ICOANA CREDINȚEI

No. 19, Year 10/2024

https://www.ifiasa.com/ifijisr ISSN 2501-3386, ISSN-L 2393-137X

https://doi.org/10.26520/icoana.2024.19.10.32-42

DOGMA AND DOXOLOGY.

THE ROLE AND IMPORTANCE OF HYMNOLOGY IN
ORTHODOX SPIRITUALITY
Fr. Prof. PhD. MIHAI HIMCINSCHI,
Faculty of Orthodox Theology, "1 Decembrie 1918" University, Alba-Iulia
ROMANIA
Email: [email protected]
ABSTRACT
The subject proposes a rather complex theme. Therefore, the present study can only
be considered a prelude to what implies a complementary relationship between
theology and doxology in the Orthodox Church, which, as complex as it is, is at the
same time subtle because the translation of the dogmatic content into poetic hymns,
or worship songs, took shape following a direct charismatic experience between
their authors and the work of the Holy Spirit.
Keywords: dogma; doxology; confession; hymn; gnosis; Church; mission;

INTRODUCTION
Rightfully considered monuments of the Holy Tradition, the doxological hymns
have always been catalogued as being inspired and of the same soteriological value as the
Holy Scripture, in short, a revelation and response to it in the ecclesial framework, precisely
because of the biblical and dogmatic content, at the same time.
In the Church, love for God materialised in a doxological response on the border
between theology and life, dogma and cult, doctrine and spirituality. This answer is proof of
the subjective employability, on a personal level, of the believer in the Church as an active
participant in its pilgrimage through the history of mankind, but with a direct eschatological
perspective. The idea of the transcendent is expressed through the hymn and the concrete
expression of the communion experience between man and God as presence, image, sound
and form are conveyed.
The birth of doxological hymns takes place in the liturgical environment of the
Church; they are the expression of the natural extension and immediate reception of the
dogmas promulgated to clarify the teaching of the faith, as well as the answers offered to the
centrifugal slippages of various Christian and non-Christian groups or dissidents. From this
context, we deduce the tripartite quality of the church hymn: biblical, dogmatic and
doxological. Due to this triple characteristic and the balance within its framework, Eastern
hymnology was permanently protected from the penetration and priority of the pietist current
to the detriment of the biblical-dogmatic foundation.
In the Church, the pietist side is risky in that it manipulates the soul of the believer
towards a strictly personal commitment and communion; liturgical and doxological
Christianity is reduced to the attribute of private Christianity1, a fact for which the
inconsistency of pietism found its antidote in urban agnosticism.
1
† Anastasie, Archbishop of Tirana and Albania, Nu izolării într-o pietate individualistă, in Misiune pe urmele
lui Hristos, translated by Ștefan L. Toma, Editura Andreiana, Sibiu 2013, p. 41.

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From a missionary point of view, the dynamism of the liturgical atmosphere can be
enlivened by the common singing of church hymns, which leads to a participatory intensity
of each believer in public divine worship. Through the common singing of dogmatic hymns,
the participants can easily assimilate Orthodox worship, which leads to a sublime sensitivity
to the relationship with God, the Holy Trinity. Through the hymn, the dogma is correctly
translated and harmonised with the character of each person. Therefore, the liturgical life
played, and still plays an essential, fundamental role in deifying the ecclesial being. Each
voice developed autonomously, can contribute to the heavenly and mystical harmony of
Cosmic Liturgy. "When, then, the singing that includes all the holy things (all salvation)
prepares our soul powers for the harmony with those that will be sanctified a little later
(honest gifts – author’s note) and through the homophonic execution of the divine hymns
will produce us the common understanding of the divine and that between each other, as
through a united choir and a common confession to those saints, the most concentrated and
shadowed in the utterance of the words of the psalms become more understood through more
and clearer faces; and their expression or understanding is broadened by too sacred readings
of written texts. In these, the one who looks in a holy way will experience a unitary breath as
moved by the One and divine Spirit".2

1. DOGMA AND DOXOLOGY

The doxological language of each person must not be adapted according to specific
prescribed patterns. However, each nation is called to cultivate and develop its voice and its
hymnographic message, thus bringing a unique and invaluable contribution to the familiar
doxological hymn, but in harmony with the dogmatic doxology of the entire Church. The
doxology of the Church, unique and unitary, is the common foundation of the One Church,
without jeopardising the diversity in the Holy Spirit, according to the Rusalim model.
Hymnological doxology is the palpable icon of communion and dogmatic-liturgical
community that expresses, on the one hand, the unity between God and people, on the other
hand, the unity between all sons of the same race, as well as the whole cosmos. "The
doxology of the redeemed must be heard beyond the borders of their community and fill the
universe".3
The dogmatic-liturgical doxology is not just a simple religious emotion. However, it
is the most profound link between the liturgical experience and the missionary-confessional
presence of the Church in the world, protected from any slippage or falsification of authentic
Christian doctrine, "thus, the Liturgy turns into a life, and life becomes worship, singing and
glorifying God."4, it is the doxological reflection of the angels and saints in the Kingdom of
Heaven. Within the Holy Liturgy, the hymn is considered a doxological proclamation of the
evangelical revelation as a living and immediate response of the believer to the discovery
and experience of the divine Glory in his being. The liturgical experience of the Glory, as a
direct and immediate act, immediately leads to the doxological joy of the Incarnate Truth
and through Him of the entire Holy Trinity, joy immediately expressed through singing by
Christ the Redeemer and His disciples immediately after the Last Supper: When they had
sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. (Mat. 26: 30), a general joy and
2
Sfântul Dionisie Areopagitul, Despre Ierarhia Bisericească, in Sfântul Dionisie Areopagitul. Opere complete
și Scoliile Sfântului Maxim Mărturisitorul, translation, introduction and notes by pr. Dumitru Stăniloae, Editura
Paideia, București 1996, p. 80.
3
† Anastasie, Doxologia să fie auzită dincolo de granițele comunității, in op. cit., p. 75.
4
Idem, Experiența liturgică a Ortodoxiei, in op. cit., p. 109.

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metamorphosis started from within the human being by instilling the Holy Spirit as a
transfiguring effusion through word and sound, a true doxological and plenary manifestation.
"The doxological song must encompass all humanity (Ps. 96: 3). The free doxology of free
beings harmonizes the doxology of creation. The material universe participates in the
doxology of God by participating in the Eucharistic doxology ".5
In the Orthodox Church, the Trinity is doxological, and the doxology is trinitarian
because the Holy Trinity constitutes the basis of Eastern theology and spirituality. There is
only theology with life or spirituality, i.e., non-doxological theological thinking. Properly
speaking, the theologian hymnographer, as a dogmatist, renders in verses and chants the
experience of the ascetic-mystical ascent in and through the Church, as a living empirical
theology, as a spiritual life experience shared with the entire ecclesial body implicitly
expressed within the liturgical worship. "The dogmas, defined by the synods, are conceived
as doxological formulas, which enter the cult organically, as its parts."6. Through worship,
dogma becomes the way to eternal life, angelic doxology, because "angels, by their nature,
essentially embody doxology."7.
Saint Simeon, the New Theologian, having as his starting point the poems of Saint
Gregory the Theologian, raises dogmatica hymnographica to the highest heights of Christian
religious poetry. His hymns were written under the impulse and inspiration of the Holy
Spirit. "For the first and only time in Byzantium, someone formulated in his verses not the
objective cultic doxology of a community, as in the already standardised hymnography, he
did not only process dogmatic or moral themes in poetic forms but expressed himself
spontaneously and violently, pathetically and vividly, his own experiences of grace in a truly
mystical and spiritual journal; and he did this without for a moment falling into the
subjective outpourings and sentimental confessions of the intimate and pietistic type typical
of Western spiritual literature of the second Christian millennium”.8
Orthodox theology, predominantly apophatic, directly implies a doxological
character of thought and its expression. The explanation could be a simple one: when the
mind of the mystical theologian rises to the true contemplation of God, realising that He
cannot be contained in words, he slips through the composition and singing of hymns to
another way of soul expression, smoother and melodious, more comprehensible and more
knowable under the influence of the soul's faculty of feeling.
Through the sung dogma, the perception of divine-human realities becomes
transparent, and the eschatological perspective is experienced in advance. If reason supports
the thought and theological formulation of the revealed message, the doxological side, also
supported by feeling, makes it more consistent as a perception and way of expression.
Doxology, or the right glorification of God through melodious words, gives dogmatic
formulations a sensitivity specific to the ecclesiastical framework and brings light to the
mind and soul of the believer, protecting him from pietistic slips and rationalistic
interpretations of the teaching of the faith. Therefore, it is more appropriate for him to Let
5
Idem, Asumarea și răspândirea Slavei lui Dumnezeu, in op. cit., p. 174-175.
6
Paul Evdokimov, Cunoașterea lui Dumnezeu, translated by pr. Vasile Răducă, Editura Christiana, București
1995, p. 105-106.
7
Ibidem, p. 112.
8
Diac. Ioan I. Ică jr., Capitolele, Imnele și Epistolele simeoniene – problematica filologică, istorică și
spirituală, in Simeon Noul Teolog. Imne, Epistole și capitole, Scrieri III, translated by diac. Ioan. I. Ică jr.,
Editura Deisis, Sibiu 2001, p. 14.

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God be sung rather than described without singing.9 Since its foundation, the Church
adopted a doxological attitude glorifying God through prayers and breaking Bread (Acts 2:
42), which gave it "centripetal missionary power of attraction".10 With all the postmodern
missionary challenges, the Liturgy of the Church continues to fascinate the human spirit
longing for the transcendent. In the light of its chants, the human being is charged with the
energy of tranquillity and doxological balance due to the personal presence of the Savior,
and through him of the entire Holy Trinity, through the grace and His glory.
Among the eight ways of the presence of Christ the Savior in the liturgical worship
of the Church, Father Dumitru Stăniloae identifies in the sixth the divine presence through
and in the prayers spoken or sung11 within the eucharistic synaxis, "that is why we sing in
the Holy Liturgy so often and full of momentum and happiness that makes us foretaste the
joy of the perfect communion and to feel happy from now on with this foretaste".12
Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, promoter of mystical theology and, in particular, of
the apophatic side as a way of knowing, believes that hymns, along with the holy readings,
have a purgative role in the Eucharistic cult and explains the content of the revealed texts:
"the most holy chants and readings from the Scriptures I give them (believers - n.a.) the
teaching of the virtuous life and before that the perfect cleansing from the sin that causes
corruption"13 Moreover, it bestows on those contemplating the Divine Being upliftment,
renewal, resurrection, steadfastness, safety, guidance, divine power, simplicity, unity, and
life. "Let us aim for the rays that illuminate us from the Holy Scriptures and let us be guided
by their light towards the hymns of praise of the deity, illuminated by them in a supernatural
way. And impressed by the holy hymns of praise, let us look towards the lights divinely
given through them and praise the good-giving origin of all the divine appearance, as she
herself taught us about herself in the holy scriptures, as for example, that it is the cause and
origin and being and life of all, and the recalling and raising up of those who have fallen
from it; and for those who have slipped towards the corruption of the divine image, renewal
and resurrection, as well as for those moved towards a corruption devoid of holiness, holy
constancy, and to the steadfast security and to those guided by it, strong guidance, and to
those who are enlightened enlightenment and to those what is perfected, source of
perfection; also to those who deify themselves, deifying power, to those who aspire to
simplicity, simplicity, to those who tend to unity, unity, and to every beginning, beginning
above beginning in form above being. And, simply speaking, life to the living and being to
those that are, beginning and cause of all life and being, for the goodness that brought things
into existence and sustains them".14
The Theodoxology of the Church is the theology of Divine Glory, the only way of
personal and economic communication between God and man. Glory, as divine and deifying
uncreated energy, makes the Unseen visible, the Incommunicable shareable, the
Incommunicable communicable, and the Transcendent immanent. "A God without the
9
Dumitru Stăniloae, Sfântul Simeon Noul Teolog. Imnele iubirii dumnezeiești, in Studii de Teologie Dogmatică
Ortodoxă, Editura Mitropoliei Olteniei, Craiova 1991, nota 6, p. 326.
10
† Anastasie, Caracterul doxologic al gândirii teologice și al vieții liturgice, in op. cit., p. 178.
11
Dumitru Stăniloae, Modurile prezenței lui Hristos în cultul Bisericii, in Spiritualitate și comuniune în
Liturghia ortodoxă, Editura Mitropoliei Olteniei, Craiova 1986, p. 81.
12
Ibidem, p. 379.
13
Sfântul Dionisie Areopagitul, op. cit., p. 79.
14
Idem, Despre Numirile Dumnezeiești, in Sfântul Dionisie Areopagitul. Opere complete și Scoliile Sfântului
Maxim Mărturisitorul, translation, introduction and notes by pr. Dumitru Stăniloae, Editura Paideia, București
1996, p. 136.

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uncreated energies appears before the faithful as a powerless God, withdrawn into His
absolute transcendence, who looks unconcernedly upon man's inner anxiety. A true and
philanthropic God, such as the God of Scripture, descends on the thread of uncreated
energies to meet man, to tear him from his religious indifference and to wander, to raise him
to communion with Himself, on the path of infinite spiritual progress, in Christ and the
church, through the Holy Spirit, the inexhaustible source of uncreated energies, as
unspeakable divine light, life and love”.15
When dogma becomes life, theology becomes doxology, and this relationship
between dogma and its formulation and the experience of deification is indispensable. As a
doxological Church, we have inherited the dogmas and their experience through the pure life
of the Holy Fathers who formulated them and which preceded their formulation. "Since the
purpose of theology is the purification and enlightenment of the mind, and the expression of
this experience of deification is dogma, then dogma is infallible in the Orthodox Church, as
the expression of this experience of deification had by the Prophets, Apostles and Fathers of
the Church. However, dogma, this form of expression of the experience of deification, we
know not only as dogma but also as the life of the Saints of the Church or any person who
has reached the same experience of deification. We have dogma as an expression of the
experience of deification, and after, we have a dogma that becomes life for those who reach
deification".16

2. ABOT THEODOXOLOGY OF THE CHURCH

Doxology, as an empirical experience of the divine and deifying life through grace,
precedes the formulation of the dogma and conveys to it, along with the content, the
theophanic, Christocentric and pneumatic state. In light of this statement, Saint Simeon the
New Theologian expressed the dogmas doxologically through his hymns as the fruit of
personal and direct experience with the Son of God made man so that people could access
them and understand them in the same spirit. Christ the Savior, the Light of the world (Jn. 8,
12) and the God of man illuminates the most holy meanings of the dogma to the extent that
the one who theologises becomes a transparent medium for its reception, formulation and
transmission. The enlightened one can compose the doxology in hymns and praises as in
work inspired by the Holy Spirit, equal in value to the scriptural texts because, in the
beginning, there was the doxology, then the Holy Scriptures if we were to note the historical
approach. Then, the stage of formulation of the dogma on account of the former "and
enlightened by them, that is, by the wealth of light in them, these meanings prepared him in a
way above the world to compose hymns inspired by God and worthy of God as holy praises.
Through this, he could see the lights emanating from God, which enabled him to sing with
great love the Lord, the giver of everything, as the cause of all the holy dominion shown in
the light".17
The cooperation of the hymnographer with the Holy Spirit was based on the effort
of a state of apathy that ordered the movement of the mind in a creative direction, not always
based on knowledge previously acquired through strict intellectual training, although
15
Dumitru Popescu, Ortodoxie și contemporaneitate, Editura Diogene, București 1996, p. 18.
16
IERΌTHEOS, Mitropolitul Nafpaktosului, Dogmatica empirică după învățăturile prin viu grai al Părintelui
Ioannis Romanidis, Vol. I, Dogmă-Morală-Revelație. Prezentare critică, translated by Tatiana Petrache,
Editura Doxologia, Iași 2014, p. 115-116.
17
Dumitru Stăniloae, Sfântul Simeon Noul Teolog. Imnele iubirii dumnezeiești, in Studii de Teologie
Dogmatică Ortodoxă, Editura Mitropoliei Olteniei, Craiova 1991, p. 325.

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assumed in most cases, but more as a result of the synergistic perseverance of asceticism and
mysticism, of pure prayer and holy readings beyond any speculative tendency of purely
human reasoning. The creative work inspired by the Holy Spirit was not considered a
wandering adventure of the mind preoccupied with contemplating the divine, as much as a
tumult of the soul eager to meet God through the economy of His Glory and to imprint it in
one's mind. This approach could be easily contested because other thoughts and
compositions foreign to the Church and the authentic doxology may be imprinted in the
mind, a fact for which, at the beginning of the monastic life, some monks contested the
singing.18, the praises, hymns and doxology of early Christianity for fear of the slippages of
devilish delusion. Thus, in the impressive monograph on Saint John Damascene, Father
Andrew Louth indicates that "in its origins, trope singing was alien to monastic life and in
his account of the initial hesitation of John (Damascus - n. a.) overcome by his love for one
of the monastic brothers and through the approval of the Mother of God of his poetic gift
accounts for John's fame as a liturgical poet".19
The detention of the monks in the desert was also somewhat justified because
wrong teachings can slip through some songs uncensored, harming the Church of Christ. It is
known that the heretical priest Arius, in Alexandria, Egypt, flaunted himself through
Thalia20, the new teaching mainly through songs; on the one hand, the people who did not
know how to read could easily assimilate a sung doctrine; on the other hand, being
transmitted strictly orally, it could not be contested by the elders of the Church because
verba volant. This observation, subtle by the way, is made by Saint Athanasius the Great in
Discourse 3 Against the Arians, comparing the Arian heretics with "those who sing between
the cups with noise and with jokes" and "Arius writing Thalia, (that – author’s note) imitates
the verses with mujerist meanings".21
Thanks to the doxological atmosphere, through which dogma becomes life and
direct experience with God, the tradition of the Orthodox Church, regardless of its location
on the globe, preserves its unitary character because, in worship, the Glory of God is
proclaimed by the doxological communities in a communion way and as a reality that it
includes the whole pilgrimage of the Church through history. Among the doxological
communities, monasteries played an important role. The greatest Christian hymn writers
were monks, and here we mention, only in passing, Saint John Damascene and Saint Simeon
the New Theologian. In the doxological ambience of the monastic cult, one can experience
the ontological renewal of the human being and true freedom in divine grace and truth,
18
"The history of the beginning of the writing by John (Damascus - n. a.) of liturgical hymns may reflect the
tradition according to which at the beginning the monks were opposed to singing and liturgical songs. There is
a famous story about Abba Pamvo rebuking one of his monks who had heard the wonderful singing in the
churches of Alexandria and regretted that there was no one who sang like that among the monks in the desert.
In despair, Abba Pamvo prophesied that indeed one day the monks would sing tropes at their services, but what
kind of piercing of the heart, what tears would the tropes give birth to? What kind of piercing of the heart will
the monk feel who sits in his church or cell and raises his voice like an ox?", Andrew Louth, Ioan
Damaschinul. Tradiție și originalitate în teologia bizantină, translated by Ioan Ică and Ioan Ică jr., Editura
Deisis, Sibiu 2010, p. 42.
19
Andrew Louth, Ioan Damaschinul. Tradiție și originalitate în teologia bizantină, translated by Ioan Ică and
Ioan Ică jr., Editura Deisis, Sibiu 2010, p. 42.
20
Also see Rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition. Revised Edition, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans 2002, p.
98-116.
21
Sfântul Atanasie cel Mare, Trei cuvinte împotriva arienilor, translation, and notes by pr. Dumitru Stăniloae,
Collection Părinți și Scriitori Bisericești, vol. 15, Editura Institutului Biblic și de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe
Române, București 1988, p. 158 și 159.

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which leads to the assumption of an inner spiritual power that purifies the whole nature, not
as something static or passive, but dynamic and organic in a continuous epectatic ascent that
transfigures us and leads us to an increasingly obvious resemblance to the Savior's life,
"thus, the doxological attitude and life, does not mean a hymnological refuge, in some kind
of closed, idyllic environment. More quickly, it means universal openness, and participation
in the problems of all humanity, especially of the humble and wronged, it means universal
compassion; a ceaseless breathing and effusion of the fire of the Holy Spirit. Directly related
to the meanings of light and power, the glory of God expresses, in particular, something
dynamic. The surprising and brilliant life of the saints reflects such a doxological experience
of the humility and love of Christ, keeping the missionary conviction, current for every
person, at any time, in any society".22
Having revealed dogmatic content, doxological hymns are true spiritual therapies
that heal souls by uniting the body and the created realities with the divine archetypes,
reflecting through the highest wisdom and consciousness of the inspired author, the
brilliance and Glory of the Most Holy Trinity.
Through its content and structure, the theology and spirituality of Orthodoxy are the
most able to attribute the correct diagnosis and therapy to the contemporary man who longs
for divine experience. The dogmatic doxology, based on the experience of Revelation and
the formulation of the experience of the Holy Fathers, is considered an axiom of human
deification. "The experimental character of the individual religious life is an indispensable
condition of salvation. Religion is not a process of theoretical instruction, but a process of
participation in being, of personal participation in the spiritual joys made available through
Jesus Christ. He who only theoretically knows the truth of the Gospel may be a scholar, but
he is not a Christian. The quality of being a Christian is given only by personal experience or
participation, or the inner experience of God".23
The formulation of dogmas, as well as the extension of their explanatory content
through doxologies and hymns, had as its aim the healing of some minds that had slipped
from the path of truth but also the spiritual healing of Christian communities in a continuous
thirst for the saving truth, a fact for which the dogma it was excluded from the purely
speculative area of abstract theology and placed in the pneumatic life of the Church through
its complex and dynamic worship. "The criteria of Orthodox theology are not formally
dogmatic but therapeutic. Dogma is a medicine. The dogmas correctly orient man towards
the experience of deification. The purpose of dogma in the patristic tradition is to help man
through his understanding of God. These dogmatic meanings help him on the path of
purification and enlightenment, and when he reaches deification, dogma, of course, ends,
and man has before him the mystery of the Holy Trinity".24
Dogma, as a doxology, guides to light and is removed from the context of the
liturgy. Asceticism remains a purely theoretical truth that does not differ from world
philosophies or party ideologies. Doxology involves an interpersonal dialogue between man
and God through song, praise, request, question and answer; it is not an abstract reflection of
speculative ideas or notions. Today's Orthodoxy is not social Christianity based on social
action. However, the healing of a postmodern man who suffers the trauma of alienation from
22
† Anastasie, Caracterul doxologic al gândirii teologice și al vieții liturgice, in op. cit., p. 182-183.
23
Nichifor Crainic, Sfințenia împlinirea umanului, Editura Mitropoliei Moldovei și Bucovinei, Iași 1993, p. 86.
24
IERΌTHEOS, Mitropolitul Nafpaktosului, Dogmatica empirică după învățăturile prin viu grai al Părintelui
Ioannis Romanidis, Vol. I, Dogmă-Morală-Revelație. Prezentare critică, translated by Tatiana Petrache,
Editura Doxologia, Iași 2014, p. 123-124.

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the Triune God, from the feeling of brotherhood with the Son of God made man and from
the Spirit of our adoption as brothers with Christ and sons of the same Parent. If dogma helps
us to understand God based on His Revelation, doxology helps us to be able to express Him
empirically in the everyday ecclesial context. "Dogma is not meant to be believed. Dogma is
meant to be lived. Because dogma without living is heresy"25, a fact for which we have the
moral obligation as Orthodox Christians to transfer this message to the missionary space. For
example, the Mariological dogma, promulgated at the Council of Ephesus (431), by which
the Virgin Mary was recognised as theothokia, perpetual virginity and hyperdulia, was
disseminated at the level of the ecclesial communities not only theoretically but also
doxologically, with deep reverberations in Hesychast theology and spirituality of the 14th
century as a living testament and missionary imperative. St. Theophanes of Nicaea, speaking
of the Mariological doxology as part of the generations of Christians also adorned with the
virtues of pure chants, affirmed that: "the flow of our life changes successively our
generations and those after us, but the remembrance of our common salvation must remain
ever moving forever in all generation and generation, and according to those madly in love
with man or other, each must turn day and night in his heart the beauty truly loved and much
desired after God by all intelligent and rational nature, and they bring her unceasingly not
only doxologies and hymns for her glory beyond words and thoughts, for her generous
mercy to the very bowels towards us and the supernatural gifts that come from there, but also
a pure life or, rather, purified forever and variously adorned with the varied beauty of virtues
as with a multi-coloured golden garment (Ps. 45: 8-9)".26
The doxological life of the Church presupposes a constant balance between the
dogmatic content of the hymns and their musical context. An unglorified dogma is a
spiritually enclaved reality, and a sentimental attitude that leads more towards pietism is
equally harmful to the dynamism of ecclesial life. It would be pretty straightforward here the
slippage of the pietist type movements which, emptying the doxology of the dogmatic
content, were left with simple chants, trained indeed, but useless in their soteriological
approach and role. The saints reflected the complementary and simultaneous aspects
necessary and valuable in the spiritual and dynamic ascent towards God, the Holy Trinity.
The Holy Spirit permanently accompanies the doxological dynamism; therefore, the
hymnographic treasury of the Church is part of the Holy Tradition with value about the Holy
Scriptures, but it is constantly renewed (Eph. 4, 23; Rev. 21, 5), step by step, epektatic, or
from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3, 18) towards the deification of human nature, that is, towards
its healing from every trace of corruption, sin and death. "With the presupposition of the
perpetual presence of God, through Christ, in historical reality, Christianity offers man the
possibility of deification, just as medical science offers man the ability to preserve or restore
his health through a certain therapeutic procedure and a concrete way of life. The writer can
understand the convergence between medical science and the pastoral science of the Church
because both the diabetic and the Christian are aware that, in both cases, they must faithfully
observe the prescriptions of the sciences indicated above in order to achieve their double
objective."27
25
Ibidem, p. 127.
26
Sfântul Teofan al Niceei, Datoria aducerii-aminte neîncetate de Maica Domnului atât prin laude, cât și
printr-o viață curată, in vol. Maica Domnului în teologia secolului XX și în spiritualitatea isihastă a secolului
XIV: Grigorie Palama, Nicolae Cabasila, Teofan al Niceei. Studii și texte, diac. Ioan I. Ică jr, Editura Deisis
2008, pp. 575-576.
27
P. Georgios Metallinos, Storia e Teofania. La storia per un cristiano è una continua teofania, traduzione dal
greco di Antonio Ranzolin, Asterios Editore, Trieste 2018, p. 95

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Life in Christ and the Church implies growth to the stature of the perfect man (Eph.
4, 13), and growth means perfection. Perfection means growth, i.e. a permanent
advancement in the knowledge of the dogmatic content and its liturgical expression through
doxological hymns. It leads to the Christocentric transformation of human capacities to
know, love and express. Dogmas are not lived in the Church as abstract definitions with a
strict scholastic meaning, but in order to emphasise their proper understanding and
essentially human feeling, the insight into their content through the grace of God is needed, a
process that is neither purely rational nor purely sentimental, later identifies and doxological
content with love and truth. "The inspiration of theologising through songs comes from
above, against an intense work of purification of passions. The songs are thus a pure
sacrifice and have their source in personal experience, like the prophets. The dogmatic role
of hymnography was often emphasised as a response to contemporary heresies, hymns being
recognised as a much easier medium for spreading both heresies and the teachings they
countered, acquiring, in some places, an analytical tone, a hymnology with theological
thesis, explanatory”.28
Revealed in their content, the dogmas were formulated with a soteriological purpose
by the Holy Fathers, whose thinking and thirst for theological and spiritual knowledge went
beyond simple formulations or definitions. They went towards conjugating the content with
psalmody, aware that their high theology could not express the God in His Being (Rom. 11,
33) but only in works through synergy with divine grace. This desire for dynamic
comprehension of the desire for theological knowledge and expression, which rises to the
Holy Trinity as authentic Theology, descends kenotically through songs and praises,
concluding that God in Himself, theoretically and practically, is incomprehensible in His
Being, but by the grace of the Holy Spirit theology becomes economy, dogma also becomes
doxology. The content of the teaching of the faith is constantly renewed and translated to
each generation's meaning in its history. This history becomes the medium of divine
discovery. Through the teaching of faith, or dogmatic, confessed or sung, the Church proves
that it assures man and the world of their true freedom in grace and truth, making them
continually increase in the love of God without the external restraint of some fatal and
inexplicable laws. "Dogmas refer to the spiritual plane of existence, which is not subject to
uniformly repeating laws, like the processes of the material plane. The spiritual plane of life
is supported by acts of free choice, by freely chosen relationships and developed by people
through acts and attitudes, to a certain extent, free from the material plane. Christian dogmas
are the lights of love offered by God to people, they are expressions and assurances of the
highest good."29, a fact for which the doxological hymn is, at the same time, a way of
expressing the revealed dogma and a concrete response to it. Strictly speaking, the Church
does not separate the theoretical content of the revelation from its liturgical manifestation,
and the laudatory song becomes, thus, a dialogical way between man and God on the
permanent support and constantly renewed in the Spirit, which is His discovery, which gives
us leads us to define hymnology as revelation and response, at that time, without the
pretence of making additional additions, but only as participatory experience and expression
in a complementary way.

28
† Damaschin Dorneanu, Dimensiunea mistagogică a Săptămânii Sfintelor Pătimiri. Elemente de
antropologie duhovnicească, Editura Crimca, Suceava 2022, pp. 329-330.
29
Dumitru Stăniloae, Iisus Hristos lumina lumii și îndumnezeitorul omului, Editura Anastasia, București 1993,
p. 157, 169.

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 ICOANA CREDINȚEI
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CONCLUSIONS
Psalmodising like angels, human minds learn from pure and angelic minds not only
the way of economic knowledge of theology but also the stages, or steps, of progress in this
direction, strengthening the experience and consciousness of ecclesial unity through love and
grace. Through the praise of hymns, we express the double purpose of our creation: the
glorification of God and the happiness of creatures, not in the sense that God would need our
doxology, which would constrain Him in His capacity as Creator, but by doxologising Him
our conscience is convinced that it cannot reach the level of what God is in Himself.
Therefore, we praise Him for all His beautiful things that we have become partakers of here
on earth, of our existence, constantly marvelling at His boundless power, opening ourselves
more and more with joy to His inexpressible Mystery, aware of the limitations of our nature
and of the fact that the praise brought to God is also a gift from His power and love towards
people. "The doxological understanding of life and mission, and the clearest expression of
this doxological disposition in our reflections, studies and missionary activities, does not
mean expressive acclamations to the glory of God, nor the limitation of our activities to
cultic, hymnological synaxes. It does not mean overestimating the other aspects of the
spiritual life, but, rather, encompassing and including them in an approach of articulation and
synthesis. Theological thinking, liturgical life, movement and daily activity pass through this
warm and hopeful doxological vision to another level; one that is far from any abstract
analysis, sentimental exaltations or expressions of self-responsibility. I become thirsty for
life in Christ, an inexhaustible source of spiritual light, doxological joy".30

30
† Anastasie, Caracterul doxologic al gândirii teologice și al vieții liturgice, in op. cit., p. 184.

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 ICOANA CREDINȚEI
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