"...the liturgy is the unique expression of the Church, of its faith and of its life. This is because the liturgy, as the Fathers of the Church have taught, is "the living source and the ultimate criterion of all Christian thought." Through liturgy, the faithful learn about their faith and tradition and thereby grow in grace and holiness. Liturgy and the liturgical life are schools in themselves. This is very true for the Orthodox faithful, since the liturgy functions as a catechesis for them. Perhaps this explains why no Sunday Schools were developed in the Orthodox tradition. The liturgy is a source for theology and an expression of the faith and life of the Church. It is in the liturgy itself, as we have seen above, that the word of God becomes alive - sanctifying and enriching the life of the faithful and empowering them to go out and proclaim the Risen Lord."
+ Eugene Aydin. "Rediscovering the Didactic and Missiological Aspects of Liturgy for Today." in "Worship Traditions in Armenia and the Neighboring Christian East: An International Symposium in Honor of the 40th Anniversary of St Nersess Armenian Seminary." Edited by Roberta R. Ervine. (New York: St Vladimir's Seminary Press/ St Nersess Armenian Seminary, 2006) 305.
This doesn't mean that we are to abolish Sunday Schools, but rather to recognize that we are to base our teaching on a lived theology, a participation in the liturgical life of the Church and take that life into the world for the life of the world. I think this is where catechesis like the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd are a modern way of encouraging this lived theology. So perhaps we can suggest that although there might not have been "Sunday Schools" in the Orthodox tradition, there has always been active catechesis (we're all being catechists in some respects) from infancy to ones falling asleep in the Lord. The point of meditations on the lived theology of the liturgy is not to create a pietistic distortion where spiritualism reigns and 'learned-lived' knowledge is relegated to another 'floor' in the mind of the Church. Instead, the importance of liturgy to missiology and to all of life is in the way it is an icon, a synthesis and coalescing of life revealed as it should be, in the Cross and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I would argue that whatever we learn in school in a Theological program, whatever we experience in prayer, whatever we read in Scripture, whatever we experience in our missiological and philanthropic endeavours of compassion, or whatever bioethical, social or moral assertions we offer to the world, must be affirmed and lived in the liturgical life (the grammar of the Church's dance with God) and in each moment being ripe with an ever present encounter of Christ, crucified and risen, now and evermore. Amen.
