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| Source: zizoulas.org |
Presvytera Deborah brought the amazing passage below to my attention, and I would like to share it with the parish. This was written by Metropolitan John Zizioulas (+2022). Many would consider him one of the premiere Orthodox theologians of the last two generations or so, together will such illuminaries as Fr. George Florovsky and Met. Kallistos Ware. He was a prolific writer who approached his vocation as a theologian with great care and a commitment to present and build up the Orthodox Christian Faith to the utmost of his ability.
In this dense passage, he uncovers the real depth of the Liturgy as a "foretaste of the Eschaton." Here, his theological perspective is very close to that of Fr. Alexander Schmemann who, through his writing, made the Liturgy alive and imbued with a meaning that took it far beyond an ancient and colorful rite.
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“Chronos (chronological or sequential time) is imbued with meaning by kairos(the opportune time), and kairos is nothing more than a stop, a way station, from which we can survey the past and look out onto the future. Without kairos, time (chronos) flows on without meaning, sunk in death, and nothing that happens within it survives. In all of creation, only the human being can change time into kairos. The prerogative and responsibility of the freedom given to him or to her by the Creator is to enter through time, even if only briefly (as happens in the Divine Liturgy), into the presence and foretaste of the Eschaton, that which will not be lost together with all the useless things we carry around with us in this life.”
