In the preface of Volume IV, Metropolitan Hilarion describes religion as a “worldview.” We make connections with our experiences about the events around us, and we proceed with assumptions about what might happen. Religio, a Latinate word that entered our language around 1200, had a much broader meaning that might encompass conscience, reverence, faith, and action toward the divine, not a sanctimonious spectacle. Ancient Latin authors thought the verb religare, to reconnect, bind, go through again to God, was what religion meant. Early Christian writer, Lactantius, wrote, “we are tied to God and bound [religati] to Him (Divine Institutes IV, xxvii).
In Orthodox Christianity, our relationship was broken by sin and death, some grace was lost, but our nature continues and remains, and God has always been a Lover of Mankind; He hasn’t changed. What was bound and tied together was the body taken from the Most Holy Theotokos and the Divine Nature of Christ who lives with us now. This re-joining between God and man makes it possible for us to recover both the soul and the body together. This relationship with Christ, prevents us from becoming demon-men, which is clear through the progression of mankind’s history. St. Augustine teaches that “having lost God through neglect, we recover Him [religantes] and are drawn to Him” (The City of God X.3). Everyone has a certain view of the world. Systems of thought vary within and outside many different cultures. Answers to life and death have been recycled through the times and even newer ones through more discoveries and technological advances, which seek to recover humanity lost.
Metropolitan Hilarion structures Orthodoxy’s unique perspective of life and death, religious beliefs, and practices systematically in Part One. Religion is built up in order. It can be described as a synergistic effort to recover ourselves to God, a joint work between God and people. This system is personal, not based on strictly mathematical or mechanistic views that are a commonplace approach to answering and guiding the questions of our wonder and anxiety. Orthodoxy views this world as a place for recovery and renewal of beauty, goodness, and truth through a recovering of our deepest past and renewing our inner life and core identity. If all directions led to the same path, reflection, practical knowledge, and asking questions about life and death wouldn’t be very valuable, if all roads led to Larissa. In Plato’s Meno, Socrates questions whether absolute knowledge is more important to have than true belief. Unless knowledge is “tied down,” according to Socrates, by truth, then this knowledge isn’t worth attaining because it won’t weather the storms of life toward the end. Some practices lead to renewing our body and soul, others do not help us to accomplish that end. The holy traditions passed down to us through the saints and holy fathers of the Orthodox Church conserve the right medicinal treatment for humanity’s recovery and the reordering of our desires and fears.
Christian denominations or religions cannot boast of a tradition that has not undergone some development. Historically Orthodox Christians have kept apostolic tradition mystically. It produces holy men and women even up to our times. It renews our spiritual senses and our bodies through heartfelt prayer and the receiving of consecrated physicality to heal us. Prayer is the center of Orthodox life and Christ too is the center of all things. So, our prayers to saints, angels, and the Most Holy Virgin Mary are tied together, they are inseparable in seeking out the good of each person and place. The foundation of Orthodox worship is prayer. It’s not an accidental feature. Prayer also requires effort, humility, discipline, and a desire to have a relationship with God who is in relationship with everyone else. The divine liturgy of the Orthodox Church is the foundation for theology, the recovery of our nature, and our final renewal or theosis, deification. It’s where the major thoughts about life and death questions can be answered.
Brad S. Gregory has outlined the recent consequences of divisions between Christian religious groups, mostly Catholics and Protestants. There is a deep, faithful connection between a person’s effort and struggles and prayer in the East. Asceticism and prayer are not thought to be separated in Orthodoxy as it can become often in other Christian assemblies. Orthodox theology is based on heartfelt prayer in the divine liturgy and ascetical disciplines. These traditions of prayer have been practiced since the times of the Hebrew Old Testament righteous patriarchs, women, and children. Theology is formed from the liturgy. In Roman Catholicism, worship is informed by theology. Here theological principles worked out through argumentation, disputation, and propositions are the criteria for forming correct worship. So, there is not an emphasis, overall, on deification (renewal, theosis), ascesis, and noetic prayer or heartfelt prayer. Instead, the strength of intellectual systems holds preeminence when it is approved via the ultimate authority for the Church on earth, the Papal office, which has the sole ownership of making such judgments to secure liturgical worship. Protestantism often claims to have no need of any mediators, saints, or Mary, except Christ. But Orthodox noetic, heartfelt prayer is a kind of mediation through the grace of Christ that allows us to enter paradise while we live here and it allows us to live on a more real level and with more deeper connections to people, whether alive or dead. Disciplined prayer opens our spiritual eyes over time, and through many cycles of worship in Orthodox liturgy, we recover our true sight. That doesn’t happen in Protestant theology or practice, nor do they want to claim that can happen. Roman Catholicism claims to have the sole authority and correct Christian belief and knowledge. They take the Holy Apostle Peter in Rome there. The spiritual understanding of worship differs from the Eastern churches. They conserve the rights of office and apostolic authority. But Orthodox Christians have an undeniable link to thousands of saints, including St. Peter, all the Apostles. From Abel and Abraham to Silouan the Athonite and Elder Joseph the Hesychast, the saints testify to the Orthodox Church’s liturgical life. Greek Orthodox Christians, mostly laity and married people who lived in Turkey during the 19th and 20th century also displayed the same gifts, holiness, and ability to heal others as did the previous Hebrew righteous, early Christians, and monastic ranks. Their authority is guided by the Holy Spirit because they sought God through constant, heartfelt prayer, the attendance in the divine services and liturgical cycles, feast, and fast days. The saints build up the foundation of Orthodox worship. It continues to grow strongly and mystically. Despite those differences, Christians from East and West share a “common heritage,” as Protopresbyter John Meyendorff teaches.
Order and prayer organize liturgical life. The system of a human body needs a spirit and the ordering of physical members in the world to interact properly. Likewise, there are cycles of worship. It’s not a gnostic system of levels or intellectual challenges. It’s not the meditative or analytical stripping down of the outward shell of nature or accidentals of the physical world to find the core meaning without any mediation. Order and beauty work harmoniously like a body. The Church is Christ’s body. Christ’s body came from the Most Holy Theotokos. The Most Holy Theotokos is a transfigured person, inextricably bound to God. We strive to become transfigured and eternally tied with the Holy Trinity. The liturgical cycles give us a glimpse into this life unto ages and ages, eternally. The liturgy tells us about life after death and what we can do now. Many Protestants and even Catholics will question why liturgical language, ceremony, and calendar are important topics in Orthodoxy or why are they included in worship at all. The Holy Trinity created time, the sun, moon, planets, and stars. The Holy Trinity created our bodies to move and perform action and work with different parts like the eyes, mouth, ears, head, and hands. The Holy Trinity created words and language for expressing our worship; He gave us speech, sound, and names. All creation is involved in recovery and renewal. Creation isn’t the main obstacle to worship. Rather, it’s man’s sin and death, as well as the demonic creatures, that continue to cover up in blindness what is made good. Orthodox liturgical life includes certain words, names, times, and actions. These are all on the same course of salvation and we use them in our daily life.