor of the whole world with absolute power and the answer is I would make people use words with precision so let's look at the word liturgy and try to be precise about that now the word little gear is sometimes explained as Aragorn Tula ooh the work of the people now I think that is dubious etymology but it is good theology a liturgy in classical Greek not necessarily in a religious context means a shared corporate action something done by many people in common something we can only do together so if the Eucharist is termed liturgy then this signifies that at the service there are no passive spectators there are only active participants the laity do not hear the liturgy but they do it together with the clergy now let's reflect more fully on this corporate character of the liturgy as a shared action the Eucharist reflects the very essence of personhood the Greek word for person is cross open meaning countenance or face this makes me recall that great theologian of the Orthodox Church in the 20th century father george florovsky who spoke even up to the end of his life spoke english with quite a strong foreign accent and in particular he pronounced the word faith as if it was the same as the word face and so when he was asked to give a talk about the Orthodox faith he began somewhat to the surprise of his audience by saying look at my face it is a very beautiful thing it is a very ancient face so I really do intend to talk about face incidentally I'm sorry that I can't speak English with a Greek accent because that would make my teaching much more authentic but still there we are when I was on the island of Patmos in the monastery to which I belong I remember coming down into the courtyard one day and finding a group of American students and they said to me do you speak English so I said a little and we talked for some time and they said then you speak English very well so I answered modestly I try my best and finally they said to me do tell us how did you learn your yeah and quite truthfully I said I just picked it up so then prosopon face i'm only in a person if i face others if I look into their eyes and let them look into mine I am only a person if I greet other person's personhood signifies Kino Nia personhood is social dialogic to be a person is to be in relationship the meaning of personhood could be summed up in the words I need you in order to be myself I only become truly personal in what the Jewish thinker Martin Buber called a relationship of I and thou this is very well expressed in the sayings of the Desert Fathers the Chianti corn one day Abba Makarios was walking through the desert and he saw beside the path a skull so he tapped it with his stick and he said who are you and the scowl replied I used to be a pagan priest where are you now said bellarius and the skull said I am in hell what's it like there Macari has asked and the scowl replied this is the nature of our torment we are bound one two one back-to-back tied to each other and we cannot see each other's faces that is the ultimate torment not to be able to see the face of the other not to be able to relate not to be able to love sob say the long fair sale is owed hell is other people and it often feels like that but in fact I don't think Sartre was right I think TS Eliot came much closer to the truth when he said what is hell hell is oneself hell is alone the other figures merely predict now I want to apply all that I've been saying about the meaning of person as face as relationship to the liturgy as a shared action in the liturgy supremely we express our human nature as relationship with the other the liturgy is something we cannot do alone we can only do in cooperation in co-working with the other and I think we can approach this same truth about personhood and the liturgy as a shared action by reflecting on a slightly different theme the human person has created in the image and likeness of God now that is understood by the fathers as meaning first and foremost in the image and likeness of Christ but it also means in the image of God as Trinity and what is the basic meaning of the doctrine of the Trinity God is love says some John 1 John 4:8 but the love of one turned inwards isolated is not the true fullness of love so in the case of God God is not just one person loving himself God is three joined in mutual and shared love loving one another God is not just a unit but a union God is not just personal but interpersonal and this is summed up in the Greek patristic term of perichoresis meaning mutual indwelling if then we humans are in the image of God the Trinity then it is our supreme vocation to reproduce on earth the movement of shared love that passes between the three persons of the Holy Trinity as is said in our Lord's high priestly prayer John 17 verse 21 may they all be one even as you Father are in me and I am in you may they also be one in us may they be one even as we are one so there a parallel is drawn between the mutual love of the eternal three in heaven and our human relationship here on father Vasily Oz Gandhi caucus of Iran in his book hymn of entry in Saudi corn says that this even as in Christ's prayer is vital for our salvation now once more we can apply all this to the liturgy as a shared action it expresses our essential human personhood as piroso ponen or face as created in the image of God the Trinity who is mutual love now turning more particularly to the liturgy we can see that the essence of the liturgy is expressed in the fact that throughout the sir this save on rare occasions we never say aye we only say we we speak in the prayers of the liturgy in the plural not the singular now that is particularly clear in the epiclesis the invocation of the Holy Spirit we offer you this spiritual worship without shedding of blood and we ask we pray and we beseech you send down your Holy Spirit upon us we us not I and me and that's again the case in the Lord's Prayer in the Lord's Prayer the English text we use us five times our three times we once but never once in the Lord's Prayer do we say me mine or I and the exceptions to this in the liturgy are more apparent than real you do find the priest saying I in the hymn that is in the prayer that is said during the cherubic hymn but that is a priests prayer specifically the priest addressing Christ and so he does speak of himself as I that prayer I think was never said aloud in the hearing of the people by the time it was added to the liturgy the priests prayers were already being said miss Ticos so that they were not heard by the people again we do say at the beginning of the Creed I believe that is a little strange because in the original text of the Creed as endorsed by the ecumenical councils it begins we believe it was a conciliar statement but then the use of the Creed was transferred to baptism and when the candidate for baptism or the an odorous recited the Creed it was natural on that occasion to say I believe because the candidate for baptism was expressing his faith in a personal way making a personal profession of faith from baptism the Creed was then introduced into the liturgy but the baptismal form was retained I believe in fact in a number of reformed texts of the liturgy in the West they have restored the plural weave it's also the custom attend rate in the Russian tradition for the priests to be mmediately before the communion of the people to recite aloud the prayer I believe Lord and I confess that you are the Christ the Son of the Living God who came into the world to save sinners furthermore I believe that this is your own pure body and that this is your own precious blood but that prayer I believe Lord and I confess is rarely part of the preparation for communion to be said by Christians in their own homes so it's not strictly part of the public service of the liturgy so the liturgical word is we not I oh not my and let me illustrate this with one of my favorite all-purpose anecdotes this one comes from Dostoyevsky's masterwork The Brothers Karamazov the story of an old woman and an onion some of you may know it but I'm going to tell you the story all the same I remember my teacher at Oxford Henry Chadwick used to say never forget people like to be told what they already know so once upon a time there was an old woman highly respectable she died and to her surprise she found herself in a lake of fire looking out from the lake she saw a guardian angel walking along the bank so she called out there has been some mistake I am very respectable old lady I shouldn't be here in this lake of fire Oh said the angel do you ever remember when you helped somebody else and she thought and then she said yes once I was gardening and a beggar came by and I gave her an onion excellent said the angel I happened to have that very onion with me now and he reached into his robes and produced it so he said to her you take the other end of this onion and let us see what it will do and he began to pull her out of the lake of fire actually I think it was probably a lot rather she was however not the only person in the lake of fire and when the others saw what was happening they crowded round her and hung on in the hope of being pulled out as well this - don't please the old woman at all she cried out let go let go it's not you who's being pulled out it's me it's not your onion it's mine and when she said it's mine the onions snapped in two and she fell back into the lake of fire and there so I'm told she's still that is Dostoyevsky's story and now here is my comment if only she had said it's our onion would it not have been strong enough to pull them all out of the lake of fire but in saying mine she denied her personhood after the image of the Trinity and she was being profoundly on liturgical now having reflected in this way on the Divine Liturgy is a corporate action the work of the people let's notice some of the moments in the liturgy which expressed this sharing and solidarity first of all when we come into the church and take the Karros in front of the icon screen after we've said the prayers and before we go into the sanctuary we turn and bow to the West usually there aren't very many people but the Angels doubtless bow back then at the great entrance before we go to the table of the processes before we take the holy gifts round in procession once more we bow to the people and they bow back and then a third time before Holy Communion once more the celebrant bows to the people the people bow back now what is the significance of this threefold bowing it's not simply greeting each other pleased to see you here it has a far more profound significance we are asking and receiving forgiveness as we bow to the people we say in our hearts if not allowed forgive me and as they bow back they are saying forgive us now this threefold exchange of mutual forgiveness to me has a very deep meaning for our understanding of the liturgy it makes it very clear that the priest cannot act alone without the people he needs to extend forgiveness to the people and he needs to receive forgiveness from the people so the phrase are used to earlier applies exactly to the literature I need you in order to be myself then rather more explicitly there is the exchange that takes place immediately before the Creed when the Deacon says who is it priest let us love one another that with one mind we may confess and the people respond Father Son and Holy Spirit Trinity one in essence and undivided let us love one another there is no true confession of faith in God the Trinity no true celebration of the liturgy without mutual love the priest cannot act alone he needs the people just as they need him then let's consider how the central action of the Eucharist the anaphora begins it begins with a dialogue grace of our Lord Jesus Christ the love of God the Father the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all and people reply and with your spirit lift up your hearts and the people reply we lift them to the Lord let us give thanks to the Lord every ste cemento kirio that could also be drawn related that has offered the Eucharist to the Lord and the people reply it is meat and right now how are we to understand this opening dialogue this is what st. John Chrysostom has to say as we begin the actual celebration of the dread mysteries the priest prays for the people and the people pray for the priests for the words and with your spirit mean precisely this everything in the Eucharistic Thanksgiving is shared in common and tarty safe carry steers kina for the priest does not offer Thanksgiving or offer the Eucharist it could be translated F Karras D the priest does not offer Thanksgiving alone but the whole people gives thanks with him for after he has replied to their greeting they then give their consent by answering it is meat and right and only then does he begin the Eucharistic Thanksgiving so that passage illustrates in a very striking manner the corporate character of the liturgy priests and people pray for one another they need one another the priest cannot celebrate the Eucharist alone everything is shared in common and the celebrant even asks permission from the lady before he begins the anaphora he needs their consent their active participation is essential the prayer is theirs as well as his another element in the liturgy that indicates sharing and solidarity is the repeated use of the oh man after the words of institution this is my body this is my blood oh man oh man the people reply at the epiclesis after the words changing them by your Holy Spirit there is a threefold oh man in the books it says this is to be said by the deacon but I think that reflects the period when this the epiclesis was said silently not heard by the people but in churches where it said aloud and certainly at Oxford we always say the prayers of the Eucharist aloud the anaphora and the epiclesis then I think all the people should say are men together and in the practice of the early church after you receive Communion you said oh man now let me read some words by father Aleksandr schmayman he sees our men as par excellence the word of the lady we are so used she said to the word our man that we rarely pay no attention to it and yet it is a crucial world no prayer no sacrifice no blessing is ever given in the church without being sanctified by the arm and which means an approval agreement participation to say our men to anything means that I make it my own that I give my consent to it and all men is indeed the word of the laity in the church expressing the function of the laity as the people of God which freely and joyfully accepts the divine offer sanctions it with its consent there is really no service no liturgy without the armed end of those who have been ordained to serve God as community as church so then this familiar word our men expresses the corporate shared character of the liturgy to say our men is first to make a proclamation of faith it is to say it is truly so if you say our men that signifies the word spoken or the action performed is certain definite firmly established but secondly our men means more than that it's an act of personal commitment it is truly so for me when we say our men we are saying I involve myself in the words spoken in the action performed I commit myself do it I make it my own and then beyond that in the third place it is an act not just a personal but a corporate commitment it is truly so for us as worshiping community when we say together our men we involve ourselves all together in the word spoken in the action performed all together we make it our own when the word our men is pronounced by the total congregation then the liturgy becomes truly what it is ordained to be the work of the people there is a story told of that a great Victorian in Britain Thomas Carlyle one day he came back from the morning worship in a bad temper and he said to his mother I cannot think why they preach such long sermons if I were a minister I would go up into the pulpit and say no more than this good people you know what you ought to do now go and do it Aria Thomas said his mother and would you tell them how so how can we express the corporate character of the liturgy more fully in practice this is a question that I leave with you but I would mention one or two things and perhaps you will mention others clearly in those churches where there is frequent communion where a large number of the worshipers come up to receive the sacrament that express is in the best possible way that this is a shared action I can't remember not long ago celebrating the liturgy not in this country not actually in a Greek Church but I won't say where it was and perhaps about 2,000 people present and at the moment of commune perhaps twelve babies were brought up and that was all and I felt a strange sense of desolation with all these thousands of people none of them came to receive the sacrum well we know that our traditions where the layer to only come very infrequently for communion and only after careful preparation but to me when people do share together in the sacraments I feel much more here we are all doing something together if the Eucharist is a meal and the guests declined to eat the food something has gone wrong with the dinner party well I'll come back to the question of frequent communion perhaps in the final morning but other things I'm glad that in the Greek tradition the processions the entry with the gospel the entry with the holy gifts the celebrant goes right round the church that is not done in the Slav tradition and I find when the procession does go right round this helps to gather the congregation in through this movement personally I am in favor of saying the priests prayers aloud especially at the anaphora so much of the theology of the liturgy is contained in the prayers and it's sad to me if the people don't hear it again I sometimes wonder would it not be a good thing to restore the practice of exchanging the kiss of peace by the whole congregation that was what was done in the ancient church nowadays of course if the priest is celebrating alone there is no exchange of a kiss of peace at all but the exchange of the kiss of peace is a very moving way of expressing our solidarity because one needs to prepare people and one needs to think carefully about how it should be done without producing chaos but it can be done with dignity and reverence again I would love to see much more congregational singing in our services not all through the service I'm sure there are parts of the service which should be done by the appointed singers or the choir like the hymn of the chair of him or the Kino nikan but couldn't everybody sing together carry a laser onto the litanies and the Antipholus couldn't when the chanter has intoned bless the Lord my soul my soul and all that is within me bless His Holy Name could not everybody sing together at the prayers of the mother of God Savior save us well I was in a Greek church in the States not so long ago where that was done where the choir leader the choir wasn't up in a gallery at the back but they were quite near the front of the church on the left and the choir leader turned and led all the people in the singing of these frequent refrains and that delighted me I remember to the first time I ever went to Russia and that was during the Communist period when there was only a limited number of churches open and those that were opened were packed and I remember how moved I was when the moment for the Creed came and all the people thousands of them sang the Creed together and there later they all sang the Lord's Prayer together and to me that was wonderful moment of the Solidarity of the Christian people well you may have other suggestions about making the liturgy more truly what it is the work of the total people thank you we are going to take questions and discussion of course so you

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Keywords: Kallistos, Ware, Divine, Liturgy, orthodox, Christianity, Jesus, Christ, Ιησούς, Χριστός, Θεοτόκος, Άγιοι, Ορθόδοξη, Εκκλησία, Ορθοδοξία, Orthodoxy, christianity, saints, church, Patriarchs, bishops, priests, athos, monasteries, Holy, Lord, христианки, Иисус, ортодоксальность, Патриарх, святой, церковь, Eastern Orthodox Church (Religion), Christianity (Religion), Orthodox Christianity (Religion), sacred, Priest (Profession), Kallistos Ware (Author)

Id: VkAz950LXHU

Length: 47min 30sec (2850 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 21 2012