Orthodoxy's Worship - The Sanctification of the Entire World

7/28/2019 Orthodoxy's Worship - The Sanctification of the Entire World

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Orthodoxy's Worship:

The Sanctification of the Entire World

By Protopresbyter George Metallinos

The objective of ecclesiastical worship is the sanctification of theentire world. Mans life is sanctified, but so is the environment thatsurrounds him. Within the boundaries of worship, Man is projectedin Christ as the master and the king of Creation, who is called uponto refer himself, along with Creation, to the Creator the source oftheir existence and sanctification.a) The Sanctification of Time: The liturgical year is thetranscending in Christ of the calendar year and thetransformation of the calendar into a feast-day almanac. With Hercelebrations and Her services, the Church sanctifies and transformsthe year of our daily lives, by unifying and orienting it towards thekingdom of God. Liturgically speaking, Time ceases to be a simple,natural framework, inasmuch as it is transformed into a point ofreference used for determining the content of worship. This isevidenced by the terminology used: Matins (=morning), Vespers(=evening), Midnight, Hours, etc.... From the liturgiologicalaspect, the organizing of the annual cycle on the basis of timeperiods (day, week, year), with an analogous organizing of onesvery life, is called the Annual Liturgy.

The liturgical year baptizes Mans entire life into the worship of theChurch. The repetition of the feast-days every year renews thecatechesis of the faithful and it gives a special meaning to thecustomary (Greek) wishes: and next year, also, or, for manymore years wishes that refer to new opportunities for learning.The liturgical year is linked to the Churchs cycle of feast-days,

whose basic structural element is festivity. There is a cycle ofmobile feast-days with Easter at its centre, and a cycle ofimmobile feast days, with the Epiphany and Christmas at itscentre. The periods of the Triodion and the Pentecostarion belong tothe former cycle, having received their names from the respectiveliturgical books that predominate therein.The Triodion period is a sectioned one, just as the human body issectioned: the first four weeks can be regarded as the bodysextremes; the body itself is the Great Lenten period, and the Holy

Week of Easter is the head. Hymns, readings and rituals allcomprise a spiritual preparation for ones participation in the Holy


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Friday, the Church also commemorates the presence of the HolyMother by the Cross; Thursday is dedicated to the Apostles andSaint Nicholas; and Saturday is dedicated to the deceased. The weekly cycle was organized on the basis of Sunday

(Greek=Kyriak), the first celebration historically - to be set downby the Church. Being directly related to the Lord (Greek=Kyrios)Jesus Christ (Cor.I, 12:3), it represents a confession of faith untoHim. Being also related to the eighth day, it was linked to theDivine Eucharist as a permanent and immobile day for itscommemoration. The Sunday day of rest which was imposed byConstantine the Great in 324 A.D. did not relate Sunday with theSabbath, but instead portrayed itself as the transcending of theSabbath. Sunday is the first of the Sabbaths (=the first day ofevery week), the Queen and the Mistress, we chant. The Sabbath

reflects the natural life of the world, whereas Sunday represents theeschatological day of entry into the new aeon.The day-to-evening services include the following: The 24-hourcycle begins with Vespers (see Genesis 1: and it became evening,and it became morning.) and its services coincide with theancient division of Time (evening, midnight, dawn, third, sixth,ninth hours). The services are: the Esperinos (Vespers = of thedays end) or Lychnikon (=of the lamp), the Major and MinorApodeipnon (=after the evening meal); the Mesonyktikon (=of

midnight); the Orthros (=of dawn) the most extensive andtheologically opulent service, and the Ores (=Hours), which arethe 1st, the 3rd, the 6th and the 9th, in commemoration of themajor moments affecting our salvation (the Crucifixion, the Deathof Christ, the descent of the Holy Spirit).But, while all of ecclesiastical worship was indissolubly interwovenwith natural Time, the Divine Liturgy remained beyond Time and itsconfinements. Thus, it does not belong to the cycle of day-to-evening services, nor are any of the other services regarded as

preparation for it. That is why it can be performed at any time morning, noon or night as the par excellence celebration andfestivity of the Church.

b) The Sanctification of Life: The epicenter of the sanctifyingfunction of the Church is Man. From the moment of his birth intothis world and his spiritual re-birth in the Church, through to thelast moment of his presence in this lifetime, ecclesiastical worshipconstantly provides Man with opportunities for ecclesiasm andcontinuous rebirth. The catholicity of the spiritual and everydaycaring of the Church for Her faithful is evident in the liturgical bookMajor Book of Benedictions. Its very structure and its textsembody the objective of the Church, which is the complete


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incorporation of Man in the ecclesiastical body, the struggle forvictory over the devil, the demonic powers of the world and sin, andthe confronting of everyday problems and needs. The wealth andthe variety of the benedictions and the Services of the book ofBenedictions is indicative of the love and the concern of Orthodoxy

for the personal and the social life of the faithful; for the cycles ofhis life, and his more common and everyday labours.

The Church sanctifies Man from the moment of his birth, giving Herblessing to the new mother and the newborn child, preparing thelatter to be eventually received into Her bosom. After all, thesanctification of the family begins from the Sacrament of Marriage.On the 8th day, the infant receives its name with a special liturgicalact, and its personal otherness is thus confirmed something thatis afterwards proven by its incorporation in the ecclesiastical body.

On the 40th day, the infant is led to the temple to bechurchified, to begin its ecclesiastical life, which corresponds tothe commencement of adult catechesis.After this spiritual preparation, Baptism follows; this is the entryinto the body of Christ, which gives Man the possibility of living thelife of Christ and of constantly receiving His Grace. Infant baptism,familiar since Christian antiquity, can be comprehended only in thecases of pious parents and godparents - in other words, of aChristian background and cannot be imposed by any legislation.

Through Baptism, the neophyte is inducted into a specificcommunity the local Church by participating in the ethos andthe way of existence of the Church. The more perfect this inductionis, the more consistently will his Christian status evolve.But the faithful is called upon to augment the gift that he receivedthrough his baptism, by orienting his life in a Christ-centeredmanner. Thus, after nature (=soul and body) has died and risen(=immersion) in the baptismal font, the human persona is alsosanctified through the Sacrament of Chrismation which functions as

the personal Pentecost of the faithful, so that through his spirituallabor, he will become a temple of God and his life a veritableLiturgy. The Sacrament of Repentance (Confession) provides theopportunity for a continuous transcending of sin and thetransforming of death into life.Furthermore, the Church blesses the paths that the faithfulvoluntarily choose for their perfection: either marriage (in Christ),or monastic living. Both are sacraments of love, with a directreferral to Christ. Marriage, when preserved within the framework ofa life in Christ, leads to the transcendence of the flesh and to ones

perfect delivery unto Christ, thenceforth coinciding with monasticascesis. In this way, the Sacrament of Marriage reveals the truth of


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the Church without being used to serve conventional expedienciesof everyday living. Wherever marriage is perceived simply as amoralistic adjustment or a legal transaction, political marriage ispreferred, which may be a legal act, but it is nevertheless amarriage that is not spirituallyequivalent to the ecclesiastical one,

which is a Sacrament of Grace.Furthermore, ecclesiastical worship provides sanctifying acts forevery moment of ones life. In fact, through them, it proves that itis not a spiritualist (abstractly spiritual) affair, or a religiousaffair, because the sanctification it provides also constitutes aproposal for confronting the everyday problems of each person. Inone of the Matins Prayers, we ask God to grant Man His terrestrialand celestial gifts.There are blessings even for instances in life that seem trite andinsignificant, such as (for example) for a childs haircut, for whena child leaves to learn the sacred texts, for ill-natured children,etc.. Other blessings refer to the intake of food, the variousvocations and works of the faithful (eg, travels) as well asprofessions; inter-personal relations are blessed, so that there willbe justice, peace and love; Gods Grace is requested for manstribulations, for his illnesses, his mental health and hispsychosomatic passions. An important place in the worship of theChurch is given to death: the cessation of the bodys collaboration

with the soul, until the moment of the common resurrection. TheChurch does not overlook this supreme existential event of life; infact, She stands near the person from the moment that deathmakes its appearance. She confesses the near-death person andoffers him Holy Communion; She inters his body, which has nowbeen delivered to mortification and corruption, sending off the soulto its last journey and beseeching Christ to receive His child, whohas abandoned the world with the hope of acquiring eternal life.The funeral service is one of the tenderest and touching texts inecclesiastical worship.In parallel to the above, the church offers prayers for variousmoments of public life: serious circumstances and disasters,dangers, malfunctions in public life, both in the micro-society of thevillage or the town, as well as the macro-community of thehomeland and the nation. The relative prayer material refers tonational anniversaries, the structures of civil life, education, thearmed forces, public health This incomparable liturgical wealthremains broadly unknown and so we remain ignorant of all thoseelements that can give meaning to our lives.c) The Sanctification of Material Creation: Creation, bothliturgically and theologically, is the broader territory provided for


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mans fulfillment; it is the framework of his everyday life especially in rural communities, where this is perceived moreprofoundly. Mans association with Creation constitutes a specialtheme of ecclesiastical worship and it unfolds during special servicesthat prove the ecclesiastical acknowledgement of material creation

(bread), which was assumed by Christs human nature and which isconstantly transformed into the flesh of Christ during the DivineEucharist.

Our liturgical act blesses and sanctifies water, wine, sustenance,living and working quarters, flora, fauna, natural phenomena (wind,thunder, rain, earthquake, etc.), for the protection, finally, and thesalvation of man. During worship, the faithful offers the Creatorsgifts - in lieu of his giving thanks - so that they might be baptizedin Divine Grace and be returned to the offerers, for their own

sanctification and preservation. During the Divine Liturgy, onecould say that a march, a parade of the whole world towards theHoly Altar is taking place (Fr. John Zizioulas, Metropolitan ofPergamus). This negates every notion of an opposition between thenatural and the supernatural, since the creation being offered toGod (bread and wine) becomes the carrier of the Uncreated (Grace)and sanctifies the participants.The God-centeredness of existence is inspired by the theology ofsuch texts. Through nature, Man is referred to the Creator, by

comprehending the world as a gift of the Creator, learning to useCreation eucharistically (with gratitide) and acquiring the empiricalcertainty that the issue is not what does man eat, but with whatpresuppositions he eats something, given that sanctified nature co-sanctifies man also. Thus, the faithful learns to become anofficiator of Creation, in a cosmic liturgy that is officiated by theSaints. The Saints, with their imperishable and miracle-workingrelics, reveal the destination of Creation, which are its sanctificationand its incorruptibility. Each faithful is invited to our worship, sothat he can be wholly sanctified; so that he will be enabled to co-

sanctify Creation along with him, through his association with it.

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Orthodoxy's Worship - The Sanctification of the Entire World