With the grace of God, Your Holiness, we have been blessed to enter the joy of the Kingdom, to “see the true light and receive the heavenly Spirit.” Every celebration of the Divine Liturgy is a powerful and inspiring con-celebration of heaven and of history. Every Divine Liturgy is both an anamnesis of the past and an anticipation of the Kingdom. We are convinced that during this Divine Liturgy, we have once again been transferred spiritually in three directions: toward the kingdom of heaven where the angels celebrate; toward the celebration of the liturgy through the centuries; and toward the heavenly kingdom to come.
This overwhelming continuity with heaven as well as with history means that the Orthodox liturgy is the mystical experience and profound conviction that “Christ was, is, and ever shall be in our midst!” For in Christ, there is a deep connection between past, present, and future. In this way, the liturgy is more than merely the recollection of Christ’s words and acts. It is the realization of the very presence of Christ Himself, who has promised to be wherever two or three are gathered in His name….
Thus our worship coincides with the same joyous worship in heaven and throughout history. Indeed, as St. John Chrysostom himself affirms: “Those in heaven and those on earth form a single festival, a shared thanksgiving, one choir” (PG 56.97). Heaven and earth offer one prayer, one feast, and one doxology. The Divine Liturgy is at once the heavenly kingdom and our home, “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21.1), the ground and center where all things find their true meaning. The Liturgy teaches us to broaden our horizon and vision, to speak the language of love and communion, but also to learn that we must be with one another in spite of our differences and even divisions. In its spacious embrace, it includes the whole world, the communion of saints, and all of God’s creation. The entire universe becomes “a cosmic liturgy”, to recall the teaching of St. Maximus the Confessor. This kind of Liturgy can never grow old or outdated.
The only appropriate response to this showering of divine benefits and compassionate mercy is gratitude (eucharistia). Indeed, thanksgiving and glory are the only fitting response of human beings to their Creator. For to Him belong all glory, honor, and worship: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; now and always, and to the ages of ages. Amen.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew Homily during the Divine Liturgy The Feast Day of St. Andrew at the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. George
