SUNDAY IN THE ORTHODOX CHURCH

SUNDAY IN THE ORTHODOX CHURCH

by Fr. John Ealy

SUNDAY - THE DAY OF DAYS

In the Orthodox Church, Sunday is the Day of Resurrection and is therefore the Day of the Eucharist. It is the Day of all Days and nothing replaces Sunday in the life of an Orthodox Christian.

CORNERSTONE OF SACRAMENTAL LIFE

The Sacramental life of the Church revolves around Sunday. It is the Day of Baptisms because baptism, our participation in the death and resurrection of Christ, is fulfilled in the Eucharist. It is the day for marriages. A man and a woman are joined together in Christ at the messianic table in His Kingdom and then joined by Him sacramentally in marriage. The Eucharist always comes first because it is the firm rock or foundation on which a man and a woman builds their marriage and grows in love. The life of the crucified and risen Lord communicated in the Eucharist must be lived in the life of the newly married couple for each other and for the other.

ONE REALITY - ONE CELEBRATION

Sunday is the day of genuine life, the day of days, Orthodox Christians do not replace it with any other celebration. There is only ONE celebration that is reality for us. That is the one that takes place in the Kingdom, in the Assembly of His people which is the Church in this world. This reality of this life is experienced in the Lord's Day Liturgy beginning on Saturday evening with the Vigil Liturgy . It is a celebration of Christ and the life He gives. It is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end. The end is Christ and His Kingdom and the light of life that He gives to us to take with us into the world to illumine the other.

CHRIST THE LIGHT

This Lord's Day Liturgy begins when "we have come to the setting of the sun and behold the Light of the evening." That Light is Christ and cannot be replaced by the false light of this fallen world. On Easter night, on Pascha, we sing, "Now all things are filled with light, heaven, and earth, and the nether regions". This is the Light which illumines the Lord's Day, Sunday, because every Sunday in the Orthodox Church is a celebration of Easter. This celebration of Light and Life always begins for faithful Orthodox Christians at the setting of the sun. It is the day of all days. "It is the day of Resurrection, let us be illumined..." Nothing in the world can replace the experience of this illumination, this theophany to us. We in turn are to take this theophany and manifest it to others because we have been illumined by it.

DAY WITHOUT EVENING

For Orthodox Christians then, Sunday is the DAY OF ALL DAYS. It is the eighth day. It is the day without evening. It is the day on which the time of the Kingdom is revealed to us. On this day the meaning of our lives is revealed to us and nothing that is not worthy of a blessing by God interferes with the Lord's Day, Sunday, celebration. It is the day of all days.