THE ORTHODOX CONCEPT STUDIES IN CHURCH TRADITION THE CHURCH HOUSE OF GOD BY Fr. Tadros Y. Malaty ST. GEORGE COPTIC ORTHODOX CHURCH SPORTING -- ALEXANDRIA EGYPT 2 ISBN : 0 908000 05 9 (AUSTRALIA) Author : Fr. Tadrous Y. Malaty English Text, revised by : Nabieh Fanous, Riad Habib, Nermine Morcos, Mary hanna Lilian Hanna Edition : 6 Date of Publication : 1994 3 Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, King of Kings and Lord of lords THE BEHOLDER OF GOD MARK THE EVANGELIST SAINT AND MARTYR 3 H.H. Pope Shenouda III, 117th Pope of Alexandria and the See of St. Mark 4 Introduction MYSTERY OF THE HOUSE OF GOD How lovely are Thy dwellings, O Lord of hosts ! My soul longs, yea, even faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. Yea, the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young, at Thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are they who dwell in Thy house. For better is a day in Thy courts than a thousand elsewhere... Psalm 84 In the middle of the violent storms of the world, and under the pressure of ceaseless temptations, the Psalmist paused to think. The sparrow has found a home to settle, and the swallow a nest to protect its young... but where would he find a place to dwell, and a shelter to inhabit? 7 No other place could compete with the altars of God, Lord of hosts, to please his heart and comfort his body. There, the ground beneath his feet vanishes, the whole materialistic world disappears from his sight, and his soul emerges to heaven, her abiding place. As if by wings of Spirit he is lifted up to the divine throne to visualise his King, God, and intimate Beloved One. Embracing Him and leaning across His chest, he casts his burdens and pours all his secrets, communes with Him, kindly reproaches Him, hears His voice and participates in His glories. Tertullian expresses such a magnificent liberty which is utilised by the assembled church, by saying:(1) “We assemble in a meeting... so that we might surround God with our prayers, as if by powerful arms. Such violence is pleasing to God”. Indeed, worship in the house of God is far from being a duty or a routine work exercised by a group of believers. It is, in fact, an urge to practice their own right, accepting the free gifts of the Holy Spirit. Their worship allows them entrance into the Lord’s green pastures where they are immersed into the spring of life giving water, feed from the heavenly banquet, drink from the chalice of salvation and enjoyment of the mys- teries of God’s everlasting love. The Spirit gratifies them so that they desire nothing but to be in God’s presence. In their state of content they no longer request anything for themselves as much as for the others. They ask for presidents, ministers, the councillors, bishops, presbyters, deacons, monks and all ministers of the church, for the sick, the travellers, the prisoners, the distressed, the dead.... They even pray for the (1) Hermas: Shepherd, vis 3: 4: 4: 2. 8 animals, the plants, the rivers and the winds! How remarkable; there in the house of God all hearts are drawn up to heaven, but instead. of becoming isolated to cope with their personal needs, they are, on the contrary, comprehensive in their love, requesting salvation, peace and renewal of every existing creature. In the church, believers also join the angels in their “House of Angels”, partake in their heavenly liturgies, prayers and hymns. They remain permanently in their company rehearsing the praise of the ‘new hymn’ with angelic words! In his book ‘the Shepherd’(1) , Hermas writes that angels rejoice at the sight of the heavenly tower of God being completed in us, offering praise to God for the consistency of establishing the spiritual church body. No doubt that the secret, behind the glory of the house of God lies in the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who is active in people’s life. St. Augustine calls Him ‘The Spirit of the church who overflows with every gift upon her members’. This is also expressed by the words of St. Irenaeus(2) , “Were the church is, there is the Spirit of God, and where the Spirit of God is, there exists the church and every grace”. The prime function of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church is to shape her so as to resemble, and be an image of Christ, her Creator, so that ultimately she becomes an exact copy of Him, hence preparing her for the eternal marriage and qualifying her for the eternal glories... In other words, the Risen (1) Adv. Hear., 3: 24: 1. (2) St. Cyril of Alexandria: Thesaurus 34, PG 75: 609. 9 Christ is transfigurated in her life and His qualities are revealed in her. Along these lines we present some sayings of the holy fathers: “It is solely through the Holy Spirit that Christ is formed in us and imprints on us his own features and so makes the beauty of the God-head come alive again in the nature of man”. St. Cyril of Alexandria(1) “The Holy Spirit is the life-giving odour of Christ, a living and effective odour. It attracts all creation to Him in order to take part of God’s superior nature”. St. Cyril of Alexandria(2) “When we drink of the Spirit, we are substantially drinking Christ”. St. Athanasuis(3) In effect, when Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, shines on us with Spirit we no longer live in the shadow of darkness, but copy His illumination. As a productive start, we show love to others, serve them in humility and yearn for their salvation! By the Spirit we are brought to the circle of the Cross so that everybody longs to die with his Christ on behalf of all mankind. Lastly, in the house of God, we do not just get in touch with God, the heavenly and earthly creatures, but beyond that, we are granted additional insight even into non-living (1) St. Cyril of Alexandria: In Joan. 11: 2, PG 74: 452, 3. (2) St. Cyril of Alexandria: In Joan. 11: 2, PG 74: 452, 3. (3) St. Athanasius: Epist. and Serapioni 19, PG 26: 576. 10 materials, and as a result we recognise all surroundings as holy and blessed. The wheat is no longer bread, but it is converted to the Lord’s Body through the Holy Spirit, and likewise, wine is converted to the Lord’s Blood. The rising incense represents pure prayers taken up to the divine throne by angels, and the Spirit sanctifies the oil. I can further say that the gold, silver, precious stones, wood, paper, textiles and even bricks and sand become holy when they are used to construct and furnish the holy house of God. Thus rigid materials are also utilised in the service of heavenly things. So far we have introduced the mystery of the house of God which we aim to get across through our study of the church building. The emphasis, however, being not to stress abstract ritual concepts or architecture developments as much as to cover the true spiritual concepts to the house of God, to be able to practice them in our daily life. X X X 11 CHAPTER 1 FROM PARADISE TO THE CHURCH 12 THE BUILDING A THEOLOGICAL SPEECH When the church opened Itself to the world, particularly in the west, her attitude was not to love Him and wash His feet as her Bridegroom, but instead, she went on competing and arguing with Him. The spirit of the world crept into her, so she hastened to challenge the world in its pleasures and plunged herself into its political affairs seeking mastery and domination. Naturally, many of the ecclesiastics were carried away from their spiritual attitudes, and the mission of preaching salvation to people, and subsequently, that was reflected in their lives, activities, worshipping, rites and values. As a result, they regarded the church building as a mere piece of architecture to boast its lofty height, position, decoration, or art... Now it is time to ask: What is the concept underlying the Church Building ? The church building, indeed, is an open bible written in a visible, tangible language that a simple child might understand, a theologian can contemplate deeply, a clergyman loaded with ex- cessive congregational responsibilities can enjoy, and the spiri- tual hermit can find comfort in. It is a simple, but rather deep, theological speech that is delivered by the Spirit to everyone. The topic of the speech is “our life in Jesus Christ” as announced through our relation with God, the Church, society and heaven. Indeed it even touches our inner mysterious life. In other words, the true authentic church building has its distinguished effect on the believer’s life, his inner feelings and 13 his values... It even extends to his private and public worship, his dealings with his brothers in the church and outside, as well as with the heavenly ones. We can grasp this topic by studying carefully the concept of the “House of God”, and its development since the first creation of the human race as It passed through the following phases. FIRST: THE FIRST PARADISE Adam lived in Paradise as a priest in the house of God. Each inch in Paradise declared God’s love and care for him.