Page 256 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
Holy Trinity enters created existence.
This iconic structure permeates every dimension of eccle-
sial life, above all the Divine Eucharist. Since Dionysius the
Areopagite, the Eucharist has been understood as the pre-
eminent symbolic manifestation of divine reality. In the Di-
vine Liturgy, everything reveals the union of created and un-
created, time and eternity, history and eschatology. The Eu-
charist is therefore the highest icon of the Kingdom: not a
representation that merely points away from itself, but a real
participation in the future age.
The Church is thus a network of symbols, types, and icons.
Everything within her signifies the union of creation with God
in Christ. There is no other way for creation to unite with God
except through these symbols and icons, because only in them
is the whole of creation—time, space, matter, body, and his-
tory—taken up into communion with the Holy Trinity. Even
prayer, if detached from these ecclesial forms, remains incom-
plete, because it leaves aside the fullness of creation that Christ
came to gather into Himself.
The so-called noetic (mental) prayer that bypasses ecclesial
forms is incomplete because it does not encompass all ele-
ments of creation, such as time, space, and matter. Only
through the symbols, types, and icons provided by the Church’s
sacraments do we encounter and unite God and creation in
the way realized in Christ. Our communion with the Holy
Trinity is offered to us in Christ, through symbols and icons.
...
The veneration of icons, the recognition of supernatural
properties in holy relics, sacred vessels and objects, and so
forth can become forms of paganism if these objects are re-
garded as possessing these properties in their nature and not
in the personal presence of the saint with whom they are con-
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