Liturgical politics

Fenn again: Liturgy is the public work of the people and thus “to be a person . . . meant [for the Greeks] precisely to have a role in the public work of the community.” Thus, “to take part in the Christian liturgy is to take on one’s role in a new kingdom: one that ‘shall have no end.’ It is the political act of all time and is therefore potentially seditious within the secular politics of a specific time and place. Caesar understood the political nature of the liturgy all too well.”

And then this: “Liturgies give to ordinary people the right to make the world conform to their words: to be honored as indeed married, or to have their names and words remembered even at death. To be taken seriously, as free and responsible members of a commonwealth that has no historical boundaries, is the right of all who take part in the Christian liturgies.”