“God in the Midst of Gods”:

A Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in the Basilian Anaphora and the Byzantine Prothesis Rite 1

Stelyios S. Muksuris, Ph.D., Th.D.

Protopresbyter and Professor of Liturgy
Byzantine Catholic Seminary, Pittsburgh, PA

INTRODUCTION
In a remote and obscurely known passage nestled within the profound liturgical commentaries of
Symeon of Thessaloniki,2 the last great Byzantine liturgical mystagogue offers a stunning
apocalyptic vision of the Kingdom of God.3 The intended image convincingly conveys the ideal
notion of the Church Triumphant and Militant in full communion with each other and with the
resurrected Lord Jesus Christ, situated at the center of the redeemed cosmos and at the threshold
separating historical time from eternity.4 He argues that this celestial vision, at once vivid and
sublime, is attainable upon the proper completion of the preparatory Rite of the Prothesis, which
serves, in the words of the late liturgiologist Ioannes Fountoules, as a σµικρογραφία, or “mini-
sketch”,5 of the Byzantine Eucharistic Anaphora, both in its execution and thematic content.

The striking text reads as follows:

But let us also see how through this divine model and the work of the holy proskomide we
perceive Jesus and His Church all as one, in the middle Him the true light, from whom the Church
has acquired life eternal, illumined and sustained by Him. While He is in the middle through the
bread, His mother [is present] through the particle on the right, the saints and the angels on the

1This paper was delivered at the 2018 international Yale Liturgy Conference: “Full of Your Glory: Liturgy, Cosmos,
Creation”, hosted by the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University in New Haven, CT, from June 18-21, 2018.
Copyright © 2018 by Stelyios Muksuris. All rights reserved. The author may be reached at doctorssm@gmail.com.

2 St. Symeon of Thessaloniki's (d. 1429 A.D.) most important study of the Byzantine Liturgy may be divided into
two distinct sections: A Refutation of All Heresies and A Treatise on the Sacraments, both of which are modeled after
Pseudo-Dionysius' Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and Nicholas Cabasilas' Life in Christ. Constructed in the form of a
dialogue between a bishop and his clergy, Symeon's Treatise contains a crucial chapter entitled On the Sacred
Liturgy (Περὶ τῆς ἱερᾶς λειτουργίας, PG 155.253A-304C) which, together with an independent discourse entitled
Explanation of the Divine Temple (Ἑρµηνεία περἰ τοῦ θείου ναοῦ, PG 155.697A-749C), provides the two best
witnesses to Symeon's liturgical mystagogy. See S. Muksuris, Economia and Eschatology: Liturgical Mystagogy in
the Byzantine Prothesis Rite (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2013), pp. 23ff. For an excellent critical
translation of these two major liturgical commentaries, see also Steven Hawkes-Teeples, ed. and trans. St. Symeon of
Thessalonika: The Liturgical Commentaries (Toronto, Ontario: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2011), pp.
68-265.
3 The vision of a unified, redeemed cosmos is achieved through the sacrifice of Christ. Symeon explains: “Through
this sacred sacrifice, both holy angels and men together have been united to Christ, and in Him have they been
sanctified and they unite us to Him” (“Τῇ θυσίᾳ ταύτῃ τῇ ἱερᾷ, πάντες ὁµοῦ ἄγγελοί τε καὶ ἄνθρωποι ἅγιοι
ἠνώθησαν τῷ Χριστῷ, καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ ἠγιάσθησαν καὶ τούτῳ ἡµᾶς ἑνοῦσιν”). On the Sacred Liturgy 83; PG
155.281B); see also Muksuris, p. xv. Note that the chapter numbers for Symeon's De Sacra Liturgia follow the
enumeration in Hawkes-Teeples, not Patrologia Graeca.
4Muksuris, pp. 95-99; see also Georgios D. Metallinos, Ἡ θεολογική µαρτυρία τῆς ἐκκλησιαστικῆς λατρείας [The
Theological Witness of Ecclesiastical Worship] (Athens: Armos Publications, 1995), pp. 235–36.
5Ioannes M. Fountoules, Ἀπαντήσεις εἰς λειτουργικὰς ἀπορίας [Answers to Liturgical Questions], vol. 3 (Athens:
Apostoliki Diakonia, 1994), p. 43; Muksuris, p. 195.
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

left, and below everyone who has believed in Him, the pious gathering. And this is the great
mystery: God among men and God in the midst of gods, who have been made gods by Him who is
God by nature and who was truly incarnated for them. And this is the future kingdom and the
commonwealth of eternal life: God with us, both seen and partaken of. . . .6

As I have argued elsewhere, the Lamb’s centrality on the paten imitates the magnificent vision of
John in Revelation 4-5,7 where God’s glory emanates as pure uncreated light from His throne,
presumably at the highest or most central place in heaven, throughout the celestial realm. The
immediate recipients of these “lightnings, voices, and thunderings” (Rev 4:5) are the four
ethereal creatures that surround the throne (Rev 4:6-8), the twenty-four presbyters who constitute
the heavenly synthronon that surround the Godhead (Rev 4:4,9-11), and subsequently the myriad
upon myriad of angels who lead the heavenly chorus in the praise of God (Rev 5:11-12), most
especially for the divine economy wrought by the sacrificed and resurrected Lamb of God (Rev
5:9,12,13). In addition, the earthly realm of mortal creatures joins in the laudation of the
Almighty (Rev 5:13). 8 As I like to say, the very act of worship upon earthly altars is nothing but
man’s periodic “tuning in” to the incessant eternal liturgy at the heavenly altar, to take part in the
dialogue and grow from it, much as a listener tunes in to a nonstop radio or television station.

The completed prothesis then envisions a unique eschatological world permeated throughout by
the divine presence. The glorified Eucharistic Lamb is situated in the midst of a redeemed
cosmos, comprised of a renewed creation and transformed humanity imbued once again with the
fullness of grace and united with the God who stands “in the midst of gods.” Participation then in
the doxological liturgy and Eucharistic meal raises — or rather, restores — man’s primordial
privilege to enjoy fellowship and communion with God and the benefits that stem from it in the
very act of worship.

6 Symeon of Thessaloniki, On the Sacred Liturgy 104; PG 155.285AB. Translation and emphasis mine. The Greek
text reads: “Ἴδωµεν δὲ πῶς καὶ διὰ τούτου τοῦ θείου τύπου καὶ τοῦ ἔργου τῆς ἱερᾶς προσκοµιδῆς τὸν Ἰησοῦν αὐτὸν
καὶ τὴν Ἐκκλησίαν αὐτοῦ µίαν πᾶσαν ὁρῶµεν µέσον αὐτὸν τὸ ἀληθινὸν φῶς, τὴν ζωὴν τὴν αἰώνιον κεκτηµένην, καὶ
φωτιζοµένην ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ καὶ συνεχοµένην. Αὐτὸς µὲν γὰρ διὰ τοῦ ἄρτου µέσον ἐστίν· ἡ Μήτηρ δὲ διὰ τῆς µερίδος ἐκ
δεξιῶν· ἅγιοι δὲ καὶ ἄγγελοι ἐξ’ ἀριστερῶν· ὑποκάτω δὲ ἅπαν τῶν αὐτῷ πιστευσάντων τὸ εὐσεβὲς ἄθροισµα. Καὶ
τοῦτο ἐστι τὸ µέγα µυστήριον· Θεὸς ἐν ἀνθρώποις καὶ Θεὸς ἐν µέσῳ θεῶν, θεουµένων ἐκ τοῦ κατὰ φύσιν ὄντως
Θεοῦ σαρκωθέντος ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν. Καὶ τοῦτο ἡ µέλλουσα βασιλεία καὶ τῆς αἰωνίου ζωῆς τὸ πολίτευµα· Θεὸς µεθ’
ἡµῶν ὁρώµενός τε καὶ µεταλαµβανόµενος. . . .”
7 Muksuris, pp. ??? See also Robert F. Taft, “Christ in the Byzantine Divine Office”, in The Place of Christ in
Liturgical Prayer: Trinity, Christology, and Liturgical Theology. Ed. Bryan D. Spinks (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical
Press, 2008), p. 71. Taft points out that the christological themes within the Byzantine Divine Office are four: (1) the
divine economy in Christ targets our salvation; (2) this saving work is still operative as salvific in the here and now;
(3) the theme of resurrection is incessantly reiterated; and (4) the theme of light dominates the thematic content of
the rites and services. Each aforementioned theme may effortlessly be applied to the apocalyptic vision of the
prothesis.
8In Rev 5:13, the author copies the Pauline expression popularized in Philippians 2:10: “that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth.” This formula
proposes not only a unity in faith between the three realms but also a common submission in the very act of worship.

Page 2f
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

A millennium before St. Symeon, the great Basil of Caesarea, in his eloquent Eucharistic
Anaphora9 and his Hexaemeron,10 or Six Days of Creation, likewise envisions a similar pristine
world in which man’s relationship with the cosmos is normalized as a result of the divine
economia in Jesus Christ. This paradisiacal vision, in turn, is revealed to the worshipper upon the
completion of the Eucharistic sacrifice.

While the Cappadocian Father’s cosmology cannot boast the sophistication and depth of detailed
knowledge available to us today through the various sciences, it does proffer a theocentric
understanding of the created cosmos. In other words, and quite simply, “the heavens (and all
creation) declare the glory of God” (Psalm 18:1 LXX). Basil himself remarks: “I should like to
see you recognizing grandeur even in small objects, adding incessantly to your admiration of,
and redoubling your love for the Creator.”11 In another place, Basil admits the teleological value
of creation, not necessarily in a functional sense but in its purpose to draw the mind upward to a
profound recognition and appreciation of God: “Think of all these creations which God has
drawn out of nothing … recognize everywhere the wisdom of God; never cease to wonder, and,
through every creature, to glorify the Creator.”12

In the sublime Byzantine Anaphora of Basil,13 especially within the Presanctus and Postsanctus
divisions, a great hymn of praise is offered to the Trinity which magnifies, through the use of
both apophatic and cataphatic language, God the Creator in Three Persons and the divine
economy in Jesus Christ.14 It reveals the same created and recreated world of the Prothesis Rite
and the Hexaemeron, with God in the midst of it all.

9For the juxtaposed Greek and English liturgical texts, I am deeply indebted to Archimandrite Maximos Constas of
Simonos Petras Monastery of Mount Athos for his excellent translation with biblical citations, entitled: “The
Anaphora of St. Basil” (unpublished). See also: The Divine Liturgy of Our Father among the Saints Basil the Great.
Translated by the Faculty of Hellenic College and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology (Brookline, MA:
Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1988).
10Basil of Caesarea, Homiliae in hexaemeron (Τοῦ ἐν ἁγίοις Πατρὸς ἡµῶν Βασιλείου Ἀρχιεπισκόπου Καισαρείας
Καππαδοκίας, Ὁµιλίαι Θ´ εἰς τὴν Ἑξαήµερον Δηµιουργίαν): PG 29.209-494. For the English text, see: Hexaemeron
(The Six Days) by our Father among the Saints, Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia: http://
www.abbaziagreca.it/en/documents/collection/esameron_st_basil.pdf.
11 Basil of Caesarea, Hexaemeron, Homily 5.9.
12 Ibid. Homily 8.7.
13 Liturgiological studies in the previous century have indicated the unlikelihood that Basil’s Anaphora, which exists
in several versions, was composed or redacted by one person, “for”, as Gabriele Winkler remarks, “this Eucharistic
Prayer encapsulates several layers of different ages and provenance.” See Gabriele Winkler, “The Christology of the
Anaphora of Basil in Its Various Redactions, with Some Remarks Concerning the Authorship of Basil”, in The Place
of Christ in Liturgical Prayer: Trinity, Christology, and Liturgical Theology. Ed. Bryan D. Spinks (Collegeville,
MN: Liturgical Press, 2008), p. 113.
14To this point, St. Basil writes: “As everyone knows, we are not content in the liturgy simply to recite the words
recorded by St. Paul or the Gospels [i.e. Words of Institution], but we add other words before and after, words of
great importance for this mystery … [which] we have received from unwritten teaching.” I submit that such
“unwritten teaching” cannot be anything but the very vision that proceeds from divine revelation. See St. Basil, On
the Holy Spirit. Trans. David Anderson (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1980), p. 99.

Page 3f
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

In this paper, I will engage in a critical comparative study of the aforementioned texts to expose
the foundations of a distinctly Eastern theological approach that views cosmology and ecology in
theocentric terms. Intuited in this study will naturally be the urgent expectation to likewise
situate mankind at the center of this cosmos, as God’s fellow synergos, in the stewardship of
cultivating, sanctifying, and redeeming the natural world in which we live.

The Prothesis Text

In the Byzantine prothesis service (ἀκολουθία τῆς προθέσεως) or proskomide (ἀκολουθία τῆς
προσκοµιδῆς), we essentially have a practical act of preparation and transfer of the Eucharistic
elements that have become ritualized — set aside for their intended purpose of offering,
consecration, and distribution — and imbued with a mystagogical significance, replete with
biblical imagery deriving as much from the Johannine apocalyptic vision as from the
overwhelming references to eschatological meals and feasting in the Gospels. 15

In the completed rite, after the Lamb and the particles have been added onto the paten,16 St.
Symeon of Thessaloniki envisions the finished product as the eschatological gathering of all men
before the judgment seat of God (Mt 25:31-46). However, he alternately interprets man's
presence here as mankind’s fulfillment of God's invitation to dine with Him at table (cf. Mt
22:1-10; Lk 14.16-24). In fact, the centrality of the Lamb upon the paten during the preparation
rite projects Christ as glorified “host” of the banquet feast, encircled by heavenly and earthly
beings subject to His authority over the cosmos.17 This joy-meal imagery prominently permeated

15 Muksuris, pp. 84-85.

16 The paten's practical purpose of holding the Eucharistic Bread is supplemented by a description highlighting its
mystagogical significance, as early as the sixth century Syrian mystagogue Pseudo-Dionysios the Areopagite.
Denys, although unfamiliar with what would later become a population of particles on the paten, affirms that the
diskos reveals the communion of saints in perfect union with Christ. He states: “This reveals the indissoluble bond
of the transcendent and sacred union of the saints with Christ”, thus raising the paten, as the closest object touching
the Lamb and as its immediate “context”, to a higher level of theoria, namely, to a vision of it as the redeemed
cosmos touched through the sacrifice of Christ. See Dionysios the Areopagite, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 3.3.9; PG
3.437C.
Symeon of Thessaloniki, an admirer of Denys and Maximos the Confessor, would later adopt this concept of the
paten as redeemed cosmos and develop a Revelation-based eschatological vision of the Lamb-centered Church
surrounded by celestial and terrestrial beings fully united to Him and to one another. See: Symeon of Thessaloniki,
On the Sacred Liturgy 80; PG 155.280D; cf. also idem. 83; PG 155.281CD. The early patristic view of the Church as
the “assembly of the saints” (Isidore of Pelusium, Letters 2.246; PG 78.685A), the “assembly of God” which “the
Son assembled together through Himself” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.6.1, Sources Chrétiennes 211, p. 69), and
the recognition that the Eucharistic Liturgy is the mystery that assembles the entire Church into a “godly way of
common life” and into a “unified and single accord” (Dionysios the Areopagite, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 3.3.1, 5;
PG 3.428B, 432B), must certainly have influenced Symeon in applying such an ecclesiology to his commentary on
the prothesis rite.
Thus, for Symeon, the paten “symbolizes heaven --- which is why it is round --- and holds the Master of heaven”,
without ceasing to be, according to the more historicized approach of St. Germanos of Constantinople, “the bier on
which the Body of the Lord is laid.” See: Symeon of Thessaloniki, On the Sacred Liturgy 32; PG 155.264C; also,
Germanos of Constantinople, Contemplation; PG 98.397B.
17Muksuris, p. 91. Cf. also Revelation 4-5, especially 5:13: “And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth
and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: ‘Blessing and honor and glory
and power Be to Him who sits on the throne, And to the Lamb, forever and ever!’”

Page 4f
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

the primitive theology of the first Eucharistic assemblies in Jerusalem.18 To receive the Bread
and Cup within the confines of historical time in a given place mirrored very clearly for the
infant Church the expectation of the eternal feasting in the Kingdom of God, as Christ promised
to the disciples in Matthew 26:29.19

A related and equally important theory regarding the primitive Eucharistic celebration and its
intimate association to the eschaton involves an understanding of the Eucharist as not only a
memorial of Christ's passion and death but more importantly the notion of the long-awaited
inauguration of this Kingdom of feasting and intimate union with God through Christ's second
glorious coming. St. Paul serves as a representative proponent of this stance when he connects
the eating and drinking of the Lord's Supper with the proclamation of Jesus’ death “until He
comes” (1 Cor 11:26). Symeon's “partaken of" (µεταλαµβανόµενος) 20 seems to suggest here a
full, intimate union with the Lamb who is seen and known by the redeemed assembly in heaven,
a similar intimate union realized, albeit inchoately, during the periodic celebration of the
Eucharist. Thus, the weekly Eucharistic celebration helped to assure the Christians that the
earthly banquet feast, although periodic, never truly ended and, in a sense, would eventually be
perpetuated in the new age of God's final and supreme reign.

“God in the Midst of Gods”

Symeon’s peculiar inclusion of the biblical notion of God surrounded by a council of gods
deserves our ample attention here. He must certainly have had in mind the prophetic Psalm 82
(MT, 81 LXX), which conveys the vision of a divine assembly called by God to assess moral and
judicial matters on earth. We find similar biblical convocations of divine beings in the Book of
Job 1:6-12. Interestingly, this “council of the gods” notion was a mythological tradition shared
by many ancient peoples, including the Canaanites, Egyptians, and Mesopotamians.21

In the psalm, Yahweh the one true God brings to judgment, condemns, and consigns to
destruction those deities responsible for injustice on earth and specifically in Israel.22 The gods

18 Geoffrey Wainwright, Eucharist and Eschatology (Peterborough, UK: Epworth Press, 2003), p. 4 et passim. See
also the classic work by Hans Lietzmann, Messe und Herrenmahl. Eine Studie zur Geschichte und Liturgie Arbeiten
zur Kirchengeschichte, vol. 8 (Bonn: Marcus und Weber, 1926); Muksuris, pp. 82-83ff.
19“I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my
Father's Kingdom” (NKJV).
20 See note 6 above.
21Psalm 82 is identified as a Psalm of Asaph, Pss 50, 73-83 (MT; Pss 49, 72-82 LXX), which belonged to the
Asaphite musical guild that served the Jerusalem temple. See the excellent and thorough commentaries by Hans-
Joachim Kraus. Psalms 60-150: A Continental Commentary. Trans. Hilton C. Oswald (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress
Press, 1993), pp. 153-158; Robert Alter, The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary (New York: W.W.
Norton and Company, 2007), pp. 291-293; and Mitchell Dahood, trans. Psalms II: 51-100. The Anchor Bible Series.
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1968), pp. 268-271.
22 Kraus rules out the possibility that these gods were princes or human judges, although they influenced the
wayward and erratic decisions of the latter. Over history, these gods have been degraded to such an extent that in
truth, they now appear as heavenly servant beings, quite possibly angels. See Kraus, p. 155.

Page 5f
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

are directed to become servants administering the righteousness and helpfulness of Yahweh.
They are expected to turn His salvific will into reality and effect salvation in His name as
ministering spirits. However, the gods appear blind and uncomprehending. As wicked powers,
they do not recognize right from wrong. Consequently, “all the foundations of the earth are
unstable” (v. 5), inferring the Old Testament notion that just judgment is the real substructure of
the universe. God’s condemnation of these immoral gods is to strip them of their divine powers
and to consign them to the fate of mortality shared by humans. At the end of the psalm, a prayer
is offered for God to reign over all the nations that suffered the abuses of the wicked rulers and to
establish the centrality of His rule over the cosmos.23

Proximity to the glorified Lamb is bestowed as a gift to those who not only believe but who
remain in good moral standing with God. The implication is that those unjust gods cannot
partake of the intimate eschatological joy-meal. Hence, those gods are now replaced by the elect
faithful of the Church, who have entered into their close union with Christ through the mystery
of baptism. In his Catechetical Lectures, St. Cyril of Jerusalem uses Psalm 82 to emphasize the
importance of the initiation rites as an elevation to the status of a god by adoption:

And do not think this is a small thing you receive. Though you are only a miserable man, you
receive one of God’s titles. You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you. But beware: do not
have the title of the faithful but the will of the faithless. You have entered a contest. Strive to the
end of the race: you will never have another opportunity like this.24

In the completed prothesis, the Lamb spiritually communes with and is communed by the “pious
gathering”, those who have been permeated with the divine grace that emanates from the risen
Christ. Although still a creature, the man and woman of faith, grafted into the redeemed body of
the Church, now possess a “divine status”, because of their sacramental and moral assimilation to
the Lord. They have allowed someone else beside themselves to proclaim them as gods. Thus,
one perceives a reversal in the directional flow of theosis: the gods are made mortals, and mortal
men now attain the heights of incorruption and immortality. And man is now in the very realm
and domain of life, infused with divine life, at the center of the redeemed cosmos to assume the
proper stewardship of the created order that the fallen gods were incapable of handling. Man, as
“adopted god” and “son of God”, has now attained a synergistic relationship with the Trinity and
with God views the cosmos in a non-exploitative and accountable manner, to sanctify and save.

The Byzantine Anaphora of Basil — Presanctus

The authenticity of the Eucharistic Prayer attributed to St. Basil the Great has been the subject of
extensive debate, especially within the past century. Historical research has shown that several
recensions of the anaphora exist and roughly about 350 known manuscripts, extant and not. The

23The prayer refrain from verse 8, “Arise, O God, judge the earth; for You shall inherit all nations”, together with
the previous verses, are memorialized in the Vesperal Divine Liturgy of Pascha, as celebrated in the morning or
evening of Holy and Great Saturday the Orthodox Church.
24Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, quoted in Mike Aquilina and Christopher Bailey, Praying the Psalms
with the Early Christians: Ancient Songs for Modern Hearts (Ijamsville, MD: The Word Among Us Press, 2009),
pp. 120-122.

Page 6f
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

German Benedictine Dom Hieronymus Engberding's foundational work25 built upon a fourth-
century tradition, according to St. Gregory the Theologian, that claimed Basil “arranged prayers”
(εὐχῶν διατάξεις) that were already being used. In his critical study, Engberding concluded that
the Byzantine version of Basil represented a reworking and augmentation by Basil of a much
shorter “liturgy of St. Basil” still used by the Copts. 26 Bernard Capelle27 went a step further and
argued, through a comparison of Coptic Basil (E-BAS) and Byzantine Basil (Byz-BAS), that
many phrases unique to Byz-BAS are paralleled by passages from other authentic theological
writings by the Cappadocian Father. John Fenwick28 hypothesized that an archetypal liturgy from
Cappadocia, Ur-Basil (Ur-BAS), produced three other versions: Egyptian Basil (E-BAS), Ur
James (Ur-JAS), and Ω-BAS, whose descendants include Syriac Basil (Syr-BAS), Armenian
Basil (Arm-BAS), and Byzantine Basil (Byz-BAS). The Byzantine redaction adds little to the Ω
core of liturgies, which probably reflect an amplification by Basil himself of Ur-BAS between
365 and 380 AD.29

Throughout the entire Presanctus/Postsanctus unit of Byz-BAS, the Church pronounces its
glorification to the Holy Trinity. Each Person is individually extolled but each hypostasis is
related to the other through a series of connecting verses. Although the prayer is addressed to
God the Father, all three Persons receive the laudation, for all three Persons share the central
position of authority over the entire cosmos, that is, over earthly and ethereal creation.

The first round of praises to God extols Him essentially for who He is. He is defined as Master,
the One who Is, Lord, God (Ex 3:16; Jer 1:6). As the ultimate and only original source of
existence, He bestows existence to the universe but infuses true life to those whose only worthy
reciprocation for this gift (δῶρον) is their ἀντίδωρον of thanksgiving to God in right worship.
Following this, “instead of a single word for praise, there is a string of synonymous infinitives
[αἰνεῖν, ὑµνεῖν, εὐλογεῖν, προσκυνεῖν, εὐχαριστεῖν, δοξάζειν] which seem to express by their very
multiplicity the inability of human language to praise God adequately, and at the same time the
insistent need to do so”,30 paralleled after the form of the Great Doxology.

25Hieronymus Engberding, Das eucharistische Hochgebet der Basileiosliturgie. Textgeschichtliche Untersuchungen

und kritische Ausgabe. Theologie der christlichen Ostens 1 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1931).
26Cyprian Robert Hutcheon, “‘A Sacrifice of Praise': A Theological Analysis of the Pre-Sanctus of the Byzantine
Anaphora of St. Basil”, in St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 45:1 (2001) 5.
27 Bernard Capelle, “Les liturgies ‘basiliennes’ et saint Basile,” annexe to J. Doresse and E. Lanne, Un témoin
archaïque de la liturgie copte de S. Basile. Bibliothèque de Muséon, 47 (Louvain: Institut Orientaliste, 1960), pp.
45-74.
28John Fenwick, The Anaphoras of St. Basil and St. James: an Investigation into Their Common Origin. Orientalia
Christiana Analecta 240 (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientale, 1992).
29Hutcheon, p. 6. For more recent scholarship on the Basilian anaphorae, see the seminal work by Gabriele Winkler,
Die Basilius-Anaphora: Edition der beiden armenischen Redaktionen und der relevanten Fragmente, Übersetzung
und Zusammenschau aller Versionen im Licht der orientalischen Überlieferungen. Anaphorae Orientales 2,
Anaphorae Armeniacae 2 (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Orientale 2005). Also: Winkler, “The Christology of the
Anaphora of Basil”, pp. 113-114.
30 Robert Ledogar, Acknowledgment: Praise-Verbs in the Early Greek Anaphora (Rome: Herder, 1968), p. 13.

Page 7f
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

Subsequent to this opening address in the Presanctus, the prayer continues: And who is able to
tell of all your acts of power? To make all your praises heard or to recount all your wonders at
every moment? (Ps 9:2, 25:7, 33:1, 105:2; cf. Ps 74:3) Master of all things (Job 5:8; Wis 8:3),
Lord of heaven and earth (Mt 11:25) and all creation (Jdt 9:12; 3 Macc 2:3), seen and unseen,
who are seated upon the throne of glory and look upon the depths (Wis 9:10; Dan 3:54-55; Mt
19:28; cf. Is 6:1). This praise of God the Father, and by extension to the Son and the Spirit, extols
His lordship over all creation. It establishes Him (He is “enthroned”) at the center of a pristine
universe, both before and after the fall “at every moment” (ἐν παντὶ καιρῷ). From this central
position outside of time and space, He enters time and space to give the world existence and
purpose. In the proskomide, this same image is projected: time and space are suspended. Time
flows into eternity and the material world melds with the spiritual realm. The incarnate,
sacrificed, and resurrected Lamb of God draws the entire cosmos to Himself and breaks down
every form of physical, spiritual, and moral separation within the created order, creating a
universal transparency in the long-awaited eschatological reality. Rubbing elbows with the
angels and saints has never been easier!

The apophatic language that follows concludes this section for God the Father and enables a
transition to God the Son. You are without beginning, invisible, unsearchable, uncircumscribed,
unchangeable the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Cor 1:3; cf. 1 Tim 1:1). Opposed to the
erroneous Anomean notion that God the Father is truly divine and knowable in His essence,
Cappadocian theology acknowledges that only through Christ can the Father be known in His
fullness, and specifically through the divine economy.

Christ’s relationship to the Father is expressed in a series of Pauline and Johannine images, such
as living Word (Heb 4:12), true God (1 Jn 5:20), Wisdom before the ages (Ps 54:20), Life (Jn
14:6), Sanctification (1 Cor 1:30), Power (1 Cor 1:24), the True Light (Jn 1:9). All these epithets
relay the idea of power and action that emanates from the Godhead and witness to the inherent
unity and perichoresis of the three hypostases. This unity is conveyed in the Presanctus when
Basil speaks of Christ as the image of Your goodness [εἰκὼν τῆς σῆς ἀγαθότητος] (Wis 7:26), the
identical seal of Your likeness [σφραγὶς ἰσότυπος], revealing You the Father in Himself [ἐν ἑαυτῷ
δεικνὺς σε τὸν Πατέρα] (cf. Jn 14:8).31

The “debut” in the anaphora of the Holy Spirit occurs as a manifestation or revelation effected by
Christ (ἐξεφάνη). The Scriptural epithets for the Third Hypostasis of the Trinity — the Spirit of
Truth (Jn 14:17; 16:13), the grace of sonship (Rom 8:15), the pledge of the inheritance to come
(2 Cor 1:22; Eph 1:4), the first-fruits of the eternal good things (Rom 8:23), the life-giving power
(Rom 18:13; 1 Cor 15:45), the source of sanctification — all affirm the commitment of Christ to
remain with His Church and to fulfill the abundance of blessings promised to us in the eschaton.
In fact, this sublime eschatological vision of God surrounded by gods is made complete by the

31 Both expressions referring to Christ as the image and likeness of the Father are borrowed by Basil from St.
Athanasios of Alexandria, as a show of solidarity for Nicene orthodoxy. The same are witnessed in Basil’s On the
Holy Spirit. “Through Christ the Image, may we be led to the Father, for He bears the seal of the Father’s very
likeness.” See PG 25.217BC; also, Hutcheon, pp. 14-15.

Page 8f
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

power of the Holy Spirit, who not only reveals this theocentric reality but also keeps the
redeemed cosmos bonded to its Redeemer.

The final transition in the Presanctus is to the angelic hosts, who receive their holiness in a
hierarchical manner via their proximity and engagement with the Holy Spirit. On the paten, the
nine orders of angels and saints occupy a prominent place next to the Lamb, above the particles
for the living and dead. Basil remarks that the angels are enabled to offer perpetual doxology to
God by the Spirit. In the same breath, he affirms that human praise is achievable by the same
Spirit, who gives to man not only knowledge and understanding of the divine will, but also the
inspiration and power to bless the Trinity.32 Therefore, the theocentric κοσµοθεωρία is not a
figment of one’s imaginings, a quaint idea concocted by individuals, but a very real and powerful
vision from God Himself, a product of the divine economy, that reveals God’s will for man to
once again become king and co-steward over the universe and the world he calls his home.

In the lengthy Postsanctus of the Basilian anaphora, the Cappadocian Father synopsizes in lofty
language his perspective of the divine economy by retelling the biblical story of creation, the fall,
and man’s eventual redemption in Christ. Instead of engaging in a tedious line-by-line or section-
by-section analysis of this segment, I wish to call attention to three main points.

First, the horrific and seemingly irreversible condition of man after the fall is tempered by the
insistence that God, after pronouncing the condemnation of corruption and death upon the human
race, did not abandon His creation. For You did not finally turn away (Dan 3:34) from Your
creature whom You made, O Good One, nor forget the work of Your hands, but because of Your
tender compassion (Ps 137:8; Lk 1:78), You visited him in various ways. God shows an ardent
and unrelenting desire to help man reenter paradise and to reestablish communion with Him,
through man’s repentance and belief in the incarnate Logos. Man’s destiny, as it were, is to
assume his rightful place with God in this redeemed world, to regain the dignity of his creation.
As Georgia Masters Keightley writes, “Creation is not just the source of our existence, our life
and work; it is the place where we pursue our divinely given destiny.” 33 In other words, the
created universe, once the context of man’s fall from grace, now becomes the arena in which
God becomes incarnate for our salvation and man acquires and advances in the knowledge and in
the love of God in order to be saved. The efforts on God’s end are extreme and vigorous.

A second observation in the Postsanctus revolves around the notion of man’s ascendancy to the
status of God’s own people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation (Tit 2:14, cf. Ex 19:5; 1 Pt 2:9, cf.
Ex 19:6) through the divine economy. Man, cast out of Eden shamefully and stripped of his

32“The angelic powers are not by their own nature holy; otherwise there would be no difference between them and
the Holy Spirit … Holiness is not part of their essence; it is accomplished in them through communion with the
Spirit…. How can the angels cry ‘Glory to God in the Highest,’ [Lk 2:24] unless the Spirit enables them to do so? …
[Likewise no person] can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit … If all God’s angels praise Him, and all His
host, they do so by cooperating with the Holy Spirit” (St. Basil, On the Holy Spirit, pp. 61-64; also, Cutcheon, p. 19.
33Georgia Masters Keightly, “The Church’s Laity: Called to Be Creation’s Priests”, in Worship 84/4 (July 2010)
312.

Page 9f
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

priestly responsibilities due to sin, is “re-ordained” by Christ into the ministry of stewardship
over the created world. John Zizioulas claims that the ecological crisis is as much spiritual as it is
scientific, political, or ethical. Consequently, man is called to assume Christ’s “spiritualized”
priesthood, which signifies a life of complete obedience and self-dedication to God’s cause. Man
“approaches priesthood not simply as a cultic act but as an ‘existential attitude encompassing all
human activities that involve a conscious or even unconscious manifestation’ of true
personhood.”34 Elisabeth Behr-Sigel states that in the writings of the Fathers, “we can discern in
their thinking a basically identifical [sic.] vision of the human being (anthropos) as theocentric
and dynamic: a vision of the human which, in its essential nature is, or rather becomes, ‘itself’
only insofar as it exists ‘in God’ or ‘in grace.’” 35 So man is truly himself, in tune with his
personhood, as fulfilling the divine image and likeness, when he assumes the double mantle of
priest-steward — in other words, intercessor for the cosmos and caretaker of God’s oikos and the
established ecosystem. We will say more about man’s priestly role a little later in this paper.

A third point I wish to call attention to is to the double motion of the crucified and resurrected
Christ’s descent into hell and His ascent into heaven, in order to fulfill throughout the material
and ethereal cosmos all righteousness. The specific lines from the Postsanctus are: (1) And when
He descended into Hades through the cross, so that He might fill all things with Himself (Eph
4:10) … He took His seat at the right hand of Your majesty on high (Heb 1:3); and He will come
to reward each according to their works (Mt 24:50; Rom 2:6; cf. Ps 61:12; Prov 24:12). The
completed prothesis reflects the final establishment of God’s rule over all created order and His
dominion over the unruly gods of Psalm 82 and every spiritual minister of evil, even though
there is naturally no commemoration or depiction of hell in the rite. God’s sovereignty then may
be characterized as founded on justice and mercy, truth and love, fairness and compassion. It
permeates every nook and cranny of the universe, every form of life, every atom and subatomic
particle. Divine love has touched everything through God’s economy in the Lord Jesus Christ,
who overlooks the entire cosmos and draws all beings to Himself and, through Himself, to their
true selves as priests and stewards of creation.

The Hexaemeron of Basil

The Cappadocian Father’s classic work on the Six Days of Creation is avowedly a source of great
frustration to scientific thinkers who cringe at the simplistic and, at least by today’s empirical
standards, “uninformed” and “incomplete” nature of Basil’s description of the origins of the
cosmos and the earth. While I do not believe Basil would admit possessing encyclopedic
knowledge of ecosystems and cosmological phenomena, up to the minutest detail, his own basic
understanding and interpretation of the cosmos remains distinctly theological and theocentric.
Whatever is perceptible and imperceptible through the senses, whatever is somehow conceivable
and inconceivable by the human mind, is the product of the power and the wisdom and the love
of the God he worships and serves.

34 John Zizioulas, quoted in Keightley, p. 315.

35 Elisabeth Behr-Sigel, “Woman Too Is in the Likeness of God”, in Mid-Stream 21/3 (July 1982) 370.

Page f10
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

As an extensive ode of praise spread out over nine homilies, the Hexaemeron seeks to shower
praise on God for His creative magnificence and plan for the world. Basil seeks to induce
wonder and admiration in his listeners, to invite them to share with him his own participation in
this mystery of mysteries, “to make them know Him who created it.” 36 “How earnestly the soul
should prepare itself to receive such high lessons! … how unclouded by worldly disquietudes,
how active and ardent in its researches, how eager to find in its surroundings an idea of God
which may be worthy of Him!”37

The cosmos for Basil serves not only as proof of God’s existence; teleologically speaking,
creation’s magnificence stands as a finite icon of God’s own infinite grandeur and perfect beauty.
Basil maintains that “by the beauty of visible things let us raise ourselves to Him Who is above
all beauty; by the grandeur of bodies, sensible and limited in their nature, let us conceive of the
Infinite Being Whose immensity and omnipotence surpass all the efforts of the imagination.”38

God provides the matter through creation, the form through His wisdom, and the purpose of the
cosmos through His will. And the divine will encompasses bringing exiled man back into the
paradise of blessed union between himself, God, and the world to which, in sin, he once
subjected himself. This eschatological homecoming is projected in the Basilian anaphora and the
prothesis rite. Through Christ’s resurrection, man, exiting the baptismal waters,39 returns not as a
hired hand subject to the judgment of the Master but as a son subject to receive the unconditional
love of the Father (cf. Luke 15:11-32), who has been bestowed the garments of righteousness and
ready to assume his place at the eternal banquet, now a god by adoption.

Basil’s Hexaemeron remains relatively silent on the actual creation of man and the fall, choosing
rather to focus on establishing the centrality of God in the grandeur of the created order.
Nevertheless, in his Ninth Homily and using Genesis 1:26 as a platform, the Cappadocian Father
immerses his listeners into an “image and likeness theology” but one that seeks to affirm the
absolute equality and co-creativity of God the Son with God the Father. In other words, the “Let
Us make man” command is directed not to the angels or other inferior beings, as the Jews
wrongly surmise, but to the other two Trinitarian hypostases. “To Whom does He say,”
challenges Basil, “‘in Our image,’ to Whom if it is not to Him Who is ‘the brightness of His
glory and the express image of His person,’ ‘the image of the invisible God’?”40 Elsewhere he

36 Basil of Caesarea, Hexaemeron, Homily 1.7.

37 Ibid. Homily 1.1.
38Ibid. Homily 1.11. Also, Homily 5.2: “ἵν’ ὅπου περ ἂν εὑρεθῇς, καὶ ὁποίῳ δήποτε γένει τῶν φυοµένων παραστῇς,
ἐναργῆ λαµβάνῃς τοῦ ποιήσαντος τὴν ὑπόµνησιν” (“that everywhere, wherever you may be, the least plant may
bring to you the clear remembrance of the Creator”). Also, Homily 6.11:
39 The Basilian Anaphora, in the Postsanctus, includes two biblical references of having been “cleansed by
water” (Eph 5:26) and “sanctified by the Holy Spirit” (Rom 15:6). Baptism effects an eschatological homecoming to
paradise, a grafting into the Body of Christ, an entrance into the eternal banquet hall of the Kingdom which the
periodic Eucharistic celebration inchoately imitates and to which it looks forward.
40 Basil of Caesarea, Hexaemeron, Homily 9.6.

Page 1f 1
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

argues: “To reject the Son, they raise servants to the dignity of counsellors; they make of our
fellow slaves the agents in our creation.” 41

The solidification of this central theological tenet, namely that man’s creation in the divine image
and likeness is a trinitarian action, is critical to Basil — and to the foundational premise of this
paper — because upon it rests not only the obvious significance of the Incarnation but also the
notion of man’s assumption of the divine attributes of co-creator and king, priest, and prophetic
advocate for the cosmos. In other words, establishing a link between the Father and the Son, in
terms of divine activity and will, carries over to man’s inherited responsibility of fulfilling the
three offices of Christ. Hence, priestly stewardship on earth is anything but a human mode of
living; it is foremost and primarily the divine work of “gods under God” — a full participation in
the divine economy and life of Christ. In terms of theosis, how can one not admit that it is man’s
intended destiny from the beginning? It is the only appropriate calling of man who now stands
before God and the cosmos to bless, sanctify, redeem, and unify all that sin has divided and
corrupted. It is to this image of man as co-priest, co-caretaker, and fellow steward of the sacred
cosmos that we now must necessarily turn.

Theocentric Synergy — Priesthood Over the Cosmos

Pantelis Kalaitzidis states: “One of the main features of Eastern Orthodox theology and liturgical
experience is its vision of the catholic/holistic transformation and salvation of the whole creation,
of the cosmos and humankind.”42 Oftentimes, one gets the impression that salvation from the
fallen world into a spiritualized existence (i.e. the heavenly kingdom) is a rejection of the created
world. Philip LeMasters admits the quasi-Gnostic tendency to assume that the ancient sublime
Eucharistic liturgies are somehow thematically detached from the Church’s need to offer
practical service to human beings and practice social awareness.43 Naturally, Byz-BAS’ lengthy
intercessory section of the Postsanctus invalidates this claim.

Nevertheless, I think it is important to understand that this litany of very human needs, when
properly recited within earshot of the worshippers, are meant to be heard not only by God but
digested by the people to mobilize them for the priestly ministry to which they are called. Hence,
as LeMasters correctly says, the Anaphora is “a prophetic text, the enactment of which calls the
Church and its members to live out in daily life what they celebrate liturgically.” 44 There can be
then no dichotomy between worship and life45 — man’s liturgical worship of God is man’s very

41 Ibid.
42 Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Orthodoxy and Political Theology (Geneva: World Council of Churches Publications, 2012),
p. 9.
43Philip LeMasters, “Philanthropia in Liturgy and Life: The Anaphora of Basil the Great and Eastern Orthodox
Social Ethics”, in St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 59/2 (2015) 187-189.
44 Ibid. p. 189.
45 Ibid. “It also stands as an implicit warning to communicants not to place themselves in a false position by failing
to display the very divine-human communion in which they participate by receiving communion, and thus falling
into a spiritually unhealthy separation of liturgy and life” (p. 189).

Page f12
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

life in God with all its moral expectations. And the priests who stand within and without the
sanctuary before the altar of God, to offer the bloodless sacrifices of praise and the Eucharist,
receive the vocation to offer the same sacrifice of love upon the altar of every human heart. The
priestly sacrifice of love takes the form of responsible stewardship — economia — over the
vineyard entrusted to humanity.

Aristotle Papanikolaou makes an extremely insightful characterization of theosis as “divine-

human communion”46 that “cannot be confined either to the monastery or the church — the
whole world is the field in which this ascetics must be played out.” 47 This intuitive comment
makes two very critical points.

First, it takes into account that the vertical bar that unites God and man, typically expressed as
the flow of worship executed in the form of rites and sacraments, essentially hinges on the
horizontal bar that demands the fulfillment of man’s role as priest and intercessor between
humanity and God. This role of the priesthood, denied by primordial Adam, seeks to discover the
“Other” in the other. Adam, however, re-imaged God and himself according to his own
conceived ideas of authority; he sought to subject God and the world to his own impulsive
whims and became a wholly independent entity. In the corrective of the Incarnation, via self-
denial, man bears witness to the fact that true divinity is not inward looking but outward flowing.
In other words, God, as perfect love (1 John 4:8), lives to give; He does not give to live. A
properly executed priesthood moves man away from a concern about self-sufficiency and self
independence, a retreat away from self-idolatry and self-aggrandizement, which lead to a lethal
manipulation and exploitation of the created world. As Demetrios Constantelos put it, the
petitions and prayers in the Liturgy “are meant to penetrate man’s heart and mind and become an
impetus for agape in diakonia — love in practice.”48

Second, the flow of divine grace that establishes this “divine-human communion” cannot remain
confined within a particular context. The Holy Spirit indeed blows where He wills (John 3:8),
and while the Spirit gives life and direction to the Church, who can say, beyond any reasonable
doubt, that the Spirit does not concern Himself with the world that inevitably exists beyond the
physical and allegorical walls of the Church? In other words, is the royal priesthood of Scripture
limited to an elite group of privileged followers who alone have received the lofty calling of
ecological and cosmological stewardship? And if these priests within the fold of the Church fail
in their vocation, does the successful execution of right stewardship by others on the “other
side”, who do not belong to Christ, not matter (cf. Mark 9:38-41; John 10:16)?

46 Ibid. p. 187.
47Papanikolaou, Aristotle. The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2012), pp. 2-4.
48Constantelos, Demetrios, “Basil the Great’s Social Thought and Involvement”, in Greek Orthodox Theological
Review 26/1-2 (Spring/Summer 1981) 86.

Page f13
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

Without intending to pointlessly rush into the quagmire of controversy that may be appearing on
the horizon as I speak, in the wake of Papanikolaou’s provocative observation, I believe the
Church needs to assess its own boundaries of grace. Related to this issue of course are the
boundaries of the priesthood. Does the entire human race share the responsibility of priestly
agape in diakonia or is it an exclusively Christian affair? The question is an extremely important
one, perhaps more crucial than initially meets the eye, for the simple reason that Christian
stewardship is not a partisan, or religious, activity but a very human one that is backed by divine
favor. It just so happens that Eastern Christian theology gives it expression within the “God
context” that includes priesthood. Elisabeth Behr-Sigel has written: “The Divine Logos, through
the incarnation, takes up all humanity in a manner that excludes no human hypostasis, but opens
for all the possibility of restoring in Him their unity.”49 All of humanity then requires restoration
but no member of the human race can be exempt from exercising the priestly role that achieves
this sanctification and redemption of the cosmos.

To better understand these boundaries of grace and priesthood, I wish to approach this quagmire
nonetheless, albeit prudently and judiciously, and to share in this final section of my paper
previous research of mine 50 that challenges the boundaries of the Church and, by extension, the
limitations of divine grace and the priesthood. I plan to achieve this through a review of Symeon
of Thessaloniki’s commemoration practices with regard to the population of particles during the
Rite of the Prothesis. (I anticipate making us constructively uncomfortable. I earnestly await
either your encomia or calls for excommunication at the end.)

ECCLESIOLOGICAL BOUNDARIES IN THE PROTHESIS RITE: IMPLICATIONS?

Among the major Byzantine liturgical commentators who drew from the patristic mystagogies of
their predecessors, the eschatological significance of the prothesis rite is most vividly expressed
in the two important works of St. Symeon of Thessaloniki, namely, his Explanation of the Divine
Temple (hereafter, E), and On the Sacred Liturgy (hereafter, L). 51

The Commemoration of Names

In his commentary E 106-109, Symeon's description of the commemoration of the names of the
living and the dead, via the excision of particles and their distribution upon the paten, suggests a
realism in which the completed prothesis seems to “gather together” those in the faith for whom
forgiveness of sins and union in divine grace is procured. For those in the faith, their inclusion on
the diskos and their eventual immersion into the consecrated Blood brings to perfection their
“proximity” to the Lamb. Symeon writes in E 108:

49 Behr-Sigel, p. 371.
50Stelyios S. Muksuris, “Why the Last Should Be First: The Primacy of Eucharistic Eschatology in the Byzantine
Prothesis Rite — Toward a Theology of Ecclesial Unity”, in St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 59/2 (2015)
163-186.
51 See note 2 above.

Page f14
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

The particle offered for someone itself also partakes immediately of His holiness. Placed in the
chalice, it is united with His blood. Therefore it passes on the grace to the soul for whom it was
offered. A spiritual communion therefore takes place. If the person is one of those who strive for
devotion or who have sinned and are repenting, he receives in an unseen manner the communion
of the Spirit in the soul....52

By the same token, those who are actively sinful but are commemorated regardless before the
Lamb are unfit for communion and so judgment passes to them, as it does to the priest who
accepts the bread offering knowingly from such individuals. Symeon cautions in L105 and E
109, respectively:

And there is no place here for unbelievers, let alone for the heterodox. “For what communion does
light have with darkness?” [2 Cor 6:14] since, scripture says, the angels will separate out the evil
from the midst of the just. [1 Cor 5:13] Therefore it is also not at all right for a priest to make an
offering for a heterodox or make a commemoration of him; neither <is he permitted to do so> for
those openly sinning and unrepentant. For the offering is to their condemnation, just as it is also
for the unrepentant who receive communion of the awe-inspiring mysteries, as the divine Paul
says. [1 Cor 11:29; Rom 14:23]53

But if someone is actively sinful, has not rejected his sins and is unfit for communion, the sacrifice
for him will be for his condemnation. Therefore the priest must be attentive not to accept a
prosphora from just anyone wishing to give one, and not to make an offering on behalf of those
who are actively <and> carelessly sinners, so as not to be condemned with them.54

Symeon's strict prohibition in the prothesis of the commemoration of heterodox and those
outside of the good graces of the Church, such as the penitents and possessed, clearly indicates a
correlation between the interpersonal unity implied in the rite and ecclesial unity, which logically
then insinuates a unification to the Lamb in the eschatological Kingdom. However, can the
completed prothesis, as understood by the Byzantine mystagogue, honestly define the boundaries
of the Church, the eschatological Kingdom on earth? If the prothesis is the image of the
redeemed cosmos, on what grounds is the heterodox, profane world --- for which the Church
prays fervently at every divine synaxis --- excluded from the Kingdom of God when, in fact, the
imperfect and incomplete abound on both sides of the fence?

The Excision of Particles for the Saints

Prior to the population of the paten with names commemorating the living and dead, the priest
excises particles for the Mother of God and the saints and angels in a hierarchically flowing
manner, who together form the apocalyptic “pious gathering” (τὸ εὐσεβὲς ἄθροισµα) 55 of heaven.
They are memorialized and honored as co-participants in the divine economy, who are united
with the Lamb and with the redeemed faithful, and through whom the faithful are united to
Christ. Synergistic participation then in the salvific work of God in Jesus Christ assimilates the
angels and saints to Christ as the unitive force that draws the world together. In L 82-83, he says:

52 Symeon of Thessaloniki, Explanation of the Divine Temple 108; PG 155.748D-749A.

53 Symeon of Thessaloniki, On the Sacred Liturgy 105; PG 155.285B.
54 Symeon of Thessaloniki, Explanation of the Divine Temple 109; PG 155.749A.
55 See note 6 above.

Page f15
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

And it is necessary that with the commemoration of the Lord, commemoration also be made of
His servants [the angels and saints] … and finally all of them together, since by this sacred
sacrifice both all angels and all holy men together have been united to Christ and in Him have they
been sanctified and unite us to Him.56

Symeon admits in L 84 that the saints “also share in this awe-inspiring mystery as those who
have fought together for Christ, their glory and exaltation being greater by their communion in
the saving sacrifice, and they reconcile and join us to Him, and even more so inasmuch as we
commemorate them.”57

This intentional population of the diskos contributes in creating the eschatological image of the
redeemed Church, an icon of the transformed cosmos that is fully penetrated by God's presence.
The implied unity is certainly hierarchical and thus indirect (i.e. achieved via intercession of the
angelic and saintly orders) but also direct and unmediated, since the eschatological Lamb can be
“both seen and partaken of” unhindered by all in the Kingdom of God.

Through Eucharistic communion (the particles with the consecrated elements and the people who
partake of the Lord's Supper) a vision of the entire Church, eschatological and united, is
attainable by the participants who have been been “blessed, sanctified, and shown forth” to be
what they were called to become,58 to paraphrase the epiklesis of the Basilian anaphora.59 This
sanctification, which can be understood as an outpouring of the Spirit, as a permeation of the
human being with the divine presence, effects a real unity in which God is all in all. The primary
recipient of this divine permeation, for Symeon, is the Mother of God, since “She is graced
above all and [is] especially holy and a god according to grace ... but not God by nature.”60 And
as the example par excellence of the prima inter pares, the head of those “gods deified by grace”
by virtue of the indwelling within her of the fiery Godhead, she constitutes in her own person the
very image of the hallowed Church filled completely with the power and presence of Christ. In
conclusion then, the eschatological image of the Church, this assembly of “God in the midst of
gods ... God with us, seen and partaken of”,61 is a unique, completely transparent and intimate
fellowship between Creator and creature, in which the ontological sustenance of the latter is
secured by virtue of his or her total immersion in the very life and existence of the former.

56 Symeon of Thessaloniki, On the Sacred Liturgy 82-83; PG 155.281AB.

57 Ibid. 84; PG 155.281C.
58 “A holy people.” Cf. Leviticus 20:7; Deuteronomy 7:6, 14:2; Isaiah 62:12, et al.
59“... we beg You and implore You, O Holy of Holies, that by the good pleasure of Your goodness, Your Holy Spirit
may come upon us and upon these gifts here set forth, and that He may bless [εὐλογῆσαι], sanctify [ἁγιάσαι], and
show forth [ἀναδεῖξαι] this bread …”, etc. The epiklesis from the Anaphora of Byzantine-Basil.
60 Hawkes-Teeples, p. 229; Symeon of Thessaloniki, On the Sacred Liturgy 102 (Excursus) and 87; PG 155.284AB:
“... She is above all and closest to God; on the left are the particles for the angels and all the saints, since all these
hold the second rank; rather, their rank is in no way comparable to Her superiority. For through Her, light shines on
them, and from Her first we are saved through the saints. Because also through Her we were united to God.”
61 See note 6 above.

Page f16
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

Boundaries of Grace and Priesthood: Obstacle to Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία?

In E 108-110 and L 105, St. Symeon's heightened realism in regard to Eucharistic union with the
eschatological Lamb takes on a disturbing, almost frightful, twist. The archbishop of
Thessaloniki utilizes strong language and pronounces judgment upon not only those heterodox
(i.e. non-Orthodox Christians) and open, unrepentant sinners whose names are accidentally or
deliberately commemorated at the prothesis, but also upon the priests who knowingly excise
such particles for them and deposit them near the Lamb. The practice, for Symeon, is an
abomination that procures punishment for the perpetrator since the implication is that it promotes
an impropriety in his conception of the hierarchical structure and ridicules his notion of the
eschatological Kingdom.

This condemnatory language follows immediately on the coattails of the aforementioned central
passage from L 94, in which Symeon envisions the eschatological Church centered around its
Founder. It would seem that only God is left in the midst of those gods who have assimilated
themselves into the ways of the Kingdom and are in direct union with the exalted Lamb. No
doubt Symeon has in mind the apocalyptic passage from Matthew 3:12,62 which polarizes the
righteous from the unjust. He utilizes Pauline language to get across his point, asking: “‘For what
communion [κοινωνία] does light have with darkness?’ [2 Cor 6:14] since, scripture says, the
angels will separate out [ἐξαροῦσι] the evil from the midst of the just” [1 Cor 5.13].63

Two points here need to be made: (1) It is difficult not to perceive that Symeon's unique
mystagogy in the prothesis rite, specifically with regard to his language of “separation”,
corresponds to the familiar Christian practice of dismissing unbaptized catechumens and lapsed
Christians from the Eucharistic assembly. Since catechumens are excluded from the Eucharist
and so are denied communion until the time of their rebirth in Christ, and since the prothesis
reflects the eschatological Kingdom as manifested in the earthly Church, it follows suit for the
names of those who do not belong to the Church, or whose relationship with the Church has been
temporarily suspended, to likewise be excluded from the commemorations on the paten. (2) This
corresponding realism is explicated by Symeon’s interesting but vague reference to prior patristic
dialogue regarding the particles and their significance. He writes: “Accordingly, a discussion has
come down to us from the fathers that the offered particles provide great advantage, for they are
there in place of the persons for whom they are offered [ἀντὶ γὰρ τῶν προσώπων εἰσὶν ὑπὲρ ὦν
προσάγονται], and are a sacrifice offered on their behalf to God, just as the priest says in offering
them: ‘Receive, Lord, this sacrifice.’”64 The excised particles, representing Christians of
orthodox faith and placed near the Lamb, receive a particular benefit for those in whose stead
they are offered. However, for those whose lives do not align with the dictates of the Gospel or
who are outside of the fold of the Church (at least in Symeon’s understanding) and whose

62 “His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat
into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
63 Symeon of Thessaloniki, On the Sacred Liturgy 105; PG 155.284B.
64 Symeon of Thessaloniki, Explanation of the Divine Temple 107; PG 155.748C.

Page f17
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

particles are placed near the Lamb, obtain punishment. What are we to make of all this? A brief
look into Symeon’s historical background is in order.

It is clear that in the twilight of the fall of Byzantium in 1453, several hundreds of years had
already transpired since the Eastern and Western churches alienated themselves from each other.
Symeon, the last great bulwark of the unadulterated Cathedral Rite, saw his own church adopt
the so-called Neo-Sabaite synthesis, much to his dismay. During his bishopric in the second
largest city of Byzantium, he vehemently opposed the locals’ plea to surrender to the Ottoman
Turks and even more intensely against any intervention from the West (specifically, to place the
city as a protectorate under Venetian control following the initial Turkish occupation from
1387-1403).65

Having been born in Constantinople less than a hundred years following the Frankish occupation
(1204-1261), Symeon’s anti-Latin sentiments are quite obvious in his caustic, scathing writings,
especially in his opening “Heresies” section of his Dialogue,66 in which he blasts the Roman
Church for adhering to a catalog of sins, which include liturgical innovations and actions foreign
to the Orthodox Church.67 “This attitude,” writes Hawkes-Teeples, “is connected with his
conviction that only the Orthodox Church has preserved the Christian tradition perfectly in all its
details. If so, then what differs from Byzantine Orthodoxy must be a rejection of the true ancient
tradition of the Church.”68 As Martin Jugie summarizes: “Every Latin usage in the sacraments,
the rites, and discipline which is different from Byzantine customs is criticized and censured, at
times in violent terms.”69 On the basis of this data, one can see how very limited and exclusive
Symeon's ecclesiology was, a world in which the redeemed commemorated on the paten shared
not only the Orthodox faith but also lived moral and repentant lives. One may wonder if those
considered by Symeon as “actively sinful” would include not only the Latins and the invading
Ottomans, but also those Byzantines who opposed Symeon's own theological and political views,
in spite of their incorrectness or unfairness! Nevertheless, Symeon was proclaimed a saint by the

65 Hawkes-Teeples, pp. 18-23. As a person as well as an ecclesiastical leader, Symeon's persona was extremely
conservative and unbendable in his theological, social, ecclesiastical, and political views, alienating his fellow
bishops and his own laity, not to mention the Latins and Turks. His extreme positions were not only perceived as
unfair in their assessments by the populace, but bordered almost on the paranoid and even insulting.
66 PG 155.97-109.
67 Among these liturgical “anomalies”, as Symeon interprets them anyway, are: abandoning the original way of
celebrating the Eucharist (clergy and laity do not receive from the same cup and non-concelebrations by clergy);
abandoning the ancient practice of fasting on Wednesday and Friday and fasting on Saturday; the scandalous custom
of allowing inter-familial marriages; the practice of ordaining priests outside the altar and with an anointing that
accompanies the laying on of hands; baptism by infusion, not triple immersion, and leaving the baptized
unchrismated and uncommuned until later in life; the multiplication of monastic habits (i.e. orders), and not adhering
to the rule of the lesser and greater habit; and open fornication, with laity showing no remorse and Catholic clergy
surrounded by their concubines and illegitimate children. See Hawkes-Teeples, pp. 40-41.
68 Hawkes-Teeples, p. 39.
69 Martin Jugie, “Syméon de Thessalonique”, in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique 14 (1941) 2983.

Page f18
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece 552
years following his death, on May 3, 1991.

This very conservative and circumscribed ecclesiology, as played out in Symeon's preparatory
rites, raises numerous problems that require serious thinking and viable solutions from the
Church, primarily because this “exclusive” policy of commemoration has become the norm for
Orthodox liturgists. And this policy of “selective exclusion” seemingly muddles the waters of the
Eastern Church with regard to where divine grace begins and ends and to whom is given the
injunction to be God’s priestly steward over creation.

First, we are confronted with a series of contradictions. In the Divine Liturgy, the Orthodox
Christians pray “for the peace of the whole world, for the stability of the holy churches of God,
and for the union of all (καὶ τῆς τῶν πάντων ἑνώσεως)”, but in the prothesis, only those of
orthodox faith and polity are commemorated. How is it that we are inclusive in one part of the
liturgy and not in the other? In ancient Eucharistic anaphorae and litanies up through the first
three centuries, Christians prayed for the pagan Roman Emperor and all civil authorities who
often persecuted them, in keeping with the Pauline injunction in 1 Timothy 2:1-3. And with
regard to the union of churches, the expression implies all of them, in adherence to Christ’s high
priestly prayer to the Father in John 17:22, “that they may be one as We are one.” Otherwise, it
would seem that salvation can be denied those who never knew Christ or who knew Him not
well enough. This places the priest or bishop into the precarious position of judge or vicar,
handling God’s work for Him without fully understanding the loftiness of God’s ways and
thoughts (Isaiah 55:9) and His assessment of each individual’s life.

Second, is Symeon’s completed prothesis an image of the entire Church or of the cosmos? Is
there redemption outside the Church or only when this “dark” or “grey” area is assumed within
the graces of the one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church? Is it fair to ask if the Church, as the
expression of love incarnate, even has boundaries at all that include some but exclude others? Is
the basis of such actions only doctrinal faith and moral behavior? And who outside of God can
make such accurate assessments? Does not then the proskomide become an elite grouping of
folks content that they have nothing to do with those horrible sinners outside the walls of the
Kingdom (cf. Luke 18:11)? I am reminded of the humorous little statement that says: “Don’t you
know? Christ only came to earth to save the Orthodox and was sure to do a background check
before evangelizing them.”

Finally, I think there is a significant difference in how one understands the completed prothesis:
is it, according to Symeon, the redeemed and perfected Church chosen from among the profane
universe, or is it a real image of the imperfect cosmos in the process of becoming perfect (cf.
Matthew 5:48)? This question is more important than it seems, for I believe it touches heavily
upon the identity of the Christ as Redeemer and, consequently, the role of the Church as the
“extension of Christ through the ages.” If the prothesis only encompasses the saved, then can we
say that the Roman Catholic or Protestant or Buddhist or areligious altruist is condemned to the
fires of Gehenna while those religiously Orthodox within the fold, whose unseen yet dubious

Page f19
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

morals and sinful behavior that define their inner life, will be “conveniently” forgiven? Can
Christ's role as φιλάνθρωπος (“lover of man”) and ἐλεήµων (“merciful”) and δίκαιος κριτής
(“righteous judge”) ever be altered on the basis of whom He judges? Are not these
characterizations of Him constants rather than variables?

And then, what is the problem of grouping together the Orthodox with the non-Orthodox
anyway, especially when in truth we neither know definitively their eschatological outcome or
ours? If exclusion implies suspicion and rejection, would this not contribute to our own prideful
self-justification and thus impede our own salvation? And how would such an “impropriety”
offend or corrupt the incorruptible God or even obstruct the salvation of others? One cannot
embrace the world in theory and simultaneously remain xenophobic, not acknowledging our
common humanity and refusing to stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who, although
different from us, still share our imperfections and struggles but also our aspirations.

Of course, the overarching ecclesiological question with regard to communion is, what are the
sacramental boundaries of the Church? I am inclined to think they are much broader than
Symeon claims. The current execution of the prothesis rite with regard to the commemorations,
at least in theory, reflects this conservative exclusionary mindset, but I believe it contradicts
Christ's eschatological mission and, by extension, the Church’s vocation to evangelize and
embrace the entirety of humanity.

I want to be clear though: I am by no means advocating, on the basis of my proposed broadening

of Symeon's ecclesiology, the possibility or necessity of intercommunion. Geoffrey Wainwright's
controversial argumentation in favor of intercommunion bases itself on communion as corrective
and creative rather than on agreement about doctrine. 70 Nonetheless, I do not know that there
should be a direct correlation between sharing the common chalice and sharing a place on the
paten, any more than what we currently do in the Divine Liturgy anyway, namely, praying for the
heterodox and lapsed but not including them on the diskos. For the baptized and chrismated
Orthodox Christians, our inclusion on the paten and receiving communion are expected, in that
we follow Christ's injunctions to “do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19) and “abide in
me” (John 15:4). Faithfulness to these commandments assures us of salvation. For those outside
the fold, however, sacramental communion in something which they do not believe seems
nonsensical. On the other hand, it seems awfully farfetched to me that if Christ is the Savior of
the world and the entire cosmos is the recipient of God's redemptive graces, can the prothesis as
very image of the eschatological Kingdom be populated only by the “perfectly” Orthodox? What
is the “fate” of the others and should we care? And if our attitude borders on the dismissive and
apathetic, how does that justify a “place of honor” next to Christ? These are difficult questions to
be sure. So, in sum, sacramental division and exclusion cannot occlude our acceptance of others
“unlike” us who share our common humanity and our attempts, even in liturgy, to “incarnate”
ourselves into their very reality and to love them as much as God does.

70 Wainwright, pp. 175-181.

Page f20
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

The Church’s prothesis rite, to be sure, presents to us a noble eschatological image of a redeemed
universe. The created order returns to a theocentric nucleus, and man returns to his vocation of
priestly steward over God’s cosmos. The rite invites us to assume this role in our personal and
communal lives. However, I also believe it confronts us with a challenge to consider expanding
the borders of the Church, not necessarily in a sacramental sense but in a humanitarian and moral
sense, to assume the entire family of the human race into the Kingdom as recipients of grace and
the prophetic calling to protect and shepherd the creation, “to proclaim the acceptable year of the
Lord” (Luke 4:19; Isaiah 61:2).

CONCLUSION
Many years ago in a talk, I recall stunning my audience by postulating that the Church is not the
sole possessor of a creed of faith. This was not the scandalous part; what raised eyebrows was
when I submitted that God too stands by an equally important creed of faith — in man. Whereas
on this side of the Kingdom we recite our belief in “one God, Father Almighty”, on the other side
the Triune God affirms His faith in the value, beauty, and dignity of humankind, despite our
fallen nature. In a sense, we can dare say that God “binds Himself” to this creed; otherwise, the
divine economy would never have been willed and our Nicene Creed would never have seen the
light of day.

In this paper, I have attempted to thread together the theological content of three important
liturgical and patristic sources — the prothesis rite of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Basilian
Anaphora in the Byzantine Tradition, and the Cappadocian Father’s Hexaemeron — to highlight
a theocentric view of the world that places God and man together in a synergistic relationship
toward the sanctification and redemption of the universe. The time setting for this vision is
eschatological, the place setting a banquet, achieved already in the death and resurrection of
Christ, and yet to be fulfilled in its entirety in the future age.

Symeon of Thessaloniki’s astounding apocalyptic vision in the prothesis is clearly not without
merit and surely exerts a profound influence on this God-centered κοσµοθεωρία, although the
ecclesiological boundaries can certainly be extended further. The centrality of the apocalyptic
Lamb, both biblically and liturgically, as “the true light, from whom the Church has acquired life
eternal, illumined and sustained by Him”,71 facilitates this vision for all the ones commemorated.
However, this revelatory illumination is not one that only exposes the proper relationship that
does or should exist between God and His people; it likewise reveals to each person the truth
about himself and the truth about those around him who share the same light of knowledge. In
other words, the so-called Isaian “knowledge of the Lord” is simultaneously a recognition and
acceptance of the community of the human race that shares our fallenness and for whom the
Incarnation happened. Our true knowledge of God is validated by and is contingent upon our
ability and willingness to see the cosmos as God does and intends it to be, even if it means seeing
other non-Christian religions and, specifically, other churches and its members not as voluntarily
heretical or schismatic or even lapsed, but simply as incomplete, yet worthy of incarnational love

71 Symeon of Thessaloniki, On the Sacred Liturgy 104; PG 155.285A. See also footnote 6 above for the Greek text.

Page f21
 Muksuris: “God in the Midst of Gods”: Theocentric Κοσµοθεωρία in Byzantine Liturgy

and fellowship. I submit that following the acquisition of great knowledge comes the application
of wisdom, which is the responsibility of priestly stewardship over the cosmos in synergy with
the God of love we call ours.

In the end, this Kingdom of unity in the Triune Godhead brings many “from east and west” to the
eschatological banquet (Matthew 8:11) and invites the unlikeliest of guests, the wolf and the
lamb (Isaiah 11:6-9), to attain this pristine vision together. This transformation, as in Pentecost, is
intended to create a singular unity among many, not in the globalization sense in which one risks
losing their identity in exchange for one that is imposed upon them, but one that precisely
preserves and promotes the already-existing common identity that all of humanity shares, the
lofty calling to theosis — the invitation to keep company with “God among men, and God in the
midst of gods.”72

72 Ibid.

Page f22