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TheosissepTember 2012

VoLUme 1, NUmber 1

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Theosis

Spiritual Reflectionsfrom the Christian East

sepTember 2012

VoLUme 1, NUmber 1

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ContentsFrom the Editor 6

Prologue 7

Feast of the Month 12

Mystical Theology of the Christian East 16

Liturgy and Prayer 19

Image, Symbol and Mystery: The Sacraments 23

Homiletic Reflections 27

Basics of the Eucharist 32

Applied Byzantine Liturgy 38

Musings from the Monastery 40

Feasting and Fasting in the Byzantine Typicon 47

Scripture and the Feast 54

Sacramental Living 58

Churches of the East: A Photo Essay 66

Menalogion: Calendar of Saints and Daily Prayers 72

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1 72

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 2 74

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 3 76

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4 78

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 80

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6 81

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7 82








THE “LUCAN JUMP” 99















Contributors 124

Sources 126

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From the Editor

Dear Friends in Christ,

Theosis is compiled and produced by Eastern Christian Publi-cations as a monthly spiritual reflection for all Christians who desire to learn how to follow Jesus Christ on their journey toward God and eternal salvation.

Theosis is available in two versions -- print and electronic. Both contain the same content and are distributed monthly.

The printed version is available as a monthly subscription by using the form at the back of this issue, or by ordering online from our website www.ecpubs.com/theosis.html. Individual issues are also available through some bookstores and out-lets, and back issues are also available from our website. Bulk orders of 10 or more copies are discounted.

The electronic version is distributed by email as an interactive PDF and ePub format as a subscription through our website based on 6, 12 or 24 month options. In these versions the Table of Contents provides links to each article, and book-marks provide easy navigation throughout the book.

Comments and suggestions can be sent to: [email protected]

All material is copyright by individual authors and sources, and used with permission. Theosis is provided as a personal guide and resource for spiritual reflection, not for public us-age, and further copying or redistribution is prohibited.

Jack FigelEditor

Prologue

Theosis (thē-ōʹ-sĭs) n. The doctrine of deification in Christianity explicitly expressed in the New Testament in 2 Peter 1:4. Taken up by early Christian writers it is found in Latin Catholic theology but is especially a pillar of Byzantine theology. For the Greek Fathers, Christ is the paradigm of theosis, articulated in the dictum, God became human that humans might be-come divine. [From Greek Theos, God].

Theosis revealed in the Inspired Word of God

Central to the doctrine of Theosis is the formulation expressed in the second universal epistle of Saint Peter where it is written:

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature…

2 Peter 1:3-4

These verses of the sacred scripture convey the apostolic preaching which the apostles received from Jesus Christ as shown in the high priestly prayer of Jesus Christ at the Mystical Supper.

I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they may also be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. John 17:20-21

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Theosis taught in the Patristic Witnesses

Saint Irenaeus, who in his youth had known Saint Polycarp who in his turn was a disciple of Saint John the Apostle, is a link between the apostles and their preaching and the patristic formulation of this doctrine. He formulated the divine kenosis (emptying) and human exaltation.

“…if the Word has been made man, it was so that men may be made gods.”

Against Heresies (Book 5, Preface)

He was not alone in articulating this doctrine during the immediate post-apostolic age. Saint Clement of Alexandria about the same time in the second century wrote in similar language.

“…the Word of God became a man so that you might learn from a man how to become a god.”

Exhortation to the Greeks, 1

“He who obeys the Lord and follows the prophecy given through him…becomes a god while still moving about in the flesh.”

The Instructor 3, 1

This formula was repeated in various ways in the patristic golden age of the fourth century in a number of writings, but the most notable synthesis was by Saint Athanasius in On the Incarnation.

“He [the Word] became man that men might become god.”

On the Incarnation 54, 3

In the Latin West

There are witnesses to the doctrine of deification in the Latin Church, as well, most notably Saint Augustine.

“God wishes to make you a god, not by nature, like Him [the Son of God] whom He begot, but by gift and adoption.”

Sermons, 166

This doctrine was included in the theological systematization of the great scholastic theologian, Saint Thomas Aquinas, who taught that deification or theosis is “full participation in divinity which is humankind’s true beatitude and the destiny of human life” (Summa Theologica 3.1.2).

This doctrine is expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church which quotes the writings of the fathers.

The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”: “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word, and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.”

Catechism of the Catholic Church, 460

In the Greek East

The Byzantine fathers were the ones who highly developed this teaching as the way to express their soteriology, or theology of salvation, as well as their Christian spirituality, or Way of living in the Holy Spirit.

Human beings remain human beings while participating in the divine nature just as the Son of God remained God when He became man in the incarnation. For example, a poker put into fire takes on attributes of fire: it burns, gives heat and light, and radiates energy but it remains iron.

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The true Christian understanding of theosis rejects any form of pantheism and any idea that all individuals cease, becoming fused into one single identity, or swallowed up as some eastern religions hold, into the deity. Rather, the individual remains a person in integrity, in fact, truly becoming the person they are created to be.

How does this come to happen? Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia explains the classic distinction between the essence of God which is unknowable and the uncreated energies of God.

As regards his essence, God is beyond all participa-tion and unknowable. As regards his energies, God is open to sharing and participation; that is to say, He is knowable, although never exhaustively known. In St. Basil’s words, ‘We know our God from his ener-gies, but we do not claim that we can draw near his essence. For his energies come down to us, but his es-sence remains unknowable’ (Epistles, 234.1). Applying this distinction to the doctrine of salvation, it follows that in theosis [Greek for deification] we share not in God’s essence but in his energies.

Salvation and Theosis in Orthodox Theology, 177

Of course, Metropolitan Kallistos continues, the energies of God are not a thing or object but God himself in his personal action.

The means to access this process that is, fundamentally, the very purpose of human life, is through the sacrament of baptism. Baptism heals the human nature by the forgiveness of sins and then incorporates the neophyte into union with Christ, crucified, risen, and ascended to the Father by the working of the Holy Spirit. This union with the Holy Trinity is life-giving.

At the risk of over simplification, the progress in the divine life through theosis is usually understood to be lived in three stages, sometimes expressed as purification, illumination, and union although sometimes expressed as praxis (both negative praxis, that is, the practice of repentance and asceticism and positive praxis the practice of the virtues), physical contemplation (the contemplation through nature), and theology (the vision of God).

Baptism unites a human to God and to the Church. All deepening in the divine life, all progress in perfection, that is, theosis, is achieved through the reception of the sacraments, the reading of and listening to the Word of God in the Bible, spiritual warfare, the work of charity, and most essentially, prayer. The Eastern Christian prayer most associated with theosis is the prayer of the heart, called in Slavic Churches, the Jesus Prayer, the center of hesychastic spirituality.

Theosis and Ecumenism

Theosis is accepted and taught as the Way to God taught by the Word of God by the Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Catholic Churches. Protestant Christianity shows an awareness and acceptance of theosis by John Calvin and by Methodists and recently by Lutheran and Evangelical Christian writers.

As Christians who follow theosis as the path to God, may this bring them closer to each other. May this publication, in both print and electronic form, serve as an introduction, an entrance to the Way, and may it help to bring believers closer to fulfill the prayer of the Lord, “…so that they may be one, as we are one.” (John 17:21).

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Feast of the MonthNativity of Theotokos (8 September)

By Archpriest Lawrence Cross

Your Nativity, O Mother of God, heralded joy to the whole universe, for from you rose the Sun of Justice, Christ our God. He cancelled the curse and poured forth his grace: He vanquished death and granted us eternal life.

Troparion of the Feast

The feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God is the first major feast of the Byzantine calendar. It is celebrated on September 8, and commemorates Mary’s place in the great work of Redemption. The Orthodox Church invites us to celebrate the “prelude of universal joy and the first fruits of our salvation.”

History

The feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, one of the oldest of the Marian solemnities, was mentioned by the Church Fathers, such as St. Epiphanius and St. John Chrysostom, in the early fifth century. Like other Marian feasts, it began to be celebrated at local level without any major solemnity. As the feast began to spread throughout the Byzantine world

in the sixth and seventh century, it was celebrated with greater solemnity. The solemnity of the feast spread to Rome in the seventh century, and in following centuries it spread throughout the whole Western Church. In the eighth century, at the time of St Andrew of Crete (+740), the feast of Mary’s nativity was already observed and celebrated in the same way as that of other major liturgical feasts of the Byzantine Church. The feast was established on September 8 because it was on that day that St. Helen, Emperor Constantine’s mother, dedicated the basilica she built in Jerusalem to the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Tradition

The Protoevangelium (Protevangelion) of St James, an early Christian manuscript dating from the middle of the second century, recounts the nativity and early life of the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to the story, Mary’s parents, Joachim and Anne (Anna), were righteous and devout servants of God. They experienced great sadness in their lives because they had not been blessed with children. Their prayers for a child remained unanswered for many years. One day, when Joachim brought his offering to the Temple, Reuben the High priest rejected Joachim’s offering and turned him away because Joachim had no children. Greatly distressed by these reproaches, Joachim “retired into the wilderness” to hide his shame. As Joachim opened his heart in prayer to God in the desert, it happened that his wife Anne was praying at the same moment in her garden at their home in Jerusalem. She prayed to the Lord, saying:

O God of my fathers, bless me and regard my prayer as you did bless the womb of Sarah, and gave her a son, Isaac ... what womb did bear me, that I should thus be accursed before the children of Israel, and that they should reproach and deride me in the temple of my God?

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While Joachim and Anne were praying at their respective places, an angel of the Lord appeared to both of them and announced that Anne shall conceive and give birth to a child whose name will “be spoken of in all the world.” Anne promised to dedicate her child to the Lord. Joachim hurried home with the joyous news and when Anne saw him coming, she too rushed to meet him to share with him the joyous news. As they met at the city gate Anne said, “’Now I know that the Lord has greatly blessed me; for behold, I who was a widow am no longer a widow, and I who was barren shall conceive.’” As time went on, Joachim and Anne had a baby daughter, whom they called Mary.

The Icon of the Nativity

The icon of the Nativity of the Mother of God shows Mary’s mother, Anne, resting on a couch, surrounded by two maidservants who are attending to her. Anne is looking towards the lower right of the icon where Mary, wrapped in

swaddling clothes, is shown in the lap of a midwife who sits on a stool near a basin filled with water. Mary’s representation in swaddling clothes is similar to that of the representation of her soul that appears in the hands of her Son in the Dormition icon. A second midwife is shown pouring the bathwater for the newborn child. There are several variations of the position and attitude of Joachim, Anne’s husband. On some icons, Joachim

is shown looking out the window of his house. The piece of cloth that hangs between the two buildings anticipates the duty of vestment-maker to the high priest that Mary was to carry out in the Temple. The cloth also appears in the icon of the Annunciation. The abstract architectural houses in the background suggest that the Nativity of the Mother of God is taking place inside the building.

Theology

The following liturgical texts of the Feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God express the spiritual significance of this feast to Orthodox Christians:

Today Anne the barren one gives birth to the maiden of God who had been chosen from all human genera-tions to become the dwelling place of the Creator, Christ our God and King of all. In her He fulfilled his divine plan through which our human nature was renewed and by which we were to be transferred from corruption to eternal life (Vespers, Tone 6).

What is this sound of feasting that we hear? Joachim and Ann mystically keep festival. ‘O Adam and Eve,’ they cry, ‘rejoice with us today: for if by your transgression ye closed the gate of Paradise to those of old, we have now been given a glorious fruit, Mary the Child of God, who opens its entrance to us all.’ (Great Vespers, Tone 2).

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Mystical Theology of the Christian East

By Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia (Timothy Ware)

The Holy Icon: Door into the Kingdom of Heaven

It is my happiness to share with you informally some of my thoughts about the significance of the icon. The title that I have chosen is the “The Holy Icon: Door into the Kingdom of Heaven.” I shall be speaking about things that are familiar to all of you, but sometimes even familiar things need to be re-emphasized. When I began my career of teaching at the University of Oxford, my mentor Henry Chadwick said to me: “Always remember that people like to be told things that they already know.”

How central, how fundamental are the Holy Icons in the spiritual life of the Christian East both Catholic and Orthodox! How impoverished our life would be without the icons! If we did not have icons, how much warmth, how much joy would be lacking! In the Christian East, whether Catholic or Orthodox, there is no act of prayer, either at church or at home, that is not accompanied by the Holy icons. They are with us everywhere. And this afternoon I have brought with me a small icon that I always have when I am writing or when I’m giving talks at conferences. This is the icon of the Angel (Blagoe Molchanie) showing Christ in the form of an angel. Theologians have a tendency to say too much. So I keep the icon of Good Silence as a warning in front of me as I write or speak.

Let us start by asking, “What is an icon?” The Greek word eikon as we know means likeness, reflection, image. When you look in the mirror and you see your own face, what you are looking at is an icon of yourself. When Narcissus saw his face reflected in a pool of water and fell in love with what he saw, he was looking at his own icon. So in itself the word ‘icon’ can have a very broad application.

However, when we are speaking of the icon as part of our prayer, then of course we need to qualify the word by saying the ‘Holy Icon.’ What then is a Holy Icon? What kind of special image or reflection do we find in the Holy Icons? An excellent definition is given to us in a text from the 8th century, The Life of St. Stephen the New, who died as a martyr in defense of the Holy Icons during the iconoclastic controversy. In this text the icon is described as a ‘door.’ What does that mean? The icon, so it is affirmed here, is a way of entry. It is an entry or means of access into what? It is a point of meeting and encounter. But an encounter with whom?

In answer, it may be said that the icon is a door into the Kingdom of Heaven. It is a means of access into the age to come. It is a point of meeting and encounter with the communion of saints. In this way the icon as a door fulfills a mediating function. The icon makes persons and events present to us. Through the icon we meet the person that is shown to us, whether that is Christ the Savior, the Mother of

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God, one of the Angels, or one of the saints. Through the icon we participate in the mystery that is depicted. Thus the theology of the icon is a theology of presence. For this reason it is better to describe icon as not just a window (as is often done), but a door. A window is something through which we look; gazing upon the landscape from a distance. But a door is something through which we pass so that we become actually part of the landscape. Moreover, doors are two-way, so that the icon is not only a door through which we pass into the Heavenly Kingdom, but through which the dwellers in the Heavenly Kingdom pass to meet us face to face. This is why I described the icon as a point of meeting, a place of encounter. It makes persons and things present to us immediately and personally.

In almost every Eastern Christian church an icon screen can be easily seen in the front — in some it is simple with just a few icons, while others are very elaborate walls that may even reach the ceilng. St. Symeon of Thessolonica, writing in the early 15th century, speaks of the icon screen as marking the frontier between earth and heaven. The icon screen, that is to say, makes the Kingdom of Heaven present to us here on earth. Through the icon screen, the persons depicted upon it — for example the person of Christ, the High Priest, the person of the Holy Mother of God with her Child, and further along St. George and others — all of them members of the Heavenly Realm, are all present to us. This icon screen does not act as a division, but as a bridge. Sometimes people complain that it hides things. But in answer to that, the Russian priest-theologian Father Paul Florevsky rightly insists that it hides nothing from us but on the contrary, it reveals supernatural realities to us and makes them immediately accessible.

To be continued...

Liturgy and PrayerBy Archimandrite Robert Taft, SJ

Reflection 1: “Lord, teach us to pray” (Lk 11:1)

In Lk 11:1 we read that the disciples, seeing Jesus praying, asked him: “Lord, teach us to pray.” Let us make the same prayer as we begin our retreat. For a retreat is nothing if not prayer, and to pray we need to know what prayer is. The kinds of prayer are many. In this first reflection, I am talking about what is usually called “private prayer” – though of course no prayer is “private” in the sense of being done alone, since it wells up from the Spirit of God who dwells within us. St. Paul tells us, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3). Furthermore, our prayer is always done in company with “the communion of saints” to which we belong by baptism.

I. Jesus Teaches Us How to Pray

As with everything in the spiritual life, Jesus is the model of our prayer. How did Jesus pray? He prayed liturgically, for the New Testament presents him participating in the Jewish festivals, in the cult of the Jerusalem Temple, and in the synagogue – i.e., in the Jewish liturgy of his day. More important for this opening reflection of our retreat, we also see Jesus praying privately, and therefore implicitly teaching us how to pray indirectly, by example. Jesus prays in solitude (Lk 6:12), especially when conflicted and distressed, as in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mt 26:36-46; Mk 14: 32-42; Lk 22:40-46), praying for comfort and relief in his sorrow. He prays to the Father in blessing, adoration, praise,

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glorification, thanksgiving, petition and intercession (Mt 11:25-27; Lk 10:21-22; Jn 12:41-42). He prays the wonderful prayer of farewell to his disciples in Jn 17. He prays in anguish at the hour of his death on the cross (Mt 27:46; Mk 16:34; Lk 32:34, 43, 46; Jn 19:30).

When asked directly how to pray, Jesus teaches his disciples the Our Father as the ideal model (Mk 6:9-15; Lk 11:2-4). He also instructs them to pray without making a show of it, but quietly, humbly, and in the spirit; not with “long prayers in public” like the Pharisees (Mk 12:40; Lk 20:47), but in solitude, using few words (Mt 6:1, 5-8), humbly asking forgiveness like the publican (Lk 18:9-14). Jesus tells us to pray persistently, even obstinately, pestering God until he gives us what we want just to get rid of us (Mt 7:7-12; Lk 11:5-13, 18:1-8). And we see Jesus’ own example, praying in the morning (Mk 1:35), in the evening (Mt 14:34; Mk 6:46; Jn 6:15), keeping night vigils (Lk 6:12) and exhorting his disciples to do the same, telling them to “Watch and pray, for we know not the day nor the hour...” (cf. Mt 9:14-15, 25:1-13; Mk 2:18-20, 13:33-37; Lk 5:33-35, 13:35-40; cf. 1 Thess. 5:2; Rev 3:3, 16:15, 19:9). Jesus also teaches us “to pray always and not to lose heart” (Lk 18:1), to pray with faith and confidence (Mk 11:24), because he assures us our prayers will be answered (Mt 7:7-11; Lk 11:9-13; Jn 15:7, 17, 16:26; Jas 1:5-8) – though of course not necessarily in the way we want. For as we pray in the Prayer of the Third Antiphon: “fulfill now the requests of your servants in all things good for us.”

So Jesus shows us that there is nothing for which we cannot pray except sin; he teaches us prayer of petition and thanks and sorrow and pardon and importunity and even complaint. And this prayer is both Christian and Trinitarian. For one can pray to the Father in Jesus’ name (Jn 14:13, 16:24; Phil 3:17, Eph 5:20); one can pray to Jesus directly (Mt 1:40-41,

2:5, 5:28, 36, 7:29, 9:27; Mk 10:46-52; Lk 23:39-43); and one can pray in (1 Cor 12:13) and to the Holy Spirit, as in the Byzantine “Heavenly King, Consoler, Spirit of Truth,” or the Latin prayer “Come Holy Spirit.” Christian prayer is also Marian prayer, for we imitate the “Fiat” (Lk 1:38) and “Magnificat” (Lk 1:46-55) of the Theotokos, and constantly invoke her intercession (Catechism of the Catholic Church §§2617-2619).

As to when we should pray, Jesus commands us to pray always, an injunction repeated several times in the NT (Lk 18:1, 21:36; Eph 5:20, 6:18; Col 4:2; 1 Thess 5:17-18). And from the start, beginning with the NT itself, we see the first Christians following Jesus’ example of prayer. From then on the Fathers and Mothers of the Apostolic Churches of East and West right up to the spiritual fathers and mothers of today maintain this teaching and follow this example.

II. What is Prayer?

How do these spiritual guides define or describe prayer? What, in their view, does it mean to pray? St. John Damascene (ca. 650-749), “last of the Greek Fathers,” wrote in his classic treatise On the Orthodox Faith 3:24, that “Prayer is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God, or the requesting of good things from God.” More recently, St. Theresa of Lisieux, the “Little Flower,” surely one of the most beloved saints of the 20th century, dear to Christians of both East and West, said more simply, in more direct feminine terms: “For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.”

So prayer is always a turning toward God in any one or all of the multiple ways it is given us to do that: in words or without, in thought, in love, in anguish or sorrow, in joy or depression, in thanks or complaint. There are no limits to it,

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and there is no definition that can exhaust its fullness, for its ways are myriad: Prayer is talking – but also listening; prayer is asking – but also receiving; for prayer is not our gift to God, but his to us, in the Spirit, the Paraclete or Comforter he has sent to be with us always (Jn 14:25).

For a more full and technical modern definition of prayer we find the following in the excellent Catechism of the Catholic Church (§§2564-2565):

§2564. Christian prayer is a covenant relationship between God and man in Christ. It is the action of God and of man, springing forth from both the Holy Spirit and our-selves, wholly directed to the Father, in union with the human will of the Son of God made man.

§2565. In the New Covenant, prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure with his Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit. The grace of the Kingdom is “the union of the entire holy and royal Trinity...with the whole human spirit.” Thus, the life of prayer is the habit of being in the presence of the thrice-holy God and in communion with him. This communion of life is always possible because through Baptism, we have already been united with Christ (cf. Rom 6:5). Prayer is Christian insofar as it is communion with Christ and extends throughout the Church, which is his Body. Its dimensions are those of Christ’s love (cf. Eph 3:18-21).

To be continued...

Image, Symbol and Mystery: The Sacraments

By Archpriest Lawrence Cross

Spirit and Fire

I am only a man. I need visible signs. I tire easily building the stairway of abstraction.

Czeslaw Milosz

Arise, and let my voice be heard. Charged with my will go forth and span The land and sea, and let my word Lay waste with fire the heart of man

Pushkin (1828)

In all its most ancient traditions Christianity is a sacramental religion. Sacraments form the very life of the Church through which the Spirit of God flows into the world. However, sacramentality implies a particular view of nature which is radically at odds with the secular, materialist view of modern western culture. It is a view that holds creation to be graced, sacred and full of meaning. The sacredness of nature thus lies at the very heart of Christianity and it is vital, when our relationship with nature is looming as one of the great moral questions of our time, that we understand how fundamental the sacredness of nature is to the sacramental life of the Church. In recent times this has become difficult in the Western Church because of the minimalist and informal way in which the liturgy and the sacraments are often approached. A study of the Eastern Church, with its

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