Doru Costache - Ecclesial Liturgy As Embodiment

[Published in The Greek Australian Vema, December 2008, 9]

ECCLESIAL LITURGY AS REITERATED EMBODIMENT Revd Dr Doru Costache One of the heroic witnesses of Orthodoxy in the last century and true prophet of theandricity, St Justin Popovic, sees in Christ, the Logos incarnate, the foundational truth and vivifying factor of all creation, visible and invisible. In the sky and on earth, states St Justin in his book Man and the Godman (from the original Greek, Άνθρωπος καί Θεάνθρωπος), there is no higher measure than the embodiment of the Word; no other content and aim of ecclesial experience. Now, in the eve of the festal season, Christian reflection should strenuously address the ecclesial significance of the crucial event of God’s incarnation (see John 1:14; 1 Timothy 3:16). Thus considered, Christmas amounts to a true memorial of the Church’s authenticity and the symbolic map of its sacred task in the contemporary world. St Justin discerns within the event of the Logos’ embodiment the framework of the Church’s life: the theandricity/Godmanhood principle. The goal of divine revelation indeed (and this applies also to the Logos’ incarnation as its climax) was never merely to inform God’s people. Therefore, the purpose of divine revelation is not transmitting bare information, but the communication – through the teachings from above – of a series of foundational criteria that shape the ecclesial mindset and life. Only these criteria render possible the miracle of humankind’s transfiguration into the new creation, outlined by St Paul (see Galatians 6:15). Thus, it cannot suffice to simply believe in the event of the Word’s incarnation – no matter how important believing is to grasp (through faith) the contours of the paradigm that regulates ecclesial life. Or, since the Logos has become flesh (see John 1:14), and since the Church is by all means Christ’s body (see Ephesians 4:12), the Church’s vocation to realise Orthodoxy – the right opinion and the true life – cannot be achieved outside the incarnation model. Nothing therefore can be taken as properly ecclesial if it does not correspond to the principle, or criterion, of theandricity, which was revealed through the coming down of God to us. What does this principle look like? To answer this question we have to contemplate the complexity of Christ’s life. Thus, in the one living being of Christ’s person, divine life and human life intertwine without division and confusion, embracing each other paradoxically in the inauguration of a new life, the only common denominator for created and uncreated. It is not without reason that St Maximus the Confessor considers Christ as above/beyond divinity and humanity… The Church fathers designate the mystery of this paradoxical life through a wide range of concepts, meant to circumscribe it reverently: self-emptying (κένωσις), incarnation (ἐνσάρκωσις) and humanisation (ἐνανθρώπησις), the Godman (Ὁ Θεάνθρωπος), composite hypostasis (ὑπόστασις σύνθετος) and mixture (σύγκρασις), hypostatic union (ἓνωσις ὑποστατική) and one incarnate life of God the Logos (μία φύσις Θεοῦ Λόγου σεσαρκωμένη), theandric energy (θεανδρική ἐνέγεια) and common breathing (σύμπνοια) of divinity and humanity. All these concepts, whilst attempting to articulate Christ’s mystery, point ultimately to the mystery of our life in Christ (cf. Ephesians 3:9; Colossians 1:26; Colossians 3:3 etc). This is the fundamental truth revealed to God’s people and this is Ariadne’s thread for any ecclesial endeavour yesterday, today and forever more. Nothing in the structure, teaching and life of Christ’s Church is constituted on criteria other than

that of Godmanhood (theandricity). This represents therefore the ultimate test for any aspect pertaining to ecclesial experience, including the oldest idiosyncrasies of the Church. Since the incarnation of the Logos represents – along with the foundational event of the Church – the very framework of ecclesial experience, one might wonder how this experience can practically take place. It is not difficult to discern ‘embodiments’ of this model in almost all aspects of the Church’s living tradition. In fact, springing unceasingly from the unbreakable communion of the Church with Christ in the Holy Spirit, our living tradition reiterates the theandric principle, diversely, through all its witnesses and manifestations. For instance, inspired from above and written by saints, the Church’s Scripture is in itself a theandric accomplishment and, since Christ is the ‘hidden treasure’ within all its semantic layers, it proclaims theandric life as the fullness of life. Perhaps not so obviously a theandric work (although inspiration is not missing in its case also) the icon witnesses the realisation of the same theandric principle by depicting the visible image of God in Christ and the transfigured faces of the saints. Synodal decisions, liturgical poetry and the writings of the Fathers – all these represent, more or less intensely, outcomes of the intersection and synergy between God’s people and the light from above. Ecclesial experience embodies and proclaims the one and the same principle of Godmanhood, yet tradition is not exhausted in these manifestations. Our living tradition is the new life, the theandric life, the dynamic experience of God’s people with Christ, within the historical pilgrimage of the Church. This is why any attempt at reducing tradition to its past witnesses shows lack of faith in the power of the living reality of the Church, here and now. Christ’s Church, ‘the pillar and bulwark of the truth’ (1 Timothy 3:15), is today and forever the temple of the Holy Spirit. Our Christian experience therefore is as fruitful as ever; our entire life in Christ is a continuous interaction of divine (grace) and human (faith, intentions, deeds). Beyond our current issues, even today saints grow in the Church; even today God’s people is creative; even today we give witness to the new life inaugurated through the descent of God to us. In the mysteries (sacraments) we experience what all previous generations have experienced: we are washed in water yet clothed in Christ; we are anointed yet receive the Holy Spirit; we eat bread and drink wine but partake of the body and blood of Christ; we talk to a confessor yet receive forgiveness from above; we see a couple but they are one; we see a man yet he is the vessel of sanctification; we receive bodily unction but are restored by the mercy of our Healer Christ. All these represent practical ramifications of the mystery contemplated in Christmas. This picture of Christmas as a celebration of Church’s life would not be complete, however, without its central setting: living tradition as consecration of the embodiment paradigm is deeply rooted in the liturgical soil. Within the liturgy, Godmanhood is at home since – proclaiming from the outset the kingdom of the Holy Trinity – we confess that God ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν, has made his tent with, in and amongst us (cf. John 1: 14; Revelation 21:3). Liturgy is the ‘place’ par excellence of theandricity, reiterating again and again the tremendous mystery of the Logos incarnate. Reiterates, here, means not it merely commemorates the salvific economy; rather, it means that through and beyond anamnesis/memorial the liturgy is salvation, making us partakers of the new life (see John 20:31), of the divine way of being (see 2 Peter 1:4). Far from simply reminding us of salvation, liturgy rather reveals and performs today our salvation. Ἡ Παρθένος σήμερον, τὸν ὑπερούσιον τίκτει: ‘the Virgin gives today (my emphasis) birth to the transcendent one’. Χριστὸς γεννᾶται, δοξάσατε: ‘Christ is born, glorify him’. Not yesterday; today. And, within the liturgy and beyond it, we witness to, participate in and proclaim the incarnate God’s love for mankind (cf. Luke 24:48; Acts 1:8).

Liturgy is indeed the living tradition, the ‘place’ of theandricity, celebrating neither past nor future but today as a kairotic interface for past and future. Today we remember and therefore we participate in the entire economy – past and future – of the Logos incarnate. Liturgy is a memorial-participation in the mystery of the Word’s embodiment. This truth pervades the entire liturgical movement and becomes manifest in the two processions: the first is centred on the Gospel and celebrates therefore the word of Christ; the second is centred on the Gifts of bread and wine, celebrating Christ’s body. Therefore, in the liturgy first we partake of the Word’s word, as a prerequisite for more intense familiarity, and then we taste the Word’s flesh, as fulfilled conviviality (see Luke 15:21-24) that echoes the supreme one, at the sempiternal Supper (see Matthew 8:11; Luke 22:30) or the eschatological realisation of the common breathing of God and his people (see Revelation 22:1-5). Liturgy is salvation since it reiterates the mystery of the Logos made flesh; more precisely, mystically, truly and really liturgy is the Word made flesh. Focused on liturgy, the Church’s life is called to reflect consistently in all aspects the mystery of the Logos incarnate, thus to live theandrically. This entails that, beyond any other nuances, the task of God’s people today and ever is to realise the body of the Word, to bring to concreteness the foundational paradigm of our very existence as God’s people. We are not supposed, therefore, to remain complacent about the past generations’ mighty achievements: instead, we are supposed to do the same today, in celebration of the incarnate Lord, our Christmas.