The divine services that lead up to Great Lent include four preparatory Sundays and these days use the liturgical book called the Lenten Triodion. Usually throughout the year there are nine biblical odes that are chanted, but during this fasting season there will be three odes instead of nine in the canon. Liturgical “cycles” on whatever calendar, season, or sequence are “unified” in spirit. The major theme of the Lenten Triodion and Great Lent is repentance more so than baptism that used to characterize it as well. Christian groups define repentance or conversion differently. They have different expectations in how that works out in individuals. Metropolitan Hilarion outlines the meaning of repentance in an Orthodox manner by examining the scriptures, hymnography, and liturgical texts of the Church which encompasses a large history from the Old Testament up to today. Roman Catholics have a highly developed Catechism where doctrines, dogmas, practices, and questions are easily referenced and answered. The Orthodox do not always have this exact kind of resource not because it’s difficult to translate into many languages or to agree on matters of faith, but because the “catechism” is in the liturgical life and worship of the Orthodox Church. This ritual experience spans many generations of saints, monks, nuns, holy fathers and mothers, persecutions, empires and kingdoms, and missionary work. One could argue that this Orthodox compendium is more comprehensive and richer than any catechism or Protestant resource book today in the world. Metropolitan Hilarion gives us a taste of this beauty and order that defines how Orthodox Christians approach repentance during these divine services.
The first Sunday of the Lenten Triodion is the Publican and the Pharisee. Some Christians have interpreted this passage as a rejection of tradition, ritual, and liturgical worship – that all the mysteries or sacraments of the Church along with clergy and hierarchy are not accepted by the apostles. This isn’t true at all. Both men are justified, but the Publican is more justified because of his humility. While the Pharisee does have good deeds, he is missing a humble attitude that would make his works acceptable sacrifices to God. The emphasis is on the whole change that happens from the inside out; the actions still matter. When the Publican nurtures his humility, he will give birth to many virtues that would include and go beyond what the Pharisee offered. But the pride of the Pharisee will give birth to many vices. So, the fact that both were in a worship service and following prescribed ritual actions isn’t rejected, but the hidden, interior, and noetic happenings of the heart are highlighted.
The second Sunday also reminds us of holy scripture. It is the Parable of the Prodigal Son. This story is about “unspeakable mercy,” and it might challenge our ways of conceptualizing justice. We are called to think about the possible and “unique blessing” of “a spiritual inheritance” that we can attain through the Father’s mercy and Christ’s love, and that we can pass down to the next generation. A son or Christian will share in the same nature as the Father through grace; that’s the unity that will be celebrated at the Wedding Feast at the end of the age, that the Holy Trinity has united humanity back to the Divinity through the image of Christ Jesus, the Son of God. The image of repentance is captured with the phrase, “And he came to himself.” Again, there seems to be a dichotomy or rejection of one son and the acceptance of the other that would make the sinning son good and the obedient son bad. The careful reading of this parable shows us that God lets his light and blessings shine on the good and the bad; the obedient, older son isn’t doing anything wrong outwardly, but the heart is different from the younger son who has sought forgiveness from the father. It’s good to be the obedient son if your heart is right, and it’s also good to be the repentant son who seeks forgiveness and unity with the household of his father. It begins in the nous. One must first arise in one’s heart with a firm belief before making a journey that includes bodily efforts, it seems to be the case because the younger “came to himself” before he left the foreign land of passions. Other lands of passion are allegorically referred to as Egypt or Babylon in liturgical texts and holy scripture.
It has been argued by some Christian authors that the Christian battle for the soul and body begins with a “Roman” style approach of subduing the body first, and by starting with passions of gluttony and the bodily sins. But it seems from these Lenten Sundays that repentance is a noetic activity that allows us to arise and employ our bodies in the great struggle we’re called to do. The Shepherd of Hermas likewise encourages the faithful to repent by first believing that change can happen. He explains that if we don’t believe it’s possible, we won’t try, and it won’t happen. If we do believe it’s possible, we can overcome our passions gradually through the grace of God. The main emphasis of fasting in Holy Orthodoxy is to fast from the passions, the inward illness of the heart, since even the demons don’t eat, but they still lust, envy, and desire to do evil. The word metania means both to make a prostration with the sign of the cross and repentance – metanoia – in the koine Greek of the New Testament. The word is related to the nous or heart, mind, and noetic. As many Orthodox saints have taught, dead bodies cannot sin or do any action. So, the real starting point of repentance is our heart’s desires.
The Sunday of the Last Judgment is the third Sunday called Meatfare (Apokreo). We take leave of eating meat and we commemorate all of the departed. All types of death are mentioned, and for whatever reason. God might allow, command, or even will the departure of some people. Death is a great mystery and part of each person’s way of salvation. Death isn’t something outside of God’s divine will and providence. Besides, the Saturday of the Dead at Matins teaches, “Thou shalt make trial of all things in the fire.” Whether that is people who need cleansing or things that unfairly happened to humanity, all things will be tested and refined in this divine “fire.” The Church teaches, “Be of good courage, all ye dead, for death is slain and hell despoiled.” We remember our mortality and that can make us very humble and help us to change our minds. If we don’t change our minds, we do miss out on some “inheritance” since the Church also teaches, “And woe to all whose lives are sinful” (Lenten Triodion, Matins, Canon, Ode 4).
We make trial of ourselves in Great Lent so that we don’t experience “woes.” An important part of Orthodox fasting and Lent is that repentance normally comes in stages. That can be a great blessing. Many Orthodox saints spent years and years praying, doing menial jobs, and following routine tasks before ever experiencing the divine light and freedom from the passions. Protestants historically have rejected fasting programs that have a ritual character. Roman Catholics fast from flesh meats specifically on Ash Wednesday and Holy Friday as a rule now. Orthodox Christians can repent gradually over time and seek forgiveness through God’s grace. This time period allows us to purify our hearts before we enter the eternal kingdom where we enter the presence of others and all the angels. We take leave of these foods because we recognize that love is our spiritual food that we seek. But the Prodigal Son, the Publican, St. Mary of Egypt, St. Ephraim the Syrian have found the inexhaustible table that they desired deeply to devour joyfully.
The fourth Sunday of the Lenten Triodion is Cheesefare or Forgiveness Sunday. We repent with Adam, all of humanity that we have “cast off the robe woven by God, disobeying Thy divine command, O Lord, at the counsel of the enemy” (Forgiveness Sunday, Vespers, Stichera at ‘Lord I call’). We fast from pride, resentment, meat, cheese, and now holding grudges and hatred against others. We are slowly dying a spiritual kind of death to the passionate person. Some people, religious or not, might say that it’s silly to think that giving up some cheese will help my salvation. But careful study of God’s holy scriptures shows us that it wasn’t necessarily wine or wealth in itself that caused the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah, but “stomachs full on bread.” It was an excess of eating that caused so much sin and destruction along with the superfluous living that would follow that lifestyle. We are also reminded that the Lord took “the flesh of a Virgin” in order to “call me back into paradise.” Adam disrobed divinity given by grace. Christ robed himself in our flesh by the Spirit. To become humble could mean to recognize one’s nothingness, earthliness, a lower and more vulnerable mortal state of created order. But it’s a part of human nature to be this way. In the epic of the Iliad, Homer shows us that in his worldview of the Hellenic pantheon only humans like the enemies Achilles and Priam, Hector and Patroclus could understand eleos or mercy, which is the concluding theme of the entire poem. Likewise, we are creatures who can access forgiveness by participating in the rite of forgiveness on Cheesefare Sunday, and by always praying, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” Mercifulness reconnects us to love and our homeland in paradise.
The way that Lenten Triodion leads us into the theme of Great Lent is by fasting, noetic prayer, repentance, forgiveness, all of which must start with ourselves. Abba Dorotheos teaches, “There is nothing worse than condemnation [of our neighbor.]” St. Ephraim the Syrian’s prayer articulates that teaching and it’s recited throughout fasting periods. The spiritual disciplines that the Church gives us as blessing help us to see our blind spots. The major one is our tendency to focus on the faults of others, and to forget our own. St. Andrew of Crete composed a Canon of Repentance. Like St. Roman the Melodist, St. Andrew wrote hymnography that addressed one’s soul as the interlocutor because repentance must begin in the deep abyss of the nous for metanoia to change our minds. In this season of fasting, the troparia abound. St. Andrew teaches, “Awake my soul, consider the actions which thou hast done; set them before thine eyes, and le the drops of thy tears fall.” In Holy Orthodoxy, a lot of attention is given comparatively to the gifts of tears, especially in ascetic literature and liturgical texts. It’s a way of purifying our heart. He also teaches, “O miserable soul, thou hast not struck and killed the Egyptian mind, as did Moses the great.” The real enemy is our thoughts that betray us and the demonic council that first tricked Adam. They can attack us at the gate of our brain and our heart. Where our thoughts desire to go, the body will be dragged to do its bidding. Metropolitan Hilarion brings up a question, “can modern people find contemplation?” Moses found it in the desert along with St. John the Forerunner, and many Christian ascetics in the world and in the monastery after them.
There are many more Sundays included in Great Lent that lead up to Holy Saturday. Holy Week is a special time where we begin to focus our attention on Christ’s suffering leading to his resurrection. An important theme that builds up in the liturgical texts is the teaching that hell’s dominion has been “swallowed up” and that “the power of death has no more strength.” It is a great topic that Metropolitan Hilarion gives some deserved attention. On Great and Holy Saturday, the Church teaches, “Hell is king over mortal men, but not forever. Laid in the sepulcher, mighty Lord, with Thy life-giving hand Thou hast burst asunder the bars of death” (Matins, Canon, Ode 6). St. Gregory of Nyssa theologized that hell couldn’t be eternal just as God is eternal, since that would make the idea of distributive justice, punishment, or time itself deified in some way similar to the gods like Kronos who swallowed up his children, the bright Apollo, or Pallas Athena — brandisher of the spear. If death is “slain” by Christ who exalts and brandishes the Cross, then likewise is hell destroyed is the argument. There seems to be a necessary link between death and hell, or punishment. There is burning fire and judgment at the end. But interestingly, not mentioned by Metropolitan Hilarion in the chapter, is that a never-ending, non-corrective torture or torment of hell was a unique teaching of the Pharisees who used specific Greek words that differed from Christ and the Apostles to describe this terrible kind of ending. The next chapter discusses the Paschal Cycle. There is the pascha of the crucifixion and the pascha of the resurrection. All of Adam’s race is resurrected. If we choose, we can follow the path of the cross that contains many blessings and freedoms that we have been hindered from choosing.