SL 38 (2009) 242-60

The Life in Christ by Nicholas Cabasilas:

A Mystagogical Work

by

Nicholas Denysenko*

A glimpse into 14th century Byzantine theology reveals a world centered on the
hesychast controversy, unleashed by a battle between Barlaam the Calabrian, a
Greek from South Italy, and Gregory Palamas, a monk from Mount Athos.1 Hesy-
chasm had evolved over a period of centuries, and the monks had refined the so-called
‘‘Jesus Prayer’’ wherein one assumes a low, seated posture, controls breathing, and
repeats the words, ‘‘Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.’’ Within
the context of the prayer setting, Gregory Palamas (d. 1359) taught that one could
have a transformative spiritual encounter with God by beholding the very light that
radiated from Jesus at his transfiguration on Mount Tabor. In this experience, one
receives the gift of theosis by partaking in God’s energies.2 In his introductory
article on the hesychasts, Kallistos Ware includes Palamas’s contemporary, Nicolas
Cabasilas (d. c.1397/1398), as a hesychast alongside Gregory of Sinai and Pala-
mas, two of the most prominent hesychastic teachers. Yet Ware’s treatment of Cabasi-
las in the text is marked by brevity, aligning him with the others because Cabasilas
‘‘sees continual prayer as the vocation of all.’’3
These introductory remarks are germane to an evaluation of Nicholas Cabasi-
las’s theology because some historians of Byzantine theology have attempted to

* Dr. Nicholas Denysenko received his Ph.D. in Liturgical Studies/Sacramental Theology from
The Catholic University of America in May 2008. A member of the Orthodox Theological Society of
America and an ordained deacon of the Orthodox Church in America, he is adjunct faculty in the
Religion Department of George Washington University in Washington, DC. He may be contacted at
[email protected].
1
For a brief and concise summary of the dispute, see Kallistos Ware, ‘‘The Hesychasts: Gregory
of Sinai, Gregory Palamas, Nicolas Cabasilas,’’ in The Study of Spirituality, eds. C. Jones, G. Wain-
wright, E. Yarnold (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986) 242-55. Ware emphatically
asserts that this controversy ‘‘was not a dispute between the Latin West and the Greek East, but essen-
tially a conflict within the Greek tradition, involving two different ways of interpreting Dionysius the
Areapogite’’ (249). See also John Meyendorff’s A Study of Gregory Palamas (trans. George Lawrence
[Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998]), which still stands as the classical work out-
lining the background to the controversy and the intricacies of Gregory Palamas’s doctrine.
2
See Ware, 248-53. While hesychasm commonly refers to the practice of saying the ‘‘Jesus Prayer,’’
¹suc…a translates into ‘‘quiet, still,’’ the prevailing atmosphere during the uttering of the prayer.
3
Ibid., 255.

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identify hesychast leanings and concepts in his works, especially his treatise The
Life in Christ.4 While such endeavors to situate Cabasilas within his immediate
milieu might appear appropriate, the search for hesychasm in The Life in Christ
conditions its evaluation, and obscures the original contribution he makes to
medieval Byzantine theology. The pattern of imposing hesychasm on Cabasilas
is perhaps best exemplified by Boris Bobrinskoy:
No less than by his Christocentric sacramental doctrine, Nicholas Cabasilas is
close to the hesychastic tradition by all his teaching on ceaseless vigilance,
awareness, and contemplation of the love of God. . . . The ascetic doctrine of
hesychasm concerning the invisible warfare, the guard of the heart and cease-
less prayer, is praised and given particular stress by Cabasilas.5

This article evaluates Cabasilas’s themes in The Life in Christ without pre-
supposing possible connections to hesychasm. This analysis attempts to illuminate
the treatise’s unique qualities and contributions by explicating select themes from
The Life in Christ, which provides a general exposition on the way participation
in the sacraments results in humanity’s divinization. Corollary commentary will
focus on Cabasilas’s methodology, how lex orandi and lex credendi interrelate in
his work, and how his own objective was to define a spiritual life for a lay audience
that is grounded in their sacramental participation.

I. An Analysis of The Life in Christ

Those who have studied Cabasilas generally agree that he was a layman through-
out the entirety of his life, and was never ordained a priest nor tonsured to the
monastic ranks. The arguments asserting his consecration as metropolitan of Thes-
salonica at the very end of his life have been dismissed as a case of mistaken
identity with his famous uncle Nilus.6 The exact date of Cabasilas’s death is unknown,
4
When quoting, I will refer to the English translation, The Life in Christ, trans. Carmino J.
deCatanzaro, intro. Boris Bobrinskoy (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974). The
critical edition is in two volumes: La vie en Christ, Livres I–IV, ed. Marie-Hélène Congourdeau,
Sources chrétiennes 355 (Paris: Cerf, 1989). Congourdeau has also provided the introduction with
critical text, translation, annotation and index in La vie en Christ, Livres V–VII, Sources chrétiennes
361 (Paris: Cerf, 1990). Carmino deCatanzaro’s chapter numbers differ from Congourdeau’s; I will
cite deCatanzaro’s throughout.
5
Bobrinskoy, introduction to Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, 28-29. Bobrinskoy’s introduction to
deCatanzaro’s translation was originally published as ‘‘Nicolas Cabasilas: Theology and Spirituality,’’
in Sobornost 7 (1968) 483-505. Also see Ware (n. 1 above), Myrrha Lot-Borodine, Nicolas Cabasilas:
Un maître de la spiritualité byzantine (Paris: Éditions de l’Orante, 1958), and John Meyendorff, Byzan-
tine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (New York: Fordham University Press, 1974)
108.
6
See Congourdeau, introduction to La vie en Christ, Livres I–IV, 17-22.

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though it certainly occurred after 1391, and probably around 1397/1398.7 The ques-
tion concerning his ecclesiastical rank is unusual, as treatises on the Christian life
that are not directed towards a monastic audience are unusual in the corpus of
Byzantine spiritual literature.8 Cabasilas displayed considerable intellectual dexter-
ity in his own literary output, also producing a mystagogical commentary on the
eucharistic Divine Liturgy (On the Divine Liturgy), several homilies and eulogies,
brief liturgical works, secular writings, and letters.9 The exact date for both The
Life in Christ and On the Divine Liturgy is unknown, on account of the complexity
of their textual transmission in the manuscript tradition.10 The Life in Christ exem-
plifies perhaps his most masterful output as he walks his audience through the
sacraments of initiation, and expresses a consistently christocentric spiritual life.
The Life in Christ is divided into seven books.11 In the first book, Cabasilas states
that the life in Christ begins in the present life, and establishes the soteriological
presuppositions in Christ’s Pascha and incarnation:
We were justified, first by being set free from bonds and condemnation, in that
He who had done no evil pleaded for us by dying on the cross. By this he paid
the penalty for the sins which we had audaciously committed; then, because
of that death, we were made friends of God and righteous. By his death, the
Savior not only released us and reconciled us to the Father, but also ‘‘gave us
power to become children of God,’’ in that He both united our nature to Him-
self through the flesh which He assumed, and also united each one of us to
His own flesh by the power of the mysteries.12

In this statement, Cabasilas establishes the primacy of the sacraments as the means
of encountering God and living the life in Christ, demonstrating that they provide
7
Ibid., 16. Congourdeau mentions that Cabasilas’s friend, Demetrios Kydones, died in 1397 or
1398, and neither he nor Cabasilas makes reference to the other’s passing.
8
Ibid., 17.
9
See the critical edition of his commentary on the Divine Liturgy, Nicolas Cabasilas, Explica-
tion de la divine liturgie, ed. Sévérien Salaville, Sources chrétiennes 4 bis (Paris: Cerf, 1967). From
this point forward, I shall refer to the title of this treatise as On the Divine Liturgy and use the
English translation in Nicholas Cabasilas, A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, trans. J. M. Hussey
and P. M. McNulty (London: SPCK, 1966). Congourdeau provides a conveniently categorized bibli-
ography of Cabasilas’s works (26-27).
10
On the dating of On the Divine Liturgy, see Salaville, introduction, 52. On the dating of The
Life in Christ, see Congourdeau, 66-67. Both Salaville and Congourdeau rely on Paris Gr. 1213, a
monastic manuscript dating to the first half of the 15th century, for much of the text in the critical
editions.
11
See Congourdeau, 28-41, for an outline of the structure of the work.
12
Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 1.7 (53-54). DeCatanzaro literally translates ‘‘musthr…wn’’ as ‘‘mys-
teries,’’ and I will retain that within the quoted portions, but will use ‘‘sacraments’’ liberally within
the main text. See La vie en Christ 1.32 (104-7).

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access to the paradigmatic salvific events that occurred within history. This is the
key to his methodological approach, which he elaborates in the following text:
He [Christ] entered into the Holy Place when he had offered himself to the
Father, and he leads in those who are willing, as they share in His burial. This,
however, does not consist in dying as He died, but in showing forth that death
in the baptismal washing and proclaiming it upon the sacred table, when they,
after being anointed, in an ineffable manner feast upon Him who was done to
death and rose again.13

He then applies this interpretation of participation through sacramental symbols

to the sacraments in general, crowning them as the means by which Christians
participate in Christ’s life:
The gates of the mysteries are far more august and beneficial than the gates of
Paradise. The latter will not be opened to anyone who has not first entered
through the gates of the mysteries, but these were opened when the gates of
Paradise had been closed. . . . This is the life which the Lord came to bring,
that those who come through these mysteries should be partakers of His death
and share in His passion. Apart from this it is impossible to escape death.14

Cabasilas does not specifically situate the sacraments in the church per se, but
appears to apply an absolute quality to the necessity of sacramental initiation,
which could certainly be interpreted as conditioning his comprehension of eccle-
sial boundaries. That said, Cabasilas’s purpose was to establish the primacy of
participation in the sacraments in receiving salvation from God.
Cabasilas demonstrates the manner by which the sacraments endow Christians
with new life in Christ. For him, there is no life outside of Christianity, as ‘‘baptism
confers being and in short, existence according to Christ.’’15 Cabasilas does not
equivocate, as he characterizes nuptial imagery as an inadequate analogy for the
fullness of personal union that results from sacramental union with Christ.16 Instead,
he focuses on the martyrs as more appropriate examples, since they ‘‘gave up their
heads and limbs with pleasure, but could not even by word betray Christ.’’17 The
person resulting from union with Christ in the sacraments is changed, endowed
13
Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 1.8 (56).
14
Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 1.9 (56-57); cf. La vie en Christ I.40, 42 (115-17).
15
Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 1.6 (49); cf. La vie en Christ 1.19 (94-95).
16
Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 1.3 (46-47): ‘‘It would appear that marriage and the concord
between head and members especially indicate connection and unity, yet they fall far short of it and
are far from manifesting the reality. Marriage does not so join together that those who are united
exist and live in each other, as is the case with Christ and the Church.’’
17
Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 2.3 (46). Cabasilas uses the verb ‘‘¢postÁnai’’ or ‘‘betray’’ to
accentuate the martyrs’ union. Cf. La vie en Christ 2.10 (84).

245
with new faculties that engender knowledge of God and participation in the divine
life.18 This infusion of new faculties holds tremendous importance for the entire
purpose and destiny of humanity:
This therefore becomes clear: the baptismal washing has instilled into men
some knowledge and perception of God, so that they have clearly known Him
who is good and have perceived His beauty and tasted of His goodness. This,
I affirm, they are able to know more perfectly by experience than were they
merely to learn it by being taught.19

Cabasilas synthesized multiple theological axioms within a sacramental con-

text. He points to the notion of the human telos in Greek patristic theology, the
goal of knowing, perceiving, and participating in the life of God for the purpose
of being divinized. In this last passage, Cabasilas prioritizes the acquisition of
knowledge through experience over learning. However, this experience is not
isolated to a particular mode of prayer, but instead entails direct participation in
the sacramental life, which begins with baptism. Cabasilas has adopted an incar-
national approach to explicating the qualities of the new person who emerges from
sacramental participation, as ‘‘it is Christ who bestows birth and we who are born;
and as for him who is being born, it is quite clear that He who generates confers
His own life on Him.’’20
Cabasilas identifies God as the telos for the human journey that begins with new
birth. God has even implanted desire into human souls, which functions as one
of the newly-bestowed faculties in differentiating between good and evil.21 Love
and joy, fruits of the gifts received at new birth, are also weapons that lead to
victory, as attested by the saints.22 The picture painted by Cabasilas is not inun-
dated with a starkly dualistic battle between God and the devil over human souls.23

18
Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 2.9 (80). ‘‘The birth in Baptism is the beginning of the life to
come, and the provision of new members and faculties is the preparation for that manner of life. . . .
Just as it is impossible to live this natural life without receiving the organs of Adam and the human
faculties necessary for this life, so likewise no one can attain that blessed world alive without being
prepared by the life of Christ and being formed according to His image.’’
19
Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 2.15 (89); cf. La vie en Christ 2.74 (200).
20
Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 2.9 (81).
21
Ibid., 2.19 (95-98). ‘‘God has implanted the desire into our souls by which every need should
lead to the attainment of that which is good, every thought to the attainment of truth. . . . For those
who have tasted of the Savior, the object of desire is present’’ (96).
22
Ibid., 2.21 (101). ‘‘Armed with these weapons of love and joy it was impossible for the saints
to be overcome either by terrors or pleasures. Joy prevailed over miseries, pleasures were incapable
of drawing aside or destroying those who were held together and bound to Him by so great a power
of affection.’’
23
Cabasilas does acknowledge the traditional renunciation of the evil one in his treatment of the
exorcism, the insufflation, and the renunciation in baptism; cf. ibid., 2.3 (69-71).

246
Nevertheless, his language appears intentionally to engage the corollary life of
virtue entailed by baptism. The newly baptized have the task of performing ‘‘great
and virtuous deeds,’’and accomplishing ‘‘wondrous works,’’without being destroyed
by miseries and pleasures.24 Cabasilas, however, is not a determinist. While Christ
is the active agent in Cabasilas’s scheme, the one who infuses and endows, humans
are not completely passive instruments who simply enact predetermined events
from God’s plan. God respects humanity’s free will, which baptism does not remove.
With regards to receiving the gift of salvation, humans have the power to exercise
their free choice, though any variance with God’s will manifested by disorder in
this life deprives them of this gift:
Since he is infinite in goodness He will for us every good thing and bestows
it on us, subject to the free exercise of our own will. Such, then, is the benefit
of Baptism. It does not throttle or restrain the will. Since it is a faculty nothing
prevents those who enjoy its use from living in wickedness if they so wish,
just as the possession of a sound eye would not prevent those who desire it
from living in darkness.25
Continuing the presentation in his third book, Cabasilas applies a mystagogical
approach as he proceeds to demonstrate the way the sacraments enable a virtuous
life. The brevity of this book does not diminish its contribution. Cabasilas engages
a pithy discourse on the gifts received from the Holy Spirit in chrismation (literally,
‘‘tÒ qe‹on mÚron’’):
So the effect of this sacred rite is the imparting of the energies of the Holy
Spirit. The chrism brings in the Lord Jesus Himself, in whom is man’s whole
salvation and all hope of benefits. From Him we receive the participation in
the Holy Spirit and through Him we have access to the Father. . . . the gifts
which the chrism always procures for Christians and which are always timely
are . . . godliness, prayer, love, and sobriety.26
Chrismation as a component of initiation brings the new Christian into the life of
the Holy Trinity. In this pithy statement, Cabasilas explains how the gift of the
Holy Spirit begins a life of personal union with Jesus Christ. The gifts of ‘‘godli-
ness, love, prayer, and sobriety’’ constitute the realities of ongoing growth and
conversion in the Christian life. Work is required to maintain a fruitful communion
with Christ and the Father. Cabasilas presents God’s divine plan for humanity’s
salvation in an incarnational paradigm. In chrismation Jesus himself is ushered
24
Ibid., 2.21 (100-101).
25
Ibid., 2.11 (85). This section includes an excursus on the resurrection and the impotence of
apostasy.
26
Ibid., 3.4 (106-7).

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into the candidate and imparts the Holy Spirit and his gifts; through the Holy Spirit
the initiates obtain access to the Father. Cabasilas’s presentation has not disinte-
grated into the imposition of a specific trinitarian model onto the sacrament. Rather,
the procession of his argument follows the presupposition of the intimate union
and active agency of Christ in the sacramental event. Cabasilas explains chrisma-
tion as the beginning of an intimate, personal union with Christ, which the Holy
Spirit sustains. The goal of this union is the telos, the restoration of communion
with the Father. Cabasilas’s explanation also implies a soteriological motif: new
Christians grow into the likeness of Christ through this union, and the activities
of the Christian life lead to divinization. Thus, in this brief book, Cabasilas has
shown how the sacrament itself sets in motion the process of growing in the Chris-
tian life. His explanation, a pithy expression of christological and pneumatological
dynamics, also shows how the lex orandi not only reveals the lex credendi, but
also the spiritual life (lex vivendi).
Cabasilas does not separate spiritual growth from the pangs of human develop-
ment, emphasizing that those who have abandoned the spiritual journey in Christ
upon reaching maturity should be assured of Christ’s ongoing presence.27 Essen-
tially, his notion of the permanence of the gifts given at the sacrament is similar
to the Western notion of sacramental character. Engaging and using spiritual
gifts requires full human participation which incorporates the use of reason and
morality, and includes the training of one’s character and will. This means that
whatever challenges a Christian faces, the gifts one receives at chrismation are
permanent and can be a source of renewal even after one has abandoned Chris-
tianity. Thus, this brief section on chrismation constitutes a core component in a
Christian’s spiritual journey towards theosis. It draws from a strong incarna-
tional model and relates a Christian’s participation in the life of the Trinity to the
process of ongoing conversion.
In the fourth book, Cabasilas explicates the significance of holy communion.
Communion is the crown of initiation, the perfection of the life in Christ which com-
menced with baptism and continued in chrismation. Cabasilas expertly describes
the distinguishing qualities of holy communion without separating Christ’s unique
activity here from his agency in the first two components of initiation:
As He washes them in Baptism He cleanses them from the filth of wickedness
and imposes His own form upon them; when He anoints them He activates
27
Ibid., 3.4 (108). ‘‘Since this mystery takes place in infancy, they have no perception of its gifts
when it is celebrated and they receive them; when they have reached maturity they have turned aside
to what they ought not to do and have blinded the eye of the soul. Yet in truth the Spirit imparts His
own gifts to those who are being initiated. . . . Nor has the master ceased from doing us good, since
He promised to be with us until the end. This sacred rite, then, is not an empty thing.’’

248
 the energies of the Spirit of which He, for the sake of our flesh, became the
Treasury. But when He has led the initiate to the table and has given him His
Body to eat He entirely changes him, and transforms him into His own state.28

He reinforces the inseparability of the three components of sacramental initiation

by describing communion as the ‘‘final mystery,’’ which cannot be surpassed, and
to which nothing can be added. Communion inculcates the fullness of the mutual
indwelling shared by Christ and the participant.29 Cabasilas here ascribes to his
own variant of a particular sacramental realism that does not focus on the trans-
formation of the bread and wine as species or elements, but rather on the trans-
formation of the person and the consequences of this participation:
O how great are the mysteries! What a thing it is for Christ’s mind to be
mingled with ours, our will to be blended with His, our body with His body
and our blood with His blood! What is our mind when the divine mind obtains
control? What is our will when that blessed will has overcome it?30

While this might appear to subscribe to determinism, Cabasilas is actually attempting

to demonstrate how sacramental participation results in the christification rooted
in Pauline theology.31 Christ’s presence does not obliterate the unicity of the human
person, but instead provides the medicine and protection required for preservation
of the Christian journey to theosis.32 Here Cabasilas also accentuates the fullness
of Christ’s work in contrast to the impotence of human works. The efficacy of
Christ’s work comes through the transformation of the participant in holy commu-
nion, the mystery of the mutual indwelling that is positioned at the center of this
treatise:
The divine Dionysius tells us that the divine mysteries themselves do not sanc-
tify and are incapable of their proper effects without the sacred feast being added
to them. How much less is it likely that men’s efforts and righteousness should
be capable of releasing from sin and achieving the other results! . . . For this

28
Ibid., 4.1 (113).
29
Ibid., 4.2 (115-16): ‘‘So we dwell in Him and are indwelt and become one spirit with Him. The
soul and the body and all their faculties forthwith become spiritual, for our souls, our bodies and
blood, are united with His’’ (116).
30
Ibid., 4.2 (116); cf. La vie en Christ 4.9 (284).
31
Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 4.2. Cabasilas quotes 2 Corinthians 2:16, ‘‘we have the mind of
Christ’’; 2 Corinthians 13:3, ‘‘you desire proof that Christ is speaking in me’’; Philippians 1:18, ‘‘I
yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus’’; and Galatians 2:20 as the summary, ‘‘it is no longer
I who live, but Christ lives in me.’’
32
Ibid., 4.3 (117). ‘‘To revive those who fade away and die because of their sins is the work of
the sacred table alone.’’

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 reason we are baptized but once, but approach the table frequently, for we from
time to time offend against God since we are human.33
Cabasilas touches on a latent issue in liturgical practice here, demonstrating the
necessity of frequent communion during an epoch when the faithful rarely com-
muned. Cabasilas explicitly exhorts his audience to commune frequently in a later
section of the work, stating that no one should ‘‘unnecessarily abstain’’ from com-
munion.34 He responds to the argument that people should abstain from commun-
ion because of unworthiness by emphasizing the benefits of Christ’s presence in
communion which heals sinfulness.35
Finally, the theological synthesis developed in this exposition on the sacraments
of initiation results in his description of the actualization of sharing in God’s life:
This is the reality of our adoption as sons of God. . . . In this case . . . there is
a real birth and a sharing with the only-begotten Son, not of the surname only,
but of His very being, His Blood, His Body, His Life. What, then, is greater
than that the Father of the only-begotten Son Himself recognizes in us His
members and finds the very form of the Son in our faces? . . . Why should I
call this sonship fictitious when it makes us more alike in nature and more
closely akin than natural sonship?36
Thus, partaking of the divine life occurs through participation in the sacraments,
and Christ nourishes the participant’s relationship with him that started with chris-
mation. Christ guards and protects the person, never abandoning him as he progresses
33
Ibid., 4.6 (121). Cabasilas also notes that the sacrament of repentance is limited in its efficacy,
as the ‘‘sacred banquet’’ is required for the fullness of Christ’s presence.
34
Ibid., 6.14 (193). ‘‘Him we must seek in every way in order that we may feed on Him and
ward off hunger by constantly attending this banquet. Nor should we unnecessarily abstain from the
holy table and thus greatly weaken our souls on the pretext that we are not really worthy of the
Mysteries. Rather, we must resort to the priests [for Confession] on account of our sins so that we
may drink of the cleansing Blood.’’ Cabasilas does not mention confession, but clearly implies it.
See La vie en Christ 6.102 (128): ‘‘¢ll¦ perˆ tîn ¢marthm£twn pros…ontaj to‹j ƒereàsi, tîn
kaqars…wn p…nein aƒm£twn.’’
35
The historical background to this issue has been treated by Nicholas Afanasiev, Трапеза Гос-
одня, Серня Lex Orandi (Kyiv: Temple of the Venerable Agapit Pecherskiy, 2003) 116-28, and idem,
The Church of the Holy Spirit, ed. Michael Plekon, trans. Vitaly Permiakov (Notre Dame, Ind.: Univer-
sity of Notre Dame Press, 2007) 50-57. Afanasiev traces the beginning of regular practice of abstinence
from communion with the conversion of the masses following the Peace of Constantine in 313. He
shows how the canons had threatened those who abstained from communion with excommunication,
with restoration allowed only through demonstrated repentance. The commencement of a new inter-
pretation of such canons is exemplified by the commentary of characters such as Balsamon, who claimed
that those who came into the Church needed to stay to the end in order to receive the antidoron, not
communion. In liturgical life, ‘‘the Lord’s Supper ceased to be a supper, celebrated in and for the
Church’’ (Afanasiev, Трапеза Господня, 123).
36
Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 5.9 (127).

250
through life’s trials, restoring him when he falls and reminding him of his new
identity as a son of God, sharing Christ’s own identity. In other words, partici-
pating in God’s life originates with God who sees the entire process through to
its end. Cabasilas’s explanation of communion continues his teaching on chris-
mation as he keeps his audience attuned to the organic connection between their
experience of the sacraments and living the Christian life. Communion guarantees
Christ’s continued presence and keeps the Christian in the life of the Trinity. Thus,
the sacramental life represents the locus for the encounter and union between human-
ity and God in Christ, and stands as Cabasilas’s most significant contribution to
medieval Byzantine theology.
The bulk of the rest of this prodigious work attends to cultivating the proper
human disposition through virtuous thoughts and deeds, grounded in orienting
one’s mind on Christ.37 Cabasilas expounds his interpretation of the Incarnation
as the paradigmatic event for the formation of human nature by referring to
Christ as humanity’s fulfillment, beginning with the creation story:
It was for the new man that human nature was created at the beginning, and
for him mind and desire were prepared. Our reason we have received in order
that we may know Christ, our desire in order that we might hasten to Him. We
have memory in order that we may carry Him in us, since He Himself is the
archetype for those who were created. It was not the old Adam who was the
model for the new, but the new Adam for the old.38
Cabasilas appears to embellish a sense of human development modeled after
Christ’s paradigm that originated in Irenaeus.39 The difference is that Cabasilas’s
process is firmly grounded in sacramental participation. The absolute value of
christification achieved through this process is exemplified by a complete and
total dependence on and orientation towards Christ.40
Cabasilas attends to humanity’s manner of living and spiritual practices in the
following sections with particular focus on constant, hourly prayer directed towards
Christ. While some consider this an implicit reference to the practice of the Jesus
Prayer, Cabasilas’s own commentary appears to suggest the possibility of multiple
means of achieving this goal:

37
Ibid., 6.6, 7, 9 (207-12). Cabasilas consistently recommends vigilance: practice in meditating
on what is good in order to overcome evil.
38
Ibid., 6.12 (190).
39
See James Purves, ‘‘The Spirit and the Imago Dei: Reviewing the Anthropology of Irenaeus of
Lyons,’’ The Evangelical Quarterly 68 (1996) 103-5, and his elaboration on the process of human
‘‘becomingness’’ in Irenaeus. This entails a gradual spiritual growth in the likeness of God, following
Christ’s incarnational paradigm, enabled by the Holy Spirit.
40
Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 6.12: Cabasilas portrays Christ as the ‘‘resting place’’ and ‘‘goal
of all things’’ for man.

251
 But that we may be able to have our attention always directed towards Him
and have this zeal at all times, let us call on Him, the subject of our salvation,
at every hour. There is no need whatever of special formalities for prayers, nor
need those who call upon him have any special places or a loud voice. There
is no place in which He is not present; it is impossible for Him not to be near
us. For those who seek Him He is actually closer than their very heart.41

This seems to exclude a direct reference to the hesychast’s Jesus Prayer, espe-
cially since Cabasilas uses the Beatitudes as his source for a spirituality that
informs the virtuous life borne from sacramental initiation.42 Cabasilas instead
allows his audience the flexibility to utilize the most effective means of discov-
ering the prayers that will lead them towards contemplation of Christ.
This brief review of the core elements of Cabasilas’s The Life in Christ portrays
this work as a masterpiece of Byzantine sacramental theology. Cabasilas’s mag-
isterial extrapolation of theology from liturgical contents and structures is striking
for its resemblance to the instruction typical of the mystagogical catecheses of the
4th century. These classical mystagogies, explicating the sacramental experience
of new or prospective initiates, do not separate baptism, chrismation, and eucha-
rist, but rather present them as a unitary whole comprising initiation. Granting the
theological unicity of their respective works, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose of Milan,
Theodore of Mopsuestia, and John Chrysostom commonly indicate a unitary pro-
cess of initiation which is sealed by partaking of the eucharist.43 More signifi-
cantly, as pastors, their treatises explain the theological meaning of the rites of
initiation to those preparing for initiation (and the newly baptized) in practical
terms, which is mystagogy.44 Their common understanding of a single process of
initiation that begins with baptism and culminates in the eucharist, their eluci-
dation of the ritual’s liturgical theology, and the way they relate the sacraments
to divinization, corresponds to our author’s The Life in Christ.

41
Ibid., 6.13 (192).
42
Cf. ibid., 6.10 (175-89).
43
For background to these works, see Enrico Mazza, Mystagogy: A Theology of Liturgy in the
Patristic Age, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (New York: Pueblo, 1989), especially his bibliography for
primary and secondary reading (176ff.). English translations are provided in Edward Yarnold, The
Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation: The Origins of the R.C.I.A., 2nd ed. (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical
Press, 1994).
44
Yarnold, 167. Cyril and Ambrose delivered their catecheses to the newly initiated during the
Easter octave, whereas John and Theodore provided their lectures before initiation. Mazza reviews
the various definitions of mystagogy (1-3), settling on ‘‘liturgical theology.’’

252
 Notably, Cabasilas’s renown in sacramental theology comes from his achieve-
ment in On the Divine Liturgy.45 The Life in Christ has generated the most interest
for its spiritually-oriented theology and its coincidence with Palamas’s hesychasm,
and then for its prolonged elaboration of soteriology, with the sacramental contri-
bution assigned a secondary degree of signification.46 The remainder of this article
will attend to these subjects in order to compare their weightiness with his sacra-
mental emphasis, and assist in determining the originality of Cabasilas’s The Life
in Christ.

II. The Life in Christ: A Soteriological Treatise?

Panayiotis Nellas endeavored to discover whether The Life in Christ answers

the famous question posed by Anselm’s 11th century classical treatise Cur Deus
Homo. Nellas, clearly assuming a pejorative stance towards Anselm’s work, asserts
that Cabasilas restored Pauline terminology back to the forefront, advancing the
notion of deification as christification.47 Nellas essentially reads The Life in Christ
as a repositioning of Christian anthropology along the lines of a creation-deification
model in which the sacraments function as paths to incorporation in Christ.48 Nel-
las identifies complete union with God as the purpose of Cabasilas’s treatise, with
the eucharist assuming the central locus for the actualization of the hypostatic union
in which humanity acquires an ontological change.49 The sacraments become some-
thing like a place, a created dwelling for God with his body. Nellas credits Cabasi-
las (along with Gregory Palamas) for restoring traditional theological anthropology
by establishing the creation-deification model of soteriology, a crowning theologi-
cal accomplishment of the 14th century.50 Nellas asserts thatAnselm’s theory restricted
45
The classical work on this subject is by René Bornert, Les commentaries byzantins de la divine
liturgie du VII e au XV e siècle, Archives de l’Orient chrétien 9 (Paris: Institut français d’études byzan-
tines, 1966). Also see Michael Klimenko, ‘‘On the Divine Liturgy: Nicholas Cabasilas and his Com-
mentary,’’ Diakonia 19 (1966) 215-36; Constantine Tsirpanlis, The Liturgical and Mystical Theology
of Nicolas Cabasilas (Athens: Reprinted from ‘‘Theologia,’’ 1976); and Hans-Joachim Schulz, The
Byzantine Liturgy: Symbolic Structure and Faith Expression, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (New York:
Pueblo, 1986).
46
Sévérien Salaville provides the most pithy examination in ‘‘Vues sotériologiques chez Nicolas
Cabasilas (XIV e siècle),’’ Revue des études byzantines 1 (1943) 5-57. Also see Panayiotis Nellas,
‘‘Redemption or Deification? Nicholas Kavasilas and Anselm’s Question ‘Why Did God Become
Man?,’ ’’ trans. Elizabeth Theokritoff, Sourozh 66 (1996) 10-30.
47
Nellas, 13 (23).
48
Ibid., 18.
49
Ibid., 18-19, 26-27.
50
Ibid., 28. Nellas also views Cabasilas’s model as holding promise for ecumenical dialogue, as a
‘‘starting point for ‘fruitful dialogue’ ’’ between Orthodox and other Christian groups, since Cabasilas
‘‘exposed Anselm’s tragic mistake.’’

253
the soteriological axis to Fall-redemption and proposes a creation-deification model
as a solution. An example of his negative attitude towards Anselm includes the
caricature of the ‘‘reduction’’ as an ‘‘asphyxiating cloud.’’51 In Nellas’s evalua-
tion, Cabasilas’s contribution belongs to soteriology and theological anthropol-
ogy, whereas sacramental theology holds a utilitarian function.
Sévérien Salaville treats the issue more broadly, examining a number of Cabasi-
las’s works in determining whether his soteriology was consistent from one work
to another.52 Salaville also compares Cabasilas’s soteriology with Anselm’s. Sala-
ville notes that Cabasilas’s comments on redemption are utilitarian, serving his
explanation of the eucharist.53 Cabasilas’s approach differs from Anselm’s in his
definition of the sacraments as the gates to redemption. Salaville also comments
on the possibility that Cabasilas used the soteriology of Thomas Aquinas in
presenting his thesis. Salaville concludes that such comparisons are complicated
by the fact that Cabasilas probably never had access to translations of Cur Deus
Homo and the Summa, although he and Aquinas shared many sources, and Cabasi-
las also made reference to the idea of satisfaction. For Salaville, Cabasilas’s works
carry a heterogeneous quality, and his contribution is thus irreducible.54
René Bornert agrees with Salaville and takes it a step further by claiming that
On the Divine Liturgy was intended to be a complementary work to The Life in
Christ, characterizing the latter as a treatise on the sacramental mysteries and the
former as a strictly mystagogical commentary.55 Bornert downplays Cabasilas’s
contribution, qualifying his works as a synthetic exposé of the traditional struc-
tures of sacramental and liturgical signs. He also asserts that hesychasm appears
in Cabasilas’s work, though in a limited manner.56 Bornert focuses on Cabasilas’s
use of typology, especially in his commentary on the Divine Liturgy. Bornert
places Cabasilas in the patristic tradition by employing both historia and theoria
in On the Divine Liturgy, although (according to Bornert) the historia function
serves theoria.57

51
Ibid., 23.
52
See n. 46 above.
53
Salaville, 25.
54
Ibid., 48-49. The first known Greek translation of Cur Deus Homo was by Manuel Calecas, who
died in 1410.
55
Bornert, 217.
56
Ibid., 225-26.
57
In mystagogical texts commenting on the eucharistic Divine Liturgy, historia loosely follows
the so-called ‘‘Antiochene’’ tradition by interpreting a particular liturgical action or text as signifying
something particular from the gospels or the life of Christ. Theoria interprets the actions as pointing
to a deeper spiritual meaning, sometimes referring to the Christian’s ascending journey to the contem-
plation of God. Most scholars use allegory as the technical term for historia, and anagogy for theoria,

254
 A brief analysis of an important passage from On the Divine Liturgy shows how
Cabasilas’s work is primarily mystagogical, especially when he presents two
explanations of liturgical components together. In On the Divine Liturgy, Cabasilas
seems to have been concerned with clarifying liturgical elements for a lay audi-
ence, given the hybrid nature of his commentary. His intent surpasses a mere
endeavor to synthesize allegorical and anagogical interpretations of the text as he
sensitively explains the most practical aspects of the liturgical actions, evidenced
by the following example from his interpretation of the Great Entrance of the
eucharistic Divine Liturgy:
The priest, having said the doxology aloud, comes to the altar of preparation,
takes the offerings, and reverently holding them head-high departs. . . . The
priest goes on, surrounded by candles and incense, until he comes to the altar.
This is done, no doubt, for practical reasons; it was necessary to bring the
offerings which are to be sacrificed to the altar and set them down there, and
to do this with all reverence and devotion.58
Cabasilas then explains the allegorical significance of the text:
Also, this ceremony signifies the last manifestation of Christ, which aroused
the hatred of the Jews, when he embarked on the journey from his native
country to Jerusalem, where he was to be sacrificed; then he rode into the
Holy City on the back of an ass, escorted by a cheering crowd.59
At this point, an anagogical explanation might be expected, but Cabasilas
instead refers this entire action to the anaphora as the center of the eucharistic
liturgy, urging the assembly to prostrate themselves to be remembered in the
priest’s commemoration since ‘‘there is no other means of supplication so pow-
erful, so certain of acceptance, as that which takes place through this most holy
sacrifice.’’60 This section on the Great Entrance is quite short, and ends with a
warning about erroneously venerating the offerings ‘‘as if they were the body and
blood of Christ,’’ since they have not yet been consecrated at this point of the
liturgy. Cabasilas exercised considerable caution in refraining from attaching too
superficial an importance to the entrance of the gifts, and instead directed his
audience to the centrality of the anaphora and its significance.

though they are interchangeable. Maximus the Confessor’s 7th century Mystagogia is the classical
commentary predominantly employing theoria, whereas Germanus of Constantinople uses historia in
his 8th century treatise. For more on the significance of these methods in Byzantine liturgical works,
see Robert F. Taft, ‘‘The Liturgy of the Great Church: An Initial Synthesis of Structure and Interpre-
tation on the Eve of Iconoclasm,’’ Dumbarton Oaks Papers 34-35 (1980-81) 45-75.
58
Cabasilas, On the Divine Liturgy, 24 (65).
59
Ibid.
60
Ibid.

255
 This brief excursion into On the Divine Liturgy corroborates a characterization
of Cabasilas as a teacher who catered his presentation towards the greatest benefit
for his audience. This example reveals a clarifying motif in Cabasilas’s method-
ology. In the Byzantine eucharistic Divine Liturgy, the Great Entrance occupied
a position of enormous visual grandeur, including the participation of ecclesias-
tical and imperial dignitaries.61 The entrance with the gifts began to be interpreted
as a solemn liturgical component as early as Theodore Mospuestia’s 4th century
explanation of the mysteries.62 As participation in communion decreased, the
weightiness of this event grew in prominence, eventually with the addition of
verbal commemorations in response to specific requests for prayer. Cabasilas was
not the first to warn the laity about venerating the bread and wine prior to their
consecration, as evidenced by the complaints stated by Constantinopolitan Patri-
arch Eutyches in the 6th century on the same issue.63 However, his endeavor to
reorient the audience towards a proper understanding of the meaning of the
liturgical structures closely corresponds to his objective in The Life in Christ. In
this sense, The Life in Christ shares a fraternal association with On the Divine
Liturgy, especially considering the gap between chapters 39 and 40 of the latter
work, his explication of the bidding to communion, and the prayers said for those
who have communicated.64 Bornert has correctly noted that The Life in Christ and
its fecund expression of the union between communicants and Christ in holy
communion conveniently fills this gap, although the work cannot be reduced to
solely fulfilling this function.65 Cabasilas’s introduction of a practical concern into
the liturgical commentary evidences his sensitivity to his audience and illuminates
a unique aspect of his treatise.
In conclusion, scholars do not agree on the core theme of Cabasilas’s thesis.
The issue is its purpose. One might expect a late 14th century theological work
to center on one issue, with some commonality between writers of the period. This
explains scholars’ desire to discover soteriological and hesychastic theses in Cabasi-
las’s work, since many of his contemporaries focused on one theological theme.
Nellas’s presentation on Cabasilas does not consider the totality of The Life in
Christ, because unlike Anselm’s treatise, Cabasilas uses a mystagogical method

61
See Taft, A History of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, vol. 2: The Great Entrance: A
History of the Transfer of Gifts and other Pre-anaphoral Rites (2nd ed., Orientalia Christiana Ana-
lecta 200 [Rome: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1978]), for a complete treatment of
the historical development of the entrance with the gifts in the Byzantine and related liturgical rites.
See pp. 35-46 for an overview of the early development of the Great Entrance.
62
Ibid., 35.
63
Ibid., 84.
64
Cabasilas, On the Divine Liturgy (92-93).
65
Bornert, 217, 229.

256
in presenting the sacraments and explaining how they reveal their inherent soteri-
ology. The example from On the Divine Liturgy demonstrates this, showing that
Cabasilas focused on explaining the meaning of sacramental celebrations to a lay
audience. His explanations are not necessarily systematic, but pastoral, evidenced
by his attempt sometimes to clarify particular issues with two meanings, one prac-
tical, and one theological. The Life in Christ similarly reveals Cabasilas’s objec-
tive, to show how the sacraments begin and sustain Christians’ saving relationship
with Christ. While Cabasilas’s work elaborates the soteriology of union with Christ
and the process of divinization, his purpose is to show how sacramental celebra-
tion culminates in salvation. His work is primarily a mystagogical presentation of
the sacraments, of which soteriology is an organic and related component. The
liturgical celebrations are not utilitarian, but primary events leading to theology’s
proliferation and refinement. This is an important distinction for liturgical the-
ology since, for Cabasilas, the liturgy is the event at which theology is shaped,
formed, and even understood.

III. The Life in Christ: A Hesychastic Work?

As noted throughout, hesychasm was a preeminent teaching of Cabasilas’s milieu,

and some scholars have attempted to identify hesychastic motifs in his work. John
Meyendorff opined that some passages from The Life in Christ are paraphrases
of Gregory Palamas’s Triads,66 whereas several scholars, including Myrrha Lot-
Borodine, Nellas, Ware, and Bornert acknowledge Cabasilas’s unicity, but place
his thesis of theological anthropology from The Life in Christ within the Palamite-
hesychast school.67 Nellas’s conclusion typifies this school of thought:
Nicolas Cabasilas is clearly situated in the Orthodox-biblical-patristic tradi-
tion in general and in the school of St. Gregory Palamas in particular. . . . By
supporting within the specific conditions of the fourteenth century the work of
St. Gregory Palamas, he thus revealed Orthodox truth and contributed to the
condemnation of the heretical humanism of his age. . . . By showing that the
spiritual life can be lived in its fullness even in the world and by sketching the
basic lines of such a way of life, he played a leading part in the vital task of
channeling the great hesychastic renaissance of the fourteenth century into the
world as a renaissance of liturgical and sacramental life.68
66
Meyendorff, 108.
67
Lot-Borodine, 108; and Bornert, 225-26, 243.
68
Panayiotis Nellas, Deification in Christ: The Nature of the Human Person, trans. Norman Rus-
sell (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1987) 150.

257
 Others, such as Steven Runciman, D. P. Miquel, and Joan Mervyn Hussey are
less certain and differentiate Cabasilas from hesychasm and the Palamite school.69
Outside of acknowledging Cabasilas’s support of Palamas and the inevitable encoun-
ter he had with hesychasm in his environment, it is difficult to identify distinctly
hesychast teachings or tendencies in The Life in Christ. Cabasilas and proponents
of hesychasm both emphasize spiritual growth through union with Christ. Both
cultivate spiritual interiority, and Cabasilas, addressing a lay audience, selects a
‘‘common highway for all,’’ which he identifies as sacraments and prayer.70 Cabasi-
las essentially opens the sacramental spiritual school he has created to all groups
of people in an important passage:
As is fitting, we omit the things which are proper to each different state of human
life and examine the duties to God which we all have in common. No one would
claim that the same virtues are needed by those who govern the state and those
who live as private citizens, or by those who have made no further vow to God
after the baptismal washing and those who live the monastic life and have taken
vows of virginity and poverty and thus own neither property nor their own selves.
But the debt which, like the very appellation itself, is common to all who are
called by the name of Christ, must also be paid by all. Neglect of this debt on
the part of anyone can be excused on no pretext whatever, whether of age, occu-
pation, prosperity or adversity, remoteness, solitude, cities, or tumults—nor even
by any of the numerous excuses in which those accused of crime take refuge.71

In this appeal, Cabasilas draws his own ethical conclusion on the responsibility
that comes with the sacraments. Everyone receives God’s salvation, and everyone
is thus responsible for approaching the sacraments for the forgiveness of sins. This
conclusion originates from his discussion of the sacraments. Thus, interpreting this
work as hesychastic constitutes an imposition of a particular theological teaching
(hesychasm) on Cabasilas’s structural interpretation of the church’s lex orandi.
Cabasilas takes the opposite approach in his treatise, as he shows how the lex orandi
(sacraments) reveals both the lex credendi (soteriology), and a lex vivendi, a rule
for the spiritual life which finds its source in the sacraments.

69
J. Hussey, ‘‘Symeon the New Theologian and Nicolas Cabasilas: Similarities and Contrasts in
Orthodox Spirituality,’’ Eastern Churches Review 4 (1972) 139-40; Steven Runciman, The Last Byzan-
tine Renaissance (Cambridge: University Press, 1970) 72-73; and D. P. Miquel, ‘‘L’expérience sacra-
mentelle selon Nicolas Cabasilas,’’ Irenikon 28 (1965) 180. Runciman describes Cabasilas as a mystical
humanist. Miquel suggests that Cabasilas could be attempting to mitigate hesychast extremism and
to invite warmly the laity into a spiritual experience.
70
Nellas, Deification in Christ, 130-34.
71
Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 6.1 (160).

258
 In summary, Cabasilas revealed to his audience the magnitude of the theological
and spiritual wealth contained by the church’s sacramental rituals which are imparted
to participants through a variant of sacramental realism. This does not necessarily
dismiss the possibility of hesychast influence on Cabasilas’s theology, but rather
allows us to conclude that hesychasm is not the primary catalyst in a work that
explains the soteriological meaning of the sacraments and the spiritual school they
require. The evidence shows that Cabasilas employed a traditional form of mysta-
gogy by explicating how participation in the sacraments of initiation leads to union
with Christ, and thus, salvation. His mystagogical approach is consistent through-
out the treatise, and should be interpreted as a 14th century renewal of the ancient
mystagogical tradition.

IV. Conclusion
Nicholas Cabasilas’s unique contribution to medieval Byzantine theology from
The Life in Christ does not originate from his soteriology, or even his theological
anthropology, as prominent as these themes are in his work. Rather, Cabasilas has
explicated a unique thesis of theosis through christification by reviving the early
mystagogical paradigm of encounter and union with Christ through the unified
sacraments of initiation.
Historically, the liturgical structures and practices of baptism, chrismation, and
eucharist remained relatively stable in Byzantium up until the 14th century, and some
would argue to the present time. However, a divorce between the theology con-
tained in the liturgical structures, texts, and events and the interpretation of this
liturgical theology slowly transpired following the gradual imperialization of the
church in 313.72 The commentary on the Divine Liturgy by Germanus of Constantin-
ople in the 8th century demonstrates the separation of liturgy’s purpose and its
theological interpretation, as Germanus created a theological system of illustrative
symbolism to compensate for the deterioration of lay participation in communion.73
In The Life in Christ, Cabasilas has restored the primacy of mystagogy in sacra-
mental theology by meticulously describing the way the participants are trans-
formed in the events.
Cabasilas makes another contribution in The Life in Christ in his christocentric
orientation wherein each step in the process is initiated and facilitated by Christ
72
See the instructive essay by Alexander Schmemann, ‘‘Liturgy and Theology,’’ in Liturgy and
Tradition: Theological Reflections of Alexander Schmemann, ed. Thomas Fisch (Crestwood, N.Y.: St.
Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1990) 49-68, esp. 61-68.
73
See the comments on the decline in the frequency of communion by Paul Meyendorff in Ger-
manus of Constantinople, On the Divine Liturgy, ed. Paul Meyendorff (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, 1984) 39-42. Also see Taft, ‘‘Liturgy of the Great Church,’’ 68-69.

259
himself, and the transformation of the participant occurs through his sacramental
union with Christ. As evidenced by his magisterial exegesis of the liturgy in On
the Divine Liturgy and his knowledge of the liturgical ordo of baptism and the
consecration of the altar, Cabasilas was familiar with the forms and contents of
the Byzantine liturgical rites, and used these to guide his writing. When he empha-
sizes an encounter with Christ, Cabasilas refers to liturgical sources and explains
them as real events that culminate in salvation.74 This encounter focuses on the
transformation of the participants through the active agency of Christ, reflecting
the fundamental New Testament theology of recapitulation and personalization of
everything and everyone in Christ.75 The primary encounter in which conversion
is initiated and developed is in sacramental celebration where the church meets
Christ, and Cabasilas has explained how Christ sanctifies humanity in liturgical
rites. He also confirms that transformation is not limited to the original event, but
is a process that must continually be reinforced through regular encounters with
Christ, followed by the nurturing of the interior spiritual life in accordance with
a person’s particular circumstances.
Cabasilas has thus preceded the 20th century ascendancy of liturgical theology
by emphasizing the renewal of the fullness of sacramental participation and its
significance for participants in The Life in Christ. In this 14th century accom-
plishment, Cabasilas cannot be reduced to be merely a partner of the hesychasts,
nor a synthesizer of previous liturgical commentators, but should be celebrated for
restoring a paradigmatic mystagogical comprehension of and immersion in the
salvific significance of sacramental participation in Christ.
74
Christ’s agency is perhaps most compellingly illustrated by the following text from the ‘‘nemo
dignus’’ prayer immediately preceding the Great Entrance in the Byzantine Divine Liturgy: ‘‘For
Thou art the Offerer and the Offered, the Receiver and the Received, O Christ our God, and to Thee
we ascribe glory. . . .’’ See The Divine Liturgy according to St. John Chrysostom with appendices
(New York: Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of America, 1967) 53-54.
75
See Robert F. Taft, The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West: The Origins of the Divine Offıce
and Its Meaning for Today, 2nd rev. ed (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1993) 334-40. Also see
Taft, ‘‘What Does Liturgy Do? Toward a Soteriology of Liturgical Celebration: Some Theses,’’ Wor-
ship 66 (1992) 204-5. Taft’s comments, drawing upon a collection of primary liturgical examples,
point to the formation of a new person through obedience in faith.

260