The Ukrainian Catholic Church is the largest of the twenty-three Eastern Catholic Churches. It is Catholic, but not Roman. It is one of the Greek Catholic Churches, meaning that we worship according to the same liturgy and theology as the Greek and other Orthodox Churches, except to say that we do so in fullness of communion and sacramental unity with the Bishop of Rome as the supreme pastor of the Universal Church of Christ, and thus with all Latin Roman Catholics. I serve as a priest in both the Latin Roman Catholic Church and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, since both are united in the same Catholic faith and life.
Our Ukrainian Greek Catholic numbers approximately six million people in Ukraine, as well as worldwide. That may seem small in comparison with the billion members of the Latin Roman Catholic Church; but when you think that this Church was liquidated by Stalin, its bishops in Ukraine martyred, while the priests and faithful were either forced underground or forced into the Russian Orthodox Church which was awarded their churches and monasteries for forty-five years, the story of its revival has been remarkable. Kept alive in exile, it re-emerged in Ukraine with very little apart from its priests and faithful who had maintained their belief in the Church’s unity and their fidelity to the successor of Peter as the guarantor of the communion of the whole of Christ’s Church regardless of rich and diverse Liturgies, histories, memories and tradition. Like the English Catholic Church, for the sake of faithful witness to keeping intact the communion of the Universal Church likewise, the Ukrainian Church’s body bears the marks and memory of persecution and suffering; but this Body is none other than that of Christ risen from the dead. The new Cathedral of His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the father and head of the Church in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, is thus dedicated to Christ our Pascha – to the Lamb of sacrifice Who is risen from the dead so that we in Him pass over from death and oblivion to life and new hope. Twenty-five years ago, our Church had no visible existence in the land where it was the mother Church of the Churches in all the surrounding nations, including Russia. Now it is the home of the only Catholic university to exist within the former Soviet Union, a bastion of Catholic social teaching and for imparting the values of truth, honesty and integrity in public service, law, politics, media, commerce and business, as well as for placing the Christian view of humanity and the restored created order into its disciplines of the arts, humanities, sciences, technology and theology. A few years ago, I visited the new seminary of the Holy Spirit in Lviv, where over 100 young men from three only recently non-existent dioceses were training for the priesthood.
So, what has captured the hearts of the young Ukrainians seeking to dedicate their lives to Christ’s service and of the people who have emerged from decades of atheist oppression by the Communists and chosen also to reject the oppressive atheism of western commercialism and materialistic consumerism?
It is the beauty and glory of Christ Who is victorious over everything that is worldly, everything that offers no lasting gratification, or answer to our fundamental questions about life, let alone our needs and aspirations. Even though our Liturgy tends to be served wherever the faithful find themselves and a future for their families, we are rooted in the tradition that transformed the entire Roman Empire of the eastern Mediterranean, and brought about the evangelisation of most of Eastern Europe that remains potent to the present day.
Let me briefly describe the feel of our Church’s Eucharist. I hope you will see that its constant emphasis on the coming of Christ and his presence among His people is something that Catholics in the Latin Church also identify with strongly.
An obvious feature of our Churches is the iconostasis, the great stand of icons before the Altar and across the sanctuary, depicting Our Lord, the Mother of God, St John Baptist, the saints and the angels. This is not a barrier screening off the altar from the people. Quite the opposite, it stands to show the proximity of citizens of heaven to the people of God in the world – immediately close to the Altar, it is the window of heaven out of which the Lord and His saints press their faces, so that we may be drawn as close as possible to them in worship. Thus we are not left to worship on the earth at a distance from God, but situated physically close to the presence of God coming onto His throne in our midst. Here on this earth, then, a space is cleared that can contain all heaven, and we are enabled to step into it. The doors in the iconostasis are not to shield the altar from human view, but to reveal it. Just as in a Latin Church, the altar is the heart of the dedicated Temple. Human beings come in and out of the doors continually to keep company with the angels and saints, taking our hearts and souls in, and bringing out to the expectant faithful the blessing, peace and gift of God Himself.
At the very beginning, before the proclamation of the Word
of God in the Gospel and before the gifts of the Eucharist are brought in, the Altar,
the icons, the whole Church, the priests and the faithful are generously
incensed – to consecrate the whole of the earthly and human environment and to
show it as sacred and divine, the place of our reconciliation and restoration.
You will see the deacon and the priest offering the numerous litanies and
prayers, not with their backs to the people but facing the icon of Christ and
the Altar at the head of the people, drawing us all into a movement out of this
world at the very moment the living presence of the Kingdom enters in,
surrounds us and draws us into its embrace. But you will also the priest coming
out of the Holy of Holies to bring into the midst of the world first the book
of the Gospels - which we hail as God’s Wisdom Himself - then the Bread and
Drink to be taken to the Altar for consecration and sacrifice, along with repeated
interventions from heaven of peace on earth, until ultimately there appears through
the Holy Doors, the coming of God in His Body and Blood for the sake of the
life of the world.
This is not horizontal worship, a religious activity only
among humans; yet it draws the faithful together in a common moment of presence
before the living God who has come into our midst, for God is with us. This is
not vertical worship, only an offering of humans below up to God above, for it
exalts humans into the heavenly places to dwell among the saints in light, at
the same time as it transfigures and glorifies this world of ours, and we who
belong to Christ on earth are shown to be the living manifestations of the
resurrection of Christ, passed already from dead-end life to immortal existence
through the Cross, beyond the Tomb, into the Ascended reality that we can never
evade, since it is not only our final destiny but the way we are to live our
live at this moment and every moment we know. This is the meaning of the
greatest prayer of the Eucharist to ask for our daily Bread: may “Thy Kingdom
on come on earth as it is in heaven” – not in some after life, but daily.
In our Eucharist, which we call the Divine Liturgy – our
public service of love and honour to God – the gifts of Bread and Wine are
prepared beforehand in a special short service. We use leavened bread, and each
loaf is cut into pieces to commemorate the Lamb of God, the Mother of God, the
saints and martyrs to be venerated, the Pope, patriarchs, bishops, priests,
deacons, religious and faithful, the nations and governments, those in special
need of prayer, and the departed. These pieces are set aside, covered and
dedicated with incense. Even though they are not consecrated yet, whenever the
altar, the icons, the Church and the faithful are incensed, knowing the purpose
that they will fulfil, we incense the gifts too. When the time comes for them
to be taken to the Altar, the deacons and priests take them, declaring again
those for whom they are offered, out through the Church in the sight of the
people, before taking them through the doors of the iconostasis to the Altar.
They are incensed again. The veil that has covered them is lifted off and waved
over them as we recite our belief in the Creed. Some see this is a clearing
away of the clouds of our earthly offering of incense so that the Lord in His
own unseen light may enter and dwell in them. Others see a symbol of the coming
of the Holy Spirit, Who once brooded over the firmament before the moment of
creation, and Who once overshadowed the Virgin Mary as she became the Mother of
God.
After the gifts are consecrated by the Words of Christ and the invocation
of the Holy Spirit, the priests at the altar bow profoundly. And because this
is a moment when the Incarnate Lord once again dwells among us in real presence,
we recall the Motherhood of God by Mary and again offer incense. After the
Lord’s Prayer, the Confession and the Communion of the clergy, the Bread of
Life is mixed in the Chalice with the Blood of Christ (we administer Holy
Communion in both kinds together with a spoon), the deacon takes the Chalice
and comes out through the Holy Doors of the sanctuary and shows the Lord to the
people, saying, “Approach with fear of God, and with faith”. The people reply,
“Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord. God has appeared to us”.
At the end of communion, the priest holds up the Chalice to
the faithful for veneration. In the Eastern Church there is no service of adoration
and benediction, nor is the Blessed Sacrament exposed. But here for a moment
East and West pause in a similar way with adoration and hoping for the touch of
Christ’s blessing. As he holds up the Blessed Sacrament to the love and
adoration of the people, the priest says, “Save Your people, O God, and bless
Your inheritance”. At the same moment he makes the sign of the Cross with the Sacrament
over the faithful. The people respond, “We have seen the true Light, we have
received the Heavenly Spirit, we have found the true faith. We worship the
undivided Trinity for having saved us.” Then he takes the Chalice to the altar
and incenses it. Next he takes the Chalice away from the Altar to the table at
the side of the sanctuary from which it was first brought, but on his way, once
again, he shows the Lord to His people, saying, “Blessed be our God, always now
and for ever and ever.”
The tradition, the customs, the actions in the Liturgy may
be very different from those familiar to many of us in the Liturgy of the Latin
Church, but it is the same faith, the same love, the same Person. For, while
this is unmistakably the worship of God, it is no escape from the world into a
religious cocoon, or a refusal to live in an imperfect world. Instead, it is
the resolute turning of human attention to the One Who has come into the world
not condemn the world but to own it, to love it into becoming the very Kingdom
of Heaven come on earth as it will in the world to come, to die for it as well
as to live for it, to make us holy, and to restore our world’s direction,
correct its purpose, and bring it along its true path as a new creation.
Why did the Ukrainian people turn from the empty promise of
atheism and the meaningless gratification of state socialism and western
consumerism alike? Because of the beauty and glory of Christ, Who is not only
the best of what humanity can become, but, by His grace and forgiveness the
image of everything we already are, because with Him even now we are risen,
ascended and glorified. In this sacrament that we share, we have seen the true
light of God and of “lightening every man” that has come into the world; we
have been embraced by true faith and drawn up into the very living of the
undivided Trinity, Who has saved us - not just from ourselves, but for the
eternal glory that is His reign in our hearts.
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