On The Power of Orthodox Christian Liturgy
by Fr Maxym Lysack
Transcript:
Fr Maxym: The question is throughout all of these services, can we say that we are not simply commemorating events of the past, but we're actually there and living them. The answer is absolutely, liturgy in the Christian sense is not about marking historical events, although these are historical events. Christ really entered human history and there has to be a historical grounding for them first and foremost, which can't be tinkered with because either God is in history or God is not. He's not sort of in history. He is in or He's not. And He is, so I'm not disparaging the historical dimension when I say that liturgy is not just about that because in part it is about that. There has to be a historical basis. History is moving towards a final end.
However, to reduce liturgical celebration to that alone, means to look backwards and in liturgy, we're looking now and forwards, so those events are brought to us as now events. We're not repeating them, we're not nailing the Lord to the cross again, but neither are we going back. You hear people who like to say if I could go back to the first century, I would … I wonder, I wonder what I would in case like that. But it isn't about going back to the first century, it's about those events becoming our events that we enter into now. Since as I mentioned, all of holy week is geared towards the second coming of Christ, it is also a celebration, which is pointed towards the future.
This is very important because in many types of Greek thought, in many streams have Greek thought before Christ, it was the past that was very important. For Christians, it's the future that informs the present, not the past. It's the fact that the second coming is informing and enlightening everything. It's not that the past isn't important, it's extremely important because we believe in real history. However, St. Maximus the Confessor says in his commentary on the Divine Liturgy when the doors of the are temple closed, it's the doors history that are closed with it.
The liturgical premise is not that history is thrown in the garbage, it doesn't see history is dispensed with since the doors are closed because history is valuable, the Son of God came to us in history. We don't throw history out but neither are we prisoners of history, so the doors were closed and the doors of eternity are opened. If we understood that, that is the experience, not just in the Eucharist, but in all liturgy that while sanctifying time and celebrating history that the doors of eternity are simultaneously opened, we would see how critically important it is the liturgy.
There are lots of discussions among Christians, "is it really good to have liturgy?" Some people have the opinion liturgy isn’t spontaneous enough because as someone told me, he said, “This is somebody else's prayer.” On one level it is and I'm very happy about that because if my entire worship experience were reduced to my prayer, I would not be a very happy person, so I'm glad that it starts with it being somebody else's prayer, who’s way ahead of me, but even more important is the fact that we aren’t getting together to share our religious feelings and thoughts and even our personal relationships with Christ.
We're getting together so that when we gather as the Body of Christ, the doors if history can be closed and that you can't do on your own and neither can you experience it simply by kind of doing your own thing. This doesn't obviate the need for personal prayer, absolutely not, every Christian should pray personally and every Christian has personal experiences with Christ that are very valuable. I'm not in any way putting them down...but in no way do they ever replace liturgy. One is one, one is the other, not the same thing, very important for us to remember that...the power of liturgy. That's why it's important that we understand it theologically that we prepare and that we do what the liturgy says.
Isn't it beautiful now, the priest is censing the shroud (epitaphios), is the priest censing the shroud, are we going into the tomb and dying with Christ. We're dying with Christ and because of that we can cense the shroud. We don’t turn them around. All of the Fathers of the Church warned the priests and everybody who participates in the liturgy, which goes back down to everybody by the way...because everybody participates, the whole laos...to be aware of the power, solemnity and gravity of the liturgy. It isn't just a commemoration of forms from the past, it has a God-given power to it that we can't mess with, but it is also salvific and brings us very great joy.
That's why you and I feel something when we come into a church and sometimes we feel something absolutely huge. Sometimes in holy week, we feel something so huge, we can't describe it. We understand that we are tiny tiny pieces of sand in something absolutely massive, beyond what we could ever do on our own. That's the experience of liturgy, it should be done well, it should be done prayerfully, it should be sung well, clearly, people should enter into the theological meaning of it and not simply comment on the rubrics. It should be served in a way, which doesn't distract people, so even the way the priest, the deacon sings, serves, moves should all be done so that the inner power of the liturgy is experienced and it isn’t a distraction from it.
This is not the theater of the pagan cults in the first century. That is exactly the stuff, which Christians renounced and spat on when they became Christians because that's the devil’s stuff. We spat on that and confessed Christ. This is liturgy, not liturgical drama, so that's why you see that in the presentation that I made, I absolutely insisted on this point, Christian liturgy has power not because we're powerful that we have some kind of special powers or something like that. Ridiculous to think of those kinds of things, but because it's the Body of Christ and because the liturgy is what it is and does what it's supposed to do when you participate and you understand it and you prepare yourself for it.
by Fr Maxym Lysack
Transcript:
Fr Maxym: The question is throughout all of these services, can we say that we are not simply commemorating events of the past, but we're actually there and living them. The answer is absolutely, liturgy in the Christian sense is not about marking historical events, although these are historical events. Christ really entered human history and there has to be a historical grounding for them first and foremost, which can't be tinkered with because either God is in history or God is not. He's not sort of in history. He is in or He's not. And He is, so I'm not disparaging the historical dimension when I say that liturgy is not just about that because in part it is about that. There has to be a historical basis. History is moving towards a final end.
However, to reduce liturgical celebration to that alone, means to look backwards and in liturgy, we're looking now and forwards, so those events are brought to us as now events. We're not repeating them, we're not nailing the Lord to the cross again, but neither are we going back. You hear people who like to say if I could go back to the first century, I would … I wonder, I wonder what I would in case like that. But it isn't about going back to the first century, it's about those events becoming our events that we enter into now. Since as I mentioned, all of holy week is geared towards the second coming of Christ, it is also a celebration, which is pointed towards the future.
This is very important because in many types of Greek thought, in many streams have Greek thought before Christ, it was the past that was very important. For Christians, it's the future that informs the present, not the past. It's the fact that the second coming is informing and enlightening everything. It's not that the past isn't important, it's extremely important because we believe in real history. However, St. Maximus the Confessor says in his commentary on the Divine Liturgy when the doors of the are temple closed, it's the doors history that are closed with it.
The liturgical premise is not that history is thrown in the garbage, it doesn't see history is dispensed with since the doors are closed because history is valuable, the Son of God came to us in history. We don't throw history out but neither are we prisoners of history, so the doors were closed and the doors of eternity are opened. If we understood that, that is the experience, not just in the Eucharist, but in all liturgy that while sanctifying time and celebrating history that the doors of eternity are simultaneously opened, we would see how critically important it is the liturgy.
There are lots of discussions among Christians, "is it really good to have liturgy?" Some people have the opinion liturgy isn’t spontaneous enough because as someone told me, he said, “This is somebody else's prayer.” On one level it is and I'm very happy about that because if my entire worship experience were reduced to my prayer, I would not be a very happy person, so I'm glad that it starts with it being somebody else's prayer, who’s way ahead of me, but even more important is the fact that we aren’t getting together to share our religious feelings and thoughts and even our personal relationships with Christ.
We're getting together so that when we gather as the Body of Christ, the doors if history can be closed and that you can't do on your own and neither can you experience it simply by kind of doing your own thing. This doesn't obviate the need for personal prayer, absolutely not, every Christian should pray personally and every Christian has personal experiences with Christ that are very valuable. I'm not in any way putting them down...but in no way do they ever replace liturgy. One is one, one is the other, not the same thing, very important for us to remember that...the power of liturgy. That's why it's important that we understand it theologically that we prepare and that we do what the liturgy says.
Isn't it beautiful now, the priest is censing the shroud (epitaphios), is the priest censing the shroud, are we going into the tomb and dying with Christ. We're dying with Christ and because of that we can cense the shroud. We don’t turn them around. All of the Fathers of the Church warned the priests and everybody who participates in the liturgy, which goes back down to everybody by the way...because everybody participates, the whole laos...to be aware of the power, solemnity and gravity of the liturgy. It isn't just a commemoration of forms from the past, it has a God-given power to it that we can't mess with, but it is also salvific and brings us very great joy.
That's why you and I feel something when we come into a church and sometimes we feel something absolutely huge. Sometimes in holy week, we feel something so huge, we can't describe it. We understand that we are tiny tiny pieces of sand in something absolutely massive, beyond what we could ever do on our own. That's the experience of liturgy, it should be done well, it should be done prayerfully, it should be sung well, clearly, people should enter into the theological meaning of it and not simply comment on the rubrics. It should be served in a way, which doesn't distract people, so even the way the priest, the deacon sings, serves, moves should all be done so that the inner power of the liturgy is experienced and it isn’t a distraction from it.
This is not the theater of the pagan cults in the first century. That is exactly the stuff, which Christians renounced and spat on when they became Christians because that's the devil’s stuff. We spat on that and confessed Christ. This is liturgy, not liturgical drama, so that's why you see that in the presentation that I made, I absolutely insisted on this point, Christian liturgy has power not because we're powerful that we have some kind of special powers or something like that. Ridiculous to think of those kinds of things, but because it's the Body of Christ and because the liturgy is what it is and does what it's supposed to do when you participate and you understand it and you prepare yourself for it.
