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SaintElias.com -> Divine ServicesThe Divine Services
A central part of Christian Life is our Liturgical Prayer. As the Psalmist says (29:2):
Liturgy and Worship is an existential constituent in human beings. Worship is the natural human response to any kind of encounter with the Divine encounter. While he [the Risen Christ] was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God. (Luke 24: 51-53) Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12:28-29) The Orthodox Liturgical TraditionIn the Papal Encyclical, Orientale Lumen, the Pope proclaims:
In the sacred act, even bodiliness is summoned to praise, and beauty, which in the East is one of the best loved names expressing the divine harmony and the model of humanity transfigured, appears everywhere: in the shape of the church, in the sounds, in the colours, in the lights, in the scents. The lengthy duration of the celebrations, the repeated invocations everything expresses gradual identification with the mystery celebrated with one's whole person. Thus the prayer of the Church already becomes participation in the heavenly liturgy, an anticipation of the final beatitude." (Pope J.P.II, art. 11}) Faith and Orthodox WorshipOur worship not only helps to unite us with God, but it in itself proclaims the Gospel - as the old Latin adage says: "lex orandi - lex credendi", meaning both "how we pray is how we believe", i.e. the manner of our worship shows what our Faith is.
Indeed the very foundation and establishment of our Church, our Church's "conversion story" is based on our finding God through our experience of liturgical worship. We chose to follow the Christ because we found, as we found nowhere else, the presence of God in the Divine Services as celebrated at Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. (Cf. the story of Prince Volodymyr's Conversion) And it is from missionaries from our mother Church of Constantinople-New Rome that we have received the sacred Orthodox Tradition and spirituality. Thus the Orthodox Tradition, in its fullness, especially the Orthodox liturgical Tradition is our patrimony and the idiom of our Faith. This is the Tradition we have been given by God for our salvation.
And this is the Tradition enjoined upon us by the highest Church authorities: our Patriarchs, Vatican II, Canon Law, and all the Popes of Rome - especially Pope John Paul II. Orthodoxy in the Catholic CommunionThe Ecumenical Council of Vatican II calls to back to our Orthodox Tradition: The Council specifies that..in the rites and disciplines...whenever they have fallen short, they are to strive to return to their ancestral traditions. (Canon Law, Instructions, art. 12)
(Pope J.P. II, August 1989, Servizio Informatzioni per le Chiese Orientali, suppl. to nn 485-556 at 5) Thus at our parish, in obedience to the Church, we do our best to be faithful to our Orthodox Tradition, both in Liturgics and in Faith. The Articles of Uniya between our Churches and the Church of Rome are quite explicit: That the divine worship and all prayers and services of Orthros, Vespers, and the night services shall remain intact (without any change at all) for us according to the ancient custom of the Eastern Church... (Brest-Litovsk, art. 2) Canon Law makes clear the Mandate from the Apostolic See:
...the practice of the Orthodox should be taken into account, knowing it, respecting it and distancing from it as little as possible so as not to increase the existing separation, but rather intensifying efforts in view of eventual adaptations, maturing and working together. ({Cong. for East. Churches: Instructions for the application of the Liturgical Prescriptions of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. art. 21) Pope John Paul II decreed: If, therefore, you must trim extraneous forms and developments, deriving from various influences that come from liturgical and paraliturgical traditions foreign to your tradition, it is possible that, so doing, you will have to also correct some popular habits. (Pope J.P. II, August 1989, Servizio Informatzioni per le Chiese Orientali, suppl. to nn 485-556 at 42) Our Theologians tell us that we are "Orthodox in Communion with Rome". The Mission of the Eastern ChurchesOne of the most central reasons the Church commands us to be scrupulously obeservant of our Orthodox Tradition, is the Mission which the Church has entrusted to our Churches, that of reconciliation with our Orthodox Mother Churches and the re-establishment of sacred Communion with them.
(Vat.II, Unitatis Redintegratio, 15) The Pope is insistent upon this qustion of Orthodoxy for the Eastern Churches: "The [Vat. II] Council's Decree Orientalium Ecclesiarum reminds us that: 'the Eastern Churches in communion with the Apostolic See of Rome have a special role to play in promoting the unity of all Christians, particularly Easterners, according to the principles of this sacred Synod's Decree on Ecumenism: first of all by prayer, then by the example of their lives, by religious fidelity to ancient Eastern traditions, by greater mutual knowledge, by collaboration, and by a brotherly regard for objects and attitudes'. From this it follows that Eastern Catholics are to commit themselves to living profoundly what the Decree lays out." (Apostolic Letter of Pope John Paul II
(J.P.II, Ut Unum Sint, 61) Ecumenism is not only an internal question of the Christian Communities. It is a matter of the love which God has in Jesus Christ for all humanity; to stand in the way of this love is an offense against him and against his plan to gather all people in Christ. As Pope Paul VI wrote to the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I:
(J.P.II, Ut Unum Sint, 99 Through Worship & Beauty, is found the True God (the Story of the Conversion of Rus') Volodymyr, Prince of Rus', sent out emissaries to find true religion. They went east and west, north and south and found no faith, ....until they arrived in Constantinople. They returned to Kiev and reported to the Prince what happened there in the great Cathedral of Holy Wisdom. "They took us where they worshipped their God, and we did not know whether we were in heaven or upon earth, for there is not upon earth such sight or beauty. This much we do know, that there, God lives among men, and we can never forget that beauty..." |
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