THE THEOLOGY OF LITURGICAL RENEWAL

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and St.-Vlasios

"Not only will bad-quality renewal not succeed, but it will even create spiritual injury..."

Every once in a while within our Church circles there
is talk of the so-called "liturgical renewal", often
regarded as a movement, attempting to reinstate the
ancient typica of worship and the ancient liturgical
traditions.

Despite the many attempts, which have occured
recently, for liturgical renewal, they've not taken
hold, and this is due to the fact they've undertaken
the change of the external practices while essentially
disregarding the Church's theology. If indeed, one
does not see the ecclesiology of worship and the
theology that nurtures this life of worship, and
furthermore if he does not see the ascetic and the
hesychastic dimensions of every such change, then his
liturgical renewal doesn't prosper.

For example there is talk of the return of the ancient
ecclesiastical practice of frequent communion. If
though, we don't examine the reasons that moved the
Christians to infrequent participation of holy
communion, or if we neglect the ascetic dimension of
the issue, then when this particular renewal prevails,
or if it prevails, it will be carried through as a
mechanical action and a mechanical renewal, because
communion of the holy gifts does not happen without
prerequisites.

In the Papal "Church" after the Second Vatican Council
they attempted to affect such a liturgical renewal,
that is, to simplify their liturgical life. However,
the Papal "Church" diverged from it's dogma, and
therefore the liturgical changes in the end did not
offer anything to the people.

Despite the good effort of those struggling for
liturgical renewal, some of the things with regard to
manner and movement bring me displeasure, whenever it
is connected to external and practical modifications.
And for this reason it's necessary to look a bit at
the theology of the so-called liturgical renewal.

In what follows I'll examine this subject in view of
the Church's theology and put forward some thoughts
which, in reality, show what is really meant by
liturgical renewal, because not only will bad quality
renewal not succeed, but will even create spiritual
injury.

1. There must be a concentrated and serious effort on
the part of the so-called liturgical reformation in
order to renew the Christian people, and the
modification of external practical rules truly must be
needed by Christians, and not simply appear to be some
command from on high, or even just a better cultural
adaptation. Really, in the Orthodox Church there is
not talk so much about liturgical renewal as for the
renewal of people, which involves repentance, changing
one's mind, and communion with God. In her words, it's
essential to first consider what is the Church, who
are her true members, and how can an impotent member
become an energetic member of the Church. On the Holy
Mountain, where the monks struggle, each in his own
way and to the degree of his strength and in the midst
of the entire hesychast tradition, there does not
exist a need of extensive liturgical renewal. Though
there are some small changes that occur with the
creation of services and troparia, there does not
exist the types or degrees of changes that the local
parish churches strive for. And this is because there
they give priority to internal renewal, where the
regenerated man and the renewed Christian "make new"
the same services; that is, it's not needed to change
them in order to flee the habit and the satiety. There
one lives the services from the perspective of his own
personal change, and so every time they appear new to
him.

2. It must be examined seriously why many liturgical
practices disappeared with the passing of time, and
why the Church through her pastors disregarded some
and introduced others. For example, the Church
introduced the use of a spoon to communicate holy
communion. There exists a reason which we must
consider. And that the Church detached the Mystery of
Marriage from the Holy Eucharist? Yet again there
exists a serious reason which must be discovered. It's
not possible to return to the ancient practices
without at the same time considering the causes which
motivated the Fathers to make the changes. And this is
not a work only for science, but mostly for theology,
in the patristic sense.

3. With our attempt to create liturgical renewal we
must be objective in order to see the entire spirit of
simplicity that is contained in the Divine Liturgy.
This is stated from the perspective that usually we
see liturgical changes as issues which don't relate
to our personal concerns. In other words, it becomes
selective liturgical modification. Some are interested
in our return to the simplicity of the ancient
liturgy, not considering the wealth of later worship
as the Church herself has developed it, through the
Holy Fathers and so they confine it to external forms.
For example, it's just not that easy for someone to
change a liturgical practice which the Church herself
has created. And what's more, one cannot shorten and
make more comfortable the divine worship while
forgetting about all the other elements which were
added later on, such as the clergy's vestments, the
various offices and their particular struggle which
has occured in order to strengthen everyone's personal
standing within the Church. Indeed, one can't forget
the way of ecclesiastical administration, lest it
become a borrowing from some tradition other than the
apostolic. A while ago they wanted to lower the
iconostasis in the churches and still they wish to
institute the reading of prayers out-loud, without
understanding the reasons why the secret reading of
prayers has been instituted, and also without giving a
thought to other foreign practices that have crept
into divine worship.

4. Many times these liturgical modernizations are
confined to a verbal understanding of what's spoken
and of what's done in liturgy. Without considering
such a position too lightly, I must point out that the
point is not the external rational understanding of
worship, but rather to proceed on to the heart of the
matter. From another perspective, man does not consist
only of intellect, and neither is the intellect the
center of his existence. There exists other powers
that characterize and complete the man as a person,
such as the noetic faculty, freedom, love, etc. And
so, a simple logical understanding of divine worship
is not enough, but rather it's necessary that we
proceed to participation in the spirit of divine
worship. And it is well known that the spirit of
worship is sacrifice, offering, and voluntary
emptying. Celebrating the Divine Liturgy we are able
to enter into the emptying of the Lord, who has gone
so far as the Sacrifice, the Cross, and Hades. So
then, this sacrificial love of Christ becomes the
prototype of every love, which from it's nature is
self-emptying, a cross, a sacrifice, and an offering.
At the very core of the Divine Liturgy are spoken the
words of Christ: "Take, eat, this is my body... drink
of it all of you this is my blood...". For the
liturgy-going person to learn to offer his own body
and his own blood, so that others may live, according
to Christ's example, is the experience of the Divine
Liturgy and participation in the spirit of the
eucharistic offering. Also heard in the midst of the
Divine Liturgy is the phrase: "Thine own of thine own
we offer unto thee in all and for all". This is
offering which is a participation in the spirit of the
Divine Liturgy. Whatever liturgical changes should
occur, if we've not learned to be transformed by the
spirit of the Divine Liturgy, which is sacrifice and
offering, then we've not at all benifited.

5. I hope that the ones who speak of liturgical
renewal have in mind the attempt to bring together
better the participation and communion of faithful
Christians into what's actually happening during the
services, with the participation in the spirit of
worship, and the experiential understanding of the
signs and symbols. Because it does not just mean the
external manipulation of liturgical elements, it's not
a one-way street. At the same time, there must be an
attempt to heal the powers and energies of the soul.
Because, an impediment for participation in the
services is not only the typicon or the language, or
the creed, etc., but rather the passions, the
contrary-to-nature energies of the soul. So it follows
that any attempt to return to ancient practices makes
it necessary to coordinate this with the attempt to
experience the way of our participation in the
mysteries. Because, as we know from the patristic
writings, the Christians participate differently in
the mysteries according to their varying degrees of
repentance. For example, St. Basil the Great in his
canons (something we discuss in every ecclesiastical
matter)differentiates five stages of repenting
Christians: the "weeping", the "hearing", the
"penitential", the "standing-firm", and the
"communicants" of the Holy Gifts. And so, any change
in practice and return to ancient liturgical forms,
without an analogous return to pastoral practices as
the Fathers describe, is not a liturgical reform, but
rather just becoming more worldly, since it is
effected through the rationalistic spirit of the
Enlightenment.

6. It becomes clear that a necessary consideration of
any participation in divine worship is the ascetic
life. And whenever we speak of ascetic life, we mean
the attempt of man to put into practice the
commandments of Christ and obtain an ecclesiastical
mindset, to transform self-seeking love into unselfish
love, and to arrive from self-love to love of God and
love of neighbor. The life of worship apart from this
ascetic life becomes a religious function which does
not transform the person. Exactly for this reason we
cannot see liturgical renewal apart from the ascetic,
neptic, and hesychastic life. It is characteristic
that St. Basil the Great, who lived as a monk and
wrote ascetic regulations and defined the way of
monastic life, made liturgical changes into which he
incorporated all of the theology that he lived. If one
reads the prayers that he composed for the Liturgy
that bears his name, he will see that they were
written by a God-illumined Father. And also St.
Gregory Palamas, who elaborated all of this hesychast
theology, was an author of liturgical prayers. He
composed theology of worship and of the mysteries, he
united closely the Church's mysteries with prayer of
the heart, just as we meet with in all of Church
tradition. The same we see in St. Nikodemos of the
Holy Mountain. He speaks of frequent communion, but at
the same time he experiences and represents all of
this philokalic tradition. And we can also point to
the situation of the revered Nikolaos Kavasilas who
wrote a commentary on the (service of) Holy Eucharist,
and at the same time identified it with life in
Christ, where he speaks of the ascetic life, the
transformation of the noetic faculty through prayer,
the control of thoughts, and the transformation of the
will through the keeping of Christ's commandments.

7. Divine worship and especially the center of
worship, which is the Divine Liturgy, is not connected
with the present time, neither does it simply offer
something for the present life, but rather it is
inspired by the future. Divine worship is closely
connected with the experience and expectation of the
life to come, which is present, but still always an
expectation. In other words, the Divine Liturgy does
not induce us to live only the life of the future
apart from the present and to be satisfied, nor does
it look to fulfil all of our happiness (now), but lets
us expect and to yearn with great thirst. The Reverend
Metropolitan of Pergamos John has vividly emphasized
this actuality, that we must not eschatologize
history. The movement that we observe within the
liturgy is not simply a movement from the things above
to those below, but also from the things below to
those above. In other words, in the Divine Liturgy is
kindled a hunger for perfect pleasure in the life in
Christ, in the future. Characteristic is the prayer
of St. Basil the Great after Divine Communion:
"Accomplished and perfected in so far as lies in our
power is all the mystery of Thy dispensation, O Christ
our God. For we have held in remembrance Thy death; We
have been filled with Thine immortal life. We have
delighted in Thine inexhaustible good pleasure,
whereof be Thou pleased to account us all worthy in
the world to come, by the grace of Thine eternal
Father, and thy holy, good and life-giving Spirit;
now, and for ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen".

8. It becomes apparent that the liturgical changes are
not the result of some Synodal decisions, nor the
elaboration and conclusions of seminars, but the
creations of Saints. The Church moreover works through
her Saints. We maintain that the Church writes the
Holy Scripture and the Church interprets it. And this,
certainly, happens through the Saints, who are the
living members of the Church. All great changes that
have happened in Church and in history have been made
by illuminated people who are the Holy Fathers. They
established something new which their flock accepted,
and consequently, by reason of the radiating
personality of the particular saint the change passed
on to the entire Church. We observe the same thing
happening with the influence of the monastic typicon
over that of the common typicon of the parish
churches. The genuine spirit of Orthodox Tradition,
that is preserved in the sacred monasteries, has
rightly and regeneratively influenced and effected
these common typica, just at the time when the
Christians were becoming more centered on the world.
The Church is the Body of Christ. As in the human body
which retains whatever benefits it and disgards
whatever harms it, the same happens within the Church.
It's that which combines with a long timely process to
disgard something introduced by un-illumined men,
while holding onto that which is healthy, that came in
from holy men. So we can say that every liturgical
change is adopted or disgarded depending on the
spriritual condition of the one who introduced it.

9. Liturgical renewal must have a relationship with
the rebirth of society, that is, it must accompany the
person even into his family and community life. If any
such renewal has a relationship with the improvement
of feelings inside the church, but doesn't touch on
realities outside the church, it does not come from
the Holy Spirit. So, instead of talking about
liturgical renewal, it would be better to speak of a
eucharistic ethos that affects the person in every
aspect of his life. Whenever the ethos and the spirit
of the Divine Liturgy do not relate to and do not
touch upon the administration of the Church and our
own interpersonal relationships, and once outside of
the church we assume our worldly ways and manners,
then this renewal remains in our life's periphery, and
on the surface without proceeding to the heart, which
ultimately doesn't give peace to the restless soul of
man, but rather discourages it even more.

Everything that's been brought forth has had the aim
to emphasize the fact that liturgical renewal is
meaningful and essential whenever it is connected to
the spirit of Orthodox theology and inspired by the
evangelical and hesychast tradition of the Church, and
whenever it comes from renewed men and aims at the
renewal of men. Apart from this, it will become
reminiscent of vaticanized liturgical renewals or
protestantized changes and minimalisms for the sake of
simplicity. And it's a shame to experience a
vaticanized or protestantized Christianity within the
rich tradition of the Orthodox Church.

*This text is an unofficial and uncorrected translation from an article written for Orthodox Typos, 29 June, 2001.


Alexandr