Reconsidering the Word–Sacrament and Scripture–Liturgy Debate: A Patristic Perspective

Abstract

The relationship between Scripture and the Liturgy remains one of the most extensively debated subjects in theological discourse. In the wake of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation, a divided Christendom witnessed the rise of a dichotomy between Scripture and Liturgy, as well as between the Word and the Sacrament. This dichotomy, however, is absent from the patristic thought, which perceives the unity and complementarity between Scripture and Liturgy, owing to their shared belonging to the one life of the Church—broadly defined as Tradition—and to the way they are understood and experienced as interconnected modes through which the singular Mystery of Jesus Christ is communicated to the faithful. The present study aims to demonstrate this unity by drawing on a substantial body of patristic writings, highlighting the fact that the life of the Church is one and is lived both as the rule of faith and the rule of prayer, and that through it, one and the same Christ communicates Himself to the faithful both through the Word and through the Holy Sacraments. For the Church Fathers, the Christian faith is not an abstract doctrine about Christ, but a real and personal encounter and communion with Him in the life of the Church. This patristic approach may offer a starting point for contemporary Christianity in addressing the current liturgical crisis and in rethinking and renewing future ecumenical dialogue. Such renewal presupposes a movement beyond secular formalism and nominalism, which have fostered excessive conceptualization and an antithetical view of Scripture and Liturgy, Word and Sacrament.

1. Introduction

The relationship between Scripture and Liturgy is one of the most debated topics in theological literature. The correlation between the Bible and the Liturgy, between the Word and the Sacrament, began to be rediscovered and reclaimed only in the last century, within the liturgical, biblical, and patristic movements that, at the time, were starting to exert a profound and far-reaching influence on theology and ecclesial life. In the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation, and amidst a divided Christendom, a dichotomy between Liturgy and Bible emerged. The Word and the Sacraments came to be regarded as hoped-for and correlative realities. As they suffered mutual diminishment, they inevitably grew apart, ultimately becoming even polarized. The “deritualized” and “demythologized” text of Scripture became the object of exegetical study, and the cultic ritual of the Divine Liturgy and the Sacraments morphed into didactic pietism: “Sola fides and sola scriptura provided a greatly simplified and powerful apologetic for those who wished to escape from medieval complications and embrace the emerging modern world of trade, industry, and enlightened thought presided over by a middle class of increasing financial means.” (Kavanagh 1983, p. 482).

With the convergence of the biblical and liturgical movements at the beginning of the 20th century, the profound unity and correlation between the Liturgy and the Bible came to be rediscovered, giving rise to an impressive theological literature. Countless conferences were held on the theme (Alexopoulos 2022, pp. 411–13), important monographs were written (Lubac 1950; Moos 1993; Neuheuser 1995; Chauvet 1995; Janowiak 2000; Power 2001; Daniélou 2002; Gerlach 2011; Melzl 2011; Zerfaß 2016; Benini 2023) and well--documented studies were dedicated to this topic in specialized journals (Bèguerie 1976; Nußbaum 1980, 1995; Kavanagh 1983; Bradshaw 1992; Clerck 1992, 1994; De Zan 1997; Haunerland 2001; Kranemann 2007; Steins 2007; Schwienhorst-Schönberger 2011; Durst 2016; Meßner 2016; Siebenrock 2016), along with numerous collective volumes and collections of studies on this subject (Martimort 1958; Braulik and Lohfink 2005; Buchinger and Leonhard 2022). This rich theological literature bears witness to the thematic diversity generated by this confluence between liturgical renewal and biblical renewal, between a living understanding of the liturgy and a living understanding of the Bible. According to Renato de Zan’s recent classification of this literature (De Zan 1997, pp. 33–51), there are three general approaches to the “Bible/liturgy” relation: The first approach, defined as Bible in the Liturgy, moves from the Bible toward the Liturgy, seeking to capture the manner in which the biblical text has been appropriated and hermeneutically reformulated within liturgical celebration. The second approach, the Liturgy in the Bible, examines from a historical standpoint how the biblical text preserves, as memory, information about the liturgical practices of the early Christian communities. The third approach analyzes the relationship between Bible and Liturgy from a theological and patristic perspective, in terms of their respective links to the single mystery of Christ. This theological vision is based on the premise that the Bible and the Liturgy are not to be treated as “two autonomous realities, alike in some ways and opposite in others, but rather as a single reality in which, in the order of salvation, the liturgy complements the Bible and vice versa” (De Zan 1997, pp. 35–36). The Bible and the Liturgy are correlative, for through both, the one and same Christ is at work—revealing, manifesting, and offering Himself in communion.

The present study falls within this third category and aims to offer a theological re-evaluation of the relationship between Scripture and Liturgy from a patristic perspective. In its first part, it seeks to demonstrate that Bible and Liturgy are one—that they belong to the life of the Church, which is expressed under the overarching term Tradition. In its second part, it explores how communion with the same Christ takes place both through the words of the Scripture and through the Eucharist, in ways that are distinct yet complementary. Building upon these Christological and ecclesiological foundations, the third part of the study analyzes the actual relationship between the Bible and the Liturgy, between the Word and the Sacrament, and demonstrates their complementarity and unity from a threefold perspective: historical, liturgical and mystagogical. The analysis proposed in this study is conducted from the comprehensive viewpoint of patristic theology, with the aim of bringing to light that the Bible and the Liturgy—the Word and the Sacrament—are complementary modes through which the one Sacrament of Jesus Christ is imparted to the faithful, both sacramentally and through ascetical-ethical participation, within the living reality of the Church.

2. Tradition—The One Life of the Church in the Holy Spirit

To define the framework for an objective examination of the relationship between Scripture and Liturgy, between Word and Sacrament, it is necessary to clarify how Eastern theology understands the concept of Tradition.

The Orthodox Church defines itself as a Church of Tradition par excellence (Florovsky 1972, pp. 73–92; Slijepčević 1952, pp. 154–68). For the Church Fathers, the term “Tradition” is exceedingly complex and difficult to capture in a concise definition (Congar 1967, p. 107). There is, in patristic theology, a broader primary concept of Tradition, by which one is able to understand the very life of the Church, or more precisely, the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church, according to Vladimir Lossky’s expression (Lossky 1974, p. 147). For Dumitru Stăniloae, Tradition is the entire religious relationship of man with God, that is, the whole spiritual experience that man has acquired in his living and personal dialogue with God, a dialogue which began with creation and which now continues in the Church through Christ, by the working of the Holy Spirit (Stăniloae 1978, p. 48). Tradition is, in Congar’s view, “the whole of man’s religious relationship with God; it is the unique and precious treasure transmitted from generation to generation through the working of the Holy Spirit” (Congar 1967, p. 238).

This spiritual experience, this continuous life in truth handed down from generation to generation, includes, on the one hand, all the truths of faith of divine Revelation, transmitted both in written and oral form, and, on the other hand, it is expressed through the liturgical, ethical, and canonical ordinances by which these truths are made living and present in the life of the Church (Hanson 1962, p. 97). For the Fathers of the Church, Tradition as the life of the Church is both doctrine and liturgical practice. The two aspects are closely bound together. Lex orandi has also been lex credendi, from the very beginning. The truths of the Christian faith were not proclaimed as lifeless dogmas, but as living realities of the liturgical, canonical, and moral life of the Church. What the Holy Apostles handed down from generation to generation was not an abstract teaching about Christ, but a real participation in Him through the sacramental and ethical–ascetical life of the Church. Thus, the practical component of Tradition—namely, its liturgical, moral, and canonical aspect—was, from the very beginning, normative for the faith, as one that contained the ambiance, the living context in which divine truth could be understood, interpreted, and lived.

During the period of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, there was an attempt to offer a description and an extremely meticulous conceptualization of the term Tradition, aiming at a detailed specification of all its aspects. This process led not only to a distinction, but more so to an artificial separation and opposition between Scripture and Tradition, as well as to a misunderstanding of the role of practical aspects—of the moral, canonical and liturgical rules—in the life of the Church, seeing them as mere customs and rituals without apostolic origins, which could be separated from the truths of faith and from Scripture (Hanson 1962, p. 184).

The theological disputes concerning the relationship between Scripture and Tradition arose from an artificial elevation or overemphasis of one of the two terms, and from their removal from the genuine context of the life of the Church. This led to their being placed in a hierarchy, juxtaposed, or even presented in antithetical terms (Van den Eynde 1933, pp. X–XII; van den Brink 1959, pp. 65–86). The great risk was that of minimizing or maximizing these terms by asserting the authority of one to the detriment of the other, thereby losing sight of their unity and interdependence.

It is interesting to note that even in Orthodox dogmatic theology, under the influence of scholasticism, there was an attempt at an excessive conceptualization of Tradition and a comparative treatment of it in relation to Scripture, following the model of Western theological debates (Andrutsos 1930, p. 130; Antoniades 1939, pp. 146–49; Zankow 1928, pp. 64–65) attempting to explain and detail all aspects of Tradition, while losing sight of the fact that Tradition is the entire life of the Church in all its aspects, its living and inexhaustible memory (Bulgakov 1932, p. 34). It is an unfailing treasury that encompasses the entire experience of man with God, the unwritten mystical teaching, the centuries-long experience of the Church, preserved in silence, discerned and lived by the faithful within ecclesial life, and, as pastoral needs required, gradually crystallized in the written texts of the Church.

The history of the Church is a history of its life in the truth and in the liturgical and canonical practice of the apostolic doctrine. The teachings of the Gospel received from the Savior were preached orally by the Holy Apostles, and thus, in an initial stage, the apostolic oral tradition—dating from the very birth of the Church—was the means and mode by which the Holy Spirit sustained the life of the Church during the first decades of its existence (Bouley 1981, p. 246). In a second stage, part of this apostolic oral tradition was set down in writing, by divine inspiration, in the books of the New Testament. Not all of the apostolic tradition came to be contained explicitly in the New Testament, and Tradition, as the life of the Church, continued to be the rule of faith and the rule of prayer, as well as the womb from which Scripture emerged. It was also the essential criterion for validating the canonicity of the biblical books, as well as their hermeneutical principle. In the third stage, which followed the writing of the New Testament books, the Tradition of the Church underwent new crystallizations, materialized in the confessions of faith, the patristic writings, the hymnographic compositions, and the liturgical and canonical texts of the Eastern Church. These new crystallizations represent the same Tradition in its kerygmatic manifestation; they are not distinct from it, nor are they merely human practices or “traditions” that developed over time, as was claimed during the Protestant Reformation (Flesseman-van Leer 1954, p. 147). This apostolic Tradition lies at the foundation of all Christian liturgical practices and customs, and its authenticity, in contrast to other heretical customs and traditions, can be verified by the criteria of spatiality, temporality, and universality, as articulated by St. Vincent of Lérins in the fifth century, who exhorted: “We must hold what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all” (Teneamus quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est) (St. Vincent of Lérins 1865, PL 50:639).

The main liturgical texts in use today in the Orthodox Churches date mainly from the early Middle Ages, but they are seen and received as the fruit of the crystallization of Tradition as a dynamic, Spirit-guided process. Although the written forms of liturgical texts, such as the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom or St. Basil the Great, were finalized in the early Middle Ages (approximately the 4th–9th centuries), their essential elements reflect the apostolic practices and oral traditions of the early Church. Liturgical texts have evolved organically over time, shaped by the needs of the community of believers under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. They are the work of the whole Church and therefore transcend time and are always relevant (Stăniloae 1986, p. 9).

The relationship between Scripture and Tradition, between Word and Sacrament, as it appears in theological debates, can be rightly understood only from the patristic perspective that sees Tradition as the life of the Church, which is always lived in its two fundamental and indissoluble dimensions: as the norm of faith, and as the rule of liturgical, canonical, and moral practice (Van den Eynde 1933, p. 198).

• Tradition as the norm of faith

The early Church was aware from the very beginning that its entire life was an inherited tradition, something received, as it is nothing other than the Mystery of Jesus Christ communicated to all through the Holy Sacraments. The Risen Lord, living and active in the Church through the Holy Spirit, is the very content of Tradition, and it was for this reason that the Holy Apostle Paul could state that everything he had received, the entire teaching, all the ordinances, all the norms of faith, he had “received from the Lord” (1 Cor. 11:23), that is, from Christ, who had become Spirit even according to His humanity. For this reason, he exhorted the Colossians that, just as they had received [παρελάβετε] Christ Jesus the Lord, so they should walk [περιπατεῖτε] in Him (Col. 2:6), which means that the Savior was experienced both as the content and the author of Tradition, as the one who conveyed His words and acted through His Apostles in the Church (Cullmann 1956, pp. 68–71). Thus, Saint Paul is able to place the revelation on the road to Damascus and the content of the apostolic tradition he received on the same level, because it is the same Christ who is at work through both. In this context, the exhortation of the Apostle to the Gentiles, “Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions [κρατεῖτε τὰς παραδόσεις] which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle” (2 Thess. 2:15), is equivalent to a call to steadfastness in the truth of faith of the Church, in the life of the Church, in communion with Christ. What the Church has handed down from generation to generation is precisely this communion with Christ, this transfer of life, this utterly novel reality that has been experienced both as a norm of faith and as a norm of prayer.

For the Fathers of the early centuries, the terms “norm/rule of faith” [κανὼν τῆς πίστεως] or “norm/rule of truth” [κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας] were generally used to designate the truth of the apostolic Tradition handed down from generation to generation within the Church (Congar 1967, p. 27). The first to use these expressions frequently was Saint Irenaeus of Lyon (Irenaeus of Lyon 1982, p. 268).1

For him, Tradition is precisely this full Revelation of God; it is the divine truth preceding Scripture, which led to the spread of Christianity throughout the world: “And even assuming that the apostles had not left us Scriptures”, he asks rhetorically, “should we not then follow the order of Tradition [τῇ τάξει τῆς παραδόσεως] which they handed down to those to whom they entrusted the Churches? To this order (of Tradition) many barbarian peoples, who believed in Christ without paper and ink, gave their assent, having salvation in their hearts through the Holy Spirit and scrupulously preserving the ancient Tradition [ἀρχαίαν παράδοσιν] …” (Irenaeus of Lyon 2002, p. 47).

From this passage, it becomes clear that for the Christians of the early centuries, Tradition understood as the rule of faith had as its content the truths of the faith of the Church, truths that were known and proclaimed during catechumenal instruction and later confessed in the baptismal symbols of faith. From the very beginning, the faith of the Church was baptismal. Everything proceeded from Baptism and was grounded in the Sacraments of Christian initiation. The truths of faith belonging to Tradition were not perceived as mere dogmatic teachings without impact on the life of Christians; rather, they were the very life of the Church and formed part of its worship itself. The rule and norm of faith are received through Baptism, says Saint Irenaeus (Irenaeus of Lyon 1979, p. 151), and in this sense Saint Gregory of Nyssa emphasizes: “The word of sound faith… is easy to understand and clear from the first tradition [ἐκ τῆς πρώτης παραδόσεως] which we have received through the word of the Lord, who in the bath of rebirth handed over to us the mystery of salvation [ἐν τῷ λουτρῷ τῆς παλιγγενεσίας τὸ τῆς σωτηρίας μυστήριον παραδόντος]” (Saint Gregory of Nyssa 1990, p. 278). It is evident that Tradition as the rule of faith comprised in the early centuries both a noetic dimension, concerning the teaching of the truths of faith, and a practical dimension, concerning the enactment and experience of these truths in the life of the Church. Patristic tradition emphasizes that these two dimensions are closely bound together and cannot be separated, for on the one hand, the truths of faith are experienced and brought to life in the liturgical, canonical, and moral life of the Church, and on the other hand, the liturgical, moral, and canonical practice of the Church is itself normative for faith, as it contains the ambiance, the living context in which divine truth can be understood, interpreted, and lived. For the Fathers of the Church, Tradition is not merely the transmission of inherited teachings of faith, but rather the life of the Church in truth. Scripture belongs to Tradition, and the Word requires the Sacrament in order to be alive and to be understood. Only in this way can the life of the Church be perceived as the “harmonious melody” [consonantem unam melodiam] of which Saint Irenaeus spoke, (Irenaeus of Lyon 1982, p. 253) the only harmony that can lead to the correct understanding and living of the truths of faith within the Church.

b.

Tradition as liturgical practice of the Church

From the very first centuries, the worship of the Church was the solemn proclamation of its apostolic faith. Through Baptism, the faith was received as entry into the eternal reality of the Kingdom of Heaven; it was received not as mere acceptance of dogmatic teachings, but as the experience, the living out of the truths of faith within the life of the Church. Only within this living context of ecclesial life, which encompasses all the liturgical ordinances, canons, and the moral and ascetical prescriptions of the Church, could the truths of faith be understood, explained, and experienced. The Holy Fathers of the early centuries perceived this essential aspect of the Church’s life: dogmatic teachings are nothing other than temporal crystallizations of Tradition, just as are all the Church’s liturgical and canonical ordinances, and only together do they reveal Christ as living and active within the Church. Both aspects are equally important, for the truths of faith ground the liturgical life, and the liturgical and canonical life of the Church is nothing other than the same living and experienced truth of the Mystery of Christ within the Church. This is why, in their confrontations with heretics, the Fathers of the Church, such as Tertullian, Cyprian, Athanasius, and Basil the Great, drew arguments from the liturgical practice of the Church, demonstrating that the theology of the Church is not merely an intellectualizing-biblicist theology, but a living one, profoundly anchored in the spiritual reality of the life of the Church, in all its multiple and polyvalent aspects.

Thus, for Saint Irenaeus, the rule of faith is received through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, and the one who preserves within himself the uncorrupted rule of truth [ὁ τὸν κανόνα τῆς ἀληθείας] which he has received through Baptism is able to understand and interpret correctly the words of Scripture.( Irenaeus of Lyon 1979, p. 151)2 The baptismal liturgical practice is the one that contains the fundamental truths of faith, for, as the same Saint Father says, “it teaches us that this Baptism is the seal of eternal life and of rebirth in God, so that we are no longer mortal human beings but children of the eternal God; at the same time, it also teaches us that God, who has existed from all eternity, is above everything that has come into being, that God is almighty, and that everything comes from God.” (Irenaeus of Lyon 1995, p. 89) Following Origen and Tertullian, Saint Basil the Great uses in his treatise On the Holy Spirit the authority of the unwritten testimonies of the liturgical Tradition of the Church to demonstrate the equality of the Persons of the Holy Trinity, and especially the ὁμοτιμία and divinity of the Holy Spirit. In this sense, he draws a distinction between the unwritten, hidden truths of Tradition, which he defines as τὰ δόγματα, transmitted from the Apostles through the Sacraments of the Church, and the τὰ κήρυγματα, that is, the written formulations of these truths of faith by the Holy Apostles and their successors, stating: “Dogma is one thing, and kerygma is another. Of the one, silence is observed; of the other, public proclamation is made.” (Basil the Great 1968, p. 484)3 For the great Cappadocian, δόγμα is nothing less than the life of the Church itself—the totality of the truths of faith that can be experienced through the Sacraments of the Church [ἐν μυστηρίῳ], and which the Church, under the demands of its missionary calling, has expressed in what Saint Basil calls κήρυγμα: the confessions of faith, canonical prescriptions, ecclesial regulations, and liturgical texts.

In the writings of Saint Basil, δόγμα bears a meaning distinct from that which has become established in contemporary theological discourse. Far from being a doctrinal definition loudly proclaimed by the Church, it is a “teaching unpublished and secret, that our fathers kept in silence, free from disquiet and curiosity, well knowing that in being silent one safeguards the sacred character of the mysteries.” (Basil the Great 1968, p. 482).

The Dogma represents the totality of the truths of faith that can be accessed through the liturgical rites of the Church. That is why Saint Basil cites and uses them in his theological demonstration:

“For instance, to take the first and most general example, who is there who has taught us in writing to sign with the sign of the cross [τῷ τύπῳ τοῦ σταυροῦ] those who have trusted in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ? What writing has taught us to turn to the East at the prayer? Which of the saints has left us in writing the words of the invocation at the displaying of the bread of the Eucharist and the cup of blessing? For we are not, as is well known, content with what the apostle or the Gospel has recorded, but both in preface and conclusion we add other words as being of great importance to the validity of the ministry, and these we derive from unwritten teaching, as possessing great power for the accomplishment of the Mystery [ὡς μεγάλην ἔχοντα πρὸς τὸ μυστήριον τὴν ἰσχύν]. Moreover, we bless the water of baptism and the oil of the chrism, and besides this the catechumen who is being baptized. On what written authority do we do this? Is it not our authority silent and mystical tradition? [Oὐκ ἀπὸ τῆς σιωπωμένης καὶ μυστικῆς παραδόσεως;] Nay, by what written word is the anointing of oil itself taught? And whence comes the custom of immersing the man (who comes to be baptized) thrice? And as to the other customs of baptism, from what Scripture do we derive the renunciation of Satan and his angels? Does not this come from that unpublished [ἀδημοσιεύτου] and secret [ἀπορρήτου] teaching which our fathers guarded in a silence out of the reach of curious meddling and inquisitive investigation? Well had they learnt the lesson that the awful dignity (sanctity) of the mysteries is best preserved by silence [τῶν μυστηρίων τὸ σεμνὸν σιωπῇ διασῴζεσθαι]. And the things which they who are uninitiated [ἀμυήτοις] are not even permitted to behold, how could it be meet or wise that, triumphantly through writings, these things should be proclaimed unto them as doctrine?”

(Basil the Great 1968, p. 480)

For Saint Basil, the lex orandi has always been the lex credendi in the life of the Church, and thus all the liturgical ordinances, these unwritten mysteries of the Church, constitute a treasury of the truths of faith, containing within themselves the apostolic teaching in its practical and applied form:

“Time will fail me if I attempt to recount the unwritten mysteries of the Church [τὰ ἄγραφα τῆς Ἐκκλησίας μυστήρια]. Of the rest I say nothing; but of the very confession of our faith in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, what is the written source? If, in accordance with the tradition of our baptism [ἐκ τῆς τοῦ βαπτίσματος παραδόσεως], and in conformity with the principles of true piety [κατὰ τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας ἀκόλουθον], for as we were baptized, so also must we believe, we set forth a confession akin to our baptism [ὁμοίαν τῷ βαπτίσματι τὴν ὁμολογίαν κατατιθέμεθα], let our opponents grant us too the right to be as consistent in [our] ascription of glory as in our confession of faith. If they deprecate our doxology on the ground that it lacks written authority, let them give us the written evidence for the confession of our faith and the other matters which we have enumerated. While the unwritten traditions are so many, and their bearing on the mystery of godliness [τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας μυστήριον] is so important, can they refuse to allow us a single word which has come down to us from the Fathers, which we found, derived from untutored custom, abiding in unperverted churches, a word for which the arguments are strong, and which contributes in no small degree to the completeness of the force of the mystery [εἰς τὴν τοῦ μυστηρίου δύναμιν]?”

(Basil the Great 1968, p. 488)

Saint Basil the Great here expresses an essential truth of early Christianity: the truths of faith preached by the Holy Apostles and handed down from generation to generation are a living reality, not mere teachings of faith that could be understood and interpreted outside the life and liturgical practice of the Church. The Apostles did not proclaim a merely theoretical Gospel, but Christ Himself, living and active through the Holy Spirit in the midst of the ecclesial community. The Word of God is alive within the liturgical life of the Church, which constitutes the genuine setting and context for its understanding and interpretation.

The demonstration offered by Saint Basil through his appeal to the “unwritten tradition” is living proof of how the faith of the Church was perceived and how the truths of faith were lived, generating that ecclesial mind [φρόνημα ἐκκλησιαστικόν] indispensable for the confession of true faith. The great hierarch showed how one might escape the deadlock created by the narrow pseudo-biblicism of the Arians, demonstrating that without the “unwritten” rule of faith, without the living liturgical and canonical Tradition of the Church, it is impossible to understand Scripture itself. Scripture must be read in the light of faith, but also within the community of believers. For this reason, the unwritten Tradition handed down from generation to generation was, for Saint Basil, an indispensable guide and companion in the study and interpretation of Holy Scripture; he even affirmed that the very foundation of Christian faith [τὸ στερέωμα τῆς εἰς Χριστὸν πίστεως] would be shaken if this living and unwritten tradition of the Church were to be eliminated, ignored, or neglected (Basil the Great 1968, p. 334).

3. Communion with the One and Same Christ Through the Words of Scripture and Through the Eucharist

The patristic vision of the relationship between Scripture and the Liturgy is broad, integral, and unified. On the one hand, it situates the entire discussion within the wider context of a proper understanding of the relationship between Tradition and Scripture; on the other hand, it links it fundamentally to Christology, to the Mystery of Christ, to the primordial Mystery of the union between the Uncreated and the created, a Mystery which was first revealed in the logoi of creation, then in the logoi of Scripture, and finally in the incarnation of the Son of God. Commenting on this unified patristic vision, Jean Daniélou emphasizes: “Christian faith has only one object: the mystery of Christ dead and risen. But this unique mystery subsists under different modes. It was prefigured in the Old Testament, accomplished in the earthly life of Christ, contained in the sacraments, lived mystically in souls, and will be fulfilled eschatologically in the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Daniélou 1945, p. 17).

This unique reality of Christ’s Mystery manifests itself in several complementary ways. The essence of Christianity lies in discerning and experiencing the Mystery of Christ in the full complexity of its modes of manifestation. It is only from this perspective that the deep connection between Scripture and Liturgy, between the Gospel and Eschatology, between Mysticism and Liturgy can truly be grasped. The same living Christ is present in all the dimensions of Church life, and this grants unity and coherence to the various ways in which He reveals Himself and acts within the ecclesial community. The Mystery of Christ is the greatest of all divine mysteries [πάντων τῶν θείων μυστηρίων μυστηριωδέστερον τὸ κατὰ Χριστὸν ὑπάρχει μυστήριον] (Maximus the Confessor 2014, p. 155), and for the sake of this primordial Mystery—prefigured in creation, announced in Scripture, fulfilled and perfected through the Incarnation, Resurrection, and Ascension; for this unceasing union of the Uncreated with the created—God has made all things: “for the Logos of God, who is God, wills always and in all things to accomplish the mystery of His embodiment,” as Saint Maximus the Confessor affirms (Maximus the Confessor 2014, p. 106).

For Origen as well, the presence of God in the world takes the form of mystery, both veiled and profound (Balthasar 1957). The manifestation of Christ in the flesh, in the words of Scripture, in the Church, and in the Holy Mysteries takes place in the same way: the matter both reveals and veils the presence of the Divine. God reveals Himself, yet also conceals Himself under the form of matter, so that He might be found and tasted only by those who open themselves to Him in faith (Origen 1857a, PG 14, 968B). The same divine Person is made known and offers Himself for communion, within the life of the Church, both through Scripture and through the Holy Mysteries. To partake of the words of Scripture and of the Eucharistic Supper is, for the Church Fathers, communion with one and the same Christ (Maier 1952, pp. 365–75; Nußbaum 1980, pp. 116–32; Nußbaum 1995, pp. 65–92). Origen says: “Bibere dicimur sanguinem Christi non solum sacramentorum ritu, sed et cum sermones recipimus in quibus vita consistit”. [We say that we drink the Blood of Christ not only through the sacramental rite of the Eucharist, but also when we receive the words in which life dwells] (Origen 1857c, PG 12, 701) He also warns that the same reverence and attentiveness are due to the words of Scripture as to the Holy Eucharist, when he writes: “You who are accustomed to take part in divine mysteries [the Eucharist] know, when you receive the body of the Lord, how you protect it with ail caution and veneration, lest any small part fall from it, lest anything of the consecrated gift be lost. For you believe, and correctly, that you are answerable if anything falls from there by neglect. But if you are so careful to preserve his body, and rightly so, how do you think that there is less guilt to have neglected Gods word than to have neglected his body?” (Origen 1857b, PG 12, 389–390).

The manna of Christians, Origen further says, is the Word of God who comes down from heaven and nourishes the souls of the faithful who partake of the Mystery of Him who chose to become incarnate both in Scripture and in the Sacraments of the Church (Origen 1857b, PG 12, 371–373).

The Latin Fathers of the early centuries likewise emphasize that the Mystery of Christ is communicated to the faithful both through the words of Scripture and through the bread and wine of the Eucharist. In his explanation of the petition from the Lord’s Prayer, “our daily bread,” Augustine is careful to note: “We may understand by this request either that daily Bread which you receive from the altar [the Eucharist], or the word of God that is preached daily, which is likewise a bread.” (Augustinus 1865, PL 38, 402–409) Jerome expresses the same idea in his commentary on Psalm 145, where he writes: “Give us this day our daily bread… Some may think that this refers to the heavenly bread of the Mysteries [quod panem caelestem de mysteriis dicat]. We accept this, since it is truly the flesh and blood of Christ. But we may also say that the bread of Christ and of His Body is the divine word [sermo divinus] and the heavenly teaching [doctrina caelestis].” (Jerome 1845a, PL 26, 1250–1251) For Jerome, the Body of the Lord is true food, and His Blood is true drink, and Christians may partake of Christ not only through the Holy Mysteries, but also through the reading of the Scriptures.” (Jerome 1845b, PL 23, 1104).

It is evident from these texts that the Church Fathers speak of a true communion with Christ, both through Scripture and through the Eucharist. This subject has been the focus of numerous studies, especially in the context of Western theological debates concerning the primacy of either Tradition or Scripture, or of Eucharistic communion versus communion through the biblical word (Durst 2016, pp. 156–67; Gögler 1963; Haag 1965, pp. 289–482; Schulle 1977, pp. 81–112; Lies 1978, 1984, pp. 79–100; Moos 1993). The theological disputes on this topic are largely the result of a tendency toward excessive conceptualization, of removing patristic concepts and texts from their context, and, above all, of a failure to adopt the integrated and holistic vision that the Church Fathers had regarding the modes of manifestation of the Mystery of Christ in the Church. Although in some ecclesiastical writers, such as Origen, communion through the Word may appear to have priority over sacramental communion (Lubac 1950, p. 364), these emphases must be understood within the larger unity and broader coherence of their thought and within the living tradition of the Church to which they belong. According to the theology of the Fathers, the ways in which Christ communicates Himself to the faithful are manifold and profound, adapted to the needs and possibilities of the human soul to know God and to receive His love by means of visible matter. For the Church Fathers, what mattered was not conceptualizing the modes in which Christ manifests in the life of the Church, but the living experience of the Mystery of His presence within the ecclesial community. For the patristic tradition, openness through faith and ascetic practice gives rise to this unique and unifying vision of the life of the Church and of Christ’s activity within it through the Holy Spirit. This, then, is the luminous patristic perspective, the only one capable of rightly defining the relationship between Word and Sacrament, between Scripture and Liturgy in the life of the Church.

4. The Word and the Sacrament, the Bible and the Liturgy—Complementary Modes of Experiencing the Mystery of Christ in the Church

Only a correct understanding of the relationship between Tradition and Scripture, as it appears in patristic theology, along with a recognition of the diverse ways in which the Mystery of Christ is communicated in the Church, can lead to a clear and accurate grasp of the relationship between Word and Sacrament, between Bible and Liturgy, as it is expressed in the patristic thought. Scripture and the Liturgy belong to the life of the Church, and this organically active life of the Church, understood by the Church Fathers as Tradition in the broad sense, is the very environment and ambience in which both the Bible and the Liturgy emerged. Word and Sacrament have been inseparable from the beginning, for both reveal the same Mystery of Jesus Christ in a complementary way. For this reason, the Christian liturgy was structured around this twofold manifestation of Christ: through the Word and through the Sacrament of the Eucharist. The Liturgy has always been lived both “as the liturgy of the Word under the mode of Scripture and as a liturgy of the Word under the mode of bread and wine,” as Chauvet affirms (Chauvet 1995, p. 221). The false dichotomy between Word and Sacrament has been the result of what Alexander Schmemann calls an “arbitrary reduction” of the life of the Church to only one of the modes by which Christ reveals Himself and communicates Himself to the faithful. In this reduction, Word and Sacrament lost contact with one another and became subjects of separate study and definition. The excessive conceptualization of these two terms, together with their arbitrary opposition and their removal from their genuine context within the ecclesial liturgical tradition, has led to Scripture being reduced to a mere object of historical–critical study, and the sacraments to being perceived as simple methods for obtaining certain divine gifts and, as the same Orthodox liturgical theologian keenly observes: “In separation from the word the sacrament is in danger of being perceived as magic, and without the sacrament the word is in danger of being ’reduced’ to ’doctrine’” (Schmemann 1987, p. 68).

Father John Breck, another contemporary theologian, likewise emphasizes the unified and comprehensive vision of the Church Fathers concerning the relationship between Word and Sacrament in Orthodoxy: “In the thought of the Church Fathers, grounded as it is in the wholistic nature of the apostolic vision,” he notes, “Word and Sacrament are inseparable. Together they form a unique and unified medium of communion between God and man, a reciprocal participation between divine and human life. From the perspective of Orthodox Christianity, the relationship between Word and Sacrament, between Bible and Liturgy, must be explained in such a way as to stress the fundamental unity between the two.” (Breck 1986, p. 13). The unity of these complementary modes of revealing the Mystery of Christ in the Church can be approached from a threefold perspective: historical, cultic–ecclesial, and mystagogical. The following section will examine each of these dimensions, which together define the fundamental unity, which makes it possible, within Orthodoxy, to speak of the “kerygmatic” character of the Sacrament and the “sacramental” character of the Word (Breck 1986, p. 14).

a. From a historical perspective, both the Bible and the Liturgy belong to the life of the Church, since they are crystallizations of Tradition, as demonstrated in the first part of this study. Only a correct understanding of how the living reality of the experience of the Mystery of Christ took shape and was eventually committed to writing throughout history can shed light on the historical unity between Scripture and Liturgy. The biblical texts and the events they recount came to be written down because they were first received and employed within the liturgical life of the Church. Through the liturgical memorial, the entire history and economy of salvation could be received and continuously made present (Chauvet 1995, p. 192). Bible and Liturgy are linked in their very genesis, because the Bible was born of liturgy. And this has been true from the very beginning, from the earliest texts of the holy book. As Bèguerie remarks: “The liberation from Egypt would have been a forgotten event in history, or at most the subject of a mention in an ancient chronicle, if the people of Israel had not been able to remember it as a part of its living dialogue with God.” (Bèguerie 1976, p. 108). The events preserved in Scripture survived because they were transmitted through the living liturgical tradition. The Gospel itself is no exception to this rule. Many of its pages bear the visible imprint of the environment in which they took shape: the Christian assembly gathered for its Eucharist. So, the Christian assemblies, Eucharistic and baptismal, have functioned as the decisive crucible where the Christian Bible was formed (Chauvet 1995, p. 197). All that the Savior did and taught was taken up and continued by the Apostles, preserved in the liturgical narrative and memorial of the Church, and later committed to writing in the inspired text of the Gospels (Jeremias 1960, pp. 100–2). Liturgy gave birth to Scripture, and it also remained Scripture’s canonical and hermeneutical principle. For it is through Liturgy, through the living Tradition of the Church, that the canon of Scripture was established, and the fundamental principles for its interpretation were discerned (Grelot 1977, pp. 169–77). At the same time, once the inspired word of the Gospel was written down, it came to underwrite the liturgical celebration and to guarantee the authenticity of its doctrinal teaching, being incorporated into the liturgical texts in such a way that, in the words of Prosper of Aquitaine (Prosper of Aquitaine 1865, PL 51, 209), lex orandi could be recognized as lex credendi (Clerck 1978, pp. 193–212).

b. From a liturgical perspective, the same unity and complementarity between Scripture and Liturgy can also be observed in the worship of the Church. In Eastern Christianity, the place of the Bible within the liturgical life is clearly defined. From the very beginning, the Liturgy was divided into two major parts, the Eucharistic Liturgy and the Liturgy of the Word, which have always been indissolubly connected to one another. It is only within the Eucharistic Synaxis, and only within the life of the Church, that Scripture is revealed as the living word of the Word of God, nourishing the souls of the faithful and preparing them for the Eucharistic communion. For the patristic thought, the Word reaches its fullest expression within the sacramental and ecclesial context. Whether proclaimed through Scripture reading and preaching, or sung in the form of antiphons and dogmatic hymns, or the liturgical prayers, the Word of God is primarily communicated—expressed and received—by the celebration of the eucharistic mystery (Breck 1986, pp. 17–18). The meal at Emmaus shared by the risen Christ with His disciples was seen by the Church Fathers as an image of the eucharistic celebration of the early Church (Lk 24, 13–35). Christ willed to make Himself known through the two mystical modes of His pneumatic presence: first through the interpretation of the words of Scripture, and then through the breaking of the Eucharistic bread. The experience of the disciples on the road to Emmaus shows that the gathered community only “perceives” the fullness of revelation and only begins to open its eyes to the true understanding and reception of the divine economy through a personal and intimate communion with Christ—in dialogue with Him and in the partaking of the divine gifts of His Body and Blood (Breck 1986, pp. 17–18). Thus, the early Church understood the Liturgy as the locus of Christ’s pneumatic presence, as an epiphany and progressive unveiling of the personal presence of Jesus Christ—incarnate, crucified, risen, ascended, and the One who is to come—as well as a continual ascent toward ever deeper levels of spiritual communion with the risen Lord (Stăniloae 1986, pp. 5–12).

For the patristic tradition, the word of Scripture is also a Sacrament, for one and the same Christ is revealed through both. The Person of the Word is at work through them, which is why they are living, personal, and dynamic modes by which the man is called into a continual dialogue of love with his Creator. As Father Dumitru Stăniloae states, “the words that Christ communicates represent a direct radiation of His Person as His Person’s self-explanation. This means that He as a Person is the Word as divine Hypostasis who also became human hypostasis and who is using many methods to communicate Himself…This divine Person communicates unceasingly His supreme love and requires the unceasing response of a corresponding love on behalf of the human person. Out of Christ irradiates the most redeeming word. He is experienced with the most acute responsibility, with the deepest obligation to respond positively with words and deeds. Christ awakens in us this responsibility not only through His words, but also through His Person, because all His words have full backing in His Person.” (Stăniloae 1994, pp. 98–99).

From this perspective, one can state that Scripture bears a sacramental character (Benini 2023, pp. 224–46), and the moment of the Gospel reading has always been regarded as a first communion with Christ, for through it the power of God is communicated, and through it the Person of the Word of God speaks. He is the One who has assumed human words in order to address the human being in the most comprehensible way and to awaken within him, again and again, the obligation to respond. The Word of God is therefore, above all, action, personal intervention, and presence that asserts itself, brings about, and fulfils what it proclaims. Through the word of the Gospel, Christ’s Person enters the being of those whom He addresses and to whom He reveals Himself, He commands and claims them for Himself, He fills and changes them. “In God’s word to us,” writes father Dumitru Stăniloae, "we recognize and feel His love for us, which invariably awakens our love for Him. It is through prayer that we express our dependence and affection for Him, yet that does not happen without us also feeling His love responding to ours. Both have eased our way through the spiral of the never-ending upward movement that is the communion between us and God.” (Stăniloae 1986, p. 94).

The Church Fathers speak of the “sacramental” efficacy of the words of Scripture in the Liturgy, for they accomplish what they proclaim. They do not have merely a didactic or anamnetic function, but rather they nourish and give life, preparing the faithful for a more complete communion [ἐκτυπότερον], that of the Eucharistic Supper, by being alive and filled with the divine power of the Word (Stăniloae 1986, p. 99). The current structure of the Orthodox Liturgy perfectly expresses this balance and the dynamic passage from Word to Sacrament within the Eucharistic Synaxis. Throughout the entire Liturgy, Christ is present and active in various degrees and modes (Stăniloae 1986, p. 103), and His presence increases gradually with each moment of the liturgical celebration. The reading of the Word prepares the Eucharistic communion, and the tasting of the Supper of the Kingdom becomes the fulfilment and continual actualization of the Gospel, the incorporation and embodiment of its saving truths in the life of every believer.

c. From a mystagogical perspective, Word and Sacrament have been regarded in the patristic tradition as inseparable and complementary, for the same Christ is at work through both, communicating Himself to the faithful and allowing them to taste, even in this life, the mysteries of the life to come. However, the Fathers of the Church spoke of the mysterious way in which God chose to reveal Himself and to be communicated to human beings through visible matter, simultaneously unveiling and concealing Himself, in order to awaken in the human soul a thirst, a love, and a desire to seek Him and to encounter Him through personal openness and ascetic effort, through purity and holiness of life (Lubac 1950, pp. 363–68; Stăniloae 2002, p. 136). For this reason, the Eastern tradition has spoken of the inexhaustible depths of meaning contained in both Scripture and Liturgy, as modes of revealing and experiencing the Mystery of Christ even in this world—depths which can be discovered through the working of the Holy Spirit only by those who have opened themselves to Him through faith and the practice of the virtues (Maximus the Confessor 1990, p. 253). The Orthodox Church has regarded Orthopraxy, this essential component of Tradition and of ecclesial life, as an indispensable condition for initiation into and experience of the Mystery of Christ (Felmy 1999, pp. 51–52). Orthopraxy has also served as the fundamental hermeneutical principle of both Scripture and the ritual of the Liturgy, and thus as the bond that has rendered them inseparable (Breck 1986, p. 44). Everything in the Church is the unified and unifying work of the Holy Spirit, which is why no aspect of ecclesial life could ever be regarded in opposition to another, since they are all manifestations and revelations of the same Christ. Leo the Great emphasizes this truth when he affirms that, after the Resurrection and Ascension, the encounter with Christ takes place in a wholly new way, within the interior of the human being, since “what was visible in our Redeemer has passed over into the Sacraments of the Church.” (Leo the Great 1865, PL 54: 396–400). “In place of the bodily presence of Christ in the world, there has entered His spiritual presence through His words and through the Holy Mysteries, a presence that is not weaker than the former, but more intense, because it is founded entirely on the Holy Spirit…” (Casel 1955, pp. 154–55).

The person of Jesus Christ, alive and active in the Church, is the one who makes Scripture and Liturgy a single spiritual reality, meant to initiate the human being, gradually and diversely, into communion with Himself within the ecclesial liturgical setting. The patristic tradition of the Orthodox East speaks of several complementary modes of Christ’s presence and activity within the Church. He is truly present in the Divine Liturgy from its very beginning, in various ways naturally, and this presence becomes fully manifest in the consecration of the gifts of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of the Savior. The words of the Gospel and their interpretation, the prayer of the faithful, the Sacramental–Eucharistic communion, and the observance of commandments and virtues are all ways in which the faithful partake of Christ. This partaking of the new life of the deified humanity of the Savior is the mystery of the life to come, and it can already be sampled and lived in the Church, in all its depth and complexity. The communion with Christ can be achieved in various ways according to the richness of grace. Even so, these ways are unitary, for they are the channels through which the gifts coming from the one and the same humanity of the Son of God are made available and communicated to the faithful (Ică 1993, p. 341).

This patristic way of understanding the relationship between Word and Sacrament, between Scripture and Liturgy, may also serve the present age, as Alexander Schmemann suggests, as an incentive for overcoming the current liturgical crisis and for promoting a fruitful and constructive ecumenical dialogue. Schmemann believed that the renewal of the Church can begin only from its liturgical life, from this treasure of its faith, from its living and dynamic tradition which continually actualizes the nature of the Church as the Body of Christ and which encompasses, expresses, inspires, and defines the entire Church, its essential nature, and its entire life in the diversity of its forms of manifestation (Schmemann 1987 p. 12). Through patristic theology, contemporary Christianity is called to return to the “all-encompassing vision” of the early Church, in which no aspect of its life could be lived in isolation, but all formed a unity in the Holy Spirit, each representing a foretaste of the sacraments of the Kingdom of Heaven (Schmemann 1973, p. 123).

For Alexander Schmemann, rediscovering the patristic vision of the relationship between Word and Mystery, between the Bible and the Liturgy, is one of the solutions to the current liturgical crisis. In order for Lex orandi to be lex credendi, the Liturgy must once again become the Mystery of the Church par excellence and be linked to all aspects of the Church’s life, which can only thus acquire an eschatological finality, escaping the purely material secular logic. The Holy Liturgy must once again be linked to all the Holy Sacraments of the Church as their fulfillment and crowning glory. Only in this way can the Liturgy give life to the Bible, only in this way can Tradition be perceived as the life of the Church and not another source of faith, and only in this way can the Church rediscover her missionary vocation, seeking the real and actual inclusion of all humanity in the mystical body of Christ: “The Church alone knows and keeps the /meaning of scripture, because in the sacrament of the word, accomplished in the church assembly, the Holy Spirit eternally gives life to the “flesh” of scripture, transforming it into “spirit and life.” Any genuine theology is rooted in this sacrament of the word, in the church assembly, in which the Spirit of God exhorts the Church herself—and not simply her individual members —into all truth. Thus, any “private” reading of scripture must be rooted in the Church: outside of the mind of the Church, outside of the divine–human life of the Church it can neither be heard nor truly interpreted. So, the sacrament of the word, accomplished in the church gathering in a twofold act—reading and proclamation—is the source of the growth of each and all together into the fulness of the mind of truth.” (Schmemann 1973, p. 79).

The Orthodox Church identifies itself with its worship, hence the importance of overcoming the current liturgical crisis by returning to missionary work and the beauty of early Christianity:

“Our Church, writes Schmemann, “need not be ashamed of her identification with liturgy […] for the liturgy was always experienced and understood in our Church as precisely the entering of men into, and communion with the reality of the Kingdom of God, as that experience of God which alone makes possible everything else, all action, all fight.” (Schmemann 1965, p. 188) This unique experience of God, of the Apophatic One who continually descends in order to let Himself be communicated both through the Word and through the Sacrament, in forms so fitting and so perfectly adapted to human beings, must become the imperative that leads to a renewal of the lived ethos of Christianity in the contemporary secular world. This renewal also presupposes the existence of a constructive ecumenical dialogue that allows for rapprochement between confessions. The relationship between Word and Mystery has been and must continue to be the subject of discussion for interconfessional theological dialogue commissions (Saarinen 1997; Hurskainen 2013; Hellqvist 2011). An edifying example in this regard is the dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Lutheran World Federation, which began in 1981 and addressed a number of important theological issues, including the relationship between Word and Sacrament. At the 10th meeting of the Dialogue Commission, the topic debated was: The Mystery of the Church: Word and Sacraments (Mysteria) (2000, Damascus), and the joint statements of the preparatory subcommittee in Chania (1999) and of the Joint Commission meeting in Damascus (2000) emphasize that the Word of God and the Sacraments are closely linked, being included in the great Mystery of the Church, and constitute determining factors in the mission of the Church and in the participation of the faithful in the new life in Christ (Pricop 2013, pp. 343–45). They are and must be in the Church two related modes of the work of grace, the Mysteries being visible words and the word having a sacramental character. The life of the Church is revealed in Word and Mystery as life in Christ as God’s gift through the Holy Spirit (Kretschmar 1999, p. 11). These common statements highlight the fact that closeness between confessions is possible when theology returns to its patristic sources, when common points of view become more important than theological differences. This is also the path that theology must follow in the future in the search for the much-desired unity of all Christians.

5. Conclusions

1. The patristic vision regarding the relationship between Word and Sacrament, between Scripture and Liturgy, is a unified one, because the life of the Church is one, defined as Tradition in the broad sense, and the divine–human Person of Christ is one, the One who communicates Himself through all the visible aspects of ecclesial life, through all the “crystallizations” of Tradition. Patristic theology, together with contemporary neopatristic theology, emphasizes that the Bible and the Liturgy, the Word and the Sacrament, are complementary modes through which the unique Mystery of Jesus Christ is communicated to the faithful in the life of the Church, both sacramentally and in an ethical–ascetical manner.

2. The theological disputes in Western Europe led to the isolation of pneumatology from ecclesiology, which resulted in the loss of an overall vision of the unity of Church life and of the diverse yet integrated ways in which Christ works through the Spirit in the ecclesial community. Orthodoxy affirms that the true place of the Word and of the Sacrament is in the life of the Church, for it is only in the Church that the Holy Spirit actualizes the word of Scripture and makes Christ present pneumatologically in the Holy Sacraments.

3. The rediscovery today of this unique vision of patristic and neopatristic theology regarding the relationship between Word and Sacrament, between the Bible and the Liturgy, can serve as a starting point for the resolution of the liturgical crisis of the contemporary world through the overcoming of secular formalism and nominalism, which have led to excessive conceptualization and to an antithetical perception of these terms, and through the restoration of the Liturgy to the center of the life of the Church, which enables all modes of communion with Christ to be perceived in their unity as manifestations of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.