Catechesis · Inquirer
What is Liturgy?
Catechesis · Inquirer
What is Liturgy?
The Greek word *leitourgia* means the work of the people -- *laos* (people) plus *ergon* (work). In ancient Greece, a liturgy was a public service performed on behalf of the commu…
Question
What does the word "liturgy" mean?
The Greek word *leitourgia* means the work of the people -- *laos* (people) plus *ergon* (work). In ancient Greece, a liturgy was a public service performed on behalf of the community -- funding a warship, sponsoring a festival. The Christian adoption of the word is deliberate: the Divine Liturgy is the work that the whole People of God performs on behalf of the world, offering worship to God and receiving divine life in return.
Schmemann's great insight: the Liturgy is not a service the Church performs in addition to its life in the world. It is the source and summit of that life -- the event from which the Church draws its identity, its energy, and its mission. "The Eucharist is the sacrament of the assembly" -- the Church most fully becomes what it is when it gathers to celebrate the Divine Liturgy.
The teaching
The Eucharist as the life of the Church
The central action of the Divine Liturgy is the Eucharist -- from the Greek *eucharistia*, thanksgiving. The Church takes bread and wine, gives thanks over them, and receives them back as the Body and Blood of Christ. This is not magic; it is the fulfillment of what bread and wine were always for: to be received from God's hands with thanksgiving, offered back to Him, and returned to us as vehicles of His life.
The Liturgy begins with the proclamation: "Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." The Kingdom is not approached incrementally -- it is announced immediately. The Liturgy does not build toward the Kingdom; it begins in it. The first word of the service is an eschatological declaration: we are already, in this gathering, in the presence of the Kingdom that is coming.
The Eucharist is the sacrament of the assembly, the gathering of those who are in Christ, in order to be what they are: the body of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit.
Schmemann's formula: the Eucharist is not something the Church has -- it is something the Church is. When the Church gathers to celebrate the Eucharist, it is not performing an optional religious activity. It is becoming fully itself -- the Body of Christ, alive in the Spirit, gathered around its Head. The Liturgy is the Church's self-realisation. This is why the Eucharist is the centre of Christian life and not its periphery.
Fr. Alexander Schmemann
For the Life of the World · 1963
Holy Scripture
"And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God."
Acts 2:46
"For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes."
1 Corinthians 11:26
The Eucharist and the Church
Why missing the Liturgy is not a private matter
The Liturgy is not a private devotion that can be replaced by personal prayer at home. It is the constitutive act of the Church. When a baptised person absents themselves from the Liturgy without good cause, they are absenting themselves from the Body of Christ -- not merely missing a service but separating themselves from the community through which divine life flows. The early Church understood this: canonical penalties for unjustified absence from the Liturgy were severe.