Library › Nikolaos Voulgaris › Holy Catechism

Holy Catechism

Nikolaos Voulgaris, tr. Daniel, 1893

Of the Church

27. Ex. Explain what is meant by the Church.

C. Both the Temple of God, and the congregation of Christians are called the Church. So said Augustine on Leviticus, Qu. 57, “A church is the place in which the Church gathers,” as though he should say, a church is the Temple of God in which assembles the Church, that is, Christians.

According to the first definition the great Euodus of Antioch said the first Church was in Jerusalem, in the very spot where Christ instituted the Mystic Supper, and where on the Day of Pentecost the Holy Ghost descended, as Nicephorus relates, Bk. 2, ch. 3. According to the second definition, we all of us believe in one Holy Church from end to end of the world, Apostolic and Catholic, founded not on mere earthen stones, but on the spiritual rock of the orthodox faith of Christ.

28. Ex. Since the Church, you say, means two things, the assembly of Christians, and the House of God, describe to us both the one and the other, separately.

C. By the blessed Germanus we have them both admirably described. And in regard to the first signification:—

“The Church is the assembly of people, Christ’s Body, His Name, Christ’s Bride, purified by the water of His holy Baptism, and sprinkled with His Blood, and arrayed in bridal array, and sealed with the ointment of the Holy Ghost, on which the pearls are the divine dogmas of the doctrine of the Lord to His Disciples. She was prefigured in Patriarchs, foretold in Prophets, founded in Apostles, adorned in Hierarchs, perfected in Martyrs, whose Head is Christ.”

In regard to the second signification:—

“The Church is God’s Temple, a holy precinct, a house of prayer, a heaven on earth, wherein the God of Heaven dwells and walks; figuring the Crucifixion, and the Burial, and the Resurrection of Christ; glorified beyond Moses’ Tabernacle of the Testimony, wherein is the Propitiatory and the Holy of Holies, where is the Mystic living Sacrifice, and the Table that nourishes life and gives life; enthroned upon the relics of the holy Martyrs, and summoning the peoples to repentance and prayer.”

29. Ex. By what signal did the Church in old time call the peoples to prayer?

C. At the beginning of the Gospel preaching each Christian would hurry to the gatherings self-bidden, and without other signal, for so great was their piety, that “the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul.” And “day by day they continued steadfastly with one accord in the temple.” (Acts iv. 32; ii. 46.) This custom lasted on for considerable time, as Strabo writes in the 5th chapter of the Ecclesiastical Matters. Afterwards, in time of persecution, the gatherings took place wholly in secret, and Christians had no open signal, but they privately made known to each other the hour and place of gathering. From the time however that in divine providence Constantine the Great, the equal of the Apostles, gave the Churches freedom and peace, (so writes Eusebius, with great joy, in the loth book of his History,) the Christians began to celebrate all the rites of the Faith without hindrance.

Saint Pachomius used to call the Monks to church by a trumpet, as God also had commanded in the loth chapter of Moses’ book of Numbers. So we read in the 3rd chapter of the Institutions which he wrote. Others with a wand used to knock at the Christians’ doors, that they might go to church, and particularly at the Monks’ doors. So says Cassian, Bk. iv. ch. 12. Jerome saw at Bethlehem how they used to summon the Nuns into church by saying at their cell, Alleluia; so he writes in his 27th Epistle. The signal-boards still used by the church are very ancient, and appear in the 4th Action of the Second Œcumenical Holy Council of Nicæa.

Bells were but just introduced into Constantinople about 865 A.D., when the serene government of Venice sent twelve as a present to our Emperor Michael, and he set them in Saint Sophia. And thus from that time onward so noble and glorious a custom was established throughout the Holy Eastern Church, and multiplied. Our authorities have named the bells, Bells of Convention, so says George Pachymeres, and Holy Bells. “For at midnight the holy bell will rouse thee,” wrote Michael the Stammerer to Constantine Monomachus.

30. Ex. Let us come to the Holy Table.

C. The Holy Table is the most excellent part of the church, and therefore stands in the midst of the Holy Bema where is the Altar or Propitiatory, the very Holy of Holies. And it signifies the Table, at which also in His Mystic Supper our Lord sat in the midst of His Apostles, and when He had taken bread and wine, said to His Disciples, “Take eat, and drink hereof.”

It signifies also the sepulchre in which they buried Christ. “The Holy Table stands for the place of burial, wherein Christ was laid; whereupon is set forth the heavenly bread, the mystic and unbloody Sacrifice for the food and drink of eternal life.”

The Holy Table is explained as being “also the Cherubic Throne of the Great King, on which the God of Heaven, Who rideth on the cherubim, rested in bodily form.” So says S. Germanus in his Mystic View. And for this reason the Holy Gospel which always stands upon the Holy Table exhibits Christ sitting like a King on His throne.

31. Ex. And how is this? does one and the same spot signify both the sepulchre of Christ, and the Table of the Mystic Supper, and the Throne, as you said?

C. Certainly, because, as the same Saint writes, the Fathers not being able to multiply places and ministers to such an extent in the midst of the holy Bema, and avoiding crowding, represent many objects by one single place, and by one ministry: “lest, he says, in respect of each particular of what then happened by separately showing the hour and the occasion and the spot, the holy Fathers should require still other changes of position and more altars, and thence the Church’s Mystery should fall under blame.” And as we spoke of the Priestly Vesture as fraught with many meanings, so what is single in present illustration, is realized in and referred to two or three originals.

32. Ex. What is the Holy Prothesis, and what does it mean?

C. The Holy Prothesis is the place where are set forth, or put beforehand the Precious Gifts. And Germanus of Constantinople himself interprets it as signifying the cave where Christ was born; the residence in Nazareth and Capernaum; and the hill of Golgotha. “The divine Body is left,” says he, “in the Prothesis as in Bethlehem, where Christ was born. Likewise too as in Nazareth. And further the Prothesis sustains the figure¹ of the residence in Capernaum, and the place on Golgotha.” This is the reason why the Table is always near the Prothesis, since “the sepulchre was near the place where Jesus was crucified.” S. John xix. 42. And this is the cause why over the holy Prothesis the remembrance is made of the birth of Christ and of the Crucifixion at the time of the Oblation, which forms the first part of the Holy Liturgy.

Previous · Contents · Next