Page 138 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
oriented toward the future. As Joachim Jeremias has shown,
this “until he comes” connects the Eucharist with the early
Christian cry maranatha—the liturgical invocation of the
Lord’s coming. The death of Christ is remembered as an event
already opening into the eschaton.
The same perspective appears in the Didache, where the
Eucharist is entirely permeated by eschatological expectation:
the Church prays to be gathered “from the four winds” into
the Kingdom prepared for her. In every Eucharist, the com-
munity both awaits and anticipates the Kingdom. God re-
members His Church in the Kingdom, and the Church, in
turn, remembers the coming of the Lord.
Thus, the “not yet” becomes mysteriously present as an
“already.”
From the beginning, the Eucharist was understood as the
celebration of the future Kingdom here and now—a manifes-
tation of what is to come within the limits of history. It is not
merely symbolic, nor merely retrospective. It is an event in
which the future breaks into the present.
As Georges Florovsky beautifully expressed it, the Eucha-
rist is “a hymn rather than a prayer,” a service of triumphant
joy, a continuous Pascha. It is a foretaste of the Resurrection,
an image of the age to come. For this reason, it was celebrated
from the earliest times “with gladness of heart” (Acts 2:46).
Yet, over time, this eschatological consciousness has often
faded. The Eucharist is still celebrated, but frequently without
the vivid awareness that it is an anticipation of the Kingdom.
It risks being reduced to remembrance alone, rather than ex-
perienced as presence and promise intertwined.
And yet, at its heart, the Eucharist remains what it has al-
ways been: the place where time opens, where the future is
remembered, and where the Church stands—ever and anew—
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