The Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church are respectively the world’s largest and second-largest Christian communions. There are around 1.3 billion Catholics worldwide and 220 million Orthodox Christians, including 110 million members of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The split between Western and Eastern Christianity can be traced back to the Great Schism of 1054, the result of both political and theological differences between the Latin West and Greek East.
Hilarion, who is also a Church historian and composer, explained that the Greek Church Fathers used the term “theosis” when they spoke about salvation. This word, he said, means “deification” and refers to the process by which a human being is fully united to God.
“For the Orthodox Church, the Eucharist is the most powerful means to achieve this goal of the Christian life which is called deification,” he said.
“In what way? When we receive the Holy Communion, Christ’s body penetrates our body, and his blood begins to flow in our veins. And it is not only in our mind and in our heart that we are united with Christ, but also in our body. Like in Christ himself the entire human nature — body, soul, and spirit — was united with God, so also our entire humanity participates in the process of deification.”
He said that this belief was “the most striking difference” between Christianity and other monotheistic religions.
“For us Christians, however, it is the very core of our theology. We might differ in terminology, some would rather use Latin terms instead of the Greek ones, but we all, I would argue, share this deep belief in the possibility of such union,” he commented.
Other speakers on Monday included the Brazilian Cardinal Orani João Tempesta. The 71-year-old archbishop of Rio de Janeiro was originally expected to offer a catechesis in person, but instead delivered a reflection via video after he was diagnosed with pneumonia.
The morning also featured a testimony by Fr. Konstantin Szabó, a Greek Catholic priest who undertook his seminary studies in secret in the Soviet Union.
In his catechesis, Metropolitan Hilarion said that Christians did not reach the goal of “deification” simply by receiving the Eucharist.
“If this were the case, all the partakers of the body and blood of Christ would have become saints,” he reflected. “The paradox is that while Christ is fully united with us when his body and blood enter our body and blood, we are not always able to be united with him. He is inside us, but we are often outside him.”
“Why is this? Either because in our daily life we do not follow his commandments, or because while our body is standing in the church our mind and heart are elsewhere, or because our sins stand as an impenetrable wall between us and God, or for all sorts of other reasons.”
He suggested that Orthodox liturgies were lengthy — lasting for two or three hours — to help Christians acclimate to the kingdom of God.
“But there is a huge distance between who we are and who we are called to be. And in fact, it is not many people who achieve the state of deification. The goal is too sublime, and much spiritual effort is needed to achieve it,” he said.
Hilarion drew on the writings of the Byzantine monk Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022) to illustrate how “conscious” reception of Holy Communion can help Christians in their quest for “deification.”
“What I tried to give you was just a glimpse into the Orthodox understanding of the Eucharist as it is expressed in the liturgy, in visual art, in liturgical hymns, and in theological writings of the fathers,” he said.
“I do not claim that everybody in the Orthodox Church is deified and becomes a saint. Not at all! We are just unworthy keepers of the rich tradition which came down to us from Christ himself and from the early fathers of the Church.”
“Some of these riches I wanted to share with you, and I am most grateful to the organizers of the congress for giving me such opportunity.”
The morning ended with a Mass celebrated by Archbishop Piero Marini, president of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses, at the Hungexpo center.
In his homily, the 79-year-old Italian archbishop, who served as Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations from 1987 to 2007, reflected on the nature of the Mass.
He said: “The Eucharistic Congress is an occasion offered to all believers: the Eucharist is waiting to be lived on the path of daily life. To live by the liturgy that is celebrated means to live by what the liturgy brings to life: the forgiveness invoked and given, the word of God heard, the thanksgiving raised, the Eucharist received as communion.”
“From the celebration of the Eucharist we must learn that the future of our life of faith depends not only on how we celebrate the liturgy but rather on how we know how to live from the liturgy we celebrate.”
He concluded: “May this Eucharistic Congress teach us that celebrating the Eucharist is always for us to bring to fulfillment the law of love that we receive from the Lord and that the Lord wants us to transmit to others.”
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