A Vision of What is Possible: Orthodox Liturgy in the Future

The issue of Liturgy entitled “Future Renewals: Looking Toward the Next Fifty Years of Worship Scholarship and Practice,” was co-edited by Andrew Wymer, vice-president of the Liturgical Conference board and professor of worship at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, and me.

We solicited essays from a range of members of the North American Academy of Liturgy (NAAL) looking at what has changed in liturgical scholarship and liturgical practice in the years since NAAL was founded in response to the Second Vatican Council.

Here is an excerpt from an essay by Nicholas Denysenko an ordained deacon of the Orthodox Church in America who teaches theology at Valparaiso University in Indiana. He is currently writing on the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. –– Melinda Quivik

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What is special about Orthodox Liturgy? The mainstream perception of Orthodox Liturgy is that its antiquity is its main feature. Orthodox Liturgy displays colorful images and attractive sounds. The combination of vast spaces, beautiful yet austere iconography, resplendent chants, incense, and graceful ritual movement feels old and resistant to modernization. Converts to the Orthodox church describe the liturgy as apostolic, an anchor, or a safe haven from the troubles of the world. The Liturgy is quite quotable—the Cherubikon invites faithful to “lay aside all earthly cares,” a verse that confirms the otherworldly quality of Orthodox Liturgy.

Liturgical historians might take a different approach and point to a handful of figures or historical periods that profoundly shape Orthodox Liturgy. Liturgical scholars tend to cherish hymnography because it is the repository of the Greek patristic tradition of homiletics. Others refer to the anaphoras of John Chrysostom and Basil of Caesarea as the finest expressions of Christology and Trinitarian theology in the Liturgy.

A lifetime of participation in Orthodox liturgy as a child, altar server, choir director, and deacon has shaped my perspective. I am convinced that the greatest gift of Orthodox Liturgy is inexplicable. It evades the finest homilists and eludes theologians. This gift can be sensed, experienced, and, most of all, received, but all explanations fall short. The gift is the infinite presence of God reaching out to us, touching us, and piercing our hearts. It is a taste of the life for which we were truly created, and not merely the finite experience of time, space, and place, but the vision of partaking of the day without end promised to us. Many experts and ordinary laity have attempted to describe this experience, and they grasp for meaning. It is often called a journey, one taken together in the company of others, to the final destination. . . .

Two particular qualities of Orthodox liturgy that stand out and can be “felt” are the absolute otherness of God and love for humankind. Orthodox liturgy excels at expressing wonder and marveling at God—not only in the lectio selecta of responsorial psalmody but also in non-textual, non-verbal ways. God is almighty, but not only that; God is beyond our imagination, yet approachable. This last apophatic expression is also a useful paradox—the uncontainable one whose light the disciples could not behold on Mount Tabor becomes a vulnerable infant, born in poverty to a teenage mother in a cave. The one who created humankind in the divine image and likeness approaches mortal flesh to receive the baptism of forgiveness. The one whose artisanship is unparalleled, planting trees that soar above the heavens, voluntarily endures crucifixion on a tree. Orthodoxy excels at communicating the parallels that invite all to approach the unapproachable one, and not just to come forward—but to receive a loving embrace and kiss from the very one whose hands made us into living, talking, loving creatures. This, then, is the greatest strength of Orthodox Liturgy. It excels at inviting the faithful into the mystery of a deeply loving encounter with the unapproachable one.

The full essay with full references is available now in the digital and print editions of Liturgy. All of the essays in Liturgy 38, no. 1 are available by personal subscription and through many libraries.

Nicholas Denysenko is the Emil and Elfriede Jochum University Professor and Chair at Valparaiso University, Indiana.

Nicholas Denysenko, “A Vision of What is Possible: Orthodox Liturgy in the Future,” Liturgy 38, no. 1 (2023): 5–10.