Finding the Door
"I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture." (John 10:9)
To some the Orthodox Church can seem uninviting. It gives the appearance of a secret garden, known only to those initiates who have managed to find and move the latch on the ancient door, that is if one can even find it. On the other hand, to those on the inside who have crossed the threshold, there is a feeling of particular membership, a sense of “why would you want to be anywhere else?”
Recently I had conversations with Protestant friends who visited our church with us on separate occasions. For both of them, it was their first time attending an Orthodox service. One conversation felt almost accusatory, in which my friend said, “Why are the Orthodox so exclusive? I should be allowed to receive communion—I’m a baptized Christian.” In the second conversation my friend said, “I love that not everyone can receive communion. It shows that they hold it very special and sacred.” I was surprised at this reaction after the conversation I’d had with my other friend—I had expected more resistance. When I asked my pastor how I should answer friends who ask concerning Orthodox “exclusivity,” he replied simply,
“Everyone is welcome, but they must come through the Door.”
Not everyone who thinks of themself as a Christian, no matter how devout they are, can receive communion at the Orthodox church. In fact, on a given week, not all Orthodox Christians may receive communion because they are not properly prepared—it’s that serious.
At our former Anglican church it was announced each week by the celebrant before serving that all baptized Christians, regardless of denomination, were permitted to come forward and receive the sacraments. I never really questioned that, because in the context, it made sense. Anglicanism is known for being a “big tent” where all Christians can feel welcome, regardless of their doctrinal backgrounds.
For the majority of my adult life, my weekly encounter with the sacraments was a grounding and centering event. I held it as a sacred and important place in my life as a Christian though I could not fully grasp what it was about this event that differentiated it from any other. But the thought did occur to me at times, “all baptized Christians” means basically means anyone. It was given on an honor system, and there was no accountability in it. I suppose if they wanted to, even someone who was not baptized could go and receive and the celebrant would be none the wiser— Everyone approaching was assumed to be properly prepared, or else “preparation” was a personal matter of opinion. We always prayed the general prayer of confession and the priest absolved everyone at once and proclaimed, “The peace of the Lord be always with you!” Dealing with sin was between the communicant and God. The man or woman delivering the eucharistic gifts just took each person at face value.
And yet, there is that gnarly passage of scripture that looms large in I Corinthians 11:23-30 (ESV)
For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is forf you. Do this in remembrance of me.”g 25In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
27Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. 28Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. 30That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.h
I can say for certain that I had not begun to scratch the surface of the magnitude of the eucharist for the years I spent in the Anglican church. My understanding of being prepared for communion was very different than it is now. I had head knowledge, sure—examine my heart and say the general confession beforehand, but to truly examine myself was something that was more like a cursory glance. I never felt compelled to go to confession, nor was it ever recommended by anyone, let alone the clergy. But then again, I was permitted the luxury of my personal theology, and I believed communion to be just a symbol or a representation of the body and blood of Christ, though I did feel there was something very important about it. The Anglican church teaches the “real presence” which I accepted and had my own understanding of, but it was not clear to me exactly what was happening. If I was just “remembering,” Christ would meet me where I was. Likewise, Catholics who had become Anglican could retain their higher view of the Eucharist and their belief in transubstantiation if they desired, and no one would challenge that.1
So I have to ask my friend who takes issue with “Orthodox exclusivity,” —What are the Holy Mysteries and why are they important? Can we agree that communion in the very word itself is an indication that a unifying action is taking place among baptized believers? That they are essential for salvation? But on the most fundamental level, if we cannot agree on what they are—that they are in fact the body and blood of our Savior Jesus Christ—then why is it important that you receive with other Christians with whom you have issues of division? The Orthodox position suggests that a communicant is physically receiving Christ Himself when approaching the chalice, and doing so without proper preparation could cause sickness or death. The other position suggests that the communicant is just remembering the last supper and doing what Jesus said to do, which sounds a whole lot less foreboding and definitely not dangerous. I generally don’t get sick or die when I remember things. I can no longer find a middle ground. I used to—I had some softened version of what “The Real Presence” of Christ was—that when I approached the altar, the Spirit of Christ was there to meet us in receiving the sacraments, but it was a very ethereal kind of thing. Nothing physical happened. I was just receiving the blessing of being a participant in the sacrament, and communing with other believers. I don’t ever remember being told that this act changed me on a molecular level—but it does.
The Key
The first key to opening the latch of the door through which all are welcome to come has to be an understanding of the role the sacraments play in our salvation. In Orthodoxy, the Holy Mysteries are central to every worship service. When one becomes a catechumen, there is a period of time when they are just expected to observe and receive instruction. There is something mystical that needs to be understood and it can’t be taught rationally—they need to see what it means to be earthly participants in the heavenly worship. Newcomers and inquirers have to be okay with not being full members, no matter how many scripture passages they have memorized. They have to be okay not being able to serve in any capacity until they have been properly received into the church. They have to be okay with being spiritual infants when in their past churches they had been ordained as pastors or priests, served on elder boards, vestries, music teams, or Sunday School committees, or preached sermons, led Bible studies, or hosted small groups. Here, none of that matters, except to the extent that knowledge of Scripture is never wasted effort.
Traditionally, in Orthodox churches, there is a narthex from which visitors and catechumens observe the service but they can not enter the nave of the church. There is an actual physical division between them. This isn’t the case in our tiny church which is a converted Episcopal chapel (there’s a metaphor in there somewhere for me), but we were taught the principles of the division as catechumens. Whereas I have mentioned before that the Anglican church invited us in, made us feel welcome, and allowed us to keep all of our past theological beliefs intact, the Orthodox church invited us in, made us feel welcome but took one look at that baggage and said, “That’s got to go—leave it outside, and don’t bring it in. In fact, we’ll burn it for you.”
As an inquirer I had to be okay with this—if I were not I would have never gone back. This was Christianity that cared about how I ordered my thoughts, how I handled sin in my life, and how I became a member of the mystical Body of Christ. This was Christianity that promised to hold me accountable to all of that, as well. This was Christianity that demanded real change and required something of me. I could not sit in the pews and dodge my sin. Ironically, we couldn’t sit anyway, but that in itself is telling—it’s an active, participatory faith. I couldn’t say that I believe in Jesus but disagree that baptism and the sacraments are essential to salvation. It was take it or leave it—the whole package, the whole Orthodox Church from Greece to Alaska to Africa, to Moscow, and everywhere in between. This was 2000 years of faith that had been “delivered” (as Paul says in the Corinthian passage above) and passed down as the Traditions of the Church, and what the Church taught mattered. I couldn’t cherry pick which parts I wanted to believe and what I wanted to leave out. There were no loopholes. I came to the place where I understood that the Church was so much bigger and so much deeper than anything I had ever imagined. It is the Body of Christ, “Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven,” the corporeal manifestation of Christ. It cannot be destroyed, no matter how the gates of Hell may rage against it, for even in death we are victorious.
But why press the issue? Why bother? Won’t any church do? They are all Christian. Ultimately, God is the Judge of all human hearts, but I believe we come to The Door because we want to be saved. When you go through the door you quickly recognize that every faithful Orthodox believer has one goal—to receive the body and blood of Christ communicated through the bread and the wine therein. To us it is Salvation. We believe that what is in the chalice is what Christ says it is. Our pursuit is not to hear a good sermon or to be encouraged by the the music (though both of these things do occur in the course of the Liturgy). It is the salvation of our souls through our encounter with Christ.
Consider this: John 6:52-59 is a difficult passage even today, and Reformation denominations prove it by their teaching of “consubstantiation” (taught by Lutherans and Anglicans) or “remembrance” communion (taught by Baptists and congregationalist denominations), and which is a contradiction of what Christ told his followers unapologetically and without qualification, knowing that many would reject him. He said this:
52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.
In the verses that immediately follow, it says that many of his disciples turned away because they could not accept these words, in spite of the fact that they had just witnessed the miraculous feeding of 5000 people! Jesus did not qualify his statements because he knew what they knew—Jews were prohibited from consuming blood because it contained the life of an animal. Here, he is instructing them not only to consume blood, but His blood. For a Jew, his words were unthinkable, but if they could be accepted, there was eternal life.
In Orthodoxy we accept that by the Holy Spirit the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ though it is impossible to understand how this happens or exactly when, but ultimately, what I receive from the chalice is Christ in a real, physical sense. (If you want to read more about this doctrine you can start here.2) When I approach the chalice to receive communion, I am receiving the “true food” and it heals and nourishes body and soul. It is also why receiving the sacraments in an unworthy manner is a dangerous, even deadly business. Through this sacrament you are being physically joined with God through Christ, and as it says in Hebrews 12:28-29
28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.”
…Which might explain why people receiving the sacraments unworthily might have become sick or died. You do the math.
Before communion we pray a prayer which I have loved since the first time I heard it, and powerfully sums up the experience of the Holy Mysteries. The Last lines say:
May the communion of Thy Holy Mysteries be neither to my judgment, nor to my condemnation, O Lord, but to the healing of soul and body. Amen.
In upcoming posts, I want to discuss additional hurdles that stood in my way as I came into Orthodoxy. It took time to overcome them, and I will share the way it happened for me as I gained understanding of the Orthodox way. I know that I was not unique in this and that they are common issues that are problematic for Protestant converts.
In this post I have merely touched on the subject of closed communion and my own understanding so far, which is likely very shallow. If you have questions about the theology or doctrines of the Orthodox Church, please seek out an ordained member of the Orthodox clergy or visit OrthodoxIntro.org or AncientFaith.com which has excellent resources for inquirers.
Mitchican, Jonathan, The Conciliar Anglican: On the Eucharist: Yes Anglicans Believe in the Real Presence. May 9, 2016. https://conciliaranglican.wordpress.com/2016/05/09/on-the-eucharist-yes-anglicans-believe-in-the-real-presence/
This article illuminates exactly why there could be confusion on the part of the communicant when receiving the sacraments in the Anglican church. A cursory Google search “Do Anglicans believe in the real presence” provides an excellent display of the variety of possible answers.
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: The Doctrine of Transubstantiation in the Orthodox Church. August 14, 2013. https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/orthodoxyandheterodoxy/2013/08/14/the-doctrine-of-transubstantiation-in-the-orthodox-church/