I have always rather liked the gruff robustness of the first rubric for baptism found in a late fourth-century church order which directs that the bishop enter the vestibule of the baptistery and say to the catechumens without commentary or apology only four words: “Take off your clothes.” There is no evidence that the assistants fainted or the catechumens asked what he meant.

Catechesis and much prayer and fasting had led them to understand that the language of their passage this night in Christ from death to life would be the language of the bathhouse and the tomb — not that of the forum and the drawing room.

So they stripped and stood there, probably, faint from fasting, shivering from the cold of early Easter morning and with awe at what was about to transpire. Years of formation were about to be consummated; years of having their motives and lives scrutinized; years of hearing the word of God read and expounded at worship; years of being dismissed with prayer before the Faithful went on to celebrate the eucharist; years of having the doors to the assembly hall closed to them; years of seeing the tomb-like baptistery building only from without; years of hearing the old folks of the community tell hair-raising tales of what being a Christian had cost their own grandparents when the emperors were still pagan; years of running into a reticent and reverent vagueness concerning what was actually done by the Faithful at the breaking of bread and in that closed baptistery….

Tonight all this was about to end as they stood here naked on a cold floor in the gloom of this eerie room.

Abruptly the bishop demands that they face westward, toward where the sun dies swallowed up in darkness, and denounce the King of shadows and death and things that go bump in the night. Each one of them comes forward to do this loudly under the hooded gaze of the bishop (who is tired from presiding all night at the vigil continuing next door in the church), as deacons shield the nudity of the male catechumens from the women, and deaconesses screen the women in the same manner. This is when each of them finally lets go of the world and of life as they have known it: the umbilical cord is cut, but they have not yet begun to breathe.

Then they must each turn eastwards toward where the sun surges up bathed in a light which just now can be seen stealing into the alabaster windows of the room. They must voice their acceptance of the King of light and life who has trampled down death by his own death. As each one finishes this he or she is fallen upon by a deacon or a deaconess who vigorously rubs olive oil into his or her body, as the bishop perhaps dozes off briefly, leaning on his cane. (He is like an old surgeon waiting for the operation to begin.)

When all the catechumens have been thoroughly oiled, they and the bishop are suddenly startled by the crash of the baptistery doors being thrown open. Brilliant golden light spills out into the shadowy vestibule, and following the bishop (who has now regained his composure) the catechumens and the assistant presbyters, deacons, deaconesses, and sponsors move into the most glorious room most of them have ever seen. It is a high, arbor-like pavilion of green, gold, purple, and white mosaic from marble floor to domed ceiling sparkling like jewels in the light of innumerable oil lamps that fill the room with a heady warmth. The windows are beginning to blaze with the light of Easter dawn. The walls curl with vines and tendrils that thrust up from the floor, and at their tops apostles gaze down robed in snow-white togas, holding crowns. They stand around a golden chair draped with purple upon which rests only an open book. And above all these, in the highest point of the ballooning dome, a naked Jesus (very much in the flesh) stands up to his waist in the Jordan as an unkempt John pours water on him and God’s disembodied hand points the Holy Spirit at Jesus’ head in the form of a white bird.

Suddenly the catechumens realize that they have unconsciously formed themselves into a mirror-image of this lofty icon on the floor directly beneath it. They are standing around a pool let into the middle of the floor, into which gushes water pouring noisily from the mouth of a stone lion crouching atop a pillar at poolside. The bishop stands beside this, his presbyters on each side: a deacon has entered the pool, and the other assistants are trying to maintain a modicum of decorum among the catechumens who forget their nakedness as they crowd close to see. The room is warm, humid, and it glows. It is a golden paradise in a bathhouse in a mausoleum: an oasis, Eden restored: the navel of the world, where death and life meet, copulate, and become undistinguishable from each other. Jonah peers out from a niche, Noah from another, Moses from a third, and the paralytic carrying his stretcher from a fourth. The windows begin to sweat.

The bishop rumbles a massive prayer — something about the Spirit and the waters of life and death — and then pokes the water a few times with his cane. The catechumens recall Moses doing something like that to a rock from which water flowed, and they are mightily impressed. Then a young male catechumen of about ten, the son of pious parents, is led down into the pool by the deacon. The water is warm (it has been heated in a furnace), and the oil on his body spreads out on the surface in iridescent swirls. The deacon positions the child near the cascade from the lion’s mouth. The bishop leans over on his cane, and in a voice that sounds like something out of the Apocalypse, says: “Euphemius! Do you believe in God the Father, who created all of heaven and earth?” After a nudge from the deacon beside him, the boy murmurs that he does. And just in time, for the deacon, who has been doing this for fifty years and is the boy’s grandfather, wraps him in his arms, lifts him backwards into the rushing water and forces him under the surface. The old deacon smiles through his beard at the wide brown eyes that look up at him is shock and fear from beneath the water (the boy has purposely not been told what to expect).

Then he raises him up coughing and sputtering. The bishop waits until he can speak again, and leaning over a second time, tapping the boy on the shoulder with his cane, says: “Euphemius! Do you believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, who was conceived of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, and was crucified, died, and was buried? Who rose on the third day and ascended into heaven, from whence he will come again to judge the living and the dead?” This time he replies like a shot, “I do,” and then holds his nose… “Euphemius! Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the master and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who is to be honored and glorified equally with the Father and the Son, who spoke by the Prophets? And in one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church which is the communion of God’s holy ones? And in the life that is coming?” “I do.”

When he comes up the third time, his vast grandfather gathers him in his arms and carries him up the steps leading out of the pool. There another deacon roughly dries Euphemius with a warm towel, and a senior presbyter, who is almost ninety and is regarded by all as a “confessor” because he was imprisoned for the faith as a young man, tremulously pours perfumed oil from a glass pitcher over the boy’s damp head until it soaks his hair and runs down over his upper body. The fragrance of this enormously expensive oil fills the room as the old man mutters: “God’s servant, Euphemius, is anointed in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Euphemius is then wrapped in a new linen tunic; the fragrant chrism seeps into it, and he is given a burning terracotta oil lamp and gold to go stand by the door and keep quiet. Meanwhile, the other baptisms have continued.

When all have been done in this same manner (an old deaconess, a widow, replaced Euphemius’s grandfather when it came the women’s time), the clergy strike up the Easter hymn, “Christ is risen from the dead, he has crushed death by his death and bestowed life on those who lay in the tomb.”

To this constantly repeated melody interspersed with the Psalm verse, “Let God arise and smite his enemies,” the whole baptismal party — tired, damp, thrilled, and oily — walk out into the blaze of Easter morning and go next door to the church led by the bishop. There he bangs on the closed doors with his cane: they are flung open, the endless vigil is halted, and the baptismal party enters as all take up the hymn, “Christ is risen…,” which is all but drowned out by the ovations that greet Christ truly risen in his newly-born ones. As they enter, the fragrance of chrism fills the church: it is the Easter-smell, God’s grace olfactorally incarnate. The pious struggle to get near the newly baptized to touch their chrismed hair and rub its fragrance on their own faces. All is chaos until the baptismal party manages to reach the towering ambo that stands in the middle of the pewless hall. The bishop ascends its lower front steps, turns to face the white-clad neophytes grouped at the bottom with their burning lamps and the boisterous faithful now held back by a phalanx of well-built acolytes and doorkeepers. Euphemius’s mother has fainted and been carried outside for some air.

The bishop opens his arms to the neophytes and once again all burst into “Christ is risen,” Christos aneste …. He then affirms and seals their baptism after prayer, for all the Faithful to see, with an authoritative gesture of paternity — laying his hand on each head, signing each oily forehead once again in the form of a cross, while booming out: “The servant of God is sealed with the Holy Spirit.” To which all reply in a thunderous “Amen.” and for the first time the former catechumens receive and give the kiss of peace. Everyone is in tears. While this continues, bread a wine are laid out on the holy table; the bishop then prays at great length over them after things quiet down, and the neophytes lead all to communion with Euphemius out in front.

While his grandfather holds his lamp, Euphemius dines on the precious Body whose true and undoubted member he has become; drinks the precious Blood of him in whom he himself has now died; and just this once drinks from two other special cups — one containing baptismal water, the other containing milk and honey mixed as a gustatory icon of the promised land into which he and his colleagues have finally entered out of the desert through Jordan’s waters. Then his mother (now recovered and somewhat pale, still insisting she had only stumbled) took him home and put him, fragrantly, to bed.

Euphemius had come a long way. He had passed from death unto a life he lives still.

+ + +

Delivered at Holy Cross Abbey, Canon City, Colorado,
Theology Institute, August, 1977

Please note:
It is often said that the hymnography for Holy Friday in the Christian East is anti-semitic. References are made to “the Jews,” or “the Hebrew race.” What is intended in the hymnography (and meant to be understood) by these references is those individuals who were behind the plot to do away with the Savior — often called “the leaders” of the people. Texts also refer to the “lawless ones” who nailed the Savior to the Cross: the Romans. Each of us, by virtue of our own sinful disobedience to God, has had a part to play in the crucifixion of the Lord. What is addressed to “the Jews,” or “the Romans” should be interpreted as being applicable to us.

This translation of the texts from the Triodion comes from Archimandrite Ephrem (Lash), as available on the Anastasis website.

It is hoped that by making a prayerful reading of these texts, you will be able to enter into the Passion of our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ— and in so doing, you will “venerate Christ’s sufferings and then be shown His glorious Resurrection.”

---

From the Matins of Holy Friday

Antiphon 10. Tone 6

He who wraps himself in light as a garment, stands naked for judgement, and accepts a blow on the cheek by the hands of those he fashioned; while the lawless people nailed to the Cross the Lord of glory. Then the veil of the Temple was rent; the sun grew dark, unable to endure seeing God, before whom all things tremble being outraged. Him let us worship.

The disciple denied, the Thief cried out, ‘Remember me, Lord, in your Kingdom’.

Give peace to the world, Lord, who accepted to put on flesh from a Virgin for the sake of your servants that with one accord we may glorify you, the lover of mankind.

Antiphon 12. Tone 8

Thus says the Lord to the Jews, ‘My people, what have I done to you? Or in what have I wearied you? I gave light to your blind, I cleansed your lepers, I set upright a man lying on a bed. My people, what have I done to you, and how have you repaid me? Instead of the manna, gall; instead of the water, vinegar; instead of loving me, you have nailed me to a cross. I can endure no longer; I will call my nations, and they will glorify me, with the Father and the Spirit; and I shall grant them eternal life.

Today the veil of the Temple is rent as a reproof to the transgressors; and the sun hides its own rays, as it sees the Master crucified.

Lawgivers of Israel, Jews and Pharisees, the choir of the Apostles cries out to you, ‘See a Temple, which you have destroyed; see a Lamb, whom you have crucified. You handed him over to a tomb, but by his own authority he has risen. Do not be deceived, O Jews, for it is he who saved you in the sea, and fed you in the desert. He is the life and the light and the peace of the world’.

Hail Gate of the King of glory, through which the Most High alone has passed, and left it sealed again, for the salvation of our souls.

Tone 8

When you stood before Kaiaphas, O God, and were handed over to Pilate, O Judge, the powers of heaven were shaken from fear; but then you were raised up on the Tree between two thieves and were numbered with transgressors, O sinless One, to save humankind. Long-suffering Lord, glory to you!

Tone 6

Today he who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon a Tree,
He who is King of the Angels is arrayed in a crown of thorns.
He who wraps the heaven in clouds is wrapped in mocking purple.
He who freed Adam in the Jordan receives a blow on the face.
The Bridegroom of the Church is transfixed with nails.
The Son of the Virgin is pierced by a lance.
We worship your Sufferings, O Christ (x3)
Show us also your glorious Resurrection.

Let us not feast like Jews, for our Passover too has been sacrificed for us, Christ God. But let us purify ourselves from all defilement, and sincerely beseech him, ‘Arise, Lord, save us as you love humankind’.

Your Cross, Lord, is life and resurrection for your people; and putting our trust in it, we praise you our crucified God. Have mercy on us.

When she who bore you saw you hanging on the Cross, O Christ, she cried out, ‘What is this strange mystery that I see now, my Son? How are you dying on a tree, nailed in the flesh, O Giver of Life?

Then we sing the Beatitudes with verses, in Tone 4.

In your kingdom remember us, O Lord, when you come in your kingdom.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Through a tree Adam became an exile from Paradise; but through the tree of the Cross the Thief made Paradise his home: for the former through tasting set aside his Maker’s commandment, while the latter, crucified with him, confessed the hidden God, as he cried, ‘Remember me in your kingdom’.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after justice, for they shall be filled.

The lawless bought the Maker of the Law from a disciple, and as a lawbreaker stood him before Pilate’s judgement seat, crying, ‘Crucify’ the one who gave them manna in the desert. While we, imitating the just Thief, cry with faith, ‘Remember us also, O Saviour, in your kingdom’.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

The swarm of those who slew God, the lawless nation of the Jews, in their frenzy cried out to Pilate, ‘Crucify’ Christ, the innocent. They rather asked for Barabbas. But we address to him the words of the grateful Thief, ‘Remember us also, O Saviour, in your kingdom’.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Your life-bearing side, gushing up like a spring in Eden, gives drink to your Church, O Christ, as a spiritual Paradise, from there dividing, as into four heads, into four Gospels, it waters the World, making creation glad and faithfully teaching the nations to worship your Kingdom.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.

You were crucified for my sake, that for me you might be a source of forgiveness. You were pierced in the side, that for me you might gush forth streams of life. You were transfixed by nails, that I, assured of the height of your power by the depth of your sufferings, might cry to you, O Christ, giver of life, ‘Glory to your Cross, O Saviour, glory to your Passion!

Blessed are those who are persecuted for justice’s sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

When you were crucified, O Christ, all creation saw and trembled. The foundations of the earth quaked with fear of your might. The lamps of heaven hid themselves and the veil of the Temple was rent. The mountains quailed, and rocks were split, and with us the faithful Thief cries to you, O Saviour, ‘Remember’.

Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.

On the Cross, Lord, you tore up our record, and numbered among the dead you bound the tyrant there, delivering all from the bonds of death by your Resurrection, through which we have been enlightened, O Lord who love humankind, and we cry to you, ‘Remember us also, Saviour, in your kingdom’.

Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven.

Lifted up on the Cross, destroying the power of death and as God wiping out the record against us, O Lord, only Lover of humankind, grant the repentance of the Thief also to us who worship in faith, Christ our God, and who cry to you, ‘Remember us also, Saviour, in your kingdom’.

Let all of us believers pray with one accord to glorify worthily the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, a Unity of godhead existing in three Persons, remaining without confusion, simple, undivided and unapproachable, through whom we are delivered from the fire of eternal punishment.

O Christ, your Mother, who bore you in the flesh without seed, was truly Virgin and remained inviolate after child-birth, we bring in intercession, most merciful Master, to grant pardon of offences to those who cry, “Remember us also, O Savior, when you come into your Kingdom.”

---

From Vespers of Holy Friday

Verses on “Lord, I Call…”

Tone 1

All creation was changed by fear when it saw you hanging on the Cross, O Christ; the sun was darkened and the foundations of the earth were shaken; all things were suffering with you, the Creator of them all. You endured willingly for us. Lord, glory to you!

For your name’s sake I have waited for you, O Lord: my soul has waited on your word: my soul has hoped in the Lord.

All creation was changed by fear when it saw you hanging on the Cross, O Christ; the sun was darkened and the foundations of the earth were shaken; all things were suffering with you, the Creator of them all. You endured willingly for us. Lord, glory to you!

Tone 2

From the morning watch until night, from the morning watch: let Israel hope in the Lord.

Impious and lawless people, why do you meditate vain things? Why have you condemned the life of all to death? O great marvel! That the Creator of the world, who loves humankind, is betrayed into the hand of transgressors and lifted up on a tree, that he may free the prisoners in Hell. Long-suffering Lord, glory to you!

For with the Lord there is mercy, and with him plentiful redemption: and he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

Today the blameless Virgin, when she saw you hanging on the Cross, with a mother’s love she lamented, bitterly wounded in her heart, groaning in lamentation from the depth of her soul, she struck her cheeks and tore her hair; and so, beating her breast, she cried out with grief, ‘Woe is me, my divine child! Woe is me, light of the world! Why have you left my sight, Lamb of God?’ Therefore the armies of the Bodiless Powers were seized with terror as they said, ‘Lord, beyond understanding, glory to you!’

Praise the Lord, all you nations: praise him all you peoples.

When she saw you, O Christ, the Creator and God of all, hanging on the Cross, she who bore you without seed, cried bitterly: My Son, where has the beauty of your form departed? I cannot bear to see you unjustly crucified; hasten then, arise, that I too may see your resurrection from the dead on the third day.

Tone 2

For his mercy has been mighty towards us: and the truth of the Lord endures to the ages.

Today the Master of creation stands before Pilate, and the Creator of all things is given up to a Cross, led like a lamb by his own will. He has been transfixed with the nails, and he has been pierced in the side, and the lips of the One who rained down the manna are touched with a sponge. The Redeemer of the world is struck on the cheeks, and the Fashioner of all things is mocked by his own servants. O the Master’s love for mankind! For those who crucify him he implored his own Father, saying, ‘Forgive them this sin, for they do not know, the lawless, how wrongfully they act’.

Tone 6

Ah! how did the lawless assembly condemn the King of creation to death, without shame as they recalled benefits with which had protected them, as he reminded them, saying, ‘My people, what I have done to you? Have I not filled Judea with marvels? Have I not raised the dead with a word? Have I not healed every sickness and disease? How then have you repaid me? Why have you forgotten me, giving me blows for healings; putting me to death in return for life; hanging your benefactor on a Tree as a malefactor, the lawgiver as a lawbreaker, the King of all as one condemned’. Long-suffering Lord, glory to you!

A dread and marvellous mystery is seen to come to pass today. The Invisible is grasped, the One who loosed Adam from the curse is bound, the One who tries hearts and reins is tried; the One who shut the abyss is shut up in prison. He, before whom the Powers of heaven stand in fear, stands before Pilate; the Fashioner is struck by hand of the thing he fashioned; he who judges the living and the dead, is condemned to a Tree; the destroyer of Hell is shut up in a tomb. You bear all things with compassion, and save all from the curse, long-suffering Lord, glory to you!

The Reading is from the Prophecy of Isaias. [52:13-53:12]

Thus says the Lord: See, my servant will understand; he shall be exalted and glorified exceedingly. Just as there many will be astonished at you, so your appearance will be without glory from men, and your glory from the sons of men. So many nations will marvel at him; kings shall shut their mouths; for that which had not been told them about him they shall see, and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate. Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? We brought a report as of a child before him, as a root out of dry ground; he had no form or glory, and we saw him, and he had neither form nor beauty. But his form was without honour and inferior to the children of men. He was a man in suffering and acquainted with bearing weakness, because his face has been away, he was dishonoured and not esteemed. He bears our sins and is in pain for us. We reckoned him to be in toil and in affliction and trouble. But he was wounded for our sins and crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment of our peace, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; every one has gone astray in their own way, and the Lord handed him over for our sins. And he, because of his affliction, does not open his mouth; like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation his judgement was taken away; who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken away from the earth; because of the iniquities of my people he was led to death. And I will give the evil for his burial and the rich for his death, because he practised no iniquity, nor was there guile in his mouth. And the Lord wishes to cleanse him of his blow. If you give an offering for sin, your soul will seed a long-lived descendence. And the Lord wishes to take away from the toil of his soul, to show him light and to fashion him with understanding, to justify the just one, who serves many well, and he will bear their sins. Therefore he will inherit many and divide the spoils of the strong. Because his soul was handed over to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; and he bore the sin of many, and was handed over because of their iniquities. Rejoice, barren one who do not give birth, break out and cry, you who are not in labour, for the children of the desolate are more than those of her that has a husband.

Prokeimenon. Tone 6. [Psalm 87]

They have placed me in the lowest pit; in darkness and in the shadow of death.

Verse: Lord God of my salvation, I called for help by day; and by night also before you.

The reading is from the 1st Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians. [1:18-2:2]

Brethren, the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’ When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia. Tone 5. [Psalm 68] Verse 1: Save me, O God, for the waters have come in even to my soul. Verse 2: And they gave me gall for my food; and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Verse 3: Let their eyes be darkened, so that they see not; and bow down their back continually.The Reading is from the holy Gospel according to Matthew. [27:1-38, Lk. 23:39-43, Matt. 27:39-54, Joh. 19:31-37, Matt. 27:55-61]

At that time all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus, so as to put him to death. They bound him and led him away and handed him over to Pontius Pilate, the governor. Then Judas, seeing that Jesus had been condemned, repented and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, ‘I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.’ But they said, ‘What is that to us? See to it yourself.’ And flinging down the pieces of silver in the temple he went away and hanged himself. But the chief priests picked up the pieces of silver and said, ‘It is not permitted to put them into the treasury, because they are the price of blood.’ So they conferred together and bought with them the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners. And so that field has been called ‘Field of Blood’ until today. Then what had been said by the prophet Jeremy was fulfilled, when he said, ‘And the took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of the one who was prized, whom they prized from the children of Israel, and gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord had commanded me’. But Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor questioned him saying, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ Jesus said to him, ‘You say so.’ And when he was accused by the chief priests and elders he made no answer. Then Pilate says to him, ‘Do you not hear how many things they are testifying against you?’ But he did not answer him with s single word, so that the governor was greatly amazed. Now on the occasion of the feast the governor was accustomed to release to the crowd one prisoner whom they wished. They had at the time a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when they had assembled Pilate said to them, ‘Whom do wish me to release to you? Barabbas or Jesus called Christ?’ For he knew that they had handed him over through envy. But while he was seated on the tribunal, his wife sent to him saying, ‘Have nothing to do with that just man. For I have suffered many things today in a dream because of him.’ But the chief priests and elders had persuaded the crowds that they should ask for Barabbas. Pilate says to them, ‘So what shall I do with Jesus called Christ?’ They say to him, ‘Let him be crucified!’ The governor said, ‘Why, what evil has he done?’ But they shouted even louder, saying, ‘Let him be crucified!’ So Pilate, seeing that he was getting nowhere, but that a riot was starting instead, took water and washed his hands in full view of the crowd, saying, ‘I am innocent of the blood of this just man. You look to it.’ And the whole people answered and said, ‘His blood be on us and on our children.’ Then he released Barabbas to them, but Jesus he had scourged and handed him over to be crucified. Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the praetorium and gathered the whole cohort round him. They stripped him and dressed him in a scarlet cloak, and having woven a crown of thorns, they placed it on his head and a reed in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ They spat on him and took the reed and struck it on his head. And when they had mocked him, they took off the cloak and dressed him in his own clothes and led him away to crucify him. As they went out they found a Cyrenian named Simon; they forced him to carry his cross. And they came to a place called Golgotha, which means ‘place of a skull’, and they gave him vinegar to drink mixed with gall. And when he had tasted it he would not drink. When they had crucified him they divided his garments, casting lots, that saying by the prophet might be fulfilled, ‘They divided my garments among themselves, and cast lots for my raiment’. Then they sat down and watched him there. And over his head they placed his charge, which ran, ‘This is Jesus, the king of the Jews.’ Then they crucified with him two thieves, one on the right and one on the left. One of the criminals hanging there blasphemed him, saying, ‘If you are the Christ, save yourself and us.’ But the other answering, rebuked him and said, ‘Do you have no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; but he has done amiss.’ And he said to Jesus, ‘Remember me, Lord, when you come in your kingdom.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Amen I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’ The passers by blasphemed him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days! Save yourself. If you are the son of God, come down from the cross.’ Likewise the chief priests also mocked him with the scribes and elders and Pharisees, saying, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. If he is king of Israel, let him come down from the cross and we let us believe in him. He trusted in God, let him now deliver him, if he wants him. For he said, ‘I am the son of God.’’ The thieves too, who had been crucified with him, reviled him in the same way. From the sixth hour there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice and said, ‘Eli, Eli, lama savachthani?’ That is, ‘My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?’ Some of those standing there when they heard said, ‘This one is calling Elias.’ And one of them ran quickly and taking a sponge filled it with vinegar, placed it on a reed and gave it him to drink. But the rest said, ‘Wait, let us see if Elias is coming to save him.’ But Jesus, having cried out again with a loud voice, gave up the spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was rent in two, from the top to the bottom, and the earth was shaken and the rocks rent, and the graves were opened and many bodies of the saints who slept were raised, and coming out of their graves, after his rising they entered the holy city and appeared to many. But the centurion and those with him watching Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and all that was happening, were greatly afraid and said, ‘Truly, this was the son of God.’ So the Jews, that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, since it was the preparation—for that day was a great Sabbath—, asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be removed. So the soldiers came and the broke the legs of the first and the other who was crucified with him; but when they came to Jesus, as they saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one of the soldiers with a lance pierced his side, and immediately there came out blood and water. And the one who saw it has borne witness, and his witness is true, and he knows that he speaks the truth, that you also may believe. For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled, ‘Not a bone of him will be broken’. And again another scripture says, ‘They will look on him whom they pierced’. And there were many women there also watching from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, serving him. Among whom were Mary Magdalen and Mary the mother of James and Joses and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. When it grew late there came a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph, who was himself also a disciple of Jesus. He approached Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered the body to be handed over. Joseph took the body, wrapped it in clean linen and placed it in his own new grave, which he had hewn from the rock. He rolled a great stone to the door of the grave and departed. But Mary Magdalen was there and the other Mary, seated in front of the tomb.

Then the Aposticha.

During the Aposticha takes place the solemn procession with the Winding Sheet [Epitaphion], which is placed in the middle of the Church.

Tone 2.

When from the Tree the Arimathean took you down as a dead body, O Christ, who are the life of all, he buried you, with myrrh and a shroud; and with love he embraced your immaculate body with heart and lips; yet, shrouded with fear, he cried out to you rejoicing, ‘Glory to your condescension, Lover of humankind!’

Verse 1: The Lord is King, he has robed himself with majesty. The Lord has robed, and girded himself with power.

When in the new tomb you, the Redeemer of all, had been laid for the sake of all, Hell became a laughing stock and, seeing you, quaked with fear; the bars were smashed, the gates were shattered, the graves were opened, the dead arose; then Adam with thanksgiving cried out to you rejoicing, ‘Glory to your condescension, Lover of humankind!’

Verse 2: He has made the world firm; it will not be shaken.

When in the tomb in the flesh you were enclosed by your own will, O Christ, who by the nature of your godhead are uncircumscribed and unbounded, you unlocked the storehouses of Hell and emptied all his palaces; then too you granted this Sabbath divine blessing and glory and your own splendour.

Verse 3: Holiness becomes your house, O Lord, forever.

When the Powers saw you, O Christ, falsely accused by lawless men as a deceiver, they trembled at your ineffable long-suffering, and at the gravestone, sealed by the hands with which they had speared your immaculate side; yet rejoicing at our salvation, they cried to you, ‘Glory to your condescension, Lover of humankind!’

When Joseph with Nikodemos took you, who are clothed with light as a garment, down from the Tree, and saw you a dead body, naked, unburied, he was filled with compassion, and raising a lament he grieved and said, ‘Alas, sweetest Jesu, when a little while ago the sun saw you hanging on the Cross, it wrapped itself in gloom, and the earth quaked with fear, and the veil of the temple was rent in two; but see, I now look on you, who for me have willingly undergone death; how shall I bury you, my God? Or how shall I wrap you in shrouds; with what hands shall I touch your immaculate body? Or what songs shall I sing at your departure? I magnify your sufferings and I hymn your burial, with your resurrection, as I cry: Lord, glory to you!’

I am afraid to speak
and touch with my tongue
this fearful narrative
concerning the Saviour.
For truly it is fearful
to narrate all this.

Our Lord
was given up today
into the hands of sinners!

For what reason then
was one who is holy
and without sin given up?

For having done no sin
he was given up today.

Come, let us examine closely
why Christ our Saviour
was given up.

For us, the ungodly,
the Master was given up.

Who would not marvel?
Who would not give glory?

When the slaves had sinned
the Master was given up.

The sons of perdition
and the children of darkness
went out in the darkness
to arrest the sun
who had the power
to consume them in an instant.

But the Master, knowing
their effrontery
and the force of their anger,
with gentleness,
by his own authority,
gave himself up
into the hands of the ungodly.

And lawless men, having bound
the most pure Master,
mocked the one
who had bound the strong one
with unbreakable bonds,
and set us free
from the bonds of sins.

They plaited a crown
of their own thorns,
the fruit borne
by the vine of the Jews.

In mockery
they called him ‘King’.
The lawless spat
in the face of the most pure,
at whose glance
all the Powers of heaven
and the ranks of Angels
quake with fear.

See, once again grief and tears
grip hold of my heart,
as I contemplate the Master
enduring outrage and insults,
scourgings, spitting
from slaves, and blows.

Come, observe well
the abundance of compassion,
the forbearance and mercy
of our sweet Master.

He had a useful slave
in the Paradise of delight,
and when he sinned
he was given to the torturers.

But when the Good One
saw his weakness of soul
he took compassion on the slave
and had mercy on him
and presented himself
to be scourged by him.

I wished to remain silent
because my mind
was utterly amazed;
but then again I was afraid
lest I reject
by my silence
my Saviour’s grace.
For my bones tremble
when I think of it.

The fashioner of all things,
our Lord himself,
was today arraigned
before Caiaphas,
like one of the condemned;
and one of the servants
struck him a blow.

My heart trembles
as I think on these things:
the slave is seated,
the Master stands,
and one full of iniquities
passes sentence
on the one who is sinless.

The heavens trembled,
earth’s foundations shuddered;
Angels and Archangels
all quailed with terror.
Gabriel and Michael
covered their faces
with their wings.

The Cherubim at the throne
were hidden beneath the wheels;
The Seraphim struck their wings
one with the other
at that moment,
when a servant gave
a blow to the Master.

How did earth’s foundations
endure the earthquake
and the tremor
at that moment,
when the Master was outraged?

I observe and I tremble
and again I am stunned,
when I see the long-suffering
of the loving Master.

For see my inward parts
tremble as I speak,
because the Creator,
who by grace fashioned
humanity from dust,
he the Fashioner is struck.

Let us fear, my brethren
and not simply listen.
The Saviour endured
all these things for us.

Wretched servant,
tell us why
you struck the Master?

All servants,
when they are set free,
receive a blow,
that they may obtain
freedom that perishes;
but you, miserable wretch,
unjustly gave a blow
to the liberator of all.

Did you perhaps expect
to receive from Caiaphas
a reward for your blow?

Had you perhaps not heard,
had you perhaps not learned
that Jesus is
the heavenly Master?

You gave a blow
to the Master of all things,
but became slave of slaves
to age on age,
a disgrace and abomination,
and condemned for ever
in unquenchable fire.

A great marvel, brethren,
it is to see the gentleness
of Christ the King!
Struck by a slave
he answered patiently,
with gentleness
and all reverence.

A servant is indignant,
the Master endures;
a servant is enraged,
the Master is kind.

At a time of anger,
who could endure
rage and disturbance?
But our Lord
submitted to all this
by his goodness.

Who can express
your long-suffering,
Master?

You that are longed for
and loved by Christ,
draw near, with compunction
and longing for the Saviour.

Come, let us learn
what took place today
in Sion, David’s city.

The longed-for and chosen
offspring of Abraham,
what did they do today?

They gave up to death
the most pure Master
on this day.

Christ our Saviour
was unjustly hanged
on the tree of the Cross
through lawless hands.

Come, let us all
wash our bodies
with tears and groans,
because our Lord,
the King of glory,
for us ungodly people
was given up to death.

If someone suddenly hears
of one truly beloved
having died,
or again, suddenly sees
the beloved himself
lying a dead corpse
before their eyes,
their appearance is altered,
and the brightness
of their sight is darkened.

So, in heaven’s height,
when it saw
the outrage to the Master
on the tree of the Cross,
the bright sun’s
appearance was altered;
it withdrew the rays
of its own brightness,
and unable to look on
the outrage to the Master,
clothed itself
in grief and darkness.

Likewise the Holy Spirit,
who is in the Father,
when he saw
the beloved Son
on the tree of the Cross,
rending the veil,
the temple’s adornment,
suddenly came forth
in the form of a dove.

All creation was
in fear and trembling
when the King of heaven,
the Saviour suffered;
while we sinners
for whom the only immortal
was given up
ever treat this with contempt.

We laugh each day
when we hear of the Saviour’s
sufferings and outrage.

We enjoy ourselves daily
filled with great zeal
to deck ourselves in fine clothing.

The sun in the sky
because of the outrage to its Master
changed its radiance
into darkness,
so that we, when we saw it,
might follow its example.

The Master on the Cross
was outraged for your sake,
while you, miserable wretch,
ever deck yourself
in splendid raiment.

Does your heart not tremble,
does your mind not quail,
when you hear such things?

The One who alone is sinless
was for you given over
to a shameful death,
to outrages and revilings,
while you hear all this
with lofty indifference.

The whole rational flock
should look intently
on its shepherd,
and ever long for him
and respect him,
because for its sake
he suffered, he
the dispassionate and all pure.

Nor should it deck itself
in corruptible garments,
nor yet indulge in pleasure
and worldly nourishment,
but should give its Maker pleasure
by ascesis and true reverence.

Let us not become
imitators of the Jews;
a people harsh and disobedient
and that ever rejects the blessings
and benefactions of God.

God Most High
for the sake of Abraham
and his covenant
from the beginning bore
the stubbornness of the people.

From heaven he gave
them Manna to eat;
but they, the unworthy,
longed for garlic,
evil-smelling foods.

Again, he gave them water
from the rock in the desert,
while they in place of these
gave him vinegar
when they hanged him on a Cross.

Let us be careful, brethren,
not to be found
as fellows of the Jews
who crucified the Master,
their own Creator.

Let us always be fearful,
keeping before our eyes
the Saviour’s sufferings.

Let us always keep in mind
his sufferings,
because it was for us he suffered,
the dispassionate Master;
for us he was crucified,
the only sinless One.

What return can we make
for all this, brethren?

Let us be attentive to ourselves
and not despise his sufferings.

Draw near all of you,
children of the Church,
bought with the precious
and holy blood
of the most pure Master.

Come, let us meditate
on his sufferings with tears,
thinking on fear,
meditating with trembling,
saying to ourselves,
‘Christ our Saviour
for us the impious
was given over to death’.

Learn well, brother,
what it is you hear:
God who is without sin,
Son of the Most High,
for you was given up.

Open your heart,
learn in detail
his sufferings
and say to yourself:
God who is without sin
today was given up,
today was mocked,
today was abused,
today was struck,
today was scourged,
today wore
a crown of thorns,
today was crucified,
he, the heavenly Lamb.

Your heart will tremble,
your soul will shudder.

Shed tears every day
by this meditation
on the Master’s sufferings.

Tears become sweet,
the soul is enlightened
that always meditates
on Christ’s sufferings.

Always meditating thus,
shedding tears every day,
giving thanks to the Master
for the sufferings
that he suffered for you,
so that in the day
of his Coming
your tears may become
your boast and exaltation
before the judgement seat.

Endure as you meditate
on the loving Master’s
sufferings,
endure temptations,
give thanks from your soul.

Blessed is the one
who has before his eyes
the heavenly Master
and his sufferings,
and has crucified himself
from all the passions
and earthly deeds,
who has become an imitator
of his own Master.

This is understanding,
this is the attitude
of servants who love God,
when they become ever
imitators of their Master
by good works.

Shameless man, do you watch
the most pure Master
hanging on the Cross,
while you pass the time
that you have to live on earth
in pleasure and laughter?

Don’t you know, miserable wretch,
that the crucified Lord
will demand an account
of all your disdainful deeds,
for which, when you hear of them, you show no concern,
and as you take your pleasure
you laugh
and enjoy yourself with indifference?

The day will come,
that fearful day,
for you to weep unceasingly
and cry out in the fire
from your pains,
and there will be no one at all
to answer
and have mercy on your soul.

I worship you, Master,
I bless you, O Good One,
I entreat you, O Holy One,
I fall down before you, Lover of humankind,
and I glorify you, O Christ,
because you, only-begotten
Master of all,
alone without sin,
for me the unworthy sinner
were given over to death,
death on a Cross,
that you might free
the sinner’s soul
from the bonds of sins.

And what shall I give you
in return for this, Master?

Glory to you, Lover of humankind!
Glory to you, O Merciful!
Glory to you, O Long-suffering!
Glory to you, who pardon
every fault!
Glory to you, who came down
to save our souls!
Glory to you, incarnate
in the Virgin’s womb!
Glory to you, who were bound!
Glory to you, who were scourged!
Glory to you, who were crucified!
Glory to you, who were buried!
Glory to you, who were raised!
Glory to you, who were proclaimed!
Glory to you, who were believed!
Glory to you, who were taken up!
Glory to you, who were enthroned
with great glory
at the Father’s right hand,
and are coming again
with the glory of the Father
and the holy Angels
to judge every soul
that has despised
your holy sufferings
in that dread
and fearful hour,
when the powers of heaven
will be shaken;
when Angels, Archangels,
Cherubim and Seraphim
will come all together
with fear and trembling
before your glory;
when all the foundations
of the earth will tremble,
and everything that has breath
will shudder at your great
and unendurable glory.

In that hour
your hand will hide me
under its wings
and my soul be delivered
from the fearful fire,
the gnashing of teeth,
the outer darkness
and unending weeping,
that blessing you, I may say,
‘Glory to the One, who wished
to save the sinner
through the many acts of pity
of his compassion.

(The Russian Typikon prescribes that a sermon by St Ephrem ‘On the Passion of the Saviour‘ be read be read after the Gospel at Matins on Great Friday. It may be that this is the one it has in mind.)

http://www.anastasis.org.uk/PassSer.htm

Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees. — Revelation 7:3

The saints embrace the whole world with their love. — St. Silouan the Athonite

On the Holy Mountain of Athos, the monks sometimes put up beside the forest paths special signposts, offering encouragement or warning to the pilgrim as he passes. One such notice used to give me particular pleasure. Its message was brief and clear: “Love the trees.”

Fr. Amphilochios, the geronta or “elder” on the island of Patmos when I first stayed there, would have been in full agreement. “Do you know,” he said, “that God gave us one more commandment, which is not recorded in Scripture? It is the commandment “love the trees.” Whoever does not love trees, so he believed, does not love God. “When you plant a tree,” he insisted, “you plant hope, you plant peace, you plant love, and you will receive God’s blessing.” An ecologist long before ecology had become fashionable, when hearing confessions of the local farmers he used to assign to them a penance, the task of planting a tree. During the long summer drought, he himself went round the island watering the young trees. His example and influence have transformed Patmos: photographs of the hillside near the Cave of the Apocalypse, taken at the start of the twentieth century, show bare and barren slopes, where today there is a thick and flourishing wood.

Fr. Amphilochios was by no means the first spiritual teacher in the modern Greek tradition to recognize the importance of trees. Two centuries earlier, the Athonite monk St. Kosmas the Aetolian, martyred in 1779, used to plant trees as he traveled around Greece on his missionary journeys, and in one of his “prophecies” he stated, “People will remain poor, because they have no love for trees.” We can see that prophecy fulfilled today in all too many parts of the world. Another saying attributed to him — not in this instance about trees — is equally applicable to the present age: “The time will come when the devil puts himself inside a box and starts shouting; and his horns will stick out from the roof-tiles.” That often comes to my mind as I survey the skyline in London with its serried ranks of television masts.” Love the trees.” Why should we do so? Is there indeed a connection between love of trees and love of God? How far is it true that a failure to reverence and honor our natural environment — animals, trees, earth, fire, air, and water — is also, in an immediate and soul-destroying way, a failure to reverence and honor the living God?

Let us begin with two visions of a tree. Have we not known, each of us, certain moments when we have started with sudden amazement at the lines before us on the printed page, words of poetry or prose which, once read, have forever remained luminous in our memory? One such moment happened to me at the age of eighteen as I was reading that magical anthology by Walter de la Mare, Behold, This Dreamer, and came across a passage from the book of Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds. “Has any one of us ever seen a tree?” asks Carpenter; and he answers, “I certainly do not think that I have — except most superficially.”

He continues: That very penetrating observer and naturalist, Henry David Thoreau, tells us that he would often make an appointment to visit a certain tree, miles away — but what he saw when he got there, he does not say. Walt Whitman, also a keen observer … mentions that, in a dream trance he actually once saw “his favorite trees step out and promenade up, down and around, very curiously.” Once the present writer seemed to have a partial vision of a tree. It was a beech, standing somewhat isolated, and still leafless in quite early Spring. Suddenly, I was aware of its skyward-reaching arms and up-turned finger-tips, as if some vivid life (or electricity) was streaming through them far into the spaces of heaven, and of its roots plunged in the earth and drawing the same energies from below. The day was quite still and there was no movement in the branches, but in that moment the tree was no longer a separate or separable organism, but a vast being ramifying far into space, sharing and uniting the life of Earth and Sky, and full of amazement.

Two things above all are noteworthy in Edward Carpenter’s “partial vision.” First, the tree is alive, vibrant with what he calls “energies” or “electricity”; it is “full of most amazing activity.” Second, the tree is cosmic in its dimensions: it is not “a separate or separable organism” but is “vast” and all-embracing in its scope, “ramifying far into space … uniting the life of Earth and Sky.”

Here is a vision of joyful wonder, inspired by an underlying sense of mystery. The tree has become a symbol pointing beyond itself, a sacrament that embodies some deep secret at the heart of the universe. The same sense of wonder and mystery — of the symbolic and sacramental character of the world — is strikingly manifest in Peaks and Llamas, the master-work of that spiritual mountaineer, Marco Pallis. Yet there are at the same time certain limitations in Carpenter’s tree-vision. The mystery to which the tree points is not spelt out by him in specifically personal terms. He makes no attempt to ascend through the creation to the Creator. There is nothing directly theistic about his vision, no reference to God or to Jesus Christ.

Let us turn to a second tree-vision, which is by contrast explicitly personal and theophanic: Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then He said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said further, “I am the God of your Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. (Ex 3:1-6)

Comparing the experience of Moses with that of Carpenter, we observe three things: in the first place, the vision described in Exodus reaches out beyond the realm of the impersonal. The burning bush at Horeb acts as the locus of an interpersonal encounter, of a meeting face-to-face, of a dialogue between two subjects. God calls out to Moses by name, “Moses, Moses!” and Moses responds, “Here I am.”

“Through the creation to the Creator”: in and through the tree he beholds, Moses enters into communion with the living God. Nor is this all. On the interpretation accepted by the Orthodox Church, the personal encounter is to be understood in more specific terms. Moses does not simply meet God, but he meets Christ. All the theophanies in the Old Testament are manifestations, not of God the Father — Whom “no one has ever seen” (John 1:18) — but of the pre-incarnate Christ, God the eternal Logos. Visitors to St. Mark’s in Venice will recall that in the mosaics depicting the story of Genesis 1, the face of God the Creator bears unmistakably the lineaments of Christ. In the same way, when Isaiah sees God enthroned in the temple, “high and lifted up” (Isaiah 6:1), and when Ezekiel sees in the midst of the wheels and of the four living creatures “something that seemed like a human form” (Ezekiel 1:26), it is Christ the Logos Whom they both behold.

In the second place, God does not only appear to Moses but also issues a practical command to him: “Remove the sandals from your feet.” According to Greek Fathers such as St. Gregory of Nyssa, sandals or shoes — being made from the skins of dead animals — are something lifeless, inert, dead and earthly, and so they symbolize the heaviness, weariness, and mortality that assail our human nature as a result of the Fall. “Remove your sandals,” then, may be understood to signify: Strip off from yourself the deadness of familiarity and boredom; free yourself from the lifelessness of the trivial, the mechanical, the repetitive; wake up, open your eyes, cleanse the doors of your perception, look and see!

And what, in the third place, happens to us when in this manner we strip off the dead skins of boredom and triviality? At once we realize the truth of God’s next words to Moses: “The place on which you are standing is holy ground.” Set free from spiritual deadness, awakening from sleep, opening our eyes both outwardly and inwardly, we look upon the world around us in a different way. Everything appears to us, as it did to the infant Traherne, “new and strange … inexpressibly rare, and delightful, and beautiful.” We experience everything as vital and living, and we discover the truth of William Blake’s dictum , “Every thing that lives is Holy. So we enter the dimensions of sacred space and sacred time. We discern the great within the small, the extraordinary within the ordinary, “a world in a grain of sand … and eternity in an hour,” to quote Blake once more. This place where I am, this tree, this animal, this person to whom I am speaking, this moment of time through which I am living: each is holy, each is unique and unrepeatable, and each is therefore infinite in value.

Combining Edward Carpenter’s living tree, uniting earth and heaven and the burning bush of Moses, we can see emerging a precise and distinctive conception of the universe. Nature is sacred. The world is a sacrament of the divine presence, a means of communion with God. The environment consists not in dead matter but in living relationship. The entire cosmos is one vast burning bush, permeated by the fire of divine power and glory:

Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; but only he who sees, takes off his shoes, the rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Certainly there is nothing in itself wrong about plucking blackberries. But as we enjoy the fruits of the earth, let us also look beyond our own immediate pleasure, and discern the deeper mystery that surround us on every side.

Essence and Energies, Logos and logoi: Does such an approach lead us to pantheism? Not necessarily. As a Christian in the tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy, I cannot accept any worldview that identifies God with the universe, and for that reason I cannot be a pantheist. But I find no difficulty in endorsing pan entheism — that is to say, the position which affirms, not “God is everything and everything is God,” but “God is in everything and everything is in God.” God, in other words, is both immanent and transcendent; present in all things. He is at the same time above and beyond them all. It is necessary to emphasize simultaneously both halves of the paradox beloved of the poet Charles Williams: “This also is Thou; neither is this Thou.” Upholding this “panentheistic” standpoint, the great Byzantine theologian St. Gregory Palamas (1296-1359) safeguarded the otherness-yet-nearness of the Eternal by making a distinction-in-unity between God’s essence and His energies. In His essence, God is infinitely transcendent, radically unknowable, utterly beyond all created being, beyond all understanding and all participation from the human side. But, in His energies, God is inexhaustibly immanent, the core of everything, the heart of its heart, closer to the heart of each thing than is that thing’s very own heart. These divine energies, according to the Palamite teaching, are not an intermediary between God and the world, not a created gift that He bestows upon us, but they are God Himself in action; and each uncreated energy is God in His indivisible totality, not a part of Him but the whole.

By virtue of this essence-energies distinction, Palamas is able to affirm without self-contradiction: Those who are counted worthy enjoy union with God the cause of all … He remains wholly within Himself and yet dwells wholly within us, making us share not in His nature but in His glory and radiance.

In this way, God is revealed and hidden — revealed in His energies, hidden in His essence:

Somehow He manifests Himself in His totality, and yet he does not manifest Himself; we apprehend Him with our intellect, and yet we do not apprehend Him; we participate in Him, and yet He remains beyond all participation.

Such is the antinomic stance of the true panentheist: God both is and is not; He is everywhere and nowhere; He has many names and He cannot be named; He is ever-moving and He is immovable; and, in short, He is everything and nothing.

What St. Gregory Palamas seeks to express through the essence-energies distinction, St. Maximus the Confessor indicates by speaking in terms of Logos and logoi, even though the specific concerns of Maximus, and the context in which he is writing, are not altogether identical with those of Palamas. According to Maximus, Christ the Creator-Logos has implanted in each created thing a characteristic logos, a “thought” or “word,” which is the divine presence in that thing, God’s intention for it, the inner essence of that thing, which makes it to be distinctively itself and at the same time draws it towards God. By virtue of these indwelling logoi, each created thing is not just an object but a personal word addressed to us by the Creator.

The divine Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity, the Wisdom and the Providence of God, constitutes at once the source and the end of the particular logoi, and in this fashion acts as an all-embracing and unifying cosmic presence. Anticipating Palamas, Maximus speaks of these logoi, as “energies,” and at the same time he likens them to birds in the branches of a tree:

The Logos of God is like a grain of mustard seed: before cultivation it looks extremely small, but when cultivated in the right way it grows so large that the highest principles (logoi) of both sensible and intelligible creation come like birds to revive themselves in it. For the principles or inner essences (logoi) of all things are embraced by the Logos, but the Logos is not embraced by any thing.

According to the interpretation of Maximus, then, the cosmic tree is Christ the Creator-Logos, while the birds in the branches are the logoi of you and me and all the created things. The Logos embraces all the logoi, but is not Himself embraced or circumscribed by them. Here Maximus seeks — as does Palamas in his use of the essence-energies distinction — to safeguard the double truth of God’s transcendence and His immanence. Whether we speak, as St. Maximus does, of the indwelling logoi , or prefer to use the Palamite word “energies” — and we can of course choose to employ both terms — our basic meaning and intention remain the same. All nature is theophanic. Each created person and thing is a point of encounter with “the Beyond That is in our midst,” to use Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s phrase. We are to see God in everything and everything in God. Wherever we are and whatever we are doing, we can ascend through the creation to the Creator.

After listening to our two Eastern witnesses, Maximus and Palamas, let us also hear a Western prophet, St. Hildegard of Bingen, who is equally definite about the “panentheistic” character of the universe. In The Book of Divine Works she affirms, “All living creatures are, so to speak, sparks from the radiation of God’s brilliance, and these sparks emerge from God like the rays of the sun.”

Elsewhere in the same treatise she records the remarkable words addressed to her by the Holy Spirit:

I, the highest and fiery power, have kindled every living spark and I have breathed out nothing that can die … I am … the fiery life of the divine essence — I flame above the beauty of the fields; I shine in the waters; in the sun, the moon and the stars, I burn. And by means of the airy wind, I stir everything into quickness with a certain invisible life which sustains all. For the air lives in its green power and its blossoming; the waters flow as if they were alive. Even the sun is alive in its own light … I, the fiery power, lie hidden in these things and they blaze from Me, just as man is continually moved by his breath, and as the fire contains the nimble flame. All these things live in their own essence and are without death, since I am Life … I am the whole of life — life was not torn from stones; it did not bud from branches; nor is it rooted in the generative power of the male. Rather, every living thing is rooted in Me.

The approach adopted by Palamas, Maximus, and Hildegard has two important consequences for our understanding of God’s creative power.

First, when we speak of God creating the world, we are to envisage this, not as a single act in the past, but as a continuing presence here and now; and in that sense it is legitimate to speak in terms of continual creation. Second, and closely linked with the first point, we should think of God as creating the world, not as it were from the outside, but from within.

In the first place, when it is said, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1), the word “beginning” is not to be interpreted in a temporal sense. Creation is not a once-for-all event happening in the remote past, an initial act that constitutes a chronological starting point. It is not a past event but a present relationship. We are to think and to speak not in the past but in the present tense; we are to say, not “God made the world, once upon a time, long ago,” but “God is making the world, and you and me in it, here and now, at this moment and always.” “In the beginning” (en arche), then, does not signify, “God started it all off, billions of years ago, and since then He has left things to keep going by their own momentum.” It means, on the contrary, that God is at each and every instant the constant and unceasing arche, the source, principle, cause and sustainer of all that exists. It means that, if God did not continue to exert His creative will at every split second of time, the universe would immediately collapse into the void of non-being. Without the active and uninterrupted presence of Christ the Creator-Logos throughout the cosmos, nothing would exist for a single moment.

Secondly, it follows from this that Christ as Creator-Logos is to be envisaged, not as on the outside, but as on the inside of everything. It is a frequent fault of religious writers that they speak of the created universe as if it were an artifact of a Maker Who has, so to speak, produced it from without. God the Creator becomes the celestial Clock-maker Who sets the cosmic process in motion, winding up the clock, but then leaving it to continue ticking on its own. This will not do. It is important to avoid such images as the divine architect, builder or engineer, and to speak rather in terms of indwelling (without thereby excluding the dimension of divine transcendence). Creation is not something upon which God acts from the outside, but something through which he expresses Himself from within. Transcendent, He is also immanent; above and beyond creation, He is also its true inwardness, its “within.”

Double Vision: If we adopt the sacramental understanding of the world implied in our “tale of two trees,” we shall gradually find that our contemplation of nature is marked above all by two qualities: distinctiveness and transparency.

Distinctiveness. If we are to see the world as sacrament, then this signifies that, first of all, we are to discover the distinctive and peculiar flavor of each created thing. We are to perceive and to value each thing in and for itself, viewing that thing in sharp relief, appreciating what in the Zen tradition is called the special “Ah!” of each thing, its “is-ness,” or haeccitas. The point is vividly expressed by Gerard Manley Hopkins:

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame … each mortal thing does one thing and the same … selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells; crying What I do is me: for that I came.

To see nature as sacred is, in the first instance, to recognize how each thing “selves” and “speaks myself.” We are to perceive each kingfisher, each frog, each human face, each blade of grass in its uniqueness.

Each is to be real for us, each is to be immediate. We are to explore the variety and the particularity of creation — what St. Paul calls the “glory” of each thing: “There is one glory of the sun, and another of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory” (I Corinthians 15:41).

Transparency: Having evoked and savored the particular “is-ness” of each thing, we can then take a second step: we can look within and beyond each thing, and discover in and through it the divine presence. After perceiving each kingfisher, each frog, each human face, each blade of grass in its uniqueness, in its full reality and immediacy, we are then to treat each as a means of communion with God, and so to ascend through the creation to the Creator. For it is impossible to make sense of the world unless we also look beyond the world; the world only acquires its true meaning when seen as the reflection of a reality that transcends it.

The first step, then, is to love the world for itself, in terms of its own consistency and integrity. The second step is to allow the world to become pellucid, so that it reveals to us the indwelling Creator-Logos. In this way we acquire Blake’s “double vision”:

For double the vision my Eyes do see, and a double vision is always with me … May God us keep, from Single vision and Newton’s sleep!

It is vital not to attempt the second step without previously embarking upon the first. We need to recognize the solidity of the world before we can discern its transparency; we need to rejoice in the abundant variety of creation before we ascertain how all things find their unity in God. Moreover, the second level, that of theophanic transparency, does not in any way cancel out the first level, that of particularity and distinctiveness. We do not cease to value the “is-ness” of each thing because we also apprehend the divine presence within it. On the contrary, by a strange paradox the more a thing becomes transparent, the more it is seen as uniquely itself. Blake was right to speak precisely of double vision; the “second sight” that God confers upon us does not obliterate but enhances our “first sight.” Created nature is never more beautiful than when it acts as an envoy or icon of the uncreated Beauty.

Never should it be imagined that this ascent through the creation to the Creator is easily accomplished, in a casual and automatic way. If we are to see God in all things and all things in God, this requires persistence, courage, imagination. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, “Truly You are a God Who hides Himself” (Isaiah 45:15). When we played hide-and-seek as children, did it not sometimes happen that we concealed ourselves in a marvelously secret spot, but then to our disappointment nobody bothered to come and look for us? After waiting for a long time, we came out crestfallen from our hiding place, only to find that the others had all gone home. As the Hasidic master Rabbi Barukh of Mezbizh observes, we disappoint God in exactly the same way. “I hide,” God says in sorrow, “but no one wants to seek Me.” This, then, is God’s word to us through His creation: Explore!