Introduction
The Divine Liturgy is divided into two essentially self-contained components: the liturgy of the catechumens and the liturgy of the faithful. Right after the dismissal of the catechumens, which is the dividing line between the two components, there begins a series of seven actions that climaxes in an event called the Great Entrance. In the current Byzantine rite, those seven actions are as follows: 1) the reading by the presbyter of the prayer “No one is worthy”; 2) the censing of the altar, the gifts and the people assembled; 3) the hymn of the offering; 4) the solemn transfer of the gifts; 5) the exclamation by the celebrant of the commemorative formula “May the Lord God remember all of you in His Kingdom”; 6) the placing of the gifts on the altar, their being covered by the aer, and a repetition of their censing; and 7) the reading by the presbyter of the “Prayer of the Offering after the Deposition of the Gifts on the Altar” (Schmemann 113). This rite has evolved significantly over time, owing to the concurrent development of systems of symbolic interpretations of the Divine Liturgy in general, and the Great Entrance in particular. This post will explore the original purpose of the Great Entrance as well as six influential symbolic interpretations of it.The Original Purpose
At its essence, the origin of the ritual called the Great Entrance was to serve the very practical need of bringing the sacrificial offerings of the people to the altar (105). In the East dating at least to the mid-third-century, people brought their offerings and left them on a designated table near the entrance of the church (Wybrew 20). These offerings, which included but were not limited to bread and wine, were then used to meet the material needs of those who depended upon the Church for their sustenance (e.g., widows and orphans). The deacons minding the table would sort and distribute the offerings and as well as select a portion of them to be the elements used in the Eucharist that day (Schmemann 108). Thus, until the fifth century, what eventually became the Great Entrance was the rather prosaic act of transferring the elements from the entrance of the church to the altar.
The Symbolic Interpretations
The first interpretation of the transfer of the offering to the altar is that it symbolizes Christ’s being led away to His passion, and the depositing of the gifts on the altar symbolizes the placing of His body in the sepulcher. Theodore, who became bishop of Mopsuestia in 392 AD, expounds this interpretation in his influential book Mystagogical Catecheses. Theodore explains several liturgical actions that arise from this interpretation. One action is that the deacon spreads linens on the altar to represent Christ’s linen burial clothes (Wybrew 53). Isidore of Pelusium, who died in 435 AD, identified these linens with the eileton, the liturgical cloth on which the gifts were set, and the unfolding of the eileton with the ministry of Joseph of Arimathea (64). Things differ slightly in the modern rite: The gifts are deposited on the antimension, which covers the eileton rather than being deposited directly on the eileton (McGuckin), and it is a presbyter who does the deposition rather than a deacon while saying these words: “Joseph, an honorable man, took your pure body down from the wood, wrapped it in clean linen and spices, and laid it in a new tomb” (ROEA 62). According to Theodore, two more liturgical actions enhance the symbolism. One is the fanning of the gifts with the aer and the other is the completion of the transfer in complete silence (Wybrew 53). In the modern rite, the fanning of the gifts with the aer occurs later during the recitation of the Nicene Creed (ROAE 67). With respect to silence, we no longer keep it. However, once a year on Great and Holy Saturday during the Great Entrance, we at least do sing a hymn about keeping silence: “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence”.
A second author Germanos I, Patriarch of Constantinople from 715 to 730 AD, in his book Ecclesiastical History has an interpretation similar to Theodore (Wybrew 123), but finds even more passion symbolism in the transfer of the gifts. The discos represents the hands of Joseph and Nicodemus, who buried Jesus; the discos cover represents the cloth that covered Jesus’ face in the tomb; the aer represents the stone that was rolled over the entrance to the sepulcher. Germanos also explains some liturgical actions that happen during the transfer. The Cherubic Hymn is sung while the deacons process with fans bearing icons of seraphim. This represents the advance guard of saints and angels before their King Christ, who is en route to His mystical sacrifice. Different activities of the Holy Spirit are represented by the fire and smoke of the burning incense (Wybrew 126).
Maximus the Confessor, who wrote his book Mystagogia between 628 and 630 AD, approaches the transfer of the gifts in a somewhat different way. As a Platonist he understands symbol to mean not the sign of an absent reality but rather the reality itself present in the symbol (95). He sees the Divine Liturgy as a whole symbolically making present two realities: 1) the whole history of God’s saving plan from the Incarnation to the Parousia (97) and 2) the mystical ascent of the soul to God. In particular, the transfer of the gifts to the altar has two distinct significances. First, it symbolizes the revelation of the mystery of our salvation hidden in God (98). Secondly, it symbolizes the soul’s leaving the world of sense and being led “to the understanding of immaterial things … into the unutterable mysteries, an understanding which is immaterial, simple, immutable, divine, free of all form and shape, and by which the soul gathers to itself its proper powers and comes face to face with the Word” (99). This second understanding is reflected in two texts in the modern rite: 1) in the Cherubic Hymn: “Let us … lay aside every earthly care …” and 2) in the Prayer of the Cherubic Hymn: “No one who is enslaved by passions and pleasures of the flesh is worthy to come, to approach or to serve you, O king of glory” (ROEA 57).
Between 1054 and 1067 AD, Nicholas bishop of Andida, wrote a commentary on the Divine Liturgy called Protheoria. Unlike Germanos, he does not limit the referents of the symbolism merely to the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ. Rather, he sees the birth and early life of Jesus also symbolized (Wybrew 139). At the same time he also recognizes the difficulty of uniquely identifying the symbolic referents of each liturgical act and object and acknowledges that each act or object might symbolize three or more things in the life of Jesus (140). According to his interpretation then the procession of the Great Entrance symbolizes the Lord’s journey from Bethany to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. And the deposition of the gifts on the table symbolize things as diverse as the upper room made ready, the lifting up of the cross, the burial, the resurrection, and even the ascension (142).
In the fourteenth century Nicholas Cabasilas wrote Commentary on the Divine Liturgy in ostensible reaction to the unrestrained symbolism in Protheoria. He allows for symbolic interpretation but gives primary significance to the actions and prayers themselves. The main goal of the Liturgy is to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion, and meditating on the historical life of Christ is secondary (158). Thus, he understands that the main purpose of the Great Entrance is the practical albeit reverent transfer of the offerings to the altar. And he warns that there should be a qualitative difference in devotion between the Great Entrance in an ordinary Divine Liturgy and that in a Presanctified Liturgy because in the former case, the elements have not yet been consecrated. At the same time, Cabasilas does follow Nicholas of Andida in comparing the Great Entrance to the Triumphal Entry of Christ into Jerusalem (162-163).
The last interpretation of the Great Entrance that we will consider is given by Symeon, archbishop of Thessalonike from around 1416 AD to 1429 AD, in two different works: On the Holy Liturgy and Interpretation of the Church and the Liturgy (158). Symeon definitely continues in the Alexandrian line of proliferating symbolic interpretations. He introduces a new understanding of the Great Entrance that even Nicholas of Andida did not think of. For Symeon, the dismissal of the catechumens symbolizes the consummation of the age, and so the next event in the Divine Liturgy, the Great Entrance, would need to symbolize the next event in cosmic history, namely, the Second Coming of Christ in glory. The deacons and acolytes in the Great Entrance procession symbolize the angels and saints who will return with Christ (168). The last request of the litany before the choir sings the second half of the Cherubic Hymn is the following: “May the Lord God remember all of you Orthodox Christians in his kingdom, always, now and ever and unto the ages of ages” (ROEA 61). For Symeon, the placement of this petition is logical since its fulfillment happens when we inherit the Kingdom of God at the Second Coming of Christ, which is being symbolized (Wybrew 169).
This paper looked at the origin of the Great Entrance as well as the way that six different expositors of the Divine Liturgy interpreted it. There are roughly three different families of interpretations, all of which see it as a symbol of a historical or future event in the life of Christ. Nicholas of Andida and Nicholas Cabasilas interpret it as a symbol of Christ’s entering Jerusalem in triumph. Theodore of Mopsuestia and Germanos I of Constantinople place it about a week later as a symbol of Christ’s proceeding to His passion. Maximus the Confessor and Symeon of Thessalonike see it more as a symbol of the consummation of the age. With Maximus it is the final revelation of the mystery of salvation; with Symeon it is the Second Coming of Christ. I struggle to find value in most of this symbolization. When I attend Divine Liturgy, I have never meditated on the historical life of Jesus; rather, I contemplate the words of the prayers. I definitely identified more with Cabasilas’ approach to the Liturgy since the emphasis was on the sacramental and real meaning of the words and actions rather than their symbolic meaning. If I were pressed to “choose a side”, I would have to choose to understand the Great Entrance as a symbol of the Triumphal Entry, mainly just because that was what Cabasilas indicated when he conceded to symbolism.
Works Cited
McGuckin, John Anthony. The Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. 2011. Web. http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781405185394_chunk_g97814051853947_ss1-7#citation
ROEA. The Divine and Holy Liturgy According to Saint John Chrysostom in English and Romanian. Grass Lake, MI: ROEA, 2005. Print.
Schmemann, Alexander. The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s, 2003.
Wybrew, Hugh. The Orthodox Liturgy: The Development of the Eucharistic Liturgy in the Byzantine Rite. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s, 2003.
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