07 — East and West
Two studies that set St. Nicholas Cabasilas in the wider Christian world: his measured, non-polemical defence of the epiclesis against the Latin scholastic teaching on the moment of consecration, argued in the consecration chapters of his Commentary on the Divine Liturgy; and the twentieth-century recovery that carried him from the readership of specialists into the centre of the modern Orthodox liturgical and sacramental revival, and drew the interest of Western theologians as well. Together they show a fourteenth-century lay theologian whose work proved able to speak across the centuries and across the confessional divide.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (lay theologian; the sacramental life)
Cabasilas belonged to the late Byzantine East and wrote from within its liturgical tradition, but two aspects of his legacy reach beyond it. The first is his engagement with the Latin West on the eucharistic epiclesis — a calm, reasoned theological case for the necessity of the invocation of the Holy Spirit in the consecration, made without the rancour that marked much of the controversy of his century, and grounded both in the structure of the Byzantine rite and, remarkably, in the shape of the Roman canon itself. The second is the modern rediscovery of his work: the critical editions and translations that made him accessible, the neo-patristic and liturgical-theology movements that found in him exactly the sacramental and Christ-centred theology they sought, and the Western and ecumenical interest he attracted. This section treats both, in the sober and non-polemical register the methodology of this repository requires (see Methodology).
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Eucharist and the Latins | Cabasilas’s defence of the epiclesis in the consecration chapters of the Commentary (chapters 27–30): the argument from the structure of the liturgy and from the Latins’ own canon, which continues to pray for the acceptance and blessing of the gifts after the words of institution; his notably irenic, non-polemical manner; and the passage’s lasting place in the Catholic–Orthodox discussion of the moment of consecration. |
| The Modern Rediscovery | The twentieth-century recovery of Cabasilas: the critical editions (Salaville’s SC 4 bis; Congourdeau’s SC 355/361) and translations (Hussey & McNulty 1960; deCatanzaro 1974); his importance to the neo-patristic and liturgical-theology movements (Florovsky, Schmemann, Meyendorff, Bobrinskoy, Nellas, Clément, and the pioneering Lot-Borodine); Western interest; and the canonization of 1983 as the crown of the rediscovery. |
See Also
- The Explanation of the Liturgy — the Commentary whose consecration chapters this section examines
- The Hesychast Synthesis — the Palamite world that frames his theology and its modern reception
- The Works and Their Transmission — the manuscript and editorial history behind the modern editions
- The Canonization of 1983 — the glorification that crowned his rediscovery
- The Eucharist — the Orthodox dogmatic theology of the Eucharist
- St. Gregory Palamas — the hesychast theologian whose synthesis Cabasilas shared
References
- Cabasilas, Nicholas. A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy. Trans. J. M. Hussey and P. A. McNulty. London: SPCK, 1960.
- Salaville, Sévérien, ed. and trans. Explication de la Divine Liturgie. 2nd ed., rev. René Bornert, Jean Gouillard, and Pierre Périchon. Sources Chrétiennes 4 bis. Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1967.
- Congourdeau, Marie-Hélène, ed. and trans. Nicolas Cabasilas, La Vie en Christ. Sources Chrétiennes 355 and 361. Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1989–1990.
- Lot-Borodine, Myrrha. Un maître de la spiritualité byzantine au XIVe siècle, Nicolas Cabasilas. Paris: Éditions de l’Orante, 1958.
- Nellas, Panayiotis. Deification in Christ: Orthodox Perspectives on the Nature of the Human Person. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1987.
- Taft, Robert F. The Byzantine Rite: A Short History. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992.
- Louth, Andrew. Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Present. London: SPCK, 2015.