(, A)

,
.

.
,
' , ,
, ,
, .
"' " "' " (.
1, 26), ""
" " ,
.
-
-
.
(. 1, 25).

.

,
.
,

. '
. ' ' ,

.
.
, ,
,
, ,
,

.
,
() () .

(, ,
, ) .

, ,
"
", .
.
,
. ' .
, . ,
' ,
. ,
.... ,
.
, , ,
.
,
, ,
. ,
,
,
" ". .
, (.
)
, .
. ,
" ,

". ,
(-)
,
.
,
. ,
, ,
.
-, .
'
, . .
, ,
,
, . ,
,
. ,
, ,

 "" . ,
,
,
.
, .
, ,
.
, .
, ,
, ,
"" "" .

. , ,

, . ,
.
,
,
. - (=)
- .
() ,
, -,
.
, . ,
. O,
, ,
, ,
.
.
, ..

ORTHODOX WORSHIP
By Spyros K. Tsitsigkos, B.A, M.A., ThD, PhD.
The three basic themes of the sacred history of the world, creation, fall
and redemption, constitute the context of the birth, development and
establishment of Orthodox worship.
The worship of God by man is an essential characterestic of human
existence. Man was created and endowed with capacities which enable

him to worship God, to praise him, to glorify him, to communicate with

him, and finally to be perfected by participating in him...in short, to be
deified. The mystery of man's creation in the image and likeness of God
(Ge. 1, 26), which was defaced but not obliterated by man's fall, and was
renewed by redemption, constitutes the anthropological component of
Orthodox worship.
Man's fall from the communion with God to the communion with
the creatures, brought about the problem of worship and consequently the
problem of existence. Men worshipped creation rather than the Creator
(Rom. 1, 25). The worship of God was replaced by the slavery of the
world and its elemental forces.
This history of salvation becomes the herald of the restoration of
the worship of God, which constitutes the crucial criterion of man's life
and existence. So the stages of man's fall are counter-balanced by the
stages of the energies of God and the stages of the restoration of God's
worship among men. In the former stages the ignorance of God and the
despair of man reign supreme. In the latter stages the revelation of God is
renewed and man's hope of union with his Maker and Redeemer. To each
stage of return corresponds an additional liturgical advance in God's
worship.
Christ is the Great High Priest of all humanity who leads us in our
worship which results in our transposition from death to life, from
corruption to incorruption, from the fleeting and finite limits of
creaturehood to the grace of deification, to the innermost holy of holies
of the uncreated light and eternal glory of the Blessed Holy Trinity. The
Orthodox worship established on the Event of Christ is both Christcentred and Trinitarian. It proceeds from the grace of the Economy to the
grace of Theology, which is the Blessed Trinity of the Father, the Son
and the Holy Spirit.
The seven hours of daily prayer of Jews become in the Christianity
the seven Services (Acolouthies) of the Church: Vespers, Compline,
Midnight office, Matins and the Three Hours. The Hebrew festivals
centred aroud the Hebrew Passover are transformed into Christian feasts
and acquire a new epicenre, "the Feast of Feasts and Festival of
Festivals", the Easter of Christ. The christian Easter is an eschatological
Event. It has taken place and remains in the age. It is extended to all the
dimensions of time and space. It is celebrated every Sunday, in every
festival and even every day. So it becomes the Liturgy par excellence
which constitutes the focus of Orthodox worship. This is the Liturgy of
the New Covenant which God made through Christ with the Jews, the
Greeks and all the nations. it is the Liturgy which joins together the

Church with Christ as the head with the body, and also introduces into
the Kingdom of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The Christian Easter which is celebrated in the divine Liturgy is an
eternal event which enters into the creaturely time liberating it from its
finite and contingent orbit. The Orthodox worshipper acquires by the
divine Liturgy and the partaking of the sacrament a taste of the power of
the Risen Lord and of the eternity which human nature has put on in
Christ. It seems as if the movement of time but also the movement of
bodily breath cease to operate, as the Spirit of the divine quietness
communicates the breath of eternity in a mystical way. The Fathers call
this event the awesome and immaculate mystery, which always takes
place in the realm of the Kingdom of God. Hence the Liturgy always
begins with the acclamation "Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and
the Son and the Holy Spirit now and always and in the ages of the ages".
The Jewish Liturgy begins with the blessing of God. The christian
Liturgy begins with God's final act of revelation and salvation, the
Kingdom of the Holy Trinity.
The divine Liturgy does not transform only the time, by wedding it
with eternity, but also transfigures the dimensions of space. The space
within which the divine mystagogy is celebrated is holy. It transcends the
division between the sacred and the secular. Liturgical space is the Catholicon where heaven meets earth. The kingdom of heaven is established
among men in a space which is transfigured and "trans-elementated", the
new creation. So in Christianity there is no longer one place in
Jerusalem, in the temple, because every place acquires its sacred centres.
There is no longer one Aaronic high priest in Jerusalem, but many high
priests in every specific place, because the Great Melkisedekian High
Priest has catholicised the institution of worship. The new catholic
dimensions of space connected with the divine Liturgy constitute a new
mystery which makes "relative" every old place. The place of the
cathedral temple where the divine mystagogy is celebrated by the bishop
is linked with a direct but mystical and spiritual relation with the place of
the cloister of an ascetic, or even the secret place of the heart of each
Christian.
Finally, the divine Liturgy introduces a new manner of worship. It
is a spiritual, sacramental, mystical or mystagogical manner. The
materials are made spirit-bearers without losing the material texture. This
act which unites the material with the spiritual, or rather opens the former
to the latter, ultimately unites the uncreated with the created, God with
man in and through the mystery of Christ. The mystery of the Incarnation
is the key to the holy act of worship. Here then, in the union of the holy
act, which transmits the participation in the mystery of the inhominated

Son of God, we find the very essence of Orthodox worship. It is practical

and existential, and as such, can be also viewed theoretically. It is
precisely because it refers to the entire existence of man and is of vital
necessity, that the Orthodox Church has instituted the Canon of Worship.
The canonical rubrics recall us to the way of life. It is not like the law of
the Old Testament, which served the shadow in expectation of the
substance which was yet to come. The new canonical arrangement in the
Church serves the truth, the substance. It is the symbol which invites us
to the fold of the eternal nourishment. The Orthodox Christian who
follows the liturgical canon of worship, enters into the inner holy of
holies of Paradise and there, having become enlightened with the
uncreated light of the divine beauty, he hands himself over to the endless
hymn of the life of worship.