And for those who engage in theology (who are Christians – those who truly pray) and are able to teach others (cf. 2Tim.2:2), to help form a holistic worldview, a complete picture on this issue, let’s pose some questions and indicate some ways of resolving them.
Why do we bring and place on the diskos, to sanctify in the Eucharist, only a part of the created world?! Why not sanctify (transform, apply) the whole world, why not make the whole Universe (the entire cosmos) the matter of the sacrament of Thanksgiving?! It’s so logical if approached from the perspective of Latin (Catholic and Protestant) theology, according to which bread and wine become physical (i.e., the essence of bread and wine changes into the essence of the body and blood, the essence of human nature?!) the Body and Blood of Christ, while retaining the form and properties (accidents) of the former (bread and wine). So they (the Latins) partake magically transformed bread into the Body and wine into the Blood of the Lord??! The essence indeed lies in what the Church knows, that the sacrament is already accomplished over the whole! world – we are already saved! We are already deified at the ontological level (at the level of nature).
In the liturgy, we do not perform the sacrament of the Eucharist, it is performed by Christ before the liturgy, – we recognize what is already accomplished in fullness, what is already given, we enter the Upper Room of Zion, the universal, beyond-space-and-time Eucharist of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the Prayer of Application (the climactic moment of the Liturgy, the manifestation of bread and wine as the Body and Blood of the Savior), the epiclesis (the invocation by the bishop or priest of the Holy Spirit on the faithful and the Holy Gifts), lies the key to understanding the very sacrament: “Send down Your Holy Spirit upon us, and upon these gifts here offered” (Liturgicon: Liturgy of John Chrysostom). The thief first entered paradise because his nature (the whole world!) was healed by Christ, he only had to accept this gift, which he did. Jesus tells them (the chief priests and elders): truly I say to you, that tax collectors and prostitutes (whose nature was healed by Christ) go ahead of you into the Kingdom of God (more quickly come into the state of humility, righteousness – seeing themselves as they are, rather than as supposed righteous, Pharisees, lawyers…) (cf. Mt.21:31b).
There is no un-deified nature, – everything exists in the hypostasis of Jesus Christ. He – Man in fullness, and thus deified the entire world, fulfilled the task of man – to deify the cosmos, to elevate it to the bosom of the Father (Eph.1:20; Lk.20:42, 22:69; 1Pet.3:22; Rom.8:34)
(St. Maximus the Confessor). The entire Universe (the whole world) – is the nature of man. Man – the image and likeness of God (Gen.1:26). God – Personality, in three hypostases, each possessing, containing the entire single Divine nature. Man – personality in billions of hypostases, each possessing, containing the entire single common nature (the entire created world). Jesus Christ – the true Man (This – Man: Jn.19:5), – the Divine second hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, hypostasized all human nature – the entire world. In Himself, the Lord healed human nature (St. Athanasius the Great, St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Symeon the New Theologian, St. Gregory Palamas). The Lord – the second Adam fulfilled the task that the first Adam did not manage, – deified the entire created world (St. Maximus the Confessor). In the Eucharist, we manifest this – the deified world. Christ is not immanent to His nature: Divine and human, which according to the Chalcedonian principle reside in His hypostasis. Therefore, nature is not life. To be like Christ – to be able to not be immanent to nature (any, even Divine). We learn to be like God, not to coincide with nature, therefore in the Eucharist we do not partake of nature, but recognize nature, not identifying with it, partake of Divine Life, the relationship of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, merge into the perichoresis (interpenetration) of Divine hypostases, in the dynamics of Divine love… (St. Maximus)
Concluding the chapter, I want every person to sincerely answer the question for themselves: “If I am sick (and, as we saw – we are all sick, at least with decay, suffering, and mortality), then why don’t I go, don’t run to the Doctor, but delay, suffer, agonize in illness, why don’t I want healing? Although I understand well that the more advanced the illness, the harder it is to cure, the more means are needed, various restrictions (which we are so afraid of) and, of course, the duration of treatment increases. And it happens that doctors say that it’s too late, irreversible processes have started in the body…”
“If I am dying, if I see that I myself cannot do any good that I desire (cf. Rom.7:18-24), if I cannot overcome any, even the smallest, passion, which I have an innumerable amount of (oh, if we could see this with Christ!), then why don’t I run to the Savior?”