THE MIND OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH   1  ·   2  ·   3     4     5  ·   6  ·   7  ·   8  ·   9   © Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos The Church and the divine Eucharist, according to St. Maximos the Confessor Introductory about "Mystagogy" The Church according to St. Maximos The divine Eucharist according to St. Maximos Divine Eucharist and divine Economy Divine Eucharist and the perfecting of the soul by knowledge Recapitulation and exhortations Conclusions     [ BACK ] IV. The Church and the divine Eucharist, according to St. Maximos the Confessor

When we speak of the Church and the Divine Eucharist, we cannot neglect the teaching of St. Maximos the Confessor on this subject. St. Maximos was a great Father of the Church, a hesychast and confessor, and in his life and by his life he demonstrated the close bond that there is between hesychasm and confession. From his whole teaching we know what real orthodox hesychasm is, and also what confession is. In fact, when anyone applying the methods of cure attains the knowledge of God, then he is giving the good confession and becomes a confessor of the faith and the truth.

St. Maximos"s teaching about the Church and the divine Eucharist is shown clearly in an excellent and concise work of his, called "Mystagogy". In what follows we shall try to analyse some points in the "Mystagogy" of St. Maximos about the Church and the divine Eucharist. This text is rich in spiritual insights. However, we shall try to underline the most interesting ones on the subject of our concern.

First of all it must be said that the "Mystagogy" was written at the request of a well known saint, who is called "most venerable of all". The recipient of this interpretive analysis is unknown, but we owe him gratitude for making the occasion to write this excellent and important text.

From the introduction of the "Mystagogy" it is seen that St. Maximos the Confessor was speaking orally about the Church and the divine Eucharist, analysing the mystical visions of St. Dionysios the Areopagite, on whose works he was anyway a commentator. It made an impression on the listeners, and the "most venerable of all" requested St. Maximos to write down what had been said orally, so that the text which he would send him would be "a remedy against forgetfulness and an aid for the memory".

St. Maximos hesitated at first to proceed with this work. His hesitation was due to the fact that, on the one hand, as he himself says, he was completely uninitiated in "the art of discourse", and on the other hand because he was afraid that the humbleness and cheapness of his words would insult "the sublimity and interpretation of divine things" of St. Dionysios the Areopagite, who had written about the "Ecclesiastical Hierarchies". However, he confesses that he will emphasise some of the great and lofty truths which St. Dionysios the Areopagite presents in the work to which we refer, and indeed, as he himself confesses, "such things I remember and can comprehend dimly and speak of even more dimly". He begins this work with great humility and a feeling that he cannot surpass the most holy and truly divine interpreter Dionysios the Areopagite, who, moreover, is called a blessed old man.

After that, he asks God to be a sure guide on this journey. The saint asks God to guide his thoughts as well as what he says, because God is "the sole nous of intelligent beings and intelligible things, the meaning behind those who speak and what is spoken, the life of those who live and those who receive life, who is and who becomes all for all beings, through whom everything is and becomes". About God we can use both affirmative and negative expressions, because by the first His existence is affirmed, and by the second His transcendence is shown in relation to His created works. There is no likeness between uncreated and created, between God and His creatures. The being of God is simple, unknowable and inaccessible to man and altogether impossible to interpret, because it is beyond all affirmation and negation.

In analysing the "Mystagogy" of St. Maximos it should be said that we will divide the subject into three parts. The first will be his teaching about the Church, the second, a reductive interpretation of the divine Eucharist, and the third will be a review of what has been said in this work, with corresponding exhortations. I must underline the fact that if it was difficult for St. Maximos to present the teaching of St. Dionysios the Areopagite, as he himself confesses, it is more difficult for me to set out the whole teaching of St. Maximos about the Church and the divine Eucharist. I shall mention only a few indicative points.

But before I proceed to this analysis I would like to stress in an introductory way some distinctive points from the teaching of St. Maximos the Confessor which are essential for understanding what is going to be said.

One is that the content of the "Mystagogy" is closely related to the whole theology of St. Maximos, according to which the world is created by God and therefore must aim towards Him. Because the world is not self-existent, the whole creation contains the so-called logoi of beings, that is to say, God"s uncreated providential and administrative energy. By his uncreated energies God does not permit nature to pass from being to not being. Thus in the whole creation there is a movement bearing towards God. St. Maximos does not make the dialectical distinction between sensory and spiritual, which ends in diarchy and Manichaeism. When a person sees the world in this way, he changes his stand before it, he stands with respect, and yet he does not worship it. He renders thanksgiving and gratitude to God.

The second point is that he links the Church very closely with the divine Eucharist. In any case, the fact that in his "Mystagogy" he analyses the mystery of the Church as much as the mystery of the divine Eucharist shows the importance which he ascribes to the connection between these two mysteries, and that in reality the true divine Eucharist takes place in the Church and, of course, the Church is inconceivable without the divine Eucharist.

The third point is that St. Maximos, analysing what takes place during the divine Eucharist, makes a reductive interpretation. We must say that there is a distinction between allegory and reduction. The allegorical interpretation takes its start from one passage and one fact in order to formulate another truth and reality. It functions more like an example and a type. However, the reductive interpretation mainly presents the deeper meaning of what is said - let us say also, more generally, the deeper meanings and ideas of things that are. It looks at the essence of the things that do not appear to the senses and reasoning. Thus, in the analysis of the divine Eucharist we shall see St. Maximos making a reductive interpretation, helping us to see, by comparison with the Holy Temple, another reality which escapes our bodily senses and our impure mental senses that are prone to passions.

After these explanatory points we shall come to our subject, the analysis of some teachings of St. Maximos about the Church and the divine Eucharist.

In speaking of the Church, St. Maximos really means, on the one hand, the union of the world and of man with God, and on the other hand, the Temple, or church building, the place where this meeting and this wonderful unity are realised. Thus the Holy Temple is interwoven with this unity, which we call the Church. This has great significance, because the Temple is also called a Church from the fact that it expresses the true Church, which is the unity of the whole world with God. From what is to be said, it will be seen that St. Maximos the Confessor takes the Temple and its whole arrangement as an example to show this unity of the world with God.

a) St. Maximos says that St. Dionysios the Areopagite regarded the holy Church as a "figure and image of God", saying that this is true in the following sense.

God created the whole world out of nothing, and He Himself maintains it personally. Therefore by His power, by His energy, " He contains, gathers, and limits" all that exists in it, "and in His providence He binds both intelligible and sensible beings to Himself and to one another". He holds both the intelligible and the sensible in a unity by His uncreated energy, while they differ from one another in nature. And therefore no beings move in discord and mutiny. God keeps them in a unity, but without any confusion and disorder.

In this sense the Church is a figure and image of God. What God does with all beings, so does the Church. While there are many members who make up the Church, and they differ in race, family, nationality, language, age, opinions, manners, occupations, knowledge, characters, dispositions, nevertheless "to all it gives and bestows in equal measure one divine form and designation, to be Christ"s and to carry His name". And all the members of the Church, apart from the outward difference, have the same faith and the same life. They are called, and are, Christians. Thus, without their particular characteristics being lost, there is a wonderful unity among them.

Two examples are used to state this truth. One is the way of life of the first Church in Jerusalem, where, as is described in the Acts of the Apostles, they "were of one heart and one soul" (Acts 4, 32). The other example is the Apostle Paul"s teaching that the Church is the Body of Christ, and therefore the members of the Church are members of the Body of Christ. Hence there are no distinctions and differences within the Church: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3, 28).

Thus the Church is a type and image of God, because it brings about this unity among the faithful Christians, even if there are some differences as to their characteristics, ways and places. God brings about this unity by His energy, and indeed without confusion. He is the centre of all and He creates this unconfused union.

b) With the teaching of St. Dionysios the Areopagite still in mind, he says that the Church is a type and image of the "whole universe, of the existing beings, seen and unseen". The Church is a type and image of the whole world, which is made up of invisible and visible essences, because it admits of the same union and diversity as the world.

A tangible example of this union which is experienced in the Church is the Holy Temple, the church building in which we, the members of the Church, come together to share in the Sacraments, especially the bloodless Mystagogy. The Holy Temple is one single building, but it also has its special areas. It is divided into the place called the sanctuary, which is set aside for the clergy, and the place accessible to all the faithful laity who attend, which is called the nave. Thus there are separate places for the clergy and for the faithful laity. The faithful are referred to because the catechumens do not go into the Temple proper and do not stay to the end of the Divine Liturgy.

In spite of the difference of the special places there is unity, because the Holy Temple is a single building. Furthermore, there is unity between the clergy (the Sanctuary) and the Temple proper. The Temple too is called a sanctuary, because it has the power to guide man to priesthood, to deification. But also the priesthood is called a temple because it has its source there.

This can become understandable also in the following sections. I think, however, that something can be said about it here.

The Temple proper is for the faithful, the members of the Church. The Sanctuary, and especially the altar, is for those who reach illumination and deification. There is also unity between them, because from the true faith, the true life and the true way of life one can reach deification, which is signified by the Sanctuary and the altar. Vision of God is unthinkable without action, because the vision of God, which is seeing the uncreated Light, is the entrance to action, and action is not understood if it does not have its reference and movement towards the vision of God. It is in this light that we must look at the theology of St. Maximos the Confessor about man"s motion towards God. It is not a philosophical movement, but a purely theological one, which is not independent of purification, illumination and deification. We shall look at this subject below as it is analysed by St. Maximos the Confessor.

The Holy Temple, which, in spite of its division, constitutes a single reality, shows that the Church is the unity of the world. The whole world which was created by God is divided on the one hand into the intelligible world, "which is made up of noetic and incorporeal essences", and on the other hand into the sensible and bodily world, which is "ingeniously woven together of many forms and natures". In this way the entire world, the whole of creation, is in some way a Church not made with hands. The Sanctuary is the upper world and the Temple proper is the lower world, which has been given to those who live by their bodily senses.

And again we must emphasise that, according to the teaching of St. Maximos the Confessor, in spite of the difference which exists between them, the Sanctuary and the Temple proper are mutually bound together: "It shows to each other that they are both the same thing". Anyone who has the power to see perceives that the whole intelligible world "seems mystically imprinted on the whole sensible world in symbolic forms" and the sensible world exists in "all the intelligible". Analysing this point further, St. Maximos says that the sensible world is found in the mind through the logoi, through the thoughts which we have, while the intelligible world is expressed in the sensible through types and figures. However, this can be said also from the point of view that in the sensible world there are the principles of beings, God"s uncreated energies. And the intelligible world becomes comprehensible through the figures.

What is said by St. Maximos is a connecting together of his whole teaching about affirmative and negative theology, about so-called natural and supranatural revelation. By the former we arrive at seeing the invisible things through the visible, while by the latter, which is realised in those who have attained the vision of God, the visible things are understood through the invisible.

Moreover, the Church is a figure and image of the world that is made up of visible and invisible essences, which have their centre in God and are directed towards Him.

c) St. Dionysios the Areopagite, as is said here by St. Maximos the Confessor, teaches that the Church is an image of "the perceptible world by itself". This is said from the following point of view. In the Holy Temple we have the Sanctuary and the Temple proper. The Sanctuary, where there is the altar, suggests heaven, while the Temple proper, which is embellished, suggests the earth. In the same way also the world suggests the Church Heaven, where God, the angels and the saints are, is the Sanctuary, and the adorned earth is the Temple proper. From this point of view we can see the so-called Church in triumph, the spiritual element of the Church, and the Church militant.

In any case, as we know from the whole theology of St. Maximos, there are no autonomised regions between the so-called spiritual and the so-called material elements. The material receives the energy and blessing of the spiritual, of the grace of God. Thus in the Church the things that are regarded as simple and not worth mentioning have great importance.

d) Following the teaching of St. Dionysios also on this point, he says that the holy Church "symbolically portrays man", but it is also portrayed "as man by him".

First of all the Church portrays man. In the Temple we see that there is a Sanctuary, with the Altar in it, and also there is the nave. Man"s soul resembles the Sanctuary, the place of the priesthood. Man"s nous resembles the holy Altar which is the holiest place, the centre of the soul, where the real union with God takes place. And man"s body is the Temple proper. Thus with his body man practises so-called "moral philosophy", which is purification, the first stage of the spiritual life. Action in reality is linked with a person"s whole ascetic effort to purify the passible part of his soul. Through his soul man experiences "natural vision", which is the inner spiritual worship, and not independent of what is called noetic prayer. And through his nous man experiences "mystical theology", the holy altar "par excellence".

This interpretation by St. Maximos is not unrelated to his whole theology, which comprises purification of the heart, illumination of the nous, and deification, or as they are called elsewhere, action and vision of God ("praxis kai theoria"). And from this interpretation it is seen that the Temple proper was the place for the Christians who were going through the stage of purification, the Sanctuary was for the Christians who were reaching the illumination of their nous, and the Holy Altar was for those who had reached the vision of God. The stages of priesthood which are connected with the stages of the spiritual life are not unrelated to this interpretive presentation by St. Maximos the Confessor.

Not only does the Church portray man, but man also portrays the Church and is expressed by it. By means of the body, which represents the nave, he brightens the ascetic life of his soul by observing Christ"s commandments, which is done at the stage of moral philosophy. Through the soul, which resembles the Sanctuary, he offers to God "the principles of sense", purely because, that is to say, he separates them from matter, and this takes place through natural vision. At the stage of natural vision man offers the principles of things purely to God. He separates the principles of things from the passions and offers them purely to God. Through the nous, which resembles a Holy Altar, he summons within him "the silence abounding in song in the innermost recesses of the unseen and unknown utterance of divinity by another silence, rich in speech and tone". In this condition man experiences mystical theology and this means that he is deemed worthy of the indwelling of God, and he reaches the happy and blessed state of deification.

From this interpretation of St. Maximos it seems that the division of the Holy Temple shows the purpose of the Church, which is to guide the person to the holy sanctuary and the holy altar, that is to say, to natural vision of God and mystical theology, which is the illumination of the nous and corresponds to the deification of man. This is anyway the purpose of man"s existence. As far as he progresses in this direction, so far also does he become a Church, a Temple of the Holy Spirit. Then he is not simply a member of the Church, but he becomes a Church. Being a member of the Church, that is, is not unrelated to being a Church. The life of the Christian is connected with a movement. And this movement, as we said before, is related to asceticism, which is linked with man"s journey through purification to illumination and deification.

e) But the Church, according to St. Dionysios the Areopagite and St. Maximos the Confessor, is an image and type "of the soul considered by itself". The Church is not only an image of the whole man who is made up of soul and body, but also of the soul itself. At this point a greater analysis than the preceding position will be made. In this way we will be given the possibility of looking at the ascetic life more analytically, but also of seeing finally just who the whole man is, a living Church.

Referring to the teaching of St. Dionysios the Areopagite, he says that the soul of man consists "of noetic and vital powers". And the noetic power is moved "freely according to its will", but the vital power is moved "in accordance with nature without choice". The noetic power has the "theoretikon", which is called nous, and the "praktikon", which is called reason ("logos"). The nous is that which moves the noetic power, while the logos wisely governs the vital power. The nous is called wisdom when it directs its movements altogether unswervingly towards God. Likewise the logos is called prudence, when it unites to the nous the activities of the vital power which is wisely governed by it in sensible direction. In this way, by this motion, the virtues are shared, because indeed virtue has a share in both the nous and the logos.

St. Maximos gives a more analytical interpretation of this great topic, which is connected with the salvation and deification of man.

The soul has two powers: one is the theoretikon and is called nous and the other is the praktikon and is called logos. These are the basic powers of the soul. But other powers too belong to the soul. In the noetic part, powers of the soul are in order the nous, wisdom, vision of God, knowledge and enduring knowledge, all directed to truth. In the logos part, powers of the soul are reasoning, prudence, action, virtue and faith, all directed to the good. The end of the noetic and the logos, which are the truth and the good respectively reveals God Himself. The truth points to His essence and the good points to His energy.

If we want to present this division of the soul, we will make the following schema:

There has to be motion of both the nous and the logos. This motion institutes the deification and salvation of man. The nous must be moved towards wisdom, because it is called wisdom when all its power is directed towards God, with the aim of reaching the vision of God, of possessing knowledge and of ending in enduring knowledge and, of course, truth. The logos must be connected with prudence, because the logos is and is called prudence, when it prudently joins the vital power which is directed by it and this means that the body too is moving towards deification. Then the prudent word advances to action, which is purification, to the acquisition of virtue and the discovery of faith. And this results in acquiring the good.

What is very important is that St. Maximos does not separate completely either nous from word or word from nous. He teaches that these things go together and that there are five unions, which revolve "around the one important union of God". The first union is the nous and the logos; the second is wisdom and prudence; the third, vision and action; the fourth, knowledge and virtue; and the fifth, enduring knowledge and faith. The whole soul of man is moved towards God and united with God with the help of the one union which manifests God, and this is the truth with the good.

This theology of St. Maximos is not mental or philosophical, but experiential. He himself, having the experience of the spiritual life, could present it in this way. No one can, by philosophical conjectures, present the teaching which St. Maximos the Confessor sets forth. The visionary power of the soul (theoretiki) is not thinking, but the nous, which moves towards the vision of God, the vision of the uncreated light, when it acquires the true knowledge of God. And the practical power of the soul is the logos which moves towards action and the acquisition of virtue. This action is nothing other than purification of the heart. St. Maximos the Confessor means that action goes along with the vision of God. And of course action is not missionary action, and vision of God is not mental conjecture about God, but action, as we said, is the effort to have a pure heart, to have all the thoughts expelled from it, while vision of God is noetic prayer and the vision of the uncreated Light.

This is important because it shows the great value of the neptic and hesychastic tradition which our Church has. And it is further important because it shows that we must not limit ourselves to outward activity, but at the same time we must proceed into the interior. Moreover, it can be said that deification is impossible to reach without the accompaniment of action.

Then St. Maximos makes a thorough analysis of how the nous moves in order to reach enduring knowledge and truth, which truth is so called because it is "infallibly known". It is a certainty that the nous is in constant motion and this motion never ceases, because God is the truth "around which the nous, moving unendingly and infallibly, never has an end to its motion, not finding a termination to which there is no distance". The nous can never stop on its journey towards God, because what has no dimensions and what cannot be understood cannot be finished. Further, the saint describes how the logos moves through prudence, to action and to knowledge. From knowledge the logos arrives at the good, where its motion stops. The motion of the nous never ceases, has no end, while the motion of the logos has an end.

When the soul, by the grace of the Holy Spirit and by its own diligence and eagerness, has been able to bring together these five unions, that is to say, when it has succeeded in uniting reason with the nous, prudence with wisdom, action with vision, virtue with knowledge and faith with enduring knowledge, without there being too little or too much of one against the other, then even the soul itself "will be united with the true and good and one and only God". Then the soul will be united with God and become by participation what God is in essence.

St. Maximos attaches great importance to this unity of the pairs, but also to the movement of the nous and reason towards the truth and the good correspondingly. There is no immobility in the spiritual life. Through the struggle which the Christian makes - strengthened, of course, by divine grace - he acquires a blessed nous, prudent wisdom, vision in action, virtuous knowledge and enduring knowledge, which is very faithful and unchangeable.

In any case, energy is also a manifestation. The manifestation of the nous is the logos, as cause, as effect of the cause. A manifestation of wisdom is prudence, of vision is action, of knowledge is virtue, of enduring knowledge is faith. From these things is created the inner relationship with truth and the good, which is God. This relationship is called divine science (that is to say perfect, sure knowledge), love and peace, and in and through them deification exists and takes place. It is called science because it offers to man, as far as possible, knowledge about God and things divine, "and a perfect embrace of the virtues". It is called knowledge, because it lays hold of the truth and offers a lasting experience of the divine. It is called love, because it shares in the full happiness of God. It is called peace, because it prepares those who are deemed worthy of this state to share in the things of God.

When the soul attains this unity, as it is described in the "Mystagogy" of St. Maximos, and is collected towards itself and God, then "there is no reason to divide it purposely into numerous things because its head is crowned by the first and only and unique Word and God". This will happen because in the Word and God, Who is creator of all beings and their principles, are all these principles, that is to say, all the words, in an incomprehensible simplicity, live and exist in the Word.

Again I must repeat, because, unfortunately, this teaching is misunderstood, that St. Maximos is not a philosopher like the philosophers who study conjecture and imagination. The logoi or principles of beings, according to St. Maximos, are God"s uncreated energies, creative, governing and providential, which created the world and maintain it. Of course the logoi of beings are not self-existent, but God, through His energies, created and directs the world. Consequently the whole world contains the energies of God which give meaning to all the things that are, and which are what constitutes the deepest element of their existence. The bad thing is when we look at creation without seeing its logoi. We can say the same also about the logos in men. By this expression St. Maximos does not mean the logos which is constantly cogitated with passion, but the logos which is purified by practical philosophy and is offered pure to God. Thus when we speak of logoi we do not mean the various conjectures which come in a variety of ways and with passionate meanings. St. Maximos, therefore, is an ascetic theologian, because theology is connected with asceticism.

St. Maximos continues and says that when the soul is united with itself and God, then there will be no reason to divide it into many things by syllogisms. The soul united and gazing steadily at God, the Word of God, will itself understand the principles of beings. This means that it is only through the unity of the soul, through its purity, that the soul can see the principles of beings. So it is not a question here of an impure conjectural motion of the soul. In this way it reaches "safely both through them and harmoniously towards him". But this happens when the soul is wedded to God.

This whole analysis is presented by St. Maximos in order to relate it to the Holy Temple, because the holy Church is an image of man"s soul. The things that happen in man"s nous and what comes forth from it are symbolised by the clergy, that is to say the Sanctuary. The things that happen in the logos and proceed from the logos are manifested and indicated by the Nave. And these two are united and brought together in the sacrament which is performed on the divine altar. The work of the logos, which is connected with prudence, action, virtue and faith is indicated by the Nave. The work of the nous and its movement towards deification through wisdom, vision of God, knowledge and enduring knowledge is connected with the clergy, that is to say, the Sanctuary. Both movements of the soul, both nous and logos, end in deification, of which the altar is a figure. Whoever has been initiated into this mystery prudently and wisely "has been made a true Church of God, and his soul has been made divine". Thus the Church made by human hands, the Temple with its arrangement as Nave, Sanctuary and Altar, have given us a symbolic model to show us what should be our goal. Our goal is the holy altar. We should proceed from action to the vision of God, which is deification.

After this interpretation there are two further small chapters. One gives an analysis of how and in what manner the Holy Scripture is said to be a man. For just as the Church is the spiritual man and just as man is the mystical Church, so also the Holy Scripture is like man. The Old Testament is his body and the New Testament is his soul and nous. Moreover, the entire Holy Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, in its formulation with the "historical letter" is the body, while the nous of the things written and the goal towards which the nous is aiming is the soul. In the other chapter the truth is analysed about how the world is called a man and how a man is called a world.

In concluding this unit we can emphasise two basic points.

The first is that the way in which the Temple is arranged, in which the Church comes together, indicates man"s journey. Outside the Temple is the place of the Catechumens and of those without faith, the unbelievers. The Nave belongs to the faithful, who are at least in the stage of purification, in the so-called moral and practical philosophy. The Sanctuary belongs to those whose nous is illuminated, who have passed to the first stage of the vision of God, which is called illumination of the nous and natural vision of God. And the divine altar belongs to those who have reached mystical theology, enduring knowledge, deification. Within this spiritual presentation we can see the necessity for the iconostases and for secret reading of prayers of the Divine Liturgy. In this light we can look at the ascetic life of the Church, which guides people from purification to illumination and deification. Liturgical life without the ascetic life does not help effectively in the regeneration of the church congregation.

The second conclusion is that a person should not simply take part in the holy ceremonies and enter the Holy Temple, but he should become a nave and a real Church. He should make his soul and body "truly a Church of God". This means making man into a Church. When a man becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit and a Church of God, then he will be able to perceive the great value of being a member of the Church.

The things that have been mentioned thus far will be seen further within the perspective of St. Maximos"s reductive analysis and interpretation of the divine Eucharist. The Eucharist, which manifests the Church as the Body of Christ, is celebrated within the Holy Temple. And the Eucharist is attended by the members of the Church. St. Maximos with great theological penetration presents to us how one who is without faith, that is to say, who lacks the gifts of the Holy Spirit, comes into the Temple and the divine Eucharist, and how he progresses towards deification.

In his analysis St. Maximos interlaces the eschatological closely with the present: the things that will be in the future with those things which the Christian is enjoying now. Moreover, we cannot perceive the last things if we look at them apart from what God has done for man and apart from the incarnation of Christ. Thus in his whole analysis of the divine Eucharist St. Maximos presents two things. One is the work of the divine Economy, what God has done and is doing for man, and the other is the movement of man"s soul, as well as of the whole man, in order to be united with God.

First we shall see that the divine Eucharist points to the whole work of the divine Economy, what God has done for man and how man is responding to this work, and what is its outcome. And then we shall see how the Eucharist signifies the soul's journey to acquiring perfection, true knowledge.

The divine Eucharist, as it is analysed by St. Maximos, shows Christ"s great mercy towards mankind, and also how the divine Economy is experienced. All that is done and said in the Eucharist points to the stages of the journey towards deification.

The first entrance of the bishop into the Church to celebrate the Eucharist is a figure and image of the first appearance in this world of Christ in the flesh. By His work Christ freed human nature from corruption, sin, death and the devil. These are man"s greatest oppressors. Christ, who was "not liable but sinless" paid the whole debt "as under liability" and was guiding man to the original grace of the kingdom. Through His life-giving Passions He offered His salutary cure to the race of man, and thus Christ"s life-giving Passions cure our own destructive passions. After entering the Nave, the bishop ascends the throne. This points to the ascension into heaven of the Great Archbishop Christ and His restoration to the supracelestial throne.

The entrance of all the laity with the bishop indicates the return of the unfaithful from ignorance and error to the knowledge of God, as well as the passage of the faithful from ignorance to virtue and knowledge. At the same time it also indicates the return of us believers from failure to do God"s commandments, and by repentance, to correcting our loose and indecent way of life. The person who sins and commits passionate acts returns to virtue by his personal struggle, which is stated by his entrance into the Church.

The reading of "the holy books", the Holy Scriptures, signifies God"s desires and intentions. Through what we read we receive in proportion to our capacity the counsels by which we should act. We learn the laws of the blessed struggles through which we will rightfully attain the Kingdom of God.

The spiritual enjoyment of the divine hymns signifies the delight of the divine blessings. This delight moves souls toward the clear and blessed love of God and arouses them towards hatred of sin.

The salutations of peace which are issued from within the Sanctuary on the signal of the bishop at each reading indicate that God accepts the efforts of those who fight bravely for the truth and gives peace which resolves the invisible struggles and does away with the body of sin, at the same time giving the grace of dispassion to the saints who have struggled in their battles for virtue. In this way they direct the powers of the soul to accomplishing the virtues.

After the antiphons of peace, the holy Gospel is read. It proposes to those who are zealous some suffering on behalf of the Word. Through this suffering the Word of spiritual contemplation comes to them as High Priest from heaven to constrict their fleshly understanding of the world. It restrains their earthly thoughts and, after the closing of the doors, i. e. the senses, it leads them to the vision of spiritual principles and realities. Through this so-called hesychastic movement, the return of the nous into the heart and its union with God, one becomes a son of God by grace, as will be analysed for us in what follows.

Generally speaking, the reading of the Gospel signifies the completion of the world. After the reading of the Gospel the Bishop descends from his throne and the dismissal of the Liturgy of the Catechumens takes place; the Catechumens, as well as those who are unworthy "of the divine vision of the mysteries to be displayed", leave the Temple. This passage shows that not only the Catechumens leave the Temple, but also those Christians who were not worthy of the vision of the divine Mysteries. This action indicates that the Gospel has been proclaimed to all the world and the judgement is coming. Then His holy angels will separate the faithful from the unfaithful, the righteous from the unrighteous and the saints from the sinners. A just reward will be given to each according to his life.

The closing of the doors after the departure of the Catechumens signifies the passing from material things and the entrance of those who are worthy into the spiritual world, the nuptial chamber of Christ. It also signifies the complete extinction in our senses of deceptive activity.

The entrance of the august Mysteries is the beginning and prelude of the new teaching about God"s economy and the revelation of the mystery of our salvation, which is hidden in the most secret recesses of the divine.

The spiritual kiss which comes before the transformation of the Precious Gifts prefigures and portrays the concord, unanimity, and identity of views which we shall all have at the time of the revelation of the ineffable blessings to come. Moreover, the mouth is a symbol of the word. And all who commune in the Word also have communion with everything as well as with the Word, Who is the cause of every word.

The confession of the divine symbol of faith, the creed, prefigures our mystical thanksgiving in the age to come. Through it those who are granted these blessings will show gratitude to God for His great gift.

The triple exclamation of holiness proclaimed in the hymn "holy, holy, holy", represents the union and equality in honour with the bodiless powers, the angels, which will be manifested in the future. Then men"s nature will be taught to sing and to glorify the single Godhead in three Persons.

The all-holy and sacred invocation of our great and blessed God, the pronouncing of the Lord"s prayer, is a symbol of the personal and real adoption which is bestowed through the gift and grace of the Holy Spirit. Through this all the saints who in this life have adorned themselves with the virtues, will become sons of God and will attain adoption by grace.

The profession "One is holy, one is Lord. . . " which is voiced by all the people at the end of the mystical service represents the gathering and union beyond reason and understanding which will take place between those who have been mystically and wisely initiated by God and the mysterious oneness of the divine simplicity" in the incorruptible age of the spiritual world.

The distribution of the sacrament is participation in the divine life, and in this way men also can be called gods by grace, because they are filled with the grace of God.

The exhortation by the Bishop or Priest, "With fear of God, faith and love draw near", indicates the three classes of the saved. To the first category (with fear) belong the slaves, who do the will of God from fear. To the second category (with faith) belong the mercenaries, who out of a desire for promised benefits bear with patience the burden and heat of the day, that is, the affliction innate in and yoked to the present life by the condemnation of our first parents, and the temptations from it on behalf of virtue. And in the third category (and love) are listed the sons of God, those who are never separated from God, but struggle to maintain this relationship and unity, and they do not do it out of fear of threats or out of the desire for promised things, "but rather by the tendency and habit of soul towards what is good in spirit".

Thus, by this interpretation, the divine Eucharist indicates man"s whole journey to sharing in the eternal blessings and participating in the everlasting age to come. There already exists a foretaste of the future blessings.

The Eucharist not only points to the work of the divine Economy, in other words, to the purpose of the divine incarnation, but, in an apocalyptic way it also indicates how man is perfected and deified. It can be said that the Eucharist is a representation of the perfecting of the soul. All that has been said before applies also to the enlightened soul. This interpretive analysis shows how the divine institutions of the Church lead the soul to its perfection through true and effective knowledge.

Entering the Temple represents the distancing of the soul "from the error and confusion of external material things". The philosophers of ancient Greece, whom St. Maximos called unwise wise men said that the vision of God comes through seeing tangible things. However, the vision of God in the Orthodox Church has a different meaning and significance. It is not just the vision of tangible things, because among tangible and material things there is continual and unceasing warfare and mutual destruction. There is never a tranquil and secure situation. Through the natural vision of God, which is illumination of the nous in the theology of St. Maximos and all the holy Fathers, the soul goes inward as into a Church. This return of the soul is done with reason (logos) and by the Word (Logos), the great and true God. There it is released from all disturbance and attains deepest peace. Then it is taught the principles of beings. This is represented by the readings from the law and the prophets. The peace is linked with the divine and ardent desire for God.

This is the hesychastic movement of the soul. The nous withdraws from its dispersion among sensible and created things, enters the heart and there finds its natural condition, it aquires peace. Through this movement it passes beyond to the one and only summit, the holy Gospel, where the principles of providence and existing things meet together. Then, just as the bishop descends from his throne, so the lovers of God are granted to see with the eyes of their undistracted nous the Word and God Himself. And in this way the faithful are distinguished from the Catechumens. The Catechumens, as St. Maximos says, are those who take pleasure in sensation and are possessed by the imaginative thoughts which are connected with sensation.

Then the soul is granted to see the Word, who leads it to the spiritual understanding which is "immaterial, simple, immutable, divine, free of all form and shape". Through the spiritual kiss the soul comes to the Word of God, because it gathers "to itself" the words of salvation, and the Word teaches it through the creed to confess this with thanksgiving.

When the soul has encompassed with knowledge the principles of both tangible and intelligible things, it is led to the knowledge of revealed theology. Then the soul is taught as far as possible, one God, one essence, three Persons, unity of essence in three persons, and consubstantial trinity, "unity in trinity and trinity in unity". For the one is not divided into persons, nor are the persons combined into a unity. God remains a unity in spite of His trinity, and is a Trinity in spite of the fact that He is one. The Holy Trinity of the persons is without confusion as to essence and the holy Unity is three as to persons and mode of being. According to the characteristic words of St. Maximos the Confessor, when the purified soul is led to the experience of God, it sees one, single, undivided, unconfused, simple, undiminished, and unchangeable divinity, "completely one in essence and completely three in persons, and one single ray shining in the single form of one triple-splendoured light".

Then the soul is led to sonship by grace. And a result of this is that the soul no longer desires to belong to itself, but desires only to offer itself completely to God and to belong exclusively to Him.

Through this analysis of the divine Eucharist given by St. Maximos the Confessor, one can see the method which the Orthodox Church offers for a person to unite with God and participate in divine sonship in Christ, the participation of deification. The soul is concentrated, freed from the mastery of the senses, it is brought together into itself, the nous is illuminated and sees the principles of beings, as a result rises to the vision of God and there recognises the Trinitarian God, sees, as far as possible, the Holy Trinity - of course not the pure essence, but its uncreated energy. Orthodox theology is therefore connected with asceticism, with what is called the hesychastic method. By this method the soul is perfected and experiences the mystical divine Eucharist.

At the end of the "Mystagogy" St. Maximos makes a recapitulation of what he has said, which he combines with various exhortations for Christians to enter the Holy Temple and take part in the divine Eucharist.

Referring to St. Dionysios, he writes that he has exhorted the faithful to frequent and remain in the Church, the Holy Temple, and not to abandon the holy services going on in the Church. Indeed he said that the angels enroll those who enter the Temple, make them manifest to God and pray for them. Also in the Temple, especially during the holy Service, there is the grace of the Holy Spirit, which transforms each one according to his condition and leads him to those things which the holy mysteries symbolise.

Actually, in the church, especially during the divine Eucharist, the soul of the Christian is being changed. At the first entrance it is seen that unfaithfulness is expelled, faith increases, evil decreases, virtue increases, ignorance disappears and knowledge increases. The hearing of the divine words leads to permanent and unchanging habits and dispositions of faith, virtue and knowledge. The hymns signify the soul's assent to the virtues and the spiritual and noetic pleasure which come from them. The reading of the holy Gospel signifies the end of the carnal, earthly mind. The closing of the doors manifests the soul's desire to journey from the perishable to the intelligible world. It closes the senses and purifies them of the idols of sin. The entrance into the holy Mysteries indicates the perfect and new teaching and knowledge which God"s economy offers. The kiss manifests the concord and oneness and love of each one of the faithful with himself, the others and God. The Creed signifies our gratitude for salvation. The thrice-holy manifests union and equality with the angels. The Lord"s prayer signifies our adoption by grace. The "one is holy. . . " signifies the grace which unites us with God. The communion of the Holy Gifts shows that man has been granted to become God by grace.

The sharing of Divine grace and our adoption by grace is essential because, as St. Maximos says, what gifts man receives from the present life through the faith which is in grace he will also truly receive in the coming life.

And after this analysis the saint exhorts us never to leave the Holy Temple, especially during the Holy Synaxis, that is to say, the celebration of the bloodless Mysteries.

The "Mystagogy" of St. Maximos the Confessor is "par excellence" a theological, ecclesiological, mystagogical and ascetic text. It is, we could say, a summary of the whole teaching of the Church about deification. I would like to conclude by making the following points.

a) The Church, which is the Body of Christ, is associated with the church building, which itself is called a Church, and it is also associated with the divine Eucharist, which is the deepest expression of the Church. In the church building and the divine Eucharist we have living experience of the unity of the Church.

b) The structure of the church building points to the soul's journey to deification. Outside the building are those without faith, those who have not received the faith from revelation, they have not become members of the Church. We use the word "unfaithful" in this sense. Those who are baptised enter the Temple, and the Catechumens as well, up to a point. And I can add that not just the baptised enter, but all who are struggling to be purified of passions, to be freed from their slavery to the senses, which in reality is the condition of the catechumens. Therefore all who enter are in the stage of practical philosophy. Those who are in the stage of natural contemplation, whose nous has been purified and illuminated, enter the Sanctuary. And all who have reached the vision of God are associated with the altar.

c) The whole structure of the Eucharist shows this reality. It manifests to us just what is the work of the divine Economy. It signifies the eschatological condition of the world and of the righteous, which of course is beginning now. Moreover, through St. Maximos"s interpretation of the perfecting of the soul and the acquisition of saving knowledge, with reference to the structure of the divine Eucharist, we can see the link between eschatology and the experience of divine grace in the present life.

d) The experience of divine grace through the sacraments is not independent of the ascetic life. Sacraments and asceticism are connected and cannot be understood apart from each other. The sacramental regeneration which is taking place in our time must be accompanied by and associated with bringing asceticism to the fore and assisting people through the stages of the spiritual life, which are purification of the heart, illumination of the nous and deification.

The "Mystagogy" of St. Maximos initiates us into the holy of holies of orthodox theology. Then we are real and living members of the Church of Christ.

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