“Will You Remember Me, O Lord?

” Commemoration of Non-
Orthodox Names in the Byzantine Rite of Proskomide1
Fr. Stelyios Muksuris, Ph.D.
Protopresbyter, Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Pittsburgh
Professor of Liturgical Theology and Languages, Byzantine Catholic Seminary, Pittsburgh, PA
Professor of Liturgy and Sacramental Theology, International Hellenic University, Thessaloniki, Greece

INTRODUCTION
I am happy to join you today in exploring a relatively uncharted area in Orthodox
liturgical studies, but one which I feel possesses immense importance for our understanding
of what the Church is meant to be. I am grateful to my friends and colleagues, Professors
Petros Vassiliadis and Nikos Dimitriadis for the invitation to speak on this topic, and to my
colleagues, Archbishop Dr. Lazar Puhalo and Rev. Dr. Pavlos Koumarianos for their
participation and for Deacon Dr. Daniel Galadza for coordinating this presentation.

I would like to preface my comments by first sharing with you a particular experience
I had when my family and I moved to Pittsburgh. We were introduced to an online Orthodox
prayer group, in which Orthodox persons would submit the names of others for whom the
members of the electronic mailing list would pray. What initially struck me as peculiar was
the distinction drawn between those persons who were Orthodox and those who were not.
For example, a list could look something like this: “John, Maria, Antonios, Markella” (with the
designation next to this grouping, “all Orthodox”), and then a separate listing: “Madison,
Harrison, Chelsea, Chase” (with the label, “not Orthodox”).

Now next to the names there was usually a brief description of the intention or
intentions for which the faithful were called to pray for these individuals, as well as their age.
Almost all of the time, the intentions were medically related — cancer treatment, an
upcoming surgery, end-of-life hospice care, and the like. The names could include infants or
centenarians; married, divorced, or single persons; male and female; Greeks, Americans,
Australians, Ukrainians, Russians, or Guatemalans. The common denominator for all these
groupings, certainly, is our common humanity — the fact that all human beings, created after
the divine image and likeness (cf. Genesis 1:26), belong to a fallen world and are susceptible
to its imperfections and fallen state. And all human beings — regardless of who they are,
where they are from, or to whom they belong — are in need of prayer and God’s healing and
redemptive grace. Why, however, the distinction?

Curious to understand this differentiation, I tactfully began to ask around, somehow

knowing (and fearing) in the back of my mind, the answer. I learned that the distinction is
essentially made for the Divine Liturgies celebrated in monasteries, and specifically for
commemorations made at the holy prothesis. The celebrant clergy in the katholikon of a
cenobitic monastery, during the preparatory rites that precede the Eucharistic Liturgy, do

1This lecture was delivered on April 29, 2022, as part of the Open Public Lectures 2021-2022 series, hosted by
the Center for Ecumenical, Missiological and Environmental Studies “Metropolitan Panteleimon Papageorgiou”
(CEMES). The author may be reached at: [email protected].

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not pray by name for those individuals who are not of the Orthodox Christian Faith; i.e. those
who have not been baptized and chrismated in the Holy Orthodox Church. The names
designated as Orthodox, however, are prayed for. I was correct in my suspicion, but this
distinction created for me a conundrum. How does prayer for an Orthodox Christian differ
from prayer for a non-Orthodox Christian? Is there a unique grace dispensed for the
Orthodox and a different one for the heterodox? Can we even dare to speak of a qualitative
difference in invisible grace? Highly unlikely, I would surmise, since here we are entering
into the interior life of the Holy Trinity, which of course remains a mystery.

Nevertheless, the more I thought about this problem, the more I began to realize that
the issue is an ecclesiological one, embedded deeply in the minds of the more conservatively-
thinking Orthodox amongst us. Inclusion of names in the holy prothesis has come to bear
several ecclesiological implications, not least of which is that those who are commemorated,
the living and the dead, belong to the one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. In other words,
those commemorated are essentially baptized and chrismated Orthodox Christians. Non-
Orthodox Christians, despite their professed faith in the Holy Trinity and their baptism in the
name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, are not remembered in the prothesis,
implying that they are not members of the one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church and,
therefore, not constituent members of the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is clearly a
contradiction here: where do the non-Orthodox Christians belong? Is there such a thing as a
sub-category of the Lord’s Body? And what is the relationship of the Orthodox to the non-
Orthodox? Of course, the greater question, which we will explore later, is one: what are the
boundaries of the Church and her grace? Is it even possible or appropriate to make such a
statement of qualification?

There is avowedly a related question that I would also like to explore. If a particularly
conservative wing of the Church insists on this dichotomy, does not this attitude undermine
the Church’s responsibility to missionary activity and social outreach? In the so-called Great
Commission spoken by Christ at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, the Church, through the
Apostles and her future leaders, is charged to “make disciples of all the nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe
all things that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19,20).

I dare say attitude because any tendency toward non-engagement with others,
generally speaking and on a psychological level, breeds suspicion, mistrust, potential hatred,
and even stereotyping. The longer this attitude is prolonged, the more deeply rooted racial
and creedal profiling becomes and, consequently, the more difficult it is to undo the damage.
Often heard is the statement: “We do not include the names of the non-Orthodox on the
prothesis but we can pray for them within other occasions or contexts.” How do those other
occasions or contexts differ from prayer offered in the Divine Liturgy? Are we, as Church
leaders, the gatekeepers of grace, the ones entrusted with discerning what the sacramental
boundaries of the Church are? If this is the case, are we not making decisions for God,
essentially controlling His hand to not bless those “not of this fold”, who must be brought by
the Holy Spirit to hear the Lord’s voice and message, which is one of love and compassion
and inclusion (cf. John 10:16)?

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 The purpose of my paper is threefold: (1) to understand the practice and the
implications of the commemoration of names in general by examining the historical sources,
especially relevant excerpts from the liturgical commentaries of the Late Byzantine
mystagogue St. Symeon of Thessaloniki; (2) on the basis of the historical evidence, to assess
the appropriateness or not of commemorating non-Orthodox Christians at the prothesis; and
(3) on the basis of whether or not non-Orthodox names are commemorated at the prothesis,
to rethink the boundaries of the Church and divine grace vis-à-vis the gift of Christ’s salvation
to the world.

A HISTORICAL EXAMINATION OF THE ISSUE — PRELIMINARY COMMENTS

It would seem that the omission of the heterodox from the commemorations made at
the holy proskomide is founded upon the belief that the Church is entrusted to maintain the
proper order (τάξις) and decorum within the liturgical rites. St. Paul speaks to this point
when he writes to the Christian population of Corinth: “Let all things be done decently and
in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40). Within the Holy Tradition of the Church, the observance of
proper order in worship translates into an acceptance of proper belief and practice. In other
words, within the realm of Orthodox liturgical theology, worship, like a seed, is arranged in
such a way so as to contain in itself the fullness and purity of doctrinal truth. And when it is
executed properly, it facilitates the conveyance of this truth and one’s participation in it.

This omission also speaks to the preconceived notion of what the Church is and who
belong to it. St. Symeon of Thessaloniki (+1429), the final great liturgical commentator of the
Late Byzantine period, offers a stunning apocalyptic vision of the Kingdom of God within the
Divine Liturgy. The image that is conveyed is one where the Church Triumphant and Church
Militant appear in full communion with each other and with the resurrected Lord Jesus
Christ, who is enthroned in His glory at the center of the redeemed cosmos and at the
threshold separating historical, or chronological, time (χρόνος) and eternity (καιρός).2 This
sublime image is manifested to the celebrant upon his completion of the preparatory rite of
the prothesis. Gazing down upon the paten now populated with the Lamb and the particles
excised from the prosphora loaves, the priest is invited to behold the vision that Symeon did:

But let us also see how through this divine model and the work of the holy
proskomide we perceive Jesus and His Church all as one, in the middle Him the true
light, from whom the Church has acquired life eternal, illumined and sustained by
Him. While He is in the middle through the bread, His mother [is present] through the
particle on the right, the saints and the angels on the left, and below everyone who
has believed in Him, the pious gathering. And this is the great mystery: God among
men and God in the midst of gods, who have been made gods by Him who is God by
nature and who was truly incarnated for them. And this is the future kingdom and the
commonwealth of eternal life: God with us, both seen and partaken of....” 3

2 For a discussion of the difference between kairos and chronos and their interdependent nature, see my book:
Stelyios S. Muksuris, Economia and Eschatology: Liturgical Mystagogy in the Byzantine Prothesis Rite (Boston,
MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2013), especially pp. 95-100.
3 St. Symeon of Thessaloniki, On the Sacred Liturgy 94 (PG 155.285AB). The Greek text reads: “Ἴδωμεν δὲ πῶς

καὶ διὰ τούτου τοῦ θείου τύπου καὶ τοῦ ἔργου τῆς ἱερᾶς προσκομιδῆς τὸν Ἰησοῦν αὐτὸν καὶ τὴν Ἐκκλησίαν
αὐτοῦ μίαν πᾶσαν ὁρῶμεν μέσον αὐτὸν τὸ ἀληθινὸν φῶς, τὴν ζωὴν τὴν αἰώνιον κεκτημένην, καὶ φωτιζομένην
ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ καὶ συνεχομένην. Αὐτὸς μὲν γὰρ διὰ τοῦ ἄρτου μέσον ἐστίν· ἡ Μήτηρ δὲ διὰ τῆς μερίδος ἐκ δεξιῶν·

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 The “pious gathering” (τὸ εὐσεβὲς ἄθροισμα) to which Symeon refers is comprised of
those who have believed in Christ (ἅπαν τῶν αὐτῷ πιστευσάντων). These individuals are
commemorated by name through the excision of particles for them from the prosphora loaf
or loaves used for that particular Divine Liturgy. Following the reception of holy communion
by the clergy and the laity, these same bread particles are carefully placed into the chalice,
along with the particles for the Theotokos and the nine orders of saints, accompanied by the
prayer: “Wash away, Lord, the sins of all those remembered here, by your precious blood,
through the prayers (of the Theotokos and) of all your saints.” 4 («Ἀπόπλυνον, Κύριε, τὰ
ἁμαρτήματα τῶν ἐνθάδε μνημονευθέντων δούλων σου τῷ αἵματί σου τὸ ἁγίῳ, πρεσβείαις
[τῆς Θεοτόκου καὶ] πάντων σου τῶν ἁγίων.»5)

In his commentary, Symeon appeals to liturgical realism. The bread particles that
mystically represent the souls of the living and the deceased constitute the Body of Christ.
To borrow an expression from St. Nicholas Cabasilas in his The Life in Christ, they are known
or recognized by God because they have been illumined in the baptismal laver of
regeneration. In the eschatological reality of the kingdom, they both see and are seen by the
resurrected Christ. And they receive forgiveness of sins and transgressions through the
intercessory activity, the love, and the sacrifice of the Mother of God and the saints, just as
the paralytic in the Gospel of Mark received forgiveness and healing through the faith and
sacrificial commitment of his friends who cleverly removed the roof of the house where Jesus
was staying and lowered their friend before Jesus to be healed (Mark 2:1-12).

This realism, in which a sacramental action within chronological time corresponds to

the dispensation of divine grace within fulfilled kairos, receives further application when
Jesus appears to His hiding disciples after the Resurrection. “And when He had said this, He
breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any,
they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’” (John 20:22-23). The
authority to remit or retain sin is transmitted to the Church by the Lord, to act in His physical
absence but never apart from His spiritual presence. Is, therefore, remission of sins applied
only to those who belong within the fold of Orthodoxy? What of those, like the Jews and the
Gentiles in Jesus’ day, who were not directly associated with Christ’s circle of followers?
Were they denied the benefit of forgiveness, healing, and the promise of redemption because
of life’s circumstances, namely, because they were not born Christians from the cradle (as if
such a thing were in fact at all possible)? And what of persons such as the father of the
demoniac in the Gospel of Mark, who humbly and openly confessed to Christ that his faith
was weak and incomplete: “Lord, I believe; Help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)? One could argue,

ἅγιοι δὲ καὶ ἄγγελοι ἐξ’ ἀριστερῶν· ὑποκάτω δὲ ἅπαν τῶν αὐτῷ πιστευσάντων τὸ εὐσεβὲς ἄθροισμα. Καὶ
τοῦτο ἐστι τὸ μέγα μυστήριον· Θεὸς ἐν ἀνθρώποις καὶ Θεὸς ἐν μέσῳ θεῶν, θεουμένων ἐκ τοῦ κατὰ φύσιν ὄντως
Θεοῦ σαρκωθέντος ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν. Καὶ τοῦτο ἡ μέλλουσα βασιλεία καὶ τῆς αἰωνίου ζωῆς τὸ πολίτευμα· Θεὸς μεθ’
ἡμῶν ὁρώμενός τε καὶ μεταλαμβανόμενος. . . ."
4 Ιερατικόν: Ἔκδοσις Ἀποστολικῆς Διακονίας τῆς Ἐκκλησίας τῆς Ἑλλάδος (=Ieratikon: A Publication of

Apostoliki Diakonia of the Church of Greece). Ed. Konstantinos Papagiannis (Athens: Apostoliki Diakonia,
2007), p. 143, note 63.
5 Ieratikon According to the Simonopetra Tradition. Volume 1. Trans. Silviu Bunta and Matthew Peter-Butrie.

(Dayton, OH: Cherubim Press, 2021), p. 119 in the footnote.

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certainly, that the father in the Markan account is an image of a non-Orthodox who had not
yet attained the fullness of the faith. Was the execution of a miracle denied him and his son
because of this personal handicap or deficiency? Certainly not! While in all likelihood the
man and his cured son subsequently followed Christ and embraced the Church, the initial
engagement with the Lord Jesus was positive: Christ made both persons complete not after
they joined His company but before. In other words, their names and their intentions were
remembered by God, who welcomed them into the company of the redeemed provisionally,
in the hope that they would later receive baptism and full inclusion among the saints of the
Church.

To better understand the ecclesiological boundaries of grace and priesthood, I wish

to approach this critical issue, prudently and judiciously, by basing my discussion on
previous research of mine6 that challenges the boundaries of the Church and, by extension,
the limitations of divine grace and the priesthood. I plan to achieve this through a review of
St. Symeon of Thessaloniki’s commemoration practices with regard to the population of
particles during the Byzantine prothesis rite. I do anticipate and pray that through this
discussion we will become “constructively uncomfortable”, as we seek to better understand
our liturgical attitudes and practices and the reasons behind them.

A HISTORICAL EXAMINATION OF THE ISSUE — THE SOURCES

Among the major Byzantine liturgical commentators who drew from the patristic
mystagogies of their predecessors, the eschatological significance of the prothesis rite is
most vividly expressed in the two important works of Symeon of Thessaloniki, namely, his
Explanation of the Divine Temple (hereafter E), and On the Sacred Liturgy (hereafter, L).7

The Commemoration of Names

In his commentary E 106-109, Symeon's description of the commemoration of the
names of the living and the dead, via the excision of particles and their distribution upon the
paten, suggests a realism in which the completed prothesis seems to “gather together” those
in the faith for whom forgiveness of sins and union in divine grace is procured. For those in
the faith, their inclusion on the diskos and their eventual immersion into the consecrated
Blood brings to perfection their “proximity” to the Lamb. Symeon writes in E 108:

6 Stelyios S. Muksuris, “Why the Last Should Be First: The Primacy of Eucharistic Eschatology in the Byzantine
Prothesis Rite — Toward a Theology of Ecclesial Unity”, in St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 59/2 (2015)
163-186.
7 St. Symeon of Thessaloniki's (d. 1429 A.D.) most important study of the Byzantine Liturgy may be divided into

two distinct sections: A Refutation of All Heresies and A Treatise on the Sacraments, both of which are modeled
after Pseudo-Dionysius' Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and Nicholas Cabasilas' Life in Christ. Constructed in the form
of a dialogue between a bishop and his clergy, Symeon's Treatise contains a crucial chapter entitled On the
Sacred Liturgy (Περὶ τῆς ἱερᾶς λειτουργίας, PG 155.253A-304C) which, together with an independent discourse
entitled Explanation of the Divine Temple (Ἑρμηνεία περἰ τοῦ θείου ναοῦ, PG 155.697A-749C), provides the two
best witnesses to Symeon's liturgical mystagogy. See S. Muksuris, Economia and Eschatology: Liturgical
Mystagogy in the Byzantine Prothesis Rite (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2013), pp. 23ff. For an
excellent critical translation of these two major liturgical commentaries, see also Steven Hawkes-Teeples, ed.
and trans. St. Symeon of Thessalonika: The Liturgical Commentaries (Toronto, Ontario: Pontifical Institute of
Mediaeval Studies, 2011), pp. 68-265.

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 The particle offered for someone itself also partakes immediately of His holiness. Placed
in the chalice, it is united with His blood. Therefore it passes on the grace to the soul for
whom it was offered. A spiritual communion therefore takes place. If the person is one
of those who strive for devotion or who have sinned and are repenting, he receives in
an unseen manner the communion of the Spirit in the soul.... 8

By the same token, those who are actively sinful but are commemorated regardless
before the Lamb are unfit for communion and so judgment passes to them, as it does to the
priest who accepts the bread offering knowingly from such individuals. Symeon cautions in
L 105 and E 109, respectively:

And there is no place here for unbelievers, let alone for the heterodox. “For what
communion does light have with darkness?” [2 Cor 6:14] since, scripture says, the
angels will separate out the evil from the midst of the just. [1 Cor 5:13] Therefore it is
also not at all right for a priest to make an offering for a heterodox or make a
commemoration of him; neither <is he permitted to do so> for those openly sinning and
unrepentant. For the offering is to their condemnation, just as it is also for the
unrepentant who receive communion of the awe-inspiring mysteries, as the divine Paul
says. [1 Cor 11:29; Rom 14:23] 9

But if someone is actively sinful, has not rejected his sins and is unfit for communion,
the sacrifice for him will be for his condemnation. Therefore the priest must be attentive
not to accept a prosphora from just anyone wishing to give one, and not to make an
offering on behalf of those who are actively <and> carelessly sinners, so as not to be
condemned with them.10

Symeon's strict prohibition in the prothesis of the commemoration of heterodox and

those outside of the good graces of the Church, such as the penitents and possessed, clearly
indicates a correlation between the interpersonal unity implied in the rite and ecclesial unity,
which logically then insinuates a unification to the Lamb in the eschatological Kingdom.
However, can the completed prothesis, as understood by the Byzantine mystagogue,
honestly define the boundaries of the Church, the eschatological Kingdom on earth? If the
prothesis is the image of the redeemed cosmos, on what grounds is the heterodox, profane
world --- for which the Church prays fervently at every divine synaxis --- excluded from the
Kingdom of God when, in fact, the imperfect and incomplete abound on both sides of the
fence?

The Excision of Particles for the Saints

Prior to the population of the paten with names commemorating the living and dead,
the priest excises particles for the Mother of God and the saints and angels in a hierarchically
flowing manner, who together form the apocalyptic "pious gathering" (τὸ εὐσεβὲς
ἄθροισμα)11 of heaven. They are memorialized and honored as co-participants in the divine

8 Symeon of Thessaloniki, Explanation of the Divine Temple 108; PG 155.748D-749A.

9 Symeon of Thessaloniki, On the Sacred Liturgy 105; PG 155.285B.
10 Symeon of Thessaloniki, Explanation of the Divine Temple 109; PG 155.749A.
11 See note 3 above.

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economy, who are united with the Lamb and with the redeemed faithful, and through whom
the faithful are united to Christ. Synergistic participation then in the salvific work of God in
Jesus Christ assimilates the angels and saints to Christ as the unitive force that draws the
world together. In L 82-83, he says:

And it is necessary that with the commemoration of the Lord, commemoration also be
made of His servants [the angels and saints] … and finally all of them together, since by
this sacred sacrifice both all angels and all holy men together have been united to Christ
and in Him have they been sanctified and unite us to Him. 12

Symeon admits in L 84 that the saints “also share in this awe-inspiring mystery as those
who have fought together for Christ, their glory and exaltation being greater by their
communion in the saving sacrifice, and they reconcile and join us to Him, and even more so
inasmuch as we commemorate them.”13

This intentional population of the diskos contributes in creating the eschatological

image of the redeemed Church, an icon of the transformed cosmos that is fully penetrated by
God's presence. The implied unity is certainly hierarchical and thus indirect (i.e. achieved via
intercession of the angelic and saintly orders), but also direct and unmediated, since the
eschatological Lamb can be “both seen and partaken of” unhindered by all in the Kingdom of
God.

Through Eucharistic communion (the particles with the consecrated elements and the
people who partake of the Lord's Supper) a vision of the entire Church, eschatological and
united, is attainable by the participants who have been been “blessed, sanctified, and shown
forth” to be what they were called to become,14 to paraphrase the epiklesis of the Basilian
anaphora.15 This sanctification, which can be understood as an outpouring of the Spirit, as a
permeation of the human being with the divine presence, effects a real unity in which God is
all in all. The primary recipient of this divine permeation, for Symeon, is the Mother of God,
since “She is graced above all and [is] especially holy and a god according to grace ... but not
God by nature.”16 And as the example par excellence of the prima inter pares, the head of
those “gods deified by grace” by virtue of the indwelling within her of the fiery Godhead, she
constitutes in her own person the very image of the hallowed Church filled completely with
the power and presence of Christ. In conclusion then, the eschatological image of the Church,
this assembly of “God in the midst of gods ... God with us, seen and partaken of”, is a unique,

12 Symeon of Thessaloniki, On the Sacred Liturgy 82-83; PG 155.281AB.

13 Ibid. 84; PG 155.281C.
14 “A holy people.” Cf. Leviticus 20:7; Deuteronomy 7:6, 14:2; Isaiah 62:12, et al.
15 "... we beg You and implore You, O Holy of Holies, that by the good pleasure of Your goodness, Your Holy

Spirit may come upon us and upon these gifts here set forth, and that He may bless [εὐλογῆσαι], sanctify
[ἁγιάσαι], and show forth [ἀναδεῖξαι] this bread ...", etc. The epiklesis from the Anaphora of Byzantine-Basil.
16 Hawkes-Teeples, p. 229; Symeon of Thessaloniki, On the Sacred Liturgy 102 (Excursus) and 87; PG

155.284AB: “... She is above all and closest to God; on the left are the particles for the angels and all the saints,
since all these hold the second rank; rather, their rank is in no way comparable to Her superiority. For through
Her, light shines on them, and from Her first we are saved through the saints. Because also through Her we
were united to God.”

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completely transparent and intimate fellowship between Creator and creature, in which the
ontological sustenance of the latter is secured by virtue of his or her total immersion in the
very life and existence of the former.

COMMEMORATION OR NOT OF NON-ORTHODOX NAMES AND IMPLICATIONS:

ASSESSING SYMEON’S PROHIBITIVE STANCE
In E 108-110 and L 105, St. Symeon's heightened realism in regard to Eucharistic
union with the eschatological Lamb takes on a disturbing, almost frightful, twist. The
archbishop of Thessaloniki utilizes strong language and pronounces judgment upon not only
those heterodox (i.e. non-Orthodox Christians) and open, unrepentant sinners whose names
are accidentally or deliberately commemorated at the prothesis, but also upon the priests
who knowingly excise such particles for them and deposit them near the Lamb. The practice,
for Symeon, is an abomination that procures punishment for the perpetrator since the
implication is that it promotes an impropriety in his conception of the hierarchical structure
and “ridicules” his notion of the eschatological Kingdom.

This condemnatory language follows immediately on the coattails of the

aforementioned central passage from L 94, in which Symeon envisions the eschatological
Church centered around its Founder. It would seem that only God is left in the midst of those
gods who have assimilated themselves into the ways of the Kingdom and are in direct union
with the exalted Lamb. No doubt Symeon has in mind the apocalyptic passage from Matthew
3:12,17 which polarizes the righteous from the unjust. He utilizes Pauline language to get his
point across, asking: “‘For what communion [κοινωνία] does light have with darkness?’ [2
Cor 6:14] since, scripture says, the angels will separate out [ἐξαροῦσι] the evil from the midst
of the just” [1 Cor 5.13].18

Two points here need to be made: (1) It is difficult not to perceive that Symeon's
unique mystagogy in the prothesis rite, specifically with regard to his language of
“separation”, corresponds to the familiar Christian practice of dismissing unbaptized
catechumens and lapsed Christians from the Eucharistic assembly. Since catechumens are
excluded from the Eucharist and so are denied communion until the time of their rebirth in
Christ by water, and since the prothesis reflects the eschatological Kingdom as manifested in
the earthly Church, it follows suit for the names of those who do not belong to the Church, or
whose relationship with the Church has been temporarily suspended, to likewise be
excluded from the commemorations on the paten. (2) This corresponding realism is
explicated by Symeon’s interesting but vague reference to prior patristic dialogue regarding
the particles and their significance. He writes: “Accordingly, a discussion has come down to
us from the fathers that the offered particles provide great advantage, for they are there in
place of the persons for whom they are offered [ἀντὶ γὰρ τῶν προσώπων εἰσὶν ὑπὲρ ὦν
προσάγονται], and are a sacrifice offered on their behalf to God, just as the priest says in
offering them: ‘Receive, Lord, this sacrifice.’”19 The excised particles, representing Christians

17 “His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat
into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
18 Symeon of Thessaloniki, On the Sacred Liturgy 105; PG 155.284B.
19 Symeon of Thessaloniki, Explanation of the Divine Temple 107; PG 155.748C.

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of orthodox faith and placed near the Lamb, receive a particular benefit for those in whose
stead they are offered. However, for those whose lives do not align with the dictates of the
Gospel or who are outside of the fold of the Church (at least in Symeon’s understanding) and
whose particles are placed near the Lamb, obtain punishment. What are we to make of all
this? A brief look into Symeon’s historical background is in order.

It is clear that in the twilight of the fall of Byzantium in 1453, several hundreds of
years had already transpired since the Eastern and Western churches alienated themselves
from each other. Symeon, the last great bulwark of the unadulterated Cathedral Rite, saw his
own church adopt the so-called Neo-Sabaitic Synthesis, much to his dismay. During his
episcopacy in the second largest city of Byzantium, he vehemently opposed the locals’ plea
to surrender to the Ottoman Turks and even more intensely against any intervention from
the West (specifically, to place the city as a protectorate under Venetian control following
the initial Turkish occupation from 1387-1403).20

Having been born in Constantinople less than a hundred years following the Frankish
occupation (1204-1261), Symeon’s anti-Latin sentiments are quite obvious in his
inflammatory, scathing writings, especially in his opening "Heresies" section of his
Dialogue,21 in which he blasts the Roman Church for adhering to a catalog of sins, which
include liturgical innovations and actions foreign to the Orthodox Church. 22 “This attitude,”
writes Hawkes-Teeples, “is connected with his conviction that only the Orthodox Church has
preserved the Christian tradition perfectly in all its details. If so, then what differs from
Byzantine Orthodoxy must be a rejection of the true ancient tradition of the Church.”23 As
Martin Jugie summarizes: “Every Latin usage in the sacraments, the rites, and discipline
which is different from Byzantine customs is criticized and censured, at times in violent
terms.”24 On the basis of this data, one can see how very limited and exclusive Symeon's
ecclesiology was, a world in which the redeemed commemorated on the paten shared not
only the Orthodox faith but also lived moral and repentant lives. One may wonder if those
considered by Symeon as “actively sinful” would include not only the Latins and the invading
Ottomans, but also those Byzantines who opposed Symeon's own theological and political

20 Hawkes-Teeples, pp. 18-23. As a person and an ecclesiastical leader, Symeon's persona was extremely
conservative and unbendable in his theological, social, ecclesiastical, and political views, alienating his fellow
bishops and his own laity, not to mention the Latins and Turks. His extreme positions were not only perceived
as unfair in their assessments by the populace, but arguably bordered almost on the paranoid and even
insulting.
21 PG 155.97-109.
22 Among these liturgical "anomalies", as Symeon interprets them anyway, are: abandoning the original way of

celebrating the Eucharist (clergy and laity do not receive from the same cup and non-concelebrations by
clergy); abandoning the ancient practice of fasting on Wednesday and Friday and fasting on Saturday; the
scandalous custom of allowing inter-familial marriages; the practice of ordaining priests outside the altar and
with an anointing that accompanies the laying on of hands; baptism by infusion (i.e. affusion), not triple
immersion, and leaving the baptized unchrismated and uncommuned until later in life; the multiplication of
monastic habits (i.e. orders), and not adhering to the rule of the lesser and greater habit; and open fornication,
with laity showing no remorse and Catholic clergy surrounded by their concubines and illegitimate children.
See Hawkes-Teeples, pp. 40-41.
23 Hawkes-Teeples, p. 39.
24 Martin Jugie, "Syméon de Thessalonique", in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique 14 (1941) 2983.

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views, in spite of their incorrectness or unfairness! Nevertheless, Symeon was proclaimed a
saint by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Holy Synod of the Church of
Greece 552 years following his death, on May 3, 1991.

This very conservative and circumscribed ecclesiology, as played out in Symeon's

preparatory rites, raises numerous problems that require serious thinking and viable
solutions from the Church, primarily because this “exclusive” policy of commemoration has
become the norm for Orthodox liturgists. And this policy of “selective exclusion” seemingly
muddles the waters of the Eastern Church with regard to where divine grace begins and ends
and to whom is given the injunction to be God’s priestly steward over creation by way of
“dispensing grace” in worship.

First, we are confronted with a series of contradictions. In the Divine Liturgy, the
Orthodox Christians pray “for the peace of the whole world, for the stability of the holy
churches of God, and for the union of all (καὶ τῆς τῶν πάντων ἑνώσεως)”, but in the prothesis,
only those of orthodox faith and polity are commemorated. How is it that we are inclusive in
one part of the liturgy and not in the other? In ancient Eucharistic anaphoras and litanies up
through the first three centuries, Christians prayed for the pagan Roman Emperor and all
civil authorities who often persecuted them, in keeping with the Pauline injunction in 1
Timothy 2:1-3.25 And with regard to the union of churches, the expression implies all of them,
in adherence to Christ’s high priestly prayer to the Father in John 17:22, “that they may be
one as We are one.” Otherwise, it would seem that salvation can be denied those who never
knew Christ or who knew Him not well enough. This places the priest or bishop into the
precarious position of judge or vicar, handling God’s work for Him without fully
understanding the loftiness of God’s ways and thoughts (Isaiah 55:9: “For as the heavens are
higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your
thoughts.”) and His evaluation of each individual’s life.

Second, is Symeon’s completed prothesis an image of the entire Church or of the

cosmos? Is there redemption outside the Church or only when this “dark” or “grey” area is
assumed within the graces of the one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church? Is it fair to ask if
the Church, as the expression of love incarnate, even has boundaries at all that include some
but exclude others? Is the basis of such actions only doctrinal faith and moral behavior? And
who outside of God can make such accurate assessments? Does not then the proskomide
become an elite grouping of folks content that they have nothing to do with those horrible
sinners outside the walls of the Kingdom (cf. Luke 18:11)? I am reminded of the humorous
little statement that says: “Don’t you know? Christ only came to earth to save the Orthodox
and was sure to do a background check before evangelizing them.”

25“Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all
men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and
reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.” While peaceful coexistence with the
heathen is Paul’s primary intent, the text does not necessarily preclude the possibility of the conversion of the
heterodox, as was often the case in history when the Apostles were under arrest and yet their example of faith
and endurance led their persecutors to a converted life in Christ.

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 Finally, I think there is a significant difference in how one understands the completed
prothesis: is it, according to Symeon, the redeemed and perfected Church chosen from
among the profane universe, or is it a real image of the imperfect cosmos in the process of
becoming perfect (cf. Matthew 5:48)? This question is more important than it seems, for I
believe it touches heavily upon the identity of the Christ as Redeemer and, consequently, the
role of the Church as the “extension of Christ through the ages.” If the prothesis only
encompasses the saved, then can we say that the Roman Catholic or Protestant or Buddhist
or areligious altruist is condemned to the fires of Gehenna while those religiously Orthodox
within the fold, whose unseen yet dubious morals and sinful behavior that define their inner
life, will be “conveniently” forgiven? Can Christ's role as φιλάνθρωπος ("lover of man") and
ἐλεήμων ("merciful") and δίκαιος κριτής ("righteous judge") ever be altered on the basis of
whom He judges? Are not these characterizations of Him constants rather than variables?

And then, what is the problem of grouping together the Orthodox with the non-
Orthodox anyway, especially when in truth we neither know definitively their eschatological
outcome or ours? If exclusion implies suspicion and rejection, would this not contribute to
our own prideful self-justification and thus impede our own salvation? And how would such
an “impropriety” offend or corrupt the incorruptible God or even obstruct the salvation of
others? One cannot embrace the world in theory and simultaneously remain xenophobic, not
acknowledging our common humanity and refusing to stand in solidarity with our brothers
and sisters who, although different from us, still share our imperfections and struggles but
also our aspirations.

BOUNDARIES OF THE CHURCH AND SACRAMENTAL GRACE — A NEW PERSPECTIVE

Of course, the overarching ecclesiological question with regard to communion is,
what are the sacramental boundaries of the Church? I am inclined to think they are much
broader than Symeon claims. The current execution of the prothesis rite with regard to the
commemorations, at least in theory, reflects this conservative exclusionary mindset, but I
believe it contradicts Christ's eschatological mission and, by extension, the Church’s vocation
to evangelize and embrace the entirety of humanity.

I want to be clear though: I am by no means advocating, on the basis of my proposed

broadening of Symeon's ecclesiology, the possibility or necessity of intercommunion.
Geoffrey Wainwright's controversial argumentation in favor of intercommunion bases itself
on communion as corrective and creative rather than on agreement about doctrine. 26
Nonetheless, I do not know that there should be a direct correlation between sharing the
common chalice and sharing a place on the paten, any more than what we currently do in the
Divine Liturgy anyway, namely, praying for the heterodox and lapsed but not including them
on the diskos. For the baptized and chrismated Orthodox Christians, our inclusion on the
paten and receiving communion are expected, in that we follow Christ's injunctions to “do
this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19) and “abide in me” (John 15:4). Faithfulness to these
commandments assures us of salvation. For those outside the fold, however, sacramental
communion in something which they do not believe seems nonsensical. On the other hand,
it seems awfully farfetched to me that if Christ is the Savior of the world and the entire cosmos

26 Wainwright, pp. 175-181.

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is the recipient of God's redemptive graces, can the prothesis as very image of the
eschatological Kingdom be populated only by the “perfectly” Orthodox? What is the “fate” of
the others and should we care? And if our attitude borders on the dismissive and apathetic,
how does that justify a “place of honor” next to Christ? These are challenging questions to be
sure, but they must be asked. So, in sum, sacramental division and exclusion cannot occlude
our acceptance of others “unlike” us who share our common humanity and our attempts,
even in liturgy, to “incarnate” ourselves into their very reality and to love them as God does.

The Church’s prothesis rite, to be sure, presents to us a noble eschatological image of

a redeemed universe. The created order returns to a theocentric nucleus, and man returns
to his vocation of priestly steward over God’s cosmos. The rite invites us to assume this role
in our personal and communal lives. However, I also believe it confronts us with the
challenge to consider expanding the borders of the Church, not necessarily in a sacramental
sense but in a humanitarian and moral sense, to assume the entire family of the human race
into the Kingdom as recipients of grace and the prophetic calling to protect and shepherd the
creation, “to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:19; Isaiah 61:2).

CONCLUSION
Admittedly, I have not discussed nor have I fully analyzed the historico-liturgical
development of the commemoration of names in the prothesis rite. Instead, I have honed in
on a particular Late Byzantine witness, Symeon of Thessaloniki, whose vision of the
redeemed Church, conservative and exclusionary, included only those belonging to the
Orthodox Church. Such a strict stance certainly conflicts with the more permissive style we
encounter in the Eucharistic Liturgy, in which the Church is invited to pray for the entire
world, albeit in generic categories and not by individual name. Why this discrepancy?

Time will not allow me to enter a full discussion of the reasons for this inconsistency,
but perhaps we can summarily mention a few. First, the commemoration of names at the
holy proskomide is the final stage of the prothesis rite’s development, especially by the end
of the eleventh century as evidenced by church manuscripts. Sources indicate that by the
ninth century, following the Byzantine Church’s victory over Iconoclasm, the liturgical rites
became more self-contained as church’s became more popularly smaller, with a historically-
oriented iconographical program, and stational liturgies became less popular. Consequently,
the privatized office of the prothesis appears by the late eighth-ninth century. The much
earlier stratum of the Synaxis, whether combined with the Eucharist or not, included prayers
for the Gentiles, Jews, and other non-Christians, including political leaders and catechumens.

Secondly, the commemoration of specific names during this privatized rite seems to
reflects a later layer that supplemented the more ancient practice of verbally praying for
others within the context of petitions. I submit that the victory of the Iconophile emperors,
monks, and clergy, was not only lauded by the Church but the Church sought to memorialize
ad aeternum the heroes of the faith by including them in diptychs for prayerful
commemoration. Rendering the real presence of the risen Christ during the consecratory
Eucharistic prayer then helped to facilitate the procurement of benefits for those
remembered in the diptychs (pace St. Cyril of Jerusalem and his theology of the efficacy of
prayer before the fearsome sacrifice — ἡ φρικοδέστατος θυσία), and these benefits were

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issued forth from the consecrated Lamb on the paten to the particles representing the living
and dead.
Finally, the overall tendency toward clericalism, especially during the twilight of the
Great Schism, seems to have fueled within the East a need to delineate the borders of the one
holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. The inclusion of names on the diskos deliberately
signified those who constituted the true Church and remained in her good graces, while the
exclusion of names signified an expulsion of those whose faith and affiliation remained
incompatible with the perceived orthodoxy of the East. What may have been justified in the
eleventh century as a need to maintain appropriate taxis seems to have conveyed instead a
xenophobic and suspicious attitude toward fellow Christians at the “wrong” end of the same
Church, who are simultaneously, to a degree, victims of the consequences of history.

Many years ago in a talk, I recall stunning my audience by postulating that the Church
is not the sole possessor of a creed of faith. This was not the scandalous part; what raised
eyebrows was when I submitted that God too stands by an equally important creed of faith
— in man. Whereas on this side of the Kingdom we recite our belief in “one God, Father
Almighty”, on the other side the Triune God affirms His faith in the value, beauty, and dignity
of humankind, despite our fallen nature. In a sense, we can dare say that God “binds Himself”
to this creed; otherwise, the divine economy would never have been willed and our Nicene
Creed would never have seen the light of day. God’s creed in man unites humanity; our
presumably different creeds in God seem to separate us.

Symeon of Thessaloniki’s astounding apocalyptic vision in the prothesis is clearly

remarkable and reflects a particularly unique ecclesiological stance. I believe, however, that
the ecclesiological boundaries can certainly be extended further, precisely because our
evangelical theology, which gives birth to the Church’s fundamental missionary activity (cf.
Mt 28:19-20), demands our incarnational engagement with the world around us. The
centrality of the apocalyptic Lamb, both biblically and liturgically, as “the true light, from
whom the Church has acquired life eternal, illumined and sustained by Him”, facilitates this
vision for all the ones commemorated. However, this revelatory illumination is not one that
only exposes the proper relationship that does or should exist between God and His people;
it likewise reveals to each person the truth about himself and the truth about those around
him who share the same light of knowledge. In other words, the so-called Isaian “knowledge
of the Lord” is simultaneously a recognition and acceptance of the community of the human
race that shares our fallenness and for whom the Incarnation happened. Our true knowledge
of God is validated by and is contingent upon our ability and willingness to see the cosmos
as God does and intends it to be, even if it means seeing other non-Christian religions and,
specifically, other churches and its members not as voluntarily heretical or schismatic or
even lapsed, but simply as incomplete, yet worthy of incarnational love and fellowship. I
submit that following the acquisition of great knowledge comes the application of wisdom,
which is the responsibility of priestly stewardship over the cosmos in synergy with the God
of love we call our Father.

In the end, this Kingdom of unity in the Triune Godhead brings many “from east and
west” to the eschatological banquet (cf. Matthew 8:11) and invites the most incompatible of
guests, the wolf and the lamb (cf. Isaiah 11:6-9), to attain this pristine vision together. This

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transformation, as in Pentecost, is intended to create a singular unity among many, not in the
globalization sense in which one risks losing their identity in exchange for one that is
imposed upon them, but one that precisely preserves and promotes the already-existing
common identity that all of humanity shares, the lofty calling to theosis — the invitation to
keep company with “God among men, God in the midst of gods.”

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