# The Orthodox Concept of Worship According to the Thought of the Church Fathers

> 1- The definition of worship according to the teaching of the Holy Bible and the thought of the Fathers: Serve the LORD with gladness; come before His presence with singing (Ps 100:2).

*2016-12-01T17:22:47Z*

![Card on an ornate red background showing a haloed figure holding a small bird in his hands, with the verse: “Serve the LORD with gladness; come before His presence with singing” (Psalm 100:2).](/uploads/sites/1274e232-e31c-46f4-a48b-27b854406479/media/orthodox-worship-church-fathers.png?w=815&h=815)

**1- The definition of worship according to the teaching of the Holy Bible and the thought of the Fathers:**\
Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before His presence with singing. (Ps 100:2)

\["Serve the Lord with gladness." Every servitude is full of bitterness. All who are bound to some share of servitude are resentful slaves. Do not be afraid of the servitude of this Lord, for there is no groaning there, no resentment and no vengeance. There is no one who asks to be sold to another master, since it is a sweet service, for we are all saved.

It is, brethren, a great happiness to be a slave in this great house, even if you are in chains. Do not be afraid, bound slaves; confess to the Lord, ascribe these chains to your deserving, confess in your fetters, if you want to turn them into ornaments... So you are a slave and free: a slave, because you were created so; and free, because you are loved by God who created you. Yes, you are free, because you love the One who made you. Do not serve in despair, for your grumbling does not free you from service, but makes you a wicked slave. You are a slave to the Lord, you are free in the Lord. Do not ask to be set free and so be left among those who free you\][^1] This is what the great Saint Abba Anthony said about worship, being a true worshipper, and he gave us a wonderful concept of worship in Christianity.

Worship, according to the literal biblical sense, appears and shines forth in the Gospel of our teacher St. John, in the meeting of the Samaritan woman with the Lord Jesus, when she asked about prostration: is it in Jerusalem or on Mount Gerizim?!

In fact, the Greek word for "those who bow down" (προσκυνητής), pronounced "pros-koo-neh'-o", which came in (John 4:23), has a wonderful meaning that may show us the true concept of worship, for the word means the worshipper or the lover![^2]

In this St. Jerome says: \[The true worshippers worship the Father neither at Jerusalem nor on mount Gerizim\][^3] We notice that St. Jerome used the verb of worship and did not use the verb of bowing down as it came in the Arabic Van Dyke translation.

Here we understand that worship, according to the Gospel of John, is a state of love of the heart "and not a state of bondage of chains as Abba Anthony made clear", in which the worshipper turns toward the One he worships in a state of passionate love, offering his heart as a sacrifice through the work of the Holy Spirit within him; therefore this worship is bound to be offered "in spirit and truth" according to (John 4:23).

But the Bible was not content with this expression of worship; it took upon itself to clarify the essential meaning of worship as - performing a service - and accordingly we find in (Rom 12:11) \[not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord\], that the verb "serving" comes in Greek (δουλευοντες), pronounced "doul-yoo'-on-tes", from the Greek verb (δουλεύω), pronounced "doul-yoo'-o", and we find that it means performing a service[^4]

And if we link worship as a state of passionate love "according to the concept of the Gospel of John" and also as performing a service "according to the concept of the Epistle to the Romans", we find ourselves before the plain meaning of Christian worship.

Christian worship is offering a service toward God out of divine love or passionate love, using the body as a means of performing the service or of expressing love, such as (prostration), to be a living sacrifice, acceptable to this worship (Rom 12:1).

**2- The Liturgy is Christian worship:**\
Having come to know worship as having no connection to the Arabic meaning of the word (“ʿibāda”), and having understood the original meaning of worship according to the thought of the Bible, in the Gospel of John as a state of passionate love, and in the Epistle to the Romans as performing a service, the concept of worship in Christian life cannot be anything other than liturgy!

The Greek verb (λειτουργειν), pronounced "la-tro-gon", this verb which was used in the Old Testament in the Septuagint as it came in (Num 8:22) \[And after that the Levites went in to perform their service in the tabernacle of meeting before Aaron and before his sons; as the LORD had commanded Moses concerning the Levites, so they did to them\] and was translated in Arabic "service", but this term is of two parts: (λέως), pronounced "La-oc", meaning people, and (εργον), pronounced "Ar-gon", meaning work, so that the plain meaning of the word liturgy is the work of the people, and its counterpart in Hebrew is (יִגאָל), pronounced ""Yig-awl, meaning performing a religious service![^5]

In the Greek environment the term acquired a religious importance, and meant public, open worship or the service of the gods.[^6] Also in the New Testament the term was used to mean the fulfilling of a holy rite or the completing of a service for the spread of the word of God, as it came in (Acts 13:2) \[As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, "Separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."\], which has come to express the concept of Christian worship throughout the generations.

From here we understand that the liturgy is the service which the people offer to God, offering in it their bodies as a living and acceptable sacrifice, thereby expressing their love or passionate love in the form of prostration or submission to God, so that the liturgy may be the highest form of Christian worship.

**3- The Liturgy and the Rite:**\
In our definition of the liturgy we mentioned that the worshipper, or in other words the lover, expresses his passionate love by performing a service with an outward form such as prostration, and these outward forms or expressions were individual or communal, carried out according to an agreement among the community to perform worship in a fitting manner.

We find that all the acts of worship in the Bible were carried out according to an order that has roots in the holy texts. Most of the prayers of the prophets in the Old Testament, and likewise of the saints of the New Testament, are derived from the Book of Psalms, so the Book of Psalms was considered a reference for performing true prayer. Likewise in offering sacrifices, we find that there were prophets such as Noah or Job who offered sacrifices and built an altar, and there was no holy text to teach them how to offer the sacrifice in this way, but it is clear that they received this order through oral tradition across the generations from Adam until it reached them, and this oral tradition was considered as applications and primitive forms of heavenly realities that had not yet been revealed, since these men were preparing for the manifestation of the mystery, or the true revelation, of the heavenly order of the liturgy.

In this St. Peter the Apostle spoke, saying: \[To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things which angels desire to look into\] (1 Pet 1:12)

For everyone from the beginning sought a rite to reach God and to offer the sacrifice in the most perfect way so that it might be accepted by God, since all the sacrifices of the Old Testament were a sign or shadow of the one true sacrifice, namely the sacrifice of the only-begotten Son, the Lord Jesus, on the cross! (Heb 10:1), and it is clear that this oral tradition arrived as a result of what happened in the famous story of the first sacrifice offered in history, which is the sacrifice of Abel as opposed to the sacrifice of Cain (Gen 4), for God accepted the sacrifice of Abel (the blood sacrifice), and rejected the sacrifice of Cain (the sacrifice of the fruits of the earth), thereby establishing the first rite for offering the sacrifice and performing the liturgy in history.

It is written in the Bible in (1 Cor 14:40) \[Let all things be done decently and in order\], the Apostle Paul thereby calling us to do everything in order, and the word came in the original Greek (τάξις), pronounced "tax'-is", and it means a fixed order of a certain thing, with attention to specifying the time.[^7]

According to this meaning we understand that any liturgy had to have a rite which it follows according to the teaching of the Bible, and without a rite this liturgy is considered unacceptable to God! \[Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all.\] (1 Thess 5:14)

Provided that this rite is ordered by God, as we made clear in the story of the sacrifice of Abel and Cain, for God made clear by accepting the sacrifice of Abel that He accepts the blood sacrifice and rejects the sacrifice of fruits, as a primitive form or shadow of the liturgy of the Church of the Wilderness.

And if we link the liturgy with the rite, the true meaning of Christian worship becomes clearer and clearer: that it is not merely a service which the lover offers to God, offering in it his body as a sacrifice, but also a service carried out according to a fixed order and at set times determined by God Himself, through what He revealed by the Holy Spirit to His holy prophets and apostles.

[^1]: On Ps.100 (99). Tafsīr al-Mazmūr 100 [Commentary on Psalm 100] by Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty.
[^2]: Tarjamat Bayna al-Suṭūr [Interlinear Translation] by Fr. Paul Feghali, p. 449, Greek – English Lexicon of the new testament pa 548
[^3]: Letter 58:3. Tafsīr al-Mazmūr 100 [Commentary on Psalm 100] by Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty.
[^4]: Greek – English Lexicon of the new testament pa 157
[^5]: Greek – English Lexicon of the new testament pa 375
[^6]: Aristotle Ar…stot. Politik£ VII, 9.
[^7]: Greek – English Lexicon of the new testament pa 614

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Source: https://abba.fadymondy.com/en/blog/orthodox-worship-church-fathers