Page 171 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

T H E D E A C O N I N T H E C H U R C H
The Deacon in the Church
In the Divine Liturgy, everyone and everything is an image
of something: the church building represents the space of
the Kingdom of God, with Christ the King surrounded by the
saints. The bishop represents Christ seated on the throne, as
He will be in his Kingdom. The priests represent the Apostles
who surround the bishop Christ on the synthronon. The dea-
cons represent the angels who, as “ministering spirits sent
forth to serve” (Heb 1:14), move between the people and the
clergy. The people gathered together in one place and bringing
the gifts (bread, wine, oil, etc.) express the scattered people of
God, which in the Kingdom of God will come together around
Christ and, as the crown of creation, will bring with them the
whole of the material world to be sanctified and saved as well.
According to the ancient model of the early Church, there
was also the ministry of the deacons, who formed a kind of
liaison or link between the bishop and the people, bringing the
gifts of the people first to the bishop and then back to them in
the form of the Eucharist.
The constitutive role of the deacons for the Eucharist has
been almost lost in our time. Are the deacons necessary for
the celebration of the Eucharist? Few people, if any, would be
inclined to answer this question in the affirmative. The dea-
cons have almost become a decorative element of the Liturgy.
The Church is realized and revealed in the Eucharist. The
Eucharist is the supreme incorporation of the Church in
Christ in space and time, and unity in the Eucharist is identi-
fied with canonical unity in the Church through the bishop,
171