The Place of the Liturgy in Orthodoxy

Art and Spirituality of the Russian Orthodox Tradition

It is claimed by the Russian Primary Chronicle that it was the experience of the Divine Liturgy in the church of the Holy Wisdom in Constantinople that persuaded the ambassadors of Prince Vladimir to recommend the adoption of Orthodoxy: ‘we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth… We only know that there God dwells among men’. The experience of the Divine Liturgy remains central to Orthodox experience, not least Russian Orthodox experience. First of all, the liturgy takes place in a sacred space; the church building is divided by an iconostasis which separates the sanctuary (called the altar) from the nave, the clergy from the people. ‘Separates’—but also links and unites: the deacon, in particular, passes between the nave and the altar, and in singing the litanies, carries the prayers of the people into the presence of God. Secondly, the differentiated space makes possible a movement of symbolism—from nave to altar, from earth to heaven. The 5 movement of the liturgy—processions, incensing—draws together heaven and earth. There is a sense of rhythm about the liturgy, which one very soon picks up. The music—sung by human voices, without instruments; that is, by ‘instruments’ made by God in his image—the colour of the icons and the vestments, the splendour of the sacred vessels: in all of this, the material world is affirmed and offered to God. Thirdly, the splendour manifest in this way is the splendour of the Kingdom of God, of the Heavens, which is proclaimed by the priest at the beginning of the Liturgy—‘Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit’—and which recurs throughout the liturgy, until before Holy Communion, we beg to be ‘remembered in the Kingdom’ along with the repentant thief.