TRP2117 - Sanctification of Life:The Orthodox Mysteries (Sacraments)

Week 1

What is a sacrament or mysterion?

Take a few minutes and write down some words or sentences to answer

O heavenly King,the Comforter, the Spirit of truth,

who art everywhere and fillest all things. Treasury of blessings, and Giver of life:

come and abide in us,and cleanse us from every impurity,

and save our souls, O good One.

– Prayer to the Holy Spirit

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.     It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;     And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

    And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;     There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went     Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent     World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

– Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur”

“In the Orthodox ecclesial experience and tradition a sacrament is understood primarily as a revelation of the genuine nature of creation, of the world, which, however much it has fallen as

‘this world,’ will remain God’s world, awaiting salvation, redemption, healing and

transfiguration in a new earth and a new heaven. In other words, in the Orthodox experience a

sacrament is primarily a revelation of the sacramentality of creation itself, for the world

was created and given to man for conversion of creaturely life into participation in divine life.”

– Fr Alexander Schmemann, The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom

“If in baptism water can become a ‘laver of regeneration,’ if our earthly food—bread and

wine—can be transformed into partaking of the body and blood of Christ, if with oil we are

granted the anointment of the Holy Spirit, if, to put it briefly, everything in the world can be

identified, manifested and understood as a gift of God and participation in the new life, it is

because all of creation was originally summoned and destined for the fulfillment of

the divine economy—‘then God will be all in all.’ (1 Corinthians 15.28)”

– Fr Alexander Schmemann, The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom

No one definition

Good exam question!

Depends in large part (as we shall see) on how you think they should be enumerated

Helpful working definition from Fr Thomas Hopko…

So… what is a sacrament or mysterion?

“The Church may be defined as the new life in Christ. It is man’s life lived by the Holy Spirit in

union with God. All aspects of the new life of the Church participate in the mystery of salvation.

In Christ and the Holy Spirit everything which is sinful and dead becomes holy and alive by the power of God the Father. And so in Christ and

the Holy Spirit everything in the Church becomes a sacrament, an element of the

mystery of the Kingdom of God as it is already being experienced in the life of this world.”

–Fr Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith—Volume Two: Worship

“The Church as the gift of life eternal is by its very nature, in its fullness and entirety, a

mystical and sacramental reality. It is the life of the Kingdom of God given already to those who

believe. And thus, within the Church, everything we do—our prayers, blessings, good works,

thoughts, actions—everything participates in the life which has no end. In this sense everything which is in the Church and of the Church is a

sacrament of the Kingdom of God.”

–Fr Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith—Volume Two: Worship

Introductions

Syllabus Objectives Resources Evaluation Schedule

TRP2117 - Sanctification of Life:The Orthodox Mysteries (Sacraments)

TRP2123—Orthodox Eucharistic Liturgies and Liturgical Theology [Winter 2019] TRP2171—Sanctification of Time: Orthodox Liturgy of the Hours and Liturgical Year [Fall 2019] TRP2117—Sanctification of Life: The Orthodox Mysteries (Sacraments) TRP2331—Proclaiming the Kingdom: Orthodox Homiletics and Liturgical Celebration [Fall 2020-Winter 2021]

Also available as ‘reading’ courses when not in session

10-minute break

The Book of NeedsΕυχολόγιον (Euchologion): ‘book of prayers’

Требник (Trebnik): ‘book of needs’

English edition (St Tikhon’s Monastery):

Volume One contains the services associated with the ‘seven’ (!) sacraments

Volume Two contains services for the sanctification of ecclesiastical items, icons, crosses, etc, and services associated with the liturgical year

Volume Three contains prayers for various needs, general blessings, and services connected with death, funerals, burials, and commemorations of the departed

Volume Four contains moliebens, services of supplication, and other services of blessing

Read introduction

‘Sacrament’ or ‘Mystery’?

Our first ‘problematic’: which term to use?

Origins of two terms (avoiding etymological fallacy)

The word mysterion (μυστήριον) is used 27 times in the New Testament

For example:

ὅτι Ὑμῖν δέδοται γνῶναι τὰ μυστήρια τῆς βασιλείας τῶν οὐρανῶν, ἐκείνοις δὲ οὐ δέδοται.

“To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven…” (Matthew 13.11)

MysteryIn Greek philosophy, mysterion was used to refer to knowledge that was once unclear, but is now revealed

In the New Testament, mysterion means “that which awaits disclosure or interpretation”—connected with knowledge of God and His self-revelation

This “revelation” (ἀποκάλυψις = “uncovering”) is a main theme in the early church

Matthew 16.15-17: “He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter replied, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed (ἀπεκάλυψέν) this to thee, but my Father who is in heaven’.”

MysteryThe mystery of faith is connected primarily with what had now been revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus, but had long been ‘hidden’ (hence mysterion) in the scriptures:

See the post-resurrection narratives—Luke 24.44-47: “Then He said to them, ‘These are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem’.”

Moreover, the mystery is revealed, the appearance to the disciples on the Road to Emmaus shows, primarily in liturgy: in the opening of the scriptures and breaking of the bread

Luke 24.30-35: “When He was at table with them, He took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He vanished out of their sight. They said to each other, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us on the road, while He opened to us the scriptures?’ And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven gathered together and those who were with them, who said, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!’Then they told what had happened on the road, and how He was known to them in the breaking of the bread.”

MysterySt Paul likens this to a veil being removed:

2 Corinthians 3.12-18: “Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not see the end of the fading splendour. But their minds were hardened; for to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their minds; but when a man turns to the Lord the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

The revelation of the mysterion transforms us, changing us into the likeness of Christ “from one degree of glory to another”

SacramentAmong Latin speakers, μυστήριον could be translated as mysterium (cognate with and borrowed from Greek)

Though mystery still used with respect to the faith (mysterium fidei), by Tertullian (155-240) and Jerome (347-420) the word sacramentum is preferred

In ancient Roman religion and law, the sacramentum was an oath or vow that rendered the swearer sacer (“given to the gods”—in the negative sense, if he violated it)

Recruits in the Roman army became soldiers by undergoing a sacramentum, which consisted of an oath of office and a branding behind the ear with the number of his legion

With the sacrament, the soldier acquired new responsibilities (conforming to military discipline and obeying commands) and benefits (social and legal privileges)

SacramentLatin theologians used sacrament as the best Latin equivalent of the Greek mystery when it referred to a church rite because:

It has two parts (material and spiritual)—and against background of Platonic thinking, it asserts that physical acts and spiritual reality are one and the same The person receiving the sacrament receives new responsibilities and new spiritual status before God

St Augustine (354-430): A sacrament is the “visible form of an invisible grace” or a “sign of a sacred thing”

So sacrament, like mystery—and despite etymology—comes to mean the transforming revelation of the invisible reality of God’s grace

The words sacrament and mystery are thus interchangeable in English—though ‘sacramental’ (adjective) is to be preferred to ‘mysterious’

Where do we find the meaning and theology of the sacraments?

Sacramental theology vs liturgical theology of the sacraments

“In the early Church, in the writings of the Fathers, sacraments, inasmuch as they are given any systematic interpretation, are always explained in the context of their actual liturgical celebration, the explanation being, in fact, an exegesis of the liturgy itself in all its ritual complexity and concreteness.” (Schmemann, For the Life of the World, p 137)

Looking at liturgy (analysing words and rituals) vs looking through liturgy (seeing with liturgical lens, understanding liturgy as a way of thinking expressed ritually)

Focus on the liturgical context, though beware: eisegesis (imposing external interpretation on the text and rites) vs exegesis (drawing out the theological meaning from the text and rituals)

In looking at actual liturgical celebration, moreover, we need to consider not just text and rubrics, but embodied ritual action (and the participatory knowledge it conveys)

How do we understand what is ‘essential’ about the sacraments?

The Book of Needs introduction—just common sense

Also need to note historical changes and variations (even captured within Book of Needs)—the ‘essential’ would be located in that which was done “everywhere, always and by all” (to borrow the famous Vincentian canon)

Yet we need also heed Schmemann’s warning about the mediaeval De Sacramentis: it “tends from its inception to isolate the ‘sacrament’ from its liturgical context, to find and to define in terms as precise as possible its essence, i.e., that which distinguishes it from the ‘non-sacrament.’ Sacrament in a way begins to be opposed to liturgy.” (For the Life of the World, p 137)

So can we talk about the ‘essential’ part of the celebration of sacraments or no?

How do we understand what is ‘essential’ about the sacraments?

Schmemann goes on to clarify that the problem arises when this ‘essential’ aspect of the sacraments is seen as ontologically different from all other signs, symbols, and rites of the church

This leads to its isolation, its abstraction—attention to the meaning of a particular “sign of invisible grace” without reference to the whole life of the church, eg looking at ordination without its connection to the eucharist, itself within the whole of the Divine Liturgy, the enactment of the Kingdom to come

So, whilst we can locate ‘essential’ aspects of each sacrament, we must always integrate these into the bigger picture and sacramental worldview of the church, and the larger narrative of the Kingdom of God

How many sacraments are there?In the ‘school books’ (under the ‘captivity’ of Orthodox theology) Schmemann speaks about, there are typically seven listed

This follows a Latin scheme that emerged in the late middle ages

In the early period, writers were apt to refer to dozens of sacraments: St Augustine even considers the Lord’s prayer and Nicene Creed both to be sacraments among many

First systematic sacramental theologian: Dionysius (around 500) lists six sacraments: baptism, eucharist, anointing, ordination, monastic tonsure and funerals

Though as late as Hugh of St Victor (1096-1141) there is still a large number of sacraments in the west, that number gets whittled down by new criterion for a sacrament to be dominical (instituted directly by Christ)

How many sacraments are there?In Peter Lombard (1100-1164), we have a list of the western standard seven: baptism, confirmation (chrismation), penance, eucharist, anointing of the sick, holy orders, marriage

This seems to have been influenced by the symbolism of the number seven (eg seven gifts of the Spirit in Isaiah 11.1-3, which get related to the seven virtues—four cardinal virtues and three theological virtues)

These are enshrined by the councils of Florence (1439) and Trent (1545-1563)

Luther: three or two (he contradicts himself within the same book, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church): baptism, eucharist, and maybe confession

Most Protestants stick to baptism and eucharist

Anglicans: baptism and eucharist and, somewhat flexibly, the other five rites “commonly called sacraments”

How many sacraments are there?

What happened to the rest of the ‘sacraments’?

Early on, monastic tonsure and funerals were included

And Hugh of St Victor (11th c.) talks about sacraments like the water of aspersion (blessing of water), reception of ashes, blessing of candles, blessing of branches, and even acts like sign of the cross, the blowing of breath at exorcism, making prostrations, etc

These tended to become ‘sacramentals’ (noun)

In Roman Catholic theology, they do not convey the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that sacraments do, but they render things holy, encourage pious thoughts, and increase devotion to the church

How many sacraments are there?Meanwhile, in the Orthodox east, authors vary in their enumeration of the sacraments

Early Orthodox writers varied as to the number of sacraments:

St John of Damascus (676-749), St Photius (810-897) and St Gregory Palamas (1296-1359) list only two—baptism and eucharist—to which St Nicholas Cabasilas (1322-1392) adds a third, “myrrh” (chrismation)

St Theodore the Studite (759-826), great liturgical reformer lists six: About enlightenent

About assembly (synaxis, that is eucharist)

About the anointing ritual

About priestly integrations About monastic completion

About the holy ones who have passed on

Joasaph, Metropolitan of Ephesus (15th c.), lists ten: baptism, eucharist, ritual of the holy oil, ordination of the priests, dedication of a church, marriage before God, ritual for the dying person, anointing of the sick person, monastic profession, confession

Even when Byzantine theologians listed seven, they varied in their lists

How many sacraments are there?Despite this history, by the time reformed western Christians had entered into dialogue with the east, Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople (1530-1595) would assert the Orthodox Church definitely had seven sacraments

Patriarch Cyril Lukaris of Constantinople(1572-1638)—arguing against Roman Catholics using Calvinist theology—stated that Christ had only instituted two

Later, the 15th decree of The Confession of Dositheus from the Synod of Jerusalem (1672) would declare: “We believe that there are in the church evangelical mysteries [i.e., sacraments of the gospel dispensation], and that they are seven. For a less or a greater number of the mysteries we have not in the church; since any number of the mysteries other than seven is the product of heretical madness. And the seven of them were instituted in the sacred gospel, and are gathered from the same, like the other dogmas of the Catholic faith.”

And the catechetical manuals have followed suit ever since until the patristic revival and liturgical ressourcement of the 20th century

“The Church as the gift of life eternal is by its very nature, in its fullness and entirety, a mystical and sacramental reality.

It is the life of the Kingdom of God given already to those who believe. And thus, within the Church, everything we do

—our prayers, blessings, good works, thoughts, actions—everything participates in the life which has no end. In this

sense everything which is in the Church and of the Church is a sacrament of the Kingdom of God.”

– Fr Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith—Volume Two: Worship

How many sacraments are there?

“…the Church is in Christ like a sacrament or as a sign and instrument both of a very closely knit union with God and

of the unity of the whole human race…”– Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium 1

Next weekThe mysteries of initiation: baptism and chrismation (and eucharist)

Read selections of early church baptismal homilies

Review first week’s readings from Schmemann (focus on meaning of symbol) / read first chapter of Staniloae, “Christ’s saving mysteries: creation unified and made new” (note discussion of grace)