The Church as the Divine Council
Theological Reflections on the Nature of Councils and Liturgy (7)
The communion among particular churches is an outflow of the communion among the persons of God- and the idea of the Son’s being *consubstantial* with the Father and Spirit is frames the meaning of the incarnate Son’s being *consubstantial* with all human beings according to our humanity. When God creates “Man” in His Image, the “Man” in question is the human family, constituted as a dyad of maleness and femelaness and a plenitude of nations. These are not primarily differentiating characteristics among different individuals, but an essential quality of the inner life of the one Image of God - mankind as one body- as it expresses the life of the one God in Trinity- there is no male without female, and there is no Father without Son.
The core point that I want to be seen from this is the centeredness of all aspects of the Church’s life upon the Eucharist. The unity of faith is sacramentally expressed in the commemorations of a Eucharistic liturgy. The Creed professed is professed as the celebrant holds the Aër and moves it over the Eucharistic Gifts before they are consecrated and transformed. The oneness of the Church in oneness of faith is realized in specific sacramental oneness. The Divine Liturgy ingathers the whole Communion of Saints- the Heavenly Court (the bishop in a hierarchical liturgy is both crowned and enthroned for part of the service) together in our parish context. Divine authority, realized by the Holy Spirit who makes up the Divine Council, is both given and received liturgically (think of a service for ordination attached to the liturgy or a Marriage service celebrated together with the Liturgy- the coronation of husband and wife has a rich context biblically! “You shall judge angels”, Paul says in the chapter (1 Corinthians 5) in which he descibes the paschal feast of the Church.
To have ecclesiastical authority is to hold the prerogative from God to identify and/or determine the specific conditions in which a person might normatively be canonically included in the Church. An Ecumenical Council issues theological decrees which candidates for elevation to the patriarchal dignity must assent to. That is a normative judgment of the Church which is a canon in the meaning of that word- it’s the yardstick by which we identify those who are sharers in the Marriage Supper and those who cannot partake. This is what “canons” issued by councils are all about, at bottom. To “excommunnicate” a person outside one’s local Church simply means that they are (if a hierarch) neither commemorated in the diptychs in relation to the Eucharist nor (in general) received to the Cup if they visit one’s locale and approach to receive. The tying together of *ecclesiastical and even magisterial authority* to the Liturgy is strikingly illustrated in the *Synodikon* of Orthodoxy. Normative doctrine is identified as such by *liturgically recited anathemas.* This is the focal point of the Spirit’s representation of the Kingship of Christ- the Liturgy. His Kingdom is centered in His Heavenly Court. In this context, things like an anathema are understood not merely as a statement of this or that local church’s belief, but as an expression of the will of the Spirit in the divine Courtroom. An anathema is a *sentence* pronounced by the supreme Judge and Lord as He presides in the Divine Council in the presence of myriads upon myriads of angels and saints.