Liturgical Theology, Question 2

Question 2:

Discuss and evaluate the various interpretations given to the Great Entrance in liturgical commentaries and show their effect on the texts and actions of the Liturgy.

In the course of my reading for this class, I have found five interpretations of the Great Entrance, by the following people: St. Germanos, Nicolas of Andida, Nicholas Cabasilas, Symeon of Thessalonike, and Fr. Alexander Schmemann. I will discuss each in turn.

First, however, it is important to note that both Hugh Wybrew’s, The Orthodox Liturgy, (hereinafter referred to as “Wybrew”) and Chapter Six (“The Sacrament of Offering) of Fr. Alexander Schmemann’s, The Eucharist, (hereinafter referred to as “Schmemann”) indicate that the original function of the Great Entrance was to transfer the Holy Gifts of bread and wine (which had been prepared in the Service of Preparation before the Liturgy of the Catechumens) from their original place at the north of the church. This was done with a certain amount of ceremony. As will be shown below, the various interpretations of this liturgical act have had considerable different effects on the extent and nature of the ceremonies performed.

A. St. Germanos. As indicated in Wybrew at pp. 126-7, St. Germanos in his Ecclesiastical History interprets the Great Entrance and the Cherubic Hymn that is sung during before it as representing three things: the angelic host, of which the earthly worshipers are a part; the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the gifts; and the altar as the tomb of Christ.

One can observe several liturgical effects which would result from such interpretations: 1) the increasing importance of a slow procession, with the rapidia and incense, to better make an iconological representation of the procession of the angelic host; 2) recent liturgical composers, using this interpretation as a basis, have composed choral settings of the Cherubic Hymn which have downward progressions, indicative of the descent of the Holy Spirit. The Cherubic Hymns of Lomakin (especially his No. 9), Kastalsky, Tsaikovski, and Rachmaninoff provide examples of this tendency; 3) because the holy altar was thought to represent the tomb of Christ, the original pillars and post surrounding the altar in the Nicaean period, which barrier separated the Byzantine Emperor and his family from the rest of the people in any gathering, political or religious (and which was originally established in churches to indicate the royalty of God), gradually was transformed into a covered and roofed iconostasis. It is interesting to note that Nicholas of Andida, in the commentary to be next discussed, cites this interpretation as the reason for the development of the iconostasis in its present form.

B. Nicholas of Andida. Wybrew at pp. 141-2 notes that the Protheoria of Nicholas of Andida, in a rich display of allegorism, describes the Great Entrance (or more to the point, the preparation, transfer, and deposition of the Gifts in that Entrance) as any number of things: the preparation of the upper room, the Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension; the altar is Jerusalem, since the altar is set in the center of the church as Jerusalem is in the center of the world.

But in the main, the interpretation of Nicholas of Andida confirms and strengthens the earlier point made by St. Germanos: that the altar is to be separated from the people. It can be argued that the ultimate result of the interpretation of the Great Entrance in the Protheoria was to continue the process of separating the altar from the sight of the people by the iconostasis.

C. Nicholas Cabasilas. Wybrew at pp. 162-3 quotes from Nicholas Cabasilas’ Interpretation of the Divine Liturgy as regards Nicholas’ interpretation of the Great Entrance. While it is for the most part a simple description of the action of the priest and servers, it has one particular interpretive note: The Great Entrance is a symbol or type of Christ’s triumphant entrance into Jerusalem on Palm or Willow Sunday.

Cabasilas also warns the reader not to treat the Holy Gifts at the Great Entrance with the same reverence which the people of the time apparently offered to the Holy Body and Blood at the equivalent to the Great Entrance in the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. This would apparently indicate that the people of that time were in fact treating the Holy Gifts with such reverence.

The results of this interpretation would appear mainly to be to make a further emphasis on the Great Entrance as a procession of the priest and servers, with the focus being on the priest as an icon or a type of Christ.

D. Symeon of Thessalonike. Wybrew at pp. 168-9 cites Symeon’s commentaries as regards Symeon’s interpretation of the Great Entrance as follows: the Entrance is a type of the Last Coming of Christ and the Last Judgment. Further, in the liturgical praxis of the period, the epitaphios (redolent with the symbolism of the burial of Christ) was used as a covering for the Holy Gifts after they had been placed on the Altar. Finally, and most importantly for any discussion on the subject, Symeon contradicts the warning given by Nicholas Cabasilas, and states that the Holy Gifts are an anti-type of the Holy Body and Blood, and should therefore be given the same reverence.

The two consequences most likely to occur from such an interpretation is again to put the focus upon the priest as the icon of Christ, and upon the Holy Gifts as the anti-type of Christ’s Body and Blood.

E. Fr. Alexander Schmemann. Before beginning a review of Fr. Schmemann’s, it is important to note that each of the above interpretations are not to be considered to be wrong or misleading per se, but rather, that they tend to be reductionist, in that they reduce the worshiper’s understanding of the liturgical action to the interpretation provided.

Fr. Schmemann, in Chapter Six ( entitled “The Sacrament of Offering”) of his elaborate commentary on the Divine Liturgy, The Eucharist, on the other hand, provides a commentary on and a description of the Great Entrance which both incorporates the above interpretations and far transcends them. He begins in Section 1 of that chapter with the insight that all sacrifices offered by the many peoples of the past have been inspired by a thirst for God; that these sacrifices had been unavailing in quenching that thirst, and that only Christ’s sacrifice as and for man is the only one which can quench that thirst (section 2); and that the Great Entrance, in addition to the illustrative symbolism which has been attached (as cited above) to that Entrance, is in an important way connected with Christ’s sacrifice for us, and our offering to Him (section 3).

Having asked the question, ("in what way does this connection exist in the Great Entrance?"), Schmemann then indicates that through a historical examination of the actions in the Great Entrance, it was the practice of the members of the early Church to bring their own gifts of bread and wine before the Divine Liturgy, and to place them at the north of the Church. It was then the work of the deacons to select among these gifts to find those which would be used as the Holy Gifts for the Liturgy. In the mind of the early Church then (according to Schmemann), this Entrance of the gifts was the connection between the offering in love of the congregation, and the action in love of the deacons, with Christ’s loving Sacrifice for us in the Eucharist. (Section 4).

With this primitive understanding reestablished, Schmemann suggests that we can reexamine our symbolic understanding of what happens in the Great Entrance: the one Sacrifice has already been offered for us in Christ’s Crucifixion, Death and Resurrection, but the offering of the Holy Gifts before the altar is indicative of the connection between those gifts and Christ’s Sacrifice (Section 5).

More particularly, in presenting our prosphora (or offerings) before the altar, Schmemann indicates that we are thereby “offering ourselves and each other and all our life unto Christ our God”. Thus, Schmemann indicates that the essence of the Great Entrance is that it is the sacrament of Offering (Section 6).

Schmemann then says that a further and clearer understanding of this sacrament of Offering may be found through an examination of the prayers and the actions in the Great Entrance (Section 7). First, in the prayer of the priest, which begins “No one is worthy”, and which the priest says personally, Schmemann finds an indication that in the Offering and Sacrifice to come, the priest becomes the icon of Christ Sacrificing and Sacrificed; the prayer is thus a testimony to the unworthiness of all humankind, and a testimony also to supremacy of Christ as Priest and as Sacrificed (Section 8).

In the action of the censing, Schmemann sees the recognition of the Holy Gifts as in fact being holy and divine, in that these creations are being returned to their Creator (Section 9).

In examining the hymns sung by all during the Great Entrance (e.g., the Cherubic Hymn during most Sundays and Feasts, “Of Thy Mystical Supper” during Great and Holy Thursday, and “Let all mortal flesh keep silent” during Great and Holy Saturday, Schmemann finds a common element in all of these hymns is that they refer to Christ as King and to the coming of His Kingdom. In this, Schmemann sees the manifestation of God’s cosmic kingdom, and not simply symbolic referrals to Christ’s kingly entrance into Jerusalem, His Last Coming, etc. (Section 10)

Finally, Schmemann, examines the liturgical action in the Great Entrance, and suggests that it be restored, in that attention should again be paid to the community bringing their prosphora as offerings, or at the very least, that members of the church buy prosphora which the Church has made, and offer them, and themselves, in the Great Entrance, the sacrament of Offering (section 11).

Thus, we see in four of these commentaries symbolical and, unfortunately, reductionist tendencies which have affected the ceremonial actions in the Great Entrance in the ways which have been described above. Finally, in the last commentary, we see a historical, textual, and Patristic synthesis which I believe may be fairly characterized as maximalist.

ADDENDUM

While the writer believes that he has adequately answered the question and has sufficiently represented the positions taken in the five commentaries, particularly Fr. Schmemann’s, there are some additional concepts in Fr. Schmemann’s commentary (The Eucharist, Chapter 6, sections 12 through 15, which the writer has found of great value, which have inspired insights in the writer, and which the writer would like to present here.

In those last sections, Fr. Schmemann discusses the role of commemoration, or anamnesis, not only in the Divine Liturgy, but in the life and action of the Church. In essence, he says that anamnesis is a gift from God to Man, which allows the one remembering to manifest the past in the present; that the primary sin of Man is that he has forgotten God, and that by remembering Christ (or keeping Him in mind) we are in turn remembered by Christ, and kept into eternal life.

The primary insight which the writer has received from this (other, of course, than a better understanding of what is meant in the Pannychida service by “eternal memory”), is the central concept of anamnesis as the manifestation of the past into the present, and that it is that process of anamnesis which distinguishes the process of Orthodox theology from that of Roman Catholics.

The writer has noted that the polarity (or perhaps better said, the bipolarity) of Roman Catholicism has been between aggiorniamento or “contemporization” on the one hand, and resourcement or “research”, on the other. The writer has also noted that these two tendencies have been present in that Church not only since the Second Vatican Council, but long before it.

One example (out of many which could be cited) of the tendency towards aggiorniamento can be found in the action of the early Gallican church of Charlemagne to add the filioque to the Nicene Creed, ostensibly to combat a tendency towards Arianism which was then a contemporary threat to that Church. An example of resourcement may be found as well in the action of the early Roman church, after biblical and historical researches, to cease the practice of using leavened bread in favor of unleavened bread in the Eucharist.

A common theme in both aggiorniamento and resourcement is the tendency of attempting to cancel the common experience of the Church (perhaps another way of putting this is to say, to ignore or forget Holy Tradition) for the sake of either what is conceived to be a present need, or for the sake of the fruits of scholarly research (which are often made obsolete or shown to be inadequate by later researches).

An example of what I have termed anamnesis, on the other hand, can be found in the late Fr. Schmemann’s liturgical researches and writings, particularly as found in the above examination of his work, The Eucharist. In that and other works, Schmemann does not suggest that the form or structure of the Great Entrance be altered or replaced for the sake of something new, nor does he suggest that the traditional interpretations of that Entrance be replaced by present researches.

Rather, he maintains the past structure of the service, examines and honors the traditional interpretations, and seeks to harmonize and fulfill that structure and those interpretations through historical research and textual analysis of the prayers and actions. In short, he, like all Orthodox theologians and worshipers, engages in anamnesis: in the fulfillment of the past in the present.

The writer does not seek to engage in polemic in making these assertions. He has spent his youth and a third of his adult life as a Roman Catholic; he has also spent the remainder of his adulthood as an Eastern Christian. He has been pondering, for the last score of years, why the Liturgical Movement was so fruitful in and for the Orthodox Church, and why it was the cause of so much heartbreak and shipwreck of faith in the Roman Church. As a result of this course, and the question posed by its professor, the writer believes that he has finally found an answer to that question.