(On the blessed occasion of the inauguration of the newly built Delhi Orthodox Centre, I humbly praise God and most heartily congratulate the Diocesan Metropolitan Dr. Youhanon Mar Demetrios, the office bearers, the priests, and the people of the Diocese. It was a great blessing for me to have been able to serve the Diocese as the first vicar (honorary) of the then St. Thomas parish at the Orthodox Centre (later Sarita Vihar Church) and as Associate Director of the Centre for 3 years (1986-1989) under the guidance of our visionary Guru, the first Metropolitan of Delhi Diocese, Dr. Paulos Mar Gregorios of blessed memory. May the New Delhi Orthodox Center rise to become a beacon of faith, hope, and love for all the people of Delhi and beyond).

Service of Consecration of a Church

Some Elementary Theological Reflections

“The Most High does not live in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says: ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being”

 (Acts 7: 48-49 from the inspired speech of Stephen the first martyr quoting prophet Isaiah 66:1-2. Apostle Paul also quotes Isaiah while speaking to the Athenians in Acts 17:24.)

1. How old is the practice of consecrating church buildings?

Consecrating the places of worship with a service of blessing is an ancient Christian practice that goes back to the time when Christians began building special places for community worship, particularly for the celebration of the Holy Qurbana (Holy Eucharist). In the very early period of Christianity, the Apostles and the Elders, together with the community, usually gathered in private houses. They were called house churches in the New Testament. We have some archaeological evidence of such a house church from the middle of the 3rd century in the ancient site called Dura-Europos in Syria. In many other places in the world, including India, where the apostles preached the gospel and established the Christian church, similar arrangements for the gathering of the faithful must have existed. By 4th century, when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman/Byzantine Empire, a flurry of church construction started, and elaborate rituals and prayers were developed for the consecration of such buildings.

2. Is blessing of the church building similar to the blessing of our houses?

Yes, to some extent. Blessing a house is a simple ceremony while consecrating a church is an elaborate service. There is a universal tradition of specially sanctifying and consecrating the places and buildings where we live and worship. The word consecrate means “make holy”. So what is consecrated is set apart for a holy purpose.

When we build a new house we bless it and dedicate it to God so that peace and prosperity may dwell in the houses inhabited by human beings. In all religious traditions, there are specific instructions for constructing houses and places of worship. In India, as we are all familiar, the Hindu tradition has an elaborate system of puja rituals and mantras to build temples and houses.

3. Apart from this universal tradition, what is the specific scriptural meaning of the Christian Orthodox tradition of consecrating a church?

The Orthodox service for church consecration is a very elaborate one. Part of it is conducted on the eve of the day of consecration and the rest is done the next morning, and the whole thing ends with the Holy Qurbana. Many of the prayers and hymns in the Syriac Orthodox tradition reflect the Old Testament narratives about the house of God. They are very rich in bringing out the symbols, images, allusions and allegories about preparing a place of worship. In the history of the people of Israel, for example, Jacob who slept on the open ground in the desert, had a dream that changed his whole life and mission. When he woke up, he strongly felt the presence of God there. Jacob then took the stone that had served him as a pillow, erected it vertically as a pillar, poured oil on it, and called the place Bethel, which means house of God. (Genesis 28:10-19). Thus, in a deserted place with no landmark, a house of God arose simply because someone felt God’s presence right there. Later, with the coming of Moses, we see the Tent of Meeting or Tabernacle, which was a mobile house of God, for the people on the move in the desert (Exodus 33:7-9). In the Christian tradition, the Tabernacle assumes the role of a metaphor and spiritual symbol and has no physical or material significance (2 Corinthians 5:1-5; Hebrews 9:1-11, 10:14, 13:14; Ephesians 1:13-15, 2:8-9; and Romans 8:29).

Moses was instructed by God to design the tent of meeting according to the design shown to him on Mount Sinai (Exodus 25-27). We have no idea about the design revealed to him. But theologically, this is interesting because the original blue print or model of design of the place of worship is mysteriously transcendent. In other words, a place or building for the worship of God has an energy source that goes beyond the material construction by human beings. In the Orthodox tradition, we take this aspect of the transcendent spiritual force indwelling the human construction. We may compare this to the ancient Indian tradition of focusing the cosmic energy into a particular place or object where people worship.

4. What is the connection/difference, if any, between the house of God, the human house, and the human body?

There is a very deep spiritual connection between the human body, the human house, and the house of God/Church. Theologically and spiritually, as understood by the apostle Paul and the apostolic tradition, they are one entity though known and distinguished as three different entities. St. Paul calls our body “the temple of the Holy Spirit”. He says that if we desecrate or destroy our bodies, it is equivalent to destroying the house of God (1 Corinthians 6:19). It is evident here that there is a certain identification between our physical body, which houses the Holy Spirit of God, the physical house in which we, the bearers of the Holy Spirit, live, and the physical church building in which we worship and invoke the Holy Spirit. My body, therefore, is my first temple of God.

When I make the sign of the cross on my body, remembering the cross of Christ and the salvation brought to us by Jesus Christ crucified and risen, I am worshiping the Triune God in my body. When I think, speak, and act in the Spirit of Christ by means of my body, it becomes the house of God, where true worship is done. So as individuals, we are all houses of God because the Spirit of God dwells within us.

When we live together as a family in a house where we practice love and mutual care, forgiveness and compassion, hospitality and sharing, the house becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit, the house of God.oly Spieiryt

When we gather together as the One Body of Christ in the church building to celebrate the Holy Qurbana, to proclaim the gospel of life and salvation, and to call upon the Holy Spirit to dwell in us and in our world, that building becomes the house of God.

This gathering of the people of God is an essential act of building up the church. An individual believer cannot exempt himself or herself from it except for reasons of health and other physical limitations. The celebration of the liturgy in the fellowship gathering of love is more important than the material building or location. The fellowship of the Body of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit continually constitutes the Church. The material church building itself is ancillary to this fellowship. It is only a functional necessity for the gathering of the believers. In other words, we can build up the Church or Body of Christ without a physical church building. Spiritually and symbolically, the church building in which the liturgical fellowship takes place becomes the house of God.

5. Do the Christian and Jewish understandings of the place of worship differ from each other?

Yes, and no. The Christian understanding of the place of worship is very different from the Jewish understanding of the Jerusalem temple at the time of Christ. The religious authorities at that time oppressed and exploited the common people in the name of the Law of Moses, while ritualizing and idolizing the material edifice of the temple of Jerusalem. That is why Jesus was so indignant in the temple and cast out the traders and money changers quoting the prophet that my house is called the house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers (Matthew 21:13). This shows that a physical building for worship can degenerate into a heinous place of evil forces if the clergy and the faithful do not take care of the holiness and mission of the Church, the Body of Christ.

6. Why do the Orthodox use the holy oil of Mooron (Myron or Holy Chrism) for the consecration of the church building?

It is very interesting to note that the Holy Oil is used in the Syriac Orthodox Church only for two purposes:

1. In Baptism, to anoint the baptized person. Pouring a few drops of the Holy Oil in the baptismal water is part of this service.
2. To anoint the altar and the newly built church building.

It is important to note that the church building, including the sanctuary, is considered as a living organism, symbolizing the Body of Christ. So, both in the anointing of the living body of the baptized person and in the anointing of the material house of God, the same holy Mooron is used, assuming the church building also to be a living body indwelt by the Holy Spirit. This is in line with the sacramental understanding that even an inanimate object, such as a church building made of material things like wood, stone, and cement, can reflect and manifest the power and glory of God. Both the human body and the material building in which the believers are gathered for worship are inhabited by the Spirit of God.

7. Is it because the human body and the material building are unholy that we sanctify them to make them holy in the service of consecration?

No, absolutely not. The human body and all that God created are holy (1 Timothy 4:4). In the act of consecration, we intensify the given holiness to still higher levels. As we are called to move constantly to the infinite holiness of our Creator and Savior, there can be no end to this process of brightening up the holiness granted to creation. One may take the example of light to illustrate this. We can have a 5-watt electric bulb that gives out a faint light. You can upgrade the intensity of this light to say 40, 60, 100, 1000 watts, and far beyond. It is the same light but at various degrees of luminosity, and there is no limit to its power. Its upper limit in our solar system is perhaps the sun’s maximum light. But suppose in a thought experiment, we bring together a thousand suns in our universe out of the billions of stars existing in our universe. Can we then imagine the combined power of light emitted by them? This can be an analogy for the idea of holiness. Every speck of created reality is holy because it was created out of the love and will of God. Like the potential nuclear energy embedded in matter, holiness is built into the creation in a potential form. We human beings, created in God’s image and likeness, are called to bring out the potential energy of holiness in various degrees according to our ability and dedication. We may also reduce its power to naught by misusing our freedom. Consecrating our bodies, our houses, and our places of worship are to be understood in this process of sanctification and glorification, in which the Holy Spirit of God can work synergically with us humble and sinful human beings. As St. Paul says, we are being transformed into the image of God from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18). So, it is our calling to grow into “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13), and to raise the whole creation to the standard of the luminous Body of Christ. Again as St. Paul reminds Timothy, one should “rekindle the gift of God that is within us” (See 2 Timothy 1:6). Constant growth in grace and truth, love and peace, justice and holiness is integral to this process.

Our usual notion of light and darkness is a relative one. The question can be asked, to what degree can we minimize light and to what degree can we maximize it? When I turn off my only light in my tightly closed room, it is pitch darkness. But still, there are traces of light which we cannot immediately perceive but a cat can. In our contemporary cosmology, the darkest things in our galaxies are the black holes that can swallow light and matter absolutely into it. Stephen Hawking, the legendary theoretical physicist who passed away recently, used to quip: “Black holes aren’t totally black”. According to him, infinitesimal pulses of light may escape their gravitational power. On the other end of the spectrum, the intensification of light virtually goes to infinite dimensions. But we experience total darkness if we stretch our vision beyond a certain range, like for example, directly looking at the sun. That means our ordinary experience of light and darkness remain within a certain limited range. Metaphorically, this applies to our ideas about holiness, truth, love, justice, and so on. But the point is that even within this limited and relative range of experience, we have the possibility and freedom to expand our mind and spirit in the direction of still greater illumination and subtler perception of reality.

8. If God is everywhere why do we set apart a special place for worship?

This is a very practical question that needs a practical answer. When we build a house for us we set apart special places for cooking, dining, sleeping, bathing, and receiving guests (of course, this is possible only for people with some means while millions live either roofless or in one-room huts!). Depending on the size of our house, resources, and imagination, we can create new spaces within the house for several other things, like for prayer, watching TV, studying, family gatherings, and so on. Even if our bathroom is 100% clean and spacious, we do not take our food there for eating, nor to our bedroom. So, it is basically a functional division of space within the house, while the house all together gives us a total picture of our dwelling place. In the same way, we can worship anywhere in the universe, on land, in the sea, in the air, on a space station, or possibly in another planet in the future.

Let me cite a recent example. Some friends from the Orthodox Church got together and bought a little plot of land and created an extremely modest one-room hut and a “chapel” in the high ranges of Kerala. This is created mainly out very simple materials from the locality. The so-called chapel is a small space under a mango tree. A natural boulder lying close to the tree serves as the altar and the tree itself as the cross (remember, “Jesus was hanged on a tree” (Acts 5:30 and other references). It is fully open to natural surroundings and occasionally, the Holy Qurbana is celebrated there. The singing of birds, gurgling of a nearby forest stream, the energizing rays of the rising sun, and the silent greenery around gently mingle with the singing and chanting in the Holy Qurbana. The dome of the chapel is the sky, the floor is the earth. As we sing and pray, we sing with countless creatures that inhabit the surroundings that are rich in biodiversity. So, a place of worship can be as simple as this or as sophisticated as the legendary former Holy Wisdom Cathedral (Hagia Sophia) of Constantinople or St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The crucial thing is not the building or its geographical location or its physical magnificence, but the gathering and fellowship of the people of God in love, forgiveness, reconciliation, repentance, sharing of resources, and intercession for all of God’s creation and reaching out to the world for healing it and transfiguring it as a sign of the kingdom of God.