Address of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to the 52nd International Eucharistic Congress\u00a0(Budapest, 4-12 September 2021)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your Holiness, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your Eminence Cardinal P\u00e9ter Erd\u0151,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your Eminences, Excellencies,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dear participants,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is a great privilege and blessing for us to attend the closing ceremony of the 52nd<\/sup> International Eucharistic Congress at this historic and holy place, in the impressive city of Budapest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Eucharist forms the kernel of ecclesial life, it is the \u201cimage of the whole Economy of our Lord\u201d (Nicholas Kabasilas). The Greek word for this sacrament, \u03b5\u1f50\u03c7\u03b1\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03af\u03b1<\/em>, means \u201cthanks.\u201d It reminds us that our lives and the entirety of creation are not our property, but rather they are a precious gift of God the Creator. The proper response for receiving this gift is gratitude and doxology. \u201cOur service to God is fundamentally doxological in nature and essentially Eucharistic in character,\u201d as the recently published Document, For The Life Of The World, Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church<\/em>, correctly notes (\u00a7 1). The world is given to us to be transformed and returned to God in thanksgiving and with complete joy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Celebrating the Eucharist, we offer to God His own in the form of bread and wine, which represent the whole of creation. God transforms these gifts into a mystery of communion, \u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd\u03af\u03b1<\/em>, for the sake of the life of humans and the world. Everything is restored to its original being and purpose, just as how the Creator intended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What we are experiencing in Holy Communion cannot be separated from our life in the world in all its dimensions. The believers who unite themselves with the Lord in the Eucharist must live eucharistically in the world; they ought to experience their presence and actions as the \u201cliturgy after the Liturgy.\u201d As the Encyclical<\/em> of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church in Crete (June 2016) inspiredly affirmed, \u201cParticipation in the holy Eucharist is a source of missionary zeal for the evangelization of the world. By participating in the holy Eucharist and praying in the Sacred Synaxis for the whole world (\u03bf\u1f30\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7<\/em>), we are called to continue the \u201cliturgy after the Liturgy\u201d and to offer witness concerning the truth of our faith before God and mankind, sharing God\u2019s gifts with all mankind\u201d (\u00a7 6).<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u03a4he believer, as an ecclesial being, who draws the fullness of its identity from the Eschata, cannot remain enclosed in the certainty and self-sufficiency of personal salvation. Indeed, it cannot be introverted and indifferent but rather it is creative and open, a human being with youthful breath, an existence full of joy and hope. \u201cYou are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.\u201d (Mt. 5:14-15). A closed and gloomy Christian is a lampstand placed \u201cunder the basket.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Worship, spiritual and pastoral life, the synodal structure and function of the Church and Christian witness in the world are nourished from the Holy Eucharist. As Metropolitan John of Pergamon states, \u201cnothing is more \u2018truly catholic\u2019 than the Holy Eucharist. It is there where all things end up and are achieved: Baptism, repentance (= asceticism), art, and everything else belonging to the human existence and life, as well as the life of the entire creation.\u201d [1] In the eucharistic Liturgy, the Church gathers the faithful to one body, without any distinction of race, gender, age, independent of social, cultural or financial status, to a community of love, which depicts the eschatological Kingdom of God. Indeed, the Liturgy is not only the place of a vertical encounter of each of the believers with God but a union of them in a community, a real \u201csocial event.\u201d We cease to be individuals, becoming \u201crelational beings.\u201d Summarizing the ecclesiology of our great predecessor, Saint John Chrysostom, the Metropolitan of Pergamon notes the following, \u201cThe world will not be saved through the Church\u2019s help<\/em>, but rather, through becoming Church [\u2026]. If Christ is the only Saviour of the world, this is because He is the Church. Whoever attempts to reach Christ by bypassing the Church, wastes his time.\u201d [2]<\/p>\n\n\n\n The eucharistic spirit has a tremendous transformative power for society. This way of life is the correct answer to major contemporary challenges, such as ecological problems and the violation of human rights. In this sense, the initiatives of our Church for the protection of the natural environment and the culture of solidarity were not an occasional reaction to the relative problems today, but they are rooted in the eucharistic experience and theology. This crisis was simply an opportunity for the Church to express the eucharistic disposition, to act according to this traditional ethos. The very life of the Church is applied ecology and solidarity, a school of ecological awareness and social responsibility. Consequently, every objectivation and exploitation of creation and our fellow human beings distort Christian cosmology and anthropology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Your Holiness,<\/p>\n\n\n\n Esteemed members of the audience,<\/p>\n\n\n\n Life goes on, generations come and go, and we Christians have an unwavering certainty that the future, independent of all developments and the unexpected, will be salvific in Christ, who is the \u201calpha and omega,\u201d \u201cthe beginning and the end\u201d (See: Rev.<\/em> 22:13). The Church as the \u201cgreat mystery,\u201d as \u201cthe miracle of the New\u201d in the world, it will remain unto the ages a place of renewal and sanctification, a life of love and service, the foretaste of the final revelation of the fullness of the Divine Economy in the heavenly kingdom. The eucharistic realization of the Church in the common chalice and the shared Christian witness in the world is the vision and the dream of all of us who experience the continually existing division of Christianity as a fact, which, as Father Georges Florovsky aptly stated, \u201caccording to the plan of God should not have taken place.\u201d For this great Orthodox Theologian of the last century, Christians everywhere \u201cin some way belong to the same spiritual space.\u201d It is not a matter of \u201cparallel traditions\u201d but of a single tradition, which was distorted and alienated. There is an \u201coriginal association with a common past,\u201d which we are always called to remember. Despite their specificities, \u201cEast and West organically belong together in the unity of Christendom.\u201d They cannot be conceived in and of themselves; they do not comprise self-sufficient, \u201cseparate entities.\u201d [3] \u201cIn the course of their history, they have more points of contact than of conflict or controversy.\u201d As Florovsky said, they could be called \u201ccultural sisters,\u201d or, even, \u201cSiamese twins.\u201d [4]<\/p>\n\n\n\n We pray to the merciful God to strengthen and bless our endeavours to advance on the path to unity. When we reach this goal, the truth of Father Alexander Schmemann\u2019s phrase will be revealed in its entirety and depth: \u201cThe Church has been founded to celebrate the Eucharist.\u201d [5]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you for your kind attention! <\/p>\n\n\n\n _____________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n [1] John D. Zizoulas, \u201c\u1f29 \u1f48\u03c1\u03b8\u03cc\u03b4\u03bf\u03be\u03b7 \u0398\u03b5\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03af\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03af \u03bf\u1f31 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03ba\u03bb\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 21\u03bf\u1fe6<\/sup> \u03b1\u1f30\u03ce\u03bd\u03b1,\u201d in \u039a\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u039b\u03cd\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd<\/em>, (Megara: Evergetis, 2014), 249.<\/p>\n\n\n\n