“Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi”: The Liturgical Worship of the Church

"The Rule of Prayer is the Rule of Belief"

Excerpts abridged from a research paper presented to Dr. Eric N. Newberg, Department of Theology Oral Roberts University, by Nicholas B. A. Heide (2016).

Liturgy: The Worship of the Assembly

Early Evidence: The Didache

“But every Lord’s Day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure.” The Didache, or “teaching,” is a catechetical corpus of texts used to describe and presumably mandate Christian practice, and its authorship is ascribed to the Twelve Apostles; this instructional first-century document was re-discovered in 1883 in a Constantinopolitan monastery, providing yet another early extra-biblical example of the corporate Liturgical worship celebrated by the Christian faithful of the nascent Church. St. Athanasius of Alexandria is known to have numbered the Didache among the “books not included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who are just recently coming to us, and wish to be instructed in the word of godliness.” Preceding the fourteenth chapter, which provides the aforementioned statute of the communal observance of the Lord’s Day, is a list of other liturgical instructions including those concerning Baptism, fasting, the Lord’s Prayer, the Eucharist, and the offices of Church polity. It is even specified that “no one [should] eat or drink of your Eucharist, unless they have been baptized into the name of the Lord.” The language employed by the Didache, commonly accepted as a primary source regarding early Christian worship, in no way indicates that the celebrations of liturgical activities employed by the Christian faithful are to be performed in solitude. Rather, the worship to God of the Church described in the Didache is assumed to be corporate and communal by nature.

Thus, the Christian liturgy necessitates the ecclesia, or gathering. It is with this standard in mind that the late Fr. Alexander Schmemann of St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary refers to the celebration of the Christian Eucharist as “the Sacrament of the Assembly” in the first chapter of his theological work on the Lord’s Supper, The Eucharist. Schmemann remarks that “the nature and purpose of the gathering... is Eucharistic—its end and fulfillment lies in its being the setting wherein the “Lord’s Supper” is accomplished, wherein the Eucharistic ‘breaking of bread’ takes place.”

It is in conjunction with this consistent concept of the Eucharistic and heavenly reality of the Assembly of the faithful that St. Ignatius entreats the first-century Ephesians to “take heed, then, often to come together to give thanks to God, and show forth His praise. For when ye assemble frequently in the same place the powers of Satan are destroyed, and the destruction at which he aims is prevented by the unity of your faith.”

St. Justin Martyr

Another extra-biblical Christian text subsequent to the Didache, the First Apology of St. Justin Martyr, written in the early second century, is one of the earliest documentations of the Christian Church’s liturgical worship. In accordance with the rite of initiation described by the apostolic “Teaching,” St. Justin indicates that the administration of the sacraments of the Church begins with Baptism, describing the sequence of events in his experience of liturgical worship from chapter 65-67. He proceeds to portray the sequence of events of the Sunday assembly, in which the faithful gather together in common prayer, listening to the readings of epistles and prophets, and ultimately, partaking of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. The apologist and martyr describes the activity of the believer and his participation in the corporate worship of the Church with the following anecdote from the Sunday Eucharistic liturgy:

“Those who are called brethren are assembled, in order that we may offer hearty prayers in common for ourselves and for the baptized [illuminated] person...so that we may be saved with an everlasting salvation...There is then brought to the president of the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water; and he taking them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length...And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent [“amen”], those who are called by us deacons give to each of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water over which the thanksgiving was pronounced...And this food is called among us Εύχαριστία [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined...and we always keep together...we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday, all...gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read...we all rise together and pray."

Line by line, St. Justin reminds the reader of his Apology that the activities of the Church which constitute its worship are inseparable from the gathering of the believing community. With such an early emphasis placed on the catholicity and communal nature of the Church’s worship, it logically follows that the historical precedent of ecclesial practice described by St. Justin Martyr is reflected in subsequent adaptations of the Christian worship service.

St. Symeon of Thessaloniki, who was martyred in the early part of the 15th century, claims that “what [Christ's Church] received from the beginning, it enacts continually and teaches what is beyond understanding through sacred symbols. Those things which are visibly enacted have partaken of such great glory, and so they are marvelous to all.” These words of St. Symeon of Thessaloniki are reminiscent of those of St. Jude, when he exhorts the Church in his epistle “to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 1:3). Likewise, it must be noted that in his description of the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, St. Paul reminds the Church of Corinth that he had “received from the Lord what [he] also handed on to [them]” (1 Cor 11:23). Just as the celebration of the Lord’s Mystical Supper is continuously inherited by the Church through the apostolic expressions of its prayer and worship, so too is its unified identity carried on in the traditions of its apostolic faith. This consistency is protected and preserved by the collegial catholicity of the Church. It is in this consistency that the rule of faith intersects with the rule of prayer, and the two comprise the Christian experience. 

Apostolic Liturgical Tradition 

St. John of Kronstadt, a 20th-century champion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, remarks regarding the Divine Liturgy (Mass) that:

“If one were to put all of the world’s most precious things on one side of a scale, and the Divine Liturgy on the other, the scales would tip completely in favor of the Liturgy...There is nothing upon earth holier, higher, grander, more solemn, more life-giving than the Liturgy. The temple, at this particular time, becomes an earthly heaven; those who officiate represent Christ Himself, the angels, the cherubim, seraphim and apostles."

The worship of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church is most succinctly described as “liturgical,” and not solely because of its methodical use of ancient liturgical texts for the celebration of its prayers and sacraments; for it is not the liturgical structure of the Church’s rite itself which brings believers into its fold. 

The Oxford History of Christian Worship records that “liturgical worship has certain ethical presuppositions and consequences, since it is properly the symbolic focus that both gathers up and irradiates the whole of life, at the very heart of which is the relationship between human beings and God…” Therefore, liturgical theology asks the question of what the Liturgy does, rather than what the Liturgy is. In tracing the practices of liturgical theology, the aforementioned Oxford History of Christian Worship states that the complexity of the symbolic system of liturgical language is explored in order to interpret the meaning conveyed in Christian worship:

“In the twentieth century, liturgical theologians and practitioners worked in an intellectual and cultural context that was marked by the linguistic turn in philosophy, the hermeneutical approach in literary studies, the iconological attention to meaning in the visual arts, and the preoccupation of sociology and psychology with questions of identity. The case of Christian worship is perennially rendered special by the fundamental fact that God, who is both transcendent and self-communicating, is believed to speak and act through rites that he has instituted and to receive the praise and the prayers that are addressed to him.”

It is this inherent spirituality in the Liturgical celebrations of the Christian faith that places the identity of the catholic Church in its Eucharistic Liturgy, which is the worship offered up to the Holy Trinity. Beyond the texts of historic liturgies utilized by the assembly of the faithful, the Church is more genuinely concerned with the mass of its community and that community’s relationship to its God and Savior; this relationship is one which is believed to be accompanied by the hosts of heaven. The reason that Christianity is identified by its rule of prayer is because of that inherent striving for communion with the Lord Jesus Christ which defines its rule of belief. Fr. Alexander Schmemann, in his survey of liturgical theology, For the Life of the World, explains that:

“The Church itself is a leitourgia, a ministry, a calling to act in this world after the fashion of Christ, to bear testimony to Him and His kingdom. The Eucharistic liturgy, therefore, must not be approached and understood in ‘liturgical’ or ‘cultic’ terms alone.”

For what is the Church if not the Assembly of its people, reaching toward its Creator in order to offer its sacrifice of worship? In the Eucharistic Liturgy, a more cosmic reality is at play than simply the recitation of scripted prayers; for the life of the world, the Church holds steadfast to that consistency in which it has found its broader identity. In the Church’s active participation in a very literal liturgical celebration, such as the Sunday morning Eucharist, mankind is commissioned to employ its spiritual and liturgical integrity and to repent of any worldview which would traverse the bounds of the apostolic tradition of the revealed Faith of the children of God. 

It is essential that the continuation of the liturgical traditions of the Church be maintained, as each generation of the faithful only receives the baton from its spiritual ancestors, and subsequently passes it on to its progeny. To echo St. John of Kronstadt’s previously mentioned sentiment that the worshipping community is transformed into a divine reality by the consistency of its worship beyond even the ages of its saints, the liturgy connects its participants with others in the immanent worshipping community, while also connecting those on earth with the transcendent hosts of heaven. 

Regarding the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church, Fr. Emmanuel Hatzidakis remarks, in his liturgical commentary, The Heavenly Banquet: Understanding the Divine Liturgy, based on a much earlier work by St. Nicholas Cabasilas, that “our Liturgy today is essentially the same Eucharistic service of these first Christians, which the Church kept faithfully and transmitted to us in all its integrity.” While a very tangible reality comprises the daily services of the liturgical Church, it is connected with the intangible presence which it seeks to obtain. The great paradox of the Sacraments, or Sacred Mysteries, of the Church is that by the employment of the temporal, the worshipping community of believers is equipped to connect with the incorporeal.

Κοινωνία: Communion

Another essential pragmatism warrants the continuity of Christian worship, and that is the communion and perpetuity of the catholic worship of the Church. The communal aspect of liturgical worship is experienced in a variety of ways, from the harmony and sequence between the priest and the congregation to the catholicity and recognition shared between 6th-century Jerusalem and 16th-century Europe. In like manner, these various roles in the drama of the greater Christian community maintain a common recognition of Christ as the head of the Church. The same Eucharist is shared between the priest and the congregation, and is experienced by the farthest reaches of the Church at large. St. Ignatius of Antioch reminds the Church of the Philadelphians of this unity in the following excerpt of his epistle: “Take ye heed, then, to have but one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup to show forth the unity of His blood; one altar; as there is one bishop, along with the presbytery and deacons, my fellow-servants: that so, whatsoever ye do, ye may do it according to the will of God.”

The voices of the faithful chant in harmony, and the liturgical practices of the catholic Church are executed in harmony. There is to be no discord in the liturgy, as each human partaker of the heavenly mysteries raises his voice to heaven. The human voice, formed into being by the very breath of God, is the purest instrument in existence, and in his epistle to the Ephesians, St. Ignatius exhorts us to employ it, saying, “You must every man of you join in a choir so that being harmonious and in concord and taking the keynote of God in unison, you may sing with one voice through Jesus Christ to the Father, so that He may hear you and through your good deeds recognize that you are parts of His Son.” He continues, in his encouraging epistle to the church of Ephesus, to utilize language reminiscent of music, harmony, and chant to illustrate to his reader the theology intertwined in the Church's consistent and traditional use of its liturgical music. This communal use of the common tones of chant emphasized the ecclesial practice of active and involved worship, a liturgy which reminds one more of a chorus than a lecture. Such experiences promote the sanctification of humanity’s sensory perception; these serve to remind the faithful that their natures have been renewed and reunited to goodness in the life of the resurrected Christ. This catholic truth marks the crossroads between liturgical practice and religious belief. 

Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi

"Lex orandi, lex credendi" is a phrase first coined by St. Prosper of Aquitaine before the rise of the Medieval period. This statement expresses the deeply universal truth that "the way you pray determines what you believe," according to Alister McGrath. More literally translated, "the rule of prayer is the rule of belief"; this distinguishes the principle that worship and theology ceaselessly go hand in hand. This idea epitomized the liturgical theology of the developing Church, and it remains a time-tested axiom to this day. The humility exercised in the posture necessary to conform to the revealed majesty of the worship of heaven in the apostolic Church operates in tandem with the willingness to conform to traditional apostolic teachings and to affirm the canonical Creeds of the Church which is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. The community of believers belonging to our one Lord Jesus Christ is the response to heaven which is maintained through the ages by the continuation of the Church’s traditions taught by the Apostles and their successors.

The history of prayer and the history of song operate hand in hand, from the depths of the earliest days of the heavenly creatures of God to the far reaches of our collective eternity. This symphony of faithful belief and sound practice is most mystically expressed in the creative art of music. "Chanting is an angelic ministry for [it] gives joy, but it is also prayer." St. Basil the Great teaches us that ecclesiastical chant is the "sweet honey" with which the Church blends her words, delivering to the world a joyous sweetness, and the faithful are the busy bumblebees that cultivate it from among the flowers of creation. The Eucharistic Liturgy cannot be imitated or simulated because it is the true worship of the Kingdom of Heaven, the mystical union between Jesus Christ and the Church which He delivered to and established upon the earth for all mankind. From the hymns of the Tabernacle to the angelic cries of Heaven, the sounds of God's creation echo most jubilantly in the chants of His faithful, the redeemed and sanctified, the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church of The Lord Jesus Christ. Lex orandi, lex credendi.

The Eucharist

The Context of Communion

"For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord” (1 Cor 23-27). St. Paul recounts to the Corinthian Church the words of institution which our Lord Jesus Christ pronounced over His last supper, His own sacrificial Passover, those very words which were held dear by the tradition of the apostles and are retained by the Eucharistic Liturgy to this day; and in this exhortation to his flock, the Apostle reminds them of the gravity of partaking of the body and blood of the Word of God, and warns them of approaching it unworthily.

The “eucharist has traditionally been at the heart of Christian worship,” according to Edward Foley’s historical survey of the celebrations of the Lord’s Supper, From Age to Age: How Christians Have Celebrated the Eucharist. As articulated by Fr. Alexander Schmemann, “the Divine Liturgy or Eucharist, [is] the very center of the whole life of the Church, the Sacrament of Christ’s Presence among us and of His Communion with us. This sacrament is the essential sacrament of the Church, for nothing in the Church can be achieved without communion with Christ in the Eucharist.” It is in the actual partaking of the bread and wine as the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ that the assembly of worshipping believers finds its purpose and the Eucharistic Liturgy its climax and intention. “We study those tangible aspects of the liturgy that have always been important to the experience of worship,” according to Edward Foley, in order to comprehend the way in which the worshipping assembly perceives the doctrines of the Church by partaking of its Sacraments. Therefore, it follows that the only context in which the rule of faith may be truly nurtured is that of the rule of prayer; the mystical reality of the worshipping community substantiates its doctrines. In explaining the ways in which the liturgical life of the Church should be examined, Fr. Alexander Schmemann clearly portrays the Eucharistic celebration as the summit of all liturgical experience, saying:

        “The Sacrament of Eucharist is the ‘Sacrament of all Sacraments.’ In it the ‘church’ (visible community) is changed into the Church, the Body of Christ, the new People of God, the Temple of the Holy Spirit. This is achieved by means of a sacrificial and eucharistic meal, instituted by Christ Himself, at which the whole Church offers to God, in Christ’s name, the sacrifice of praise, commemorating the Death and Resurrection of the Lord. And, having acknowledged the transformation of the Bread and Wine, the elements of our offering and ‘memorial’ into the Body and Blood of Christ, the Church partakes of them in perfect communion with Him.”

This orthodox catholic understanding that the Eucharist as the fullest expression of the worship of the faithful people of God is one which extends far beyond the 20th Century. Long before the writings of Fr. Alexander Schmemann and Edward Foley, many saints of the Church such as Nicholas Cabasilas (14th Century) and Cyril of Jerusalem (4th Century) described the reality of the Eucharistic Liturgy in similar reverence.

St. Nicholas Cabasilas

While the theological expose of this 14th-century Thessalonian on the worship of the orthodox catholic Church has proven a time-tested standard of liturgical theology, “very little is known of the life of Nicholas Cabasilas...He was in any case living at the time when the Byzantine Empire was convulsed by civil war” in the middle part of the 14th Century. In his famous treatise, A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, St. Nicholas Cabasilas, a Byzantine lay-theologian describes the sequence of events comprising the Liturgy and the related theological interpretations of said events from the perspective of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Cabasilas divides the structure of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrystostom (the Liturgy used most commonly by the churches of the Byzantine Rite, including the Eastern Orthodox Church, Byzantine Catholic churches, and other Eastern Christian communions) into its traditional segments: the introduction and Prothesis, the Liturgy of the Catechumens, and the Liturgy of the Faithful, followed by a theological parenthesis which provides an interpretation of the content of the Church’s worship. This section will describe the Liturgy of the Faithful, and its subsequent theological implications, regarding the celebration of the Eucharist specifically. 

St. Nicholas Cabasilas describes the celebration of the sacrament of the Eucharist (here described as “the holy mysteries”) as inherently central to the religious system of Christian worship, explaining that:

        “The essential act in the celebration of the holy mysteries is the transformation of the elements into the Divine Body and Blood; its aim is the sanctification of the faithful, who through these mysteries receive the remission of their sins and the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven. As a preparation for, and contribution to, this act and this purpose we have prayers, psalms, and readings from Holy Scripture; in short, all the sacred acts and forms which are said and done before and after the consecration of the elements.”

Here, the emphasis of liturgical theology is placed on the relationship of the faithful to the Savior of which they partake, rather than the doctrines which surround its explanation. From the Orthodox perspective of Cabasilas, the primary activity which occurs in the liturgical celebration of the sacrament is not the edification which comes from the various sacred texts which surround it, but rather, the actual deification and salvation of the people who gather unto the Divine Throne in the worship of the Holy Trinity. What happens in the execution of the liturgical service is both temporal and spiritual; while the prescribed elements which so beautifully comprise the activity of the Church assembly are entirely tangible and visual, their effectiveness on the soul of the communicant, mystically present in heaven, is entirely incorporeal. Regarding the oblation of the elements of the Holy Eucharist in the anaphora of the Liturgy of the Faithful (the segment of the Divine Liturgy in which the presbyter sacrifices to God the offerings of bread and wine on the Holy Altar), St. Nicholas Cabasilas maintains that “the souls of Christians, living and dead, benefit through this sacrifice.” While the souls and minds of the present faithful are enhanced by the religious observances of the elements of the Liturgy which surround the Mystical Supper, as these things offer a pedagogical witness to the knowledge of God and His Church, it is emphasized in Cabasilas’ Commentary that the spiritual impartation of a mystagogical (the spiritual edification which is experienced by the communication of the sacraments) witness to the Glory of God is the end goal of the participation in the Divine Liturgy. Remarking on the deification which is affected by the communion of the Eucharistic celebration in the greater context of the liturgical service, St. Nicholas Cabasilas reminds his reader that the faithful are, after all, partaking of the redeeming Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, explaining that:

"There is another way in which these forms, like all the ceremonies of the Holy Sacrifice, sanctify us. It consists in this: that in them Christ and the deeds he accomplished and the sufferings he endured for our sakes are represented. Indeed, it is the whole scheme of the work of redemption which is signified in the psalms and readings, as in all the actions of the priest throughout the liturgy; the first ceremonies of the service represent the beginnings of this work; the next, the sequel; and the last, its results. Thus, those who are present at these ceremonies have before their eyes all these divine things. The consecration of the elements— the sacrifice itself—commemorates the death, resurrection, and ascension of the Saviour, since it transforms these precious gifts into the very Body of the Lord, that Body which was the central figure in all these mysteries, which was crucified, which rose from the dead, which ascended into heaven. The ceremonies which precede the act of sacrifice symbolize the events which occurred before the death of Christ: his coming on earth, his first appearance and his perfect manifestation. Those which follow the act of sacrifice recall “the promise of the Father,” as the Saviour himself called it: that is, the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, the conversion of the nations which they brought about, and their divine society. The whole celebration of the mystery is like a unique portrayal of a single body, which is the work of the Saviour; it places before us the several members of this body, from beginning to end, in their order and harmony. That is why the psalmody, as well as the opening chants, and before them all that is done at the preparation of the offerings, symbolize the first period of the scheme of redemption. That which comes after the psalms—readings from Holy Scriptures and so on—symbolizes the period which follows."

Clearly, the Orthodox perspective promulgated by the aforementioned liturgical commentary is one of eschatological proportions, as the Church mystically participates in the sacrifice which was once and for all enacted on the cross of Calvary by the one redeemer of mankind, Jesus Christ. It is therefore no surprise that such a heightened explanation of the sacramental activity of the Holy Eucharist is accompanied by the assurance that the gifts of bread and wine offered upon the altar to God truly and mystically become the very Body and Blood of Christ. Thus, it is in the celebration of the Eucharist that the faithful communicants of the Holy Church of Christ encounter salvation face to face.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem

St. Cyril served his native Church of Jerusalem at the height of the Arian controversy in the 4th Century, having been elevated from among the ranks of monastics to occupy the episcopal throne; however, he did not oversee the local church before he had bestowed upon Christian literature his Catechetical Lectures, which were designed to instruct catechumens in their candidacy for Baptism, and ultimately, their reception into the holy catholic Church. Cyril’s Catechetical Lectures employ a mystagogical curriculum, as in them he employs the sacramental life of worship for the teaching of the doctrines of the Faith. After describing the rites of initiation, including Baptism and the Chrism, St. Cyril provides an apostolic description of the Eucharist and the Liturgy which surrounds it; the early edition of the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church which Cyril employs in his lectures is that which is ascribed to St. James, the first Patriarch of Jerusalem.

“On the Body and Blood of Christ” 

In Cyril’s Lecture XXII, his fourth lecture “on the Mysteries,” On the Body and Blood of Christ, he rouses an ardent defense of the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist; taking the Lord at His word, the catechist makes the following statement:

“Since then He Himself declared and said of the Bread, This is My Body, who shall dare to doubt any longer? And since He has Himself affirmed and said, This is My Blood, who shall ever hesitate, saying, that it is not His blood? Wherefore with full assurance let us partake as of the Body and Blood of Christ: for in the figure of Bread is given to thee His Body, and in the figure of Wine His Blood; that thou by partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, mayest be made of the same body and the same blood with Him. For thus we come to bear Christ in us, because His Body and Blood are distributed through our members; thus it is that, according to the blessed Peter, we become partakers of the divine nature.”

Clearly, this early Christian leader of the Jerusalem Church did not shy away from the claim that the mandate of Jesus Christ to “eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood” (John 6:53) was in fact one of the many promises of the Lord which would come to pass. St. Cyril continues to edify his listener, instructing the faithful that the nourishment for their souls in the “Bread of Heaven” and “Cup of Salvation,” just as had been promised by the Lord and preserved by the Apostles.

“On the Sacred Liturgy and Communion” 

        In his next lecture “on the Mysteries,” entitledOn the Sacred Liturgy and Communion(Lecture XXIII), St. Cyril thoroughly explicates the Divine Liturgy, following the reception of the newly illumined communicants by the sacramental rites of Baptism and Chrismation, or Confirmation. Commenting on the place of the Lord’s Prayer in the anaphora of the eucharistic Liturgy of the Faithful, he relates the “daily (or substantial) bread” with the Holy Gifts of the Eucharist, remarking, “give us this day our substantial bread. This common bread is not substantial bread, but this Holy Bread is substantial, that is, appointed for the substance of the soul…” The catechist’s observation of the Divine Liturgy of St. James quite obviously records the Eucharist as the climax of the entire setting of the liturgical drama. Fr. Emmanuel Hatzidakis, inThe Heavenly Banquet, remarks saying, “ultimately, the purpose of the Divine Eucharist is to lead the faithful to a transformation of their lives after the likeness of God—to salvation—which, in the orthodox understanding, is union with God, which begins from this life and is fulfilled in the life to come.” Union with Jesus Christ, and becoming “participants of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4) is the apex of Orthodox soteriology, so it is consistent that the Orthodox Christian sees the encounter with the mystical presence of Christ in the communion of the Divine Eucharist as the centerpiece of his or her faith experience. 

A Liturgy of Heavenly Worship 

As is still chanted, sung, or recited today in the liturgies of the catholic Church, St. Cyril records the hymn of the liturgy in which the faithful sing, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Sabaoth. For the reason of our reciting this confession of God, delivered down to us from the Seraphim, is this, that so we may be partakers with the hosts of the world above in their Hymn of praise.” St. Cyril of Jerusalem promulgates the standard Orthodox Christian sentiment that the liturgical worship service of the Holy Eucharist is an experience of heaven on earth, and that it is in the Divine Liturgy that man’s sensory perceptions encounter the Divine. Catechetical Lecture XXIII describes the partaking of Holy Communion thus:

“After this ye hear the chanter inviting you with a sacred melody to the communion of the Holy Mysteries, and saying, O taste and see that the Lord is good. Trust not the judgment to thy bodily palate; no, but to faith unfaltering; for they who taste are bidden to taste, not bread and wine, but the anti-typical Body and Blood of Christ...Hold fast these traditions undefiled and, keep yourselves free from offence. Sever not yourselves from the Communion; deprive not yourselves, through the pollution of sins, of these Holy and Spiritual Mysteries.”

Yet again, St. Cyril’s words not only defend the belief in the Eucharist as the Body and Blood of Christ, but even exhort the believer to actually approach and partake of the chalice of immortality, tasting and seeing that the Lord is good, never separating himself from the Holy Mysteries by missing the mark of righteousness in Christ Jesus. These lessons of the catechist serve as an apt reminder that the worship of which the Faithful partake is truly the worship of the Hosts of Heaven as they surround the foot stool of the Lord and glorify Him.

The Epiclesis

The Liturgy of the Faithful, or the Liturgy of the Eucharist, is the latter segment of the greater Divine Liturgy. This part of the Liturgy consists of three divisions: the preparation, the Holy Anaphora (oblation), and finally the Holy Communion itself. Within the celebration of the Holy Anaphora, the Epiclesis, or invocation, is the pinnacle of the Eucharistic assembly, and it is this invocation which St. Cyril of Jerusalem records in Catechetical Lecture XXIII, recounting, “then having sanctified ourselves by these spiritual Hymns, we beseech the merciful God to send forth His Holy Spirit upon the gifts lying before Him; that He may make the Bread the Body of Christ, and the Wine the Blood of Christ; for whatsoever the Holy Ghost has touched, is surely sanctified and changed.” At this time, the celebrant priest makes bold “to call upon Almighty God to send His Holy Spirit on us and on the Gifts offered,” and the transformation of the bloodless sacrifice of bread and wine into the mystical Body and Blood of Jesus Christ for the salvation of the whole Church. It is the epiclesis, the moment at which heaven infiltrates earth and the offering upon the altar, is transformed mystically by the presence of the Holy Spirit into the true sustenance of heaven, the Body and Blood of the incarnate Lord of the Christian Church. This element of the Liturgy of the Eucharist transforms not only the gifts of offering into the flesh of the Savior, but also the mere liturgical practice of corporate celebration into the worship of the saints and heavenly hosts beyond all time and space.

Different Views on the Lord’s Supper

When in the course of the study of liturgical theology, it is important to highlight the variety of liturgical practice and belief which exists in different religious sects, and recall that not every Christian liturgical ordo is in accordance with the teachings of Ss. Justin Martyr, Cyril of Jerusalem, Nicholas Cabasilas, or the Apostolic Sees of the catholic Church. In his liturgical overview, From Age to Age: How Christians Have Celebrated the Eucharist, Edward Foley begins to explore the understanding of Christian worship from the perspective of the faithful by calling to mind the fact that, “while ordinary Christians did not always have access to explanations that were provided, they did have their own experiences.” He continues by explaining that the most natural approach to the study of liturgical theology is not to look at the Church through the lens of the liturgical commentary, but to look at the liturgical commentary through the lens of the authentic experience of the Church’s worship:

“This approach allows us to consider seriously the liturgy as a source of belief and theology. The Christian churches today acknowledge the ancient teaching that worship is the source and embodiment of our common belief. At the same time, worship has the power to shape and change our belief. More than any official proclamation or systematic treatise, the liturgy announces who we are and who we are to become in Christ. Liturgy, therefore, is the bedrock upon which we build our theologies of God, church and salvation. Discovering how these beliefs were embodied and perpetuated by liturgies of the past can help us to look critically at contemporary worship and discover how liturgy is expressing and shaping our faith today.”

Just as the Eucharist is at the center of the Liturgy, the Liturgy (or way of worship) is at the center of the experience of belief. This observation by Foley clearly supports the foundational connection between the lex orandi (rule of prayer) and the lex credendi (rule of belief). Fr. Alexander Schmemann is quick to remind the reader of his Introduction to Liturgical Theology that “the Church has never believed that complete uniformity in ceremonies and prayers is an obligatory condition of her unity,” an observation which speaks to the various local traditions which throughout time developed within the greater catholic faith. However, in the same introductory work, Schmemann concedes that “the Eucharist must unquestionably be placed in the center of the first part of liturgical theology, the essential nature of the Church being actualized in the Eucharist as the Sacrament of the Church’s life.”

Fr. Alexander Schmemann summarizes the relationship between the confession of the Christian faith and its practices of worship in making the claims that “Christian worship, by its nature, structure and content, is the revelation and realization by the Church of her own real nature,” and, more poignantly, that “without [worship] there is no Church...worship is the purpose of the Church.” It is with these liturgical standards in mind that we must maintain the integrity of the Faith of the Church by preserving its worship of the Lord and Savior of mankind. Furthermore, “it is necessary once more to consider the Church’s everlasting ‘rule of prayer,’ and to hear and understand in it the ‘rule of faith.’ This is the task of liturgical theology.” The integrity of these governing principles of Christian worship is essential in the maintenance of the relationship between the lex orandi and the lex credendi, and the apex of this system which hangs in the balance of our faithfulness to the Way which was preserved by the Apostles is itself the Church’s very center of liturgical worship, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Schmemann observes this delicate balance in stating that “in early times the Church knew full well that the lex credendi (rule of faith) and the lex orandi (rule of prayer) were inseparable and that they mutually substantiated each other.”

The liturgical worship of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church is most fully expressed in the Mystical Presence of Heaven on Earth in the oblation and communion of the Eucharist. The liturgical theology of the Church articulates the experience of Heaven on earth in the celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy observed by the faithful in common celebration of the Lord’s Supper. The experience of the primary worship service of liturgical churches, along with their relation to the corporate assembly, finds its apex in the observation and communication of the Lord’s Supper, as the ultimate model for Christian worship according to the Liturgical context of the Church. 

Worship, for the catholic Church, is inextricably linked with the oblation and celebration of the Holy Eucharist, the Sacrament which must remain central to Christian worship, and has been maintained by the liturgical practices of the majority of the Church. The way of worship is the way of belief; lex orandi, lex credendi.

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