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Holy Catechism

Nikolaos Voulgaris, tr. Daniel, 1893

Concerning the Catechumens

Pray, O ye Catechumens, to the Lord.

It passes next to the Catechumens, and first stirs them to pray themselves to God and to encourage each other; since God, though He made man without man, cannot save man without man, as Augustine says: “He Who made thee without thyself is not able to save thee without thyself.” Next it stirs the Faithful themselves to put up prayer for them, since we must all of us desire the salvation of our neighbour equally with our own. “And there is joy before the Angels of God over one sinner that repenteth,” Luke xv. 10. He pursues the Prayer, and entreating God, the Giver of great gifts, to grant them His holy teaching, to regenerate them by the washing of regeneration, i.e., by Holy Baptism, to make them worthy of the forgiveness of their sins and to number them with His holy and elect flock, which is the holy Catholic and Orthodox Church of God, he pronounces the words

That they too with us may glorify Thine honoured and majestic name, the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.

Forasmuch as “This is life eternal, as we quoted, to know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ Whom Thou didst send,” John xvii. 3. “And whoso willeth to be saved, before all things he must hold the Catholic Faith. And the Catholic Faith is this: that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity,” according to Athanasius.¹ And forasmuch as the Great Entrance is approaching, the Priest at this time unfolds the Corporal upon the Table, so as to place the Holy Vessels on it from the very time of the Entrance till the end of the Holy Liturgy; for which reason the Corporal itself is also called the Throne.

Respecting the Corporal (Heileton) we said above that it is so called from ἑλίσσω, meaning I wrap. It is also called Antimension, since it is used instead of the Mensa, which signifies Table;² because it is hallowed and consecrated by the High Priest, as a sort of little Table; wherefore it is named also Consecration. Antimensia, Emmanuel Charitopulus explained in the 3rd book of his Jus Græcorum, ch. 5, “are not necessarily laid on all Holy Tables, but on those of which it is not known whether they are consecrated or not; for Antimensia take the place of consecrated Holy Tables.” The same is stated by John of Cyprus in his answers made to Constantine of Dyrrachium. “In those churches these are placed, which consecration has not hallowed; for from the Antiminsia the very Table we use being consecrated, and the offering which is sacrificed receive their sanctification.” So the Doctor writes, as you see, Antiminsion with an I, and derives it from the minsum, which we explained before, means a canister.

All Catechumens step forth.

Next the Catechumens are put out of the church, since the Liturgy which concerns Catechumens is ended. And the Deacon cries, All Catechumens step forth: depart, flee out. Let none of the Catechumens hear: see that not a single Catechumen remains with us. And this, because they cannot as beginners understand so easily the depth of the Mystery at such a time as the Great Entrance openly announces, and because of the approach of that most awful transubstantiation in the rites which passes reason and thought. “To the feeble eyes it is not fitting to admit the sun, nor solid food to those who as yet drink milk (so the Theologian discourses on Pentecost.) But one must bring them forward little by little to the front, and advance them to what is higher, affording light to light and granting truth to truth.” Every passage from one extreme to another is hurtful, and activity is not given in what is absent, unless it passes through the intermediate.

Symeon of Thessalonica, in his Temple interprets this expulsion of the Catechumens, that it signifies the separation of the kids and the sheep, the righteous and the sinners, which, as we hear in the Gospels, will take place at the second coming of Christ. “Catechumens, he says, are at once dismissed, and the Faithful are exhorted to remain, since this moment typifies the time of the consummation. For after the Gospel has been preached, He says, in all the world, then will come the end; but since at the end, He says, He shall send forth His angels and they will separate the evil from the righteous, this too the Church does, and cries aloud to the Catechumens to depart, only the Faithful to remain.”

And do not suppose that the Rules of Catechumens are in our times useless, because there happen to be no Catechumens now, as there were formerly, since the Catechumen Rules besides proselytes apply also to us Christians, all who as banished and unworthy ones transgress the decrees of Christ’s Holy Church, and the impartiality of God’s commandments.³ So the great Chrysostom writes to us on the Parable of the Prodigal. “Let none of those who eat not hear; none of such as cannot behold the Heavenly Blood, which is shed for the forgiveness of sins; none that is unworthy of the living sacrifice; none that is uninitiated; none that cannot for uncleanness of hands touch the awful mysteries. If thou hast aught against thine enemy, pluck out the anger, heal the wound, reconcile the enmity, that thou mayest get healing from the Table; for thou comest to an awful sacrifice; reverence what is provided; Christ slain lies before thee! and why was He slain? that He might set in peace both things in Heaven and things on earth,” &c.

This peace the Church ceases not to require again from the people, and as the Preface of the second part of the Divine and Holy Liturgy came the words of Peace and the first beginning of the Petitions of the Deacon was the cry In peace let us entreat the Lord, so in the Liturgy of the Faithful now there is no other Preface than the Peace.

O, all ye faithful, more and more in peace let us entreat the Lord.

Such are the words with which begins the third part of the Holy Liturgy.

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