Notes in Liturgical Theology
The liturgical rules of the Orthodox Church prescribe that the
Divine Liturgy is to be celebrated after Vespers on certain fast
days. These days are: Thursday and Saturday of the Holy Week, the
eves of Christmas and Theophany and the Feast of the Annunciation.
Likewise the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is always celebrated
after Vespers. If we bear in mind that our Typikon determines the
time for Vespers according to the sun and not by the clock, then the
prescribed time for these evening Liturgies should be approximately
from two to five in the afternoon.
It is well known that these rubrics have become dead letter today,
or rather they are preserved in form, but in such a way that the
Liturgy is not transferred to the evening, but on the contrary,
Vespers is served in the morning. This breach of rule should not be
explained as a mere condescension of the Church to the "weakness
of the flesh," as a desire to curtail the period of abstinence
for the communicants, for we can observe this same practice where the
rubrics are scrupulously respected and where no attempt is made to
defer to human weakness. In this case, we are forced to deal with the
belief, deeply rooted in contemporary ecclesiastical consciousness,
that the Divine Liturgy must always be celebrated in the morning. Its
vesperal celebration would appear to be an unheard of innovation to
the overwhelming majority of Orthodox people, something much more
unnatural and irregular than the well-established practice of serving
Vespers in the morning and Matins in the evening.
It is obvious however, that in uniting the Liturgy with Vespers,
the authors of the Typikon intended more than a purely formal
connection between the two services. They meant a deliberate transfer
of the Liturgy to the evening, a conscious change in the usual order
of services. Again it is obvious that in not fulfilling the rule, or
in fulfilling it only as a formality (i.e., in transferring Vespers
to the morning) we commit a twofold infraction of the liturgical
"typos"; we serve an evening service in the morning which
besides being a "nominalization" of prayer, is a
contradiction to the common sense, and moreover, we completely ignore
the reasons which promoted the Church to order the celebration of the
Liturgy on certain days in the evening and not in the morning. But
perhaps if we investigate these reasons, we will see in them
something more meaningful than a mere detail of rubrics, something
forgotten yet essential for the comprehension of our liturgical
tradition.
The most general explanation is to be found in the Typikon itself.
Chapter 8 contains the following instructions: "on Sunday ye
shall begin the Liturgy at the start of the third hour (9
o’clock A.M.), so that the time of breaking fast shall come at
the start of the fourth hour; on Saturday ye shall begin the Liturgy
at the start of the fourth hour, so that the time of breaking fast
shall come at the start of the fifth hour; on lesser holidays and
other days, begin at the fifth hour so that the time of breaking fast
shall come at the sixth hour." We have thus a definite
relationship between the time ("kairos") of the Eucharist
and the fast, which is to precede it. This "eucharistic
fast" must be lengthened or shortened depending on the nature of
the day, on which the Liturgy is celebrated. The Typikon considers it
self-evident that Divine Liturgy is always preceded by strict
abstinence, therefore the general sense of all these instructions is
that the greater the holiday, the earlier is the Liturgy celebrated and
hence the shorter is the period of abstinence. Let us note in passing,
that here too our modern practice clearly contradicts the rubric:
we tend to consider a late service more "fitting" for a
great holiday, and an early one is "good enough" for every
day. The directions of the Typikon might, at first glance, appear to
be simple relics of some ancient monastic rule which for some
inscrutable reason keep on being repeated from one edition of the
Typikon to another. However, if we make an effort to
"translate" these dry instructions, we will find in them a
whole theology of fasting in its relationship to the Liturgy. Having
understood this, we may question and decide whether it is
conditional, relative, and pertaining to the past or whether it
contains an element of Tradition binding us as well. To discover this
is to understand that in these instructions has been concealed the
concept of fast, its living experience whose origin is in the Gospel
itself, and which, from the very beginning, was received by the
Church. In these externally legalistic and almost trivial
regulations, it is fashionable today to consider their observance a
mere ritualism and pedantry, incompatible with our modern "way
of life," there is revealed a profound understanding of human
life in its relation to Christ and the Church. This we will now
briefly attempt to set forth.
According to the Synoptics, the Pharisees accused the disciples of
Christ of not fasting (whereas they and the disciples of John
"fasted greatly"). To this, Christ answered, "Can the
wedding guests fast as long as the Bridegroom is with them? As long
as the Bridegroom is with them they cannot fast. But the days will
come when the Bridegroom will be taken away from them, and they will
fast in those days" (Mark 2:18; Luke 5: 33; Mt. 9:14). These
texts stress the connection between fasting and the Messianic service
of Christ, but it becomes impossible in the joy of His Presence. More
generally, fasting is the expression of expectation, of the state of
waiting and preparation. Thus, Christ contrasts Himself to John the
Baptist: "For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor
drinking wine . . . The Son of Man has come. He eats and drinks. .
." John the Baptist in this context is the "type," the
symbol of the Old Testament in its relation to the New Testament. The
Old Testament is the time of preparation and expectation and it comes
to its end with the apparition of the Faster. But the Son of Man
"eats and drinks" and His disciples also eat and drink and
in the Gospel we constantly see the Lord breaking bread with the
publicans and sinners in the homes of the Pharisees and also
providing food to the multitude of men. For in Christ and with Christ
is revealed and comes the Kingdom. And in biblical typology, the
Kingdom is often represented as a banquet, as the breaking of fast.
(cf. for example, Isa. 25:6).
And it is this Scriptural teaching
about fast, the Christological and messianic context of fasting that
defined the place and the "function" of fasting in the
Church from its very beginning. On the one hand, the Church is
herself the beginning, the eschatological anticipation of the
Kingdom. The Bridegroom is present and His presence is revealed in
the breaking of bread, in the eucharistic banquet, which is the
sacramental anticipation of the fullness of the Kingdom, of the
Messianic banquet. In the Book of Acts, the "breaking of
bread" is the essential fact that builds up the
"ecclesia," the Messianic community. (Acts 2:42). In this
assembly, in the "koinonia," there is no room for fasting:
the expectation has come to an end, the Lord is present,
"maranatha." He has come, He is coming, He shall come . . .
But, on the other hand, with the Ascension of Christ, a new period of
expectation has begun: expectation of the "parousia," of
the second glorious advent of Christ, of the fulfillment in which
"God shall be revealed as all in all." The Lord has
triumphed and is glorified, set the history of "this world"
is not yet achieved, it awaits its consummation and judgment. Whereas
the history of the Old Testament was directed at the coming of the
Messiah, the history of the New Testament is directed at the return
of the Lord in His glory and the end of the world. That which the
Church has and acknowledges in the "mysterion" already,
will become evident at the end of this world. And inasmuch as the
Church is still in "statu viae" and Christians are still
living in this world, they expect, they wait for, this
"parousia," they pray and keep the vigil for they do not
know when the Son of Man shall come. And this expectation is
expressed therefore in a new fasting, in a new state of awaiting.
This expectation, this yearning, is now constantly fulfilled and
answered in the sacrament of the Lord’s Presence, in the
Eucharistic banquet. Living in time, in history, the Church reveals
already the triumph of eternity, anticipates the glory of the Kingdom
which is "to come." And this "fast —
expectation" finds its consummation in the Sacrament, when in
the same and eternal commemoration we represent, i.e., make present
and real, both the first coming of Christ and His
"parousia." Thus, fasting and Eucharist form, so to say,
two complimentary and necessary poles of Church life, manifest the
essential antinomy of her nature: expectation and possession,
fullness and growth, eschatology and history.
These considerations give us the key to the "technical"
rules of the Typikon, fill them with spiritual meaning. They express
the essential liturgical principle of the incompatibility of the
Eucharist with fasting: the Eucharist cannot and must not be
celebrated on a day of fasting. Being the sacrament of
Christ’s presence, the Eucharist is the feast of the Church, or
even more, the Eucharist is the Church as Feast, and consequently the
measure and the context of all feasts. For a feast is not a mere
"remembrance" of such or such an event of the earthly life
of Christ, but precisely the reality of His presence in the Church by
the Holy Spirit. And therefore whatever event or person are
commemorated in a feast, this commemoration necessarily finds its
fulfillment in the Eucharist, in the "mysterion" which
transforms remembrance into presence. The Eucharist manifests the
link between all particular events, all the saints, all the
theological affirmations with the saving work of Christ. Whatever we
commemorate, whatever we celebrate, we always discover – and
this discovery is made in the Divine Liturgy – that in the
Church everything has its beginning in Jesus Christ and everything
has in Him its end, its fulfillment. We can note here that the
Orthodox Church has never accepted the principle of a non-festive
Eucharist, similar to the Roman "low Mass." For a long
period, the Eucharist was an essentially dominical cult because it is
always Paschal by its very nature, it always announces the death of
Christ and confesses or bears witness to His Resurrection.
A second principle necessarily follows the first. It is that of
fasting period, which must precede every Eucharistic celebration.
Expectation must precede fulfillment. From this point of view, the
eucharistic fast is not a simple abstinence before communion, it is
made primarily of expectation and spiritual preparation. It is
fasting in the scriptural sense indicated above, the waiting for the
sacramental Parousia.
In the early Church, the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist was
preceded by a night vigil which was precisely (and theoretically
still is in the Eastern Church) the service of preparation and
getting ready, a vigil in the full Christian meaning of the word. And
this is why the Eucharist on Sunday and on great holidays is
prescribed for the early hours of the day: it is the fulfillment, the
end of the vigil, of the service of fasting and preparation. But on a
lesser feast, which has no vigil, the celebration of the Eucharist
takes place at the end of morning, for in this case, the morning
hours of fasting constitute the necessary period of preparation. Thus
the whole liturgical life of the Church which, in turn determine the
life of each member of the Church, is built on this rhythm of
expectation and fulfillment, preparation and "presence."
And the rules that govern this rhythm cease to be archaic and
incomprehensible but become signs of a path leading us to the very
heart of life in the Church.
But fasting has also a second meaning, that completes the one we
have just analyzed. It has been particularly stressed and developed
in Monasticism. It is the ascetical fast, fasting as a fight against
the demonic powers, as a method of spiritual life. The origin of this
idea of fasting also goes back to the Scriptures. Before Christ went
out to preach, He fasted for forty days and at the end of this period
Satan approached Him (Matthew 4:3). In the Gospel, we find a clear
statement that fasting and prayer are the only means for a victory
over Satan (Mt. 17:21). For the advent of Christ not only fulfills
the history of salvation, it is also the decisive moment in the
struggle against Satan, who has become the "prince of this
world."
According to the Bible, it is through food that Satan conquered
man and became his master. Man has tasted of the forbidden fruit, and
in doing so has become enslaved to food, so that his whole existence
depends on it. This is why fasting, in this biblical perspective, is
not to be equated with a mere moderation in eating, with a kind of
elementary hygiene. The genuine fast, the true abstinence, the one
which the Church glorifies in her holy "fasters," is indeed
a challenge to the so called laws of nature and through them to Satan
himself. For nothing hurts him more, nothing destroys his power more
than this transcending by man of the laws, of which he has convinced
man that they are "natural" and "absolute."
Without food man dies therefore his life depends entirely on food.
And yet by fasting, i.e., by refusing voluntarily food man discovers
that he lives not by bread alone. And then fasting becomes the denial
of what has become "necessary," the real mortification of
that flesh which depends entirely and exclusively on the
"unescapable laws of nature." In fast, man reaches that
freedom which he has lost in sin, recovers in the cosmos the Kingship
he had annihilated by transgressing the will of God. Fasting is a
free return to the fulfillment of that commandment which Adam has
transgressed. Accepting it, man again receives food as a Divine gift,
food ceases to be a "necessity" and becomes the very image
of the messianic banquet, for "eat in order to live" has
become again "live in God." This idea of fasting rooted in
Christ’s forty days of fasting and His encounter with Satan, is
the foundation of the ascetical fast, which one must
distinguish (but not separate) from the eucharistic fast,
defined above as a state of preparation and expectation.
Nothing can better show the relationship between these two aspects
or functions of fasting than Lent and its liturgical particularities.
On the one hand, Sundays and Saturdays, being essentially days of
Eucharist, are "liturgically" excluded from Lenten fasting.
They have none of the distinctive liturgical marks of
"fasting" days. The eucharistic fast is always limited by
the rhythm of the Eucharist itself, its limit being the Liturgy to
which it is related as preparation to fulfillment. It is achieved and
accomplished in the reception of the eucharistic food. The
eucharistic fast is thus a function of the Church, for it corresponds
to a state of the Church herself. The ascetical fast, on the other
hand, is first of all individual, being a personal accomplishment in
the Church. The regulations concerning this fasting, which differ
according to various local traditions, are relative in the sense that
they are primarily indications of a well established method, a sure
guidance, but not an absolute teaching of the Church. These rules
depend on the climate, on the way of life in a given sociological
context, on external conditions etc. The orders to eat figs on such
day and beans on another, orders that we still find in the Typikon,
obviously cannot be accepted literally, or considered as
"absolute." The important thing here is to understand that
the eucharistic fast is the fast of the Church, while the ascetical
fast is the fast of a Christian in the Church. The latter is
determined by the nature of man, the former by the nature of the
Church. Thus if during Lent, the eucharistic fast finds its
conclusion every Sunday in the eschatological fullness of the
Sacrament, the ascetical fast is not interrupted, for multisecular
experience proves that its spiritual fruits ripen slowly and require
a long and sustained effort. Between them however, there is no
contradiction. A monastic dinner on a Lenten Sunday must be
"meager" as to its alimentary quality and quantity; it is
nevertheless a Sunday dinner, a breaking of fast, for following the
Eucharist and the eucharistic fast, it belongs spiritually to the
experience of joy and fullness which is the substance of the
Christian Sunday.
It is impossible to indicate here all the theological implications
of fasting as it is described and prescribed in our liturgical
tradition. We can only point to its essential significance. The
Church lives on two levels, has two "states." She is
waiting for, but she also possesses already, the object of
expectation. In time, in history, she is not only "in via,"
on her way to the Kingdom, but also the manifestation of this
Kingdom. And the meaning of her life is that these two "states"
are not separated from each other, do not oppose each other in a
radical contradiction. Each of them is founded in the other and is
impossible without it. Eternity does not empty or make absurd and
meaningless either time or our life in time, but on the contrary
gives them all their weight, all their real value. The Church fills
with an eternal truth, with reality which she alone possesses, the
apparently meaningless flow of time. The rhythm of the Church, the
rhythm of the Eucharist which comes and is always to come, fills
everything with meaning, puts all things to their real place.
Christians do not remain passive between one celebration and the next
one, their "temporal" life is not empty, is not
"diminished" by eschatology. For it is precisely the
liturgical "eschaton" that ascribes real value to every
moment of our life, in which everything is now judged, evaluated and
understood in the light of the Kingdom of God, the ultimate end and
the meaning of all that exists. There is nothing more alien to the
true spirit of Orthodox liturgy than a certain superstitious
"liturgiologism," or an "eschatologism" which
reduces the whole Christian life to communion and despises everything
else as "vain." Such liturgical "piety" does not
realize that the true significance of the Eucharist is precisely that
of judgment, of transformation, of making infinitely important, the
whole life. For the Eucharist bears witness to the Incarnation, and
since it has been coordinated with time, introduced into time, time
itself and each one of the moments in time are filled with meaning,
acquire a significance in relation with Christ. Indeed, all the
things of life, small and great, have ceased to be an end and a value
in themselves, yet it is not in such isolation and self centeredness
that they were truly "absurd"? But now, understood in the
perspective of the Kingdom, all of them can and must become signs and
means of its coming, "instruments" of the world’s
salvation in Christ.
This is why it is so important that beyond liturgical "aestheticism" or rigid "rubricism," we recover the real meaning of
the liturgical time, described in such a simple way in the Typikon.
It is here that the Church has concealed the treasure of her love, of
her wisdom, of her "practical" knowledge of God. The
liturgy of the Church must be liberated from a trivial "schedule
of services" and become again what essentially it is: the
sanctification of time and in it of the whole life, by the presence
of Christ. Only such a liturgy does not divide the life of a
Christian into two lives, the one "sacred" and the other
"profane," but transfigures the one by the other, making
the whole existence a confession of Christ. For Christ did not come
in order that we "symbolize" His presence but in order to
transform and save the world by His presence.
We must understand that the liturgy of the Church is profoundly
realistic, that Vespers is in a real rapport with this particular
evening: it is this evening that we as Christians must spend
"perfectly, in holiness, in peace and without sin," it is
this evening that must offer and dedicate to God, and this evening is
already illumined for us with the light of another Evening, of
another End, the one which we expect and at the same time fear, and
which is approaching in our human time. In the liturgy, we discover
how seriously indeed the Church considers time, food, rest and all
the actions, all the details of our life. In the world in which God
became man, nothing can even be withdrawn from Him.
Expectation, encounter, possession: in this rhythm, the Church
dives and by it, she measures time. But there are days when this
expectation reaches its extreme "concentration"; the days
of the vesperal Eucharist. The Church has conscientiously and totally
dedicated them to expectation and preparation, to fasting in its full
sense. They are spent in the same everyday activities, which fill any
other day. And yet how infinitely meaningful, how deeply
"important" and responsible, are each word that we
pronounce in the light of this expectation, each action that we
perform! Yes, it is on such days that we are given to realize what
is, what ought to be Christian life, we live then as if they were
illumined by what is to come! The Eve of Nativity, the supernatural
quiet of Holy Saturday, the days of Lent when we prepare ourselves
for the presanctified service, how all this should "build
up" a Christian soul, lead it to the comprehension of the
Mystery of Salvation, to the transformation of life . . . And when
finally comes the evening, when all this fasting preparation and
expectation are fulfilled in the Eucharist, our life is really taken
into this Eucharist, is "related" to the joy and the
fullness of the Kingdom.
Thus a "rubric" can and must become for us what it was
for the Christians in the past, a law of prayer, a law of life.
St. Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 1, Winter 1959, pp. 2-9
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