The Domestic Church
Paul Evdokimov
Translated From:
Paul Evdokimov, La Nouveauté de l’Esprit: Études de Spiritualité (Bégrolles-en-Mauges: Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 1977), pp 218-236.
In a homily on the Acts of the Apostles, Saint John Chrysostom speaks of the Christian home: “Even at night... rise, kneel down, and pray... Your house must continually be an oratory, a church.” The word “continually” has a directive force; it calls for the vigilance of the spirit: the little domestic church must stand day and night before the face of God.
Eastern tradition thus draws a deep connection between the nature of the Church community and the conjugal community. It views them in their original, still undifferentiated form of the “beginning”: in Paradise, the mystery of the Church and the communion of the first human couple are one and the same reality. The first conjugal cell coincides with the proto-church and manifests the communal essence of the relationship between God and man. The biblical text says it plainly: “God... came into the garden in the cool of the day” to converse with the man and the woman (Genesis 3:8). This event foreshadows everything Saint Paul would later reveal when speaking of the “great Mystery” (Ephesians 5) — a nuptial, divine-human mystery, the shared foundation of both the Church and marriage.
Just as the Old Testament begins with conjugal love, so too does the New Testament open with the account of the wedding at Cana (St John 2:1). Such a coincidence is hardly accidental. Moreover, whenever Scripture speaks of the nature of the relationship between God and humanity, it does so in nuptial terms. The covenant is clearly of a bridal nature: the people of God, and then the Church, are adorned with the names Bride of the Lord (Hos. 2:19–20), Spouse of the Lamb (Rev. 21:9); and the Kingdom of God celebrates their eternal nuptials (Rev. 19:7). Thus, the theology of marriage has its origin in ecclesiology: the two are kindred to such a degree that one is expressed through the symbols of the other.
One and the Same Mystery
When the betrothed confess their love before the Eternal and pronounce the conjugal Yes, the nuptial rite in Orthodoxy is far more than a simple blessing or a reciprocal exchange of consent belonging to the created order. It pertains to the order of evangelical re-creation, to its complete fulfillment which transcends history and echoes into eternity. By the priest’s sacramental power, the Church unites their two destinies and elevates their union to the status of a sacrament. It bestows upon the newly constituted conjugal being a particular grace, for the sake of an officium, an ecclesial ministry. It is the creation of an ecclesial cell placed in the service of the entire Church, under the form of conjugal priesthood.
In his theology of marriage, Saint Paul uses a method similar to the one he employed at Athens (Acts 17:22 ff). Contemplating the monument dedicated to the “unknown god,” he deciphers its anonymity: the deus absconditus, the hidden and mysterious god, is now the Deus revelatus, whose name is Jesus Christ. In the same way, in the Epistle to the Ephesians (5:31), Saint Paul cites the passage from Genesis: “The two shall become one flesh,” one being. He takes this mystery — still very enigmatic in its origins — and brings it into full light by saying: “This is a great mystery; I speak concerning Christ and the Church” (Ephesians 5:32). The conjugal mystery, once hidden, is now clarified and made precise: it is established as a substantial image of its source, an icon of the mysterious relationship between Christ and the Church. And for this reason “the two shall become one being.”
Saint John Chrysostom calls marriage the “sacrament of love” and justifies its sacramental nature by declaring that “love changes the very substance of things.” Natural love, made charismatic through the sacrament, performs the miracle and effects the metamorphosis. It lifts the couple out of the habitual, out of the elemental order of this world and the animal plane, and introduces them into the incommensurable — into the order of grace, into the mystērion offered through the sacrament. “Two souls thus united have nothing to fear. With concord, peace, and mutual love, the man and the woman possess all goods. They can live in peace behind the impregnable rampart that protects them, which is love according to God. Thanks to love, they are firmer than diamond and harder than iron; they sail in fullness, they move together toward eternal glory, and they continually draw down more of God’s grace.” That is why, Chrysostom continues, when husband and wife are united in marriage, “they no longer appear as something earthly, but as the image of God Himself.” He clarifies, however, that if the conjugal being is a living icon of God, “it is because it is above all a mystical icon of the Church,” an organic cell of the Church. Now, every organic part always reflects the whole; the fullness of the Body dwells and pulses within it.
We know the adage of the Fathers: “Where Christ is, there is the Church.” This foundational affirmation stems from the Lord’s own words: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20). Such a union is, in fact, ecclesial in nature, because it is integrated into Christ and placed in His presence. Clement of Alexandria, a pioneer of patristic theology of the couple, places marriage in direct relation with this very saying and asks: “Who are the two gathered in the name of Christ and in the midst of whom the Lord stands? Is it not the man and the woman united by God?” This insight fills Clement with deep wonder and leads him to proclaim: “He who has trained himself to live in marriage... that one surpasses other men.” Marriage transcends the merely human, for — just like the mystery of the Church — it constitutes, according to Clement, a “microbasileia,” a “little kingdom,” a prophetic image of the Kingdom of God, a foreshadowing anticipation of the age to come.
Thus, the conjugal ecclesiology of the “little church” refers back to the great Ecclesiology. The sacrament of marriage, as the “mysterious image of the Church,” reveals how the same principles that structure the being of the Church also structure the conjugal being. These foundational principles are threefold: the Trinitarian dogma, the Christological dogma, and also the conjugal Pentecost — that is, in the words of Clement of Alexandria, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and His charisms into “the upper room” of the “little house of the Lord.”
The Trinitarian Foundation
A God with only one Person would not be Love; likewise, man — if he were an isolated or completely solitary being — would not be “in His image.” This is why, from the very beginning, God declares: “It is not good for man to be alone.” And so God created him as a couple, a communal being — that is to say, an ecclesial being.
It is from this perspective that Saint Gregory of Nazianzus describes the mystery of the Trinity. Certainly, this “description” in no way implies any evolution or “theogony” within God, but rather presents the vision of a single, indivisible act from the outset: “The One Being sets itself in motion and brings forth the Other; their duality expresses multiplicity, not yet unity. Therefore, duality is surpassed, and the motion comes to rest in the Trinity, which is fullness.” Each of the three Persons contains the other two, and this is the eternal circulation of intra-divine Love — its pleroma, triune and one at once. The dogma preserves the transcendent antinomy of the mystery: God is equally “one and triune.” The divine Triad is beyond number. The perfect equality of the Three derives from the Father, who is the Source — not in time, but in being: it is in Him that the Divine Unity is realized.
But without a third term, God and man would remain eternally cut off, separated from one another. The person of the incarnate Word is that third term in whom divine and human nature converge and are united. This is why the Incarnation of the Word is central and indispensable to communion between God and man. “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8) precedes creation itself.
We now understand why patristic thought insists so strongly on the universality of the Trinitarian principle as the foundation of all existence and all being. Man wavers between the nothingness and the absolute of God, unable to find another way. Kierkegaard expressed it well: “God is the third term in all that concerns man.” Every communion that transcends the individual is always a unity in a third. Everything that truly exists is an image or vestige of the Trinity, and its degree of reality corresponds to its participation in that mystery.
Thus, the Fathers’ contemplation discovers in God the heavenly Ecclesia of the three divine Persons. This vision forms the “guiding image,” the ideal model of the earthly Church of men. It implies communion, the unity of all, recapitulated in Jesus Christ. In the image of the God who is “one and triune,” the Church is “one and many.” The unity of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit is glorified in the very structure of the Church; its essential mystery, then, is to be one and all at once.
Every human association, every sociological form, every friendship, every love is but a natural substratum, insufficient in itself; all of it needs to be enlivened by the supernatural principle of integration — by the third term of the divine presence. This need arises from the very depths of man. Indeed, he was created as a couple; his conjugal structure is ecclesial. Man and woman are the constitutive and complementary elements of a single conjugal being — they are “toward one another” — and, as Saint Cyril of Alexandria says, “God created the co-being.” Saint John Chrysostom, for his part, specifies that they are not merely joined but are one. This is why the conjugal being is the most adequate and perfect image of God.
Iconography offers a striking illustration of this truth. The bottoms of ancient nuptial chalices depicted Christ holding two crowns above the spouses, thus revealing their divine center of integration and making the conjugal community into an image of the Trinity. Saint Theophilus of Antioch echoes these symbols when he declares: “God created Adam and Eve for the greatest love between them, reflecting the mystery of divine unity.” Thus, the first of the Christian dogmas structures the conjugal being, making it a small triad — an icon of the Trinitarian mystery.
The Christological Foundation
The Christological dogma formulated by the Council of Chalcedon clarifies the significance of the Incarnation in relation to man’s salvation: the two natures, divine and human, are united in the Person of the Word without confusion or separation. They enter into a kind of interpenetration, and like iron plunged into fire, the human nature is thereby deified. From then on, the entire economy of salvation is directed toward a similar unity between the human and the divine: divine grace unites with human nature, and the Church is above all the place where this communion takes place.
At the level of each individual’s appropriation of this universal fruit of salvation, the most frequent image is nuptial in character: the “mystical marriage” of the Lamb and the Church, of the Lamb and every human soul. Another image comes from the concept of the “body,” a Pauline notion with clearly Eucharistic origins. The members are integrated into a single organism — the Body of Christ — in which divine life flows, making all into “one single Christ,” as Saint Symeon says. The unity of the brethren, spoken of in Acts (4:32), is accomplished above all in the Eucharist, for the Eucharist presents an authentic and full manifestation of Christ. Origen explains it by saying: “Christ lives only in the midst of those who are united.” Thus, the Eucharistic conception of the Church is explicitly formulated: through participation in the “one Holy”, the Lord Jesus; His Body is structured into a Communio Sanctorum.
The Great Church and the Little Church
The texts of Orthodox canon law precisely define conjugal communion as a particular form of the “Communion of Saints.” Thus, the classic formula of Balsamon — “two persons united in one being” — is nothing other than a concrete image of the Church, “a plurality of persons united in one body.” For it is no accident that Saint Paul places his teaching on marriage within the context of his epistle about the Church. In Ephesians 4:16, he writes: “The Body receives its cohesion and builds itself up through every ligament and joint, according to the role of each part.” The miracle of the Church — its unity rooted in Christ — results from the diverse forms of these bonds. Now, alongside parish and monastic communities, there is another type of society: the conjugal community, the little domestic church, an organic cell of the greater one.
This central affirmation must be emphasized very strongly. Indeed, while the conjugal being, in its relation to God, is “in the image and likeness” of the Trinity, its relation to the Church is of a different nature. On this level, there is more than analogy or similarity. It is not simply a resemblance to the Church: in its reality of grace, the community of spouses is an organic part of the ecclesial community — it is Church. The symbolism of Scripture implies a very intimate correspondence between the various levels, showing them as different expressions of one single reality. Thus Clement of Alexandria calls the conjugal community the “house of the Lord,” the classical name for the Church, and applies to it the Lord’s own words: “I am in the midst of them.” Saint John Chrysostom likewise speaks of the “little church,” the “domestic church,” ecclesia mikra, ecclesia domestica.
This conception reaches back to the paradisiacal state — and even beyond. Already Hermas and Clement of Rome taught that the world was created for the sake of the Church, and that the Church pre-existed the creation of man; thus “Adam was created in the image of Christ, and Eve in the image of the Church.” “God created man, male-and-female; the man represents Christ, the woman represents the Church.” This is why the pre-eternal love of Christ and the Church is the archetype of marriage and preexists the human couple. One better understands, then, Saint Paul’s fundamental affirmation in Ephesians 5, and the reference of every marriage to what he calls “the great mystery.” The precision, surprising at first, of the Orthodox rite is explained by this reference: “Neither original sin nor the flood has diminished the holiness of conjugal union.” Rabbinic wisdom likewise regarded conjugal love as the sole channel of grace — even among pagans. And according to Orthodox doctrine, Christ did not institute the sacrament of marriage; rather, His presence at the wedding at Cana confirmed the paradisiacal institution.
The Wedding at Cana
In his commentary on the account of Cana, Saint John Chrysostom specifically highlights the close kinship between the symbols that speak both of the Church and of marriage. The matter of the miracle — the water and the wine — refers to baptism and the Eucharist and points to the birth of the Church on the Cross: “From His pierced side came forth blood and water,” the Eucharistic essence of the Church.
This same image appears in the sacrament of marriage, emphasized in the Chaldean rite: “The bridegroom is like the tree of life in the Church. The bride is like a cup of pure gold overflowing with milk and sprinkled with drops of blood. May the Holy Trinity dwell forever in their nuptial home.” A sacred link thus unites the miracle at Cana, the Cross, and the Eucharistic Chalice, bringing them together in the common cup shared by the bride and groom during the sacramental ceremony. The more the spouses unite in Christ, the more their common cup — the measure of their life and very being — is filled with the wine of Cana, becomes a Eucharistic miracle, and signifies their transfiguration into the “new creation,” a remembrance of Paradise and a prefiguration of the Kingdom.
For Saint John Chrysostom, indeed, the miraculous transformation of water into wine is the “guiding image” of conjugal love: the water of natural passions is changed into the noble wine of a new love — charismatic and chaste. Conjugal chastity transcends physiological instinct and aligns itself with the structures of the spirit. In his brilliant dialectic on circumcision, Saint Paul replaces the physiological notion of the “circumcised flesh” with the spiritual, metaphysical notion of the “circumcised heart.” This is precisely the New Testament and patristic perspective on marriage.
Finally, at Cana, Jesus manifested His glory (St John 2:11) within the setting of an ecclesia domestica. According to liturgical and iconographic tradition, it is Christ who presides at the Wedding at Cana; more than that, He is the one and only Bridegroom at every wedding. The icon of the Wedding at Cana mystically represents the espousals of the Church and every soul with the divine Bridegroom. Through the sacrament, every couple weds Christ. That is why, in loving one another, the spouses love Christ. “Grant, O Lord, that in loving one another, we may love Thee Thyself more and more at every moment of life.” From the very beginning, the conjugal life thus becomes a liturgy, a doxology, a hymn of praise, a total offering of the conjugal being to God (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:2; 1 Corinthians 10:31; Colossians 3:17).
The Pentecostal Foundation
It is the gift of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost that completed the constitution of the Church. The ongoing outpouring of the Holy Spirit makes every believer a charismatic being, wholly permeated — body and soul — by the gifts of the Spirit. The sacrament of marriage establishes the domestic church and calls forth its own Pentecost. At the heart of the sacrament is the epiclesis, that is, the prayer calling upon the Father to send the Holy Spirit: “Lord our God, crown them (the spouses) with glory and honor.” This invocation marks the moment of the descent of the Spirit — it is the conjugal Pentecost. By asking for the crowning of the spouses, the epiclesis refers to the Lord’s high-priestly prayer: “The glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one” (St John 17:22). The couple is thus crowned with glory so that they may become one, within the communio sanctorum of the Church.
This formula of the conjugal epiclesis is of great biblical significance. It appears at all decisive moments in the human story. At the beginning of history, at the creation of man, God “crowned him with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:6; Hebrews 2:7); and at the other end of history, upon entering the New City, “the nations shall bring their glory and honor into it” (Rev. 21:26) — the treasures or gifts of final fulfillment. This same formula, which joins promise and fulfillment, Paradise and the Kingdom, is the word that effects the sacrament of marriage. Thus, the conjugal state appears as the meeting point between the Alpha and the Omega of human destiny.
“Paradisial Grace”
It is on this level that the tradition reported by Clement of Alexandria concerning the “paradisial grace” of marriage is situated. This grace offers — even beyond the Fall — the possibility of experiencing something of Edenic joy here on earth. Without the love of the first couple, Paradise would not be fully Paradise. Without that joy which bursts forth in Adam’s first words to Eve — “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23) — marriage would not be fully marriage. At Cana, and at every Christian wedding, the Word and the Spirit are present; and that is why the new wine is drunk. This miraculous wine bestows a joy that is not merely of the earth. It is the “sober intoxication” of the Apostles on the day of Pentecost. The wedding rite sings of this gladness and lifts it to the level of divine joy: “As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee” (Isa. 62:5).
Among all earthly bonds, only marriage contains fullness in itself. Saint John Chrysostom writes: “He who is not bound by the ties of marriage does not possess the totality of his being, but only half of it: man and woman are not two, but one single being.” Marriage restores to man his original nature, and the conjugal “we” anticipates and prefigures not merely the unity of this or that couple, but the We of the Masculine and the Feminine in their entirety — the reconstituted and fulfilled Adam of the Kingdom.
Saint Clement of Rome cites an agraphon with an eschatological view of marriage: in response to Salome’s question, “When will the Kingdom come?” the Lord is said to have replied, “When the two are one.” The revelation of conjugal fullness belongs to the last times and stands as a sign of the nearness of the Kingdom — a declaration that the hour has come for the Church to pass into the age to come. The Marana Tha, “Come, Lord,” is equally the prayer of the Church and of the conjugal community. The lovers gaze together toward the East, toward the One who is coming. Earthly horizons do not limit the spouses’ common ascent toward the Father’s house. There exists a heavenly and prophetic dimension to marriage that constitutes its true greatness.
Conjugal Ascesis
But every true joy, every elevation, is always found at the end of suffering, and the liturgy of the crowning speaks of this without sentimentality. Only the Lord’s crown of thorns gives meaning to all other crowns. According to Saint John Chrysostom, the crowns of the betrothed evoke the crowns of the martyrs and call the couple to conjugal ascesis. From the mutual love of the spouses springs the prayer from the office of the martyrs: “It is You, my Lord, whom I desire; in seeking You, I struggle and sacrifice myself with You, that I may live in You.” The cameo of ancient nuptial rings depicted two spouses in profile, united by the cross. Perfect love is crucified love. “In every marriage, it is not that the path is difficult; it is that the difficult is the path” (Kierkegaard). This is why marriage is a sacrament that demands grace, and in which the liturgy continually prays for “perfect love.” “Give your blood and receive the Spirit” — this monastic aphorism applies equally to the conjugal state.
Conjugal ascesis also has the privilege and vocation of demonstrating that “carnal sin” is not the sin of the flesh, but the sin of the spirit against the flesh. The conjugal being touches heaven — not as a poet, Platonically; not as a hermit, spiritually; but ontologically, through the charism of conjugal holiness. According to ancient tradition, the crowns were not removed until the seventh day; this time consecrated to prayer prepared the couple for the mystery of love. And in communities faithful to the tradition, the spouses would go to a monastery, to spend that time among monks or nuns.
These days of continence initiated them into mastery over the flesh and into entry into the sacrament of marriage. What a contrast between these initiatory vigils and our modern wedding banquets, from which love often emerges wounded, and where the ecclesial character of the mystery is profaned!
New Dimensions
The liturgy of Pentecost reveals unsuspected dimensions of time, being, and existence. It marks the passage from the state of captivity to the state of the “new creature.” More than that: not only does the celebration of the feast announce these new dimensions — it conveys them. One must pay close attention to this symbolism. The Gospel repeatedly warns us: “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear” (St Matthew 11:15; 13:9,43; St Mark 4:9; St Luke 8:8; 14:35). Inwardly, though invisibly, there is a vast gulf between the being of one who is baptized and one who is not.
Now, these new dimensions are the condition for the existence of the conjugal “little church.” They are meant to be lived, and in living them the being of the couple grows. This is why the Church grants its charisms. A great Russian saint, Seraphim of Sarov, saw the goal of the Christian life in the acquisition of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Commenting on the parable of the virgins, he said that the foolish virgins were surely virtuous people — since they were called “virgins”1 — but their empty lamps showed that they were occupied with acquiring moral virtues, without concern for acquiring the gifts of the Holy Spirit, for becoming “charismatic beings.” Now, in the Church, every charism is given for a ministry in service to the whole Body. Every charism has an apostolic purpose.
The Secret Message of Pentecost
The liturgical celebration of Pentecost bears a secret message of immense significance — one that is closely tied to conjugal charisms. On this day, uniquely in the entire year, the Church prays for all the dead since the creation of the world and even authorizes prayer for those who have taken their own lives. In the superabundance of its grace, the feast places us before the mystery of hell. This is not about doctrinal definitions — such as the eternity of hell or the final fate of the damned — but about the prayerful posture of the living, the only possible attitude in the face of such an unfathomable mystery. Without presuming anything, the liturgy intensifies its prayer for all the living and for all the dead.
But what is hell? It is the place from which God is excluded. From this point of view, the modern world, taken as a whole, presents itself with a truly infernal aspect. There is here an immense question posed to every believer: what is one to do in the face of this demonic world? It seems that the Christian’s attitude can find decisive guidance in a very ancient tradition evoked by Saint John Chrysostom: during the celebration of baptism, every baptized person dies with Christ — but also, with Him, descends into hell, and, just like the risen Christ, bears the destiny of sinners upon himself. What a powerful call to follow Christ and to descend, we too, into the hell of the modern world — not as “tourists,” as Péguy said of Dante, but as witnesses to the light of Christ!
A liturgical text from Good Friday describes Christ’s descent into hell and portrays Him “emerging from hell as from a bridal chamber.” One may therefore discern a very specific calling addressed to Christian spouses: they must create a “nuptial relationship” with the world — even, and above all, with its infernal aspect — entering into it as into a “bridal chamber,” bearing witness to the universal presence of Christ. And since, in the words of Isaac the Syrian, the world’s essential sin is its insensibility to the Risen One, they must strive to awaken the world and modern man to the presence of the Risen Christ. More than ever, every Christian home must be, above all, a living link — a bridge — between the Temple of God and a civilization without God.
The Conjugal Priesthood
But how will spouses exert this decisive influence on the world? Through their conjugal priesthood. And this priesthood is structured around the particular charisms of man and woman.
Man is an ecstatic being: he goes out from himself and extends into the world through tools, through action. Woman is an enstatic being: she is not act, but being; she turns inward toward her own depth, she interiorizes, like the Virgin who kept divine words in her heart; she is present to the world through the total gift of herself. A fresco from the catacomb of Saint Callistus shows the man, hand extended over the offering, celebrating the Eucharist; behind him stands the woman, arms raised in prayer — the orans. If the man’s role is to act, the woman’s is to be. Left to himself, man strays into abstractions and objectifications; debased, he becomes debasing and constructs a dehumanized world. To protect the world, men, and life itself as mother and new Eve, to purify them as virgin — this is the vocation of every woman. She must convert man to his essentially priestly function: to sacramentally penetrate the elements of this world and sanctify them, purify them through prayer. Every Christian is called by God to live by faith: to see what is not seen, to contemplate the Wisdom of God in the apparent absurdity of History, and to become light, revelation, prophecy — to follow the “violent” who take the Kingdom of Heaven by storm (St Matthew 11:12).
Thus the Holy Spirit causes the priestly charity of husbands and the maternal tenderness of wives to sprout; He opens them to the world in order to liberate every neighbor and return him to God. If the monk transcends time, the Christian couple initiates the transfiguration of time. The conjugal being deepens, becomes an epiphany, a place of the presence of the one Beloved, and a point of departure for common ascents with Him and in Him toward the Father’s house.
The Gospel according to Saint John (13:20) brings a word of the Lord, perhaps the gravest ever addressed to the Church: “He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.” This word is also addressed to the “little church,” which is the Christian home. It means that the destiny of the world is suspended upon the Church’s inventive attitude of welcoming, upon her art of hospitality and of making herself welcomed. This art expresses the highest of things: the art of the charity of the saints. And the highest, yet most simple thing, is to recognize the presence of the Lord in every human being.
A hidden germination is working in the Church, preparing the springtime of the Church, the nuptial love of God and the Spirit — this feast which finally blossoms in every couple and is fulfilled in every soul ready to receive it. Paschal joy flows forth again in new harmonies. Against the pessimistic weariness and erosion of time, the hope of Origen stands: “The Church is full of hope.” In every moment of weakening, in every faltering of effort, the magnificent word of Saint Gregory of Nyssa responds: “The divine power is capable of inventing a way where there is no longer hope, and a path in the impossible.”
Editor’s note: the Greek term σωφροσύνη means much more than “chastity” in the sense of sexual continence; its etymology implies “whole-mindedness,” integrity. In this sense, a “virgin” is an integrated, “sound-minded” being.