The Meaning of Our d ivi ne Services:

The d ivine Liturgy

The catholic consciousness of the Church, where it concerns the
teaching of faith, is also expressed in the Orthodox Divine Services
which have been handed down to us by the Ecumenical Church. By
entering deeply into the content of the Divine service books we make
ourselves firmer in the dogmatic teaching of the Orthodox Church.
✤Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology

The importance of attending Divine Services cannot be overstated. We sometimes hear others
pose the question, “What would Jesus do?” as if it is possible to imitate the Lord through a mere
act of will. The Orthodox spiritual life, on the other hand, allows the Lord to work through us;
we grow into the likeness of Christ through the acquisition of grace. Whereas we use our will to
obey the Lord’s commandments, we can only acquire grace through a synergistic communion
with Him: by receiving His Precious Body and Blood and by participating in His Services so that
the prayers of the Church become the voice of our spirit crying to the Lord. In this way, our spirit
is oriented toward Christ. Although the Divine Services transmit the essence of our Faith,
experiencing them can be so overwhelming that it imperils the correct understanding of their
meaning. If we experience the Divine Liturgy without understanding, we risk losing a proper
orientation toward the world, which Giorgios Mantzarides claims must be understood
symbolically for us to understand our relationship with God: “We need to begin seeing the world
symbolically once again. In this perspective, the whole world becomes a symbol of the personal
relationship of God with man and of man with God. Within the bounds of this symbolic relation,
man and the world find their realization” (Orthodox Spiritual Life, 67).

Let us begin a study of the Divine Liturgy by considering the Holy Altar Table,
the Throne of God, wherein the Divine Sacrifice of Christ’s Body and Blood
occurs. The image of the Divine Liturgy is given to us in Revelation. Read
chapters 4 & 5 of Revelation and you will see how the Hierarchal Divine
Liturgy follows the vision of St. John, which depicts the Church Triumphant in
Heaven. Those who claim that the Divine Liturgy is not Scriptural fail to see
how St. John’s vision uncovers (apocalypse) the Mystical Supper instituted by
the Lord. As an image of the New Jerusalem, the Holy Table’s “length and
breadth and height are equal” (Rev. 21:16). Each consecrated Altar has sealed
within it the relics of a martyr (our Altar contains the relics of Great Martyr
Lazar), because St. John saw “under the altar the souls of them that were slain
for the word of God” (Rev. 6:9). The Table is covered with a white linen and,
over that, an elaborate brocade; in this way it is vested like the priest who
wears an elaborate brocade phelonion (cape) over a white linen sticharion
(robe). On the Table is the antimins (‘instead of the Altar’): a linen cloth with
relics sown into it (ours also has the relics of St. Lazar), the image of Christ’s descent from the
Cross, and the signature of the Bishop who lends it to the Church. Originally, the antimins were
only for temporary Altars that were not consecrated, but now all Altars have one: it represents
the sacrificed Lamb: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain” (Rev. 5:12). On the Altar is a Gospel
with an icon of the Resurrected Christ on the cover and the images of the four Evangelists:
“And the first beast was like a lion [Mark who represents Christ as the King of all men], and the
second beast like a calf [Luke who emphasizes Christ as the sacrifice offered for all men], and
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the third beast had a face as a man [Matthew who represents Christ as the Son of Man], and the
fourth beast was like a flying eagle [John’s exalted theology]” (Rev. 4:7). Next to the Gospel is a
cross, the universal symbol of Christ’s victory over death. Our Lord Himself revealed to His
Apostles that, before His Second Coming in “power and great glory,” will “appear the sign of the
Son of man in heaven” (Matt. 24:30). St. Constantine, before the pivotal Battle of Milvian
Bridge in 312 A.D., saw a vision of the cross above the sun and heard the words, “in this sign
you shall conquer.” By resting on the Altar Table, the Table of Sacrifice, the cross represents the
instrument by which Christ’s sacrifice for us was enacted. Through this
sacrifice, He overcame death by death, so for us it represents victory and
blessing. This cross that rests on the Altar is used by the bishop at the
conclusion of the Divine Liturgy to bless the people as he distributes the
antidoron. In Greek practice, the priest does not use the blessing cross, only
the bishop; however, in Slavic practice, it is customary for the priest to also
use this cross to bless the people. The seven-branched candelabrum
represents the “seven golden candlesticks” (Rev. 1:12) amidst which Christ
appears; it also hearkens back to the layout for the Tent of Meeting in Exodus
25:37. Behind the Altar are images of the seraphim, representing the two
cherubim of gold that covered the mercy seat of the Ark (Exodus 25:18) and
the elevated Crucifix, representing Christ hanging on the Tree, the Fruit of
Eternal Life, the tasting of which can overcome the death that entered into
the world through eating the forbidden fruit. Importantly, in a Tabernacle
(small container shaped like a temple) either on the Table or suspended
above it, is the Lamb Himself: a small particle of Christ’s Body & Blood for
communing those sick or near death.

Beginning and The Great Litany

The Liturgy of the Catechumens begins with the announcement of the

Kingdom of Heaven and ends before the Passion [. . .] We find the
death of Christ twice: first in the Proskomedia (with the entombment
after the Great Entrance), and secondly after the Consecration [. . .]
The Liturgy of the Catechumens, which is Christ’s ministry on earth,
thus falls between His death during the Proskomedia and His
entombment after the Great Entrance.
✤Mother Maria, “The Experience of the Liturgy” in An Introduction to the Divine Liturgy

This Liturgy of the Catechumens is the second of the three-part Divine Liturgy. Bishop
Alexander (Mileant) of Buenos Aires and South America (✝2005) describes it as the point where
“the faithful are prepared for the Mystery.” This preparation takes place by emphasizing the
teachings of Christ during His earthly ministry, which are available not only to the faithful but to
those who are preparing to be received into the Church (Gr. katechoumenos ‘one being taught
orally’), hence: “Liturgy of the Catechumens.” Although only the second of three parts, we begin
our study with the Liturgy of the Catechumens because it is the first part most people experience,
the proskomedia taking place exclusively within the Altar.
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The service begins with the deacon asking the priest, who represents the Bishop’s authority, to
bless. Note that in the Church, everything follows a correct order: just as nine ranks of angels
serve the Lord, so too do the lower orders of clergy serve the bishop. Deacon literally means
“servant” and his orarion (the distinctive stole he wears either on his shoulder or crossed about
his chest) represents the wings of the angels. The priest responds not with his own blessing, but
with the exclamation that the Heavenly Kingdom is blessed. In so doing, he follows in the
footsteps of Christ, who proclaimed the Kingdom at hand (Mark 1:15) and St. Paul who
expounded on the Kingdom (Acts 28:23). The priest’s exclamation signals that during the
Liturgy, we experience the very same Kingdom Christ proclaimed. The Royal Doors are open,
signaling that the veil separating the earthly from the spiritual has been pulled back and we now
have access to the Kingdom of Heaven through our mediator, Christ. While exclaiming “Blessed
is the Kingdom of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the
ages of ages,” the priest makes the sign of the cross with the Gospel over the Altar Table,
signifying that this is the part of the Divine Liturgy where the Word will be proclaimed and, in
the homily, expounded. For this reason, the Liturgy of the Catechumens is sometimes called the
Liturgy of the Word. The people respond with “Amen,” which means “so let it be,” “verily,” and
“truly” in Hebrew. By so responding, all consent to the unfolding of the Kingdom.

The deacon, standing before the Royal Doors, is outside the Altar with the faithful. He begins the
petitions that we all pray, supplicating our Lord in Heaven to have mercy on us who have been,
since the Fall, exiled from Paradise where Adam and Eve freely walked with God in spiritual
concord. These petitions are called the “Great Litany” or “Great Ectenia.” Litany derives from
the Greek litanos, which means ‘entreating’; ectenia means ‘extended’ or ‘protracted,’ meaning
that these petitions are a protracted list of supplications. Because the Great Litany begins with
petitions for peace (Gr. irini), this litany is also known as the irenicon, or ‘peace-making
message’ or ‘proposition for peace.’ The deacon is leading the people in prayer, intoning the
supplications that all are praying in the heart. It is important to emphasize here that the mystical
action of prayer takes place silently within the hearts of all present. The deacon’s supplications
are not meant to replace this necessary spiritual and interior movement, but rather to provide
direction.

The first three supplications are for the peace that is necessary before we can enter the Kingdom:
“If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;
leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then
come and offer thy gift” (Matt. 5:23-24). St. Paul begins most of his epistles by evoking this
peace from above: “Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”
(Phil. 1:2). It is for this reason the priest begs forgiveness from the clergy and people before
beginning the service. In like manner should we ask forgiveness of our brother and sister before
Liturgy begins.

In peace let us pray to the Lord: Always remembering that prayer is more than the words we
speak – it is the internal action of our spirit inclining toward the Lord – we must be careful to
cultivate an inner peace when we pray. To this purpose, St. John Cassian (✝435) recommends
that the faithful come to church services well before they begin, so that the layers of the world,
its thoughts and its cares, can be shed and the proper spirit of peace may be the beginning, and
not the end, of prayer.
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For the peace from above and the salvation of our souls, let us pray to the Lord:
There is a greater peace than that achieved by shedding the cares of the world.
There is the peace of the grace of God, bestowed on us by our Creator and Savior:
“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I
unto you” (John 14:27). In the second of the three litanies asking for peace, we ask
for this peace and that our souls be saved.

For the peace of the whole world, the good estate of the holy churches of God, and the union of
all, let us pray to the Lord: Having asked for peace and salvation for our souls, we immediately
supplicate the Lord for peace for all, the health (literally, the ‘good stability,’ eustatheias, from
the stem stathmos, meaning ‘the weight-bearing pillar of a structure’) of Christ’s Church, and
that all may be united in Christ, which is the purpose of His Body, the Church. Our salvation is
not a solitary enterprise; it takes place in the context of our participation in the Church Militant
(that of the faithful here on earth) and the Church Triumphant (that of the saints and bodiless
powers). That the spiritual life is shared is the deep theological truth behind the supplicatory
prayer to the Mother of God: “Most Holy Theotokos save us.” We ask that we be saved together
because, in being united together through Christ, our salvation is bound up with one another;
therefore, after asking for peace and salvation for one’s self, it is natural and right to immediately
ask the same for the world. Of course, the chief means by which God provides for the salvation
of the world is through participation in His Church. Therefore, we follow our prayer for the
world with a prayer for His holy churches. It is important to understand this litany correctly. By
“churches” we do not mean the many and varied confessions of faiths and doctrines that
proliferate; neither do we mean the brick and mortar buildings. Rather, we mean the local
churches of the One Church, the Orthodox Church. Within our One, Holy, Apostolic Church
there are 15 autocephalous churches and another seven autonomous churches. In this
supplication, we pray for their good keeping and welfare. We conclude this petition with the
request that we all be united in the Lord, remembering that this is the purpose of the Church: to
provide for our salvation and deliverance from the world by grafting us onto Christ, the Living
and True Vine (John 15:1-8).

For this holy house, and for those who with faith, reverence, and fear of God enter herein, let us
pray to the Lord: After praying for the self-governing Orthodox Churches, it is then natural that
we pray for our home parish, consisting of the faithful who are uniting themselves to Christ. We
pray for the temple, literally “holy house,” which is a consecrated place of worship – a sacred
space set aside wherein people experience the Divine Mysteries. Once the Altar Table of a
Church is consecrated, it is to be an Altar until the Second Coming of Christ. There is no
“retiring” or “closing” an Orthodox temple, or “house of God, which is the church of the living
God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (I Tim. 3:15). We honor the holiness of God,
experienced in the Divine Mysteries, by entering the church with faith and in reverence and fear
of God: “let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly
fear” (Heb. 12:28). We place our faith in God that He will compensate for our insufficiencies
and weaknesses with His grace. We approach in reverence, never having idle conversation
(remembering how Christ threw out the money changers from the Temple [Mark 11:15–33,
Matt. 21:12–27, Luke 19:45-20:8, & John 2:12–25]) or inappropriate transactions in church,
especially in the nave (or body) of the church. And we draw near in fear of God, ever mindful of
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the dread and awe-inspiring reality of God and the account we must make
before His Throne during the Last Judgment.

So, in the Great Litany, the first three petitions are for peace and the fourth
petition is for the temple wherein peace is to be acquired and for the faithful
who are seeking it.

For our Bishop ______, for the honorable presbytery, the diaconate in
Christ, for all the clergy and people, let us pray to the Lord: St. Ignatius of
Antioch (✝108), disciple of the Apostle John, Patriarch of Antioch, and early
Church Father, wrote: “Let no one do anything that has to do with the Church without the
bishop’s approval. You should follow the bishop as Jesus Christ did the Father. Follow, too, the
presbytery as you would the apostles. And respect the deacons as you would God’s Law.” After
praying for the good estate of all the autocephalous and autonomous Orthodox Churches, it is
natural to pray for the local head of our Church, the bishop, and for the clergy who serve with his
blessing. The petitions of the Litany are careful to follow each other in order of importance, in
this way, the rational order of worship imitates the harmonious and Divinely-structured order of
the universe. Within this petition, the order is bishop, the honorable (timos) priesthood (literally
presbytery, the ‘elders’ who have rule over the ecclesia or local churches), the deacons
(diakonias, or ‘servants’) whose service is in Christ, all the clergy (kleros, from which we get
kliros, meaning ‘a lot,’ referring to those who are called to serve the Church by lot, as in the
selection of the Apostle Matthias: “And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias”
[Acts 1:26]), and the people (from laos, ‘people’ or ‘crowd’). The Apostle Paul is careful to
instruct: “Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of
God: whose faith follow” (Heb. 13:7). In this petition we take his words to heart.

For the President of our country, for all civil authorities, and for the armed forces, let us pray to
the Lord: Following the instruction of the Apostle, we pray for those entrusted with the
responsibility to lead and defend our nation: “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications,
prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in
authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty” (I Tim. 2:1-
2). Naturally, petitions for our secular leaders come after those for our spiritual shepherds.

For this city, for every city and country, and the faithful dwelling therein, let us pray to the Lord:
Having just prayed for our secular leaders, we then ask for mercy upon our city, for all cities, and
for the faithful Christians who live in it; in this way we join Moses who petitions: “destroy not
Thy people and thine inheritance” (Deut. 9:26).

For favorable weather, abundance of the fruits of the earth, and peaceful times, let us pray to the
Lord: Up until this point in the Litany, we have been praying for people, the Church, and the
cities wherein we live, not asking for anything other than peace and mercy. Now our petitions
become supplications for good things from above. The Apostle and Brother-to-the-Lord, James,
reminds us of the power of prayer when he wrote about the Prophet Elias (Elijah), who “prayed
again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit” (James 5:18). That prayer
for rain and a bountiful yield from our crops continues to this day in the Orthodox Church, as
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does the prayer for peace, which the Apostle Paul suggests we should make to “follow after the
things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another” (Rom. 14:19).

For travelers by land, sea, and air; for the sick and the suffering; for captives and their
salvation, let us pray to the Lord: Once we have asked for the edifying things that make peace,
we pray for the salvation of our brothers and sisters who are not present in this Divine Liturgy:
those who are traveling, those who are too sick to attend Divine Liturgy, those who are
incapacitated in some other way, and those who are imprisoned or held captive by foreign
powers, bandits, or some other authority holding them against their will. In this way, we fulfill
the Apostle James’s injunction for the faithful to pray for those who are sick (James 5:14-16).

For our deliverance from all affliction, wrath, danger, and necessity, let us pray to the Lord:
The template for the Church’s prayers are the Psalms of King David, the principal theme of
which is turning to the Lord in times of affliction: “Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon
me; for I am desolate and afflicted. The troubles of my heart are enlarged: O bring thou me out
of my distresses. Look upon mine affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins” (Ps. 24 [25]:
16-18). We pray that the Lord may bring us out of affliction, but we must be mindful that the
patient endurance of all troubles and pains is the path of Christ that leads to a Heavenly reward:
“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and
eternal weight of glory” (II Cor. 4:17). Therefore, St. Paul instructs us to be “patient in
tribulation” (“tribulation” here is from the same Greek word that is often rendered as
“affliction,” thlipsis) because of the promise that Christ gives us: “In the world ye shall have
tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John: 16:33). So, knowing that
affliction produces patience (Rom. 5:3), we pray that we may be delivered from it on account of
our weakness, knowing full well that as long as we suffer, we are not separated from the love of
Christ (Rom. 8:35). The emphasis in this petition is deliverance from suffering inflicted on us by
others: the wrath of tyrants, the danger that accompanies persecution and the necessity that
occurs when one is acted on by force. The Greek word rendered here as “necessity” is anagke,
which means ‘to be subject to authorities,’ ‘compulsion,’ or even ‘violence,’ ‘torture,’ or ‘bodily
pain.’

Help us, save us, have mercy on us, and protect us, O God, by Thy grace: This is the single
most-common petition, occurring eight times in the Divine Liturgy; therefore, we should
carefully examine for what we are asking. First, we ask for God’s help. At the end of the second
chapter of his epistle to the Hebrews, St. Paul specifies that Christ is able to succor us because
He assumed our nature (Heb. 2:18). Not only having made and fashioned us as our Creator, but
having lived as one of us, Christ knows what we suffer, but He also knows how to assuage it in a
way conducive to our salvation. Second, we pray that the Lord save us, remembering His role as
the Savior of humankind. Third, we ask for mercy from the Lord. This is the most basic prayer
in the Christian lexicon: “Lord have mercy.” Fourth, we ask that the Lord protect us. The Greek
word, diaphulasso, is literally rendered, ‘through-guard,’ for the Lord guards us and protects us,
often through the intercession of our guardian angel. Finally, we ask that the Lord do all of this
through the miraculous action of His Divine energies, His grace, which is the gift of God, freely
given. God is under no compulsion to assist us, but rather chooses to act out of His love for us:
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Eph.
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2:8); further, that Grace comes to us through our only intercessor to the Father, Christ: “grace
and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).

Calling to remembrance our all-holy holy, most pure, most blessed, glorious Lady Theotokos and
Ever-Virgin Mary with all the saints, let us commend ourselves and each other, and all our life
unto Christ our God: Whereas we have but one intercessor before the Father, we have a host of
intercessors⎯the saints⎯to Christ. Foremost among these is the Mother of God. As such, we
orient ourselves to God by calling to mind (from Gr. mnemosyne, ‘remembrance’ or ‘giving heed
to’) her supreme obedience to God, for the miracle of the Annunciation took place with her
consent. In so doing, she gave her life, which she had previously dedicated to God in the Temple,
to following the will of God. Remembering her example, and that of all the saints, we dedicate
our lives to Christ. The Greek verb parathometha here literally means
“attach” and its use suggests that we are to attach our life to Christ. Note
here how we do not do this alone, but we all dedicate ourselves to Christ
together. Just as we earlier prayed for the “union of all,” here we presume
that union and attach ourselves to Christ. The Mother of God is here
given her full title in the Church: All-holy (Panagia) because she is the
foremost example of cooperation between God and man, most pure
(ahrantos or ‘undefiled’) because she did not sin, most blessed and
glorious because she is called by Gabriel “blessed art thou among
women” (Luke 1:28) and the Prophet Isaiah calls her glorious: “his
resting-place shall be glorious: (Is. 11:10), Lady because it is the
traditional title for a queen, and as the Mother of the King of All and
Bride of Christ, she is both Queen Mother and Queen, Theotokos
because she was the birth giver of God, as recognized by Elizabeth when
she called her “the mother of my Lord” (Luke 1:43) and formally by the
Church (over the title Christokos) at the Third Ecumenical Council in 431 A.D., Ever-Virgin
because the Church has universally taught that she was always a virgin (her perpetual virginity
was declared at the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553 A.D.), and Mary, the English rendition of
her name, Mariam.

Having called to mind the Mother of God and all the saints, because we are “fellow citizens with
the saints” (Eph. 2:19), and renewing our dedication to attach ourselves to Christ like our fellow
citizens have done, the deacon concludes his portion of the Great Litany. The people respond,
affirming the deacon’s petition that we unite ourselves to Christ, by saying “To Thee O Lord,”
for it is to our Lord Christ that we direct and dedicate our spirit during this most sacred Divine
Liturgy.

The priest then responds with his exclamation: For unto Thee are due all glory, honor, and
worship: to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of
ages. The priest is here proclaiming why we have dedicated ourselves to a life of union and
attachment to Christ: because everything that is good, every blessing, every ephemeral moment
of inspiration, and every lasting reward comes to us through the Holy Trinity: our Heavenly
Father and Creator, Christ, the Son of God, our Redeemer and Savior, and the Holy Spirit our
Comforter and Benefactor. If one accepts that “No man can serve two masters” (Matt. 6:24), and
that every life represents service to someone or something (whether an ideal or material), even if
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the person being served is one’s self, then it is only reasonable that we would want to serve the
Source of all goodness. Part of that service is to deny ourselves, to flee praise and honor and,
instead, to ascribe all glory and honor to that Source of all. “Orthodox” can be translated
alternately as “right belief” or “right worship.” It is fitting that both “belief” and “worship” come
from the same root word, because, in the Christian understanding, one cannot worship correctly
without believing correctly and, conversely, one cannot believe correctly without worshiping
correctly. Therefore, as we stand in prayer in the Divine Liturgy⎯the Church’s ultimate
manifestation of “right worship”⎯the priest, our shepherd and spiritual guide, proclaims that
right worship must be directed to the Holy Trinity. Furthermore, as a representative of the
Apostle to the Gentiles, St. Paul, the priest instructs that all glory, honor, and worship should be
given to the Holy Trinity in the present moment and throughout all future ages: “Now unto the
King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever.
Amen” (I Tim. 1:17). As their response to the initial blessing by the priest, the people respond
with “Amen” (“so let it be,” “verily,” or “truly” in Hebrew). By so responding, all consent in
dedicating their lives to glorying, honoring, and worshiping the Holy Trinity.

During the Great Litany, the priest has a silent prayer that he reads in the Altar, called the
“Prayer of the First Antiphon:” O Lord our God, Whose dominion is indescribable, and Whose
glory is incomprehensible, Whose mercy is infinite, and Whose love for mankind is ineffable: Do
Thou Thyself, O Master, according to Thy tender compassion, look
upon us and upon this holy temple and deal with us, and them that
pray with us, according to Thine abundant mercies and
compassions. In this prayer, the priest, in his most import function,
calls down the Lord’s mercy upon all those present and those who
are absent with good cause (those remembered in the Litany: the
sick, suffering, captives, and travelers by land, sea, and air).
Recognizing that God’s power is incomparable, for He “hangeth
the earth upon nothing” (Job 26:7), the priest appeals to the Lord’s
infinite mercy and compassion, that He will deal with us, not
according to our works, but according to His mercy. As we read in
the eighth of the morning prayers in the Jordanville Prayer Book:
“For if Thou shouldst save me for my works, this would not be grace or a gift, but rather a duty;
yea, Thou Who art great in compassion and ineffable in mercy.” God’s mercy is great; St. Paul
describes God as “rich in mercy” (Eph. 2:4). Christ Himself testifies to the depth of God’s
compassion: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the
world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:16-17).

The First Antiphon

The Antiphons, named such because the three Antiphons are usually
sung antiphonally (that is by two choirs alternating with the first choir
singing the First Antiphon and the second choir singing the Second
Antiphon and both alternating during the Beatitude verses of the Third
Antiphon) begin with verses from the beautiful Psalm 102 (103),
praising the Creation given to us by our Creator Whom we have just
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supplicated for peace in the Great Litany. St. Jerome (from his Homily 30) notes:

“Bless the Lord, O my soul!” The Prophet bestirs himself to praise God. To bless the
Lord, that is, to praise the Lord, brings, moreover, a blessing upon oneself. O Lord, my
God, You are great indeed! You, who are God of all, are especially my God, for I am not
the slave of sin; I have merited to be called Your servant. “thou hast been magnified
exceedingly.” When I behold the sky, the earth, the birds, quadrupeds, serpents, and all of
Your creation, I marvel, and I magnify the Creator [. . .]

The Psalm verses of the First Antiphon describe the blessings of the Lord for which we should
give thanks; in so doing, they also anticipate the mercies of Christ and the Mystery of His
Incarnation, the ultimate expression of which is the Communion of the Gifts that will occur later
during the Divine Liturgy. Therefore, it is fitting to remember this supreme act of mercy and
compassion at the beginning of Liturgy.

Bless the Lord, O my soul! Blessed art Thou, O Lord! Bless the Lord, O my soul! And all that is
within me, bless His Holy Name! St. Jerome asks, “What name of the Lord is the Psalmist
thinking of here? If the Lord is called by name Lord, what does ‘and all that is within me, bless
His Holy Name’ mean? Simply this, the advent of the Son implies the name of Father. Before
the coming of Christ, God was known, but the Father unknown. Furthermore, He says Himself
in the Gospel: ‘Father I have manifested Thy name to men’ (Jn. 17:6)” (Homily 29). So, just as
the antiphons and beatitudes divided by the small litanies create a three-part structure that
honors the Holy Trinity during this early part of Divine Liturgy, here we sing a psalm that
anticipates the understanding of two Persons of the Holy Trinity: the Father and the Son.

Bless the Lord, O my soul! And forget not all that He hath done for thee! Who is gracious unto
all thine iniquities, Who healeth all thine infirmities! Who redeemeth Thy life from corruption,
Who crowneth thee with mercy and compassion! Here, at the beginning of Divine Liturgy, we
call to mind “all that He hath done for thee.” The Lord made all the Heavens and
the Earth for His creation, for “One does not build a house except for the sake of
its occupant” (St. Jerome). But the Lord, through His Incarnation and
Resurrection, has healed the infirmities that we inherited as a consequence of
our Ancestor’s First Sin; not, importantly, as inherited guilt, but rather due to the
change in our nature that occurred after that sin: the introduction of death,
decay, sickness, and disease into a world that was originally made to be free of
these debilities. The Mystery of Christ’s Incarnation and Resurrection redeems us from such
corruptions through “an amending of our nature, and pardon, not of debt, but given through
mercy and grace” (St. John Chrysostom, Homily XIV). The Lord’s mercy and compassion is,
indeed, the crown of our soul.

Who fulfilleth thy desire with good things! Each time we pray “O Heavenly King,” either at
home or at Church, we identify the Holy Spirit as the “treasury of good things.” The Lord knows
our needs and desires even before we ask: He sees to our needs, foremost of which is our
attainment of the Heavenly Kingdom, with a greater compassion and concern than that of any
father.
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Thy youth shall be renewed as the eagle’s! The Psalmist here, after promising that the Lord
saves us from our infirmities and from corruption itself (here understood to be the corruption of
the mortal body), promises that the Lord will restore our youthful vitality. This is possible in this
life through the the revifiying power of the Holy Spirit witnessed
in the healings wrought by the Apostles in Acts and the Holy
Spirit’s activity in the lives of the saints. But, this Psalm, and all of
the Divine Liturgy, points to the ultimate renewal that will take
place when the present world passes away (Mt. 5:18, Mk. 13:31, I
Cor. 7:31, 2 Pt. 3:10-13, 1 Jn. 2:17). This passing, in which “the
former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4) does not mean that
all of creation will be irrevocably destroyed. Rather, its form and
condition in the present age will pass away and it will then be re-
newed (Is. 65:17-25, Rom. 8:19-22, 2 Cor. 5:17, 2 Pt. 3:13): “He who sat on the throne said,
‘Behold, I make all things new.’” (Rev. 21:5); also: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the
first heaven and the first earth had passed away” (Rev. 21:1). To the extent that the Divine
Liturgy is eschatological, that is pointing toward the establishment of the Lord’s Kingdom, we
experience this future Kingdom within the Liturgy, which begins with the Kingdom’s invocation,
continues with its representation, and concludes with our participation in the Heavenly Banquet
of the Kingdom. In this Kingdom, both body and soul are renewed, as is all of creation. In the
Kingdom, all of renewed creation praises God; therefore, our worship in the Divine Liturgy also
consists of praise:
God meant Man to lead the creation in its praise of Him. Sin has deprived us of our place
at the head of the chorus; it has driven us out and sealed the lips created to praise our
Maker. Christ, the Lamb whose death takes away the sin of the world, ends this fatal
isolation and opens our lips that our mouth may show forth God’s praise. In Christ we
return to join the rest of creation, taking our rightful place as leaders in the choir. The
Liturgy begins with this antiphonal praise because our salvation consists of praise.
(Fr. Lawrence Farley, Let Us Attned: A Journey Through the Orthodox Liturgy 25)
King David compares our renewed youth to that of an eagle because the vigor and majesty of
the eagle, whom the Ancients believed could renew itself like the mythical Phoenix.

Compassionate and merciful is the Lord, long-suffering and plenteous in mercy! What gloss is
necessary here for a Christian? We who are about to partake of the Body and Blood of Christ,
Who hung on a Tree and endured mocking for our sake, even betrayal by those closest to Him,
must consider the limitless reaches of compassion, mercy, long-suffering endurance of trials!

The people then glorify (doxologize) the correct understanding of God: the Trinity of Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. The first verse of the Psalm is repeated to emphasize our praise of the
Lord. The deacon then raises his orarion and begins the Little Litany…

The Little Litany

The two small litanies divide the three antiphons into a three-part
structure honoring the Holy Trinity. These litanies are a
condensed summation of the petitions from the Great Litany: the
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second and third of these petitions are the last two petitions from the Great Litany and the first
repeats the Great Litany’s first petition, “in peace let us pray to the Lord,” with the addition,
“again and again.” The meaning of “again and again” is usually misunderstood to only refer to
the frequency with which the petition is said. However, this understanding comes from an
imperfect translation of the Greek eti kai eti, which should more accurately be translated “to an
even greater extent” (Hatzidakis, The Heavenly Banquet, 113). The result is that the call is less
for a superficial repetition of prayer, but that we plumb deeper into our continued prayer. We are
called to pray without ceasing, but our prayer is to increasingly delve spiritually to “an even
greater extent.” The other two petitions ask the Lord for help, salvation (“That thy beloved may
be delivered: save with thy right hand, and answer me,” Ps. 107 [108]:6), mercy, and protection
before concluding by calling to mind the Theotokos and all the saints so that we may attach the
entirety of our life to Christ through His Holy Church just as they have done.

The Second Antiphon

While the deacon intones the small litany, the priest prays the Prayers of the Second Antiphon in
the Altar: O Lord our God, save Thy people and bless Thine inheritance. Preserve the fullness of
Thy Church. Sanctify them that love the beauty of Thy house: do Thou glorify them by Thy divine
power, and forsake not us who put our hope in Thee.

This prayer is an adaptation and Christian update of Psalm 27 (28): “Blessed is the Lord, because
He hath heard the voice of my supplication. The Lord is my helper and my defender; my heart
hath hoped in Him, and I am helped and my flesh hath flourished again, and out of my desire will
I confess Him. The Lord is the strength of His people, and the champion of salvation for His
anointed one. Save Thy people and bless Thin inheritance; shepherd them and bear them up unto
eternity” (Ps. 27 [28]: 6-9). The priest’s prayer is a Christianization of King David’s prayer
because, whereas the “people” to whom the Psalmist refers are the Jewish people, we now
understand the people to be right-believing Christians⎯those who are part of the Body of Christ,
grafted onto the living vine after Christ “came unto his own, and they that were His own received
Him not” (John 1:11). After His rejection by His people, God opened the way for all the nations
to receive His “inheritance,” which is a place in the Kingdom of Heaven for eternity, victory over
death, disease, and suffering, and communion with God in His saints: “But as many as received
Him, to them gave he the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). When commenting on
this new meaning of “inheritance,” St. Symeon the New Theologian (✝1022) writes: “All those
who believe in Christ become akin to Him in the Spirit of God and form a single body”
before emphasizing the true purpose of the Christian life by challenging us: “If you want to know
whether I am speaking the truth, become a saint by practicing the commandments of God and
then partake of the holy Mysteries. Then you will understand the full import of this statement”
(from Ethical Chapters). As part of the one Body of Christ, Christians participate in “the fullness
of him that filleth all in all” (Eph. 1:23), a fullness the priest prays the Lord will preserve.
 12

Importantly, this prayer reveals the necessity of participation in the life of Christ’s
Body⎯His Church⎯for entering into this inheritance “unto eternity.” The priest
asks that those who love the beauty of the holy temple where He dwells to be
sanctified and glorified by His Divine energies. Unlike the art on display in
museums and coffee shops, this prayer reveals that the art that beautifies God’s
house can work to our salvation by instilling within us a love leading to repentance
and, ultimately, sanctification.

However, there is a deeper meaning to this prayer. The

prayer alludes to Psalm 25 (26):8, a verse that the
Orthodox understand as referring to the Mother of God:
“Lord, I love the habitation of thy house, And the place where thy
glory dwelleth.” The Lord’s house is “the place where thy glory
dwelleth,” the womb of the Mother of God. In praying that the Lord
sanctify those who love the beauty of Thy house, the priest is praying for those who love the
virtue and noetic beauty of the Mother of God. In being equated with the Church itself⎯the
Body of Christ⎯we understand that the Theotokos, who shares our mortal fallen nature, through
her sinlessness and obedience, prepares the way for the Savior of all mankind. As such, we are to
remember her beauty and, in all ways, emulate it. This is why it is typical for Orthodox Churches
to have the domed ceiling above the Altar adorned with an image of the Theotokos⎯the
container of the uncontainable God. The priest concludes his prayer asking that we not be
forsaken, thereby echoing King David: “Cast me not off, neither forsake me, O God of my
salvation” (in Psalm 26 [27]:9).

After the small litany, the people sing the Second Antiphon. Whereas the first antiphon is a
thanksgiving for God’s mercy, ending with Glory…Both now; the second antiphon begins with
only “Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,” thereby emphasizing that the
joyful praise of Psalm 145 (146) that follows is directed to the Trinity. We celebrate both the
compassion of our Triune God and His inerrant judgment, wherein we learn that those who put
their trust in important people are deluded: “Trust ye not in princes, in sons of men, in whom
there is no salvation. His spirit shall go forth, and he shall return unto his earth. In that day all his
thoughts shall perish.” About this verse, St. Jerome writes, “All the self-reliance of princes
vanishes; all their plans perish [. . .] today, he is; tomorrow, he is no more” (Homily 55 on Psalm
145). This Psalm also anticipates Christ and His ministry, both His earthly ministry and that
continued by His Church after His ascension. This ministry is one of mercy and charity, for
mercifulness “is dear to God, and ever stands near Him, readily asking favour for whomsoever it
will [. . .] God would have her rather than sacrifices” (St. John Chrysostom, Homily 32 on
Hebrews 12). This ministry ⎯ consisting of illuminating the blind, setting aright those who are
fallen, adopting and caring for orphans and widows, and feeding the hungry ⎯ will continue for
as long as He is King, which is for eternity: “The Lord shall be king unto eternity; Thy God, O
Zion, unto generation and generation.” As if to emphasize that the Lord reigns from now until
His coming Kingdom, the people conclude Psalm 145 (146) with “Both now and ever, and unto
the ages of ages. Amen.” The Psalm that begins with “Glory” concludes with “Both now,”
thereby emphasizing the exclamation of God’s compassion that comes in between as essential to
the Christian life.
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The people then sing an important theological hymn written by St. Justinian, Byzantine Emperor
(✝565). St. Justinian was the author of important theological texts, most of which are concerned
with efforts to clarify the Church’s teaching about Christ’s Nature while attempting (and failing)
to reconcile the Church with the Monophysites (those who believe Christ has one nature, e.g. the
Copts). The hymn that concludes the Second Antiphon is sometimes called a “short creed”
because it encapsulates our understanding of Christ and the Trinity: “O Only-begotten Son and
Word of God, Who art immortal, yet didst deign for our salvation to be incarnate of the Holy
Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, and without change didst become man, and wast crucified, O
Christ God, trampling down death by death, Thou Who art one of the Holy Trinity, glorified
with the Father and the Holy Spirit, save us!” The “short creed” deftly encapsulates John 1:1, 14
(“And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us”), 18 and John 3:16: “For God so loved the
world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish,
but have eternal life,” as well as the role of the Mother of God (Matt. 1:20-21) in the Incarnation
and Christ’s Oneness with the Father and the Spirit: “And Jesus when he was baptized, went up
straightway from the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of
God descending as a dove, and coming upon him; and lo, a voice out of the heavens, saying,
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:16-17). It also ends with what
Mother Maria describes as “the cry to be saved, the cry so often repeated in our liturgical texts
with the echo of St. Peter drowning in the waves” (An Introduction to the Divine Liturgy, 5)
from Matthew 14:22-33.

The Third Antiphon: The Beatitudes

As the deacon intones the second and final small litany of the Liturgy, the priest prays the Prayer
of the Third Antiphon: O Thou who hast bestowed upon us these common and concordant
prayers, and Who hast promised that when two or three are agreed in Thy Name Thou wouldst
grant their requests: Do Thou Thyself now fulfill the requests of Thy servants to their profit,
granting us in this present age the knowledge of Thy truth, and in that to come, life everlasting.

The priest, on behalf of all the people gathered, prays that we may acquire knowledge of the
Truth and eternal life. Importantly, this prayer reveals that eternal life is a quality of the coming
age, of the next eonian. Commonly rendered “eternal,” eonian certainly has that connotation,
such as when we read in the Apostle Paul’s epistle to the Romans: “But now being made free
from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end eternal
life” (Rom. 6:22). But the eon, the longest period of time in the Holy Bible, can actually be
divided into seven distinct divisions: pre-eternal time (see II Tim. 1:9: “before times eternal”),
five eons (The eon in Paradise, the eon between the expulsion from the Garden until Noah
(antediluvian), the present eon, and two future eons, these are the “ages of ages”: “and he made
us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his God and Father; to him be the glory and the dominion
for the eons of the eons. Amen” [Rev. 1:6].), and the eternity that reigns at the end of the eons
(“but now once at the end of the ages hath he been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself” [Heb. 9:26]). Life everlasting is rooted in the present⎯Christ has already been
victorious over the Devil⎯but it will acquire its full meaning with the coming of the Kingdom of
Heaven. Christians are to always have their attention directed to this Kingdom, which Christ
describes in many of His parables. But, since it is not possible to understand the goodness that
God has set aside for us in the Eternal Kingdom, we also pray for knowledge of the Truth:
 14

knowledge of He Who has promised “life everlasting”: Jesus Christ. “And for their sakes I
sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. Neither for these only do I
pray, but for them also that believe on me through their word; that they may all be one; even as
thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us” (John 17:19-21), so prays
Christ to His Father on behalf of His Apostles. To know the Truth is to know Christ; to know
Christ is to be in God “who would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the
truth” (I Tim. 2:4). Importantly, this Knowledge of Truth is inter-personal as well as personal,
for we are directed to gather together and where there are two or more gathered in Christ’s name,
there He is (Matt. 18:19-20). This is the meaning of the Divine Liturgy as a gathering of the
faithful.

It is significant of the Third Antiphon’s importance that the Small Entrance occurs during its
conclusion. The Third Antiphon may consist of different hymns, but in contemporary practice,
with some variation according to the liturgical season, it is usually the Beatitudes. As we
consider the meaning of these Beatitudes, therefore, we should consider the high regard the
Church has for them in using them as the “entrance hymn” for the Holy Gospel. It cannot be
overstressed that, as the Son of God, Christ is so much more than teacher; those who attempt to
limit Him by characterizing Him as a mere instructor of ethics attack His salvific role in our life.
Once we acknowledge the danger of such a misunderstanding, though, we can acknowledge
Christ’s Sermon on the Mount as the most important of His ethical teachings about how we
should live even as we strive for union with Him through participation
in Holy Communion. The entirety of the Sermon of the Mount, of
which the Church only gives us the Beatitudes during this point of the
Liturgy, was so important to the Apostle and Evangelist Matthew who
depicted it that he parallels Christ’s teaching the New Law with
Moses’s teaching the Law to the Hebrews after receiving it on Mount
Sinai. The branch that has been grafted onto the living vine is bound to
it with lessons in humility and godliness. When we sing these words
during Divine Liturgy, let us hear not only with our ears, but let us
attend with our hearts, lest we turn, instead, to the golden calves in our
lives and cause our redeemer to shatter His lessons for us against our
hardened hearts.

Before the first Beatitude, we sing the repentant thief’s prayer to the
Lord: “And he said, Jesus, remember me when thou comest in thy
kingdom” (Luke 23:42). Like the thief, whose meekness and humility
as he hangs upon a cross beside our Lord exemplifies the virtues of
the Beatitudes, we ask that the Lord remember us in His coming
Kingdom. In doing so, we affirm the forward-pointing, or
eschatological, dimension of Divine Liturgy. The Kingdom of Heaven
has already begun; we know this because the saints experience
glimpses of It while still in the flesh. However, the Kingdom will be
experienced more fully in the future, both after our individual deaths and, for all who escape the
judgment of God, after the Second Coming of Christ. The entire Divine Liturgy is structured
around expectation of this Kingdom wherein we hope to be received; this is why every Church
 15

Altar faces East, in expectation of Christ’s Second Coming and the fullness of the Kingdom of
Heaven.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. The word rendered “blessed”
here is makari, which means ‘joyousness springing from within.’ The word “beatitude” itself is
Latin in origin (beatus) and means ‘happy, fortunate, or blissful.’ Some translations render
makari as “happy,” but, as Jim Forest points out: “‘Happy’ in some respects makes for an
unhappy translation. Its root is hap, the Middle English word for ‘luck.’ [. . .] But [. . .] the word
blessed [. . .] was [. . .] chosen by translators in the seventeenth century. Blessed meant
‘something consecrated to or belonging to God’” (The Ladder of the Beatitudes, 18). In
beginning his teaching with makari (Berakah in Hebrew, a variation of which begins many
Jewish Prayers, such as Psalm 113:2: “Blessed be the Name of the Lord from henceforth and for
evermore.”), Christ echoes the Psalms, 35 different verses of which begin with Blessed. In fact,
the first word in the Psalms is berakah: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the
wicked” (Ps. 1:1). The Psalms, however, emphasize uprightness and keeping apart from the
wicked as in Psalm 118’s “Blessed are they that are perfect in the way, who walk in the law of
the Lord” (Ps. 118:1); St. Hilary of Poitiers calls this probity: “The primary condition is to enter
into the way of truth with experienced moral conduct and oriented towards the seeking of a life
without fault by the practice of the virtue normally known as probity” (Commentary on Psalm
118). Christ, on the other hand, calls blessed lowly qualities that would, heretofore, have been
considered defects of character or spirit. What the world despises, God raises up. St. Symeon the
New Theologian describes such ones as being “insulted, reproached, and in dire traits because of
His righteous commandment” (The Discourses, 53). The Greek word for “poor” here is ptochos,
which does not mean someone who has a very modest life, but “someone who is destitute. There
is a different word⎯penes⎯for a person who has the basic necessities [. . .] a destitute person
has been reduced to begging” (Forest 24). Importantly, Christ uses such an adjective to describe
the blessed one’s spirit. Those whose spirits are so destitute that they are reduced to begging for
spiritual satisfaction are promised the ultimate spiritual boon: access to the Kingdom of Heaven.
What is the mark of those so blessed? St. Symeon calls it “everflowing tears that purify the soul”
(53). St. John Chrysostom links poverty of spirit to “the humble and contrite mind” (Homily 15,
185) and St. Gregory of Nyssa tells us “who it is that is poor in spirit” by identifying such a
person as one “who is given the riches of the soul in exchange for material wealth, who is poor
for the sake of the spirit. He has shaken off earthly riches like a burden, so that he may be lightly
lifted into the air and be borne upwards” (The Beatitudes, Sermon 1, 89). St. Gregory claims that
the one who attains the Kingdom of Heaven gives up material wealth for spiritual wealth.
Although Christ says that it is poverty of spirit that is rewarded, St. Gregory clarifies that the
path to a destitute spirit is freedom from enslavement to material concerns. When one is free of
this attachment and when tears continually flow, God makes up for what is lacking in the
spiritually destitute person. And what better real estate agent could we ask for than the Architect
of Heaven? He who houses his spirit in destitution will exchange a hovel for the Kingdom.
 16

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. When
discussing the kind of sorrow to which Christ here refers, St. Gregory
of Nyssa marks the Apostle Paul’s distinction between godly sorrow
that “worketh out repentance to salvation” and ungodly or worldly
sorrow that “worketh out to death” (2 Cor. 7:10): “We should not
think it a loss to be deprived of some of the pleasant things of this life,
but rather to lose the better things for the sake of enjoying the others”
(Sermon 3, 116). Christ promises us the enjoyment of comfort;
however, just as godly sorrow can be contrasted with ungodly sorrow,
the Divine consolation here promised should be contrasted with “the
pleasant things of this life.” The Evangelist Matthew uses parakaleo
to render ‘comforted.’ It is the same root from which we derive
parakletos, used by Christ to name the Paraclete, or Holy Spirit, that
He asks the Father to send His apostles: “And I will ask the Father, and he shall give you
another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth: whom the world
cannot receive; for it beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him: ye know him; for he abideth with
you, and shall be in you” (Jn. 14:26-27). The promise of the Holy Spirit, Whose descent upon
the Apostles during Pentecost marks the beginning of the Church, animates, guides, and
comforts those who willingly indenture their life to Christ, sorrow over their sins, and actively
work for the salvation of their souls. It is the Holy Spirit that replenishes our spirit from His
abundance of spiritual joy, for His is the “treasury of good gifts” and He is the “giver of joy.”
This is our reward: not the comfort of a temporary condolence, but the promise of what St. John
Chrysostom calls “abundant consolation” (Patrologia Graeca 57:188). It is with profundity that
the Church gives us this promise in the midst of the Divine Liturgy, which itself is an icon of the
future Kingdom when God will be “all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28); as we sing of that comfort that will
be, we experience a foretaste of it now through right worship and our imminent communion of
the Divine and Holy Gifts.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. The Lord here reminds us of Psalm 36
(37): “Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: Fret not thyself, it tendeth only to evil-doing. For
evil-doers shall be cut off; But those that wait for the Lord, they shall inherit the land. For yet a
little while, and the wicked shall not be: Yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and he
shall not be. But the meek shall inherit the land, And shall delight themselves in the abundance
of peace” (8-11). The earth that is to be inherited is the new Promised Land, the new earth (Rev.
21:1). The meek have as their foremost example Christ, Who is “meek and lowly in heart”
(Matt. 11:29). St. Gregory of Nyssa notes that “He calls meekness a standard attainable in the
life of the flesh [. . .] He does not set up complete absence of passion as a
law for human nature; for a just lawgiver could not in fairness command
things that nature does not permit” (The Beatitudes, Sermon 2, 104).
Rather, meekness can be acquired by subjugating one’s passions to
properly-directed reason: “For the reasoning power restrains the desires
like a rein and does not suffer the soul to be carried away to unruliness”
(103). Acknowledging our self rule, God declares us heirs of a superior
estate.
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Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. St. Paisius
Velichokovski closely connects the desire for righteousness with tears of repentance: “With the
passing of time and to the degree of effort, tears, and weeping will come forth, along with a
slight hope for the soul’s comfort. Hunger and thirst after righteousness shall appear, that is, a
fiery effort to behave in everything according to His commandments and to achieve humility,
patience, mercy, and love for everyone” (Starets Paisii Velichokovskii, 153). St. Paisius here
emphasizes that the hunger and thirst for righteousness is a profound longing for the Truth that
comes from God, not ourselves. Righteousness in English can sometimes be confused with self-
righteousness, which refers to someone who is convinced of his own correctness. However, the
Greek word diakaoisune refers to the quality or state of being justified by another, in this case
God, not one’s self. The very first Psalm clarifies that the state of righteousness is bestowed by
God: “Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of
the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous; but the way of the wicked shall
perish” (Ps. 1:5-6). The Lord knows the ways of those who are righteous because He can see into
each and every heart. What we feel about ourselves is inconsequential at best and, when it
comes to self-righteousness, damning. To those, though, who hunger and thirst for God’s
justification, that is who pursue righteousness with the relentlessness of one starving, God will
meet out to them every kind of spiritual blessing: “For thou wilt bless the righteous; O Lord,
thou wilt compass him with favor as with a shield” (Ps. 5:12). “Therefore,” writes St. Gregory of
Nyssa, “God the Logos promises to those who hunger for these things that they shall be filled”
(Sermon 4, 18:127). Occurring in the context of the Divine Liturgy, the Lord’s promise of our
imminent satisfaction by being filled suggests the spiritual consolation of the Divine Eucharist.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. The prayer for the Lord’s mercy is the
most common one in the Church. Mercy refers to a moderation of the severity of justice, but St.
Gregory of Nyssa here suggests that it also includes an empathic quality: “Mercy is a voluntary
sorrow that joins itself to the sufferings of others. It is a loving disposition to those who suffer
distress.” In emphasizing the inner disposition, St. Gregory notes: “if a man only wills the good,
but is prevented from accomplishing it by lack of means, he is not inferior, as regards his state of
soul, to the person who shows his intentions by works” (Sermon 5, 18:133). Mercy, then, is a
quality that first occurs within our heart. In fact, the prayer “Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have
mercy on me a sinner” is called “the prayer of the heart.” Fittingly, then, this Beattitude is
followed by one that calls a blessing on the pure in heart.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. The Holy
Apostle Paul describes Christians as distinct members of the Body
of Christ and also as united in Christ, whose Body is both whole
and one. When speaking of the various callings that the members
of the Body receive, he makes distinctions: “Now ye are the body
of Christ, and severally members thereof. And God hath set some
in the Church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers,
then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, divers
kinds of tongues” (I. Cor. 12:27-28). In a similarly diverse fashion,
the Beatitudes distinguish between those who cultivate the
different Godly virtues; those who so do receive the promise of
Heavenly compensation. Although some Fathers emphasize how
 18

the Beatitudes are related, for example St. Symeon the New
Theologian and Blessed Theophylact, whose commentary on the
Gospel of Matthew suggests that the virtues associated with the
Beatitudes are cumulative, every saint does not always exhibit
every Godly virtue. The Beatitude that is rewarded the most handsomely is purity of heart, for it
is the pure in heart who behold God Himself. “For there is nothing more needful to see God,”
writes St. John Chrysostom (Patrologia Graeca 57:189) as purity of heart, which St. Isaac the
Syrian describes as “a heart full of compassion for the whole of created nature [. . .] a heart
which burns for all creation, for the birds, for the beasts [. . .] for every creature. When he thinks
about them, when he looks at them, his eyes fill with tears. So strong, so violent is his
compassion [. . .] that his heart breaks when he sees the pain and suffering of the humblest
creature. That is why he prays with tears at every moment” (Ascetic Treatises 81). St. Basil the
Great describes the experience of seeing God as “the genuine contemplation of realities”: “Now
we behold ‘as in a glass’ (I Cor. 13:12) the shadows of things, the archetypes of which we shall
behold later, when we are set free from this earthly body and have put on an incorruptible and
immortal body. Then we shall see, that is, if we steer our life’s course towards the right, and if
we take heed of the right faith, for otherwise no one will see the Lord” (Letters 8:12). Purity of
heart and the contemplation of God are not achieved by all saints in this life, but all will so
behold Him in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. Those who acquire the
inward peace of Christ ⎯ the Prince of peace (Is. 9:6) ⎯ are truly “peacemakers.” Peace
between nations is important, but any peace without Christ is false. The antonym of “peace” is
“war,” and the war that a Christian fights is spiritual; our warfare being unseen. Therefore, let us
fight for the spoils of spiritual warfare: inner peace. St. Gregory of Nyssa ponders, “I think a
man is called a peacemaker who pacifies perfectly the discord between flesh and spirit in
himself and the war that is inherent in nature, so that the law of the body no longer wars against
the law of the mind, but is subjected to [. . .] divine ordinance” (Sermon 7, 18:165). Under this
ordinance, we will be able to make peace in wholeness instead of falling to pieces in the face of
adversity; under this ordinance we receive “adoption as sons through Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1:5).

Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is
the Kingdom of Heaven.
Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall
say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.
Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is you reward in the
Heaven.

As the clergy process from the north deacon door of the Altar to stand
before the Royal Doors, the choir concludes the Third Antiphon with
the final Beatitudes. The Liturgy of the Word is mounting to its
culmination with the Gospel Reading, but first we witness humanity’s
entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven, represented by the clergy entering into the Altar through
the Royal Doors, only after hearing our Lord’s teaching that those persecuted for righteousness’
sake ⎯ martyrs suffering for Christ ⎯ will enter Heaven’s Kingdom.
 19

St. John of Kronstadt writes: “In His last two pronouncements on beatitude,
the Lord blesses his followers for the persecution they have already
undergone and will continue to undergo for their faith and virtue” (Ten
Homilies on the Beatitudes, 87). The Church gives us this teaching now to
remind us that there is no reward of Heaven without the suffering of the
Cross. Christ thus instructed his Apostles before His own crucifixion:

If the world hateth you, ye know that it hath hated me before you. If ye
were of the world, the world would love its own: but because ye are not
of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hateth
you. Remember the word that I said unto you, A servant is not greater
than his lord. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they
kept my word, they will keep yours also. (John 15:18-20)

Between the world and the Kingdom of God there is enmity. This is
not how God, the Creator of Paradise, would have it. Rather, our
Adversary stalks this world (I Peter 5:8), mastering the minds of
those of the world and inciting them to persecute those who conform
to Heavenly, rather than worldly, principals.

But to suffer for the Lord is no cause for sorrow, rather the Lord commands us
to “rejoice,” literally to “leap exceedingly with joy” as did Peter and the
Apostles who went “rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor
for the Name” (Acts 5:40-41). In fact, suffering can help prepare our souls for
Heaven, as St. Gregory of Nyssa observes when he writes: “For a man who
suffers cannot enjoy pleasure. Hence, as sin entered through pleasure, it is
exterminated by the opposite (Sermon 8, 18:172).

The Small Entrance

O Master, Lord our God, Who hast appointed in Heaven the ranks
and hosts of angels and archangels unto the service of Thy glory:
With our entry do Thou cause the entry of the holy angels, serving
and glorifying Thy goodness with us. For unto Thee are due all
glory, honor, and worship: to the Father, and to the Son, and to
the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Thus the priest prays as the clergy depart from the Altar and stand
before the Royal Doors. In acknowledging the Heavenly bodiless
hosts that serve the Lord, the priest affirms the vision of Prophet
Micah, who saw the Lord “sitting on his throne, and all the host of
heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left” (I Kings
22:19) and that of the Prophet King David, who prayed that “Ye
ministers” of the Lord “that do his pleasure” (Ps. 102 [103]:21) would bless the Lord. The
procession is led by an Altar server carrying a candle, representing “the Word of God is light to
our spirit, that the Law of God consecrates the path of our life, and that, we are expected to
 20

harbor the light of faith and the warmth of love” (Sokolof, 68). The deacon follows, holding the
Gospel “precisely as the Scrolls of the Torah were and are held in synagogue worship”
(Hatzidakis, 126), with the icon of the resurrection on the Gospel facing forwards, covering the
deacon’s face, “to show that not he, but only Christ exists” (Archimandrite Eimilianos, 44).

The deacon then asks the priest: Bless, Master, the Holy Entrance and the priest blesses: Blessed
is the entry of Thy holy ones, always, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Note that the
Greek for “holy ones” (agion) can be translated “holy ones,” “saints,” or “the holy.” All
meanings are relevant here, for the Royal Doors through which the clergy are about to pass open
into the Altar, the Holy sanctuary where the Gifts are consecrated and where angels and saints
alike (the Church Triumphant) behold the wonder of Christ’s Incarnation, represented, according
to St. Maximus the Confessor, in the Small Entrance, “the first coming into the world of the Son
of God, Christ our Savior, in the flesh” (qtd. in Hatzidakis, 126). St. Maximus says that this
appearance is “at the beginning of his life” is “obscure and imperfect,” whereas after His
Resurrection it is “the perfect and supreme manifestation” (A Commentary on the Divine
Liturgy, 28).

The entrance as we do it today is really more of a procession, given that we process in a circuit
from the Altar to the Altar. The meaning of the entrance is preserved in a Hierarchical Liturgy,
when the Bishop will enter into the Altar for the first time at this point. It was also preserved in
the Byzantine Church:

The meaning of this entrance appeared more readily in the days of St. John Chrysostom,
when it actually was the initial entrance of all the clergy and faithful into the church
building. In those days, the celebrant would come before the main outer doors of the church
and pray the prayer of the entrance. Then he and his fellow clergy would enter the church
and proceed straight into the altar as all the faithful entered the nave. (Fr. Lawrence Farley,
Let Us Attend, 27)

In the fifth century Church that Fr. Lawrence describes, the clergy would actually be arriving
from an entirely separate building that held the sacred vessels and Gospel; this building,
Archpriest D. Sokolof notes, “was in a secret place” (A Manual of The Orthodox Church’s
Divine Services, 68).

As the deacon stands before the Holy Entrance, he exclaims Wisdom!

Aright (or Let us attend)! He then enters the Altar, followed by the
remaining clergy. The Wisdom (Gr. Sophia) refers to the wisdom of God
contained in the Gospel held by the deacon, who is about to proclaim its
Holy words from the Ambo; it is wisdom that is encapsulated, St. Paul
instructs, in the crucifixion of Christ: “hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of the world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world
through its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through the
foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe. Seeing that Jews
ask for signs, and Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ
crucified, unto Jews a stumbling block, and unto Gentiles foolishness; but
unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God,
 21

and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than
men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men (I Cor. 1:20-25).

The command Aright (or Let us attend)! is an instruction to all the people to arise and stand and
to listen attentively to the forthcoming words; words that are penned by men but written by God.
In standing, we acknowledge that we are students in this Holy curriculum of Christ’s Church.
The traditional posture for Jewish teachers (before the Second Temple’s destruction in 70 AD)
was to sit while those who listened to them stood. This can be seen in the Gospel, where Christ
sat while those who listened to him stood, listening attentively (e.g. the Sermon on the Mount,
Matt. 5:1).

When the priest enters the Altar, the deacon hands him the Gospel and he places it upon the
Altar Table. All the clergy and people sing “O Come, let us worship and fall down before
Christ. O Son of God, Who didst rise from the dead, save us who chant unto Thee. Alleluia.”
When we compare this to the Psalm from which it comes (Psalm 95 [95]), we can see that it
explicitly refers to hearing God’s voice: “Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel
before the Lord our Maker: For he is our God, And we are the people of his pasture, and the
sheep of his hand. Today, oh that ye would hear his voice!” Furthermore, the Lord is Yahweh,
Whom the Church identifies with Christ in this verse. Interestingly, King David’s conjunction of
“worship” and “bow down” is a literary use of repetition because the two words are nearly
identical in Hebrew: “Worship,’ shachah in Hebrew, literally means to prostrate or fall down in
a sign of respect and karah means ‘to bow over’ or ‘cause to bow over.’

The people then sing the troparia (called apolytikia when used at the end of Vespers) and
kontakia commemorating the saint(s) or feast of the day. Which ones are sung depend upon the
rank of the service and the day in question. Almost all ranks begin with the troparion of the
resurrection in the tone of the week. By so beginning, we first emphasize the wisdom and mercy
of Christ’s resurrection; it also returns us, no matter the season, to the Paschal season, when we
so joyously celebrate the Lord’s Resurrection. The other hymns similarly glorify Christ by
glorifying how he works through the lives of the saints.

The Thrice-Holy Hymn

During the singing of the final Kontakion, the priest quietly prays the Prayer of the Thrice-Holy
Hymn, which precedes the singing of that ancient hymn. The prayer is a rich theological
utterance filled with scriptural allusions as indicated below:

O holy God, who restest in thy Holy Place; who art hymned by the Seraphim [Is. 57:15]
with thrice-holy cry [Is. 6:2-3], and glorified by the Cherubim [Ps. 80:1], and worshipped
by every heavenly Power; Who out of nothing [Gen. 1:26] hast brought all things into
being; who hast created man after thine own image and likeness and has adorned him
with thine every gift; who givest to him that askest wisdom and understanding [II Chrn.
1:10, Prov. 2:6]; who despisest not the sinner, but hast appointed repentance unto
salvation; who hast vouchsafed unto us, thy humble and unworthy servants, even in this
hour to stand before the glory of thy holy Altar and to offer the worship and praise which
are due unto thee: Thyself, O Master, accept even from the mouth of us sinners the Hymn
 22

of the Trisagion, and visit us in thy goodness. Forgive us every transgression both
voluntary and involuntary [Eph. 1:7]; sanctify our souls and bodies [I Cor. 6:11]; and
grant us to serve thee in holiness all the days of our life [Luke 1:74-75]: through the
intercessions of the holy Theotokos and of all the Saints who from the beginning of the
world have been well-pleasing unto thee.

The deacon quietly asks the priest to “Bless the time of the Thrice-Holy Hymn.” The priest
obliges by attributing all-holiness to God: “For holy art Thou, O Our God, and unto Thee we
ascribe glory: to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the
ages of ages.”

The people then sing the Trisagion, or “Thrice-Holy Hymn,” which was widely used liturgically
at least by the fifth century and was actually the entrance hymn used in sixth-century
Constantinople as the faithful would process into the Church and the bishop and clergy would
enter the Altar. At this time, the chanter would sing parts of Psalm 79 (80), which would then be
followed by the Trisagion refrain (Farley 30 and Hatzidakis 132-33). Eventually, the chanting of
Psalm 79 (80) was discontinued and the Trisagion came to follow the Entrance with the Gospel.
We can see the Trisagion survive as entrance hymn today in funerals, during which this hymn is
chanted as those present process into and out of the Church. On those occasions, the Trisagion is
sung slowly and solemnly; however, during the Divine Liturgy the hymn should be sung more
briskly, without losing the air of mystery that surrounds this ancient hymn to the Holy Trinity
evoking the vision of the Prophet Isaiah, who beheld seraphim before the Lord’s throne (“And
one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of
his glory” [Is. 6:3]) and St. John the Theologian, who saw a vision of four creatures glorifying
God (“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord / God, the Almighty, who was and / who is and who is to
come” [Rev. 4:8]).

Importantly, the qualities of God that are hymned in the Trisagion, (He is God, He is mighty, and
He is immortal) are qualities shared by all Three Persons of the Trinity. Therefore, this hymn,
because of its three-part structure, celebrates the Three Persons while simultaneously affirming
God’s oneness.

During the Trisagion, the deacon initiates the clergy’s movement to the high place behind the
Altar, called the synthronon, to the Bishop’s throne. This throne (or cathedra, from whence we
get the word ‘cathedral’ in English—a church where a bishop is enthroned) represents God’s
throne in Heaven, whereas the bishop’s cathedra in the nave of the church, which is where the
Emperor used to be enthroned, is an earthly throne (Hatzidakis 134). Asking the priest to
Command, Master, the deacon leads the clergy to the synthronon as the priest proclaims, Blessed
is He that cometh in the name of the Lord, not only the exclamation with which the Lord was
greeted upon His entrance into Jerusalem (Luke 19:38), but King David’s prophetic anticipation
of that entrance as recounted in Psalm 117 (118): 26. Standing before the bishop’s cathedra
(throne), the deacon asks the priest to Bless, Master, the High Place. The association of the
cathedra at the high place with the seat of the Lord derives from the prophecy of Isaiah: “For
thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high
and holy place” (57:15). The priest then blesses the bishop’s cathedra: Blessed art Thou on the
Throne of the glory of Thy Kingdom, Thou that sittest on the Cherubim, always, now and ever,
 23

and unto the ages of ages. The understanding of the Lord enthroned upon cherubim comes from
both King David: “Thou that sittest on the cherubim [. . .] stir up Thy might and come to save
us” (Ps. 79[80] 1:1-2) and Christ: “When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the
angels with him, then shall He sit on the throne of His glory” (Matt. 25:31).

Fr. Lawrence Farley, in Let Us Attend: A Journey through the Orthodox Divine Liturgy, notes:
“This procession” as the clergy approaches the synthronon “is a survival from the time of St.
John Chrysostom in the fourth century. In those days, the service began when the bishop entered
the Altar area, blessed the thrones on which he and his clergy were to sit, greeted the assembled
faithful with a greeting of peace, and then sat down for the readings of Scripture” (33). Fr.
Lawrence goes on to note that the deacon’s command to Let us attend! immediately following
the singing of the Trisagion and the clergy’s procession to the High Place originates from these
early days when, because the people had just entered the Church, there was still much talking
and restlessness. To settle everyone down in preparation for the reading of Holy Scripture, the
deacon calls for attention. St. John himself foregrounds the importance of this call in one of his
homilies: “There [. . .] stands the deacon crying loud and saying, “Let us attend to the reading” [.
. .] and yet none pays attention” (Act. Ap., Hom. XIX, 5).

There is, however, a deeper resonance in the command Let us attend (Proskomen in Greek).
Whereas the call to attention certainly has practical relevance, in The Synaxarion Hiermonk
Makarios of Simonos Petra Monastery on Mt. Athos notes it also refers to a profound spiritual
event of universal significance. According to “a very ancient tradition,” immediately after the
fall of Lucifer, the Archangel Michael summoned those hosts who remained faithful to the
Triune God with Let us attend! Hiermonk Makarios explains that by this the Archangel Michael
means “Let us be on guard! Let us be vigilant; for we, who have been raised up to stand before
God, are of His making! Let us remember that we are servants! Let us strive for self-knowledge,
seeing what a fall those who wanted to be equal to God have had” (66). The Archangel’s call to
vigilance is repeated a number of times in the Divine Liturgy, here for to the first time. Each time
it is not only a call to attention, but also a call that all the faithful be vigilant, not only attending
to the Words of Sacred Scripture, but also guarding our thoughts so that we will not follow them
away from Christ, but rather closer to Him and, thereby, in unity with our brethren.

This command is then immediately followed by the priest’s blessing upon all: Peace be unto all.
Just as Christ bestowed His peace upon His apostles as his first action when appearing to them
after the Resurrection (John 20:19) and St. Paul began his epistles by evoking Christ’s grace and
peace (see Rom. 1:7, I Cor. 1:3, II Cor. 1:2, Gal. 1:3, Eph. 1:2, Phil. 1:2, Col. 1:2, I Thes. 1:1, II
Thes. 1:2, I. Tim. 1:2, II Tim. 1:2, Titus 1:4, Phil. 1:3), here the priest invokes Christ’s peace
upon the people: “In the Divine Liturgy, Christ is truly in our midst, and this presence transforms
us. In the world, we know only turmoil, fear, and anxiety” (Farley 35). Fr. Lawrence goes on to
note: “The timing of this blessing is important, for, having assembled, we receive the Lord’s
peace as the preparation for hearing His Word. We cannot absorb the Word of God with
distracted hearts” (Farley 35). The hearing of the Word, the culmination of the Liturgy of the
Word (or Catechumens), immediately follows the bestowal of peace and it is to the Reading of
Scripture that we now turn.
 24

The Epistle and Gospel Readings

Up until the eighth century, the daily readings commenced with Old Testament readings, both
from the Torah (first five books of the Bible) and from the Prophets. The Church, in creating a
liturgical calendar of readings from Scripture, followed the Jewish Temple practice. We can
witness Christ participating in this liturgical cycle of readings in the Gospel of Luke: “And He
came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up: and He entered, as his custom was, into the
synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And there was delivered unto Him the book
of the prophet Isaiah” (Luke 3:16-17). When Christ simultaneously read and fulfilled this
prophecy of Isaiah, He was reading the Prophecy that was appointed for the day. As the Church
came to recognize the four different Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as well as the
Apostolic epistles also as Scripture, those readings were integrated into the cycle of readings,
with the exception of The Revelation (or Apocalypse) of St. John, which was finally accepted
into the New Testament canon only after the cycle of what we now call the New Testament
readings was established.

We no longer read the Old Testament in the Divine Liturgy, except for in Holy Week and in
Presanctified Liturgies in Great Lent, but a remnant of that reading remains in the antiphonal
chanting and singing of the Prokeimenon, which consists of selections from King David’s
Psalms that previously followed the Old Testament readings. The reader, one of the ranks of
minor clergy of the Church, follows the Prokeimenon with the reading of the Epistle, during
which the deacon censes the Altar, the clergy, the reader, and the faithful. The worship of the
Lord is prophesied by Malachi (“in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a
pure offering: for my name shall be great among the Gentiles, saith Jehovah of hosts” [1:11])
and, in the future Kingdom, by St. John (“And another angel came and stood over the altar,
having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should add it unto
the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne” [Rev. 8:3]). As a
Liturgical action, the censing of the Altar and the people before the Gospel reading, the priest’s
bestowal of Christ’s peace on all, and the deacon’s call to attention all purify and prepare the
church and the faithful in a complimentary fashion so that God’s Word may be received. In the
Greek practice, only the Gospel, resting on the Altar Table, is censed. As the deacon concludes
his censing, the reader finishes his reading and leads the faithful in the singing of the Alleluia
verses, also drawn from the Psalms. Alleluia is Hebrew for ‘praise God’: “For in Hebrew AL
means ‘He comes, He appears;’ EL means ‘God;’ and OUIA means ‘Praise and sing hymns,’ to
the Living God” (St. Germanos’s Ecclesiastical History qtd. in Hatzidakis 140).

While the deacon is censing the Altar and the faithful in preparation for the reading of the Holy
Gospel, the priest prays the following prayer that entered into the Liturgy sometime between the
tenth and twelfth centuries: Shine forth within our hearts the incorruptible light of Thy
knowledge, O Master, Lover of mankind, and open the eyes of our mind to the understanding of
the preaching of Thy Gospel teachings [. . .] Note that the priest prays that our mind may be
opened so that we can understand the Gospel. This understanding is no understanding if it is
strictly cognitive: only by following the Lord’s teachings will we demonstrate our understanding.
In fact, it is understanding within the hearts of the Ephesians for which the Apostle Paul prays:
“having the eyes of your heart enlightened” (Eph. 1:18). The priestly prayer continues:
 25

[. . .] instill in us also the fear of Thy blessed commandments, that trampling down all
lusts of the flesh, we may pursue a spiritual way of life, being mindful of and doing all
that is well-pleasing unto Thee. For Thou art the enlightenment of our souls and bodies,
O Christ our God, and unto Thee do we send up glory, together with Thine unoriginate
Father, and Thy Most-Holy and good and life-creating Spirit, now and ever, and unto the
ages of ages. Amen.

Christ, revealed to us in the Gospel that we are about to hear, is our enlightenment, an
illumination of the heart about which St. Paul reminds the Corinthians: “Seeing it is God, that
said, Light shall shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts, to give the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (II Cor. 4:6).

The deacon, who is about to proclaim the words that transmit this light, stands before and to the
side of the Altar Table ready to receive the Holy Gospel from the priest, asking the priest, Bless,
Master, him who proclaims the Good Tidings of the holy Apostle and Evangelist (Matthew,
Mark, Luke or John the Theologian). The priest blesses the deacon as he hands him the Gospel,
the deacon kissing the priest’s hand and the Holy Book as he receives it: May God, through the
intercessions of the holy, glorious, all-praised Apostle and Evangelist ______, give speech with
great power unto thee that bringest good tidings, unto the fulfillment of the Gospel of His
beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

The reading of the Holy Gospel from the Ambo is preceded by the blessing of Christ’s peace
upon all from the priest and the deacon’s command, Let us attend. It is important to take
seriously this call to attention, for the Gospels reveal that Christ Himself clearly takes it
seriously. Fr. Emmanuel Hatzidakis notes that the command to ‘obey’ in Greek (ypakouein) has
at its root the command to ‘hear’ (akouein) (145). Throughout the Gospel, we can see where the
Lord likens listening to Him with obeying Him. (Mt. 17:5, Lk. 11:28, & Lk. 16:31); He
concludes His instruction to those who listen to His parables, for example, with, “Who hath ears
to hear, let him hear” (Mark 4:9). The 4th century pilgrim to Jerusalem, Egeria, observes how
moved the faithful in Jerusalem were during the reading of the Lord’s Passion: “At the beginning
of the reading [of the Gospel] the whole assembly groans and laments at all the Lord underwent
for us [. . .] it is impressive to see the way all the people are moved by these readings, and how
they mourn. You could hardly believe how every single one of them weeps” (qtd. in Taft 76).
During the reading of the Gospel, remember that all are standing, as there were no pews or chairs
in the ancient Church.

After chanting the Holy Words of the Lord, the priest blesses the deacon and receives the Gospel
back from him as the people doxologize God, singing Glory to Thee, O Lord, glory to Thee as
they bow. The priest or deacon then begins a homily on the Scripture.

After the reading of the Holy Gospel, the priest teaches the faithful the Church’s understanding
of the passage just read. This is a daunting task for which the teacher will receive a strict
judgment, according to St. James, the brother of the Lord and first Patriarch of Jerusalem: “Be
not many of you teachers, my brethren, knowing that we shall receive heavier judgment” (James
3:1). The bishop, usually seated (the customary position for teachers in the Jewish tradition) on
his throne behind the Altar Table, always delivered the homily in the ancient Church before the
 26

fourth century. But, by the fourth century, priests began assuming the responsibility of delivering
the homily, often with multiple homilies delivered by all serving priests with the final one given
by the seated bishop should he be present. In the late fourth century, Egeria notes that the
purpose of the homily is so “that the people will continually be learning about the Bible and the
love of God” (Egeria’s Travels, 125). To Egeria’s observation, we can add that the bishop or
priest delivers the homily so that the people can be learning about the Bible and the love of God
in the Godly-inspired manner that represents the Mind of the Church. This, in fact, is one of the
principal responsibilities of the bishop and it is for this reason that the consecration of a bishop
takes place in the Divine Liturgy immediately before the reading of the Holy Scripture.
Furthermore, this consecration takes place with the candidate kneeling before the Holy Altar, the
open Gospel placed upon his neck as a yoke. The method of his consecration indicates his
responsibility to teach the people. This responsibility is delegated to his priests who deliver the
homilies in the parishes under his guidance. To this day, the bishop’s homily on Pascha and
Nativity are read in local parishes even when he is not present.

The homily is a task for which ordination is required because to properly understand Holy
Scripture, we must be Divinely inspired. This is not to say that every word that proceeds from
the mouth of a priest is Divinely inspired, but the priest is educated in how the Divinely-inspired
Fathers of the Church understood Scripture. Fr. John Romanides observes, “those who correctly
read and interpret this experience of the deified be those who belong to the community of those
deified in Christ” (Dogmatic and Symbolic Theology of the Orthodox Catholic Church, 175).
The Fathers are those saints who understand the Scripture in spirit, not only with the mind but
also with their heart. They provide the context within which our Church comprehends the Divine
sayings and actions of Christ. St. Symeon the New Theologian notes how “a person may read the
Scriptures and commit them all to memory and carry them with him as if they were but one
Psalm, and yet be ignorant of the gift of the Holy Spirit hidden within them” (Discourses XXIV,
261). Fr. John Romanides, again, reiterates the importance of a correct understanding of Holy
Scripture:
The Bible itself is not the uncreated glory of God in Christ nor His glorified humanity
and therefore the Bible is not revelation. The Bible is not, for example, Pentecost, but
about Pentecost [. . .] Pentecost is for man the final form of glorification in Christ, but not
only a past experience, but rather a continuing experience within the Church which
includes words and images and at the same time transcends words and images. (“Critical
Examination of the Applications of Theology,” 42)
Within the context of the Divine Liturgy, the homily serves to prepare the hearts of all to receive
the fullness of Christ in the Eucharist: “For only with transformed hearts made tender by feeding
on divine truth can the people take the next step—to advance to the altar of God and receive the
life-giving Mysteries” (Farley, 44). It is through this Mystery that we approach the true
revelation of Christ by communing with Him. The largely Russian practice of moving the homily
to after the Eucharist disrupts both this process of preparation and the coherence of the Liturgy of
the Word that includes both the reading and the teaching that accompanies it.

The Litanies

A series of litanies immediately follows the homily: the Litany of Fervent Supplication, which
consists of petitions made directly to the Lord, most of which only occur during this part of the
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Divine Liturgy, the Litany for the Departed, which is not done on Sunday (the Day of
Resurrection), the Litany for the Catechumens, and the first and second Litanies of the Faithful,
which commence the Liturgy of the Faithful.

The litany developed in the fourth century (Taft, Beyond East and West, 195). As we mentioned
earlier, the deacon is not articulating the prayers of the community, but rather leading the
community in prayer with what are recommendations; the prayer occurs silently within each
person. This is an extension of the Liturgy in the days before the litany: “For a litany does no
more than fill in with a series of expressed diaconal petitions what in the older system was a
period of silent prayer” (Taft, 195). Early on, for example in the time of St. John Chrysostom,
people knelt during the litany. In other words, during most of the litanies, the deacon’s petitions
are directed to the people, not to the Lord (Farley 46).

That being said, the Litany of Fervent Supplication stands out because it is a petition directly to
the Lord, as is evident by its direct adaptation of the first verse of Psalm 50(51) for the third
petition: “Have mercy on us, O God, according to Thy great mercy, we pray Thee, hearken and
have mercy.” In this Psalm, which the Church uses throughout Her services and which most
Orthodox Christians commit to memory, King David directly appeals to the Lord (It also echoes
Psalm 122[123]:3, “Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us”). It is because this Litany is a
prayer directly addressed to the Lord that the deacon begins it with the call: “Let us say with our
whole soul and with our whole mind, let us say,” echoing the Apostle Paul, who tells the
Corinthians, “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also; I will sing
with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also” (I Cor. 14:15). The second petition
also echoes St. Paul, who instructs the Romans, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13), with its call: “O Lord Almighty, the God of our fathers, we
pray Thee, hearken and have mercy.”

The reason this Litany stands out for its supplicatory quality can be traced back to its origin.
Before the Litany of Fervent Supplication was part of the Divine Liturgy, it would be offered up
to God during processions for special occasions. In the event of a flood, plague, famine, or
military threat, the people would process around the city, singing hymns, which would be
punctuated with Gospel readings followed by this litany beseeching God for deliverance from
the specific threat (Farley, 45). In this way, the Church followed the example of the early Church
praying for the Apostle Peter when he was imprisoned, “prayer was made earnestly of the church
unto God for him” (Acts 12:5) and even of the earnest (which is, in Greek, ectenia) prayer of the
Lord in the Garden: “being in agony he prayed more earnestly” (Luke 22:44). After each
petition, the people would chant “Lord, have mercy” many times. A remnant of these many
“Lord, have mercies” can be found during the Litya in Great Vespers, wherein the people chant
“Lord, have mercy” forty times after some petitions (during the Feast of the Exaltation of the
Cross it is 100 times). By the eighth century, this litany was inserted into the Divine Liturgy after
the Gospel reading, just as it came after the Gospel reading during the processions. The number
of “Lord, have mercies” was reduced to three, but because there are three instead of one (as with
most litanies), and because they are prayed with great fervor, not “blandly, but with sustained
warmth” (Metropolitan Augoustinos, On the Divine Liturgy vol. 1, 236), this litany is also
referred to as the “Augmented Litany.”
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Again we pray for our Bishop _____, and all our brethren in Christ: The Church always
remembers to pray for its overseers, the bishops responsible for rightly dividing the word of
Truth. The efficacy of this intercessory prayer is demonstrated in Acts, when the Apostle Peter is
released from prison after the fervent prayer offered to God for him by the Church in the passage
quoted above. In some churches, the clergy (both priests and deacons) and monastics are also
prayed for here.

During this commemoration of the local hierarch, the priest picks up the Gospel and holds it
vertical as he makes the sign of the cross over the antimension. He then stands it up so it rests in
a vertical position above the antimension on the Altar Table, creating room for the priest to
unfold the bottom portion only of the antimension, which is bestowed upon the Altar Table by
that hierarch. The antimension, meaning ‘in place [or instead] of table,’ is the silk or linen
rectangular cloth upon which the Gifts are placed for the Anaphora later in the Liturgy. Into
every antimension is sewn the relic of a martyr (“under the altar the souls of them that were slain
for the word of God” [Rev. 6:9]). In the early Church, the antimension was only used for
portable Altars when the Liturgy was celebrated on an Altar Table that, for whatever reason,
could not be (or had not yet been) permanently consecrated. At the time, it functioned, literally,
as a tablecloth. Today, it is required for every Divine Liturgy, even if the Altar is consecrated
and has its own relics sealed within, and is associated with the linens that wrapped the precious
Body of our Lord after His crucifixion, depicting the image of the Body of our Lord on it. Each
antimins bears the signature of the hierarch who is responsible for it. During the Liturgy of the
Catechumens, the antimension lies under the Gospel; for it is the Word of Truth that rests upon
the reality of the crucified and resurrected Christ. In preparation for the imminent sacrifice to
occur during the Anaphora, the Gospel must be moved and the antimension opened so that the
Gifts can be placed upon it.

Again we pray for the President of our country, for all civil authorities, and for the armed forces,
let us pray to the Lord: Our fervent supplication to the Lord continues with an appeal for our
secular leaders (I Tim. 2:2).

Again we pray for the blessed and ever-memorable, holy Orthodox patriarchs; and for the
founders of this holy house, and for our fathers and brethren gone to their rest before us, and the
Orthodox here and everywhere laid to rest: Here we pray for those tillers of the missionary fields
who are alive in Christ in the Church Triumphant, “for whether we live therefore, or die, we are
the Lord’s [. . .] Lord of both the dead and the living” (Rom. 14:8-9); or, as the Lord Himself
admonishes the Sadducees who fail to comprehend that their father Abraham is still alive in God
though his body is decayed: “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto
him” (Luke 20:38). The workers of the Lord include the patriarchs who have shepherded their
flocks from their patriarchal thrones in the most ancient of the Christian communities, the
founders—both clergy and lay—of the local church in which the Liturgy is celebrated—those
who established the community, donated the funds, and labored to erect the house of God—and
also our faithful brethren who are asleep in the Lord awaiting His Second Coming and the
General Resurrection.

Again we pray for mercy, life, peace, health, salvation, and visitation for the servants of God
_____, and for the pardon and remission of their sins: Here we ask the Lord for those vital
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elements that He bestows: His mercy, His life (so that we might live in Him), His peace for
which we continually supplicate Him through His Divine service, health from Him Who healed
the blind, lame, and those suffering from disease throughout His earthly ministry, salvation for
which purpose He became man and suffered for our sake, and Divine visitation from the
Comforter: “If ye ask anything in my name, that will I do [. . .] And I will pray the Father, and
He shall give you another Comforter, that He may be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth:
whom the world cannot receive” (John 14:14-17). At this point, special petitions can and should
be inserted into the litany for the particular needs of those in the community—for the sick (by
name), women with child, soldiers in war—and for special needs of the community itself.

Again we pray for those who bring offerings and do good works in this holy and all-venerable
temple; for those who minister and those who chant; and for all the people here present, who
await of Thee great and abundant mercy: The Apostle Paul tells the Ephesians that “whatsoever
good thing each one doeth, the same shall he receive again from the Lord” (Eph. 6:8) and models
for us a Christian life of prayer “without ceasing” for the faithful, whose “work of faith and labor
of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” is the foremost ministry of us all (Thes.
1:3). Here we conclude the Litany of Fervent Supplication with a common statement of our
steadfast patience in waiting for Lord’s “great and abundant mercy.” For, importantly, if we are
to supplicate the Lord with fervency, we must have a correspondingly steadfast patience to wait
on the Lord to do His good work in our lives.

While the faithful petition the Lord, the priest supplicates the Lord at the Altar Table, fulfilling
the foremost purpose of the priest: to call down the Lord’s grace upon all:

O Lord our God, accept this fervent supplication from Thy servants, and have mercy on us
according to the multitude of Thy mercies, and send down Thy compassions upon us, and upon
all Thy people that await of Thee abundant mercy

This prayer again alludes to the omnipresent Psalm 50 (51) (“Have mercy on us, O God,
according to Thy great mercy”) and affirms that the Lord rules by mercy and love: “God, being
rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us” (Eph. 2:4).

Immediately following the Litany of Fervent Supplication is the Litany for the Departed, where
we remember those who have fallen asleep in the Lord. This litany is neither done on Sundays
nor on Feasts because memorials for the departed are not in keeping with the festal celebration of
the Resurrection, therefore we will not examine it here.

The Liturgy of the Catechumens then concludes with the Litany of the Catechumens, which is
for the catechumens of the local parish and not for all catechumens everywhere, as is made clear
by the direction for those catechumens present to pray to the Lord: Pray to the Lord, you
catechumens. As such, the litany should not be said if there are no catechumens present. But, in
the United States where only one-half of one percent of the population is Orthodox Christian,
each of us should question if we are fulfilling our obligation to proclaim the Good News if we do
not have catechumens among us, for whom the faithful are asked to pray that God will have
mercy on them: Let us, the faithful, pray for the catechumens, that the Lord may have mercy on
them. This petition for us to pray for the catechumens is important for us to consider. Those in
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the catechumenate, which during the time of St. John Chrysostom would last three or more years,
are in a wonderful, but precarious, situation. Having made the first step to enter Christ’s Church,
they are drawing near to grace but have not yet tasted the Cup of Salvation. Our Adversary, the
Devil, who prowls around as a lion “seeking whom he may devour” (I Peter 5:8), of course will
intensify his attacks against catechumens as he does against all those who seek refuge in Christ;
however, unlike those already in the salvific Ark of the Church, catechumens do not have access
to those Holy Mysteries essential to the spiritual life: Christ’s Body and Blood, through which
we participate in the life of Christ, and Holy Confession, through which confessed sins are
forgiven. We then should pray fervently for them because we know our Lord is merciful and is
working in each person’s life and desires that we all partake of His life by being grafted onto His
Body, the Church, through baptism, which is our personal experience of Christ’s Death and
Resurrection (the three immersions representing the three days that Christ was in the tomb) and
chrismation, which is our personal experience of Pentecost as we receive the Holy Spirit. It is for
this utter transformation of the very being of the catechumen that the priest prays while the
deacon utters the petitions:

O Lord our God, Who dwellest on high and lookest down on things that are lowly, Who unto the
human race has sent forth salvation, Thine Only-begotten Son and God, our Lord Jesus Christ:
Look upon Thy servants, the catechumens, who have bowed their necks before Thee; and
vouchsafe unto them at a seasonable time the laver of regeneration, the remission of sins, and
the garment of incorruption; unite them to Thy Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, and
number them among Thy chosen flock.

The Scriptural allusions of this prayer address the hope of all Christians (Who unto the human
race has sent forth salvation). We understand this salvation through Jesus Christ to be a process
of purification, illumination, and, ultimately deification or sanctification (such state the saints
have attainted). The Apostle Paul likens this process to becoming children of God through
adoption: “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman,
born under the Law, that he might redeem them that were under the Law, that we might receive
the adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4-5). We cannot become children of God by nature because we
share a human nature that is wholly distinct from God’s unknowable and impenetrable Divine
nature. But, through God’s grace received in chrismation, we can participate in God and,
thereby, become “partakers of the Divine Nature” (II Peter 1:4) as adopted sons and daughters,
putting on the garment of incorruption. This process is at work in every Orthodox Christian who
repents, experiences the Mysteries, and participates in the life of the Church, which is the life of
“the Lord our God, that hath His seat on high” (Ps. 112 [113]:5), Who “hath sent his only-
begotten Son into the world that we might live through him” (I John 4:9) and proclaim “how
excellent is thy name in all the earth” (Ps. 8:1).

Those petitions that follow are for specific aspects of this life in Christ. That the Lord may teach
them the word of Truth, That He may reveal to them the Gospel of righteousness, That He may
unite them to His Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

The priest, after reading the Prayer for the Catechumens, finishes opening up the antimension by
unfolding the top portion when the deacon leads the people to pray That He may reveal to them
the Gospel of righteousness. Inside the folded antimension is a small sponge that is used later in
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the Liturgy to wipe the discos so that no precious particles of the Eucharist remain on it after it
has been emptied into the chalice.

The faithful continue to pray for the catechumens, asking the Lord to Help them, save them, have
mercy on them, and keep them, O God, by Thy grace. Before the dismissal, the priest prays a
final prayer for them while they are directed: Bow your heads unto the Lord, you catechumens.
In this prayer, the priest asks: That with us they may glorify Thine all-honorable and majestic
name: of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of
ages. While he says “… of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…” the priest makes
the sign of the cross over the antimension with the sponge, kisses it, and lays it on the right side
of the open antimension where it will be used later. The catechumens should follow the deacon’s
instruction and bow down in prayer for the priest’s Prayer for the Catechumens asks the Lord to
Look upon Thy servants, the catechumens, who have bowed their necks before Thee.

The catechumens are then dismissed from the remainder of the service, which is called the
Liturgy of the Faithful: As many as are catechumens, depart. Catechumens depart. As many as
are catechumens, depart. Let no catechumen remain. The dismissal of the catechumens, which
was in use by the fourth century and is referred to by St. John Chrysostom, was discontinued by
the eighth century. We no longer expect the catechumens to depart from the Liturgy because the
Liturgy of the Faithful is no longer a secret Mystery that can only be beheld by the Faithful.

However, the catechumens are not dismissed at this point because they cannot receive the Holy
Mysteries, as is commonly repeated. Of course, it is true that they cannot receive the Mysteries;
that is not in question because one must be spiritually born through baptism before being able to
eat the spiritual food offered on the Altar Table. But, if the catechumens were dismissed for this
reason alone, the dismissal would take place immediately before the Anaphora, not as early as it
does in the service, before even the singing of the Symbol of Faith (Creed). Rather, the reason
for the dismissal of the catechumens reaches deep into an aspect of the Church’s consciousness
that has ramifications for our relations with Christians of different professions. “Common
prayer” with catechumens, notes Robert Taft, “with their participation was excluded, which is
why they were first dismissed, and not because they mustn’t receive communion, as is often
thought” (Beyond East and West, 216). In the early Church, it was forbidden for Christians to
pray with those of different confessions or even with those preparing to be illumined but not yet
baptized. Note that in the Litany of the Catechumens, it is the faithful who pray for the
catechumens, we do not pray with them yet. Catechumens, even, were dismissed from non-
Eucharistic services: “They were also dismissed at non-Eucharistic services, where there was no
risk of them going to communion” (216). At this point of the service, the faithful are about to
shift from Psalmody (the singing of the antiphons) and reading the Gospel, to the most mystical
prayers of the Church. In fact, the Cherubic hymn, which is about to be sung, identifies the
faithful with the angelic choir hymning God: Let us who mystically represent the Cherubim. If
catechumens (and non-Christians and penitents, who would also be dismissed at this point) have
not actually left the church since the late seventh century, we can at least learn how strongly the
Church has valued the importance of right-belief among those who pray together.

The Church does not forbid praying with those of other confessions out of meanness or some
antisocial compulsion. Rather, it does so out of love for Christ and devotion to preserving the
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healing capacity of the Church to minister to our fallen nature. We understand right worship and
right belief to go hand-in-hand. Any deviation from right belief imperils the right means of
practicing the faith that has, as an unbroken line of saints from the Apostles to today witnesses,
been given to us for the salvation of our souls. This is not an abstract concern but a real danger.
We can see how the confusion of dogma in the Protestant world has led to a rejection, in many
cases, of the necessity of the Body and Blood of Christ for the healing of our fallen nature.
Furthermore, we can see where the very idea of salvation is perilously distorted, so that it is
misunderstood as a one-time event (at an altar call), rather than a process that does not cease
until our last breath. The question “are you saved?” is foreign to Orthodoxy. Christ does not say,
“be saved;” He says, “be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). We are
perfected through participation in the life of Christ and it is for full access to this saving process
that we pray for those catechumens who patiently wait at the porches until they can enter into the
full experience of Christ’s Church.

The Liturgy of the Faithful now commences. In the early Church of the fourth century, when the
Divine Liturgy began while the people entered the temple with the bishop (Little Entrance), it
was at this point that the deacon proclaimed the Great Litany because the Catechumens were
now dismissed and the faithful could now pray together as One Body. During those petitions, the
priest would pray ancient prayers of entrance into the Altar, humbly thanking God to be found
worthy to celebrate His service, offering “bloodless sacrifices for all Thy people.” As the Liturgy
of the Catechumens expanded to include the First, Second, and Third Antiphons, the Great
Litany was moved to the beginning of the Liturgy of the Catechumens and the corresponding
priest’s Prayers of the First, Second, and Third Antiphon were introduced; however, the priest’s
prayers of entrance remained here. Therefore, because those prayers are solely for the priest, the
deacon repeats select petitions from the Great Litany in order to direct the faithful in prayer,
thereby providing time for the priest to pray.

In effect, the two Litanies of the Faithful highlight the Great and Little Litanies from earlier. The
First Litany of the Faithful is a Little Litany with the designation that it is As many as are of the
faithful who are now praying together. Also, instead of calling to remembrance the Theotokos
and the saints, the deacon concludes with Wisdom!, echoing the words of King Solomon: “attend
unto my wisdom; incline thine ear to my understanding” (Proverbs 5:1). The Second Litany of
the Faithful recapitulates the Great Litany: Again and again, in peace let us pray to the lord, For
the peace from above and the salvation of our souls, let us pray to the Lord, For the peace of the
whole world, the good estate of the holy churches of God, and the union of all, let us pray to the
Lord, For this holy house, and those that with faith, reverence, and the fear of God enter herin,
let us pray to the Lord, For our deliverance from all affliction, wrath, danger, and necessity, let
us pray to the Lord, Help us, save us, have mercy on us, and keep us, O God, by Thy grace,
Wisdom! It is entirely fitting to turn to the Great Litany, which announces the beginning of the
Liturgy of the Catechumens, for the beginning of the Liturgy of the Faithful. Note, however, that
the petitions repeated from the Great Litany are selected carefully. In the Great Litany, we
commemorate our local hierarch, the clergy, the president, and armed forces. Here, there is no
need to repeat these important commemorations because they were just prayed for in the Litany
of Fervent Supplication. The petitions for the city, travelers, the sick, and captives are omitted
because the priest will pray for precisely these during his commemorations after the consecration
of the Gifts while the choir sings “It is Truly Meet” and again while all have their heads bowed
 33

after the Lord’s Prayer. We begin, instead, the Liturgy of the Faithful with petitions asking,
again, for the gift of peace and deliverance from affliction; for freedom from wrath and
passionate disruption is necessary in order for the Holy Mysteries to be for our healing instead of
for our judgment or condemnation.

While the deacon intones the first and second litanies of the faithful, the priest quietly prays the
first and second prayers for the faithful. These prayers are not made by the faithful but are made
on behalf of the faithful (hence their designation for the faithful) by the priest. As mentioned
earlier, they are ancient prayers of entrance into the Altar. Remember, in the earliest centuries of
our Christian faith and liturgical worship, the Divine Liturgy would actually commence with all
of the faithful entering the church with the bishop as the Gospel is brought in during the Little
Entrance. Fr. Lawrence Farley notes: “We can see that the priest is praying for himself as a part
of his spiritual preparation for approaching the eucharistic altar. The ‘we’ mentioned in the
prayers is the clergy” whereas the ‘them’ consists of the faithful (50).

The first prayer gives thanks to God for the priest to be able to serve before the Altar of God in
the presence of His Bodiless Hosts. This prayer of thanksgiving is truly eucharistic
(‘thanksgiving’) in character and indicates the turning of our attention to Christ’s imminent self-
sacrifice by containing the first mention of “Holy Altar” and “bloodless sacrifice,” both of which
are so important for the Liturgy of the Faithful. However, even though we approach the awesome
Mystery of the Eucharist and leave behind the Liturgy of the Gospel, we do not leave behind
Scripture itself. Rather, as it does all the Divine Liturgy, Scripture structures all prayers and
exclamations. The Scriptural references and allusions of the first and second prayers for the
faithful are indicated below in the appropriate passage in brackets.

We thank Thee [Heb. 13:15 & Col. 3:17], O Lord God of Hosts [Rev. 11:17], Who hast
vouchsafed us to stand even now before Thy Holy Altar, and to fall down [I Cor. 14:25] before
Thy compassion [Luke 8:47] for our sins, and for the errors of the people [Heb. 9:7]. Receive, O
God, our supplication [Acts 1:14]; make us to be worthy to offer unto Thee supplications [Eph.
6:18] and entreaties and bloodless sacrifices [Heb.13:15] for all Thy people. And enable us
whom Thou hast placed in this Thy ministry [II Cor. 4:1], by the power of Thy Holy Spirit,
without condemnation or faltering [Phil. 2:15], with the clear witness of our conscience [Acts
24:16 & I Tim. 3:9], to call upon Thee at all times and in every place, that, hearkening unto us
[Luke 1:13], Thou mayest be gracious unto us in the multitude of Thy goodness [Ex. 34:6].

To which, the priest concludes with the exclamation: That with us they may glorify [I Tim. 1:17]
Thine all-honorable and majestic name: of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

The second prayer emphasizes purification, asking that the priest may be cleansed of his
impurity. No man deserves mercy from God; even less would any man deserve the privilege to
serve before His Holy Altar. We can only pray, as the Bishop when ordaining a priest or deacon,
that the Holy Spirit may supply that which is lacking in us and cleanse us from every stain.

Again and oftimes we fall down [I Cor. 14:25] before Thee, and we pray Thee, O Good One and
Lover of mankind [Rev. 19:10], that, regarding our supplication, Thou wilt cleanse [Rev. 1:5 &
 34

John 15:3] our souls and bodies [II Cor. 7:1 & II Thes. 5:23] of all defilement of flesh and spirit
[Ps. 50 (51):2], and grant us to stand guiltless and uncondemned before Thy Holy Altar. Grant
also, O God, to them that pray with us, advancement in life and faith [Luke 17:5], and spiritual
understanding [Rom. 8:1, I Cor. 2:14, & Col. 1:9]. Grant them ever [John 5:24] to serve Thee
with fear and love, and to partake, guiltless and uncondemned, of Thy Holy Mysteries [Heb.
12:10], and to be vouchsafed Thy Heavenly Kingdom [I Thes. 1:5].

Concluding with, That guarded always by Thy might [I Chron. 29:12] we may send up glory [Ps.
23 (24):8] unto Thee: to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and
unto the ages of ages.

The Great Entrance

Immediately following the second Litany of the Faithful, the clergy and faithful prepare for the
Great Entrance of the Holy Gifts: the procession of the diskos containing the prosphora and the
chalice containing the wine, both having been prepared during Proskomedia on the Table of
Preparation. This procession travels from that table to the Altar Table in anticipation of the
consecration of the Gifts into the Body and Blood of Christ. Just as the Little Entrance was
originally an actual entrance of the faithful into the church, so too the Great Entrance is
historically derived from the entrance of the deacons into the church from a separate and
adjacent building (called the skeuophylakion) where the Holy Things were safely stored until this
moment. However, with the passing away of that custom, the Great Entrance is now a circuit
from the Altar into the nave and back into the Altar, during which the Gifts are transferred from
the Table of Preparation to the Altar Table. The liturgical actions that prepare for this procession
are, like those that come before the Little Entrance, meant to purify the celebrants, the faithful,
the Altar and the nave, so that the procession may pass through the midst of a people prepared to
receive the King of All in peace, rather than weighed down with the burdens and cares of this
life.

Therefore, the deacon censes the Altar and the nave quietly praying Psalm 50, with its
supplications: “wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin,” “wash me
and I shall be made whiter than snow,” “create in me clean heart,” “restore unto me the joy of
Thy salvation,” and “deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God.” At the same time, the priest
prays the Prayer of the Cherubic Hymn. If a bishop is serving the Hierarchical Divine Liturgy, he
washes his hands at this point in an act of ritual (and actual) purification. Meanwhile, the faithful
sing the Cherubic Hymn:

Let us who mystically represent the Cherubim, and chant the thrice-holy hymn unto the
life-creating Trinity, now lay aside all earthly care that we may receive the King of all,
who cometh invisibly upborne in triumph by the ranks of angels. Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia!

Here we prepare for the coming of He Whom the Psalmist describes as “our King [. . .] for God
is king of all the earth” (Ps. 46 [47]: 6-7); in so doing, we “seek the things that are above, where
Christ is” and do not set our mind “on the things that are upon the earth” (Col. 3:1-2).
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The Cherubic Hymn can be traced back to at least the sixth century, when it was established
during the reign of Emperor Justinian II (Hatzidakis 165). It could very well be much older, but
we do know that during the time St. John Chrysostom the Great Entrance took place in silence by
the deacons and subdeacons while the bishop and priests remained in the Altar (to this day, the
bishop remains in the Altar during a Hierarchical Liturgy). When it came to be associated with
the Great Entrance, only the deacons who entered with the Gifts originally chanted it. This
makes particular sense when we consider that the deacons assisting the priest and bishop in the
Altar are often associated with the cherubim ministering to the Lord at His Heavenly Altar. In
fact, the orarion worn by those in the diaconate is meant to symbolize angelic wings. Hence, “let
us who mystically represent the cherubim…” However, today all sing the hymn in recognition
that we all represent the celestial choir. Indeed, the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant
join with one voice those of the angels chanting “Hallelujah: for the Lord our God, the Almighty
reigneth” (Rev. 19:6) and “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts” (Is. 6:3). St. John Chrysostom
notes:
Above, the hosts of the angels sing praise; below, men form choirs in the churches and
imitate them by singing the same doxology. Above, the seraphim cry out in the Trisagion
hymn; below, the human throng sends up the same cry. The inhabitants of heaven and
earth are brought together in a common solemn assembly; there is one thanksgiving, one
shout of delight, one joyful chorus. (Homilia I in Oziam seu de Seraphinis, 89)
The Divine origin of sacred music is further illustrated in an episode from the life of St. Proclus,
commemorated on November 20th. During his reign as Patriarch of Constantinople, a child was
miraculously lifted into Heaven only to then return and report:
He had been lifted up to heaven among the angels and that he had heard the angels sing:
“Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us!” (Prologue vol. 2, 539)
Such revelations clarify for us with our feeble powers of spiritual perception that during the
Divine Liturgy we all unite with the Bodiless hosts in our adoration of Christ the King. Note that
the child heard the angels singing the Trisagion (known as the Thrice-Holy hymn) and the
Cherubic Hymn itself refers to the Trisagion when we sing: and chant the thrice-holy hymn unto
the life-creating Trinity…In fact, the singing of the Cherubic Hymn was probably originally
accompanied by the singing of the Trisagion. The Trisagion, as mentioned earlier, is still sung
during funeral processions. However, at some point it was dropped from the Great Entrance
when it shifted from being a procession from the skeuophylakion to the much shorter circuit that
it is today, requiring much less time to complete. Nevertheless, it is worth reflecting on the
celestial origin of our sacred music. Not just any vocal music is sacred; it must be connected to
the revelation of the true God for it to be sacred. As the Body of Christ, the Church passes down
sacred music to us as the vehicle by which God’s grace reaches humanity: “singing, or listening
to, psalms, hymns and spiritual songs uplifts us spiritually and makes us recipients of the Holy
Spirit” (Cavarnos, Byzantine Sacred Music, 11). As a vehicle of grace, it is also a teacher of
God’s revelation to us through Christ. St. Gregory Palamas proclaims that hymnography is a
reliable teacher of Church Tradition. Our Church sings its theology through our voices as an
expression of embodied grace, of matter and spirit united in harmony.

In order to achieve this harmony, we must lay aside all earthly care. These words, which are so
sweet to sing, require much dedicated toil and effort to live. How often do we enter Liturgy with
minds distracted and divided by earthly cares? The Holy Spirit, in His inestimable Divine
wisdom, has given us this reminder of the necessity of setting aside our occupations and
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distractions well into the Divine Liturgy, after we have been instructed to attend to the Gospel,
have received the priest’s blessing of peace, and been bathed in the fragrant incense that rises in
imitation of that celestial smoke that “goeth up for ever and ever” before the Throne of God
(Rev. 19:3). Despite these holy efforts to reorient our attention, our habituated thought patterns
can easily return. However, like the angels who stand on guard before the Lord, ever vigilant in
the midst of their Divine contemplation, we must adhere to the Mystery of the Divine Liturgy
with devout single-mindedness; an effort that is truly easier to describe than it is a disposition to
acquire. Nevertheless, the call is clear that, with God’s help, it is this state into which we must
enter if we are to be prepared for the Lord to enter into us.

In bringing the Gifts from the place of preparation (whether it be the Table of Preparation in the
Altar or the skeuophylakion) to the Altar Table, the Great Entrance serves a practical function.
This action has acquired varied symbolic significance in commentaries throughout the centuries,
the most common of which is to associate the Great Entrance with the laying of Christ in the
Tomb, in anticipation of the rising of Christ from the Dead that symbolically occurs when the
Gifts are consecrated. When the clergy emerge from the Altar with the Gifts, we bow our head in
reverence to the crucified Lord. However, the Gifts have not yet become the Body and Blood of
our Lord. We sing, that we may receive the King of all, in anticipation of partaking of our King
in the Holy Mystery of Communion. We know that we may receive does not refer to any kind of
reception within the Great Entrance itself, but that it refers instead to our future action of
receiving Holy Communion because the Cherubic Hymn uses upodexomenoi for may receive,
which is the Greek future participle of upodexomai (‘to receive,’ ‘to welcome,’ ‘to partake’).
This verb, which is translated as ‘to partake’ elsewhere in the Liturgy “is usually reserved for the
reception of Holy Communion” (Calivas 201).

In fact, it is because the Cherubic Hymn can encourage us to (incorrectly) regard the Holy Gifts
as the Lord who is cometh invisibly upborne in triumph by the ranks of angels that Patriarch
Eutyhios (✝582) was against the singing of the Cherubic Hymn during the Great Entrance
“because the people were being taught to sing as if they were indeed bearing the King of glory”
(qtd. in Hatzidakis 165). Archpriest D. Sokolof, in A Manual of The Orthodox Church’s Divine
Services, notes: “Notwithstanding the reverence with which Christians should receive the
Elements at the Great Entry, the Church regulations forbid prostrations at this moment, that
infidels may have no occasion to say that Christians adore bread and wine as they do God” (73).
Despite this injunction not to prostrate, many do so (although never on Sundays when
prostrations are always forbidden) out of reverence; it is hard to fault such piety. As Mother
Maria recounts from her own experience of the Divine Liturgy: “A deep silence falls upon the
congregations during the first part of the hymn, when the presence of the Cherubim is so strongly
felt, and we kneel in awe” (An Introduction to the Divine Liturgy, 17).

Alert, then, to the fact that we may receive the King of All after the Gifts are consecrated, we
solemnly and reverently await for Him to be borne to us by His hosts of angels. Immediately
after our Lord’s baptism in the Jordan by John, Satan—that rebellious angel who forsook
vigilance before the Creator’s Throne for which he was created and, in an archetype of all sin,
disobeyed God—tempted Him. This second temptation was to take Christ to the pinnacle of the
Temple and ask Him to throw Himself down so that He could prove to all that He is the Lord by
having His angelic hosts bear him up (Matt. 4:5-7). The Lord, of course, resisted this temptation
 37

of earthly glory, although hosts of faithful angels never ceased to minister to Him. We, among
the Church Militant, celebrate this invisible action for ages of ages within the Divine Liturgy in
the church—the Temple of the New Covenant—where the Lord, who once ascended to the
Heavens, descends to us incarnate on the Altar Table, invisibly upborne in triumph by the ranks
of angels. What more need we say but Alleluia! in imitation of those ever-vigilant, never silent
hosts?

While the deacon is censing the Altar and people in preparation for the Great Entrance, the priest
prays the following silent Prayer of the Cherubic Hymn, also known as the Prayer of the
Cherubikon. First, let us reproduce the prayer along with 27 of its Scriptural references. It is
astounding how rich the prayers of the Liturgy are with Scriptural allusions; they bear witness to
how the Church’s prayers and liturgical worship are cut from the same cloth as the Old and New
Testament: for it is the Church that bequeathed Holy Scripture to us in the form that we know it
and the One Holy Spirit Who guides and inspires those who create and constitute both. As I have
done previously, I have inserted quotations from Scripture in brackets next to the section of the
prayer that alludes to it. I have put in bold face the reference to Christ as He Who is “borne upon
the throne of the Cherubim” to draw attention to how the prayer reinforces the Cherubic Hymn,
sung by the faithful at the same time and celebrating He “Who comes invisibly upborne by the
angelic hosts”:

None is worthy among them that are bound with carnal lusts and pleasures [“For we also
once were foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in
malice and envy, hateful, hating one another” (Titus 3:3)], to approach or to draw nigh,
or to minister unto Thee, [“If ye live after the flesh, ye must die; but if ye live by the
Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live” (Rom. 8:13)] O King of Glory
[“Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors: and the King
of glory will come in” (Ps. 23[24]:7-8)], for to serve Thee is a great and fearful thing
even unto the heavenly hosts themselves. Yet because of Thine ineffable and
immeasurable love for mankind, without change or alteration Thou didst become man
[“Christ Jesus: who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality
with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being
made in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:5-7)], and didst become our High Priest [“consider
the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, even Jesus” (Heb. 3:1) “a high priest after
the order of Melchizedek” (Heb. 5:10)], and didst deliver unto us the ministry of this
liturgical and bloodless sacrifice [[God] loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins” (I John 4:10)], for Thou art the Master of all earth [“For the Lord is a great
God, and a great King above all gods” (Ps. 94[95]:3)]. Thou alone, O Lord our God, dost
rule over those in heaven [“in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in
heaven and things on earth and things under the earth” (Phil. 2:10)] and those on earth
[“For the Lord most high is terrible; He is a great King over all the earth” (Ps. 46[47]:2)];
who art borne upon the throne of the Cherubim [“Thou that sittest above the cherubim,
shine forth” (Ps. 79[80]:1)]; art Lord of the Seraphim [“in him ye are made full, who is
the head of all principality and power” (Col. 2:10)] and King of Israel [“The Lord is King
for ever and ever: the nations are perished out of his land” (Ps. 9[10]:16)]; thou alone art
holy [“ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy” (Lev. 11:45)] and restest in the saints. I
implore Thee, therefore, Who alone art good [“One there is who is good: but if thou
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wouldest enter into life, keep the commandments” (Matt. 19:17)] and inclined to listen:
Look upon me Thy sinful and unprofitable servant, and purge my soul [“Wash me
thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin” (Ps. 50[51]:2)] and heart of
a wicked conscience [“Clear thou me from hidden faults” (Ps. 18[19]:12)], and, by the
power of the Holy Spirit [“But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon
you” (Acts 1:8)], enable me, who am clothed with the grace of the priesthood, to stand
before this Thy Holy Table, and to perform the sacred Mystery of Thy Holy and
immaculate Body and precious Blood [“For every high priest, being taken from among
men, is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and
sacrifices for sins” (Heb. 5:1)]. For unto Thee do I draw nigh [“Draw nigh to God, and he
will draw nigh to you” (James 4:8)], bowing my neck [“Wherewith shall I come before
the Lord, and bow myself before the high God?” (Micah 6:6)], and I pray Thee [“The
Lord will hear when I call unto him” (Ps. 4:3)]: Turn not Thy countenance away from me
[“Hide not thy face from me” (Ps. 142[143]:7)], neither cast me out from among Thy
children [“Christ [is faithful] as a son, over his house; whose house are we, if we hold
fast our boldness and the glorying of our hope firm unto the end” (Heb. 3:6)], but
vouchsafe that these gifts be offered unto Thee by me, Thy sinful [“There is none that
doeth good, no, not, so much as one” (Rom. 3:12)] and unworthy servant [“when ye shall
have done all the things that are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants”
(Luke 17:10)]: for Thou art He that offereth and is offered, that accepteth and is
distributed, O Christ our God, and unto Thee do we send up glory, together with Thine
unoriginate Father, and Thy Most-Holy and good and life-creating Spirit, now and ever,
and unto the ages of ages. Amen [“He made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his
God and Father; to him be the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” (Rev.
1:6)].

Whereas originally the priest prayed the Prayer of the Cherubic Hymn while the deacons entered
with the Gifts, when the Great Entrance came to include priests, this prayer was placed before
the Entrance. Before the introduction of the Cherubikon, the chanting of Psalm 23[24] (“Be ye
lifted up, ye everlasting doors: and the King of glory will come in”) was common (and before
that, the Entrance was done in silence), so the allusion to Psalm 23[24] early in the prayer is an
appropriate simultaneity, the significance of which is lost since we no longer chant this Psalm
here.

There are a couple outstanding qualities of this prayer. The first is that this prayer is not made on
behalf of all, but it is strictly for the celebrating priest because it concerns the priest’s
unworthiness to offer the sacrifice of our Lord. In fact, though the priest prays for cleansing by
the Holy Spirit, it is clear that Christ, the High Priest is He that offereth and is offered, that
accepteth and is distributed. Archpriest Constantine Nasr elaborates:
This is a priestly prayer, confessing that no one can take, nor replace the King of Kings
and the Lord of Lords. There is no person on this earth who is worthy to stand before the
altar of God, nor, indeed, to serve Him. However, through the Holy Mysteries the priest
has been called by God and ordained to become His instrument and His messenger of
peace. (Journey through the Divine Liturgy, 66)
As a prayer exclusive for the priest, it can be likened to the Prayers of the Faithful, which are
ancient prayers of entrance into the Altar concerning the priest’s ministry. Yet, unlike the Prayers
 39

of the Faithful and all other prayers of the Divine Liturgy (at least those that are not exact
recitations of Psalm passages), this is the only prayer in the Divine Liturgy using the first person
singular (the priest prays using “I” and “me”) instead of the first person plural (“we” or “us”).

The second noteworthy quality of the Prayer of the Cherubic Hymn, and one that also
distinguishes it from the Prayers of the Faithful, is that it is directed to Christ, who is both the
High Priest offering the Sacrifice and the Sacrifice Itself; it is one of only three prayers in the
Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom directed to Christ instead of to the Father:
The prayer of the Cherubikon is addressed to God the Son, a distinguishing characteristic
of the Alexandrine Liturgy of St. Gregory, in which the prayers are addressed not to the
Father but to the Son. The prayer makes references to the priesthood. Also, it uses the
first person singular and not the usual plural as in the other prayers of the Liturgy, a sign
of its personal devotional character. (Calivas, Aspects of Orthodox Worship, 204)
The prayers of the Liturgies of St. Basil the Great and St. John Chrysostom are directed to the
Father, so it is thought that this prayer, directed to Christ, comes from the Liturgy of St. Gregory
the Theologian that was originally used in Alexandria. Another indication that this prayer was
not original with this service is that it indicates that the Gifts are already on the Altar, vouchsafe
that these gifts be offered unto Thee by me, when they have not yet been placed on it.

Orthodox Christians pray to all the Persons (hypostases) of the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. We understand that “there is one God, one mediator also between God and men,
himself man, Christ Jesus” (I Tim. 2:5) and so prayers to Christ, the Son of God, are acceptable.
In fact, Origen’s (185–254 A.D.) claim that we cannot pray to Christ was specifically rejected by
the Church. Most of the Liturgy’s prayers are directed to the Father because they derive from the
earliest Apostolic times, in which the Eucharist was filled with prayers as Christ taught: “After
this manner therefore pray ye. Our Father…” (Matt. 6:9).

The prayer, which “ends with the doxology of precise confession of faith (An Introduction to the
Divine Liturgy, 18), balances the penitent celebrant’s knowledge of his unworthiness with His
trust in the Trinitarian God to unfold the Mystery that is now imminent.

After the priest finishes the Prayer of the Cherubic Hymn and the deacon concludes his censing
of the Altar and the faithful, both stand before the Altar Table and say the Cherubic Hymn three
times quietly (while the faithful are singing it). Each time the priest, with hands lifted, palms up,
toward the Lord in supplication (in what is called the orontz position, one of the most ancient
Christian positions of prayer) says Let us who mystically represent the Cherubim, and who sing
the thrice-holy hymn to the life-creating Trinity, now lay aside all earthly cares, the deacon,
holding his orarion before him, finishes with That we may receive the King of All, who comes
invisibly upborne by the angelic hosts. Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! and the clergy then cross
themselves and bow before the Altar Table. Finishing the third Cherubic Hymn, the priest asks
forgiveness of his fellow clergy in the Altar, bowing to them. He then turns west to the people
and asks forgiveness of all, bowing to them. We have been instructed by the Lord to leave our
Gift at the Altar and to run and ask forgiveness of our brother if he has anything against us (Matt.
5:23-24). If we do not do this, forgiving our debtors even as we ask to be forgiven, we risk our
communion of the Holy Gifts being for judgment and condemnation. How much more important
 40

it is, then, that the priest, who celebrates the Divine Banquet and offers the Sacrifice as the image
of Jesus Christ, to ask forgiveness of all.

The priest then steps to the Table of Preparation north of the Altar Table. The deacon, joining
him, hands him the censer, and the priest censes the Offering three times, quietly praying the
following words of Psalm 50[51]: O God, cleanse me a sinner, and have mercy on me, also
recalling the words of the Publican, given to us as a model of prayerful repentance on the fourth
Sunday before Great Lent, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” The deacon asks that the priest Lift
up, Master, who then responds, saying Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord,
recalling Psalm 27[28]:2 and Psalm 133[134]:2: “Lift up your hands unto the holies, and bless
the Lord.” The priest takes the large cloth that covers both the diskos and chalice off of the
Precious Things to tie it around the deacon’s shoulder. This cloth, called the aer (pronounced
“air”), represents the heavens, made by God in all their majesty and covering all creation. The
deacon kisses the cross on the aer, which is then fixed around the deacon, representing the virtue
of God protecting us, recalling the priest’s prayer when the aer is first placed upon the Offering
during Proskomedia: Shelter us with the shelter of Thy wings (from Ps. 35[36]:7 & 60[61]:4).
Now, it is taken off and draped on the deacon as angel wings. The aer also represents, in the
commentary of the eighth-century Patriarch of Constantinople, St. Germanus, “the stone which
Joseph placed against the tomb and which the guards of Pilate sealed” (On the Divine Liturgy,
89). The priest lifts the diskos, which St. Germanus likens to “the hands of Joseph and
Nicodemus, who buried Christ” (87) and hands it to the deacon, who kisses the cross on the veil
covering the diskos and, with the censer slung over his right shoulder, moves to take his position
in the procession of the Great Entrance. The incense rising from the censer during the Entrance
represents the Holy Spirit: “The Spirit is seen spiritually in the fire, incense, and the fragrant
smoke to His coming invisibly and filling us with good fragrance through the mystical, living,
and unbloody service and sacrifice of burnt-offering” (On the Divine Liturgy, 87). The priest
takes the chalice and follows the deacon.

The procession of Altar servers and clergy then proceeds out the north door for the circuit to the
Royal Doors, where the Offered Gifts will be placed on the Altar Table. In Slavic churches, the
servers and celebrant progress across the solea. In Greek churches, the Great Entrance processes
all the way to the back of the nave (just before the narthex) and then advances up the center aisle
of the nave into the Altar, moving amidst all the people. The procession order is: candle,
[bishop’s staff, if he is serving, Slavic tradition], [3rd deacon, if there is one, with bishop’s miter
and omophor on a tray, Slavic tradition], [2nd deacon with censer], [subdeacons with trikiri and
dikiri if a bishop is serving], servers with fans, deacon with diskos and censer, celebrant with
chalice, priests in order of seniority, each carrying a blessing cross, the junior priest carries the
spear and spoon used for Holy Communion. If a bishop is serving, he does not join the
procession; rather, he remains in the Altar and the procession comes to him, with the deacon and
priest presenting him the Gifts at the Royal Doors.

The procession pauses before the Royal Doors, usually at the foot of the steps to the ambo but
sometimes on the ambo according to local tradition, as the choir momentarily pauses in singing
the Cherubikon after now lay aside all earthly cares. If the Liturgy is Hierarchical, the deacon
and priest will face the Bishop who waits in the Altar to receive the Holy Gifts. If a priest is
celebrating the Liturgy, the priest holding the chalice and the deacon holding the diskos will face
 41

the people and say the commemorations. We first commemorate our local bishop. If a bishop is
serving, he will commemorate the ruling Patriarch, Metropolitan, or Archbishop that heads his
synod. Then, civil authorities, all those who are sick or suffering, those who have reposed, and
all the faithful are commemorated, along with special intentions. Each church tends to offer
commemorations in a unique way particular to the local community, although each ends with the
request that the Lord remember us in His Kingdom, echoing the Thief on the Cross (Luke 23:42)
and Psalm 105[106]:4: “Remember me, O Lord, with the favor that thou bearest unto thy people;
Oh visit me with thy salvation.” There are no standard rubrics for commemoration because, as
mentioned earlier, the Entrance was originally done in silence and then done in conjunction with
the recitation of Psalm 23[24] and, eventually, the Cherubikon. There were never
commemorations offered at this time; the authorities and faithful already having been
remembered in the Proskomedia and, later, after the consecration of the Gifts. However, the
development of commemorations during the Entrance, which necessitated the pause in the
Cherubic Hymn, is entirely in keeping with the solemnity of the procession and, occurring after
the poignant reminder to now lay aside all earthly cares, is a reminder that we lay aside our cares
precisely by giving them over to the Lord in prayer. Christians do not wring hands about the
sickness, sorrow, and tribulation of the world because they trust that God will bring all things to
perfection through His Divine wisdom, even if this means enduring a temporary sorrow. In fact,
enduring our sorrows in the hope of the Resurrection and Eternal Life promised by God is what
it means for the Orthodox Christian to bear his cross (Matt. 16:24, Mark: 8:34, Luke 9:23). Now,
at this point in the Liturgy, as the Precious Gifts enter the Holy Altar—representing Paradise—
from the Nave—representing the world where our Lord worked His early ministry—we are
reminded that the Christian trajectory is from the world to Heaven, from earth to Eternity, from
the temporary to the everlasting. We are to follow the Gifts into Paradise and, along the way,
pray for our fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, those who have rule over us and those over
which we rule, so that we will all inherit our Eternal reward together as One Body. In fact, the
choir reinforces this point when it again takes up the Cherubic Hymn by singing, in hopeful
expectation: That we may receive the King of All…

Entering the Altar and placing the Holy Chalice on the Altar Table, the priest takes the diskos
from the deacon and places it to the left of the Chalice. As he does this, he recites the following,
which calls to mind how the diskos represents the hands of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus,
who buried Christ:

The noble Joseph, having taken Thy most pure Body down from the Tree and wrapped It
in pure linen and covered It with spices, laid It in a new tomb [Matthew 27:57-60, Mark
15:46, & John 19:38-42]. In the grave bodily, but in hades with Thy soul as God [I Peter
3:19]; in Paradise with the thief [Luke 23:43], and on the throne with the Father and the
Spirit [John 1:1] was Thou Who fillest all things [Ephesians 4:6], O Christ the
Inexpressible. How life-giving, how much more beautiful than Paradise and truly more
resplendent than any royal palace hath Thy tomb appeared, O Christ, the source of our
resurrection [John 6:33].

After placing the Diskos upon the Altar Table, the priest removes the veils covering the Holy
Chalice and Diskos, placing them to one side on the Table. He then unties and removes the aer
from the deacon’s shoulders (which is, in Russian tradition, tucked into the collar of the deacon’s
 42

sticharion instead of tied around his neck) and, while the deacon holds the censer before the
priest, the priest wraps the aer around the censer, touching and untouching the corners three
times, thereby bathing the aer in incense in order to prepare it for covering both the Chalice and
Diskos. The priest then covers them with the aer, again praying: The noble Joseph, having taken
Thy most pure Body down from the Tree and wrapped It in pure linen and covered It with spices,
laid It in a new tomb. The celebrant then takes the censer from the deacon and censes the Holy
Gifts, which are about to be offered in the bloodless sacrifice, three times as they sit on the Altar
Table, reciting a fragment from Psalm 50[51] (the concluding verses 18-19) referring to the
sacrifice that is pleasing to God: Do good, O Lord, in Thy good pleasure unto Sion, and let the
walls of Jerusalem be builded. Then shalt Thou be pleased with a sacrifice of righteousness, with
oblation and whole-burnt offerings. Then shall they offer bullocks upon Thine altar.

There then follows a dialogue between the priest and deacon that can be found in different
versions in different texts of the Divine Liturgy. The dialogue is as follows:

The priest, returning the censer to the deacon after censing the Gifts, bows his head and asks the
deacon, Remember me, brother and concelebrant. To this the deacon responds, May the Lord
God remember thy priesthood in His Kingdom. The priest then asks the deacon, pray for me, my
concelebrant, to which the deacon prays, May the Holy Spirit descend upon thee, and the power
of the Most High overshadow thee. The priest signals his assent by saying, May the Holy Spirit
Himself minister with us all the days of our life. The deacon then asks for the priest’s prayers,
bowing his head, holding his orarion to his breast and saying, Remember me, holy Master. The
priest blesses the deacon with the prayer: May the Lord God remember thee in His kingdom,
always, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages with the deacon concluding, Amen, as he kisses
the priest’s hand and then turns to walk around the east side of the Altar Table and exit through
the north deacon door in preparation for the Litany of Supplication.

The dialogue in the Divine Liturgy of the Russian Church Abroad and in Russian texts of the
Divine Liturgy before the 1990s have the priest praying The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee,
and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee to the deacon and the deacon responding
The same Spirit shall minister with us all the days of our life. Some have asked, however, why
the priest would pray that the Holy Spirit descend upon the deacon, who leads the faithful in
prayer outside the Altar before the Royal Doors. In the 1990s, the Russian Church, under
Patriarch Alexy II, looked into the matter and discovered that, indeed, the oldest manuscripts had
the deacon praying that the Holy Spirit descend upon the priest, which is fitting given that the
Anaphora is about to begin and the priest will stand before the Altar of God offering the sacrifice
that takes away the sins of the world. Certainly, it is he who needs the power of the Most High to
overshadow him. The publication of the Divine Liturgy in Moscow in the new millennium
reflects this return to the oldest form of the dialogue, which is also the version used in the
Serbian Church. This version is also consistent with the Divine Liturgy as used by the Greek
Archdiocese and Antiochian Patriarchate, except that rather than taking place between the priest
and deacon, it is said when multiple priests are concelebrating, with the celebrant saying the
“priest” parts and the concelebrants saying together the “deacon” parts. It is likely that the Slavic
division of this dialogue between priest and deacon originated from a Byzantine Liturgy where
this dialogue was said by concelebrating priests or bishops.

Fr. Daniel Mackay

17 January 2010-20 February 2011