Within the depth-psychology and allied theological corpus, ‘liturgy’ occupies a position at the intersection of symbolic enactment, collective ritual, and the mediation of transcendence. The term does not appear primarily as an object of sociological description but rather as a living structure through which the soul — whether conceived psychologically or theologically — encounters dimensions of reality unavailable to ordinary consciousness. Jung approaches liturgy obliquely, treating the Mass as the supreme Western instance of a psychic transformation drama whose symbolic logic mirrors the alchemical opus; the consecration rite, for him, enacts within historical time what the unconscious perpetually seeks outside it. Orthodox thinkers — Schmemann above all — press in a different direction: liturgy is not a symbol of transcendence but its actual realization, the Kingdom made present in and through the Church’s eucharistic gathering. Louth’s survey of modern Orthodox theology traces how liturgical theology became the organizing principle for figures from Bulgakov through Schmemann to Foundoulis, each insisting that dogma, asceticism, and mystical theology are intelligible only from within the liturgical act. A persistent tension runs through all these treatments: between liturgy as external form that may obscure interior transformation and liturgy as the indispensable vessel through which that transformation is communicated. The Philokalia tradition negotiates this tension by insisting that the Divine Liturgy and inner prayer are not rivals but complementary registers of a single synergic movement toward deification.
Here is, for me, the whole meaning of liturgical theology. The Liturgy: the joining, revelation, actualization of the historicity of Christianity (remembrance) and of its transcendence over that historicity
Schmemann defines liturgical theology as precisely the site where historical memory and eschatological transcendence are simultaneously actualized, making liturgy the irreducible centre of Christian meaning.
, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Presentthesis
The institution of the Church means nothing less than the everlasting continuation of the life of Christ and its sacrificial function. In the officium divinum or, in Benedictine parlance, the opus divinum, Christ’s sacrifice, the redeeming act, constantly repeats itself anew
Jung identifies the liturgical office as the psychological and symbolic mechanism by which the unique redemptive sacrifice is rendered eternally present, paralleling the alchemical opus of renewal.
, Psychology and Alchemy, 1944thesis
for Schmemann, there is a liturgical crisis in the Orthodox world, though the remedy involves less liturgical reform than attention to the deeper themes of the liturgy that have become obscured
Schmemann diagnoses the contemporary problem with liturgy as one of concealment of theological depth rather than structural failure, calling for a recovery of the Eucharist’s eschatological and participatory meaning.
, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Presentthesis
the uttering of the words of the consecration signifies Christ himself speaking in the first person, his living presence in the corpus mysticum of priest, congregation, bread, wine, and incense, which together form the mystical unity offered for sacrifice
Jung reads the central liturgical moment of consecration as a psychic event in which the boundaries between symbol and reality dissolve within the corpus mysticum, constituting a genuine epiphany.
, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958thesis
the turn to liturgical theology was not, however, something that Fr Alexander achieved on his own; it is part of a movement in theology in the last century, a movement associated with the return to the Fathers
Louth situates Schmemann’s liturgical theology within a broader ecumenical Ressourcement movement, showing liturgy’s recentring as a pan-confessional twentieth-century theological development.
, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Presentsupporting
Lot-Borodine shifts her attention from what we might call the ascetical and mystical to the liturgical, or maybe not ‘shifts’, but extends her attention to embrace the liturgical
Louth shows how Lot-Borodine’s engagement with Maximos and Cabasilas reveals that the ascetical-mystical and the liturgical are not competing paths but integrally unified modes of deification.
, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Presentsupporting
dogmatic or systematic theology (which deals with beliefs about God), liturgical theology (worship), moral theology (ethics), and spiritual/ascetical theology are all aspects of a singular enterprise
The Philokalia volume’s introduction articulates the Eastern Orthodox holistic vision in which liturgical theology is neither separable from nor subordinate to other theological disciplines but co-constitutive of them.
, The Philokalia, Volume 1, 1979supporting
Foundoulis’ genius lies in never letting this happen; he always points beyond the detail to the theological meaning of the elaborate ceremonial of the Byzantine Liturgy
Louth credits Foundoulis with demonstrating that the minute ceremonial details of the Byzantine Liturgy are inexhaustible theological signs rather than devotional formalism, thus preserving the depth-hermeneutic of liturgical action.
, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Presentsupporting
a very strong sense of ‘life’ in i… the coexistence of two heterogeneous worlds, the presence in this world of something absolutely and totally ‘other’
Schmemann’s autobiographical reflection on the silent Mass traces the experiential origin of his liturgical theology: liturgy as the point of contact between immanent and transcendent worlds.
, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Presentsupporting
If you celebrate the divine, revered and awesome mysteries in the proper manner, with absolutely nothing on your conscience, you may hope for salvation, for the benefit you derive from this will be greater than that which derives from any work or from contemplation
The Philokalia tradition explicitly ranks the proper celebration of liturgical mysteries above works and contemplation as a vehicle of salvation, asserting the transformative primacy of ritual purity in liturgical action.
, The Philokalia, Volume 4, 1995supporting
Liturgical theology: Fr Alexander Schmemann and the Greeks Ioannis Foundoulis and Fr Vasileios
This bibliographic index confirms the institutional centrality of liturgical theology as an established subdiscipline within modern Orthodox thought, anchored in the work of Schmemann, Foundoulis, and Vasileios.
, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Presentsupporting
The fact that the Eucharist was also celebrated with water shows that the early Christians were mainly interested in the symbolism of the mysteries and not in the literal observance of the sacrament
Jung argues that early liturgical variants reveal that the symbolic and psychological register of the sacramental rite was primary, subordinating literal rubric to transformative meaning.
, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958supporting
In front of the altar they feel nothing. They receive the Holy Gift as if it were ordinary bread
Climacus warns against the spiritual anesthesia of acedia, which renders the liturgical altar and the reception of the Eucharist wholly inert — a failure of interior participation that inverts liturgy’s proper function.
, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, 600aside
This is one of the earliest liturgies for the transmission of the True Writs
Kohn documents Daoist liturgical transmission rites as institutionalized forms for conveying sacred registers, offering a comparative non-Western instance of liturgy as formal ordination procedure.
, Daoism Handbook, 2000aside
Du Guangting composed the oldest surviving liturgies for its levees. One of them contains an address to the gods requesting that they gather in and eradicate thirteen varieties of ghosts
Kohn’s account of Du Guangting’s Daoist liturgies illustrates liturgy as apotropaic communal ritual structured to invoke divine powers against threatening forces, a function parallel to exorcistic dimensions of Christian liturgy.
, Daoism Handbook, 2000aside