Orthodox Christianity, Vol IV, Chp 11: Divine Services from the Beginning of the Apostles' Fast to the End of the Ecclesial Year

The Theotokos, after having prayed, fasted, kept herself pure and chaste in body and mind through the grace and light of the Holy Trinity – she gave birth to Christ in the flesh. The theology in these next series of divine services shows us how the holy apostles, holy fathers, and all Christians become a Christ-bearer (theophoros) and give birth to Christ in the cavernous, noetic heart. Metropolitan Hilarion takes us through the Apostles’ Fast from the second week after Pentocost, which uses the liturgical book called the Pentecostarion, to the last feast of the Church’s yearly cycle of worship. There is a movable fast and feast followed by the synaxis or gathering of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul that marks the end of the Apostles’ Fast. The apostolic preaching was built on Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit starting on Pentecost. In Orthodox iconography, the feast of Pentecost is shown in a way that mirrors Christ’s baptism with the Holy Spirit descending on the apostles. It’s an image and reality of how the Church works, how it remains true and unified and powerful. It shows us how the Holy Trinity wills the message of the Gospel to be disseminated to the world in darkness. Usually, the center seat between Peter and Paul is unoccupied, but Christ the King is figured below and in the center of the image. The holy apostles are arrayed in a semi-circle to show the type of unity that characterizes the Church with the Holy Spirit taking a central role in descending upon each of them equally. That empty seat among the twelve apostles is reserved for the invisible head of the visible Church. Some Roman Catholics might see that as sede vacante but that’s not what it seems to be at all. The Orthodox Church has demonstrated that the reservation of the seat is the preservation of the Church. Sometimes the icon also shows the Theotokos, the Mother of God seated in the center among the apostles; that’s an idea rarely discussed or mentioned. The icon also depicts the apostles in an upper room like Mount Sion or Mount Tabor where Christ was transfigured before the holy apostles Peter, James, and John. 

The Transfiguration of the Lord occurs on August 6 during the Dormition Fast, and it’s among “the Great Twelve” feasts. It was chosen at this time because of its link to the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord. The Transfiguration was transferred to the summer so that it doesn’t happen during Great Lent but during the forty days before the Exaltation of the Cross. This feast celebrates “the uncreated divine light” that appeared as the glory of God. Christ has not changed. Christ was never isolated or separated from God the Father and the Holy Spirit. The divine light is experienced as an energy of the Holy Trinity that gives us “unwavering faith” and strength to endure; it abolishes doubts and fears. The poetic Menaion teaches us “… that Thou art truly the Radiance of the Father” (Transfig., Matins, Kontakion). The holy prophets foretold of Christ and the uncreated light. The Orthodox are unique in understanding the difference scripturally and theologically that we experience this divine uncreated light as God’s energy, not His hidden and unknowable essence. This teaching is important for our salvation because we imitate how the apostles and the Theotokos were filled with grace and the Holy Spirit and divine light, and they were unified to the Holy Trinity. We’re not interacting with God through a created object called grace, but we are deified and united through Christ’s divinity and humanity that was made possible through the incarnation and the Mother of God. We can bear Christ and Christ can bear us. This reality wasn’t invented by hyper-mystical monks on Mt. Athos, or an ideology called “Palamism.” The Athonite monks are imitating Mary the Mother of God. It’s entirely scriptural, traditional, and true by ascetic experience. We become “receptacles of glory” just like the Theotokos models for us who was born with natural weakness of human nature, who fell asleep and was taken up to Christ in her body and soul. The Transfiguration also connects Mount Tabor to the Old Testament Mount Sinai. Christ has shown us, “the nature of man, arrayed in the original beauty of the image” (Menaion, Transfig., Great Vespers, Aposticha). Sinai was dark and thundering, but Tabor was shining with gentle light. While there was nakedness, death, barrenness, fire, and the cross on the one hand, on the other hand there is victory, life, glorious robes, and radiance. Only the Holy Trinity can encompass or go beyond what we call “good and evil,” and bring eternal value on all negative values. Only the Cross can teach us that for every bad thing in existence, Christ intersects it with a connecting cross beam, and all opposites will have a trial in the fire and the light. Early in patristic theology, Dionysius the Areopagite also discusses in depth this topic of divine light and divine darkness, and the theology of illumination in the Orthodox tradition. The Cappadocian fathers taught that “the light of Christ is the light of the Father.” 

On August 15, the Dormition of the Most-Holy Theotokos is celebrated as the last of the great twelve feasts of the yearly cycle. September 1 begins the Church’s year with the Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos. The Mother of God understands how people can quickly become hopeless, since she suffered much in her own life and watched her son die. She stands out in the ecclesial calendar and as a model for Orthodox Christians. The Theotokos is “Orthodox spirituality.” Her prayers have an “unfailing hope.” She is a model for how to live spiritual life and how to depart this world in peace and longing for Christ. Some Roman Catholics and Protestants ask and wonder if the Orthodox Church will ever reunify with them. If we tamper with the Orthodox tradition of venerating the Most-Holy Theotokos, we tamper with our own salvation. If we tamper with Dormition or the Nativity or the Conception of the Theotokos, we tamper with salvation itself. Likewise, if we change up the meaning of the Transfiguration and Pentecost, we eventually change what the Church originally has been. So, if it’s possible to “lose your salvation,” as some say, it could involve how we relate to the Mother of God because she is sitting in the middle of the foundation of the Church Itself and all the holy apostles. Next, Volume V discusses the Sacraments and Other Rites in Orthodox Christianity. 

Orthodox Christianity, Vol IV, Chp 10: The Paschal Cycle

On Great Saturday the use of the Lenten Triodion liturgical book transitions the next important book called the Pentecostarion. It includes not only Pentecost or the Feast of the Holy Trinity in Russian, but also the other festal times in the cycle after Pascha such as: Bright Week, Antipascha/St. Thomas Sunday/New Sunday, the Sunday of The Myrrh-Bearing Women, the Sunday of the Paralytic, the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman, the Sunday of the Blind Man, the Ascension of Our Lord, and Pentecost. In some Germanic languages in Europe, they use a root word that derives from directional term for “the east” instead of Pascha. The Venerable Bede thought the Germanic peoples borrowed a term from a spring goddess with the same root word for “east” or “sunrise.” There isn’t much evidence besides that. A possible better interpretation is that they adopted that specific word because it fits well with the orientation that Christians maintain toward the East – our ancient homeland. English uses the word Easter and German Ostern while Danish, Dutch and the Scandinavian languages use a variant of “pascha.” Slavic languages use various forms that basically mean “the great night” and Latin languages nearly all use a form of “pascha” as well as Greek. But the Sundays listed above after Pascha outline important realities in the life after the Resurrection. We are becoming healed, we are emptying ourselves of the emptiness in this world in anticipation of the resurrection, we are uncovering our spiritual blindness with the divine light, we are adorning our preparation for our own death with myrrh and we are beginning to sing of our own passing over into the eternal springtime of the new creation. 

The feast of Pascha lasts a week. In a similar way that Genesis recounts the creation and the rest of God, we rejoice in the new creation. Forty days after the paschal celebrations, the Ascension of Our Lord marks the leave-taking of Pascha, but we’re still in its cycle. The Ascension lasts eight days and it dates to around the 4th c. AD. The glory of God the Father is made manifest through the Son. We should live as if we are now never really separated from the Father just as Christ showed us in his earthly existence. Great Vespers speaks of this renewal of Adam’s nature in Christ and in relation to God the Father, “… and thou didst raise it [Adam’s nature] up above every principality and authority” (Pentecostarion, Stichera at Litiya). The Feasts of the Ascension and Pentecost together explains the Orthodox Church and how it works. Many Christians confuse how it’s possible to have a corporeal, visible Church and also invisible authority with Christ Himself as its spiritual Head. Christ was emptied and suffered, so does the Church. Christ lifted human nature above authorities, so is the Church. Christ was never really isolated from God the Father, so is the Church. Christ was filled with the Holy Spirit, and the Church too receives the guiding and authoritative truth and power of the Holy Spirit. The Church follows Christ who follows the Father in the Holy Spirit. The substance that keeps the body alive is explained. “Christ doesn’t part with mankind,” Metropolitan Hilarion teaches. The Ascension then is an image of the Second Coming; to judge people on earth is the last to be fulfilled. The end is like the beginning. 

Pentecost is about new life, the promise, the hope, the beginning of Christian life, and enlightenment. The Comforter is the Holy Spirit who brings these good gifts to the Church, which was promised at the Mystical Supper that we read in holy scriptures (John 16:13). Christ “relocates our zeal” to become members of His Body. The Holy Spirit too is inseparable from the Church, and it is manifest through fruit-bearing Christians, prophecies, leaders in the hierarchy, teachers, comforters, and peacemakers. The Holy Spirit is promised to bring unity, strength, leadership, and illumination. Any other structure or foundation will fall. The Tower of Babel is the anti-Pentocost because people with seemingly good intentions, who had a desire to reach the heavens in a unified transcendent spiritual experience, built a kind of church of humanity on purely earthly ideas of the spirituality and life. The babblers believed they could acquire heavenly things only through the worldly ways, which ultimately show division. There are, then, clear signs of where the Church is. The cornerstone of the Church must be literally Christ Himself who is not ever nor will ever be separated from the Father and the Holy Spirit, and by extension His Bride – the Church Herself. There is another promise often quoted by other Christians groups in relation to ecclesiological arguments, “And the gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church.” Many interpretations abound from this scripture quote. Most probably don’t understand this as Christ the Conqueror who broke the gates of Hell already. Almost no one seems to interpret this passage as the destruction of Hell itself that was achieved, as we learned from the Lenten Triodion, Holy Week, and Pascha. Most would understand this scriptural passage in the context of how successful Christian empires or countries have fared publicly, and which Church will not suffer greatly from apostasy or heresies, or how well the bishops in the world look, act, or speak. Metropolitan Hilarion ties up this chapter by teaching that the Orthodox Church exists for all. Not only the chosen people of Israel or the chosen nations of Christians, but that all of Adam’s race will be gathered into Christ’s Risen Body. So, the prayers of the Pentecostarion require prayers “for the confined in hades” and the breaking down of “the bolts of Hell.” These prayers of the dead are necessary because we will see life clearer after death, and we still have a noetic existence. With that change, many people would probably feel regret and shame, and even though they would desire to approach God, they would feel unworthy. But our prayers on earth help those who are trapped in Hell and Hades. Metropolitan Hilarion quotes, “For the dead praise Thee not, neither do those in Hell dare to offer Thee confession” (Pentecostarion, Vespers, Kneeling Prayer 3). We can fast and pray for the human race. That’s the purpose of the Church. The next chapter discusses the apostolic foundation of this ecclesial mission and the spiritual disciplines we can take up in our fight at the gates of Hell, and how the feasts explain the connection to those realities and the Orthodox liturgical life and worship. 

Orthodox Christianity, Vol IV, Chp 9: Divine Services from the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee until Great Saturday

 The divine services that lead up to Great Lent include four preparatory Sundays and these days use the liturgical book called the Lenten Triodion. Usually throughout the year there are nine biblical odes that are chanted, but during this fasting season there will be three odes instead of nine in the canon. Liturgical “cycles” on whatever calendar, season, or sequence are “unified” in spirit. The major theme of the Lenten Triodion and Great Lent is repentance more so than baptism that used to characterize it as well. Christian groups define repentance or conversion differently. They have different expectations in how that works out in individuals. Metropolitan Hilarion outlines the meaning of repentance in an Orthodox manner by examining the scriptures, hymnography, and liturgical texts of the Church which encompasses a large history from the Old Testament up to today. Roman Catholics have a highly developed Catechism where doctrines, dogmas, practices, and questions are easily referenced and answered. The Orthodox do not always have this exact kind of resource not because it’s difficult to translate into many languages or to agree on matters of faith, but because the “catechism” is in the liturgical life and worship of the Orthodox Church. This ritual experience spans many generations of saints, monks, nuns, holy fathers and mothers, persecutions, empires and kingdoms, and missionary work. One could argue that this Orthodox compendium is more comprehensive and richer than any catechism or Protestant resource book today in the world. Metropolitan Hilarion gives us a taste of this beauty and order that defines how Orthodox Christians approach repentance during these divine services. 

The first Sunday of the Lenten Triodion is the Publican and the Pharisee. Some Christians have interpreted this passage as a rejection of tradition, ritual, and liturgical worship – that all the mysteries or sacraments of the Church along with clergy and hierarchy are not accepted by the apostles. This isn’t true at all. Both men are justified, but the Publican is more justified because of his humility. While the Pharisee does have good deeds, he is missing a humble attitude that would make his works acceptable sacrifices to God. The emphasis is on the whole change that happens from the inside out; the actions still matter. When the Publican nurtures his humility, he will give birth to many virtues that would include and go beyond what the Pharisee offered. But the pride of the Pharisee will give birth to many vices. So, the fact that both were in a worship service and following prescribed ritual actions isn’t rejected, but the hidden, interior, and noetic happenings of the heart are highlighted. 

The second Sunday also reminds us of holy scripture. It is the Parable of the Prodigal Son. This story is about “unspeakable mercy,” and it might challenge our ways of conceptualizing justice. We are called to think about the possible and “unique blessing” of “a spiritual inheritance” that we can attain through the Father’s mercy and Christ’s love, and that we can pass down to the next generation. A son or Christian will share in the same nature as the Father through grace; that’s the unity that will be celebrated at the Wedding Feast at the end of the age, that the Holy Trinity has united humanity back to the Divinity through the image of Christ Jesus, the Son of God. The image of repentance is captured with the phrase, “And he came to himself.” Again, there seems to be a dichotomy or rejection of one son and the acceptance of the other that would make the sinning son good and the obedient son bad. The careful reading of this parable shows us that God lets his light and blessings shine on the good and the bad; the obedient, older son isn’t doing anything wrong outwardly, but the heart is different from the younger son who has sought forgiveness from the father. It’s good to be the obedient son if your heart is right, and it’s also good to be the repentant son who seeks forgiveness and unity with the household of his father. It begins in the nous. One must first arise in one’s heart with a firm belief before making a journey that includes bodily efforts, it seems to be the case because the younger “came to himself” before he left the foreign land of passions. Other lands of passion are allegorically referred to as Egypt or Babylon in liturgical texts and holy scripture. 

It has been argued by some Christian authors that the Christian battle for the soul and body begins with a “Roman” style approach of subduing the body first, and by starting with passions of gluttony and the bodily sins. But it seems from these Lenten Sundays that repentance is a noetic activity that allows us to arise and employ our bodies in the great struggle we’re called to do. The Shepherd of Hermas likewise encourages the faithful to repent by first believing that change can happen. He explains that if we don’t believe it’s possible, we won’t try, and it won’t happen. If we do believe it’s possible, we can overcome our passions gradually through the grace of God. The main emphasis of fasting in Holy Orthodoxy is to fast from the passions, the inward illness of the heart, since even the demons don’t eat, but they still lust, envy, and desire to do evil. The word metania means both to make a prostration with the sign of the cross and repentance – metanoia – in the koine Greek of the New Testament. The word is related to the nous or heart, mind, and noetic. As many Orthodox saints have taught, dead bodies cannot sin or do any action. So, the real starting point of repentance is our heart’s desires. 

The Sunday of the Last Judgment is the third Sunday called Meatfare (Apokreo). We take leave of eating meat and we commemorate all of the departed. All types of death are mentioned, and for whatever reason. God might allow, command, or even will the departure of some people. Death is a great mystery and part of each person’s way of salvation. Death isn’t something outside of God’s divine will and providence. Besides, the Saturday of the Dead at Matins teaches, “Thou shalt make trial of all things in the fire.” Whether that is people who need cleansing or things that unfairly happened to humanity, all things will be tested and refined in this divine “fire.” The Church teaches, “Be of good courage, all ye dead, for death is slain and hell despoiled.” We remember our mortality and that can make us very humble and help us to change our minds. If we don’t change our minds, we do miss out on some “inheritance” since the Church also teaches, “And woe to all whose lives are sinful” (Lenten Triodion, Matins, Canon, Ode 4). 

We make trial of ourselves in Great Lent so that we don’t experience “woes.” An important part of Orthodox fasting and Lent is that repentance normally comes in stages. That can be a great blessing. Many Orthodox saints spent years and years praying, doing menial jobs, and following routine tasks before ever experiencing the divine light and freedom from the passions. Protestants historically have rejected fasting programs that have a ritual character. Roman Catholics fast from flesh meats specifically on Ash Wednesday and Holy Friday as a rule now. Orthodox Christians can repent gradually over time and seek forgiveness through God’s grace. This time period allows us to purify our hearts before we enter the eternal kingdom where we enter the presence of others and all the angels. We take leave of these foods because we recognize that love is our spiritual food that we seek. But the Prodigal Son, the Publican, St. Mary of Egypt, St. Ephraim the Syrian have found the inexhaustible table that they desired deeply to devour joyfully. 

The fourth Sunday of the Lenten Triodion is Cheesefare or Forgiveness Sunday. We repent with Adam, all of humanity that we have “cast off the robe woven by God, disobeying Thy divine command, O Lord, at the counsel of the enemy” (Forgiveness Sunday, Vespers, Stichera at ‘Lord I call’). We fast from pride, resentment, meat, cheese, and now holding grudges and hatred against others. We are slowly dying a spiritual kind of death to the passionate person. Some people, religious or not, might say that it’s silly to think that giving up some cheese will help my salvation. But careful study of God’s holy scriptures shows us that it wasn’t necessarily wine or wealth in itself that caused the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah, but “stomachs full on bread.” It was an excess of eating that caused so much sin and destruction along with the superfluous living that would follow that lifestyle. We are also reminded that the Lord took “the flesh of a Virgin” in order to “call me back into paradise.” Adam disrobed divinity given by grace. Christ robed himself in our flesh by the Spirit. To become humble could mean to recognize one’s nothingness, earthliness, a lower and more vulnerable mortal state of created order. But it’s a part of human nature to be this way. In the epic of the Iliad, Homer shows us that in his worldview of the Hellenic pantheon only humans like the enemies Achilles and Priam, Hector and Patroclus could understand eleos or mercy, which is the concluding theme of the entire poem. Likewise, we are creatures who can access forgiveness by participating in the rite of forgiveness on Cheesefare Sunday, and by always praying, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” Mercifulness reconnects us to love and our homeland in paradise. 

The way that Lenten Triodion leads us into the theme of Great Lent is by fasting, noetic prayer, repentance, forgiveness, all of which must start with ourselves. Abba Dorotheos teaches, “There is nothing worse than condemnation [of our neighbor.]” St. Ephraim the Syrian’s prayer articulates that teaching and it’s recited throughout fasting periods. The spiritual disciplines that the Church gives us as blessing help us to see our blind spots. The major one is our tendency to focus on the faults of others, and to forget our own. St. Andrew of Crete composed a Canon of Repentance. Like St. Roman the Melodist, St. Andrew wrote hymnography that addressed one’s soul as the interlocutor because repentance must begin in the deep abyss of the nous for metanoia to change our minds. In this season of fasting, the troparia abound. St. Andrew teaches, “Awake my soul, consider the actions which thou hast done; set them before thine eyes, and le the drops of thy tears fall.” In Holy Orthodoxy, a lot of attention is given comparatively to the gifts of tears, especially in ascetic literature and liturgical texts. It’s a way of purifying our heart. He also teaches, “O miserable soul, thou hast not struck and killed the Egyptian mind, as did Moses the great.” The real enemy is our thoughts that betray us and the demonic council that first tricked Adam. They can attack us at the gate of our brain and our heart. Where our thoughts desire to go, the body will be dragged to do its bidding. Metropolitan Hilarion brings up a question, “can modern people find contemplation?” Moses found it in the desert along with St. John the Forerunner, and many Christian ascetics in the world and in the monastery after them. 

There are many more Sundays included in Great Lent that lead up to Holy Saturday. Holy Week is a special time where we begin to focus our attention on Christ’s suffering leading to his resurrection. An important theme that builds up in the liturgical texts is the teaching that hell’s dominion has been “swallowed up” and that “the power of death has no more strength.” It is a great topic that Metropolitan Hilarion gives some deserved attention. On Great and Holy Saturday, the Church teaches, “Hell is king over mortal men, but not forever. Laid in the sepulcher, mighty Lord, with Thy life-giving hand Thou hast burst asunder the bars of death” (Matins, Canon, Ode 6). St. Gregory of Nyssa theologized that hell couldn’t be eternal just as God is eternal, since that would make the idea of distributive justice, punishment, or time itself deified in some way similar to the gods like Kronos who swallowed up his children, the bright Apollo, or Pallas Athena — brandisher of the spear. If death is “slain” by Christ who exalts and brandishes the Cross, then likewise is hell destroyed is the argument. There seems to be a necessary link between death and hell, or punishment. There is burning fire and judgment at the end. But interestingly, not mentioned by Metropolitan Hilarion in the chapter, is that a never-ending, non-corrective torture or torment of hell was a unique teaching of the Pharisees who used specific Greek words that differed from Christ and the Apostles to describe this terrible kind of ending. The next chapter discusses the Paschal Cycle. There is the pascha of the crucifixion and the pascha of the resurrection. All of Adam’s race is resurrected. If we choose, we can follow the path of the cross that contains many blessings and freedoms that we have been hindered from choosing.  

Orthodox Christianity, Vol IV, Chp 8: The Navitiy Cycle

In chapter 8, Metropolitan Hilarion outlines the major feasts in the Nativity Cycle. The Nativity Fast is mentioned in the East and the West between the 6th and 9th c. Many of the Old Testament prophets and righteous are mentioned in the commemorations and readings. On the Sunday of the Holy Fathers the genealogy of Christ is enumerated as well as the righteous patriarchs. Just as Adam generates our race through birth and death, so Christ regenerates our race through spiritual rebirth and our resurrection after death. This Sunday commemorates the Prophet Daniel and the Three Holy Youth in the Furnace, who foreshadow the birth of Christ. The Virgin’s womb is the fiery furnace that doesn’t burn the body or soul but is like gentle dew. Like much of the Old Testament foreshadowing, where there is Christ there is the Theotokos too. She is both “chosen” before the generations and the “fruit of all the previous generations.” 

Our spiritual regeneration happens in the quiet night of our heart. What renews the spirit renews the body. The incarnation is transfiguring body through the spirit, and it’s a preparation for the universal resurrection. An important note highlighted in the chapter is that Christ “voluntarily” through the perfect will of the Father came into this world as a human and took on the form of our bodies. And all the circumstances surrounding his birth and death are completely in God’s will. No one forces him to die this way or to be born this way. After so much sin, negligence and violence, God the Father sends the most innocent and precious person to Him, His Son Jesus Christ. God the Father sends an infant in the middle of a lost cause and bloody conflict on earth among this human race. That the Holy Trinity willed it to be this way to correct humanity is the most counterintuitive action to us. Many cultures like the Greeks and Romans considered the past civilizations as purer than current ones like the dilution of metals or the worship of a heroic age of peoples. Metropolitan Hilarion doesn’t answer whether or not “the fullness of time” was a subtle praise of Rome’s political power and or Hellensim’s intellectual height. But a reading of the Gospels should give us a picture of what that could mean. Christ’s volition is perfectly united with his body and divinity with His Father. Christ willingly took the census under emperor Augustus Caesar. There is no necessity driving Christ’s will to be born, baptized, enrolled, circumcised, and crucified. It’s all out of love for humanity who really doesn’t have much of a choice like the Israelites in Egypt or the Jews in Babylon. Just as there is no necessity coercing the Holy Trinity to express His love for us or give us grace through the incarnation and crucifixion, so too there is no coercion or necessity that controls how God will deal with punishment and judgment. That much is taught at least in the Holy Scriptures.  

Christ was born a king, but not according to the standards of Herod or Caesar. Christ did not ever cause, as it seems, or ever seek to cause the fall of the Roman Empire during his lifetime. He was worshipped by strangers and outsiders. The shepherds of Judea and the star-gazing Persians followed the Light and came to worship the true emperor of universe. In the Menaion, the vespers on the Eve of the Nativity teaches us that the transfiguration has already worked in the world, “Whom do you seek? … You have the appearance, but not the thoughts, of Persians.” The poetess Cassia the Nun teaches that Christians are “enrolled in the Name of the Godhead” instead of putting our hope in imperial Rome’s destiny. A bad character in the Nativity Feast is the Jewish King, Herod. The source of his murderous actions is his “faithlessness.” Metropolitan Hilarion points this idea of faith out. Earthly thinking and living does not produce “fruit.” Roman Augustus, Herod, some of the Pharisees may have leaves and trunk, but nothing to show for it. But why are the Persians and Jewish shepherds ready to receive the Light of the world in true worship? Maybe they had the faith that drew them closer to the heavenly star. They might have devoted themselves to better pursuits, or they might have had a better perspective of their mortality so that they didn’t forget their real position in the universe. A faithless world is cause of hostilities and destruction. The saints and martyrs are witnesses with Christ that our innocence and kindness will be returned for hatred and a cross, and they give evidence that a faithless life is destructive. Trust and faith in God is grown in the body and soul while we live here. It’s a time for planting and sowing and tilling the soil.

The compline of the Forefeast of the Nativity teaches, “Adam the prisoner has been set loose and freedom has been given to all the faithful ….” Christ is the New Adam and the Theotokos is the New Eve. Origen and many other church fathers taught that the end is like the beginning, and this is called a “fathomless mystery.” How can the Orthodox liturgical texts speak of a God who saves all our race, that is Adam, and punishment for the wicked, when there still exists incorrigible sinners and obedient saints? In the Menaion, the stichera at the praises for the Nativity matins teaches, “O Lord past all interpretation, glory to Thee.” And the great vespers of Nativity teaches, “O pre-eternal God, have mercy on us.”

Many Protestant Christians will object to blessing objects, especially by ordained clergy members. Of course, it’s true God doesn’t have to use water, circumcision, oil, and incense to do anything. But because we too are material and bodily, we must use our bodies to be saved like Christ showed us. Orthodoxy is unique among Christian groups in that we do not tend to look down on the body as an obstacle to our sanctification and healing. Orthodoxy locates the point of salvation in our bodies. Our thoughts and spiritual states do affect our bodies, but when our wills have been so damaged over the years by habits that sometimes we have to get down to the basics of behavior and practicing the disciplines of the Church through our bodies. This practical way is the remedy for becoming free of the captivity of the passions – many Orthodox monastics and saints have taught this to be true by experience and sound teaching. God planned before eternity to come into a body like ours to heal and correct our wandering ways.

God’s “pre-eternal” plan is the Holy Trinity’s will before all kinds of time, even beyond eternity itself. One of the goals for us is “to restore the image of God in man.” Our body is an image. Our body can either take a beating from our soul’s destruction or be lifted by it through Christ. The body is extremely important in Holy Orthodoxy for combating passions, saving our souls, and preparing for a good departure. St. Demetry of Rostov taught in his homily, “the saving name of Jesus was reserved by the pre-eternal counsel of the Holy Trinity.” Images like icons always have a name or an inscription, and it becomes an identity of the form. The Feast of the Circumcision, then, commemorates another willing and loving action of Christ for our salvation. Because Christ was voluntarily circumcised according to the very Laws that he created for us to follow, now the Gentiles can enter into Church without that physical sign. Our whole body should be “circumcised” or rather circumscribed by Christ in our noetic heart. The sign of the covenant through circumcision was fulfilled in Christ’s body, and we are the body of Christ. The Feast of the Theophany also speaks of sanctifying the waters and earth through his voluntary baptism in the Jordan River. An emphasis that is found in this chapter and the Nativity Cycle is the voluntary aspect of Christ’s life and death. There isn’t much analysis or detail on man’s will except to show that it is held captive one way or the other. There are many Old Testament types of baptism in Genesis, Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Kings, Exodus, and Isaiah. These types are incorporated into the liturgical texts in the form of monologues or dialogues. St. John the Forerunner, for example, exclaims to the Jordan River, “Though Thou are the child of Mary, yet do I know Thee to be the pre-eternal God.” The children slain at Bethlehem by Herod are given through baptism. In the Menaion, the matins service in canon 1, ode 3 teaches, “For through water and the Spirit sons have been borne to Thee …” Instead of Herod professing his mortality and helplessness, instead of crying out in self-condemnation and humility and remembrance of his own death, the children and their parents cry out for mercy. They too have a kind of baptism. Yet we are told in this chapter that baptism brings enlightenment. Theophany is called “The Day of Lights,” in St. Gregory the Theologian’s homily, and it’s a feast where the Holy Trinity is made manifest for the first time. Athanasius wrote a creed that stated, “There are not three eternals, but one eternal.” The “pre-eternal plan” of the Godhead, the Holy Trinity, endures, never fails, and saves all. The waters were sanctified through Christ’s presence and obedience to God’s will. That light and fire too are sanctified would be a logical extension.  

The Meeting of the Lord is celebrated on February 2 on a fixed feast date in the calendar. In the Menaion, the stichera of the great vespers service teach that, “He is brought as an offering to Himself, setting us free from the curse of the Law and granting light to our souls.” Part of the Gospel and “good tidings” preached in Hades is to have the freedom to see the fiery glory of Christ’s Light and His loving energies. Metropolitan Hilarion explains that this feast is simultaneously of the Lord and of the Theotokos. The feasts of the Church follow an inner logic that isn’t always strictly linear. The Theotokos is glorified as the “throne of the cherubim” and the “cloud of the Light.” It makes one wonder if She too will be on the same cloud of light that Christ ascended as when he returns at his Second Coming, since She is glorified also as “the portal of heaven.” The next chapter discusses the divine services from the Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee until Great Saturday, and how great sinners can become saints by opening up the gateway to Paradise.