By the Very Reverend John W. Fenton
Lex orandi, lex credendi. That axiomatic phrase concisely summarizes the interplay between liturgy and dogma in Orthodoxy theology. Lex orandi, lex credendi means, “the rule of prayer is the rule of faith.” More idiomatically, “what we pray determines what we believe.” Or, using a translation-lite theory: “If you mess with the liturgy, you are messing with the faith.”
As I’ve said in another place, this ancient phrase explains why Orthodoxy does not have one collection of confessional statements like the Lutherans and Calvinists; why Orthodoxy does not have one “explains-all” catechism like the Roman Catholics; and why we should be suspicious of any dogmatic textbook that definitively declares, “Here’s what we believe.” Lex orandi, lex credendi also explains why it’s not only insufficient but dangerous to read, podcast, or YouTube your way into Orthodoxy. Our faith is not a systematic, logical, mental activity. Our faith is a mystical, divine-human experience. The prayer we have received by the Spirit in the Church is the prayer that forms and determines what we believe. What we believe are found exclusively and definitively in the Mass, the Divine Office, and the Ritual. If it’s not in the liturgy, we don’t believe it. Which means that our Orthodox dogmatics do not influence, correct, or define our liturgy; rather, our liturgy defines, corrects, and refines Orthodox dogmatics. That’s lex orandi, lex credendi.
I.
What this means, then, is that we don’t worship in a particular way or with these or those phrases because they best fit our belief-system. That theory reverses the phrase, making it: lex credendi, lex orandi. In other words, how I must adjust the prayer and the liturgy to fit what I believe. When that happens, dogma determines worship. And catechetics—the method of teaching the faith—now defines the words used in worship. That’s the Protestant idea, which has now successfully infected modern Roman Catholic liturgics. This gross inversion of the phrase sees liturgy as primarily didactic—it’s there to teach and to reinforce the church’s creed. In other words, liturgy merely inculcates already determined doctrines. When liturgy is chiefly or exclusively pedagogical, then liturgical phrases, liturgical actions, and liturgical directions can—and sometimes must—be changed to fit chosen doctrinal emphases. This didactic view of liturgy gave Martin Luther the permission to castrate the Mass by eliminating the Canon, which is the heart and center of the liturgy, because notions of Eucharistic sacrifice did not fit his theory of atonement. The marriage rite was also changed because it did not fit his sacramental system. And the Divine Office—the breviary—was reduced and gutted so that it might be more about getting through the Bible, getting through all the Psalms, and teaching Scripture, rather than realizing that, since the time of the Davidic temple, certain Psalms are meant for specific times and days, as well as the godly repetition of main themes.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with teaching. But the liturgy is not a school; the homily is not an apologetics, polemics, or an inculcating lecture; and the Breviary is not a differently organized Bible. Liturgy teaches, but liturgy is not about teaching or for teaching. Liturgy is not about immediate, accessible understanding. Liturgy is about prayer, about approaching the Most Holy One, using words crafted by the Holy Spirit, handed down in the Holy Spirit, and implanted in the heart by the Holy Spirit. When we see that, then liturgy is not reformed because of doctrine. Instead, doctrine serves liturgy. Doctrine explains liturgy. Doctrine is reformed by liturgy. And furthermore, catechetics—like Bible reading and Bible study and teaching the Christian faith—this is simply slowing down and letting us chew on what we’ve heard and experienced in the Mass. That’s lex orandi, lex credendi.
II.
There are some who eschew Protestantism and Romanism, but who still run with the flipped phrase; who still operate as if dogma needs to correct worship. Based on this unOrthodox lex credendi, lex orandi, these well-meaning folks do some anachronistic reverse engineering. Here’s the thinking: because the Church of Rome is rightly determined to be in error about this or that, and because it is correct to say that doctrine comes from the liturgy, therefore there must be something in their liturgy—the Mass, the Divine Office, the Ritual—that needs to be fixed so that we Orthodox are not infected with the same error or errors. “Since their dogma is wrong,” goes the thinking, “their liturgy must be wrong or at least carry the seeds for their error.” It’s a neat syllogism, but the premise is wrong, and therefore the conclusion is wrong.
This incorrect syllogism is certainly the thinking of Protestants vis a vis Rome. And so, the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Anglicans changed the received Latin liturgical texts—Mass, Office, and Ritual—in order to fit their pre-determined dogmas. Examples include expunging references to (i) the intercession and merits of the saints, (ii) Mary as ever-Virgin, (iii) notions of eucharistic sacrifice, (iv)the liturgical use of the deutero-canonical books; and (v) the nature and purpose of sacraments. (Of course, they ironically kept the filioque—which is not really a liturgical issue per se; but more on that later.) In a similar way, reverse engineering the errors of Rome leads to the suspicion that certain phrases must be altered or corrected in order to purify or “orthodize” the liturgies prayed by St Gregory, St Leo, St Patrick, or St Boniface. Yet in most cases, what some seek to change are phrases that pre-date any thought a Great Schism; they slice or alter prayer whose Orthodoxy has never been questioned until lately. What is revealed, regrettably, is that Orthodoxy sometimes is infected with the Protestant bug in order to root out the Roman error.
As I said earlier, such reverse engineering is anachronistic, and the syllogism is false. That’s because (a) the doctrinal errors of Rome do not come from the liturgy; (b) the doctrinal errors of Rome post-date the liturgy; and (c) the doctrinal errors of Rome are, for the most part, a catechetical errors. The Latin liturgy which we’ve received has not changed in essence since 600 AD. That liturgy, both in Missal, Ritual, and Breviary, remains Orthodox. What has changed, both in Rome and outside Rome, are the explanations or redefining of various terms which have been twisted the liturgical, Orthodox patristic understanding of the church’s tradition. In other instances, the liturgy is virtually ignored in dogma or teaching thereby rendering it merely an archaic means of prayer which is disconnected, more or less, from the church’s teaching. In both cases, the fault does not necessarily or inevitably lie within the liturgical texts. Lex orandi, lex credendi remains true; however, the credendi is no longer informed by the orandi; rather, dogma has run over liturgy letting credendi define orandi.
Not to put too fine a point on it, the 19th century Holy Synod of Moscow understood that the Latin liturgical texts were still in line with lex orandi, lex credendi. And so, following 1000 years of Eastern councils and fathers, the Moscow Synod did not blame the Latin orandi, but approved the Latin liturgical texts (Missal, Breviary, Ritual) without correction. One might think there were two exceptions. First, the filioque was rightly omitted, but not because there was a liturgical error but because the insertion perpetuated a canonical error. And second, by pastoral provision, the request was made to insert an epiclesis, not because of some deficiency in the Latin Canon but to make explicit what is already implied in the Canon (and stated explicitly in the Offertory prayers and the required Præparatio ad Missam prayers). In these two instances, the axiom lex orandi, lex credendi was not violated because dogma was not being used to correct liturgy; rather, the liturgy was discharging a foreign element (filioque) and bringing to the fore what was already present (epiclesis). In the end, then, the Holy Synod of Moscow, together with the Holy Synods of Constantinople, Antioch, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, and others have seen and acknowledged the true faith within the Latin liturgy, not by examining doctrinal disputes but by praying the prayers. That’s lex orandi, lex credendi.
III.
Another fine Latin phrase is this: crede ut intellegas. St Augustine coins this phrase when he is homiletically explicating Isaiah 7.9. He rebuffs the pre-scholastic view that one must understand in order to believe. Instead, St Augustine holds the Orthodox line: Believe in order to understand. Crede ut intellegas. Notice the order. Belief precedes understanding. Belief shapes understanding.
And where does belief come from? The prayer in the liturgy. Our liturgy establishes faith, which then in turn confesses with the mouth and explains doctrinally using the intellect. The prayer shapes the creed which transforms the intellect.
People are instructed in the truths of faith, and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion far more effectually, by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any official pronouncement of the teaching of the Church. … The Church’s teaching affects the mind primarily; her feasts affect both mind and heart, and have a salutary effect upon the whole of man’s nature.
In brief, the experience of God is more beneficial and pastorally practical than cognitive understanding of God. God comes to us incarnationally in prayer—not chiefly in individual prayer, but in prayer as His Body and within His Body. This practical experience that every human needs to have with God must be driven not by beliefs—whether imposed or self-chosen—nor by values, nor by propositional doctrines. Rather, the practical experience that every human needs to have with God must be rooted in an unchanging pattern of worship which God Himself revealed and established beginning in the days of Adam and which has grown, with increasing clarity, in the Church.
Lex orandi, lex credendi is shorthand for ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi. The law of faith is established by the way we pray. The axiom states that primary, real and authentic theology is when we experience Our Lord God in His holy worship, His liturgy. In Academia, this means that the liturgy is “primary theology.” Liturgy is the source of all theology—dogmatic, historical, pastoral, and even exegetical and biblical theology. In the words of Fr Schmemann, the liturgy is the ontological condition for theology. Therefore, “primary theology” refers to the foundation, the imprimis, the “first things,” for any talk about God. Secondary theology—which is catechetical and doctrinal—builds on primary theology. Primary theology, which is the liturgy, establishes and gives the outline for dogma, which is secondary theology.
The prayer, the orandi or supplicandi, is of greatest importance because it gives the fertile ground (statuat) to root the credendi. What we pray matters not simply because we have been told to pray and given prayers; it matters because that is where our faith is located; not just expressed, but fashioned and shaped. If it’s not in the liturgy, then we don’t believe it.
That was a seismic shift in my thinking that led me out of Lutheranism and swung me away from Romanism. Together with Calvinism and its better dressed cousin Anglicanism, post-Vatican II Romanism and all Protestantism rely more and more on doctrinal formulations as the true foundation of theology. The “What we believe” page on their websites are more important than the invitation to “come and see” or “taste and see” or a peek at their livestream. Hence, when I went looking for what the Orthodox church believed and taught, I discovered that we believe what we pray; and what we don’t pray is of no, or little, or lesser importance on our “doctrine-chart.” That’s lex orandi, lex credendi.
What happens, then, when we come across a phrase that just sounds “off”? It might be off-putting because of our upbringing, or because it seems to sound like “the other guys,” or because it seems to say too much; or when the orandi challenges our understanding of the credendi? In other words, it’s a liturgically cringy phrase.
The first response is to recall that the Orthodox phronema employs a ministerial use of reason in regard to the lex orandi. In other words, we submit our notions to the prayer and let the liturgical texts be the ultimate arbiter since the liturgy determines the faith; our understanding and interpretations bend to the received text; and academic pursuits aid in explaining what is given but do not determine or dictate the established liturgical practice. Moreover, altering, changing, or omitting liturgical phrases would be editing texts that not only pre-date the schism, but which have been understood correctly in the church’s tradition. Additionally, editing reverses the Orthodox understanding of prayer establishing creed, making the dogma correct the liturgy rather than letting the prayer establish the creed. Such editing suggests an understanding of the development of doctrine that the Orthodox Church has routinely rejected. For the Orthodox, development means that we refine our articulation of the unchanging faith, not that the faith itself has changed due to refined understandings of dogmatic formulae, biblical exegesis, and better ressourcement.
Based on the axiom that our doctrines are the result of faithful longstanding liturgical texts that precede our current theological hang-ups or crises, permit me to suggest that the best response is to live with the tension the liturgy may create in the mind; that is, to let the prayer stew in our hearts and minds so that these ancient, time-tested, Orthodox phrases may shape and mold our faith and, most importantly, govern our catechesis. Rather than giving into the Protestant notion of changing or deleting the words, the off-putting words need to be retained while the richness of their original meaning is taught. That’s lex orandi, lex credendi.
Finally, what needs to be made clear is the most important principle of all concerning Orthodox liturgy. The liturgy, as we have received it, is a living prayer inspired by and flowing from the Holy Spirit. To say it simply, the Orthodox liturgy—in whatever rite—is of the Holy Spirit in the same way that the Scriptural texts are of the Holy Spirit. For not only does the Scripture form most of the liturgy, that same Spirit who inspired holy men of God to speak the writings we now call “Scripture” is the same Spirit who inspired equally holy men of God—and their Spirit-ordained successors—to offer the prayers we pray. Since this is the case, altering hard-to-grasp phrases in the liturgy is as troublesome as editing similar phrases in the Holy Scriptures. For both are canon—both Scripture and liturgy contain the norm or standard of Christian faith and practice.
V.
What I’ve discussed above is based on texts found in the Mass, the Breviary, and the Ritual. But liturgy is more than texts. If lex orandi was concerned only with the printed, spoken, or sung words, then the priest, ministers, and choir would simply need to declaim those words without any care for ambiance, musical style, or liturgical arts. However, orandi includes the setting as well as the jewel; the context as well as the text. That context is described in the rubrics, both general and picayune, in order to convey the credendi into hearts and minds. To say it another way, “the belief in the Real Presence is powerfully demonstrated, especially in the numerous gestures of reverence.” Perhaps these examples may suffice.
In the Latin Mass and in the Byzantine Divine Liturgy, it is not merely customary that the hand of the bishop or priest be reverenced with a ceremonial kiss (osculum). Rather, kissing the hand indicates that the one dressed up as Christ is to be treated as Christ, since the bishop or priest acts in the stead or even in the person of Christ (in persona Christi). This is, after all, why these presiders wear vestiture resembling both the clothing of Old Testament priests as well as that same clothing worn by the Christ-figure in some of the earliest crucifixes. For not some well-trained, articulate, intelligent theologian is standing before the faithful; rather “Christ is in our midst.” The orandi with kisses demonstrate this; as they do also when the altar is kissed at various points, when the Gospel book is kissed, and when various blessed objects are reverenced with a kiss. How the prayer is conducted creedally instructs that things are seen to be precious because of the Precious One.
Similarly, in the Western tradition, the priest is instructed never to look directly at the faithful (except, perhaps, during the homily). This “custody of the eyes” is not merely a court ceremonial from a bygone culture, a bygone era. Like the kisses, downcast eyes convey that the presider is not the center of attention; that he stands in for One greater than he; and that what matters most is the life-creating, life-transforming, life-invigorating Word who stands before the faithful in the person of the priest. The notions surrounding the custody of the eyes can also apply to other bodily expression by both priest and servers. In the mind of the orandi, gestures and movements, of whatever kind, are not grand and large, designed to attract attention or demand; rather, they are subtle in order not to distract but to indicate the credendi of Christ’s graciousness and kindly invitation.
The rubrics also direct that vestments, vessels, and other appointments are to be of the best quality possible. While this context certainly can and does teach, that is not its purpose. The credendi is derived from the liturgy, not driving it. And so, the orandi is not performance art nor a way to engage the emotions. Liturgical prayer invites one into an on-going celestial event; an event where we are blessed to experience, if only in brief glimpses, the magnificent sounds, sights, smells, and beauty of the “marriage feast of the Lamb in the kingdom which has no end.”
VI.
Here, then, is the heart of the matter. Orthodox theology begins, is grounded in, and finds its nature and purpose in liturgy. Liturgy, as we’ve received it both West and East, is the sine non qua for Orthodoxy. Change, alter, edit, cancel, omit, or ignore liturgical texts with their actions, and you run the grave risk—if not the actual possibility—of changing the Orthodox faith. Now this doesn’t mean that liturgy hasn’t changed, or that it can’t change. Certainly, liturgy changes. For example, we know that the Agnus Dei was inserted into the Latin Mass in the late 7th century when Pope Sergius I imported this chant from his Antiochene Syrian heritage “to be sung by clergy and people at the time of the breaking of the Lord’s body.” But notice several aspects of this change. First, the insertion of the Agnus Dei is not a doctrinally driven correction or change, as if a teaching is being introduced or emphasized; or as if there was a previous dogmatic deficiency. Second, the use of the Agnus Dei is mandated by a bishop for pastoral reasons, rather than by some priest, theologian or committee who simply determines to alter or correct, to add or subtract. Third, the addition is “organic;” that is, it fits neatly into the regular order of things, and is not an archeological insertion. Fourth, the change has a commendable precedence within the liturgical use of the Church. And finally, the introduction of the Agnus Dei is slow and gradual; in this case, as most often occurs, the chant is initially used in the bishop’s cathedral or only whenever he celebrates, and over time is imitated by other bishops in their places.
What drives the change in orandi, then, is enhancing the prayer. Reductions in the Introit and other intervenient chants are made for the same reason—to enhance prayer by not overtaxing the ears of the worshippers, and by focusing our minds on one or two well-chosen phrases. In brief, piety rather than dogma is at the heart of organic liturgical emendations. And even then, liturgy changes in inches, over decades or centuries, rather than a jolting new ceremony or text that goes into effect on a specific day.
When doctrinal concerns drive the liturgy, however, the credendi rides roughshod over the orandi. In the best instances, this is an attempt to correct an imbalance. But even then, the tension is broken that necessarily and naturally exists between schools or regions that stammer to explain the mystery of God in His Church. Said another way, doctrinally driven change to liturgy inevitably flattens the doctrine and lessens the mystery. Flattening and lessening mystery is antithetical to the Orthodox phronema. And we’ve not even addressed the unintended consequences. For example, when Luther excised the Canon, he eliminated the embolism to the Our Father which, in turn, caused a four-hundred-year slide in the understanding of the incarnation to the point that nearly every Lutheran these days rejects one of Luther’s cardinal incarnational teachings; namely, that Mary is ever-Virgin.
By insisting that lex orandi establish and ground (statuat) lex credendi, Orthodox worship is properly ordered. Its purpose and nature are clear: to locate what we believe in the words and ceremonies—the text and rubrics—we employ in prayer.