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Introduction

The experience of Lent is a spiritual journey whose purpose is to transfer us from one spiritual state

to another, a dynamic passage. For this reason the church commences Lent with the great

penitential Canon of St Andrew of Crete. This penitential lamentation conveys to us the scope and

depth of sin, shaking the soul with despair, repentance, and hope.

The only times it is appointed to be read in church are the first four nights of great Lent (clean

Monday through to clean Thursday, and fourth sections of each ode are read at great compline) and

at Matins for Thursday of the fifth week of great Lent, when it is read in its entirety (in this latter

service, the entire life of St Mary of Egypt is also read).

This complex poem (actually a chanted hymn) was written in the early 700's, and it picked up the

adjective "great" for two reasons: it is extra-long (about 250 verses), and it is majestic. It is a

liturgical poem consisting of nine odes. The great Canon was written by St. Andrew of Crete, abishop who was initially a monk in Jerusalem.

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The whole Canon is a kind of "Walk Through the Bible". St. Andrew begins with Adam and Eve and

goes all the way through, exhorting himself by applying the stories and characters of the Bible.

Reading the Canon helps us see how Christians in the Holy Land, 1,300 years ago, understood the

Scriptures. It is a way to time-travel, and actually joins them in these ancient Christian devotions

which are part of the dynamic life of the church.

Father Alexander Schmemann says about the great Canon of repentance that: "...with a unique art,St. Andrew interwove the great biblical themes - Adam and Eve, Paradise and the Fall, the Patriarchs,

Noah and the Flood, David, the Promised Land, and ultimately Christ and the Church - with

confession of sin and repentance. The events of sacred history are revealed as events in my life,

God's acts in the past as acts aimed at me and my salvation, the tragedy of sin and betrayal as my

personal tragedy. My life is shown to me as part of the great and all embracing fight between God

and the powers of darkness which rebel against Him.2

Of the Canon, Father Alexander, continues: "The Canon begins on a deeply personal note...One

after another, my sins are revealed in their deep connection with the continuous drama of man's

relation to God; the story of man's fall is my story.3

Father Alexander goes on to say that these stories from Scripture are so much more than merely

allegories. He reminds us that even though we are each unique persons, we are all moving through

the same drama. We all face choices that through the ages others have faced before us and just as

we must choose the sacred pathway to return to God so they had to choose; and in their choosing

have much to teach us, to remind us, to reveal to us the tried and tested path to life. And it is in this

St Andrew was born in Damascus about 660, and joined the Monastery of St. Saba, outside Jerusalem, at age 15. His intelligence and

holiness were evident, and he soon became secretary to the patriarch of Jerusalem. He was a representative at the Sixth Ecumenical Council,

and then manager of ministries to the poor, elderly, and orphans in Constantinople, and by the end of his life was Bishop of Crete.

Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent(New York: St Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1996), 63-67.

Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent(New York: St Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1996), 63-67.

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way that my own and deeply personal sin becomes the lens through which I can begin to grasp the

real importance of His redemptive acts.

Part of the reasons that we are so vividly lukewarm in the faith, according to Father Alexander, is

that we are too much concerned with things of the world, and we fail to remember the true heights

from which we fell from grace as sons and daughters of Adam. This is something that is common to

all mankind through the ages, but Father Alexander adds another element to this that brings it closer

to the reality of contemporary life. He says: "Sin ... is thought of primarily as a natural "weakness"

due usually to a maladjustment, which has in turn social roots and, therefore, can be eliminated by a

better social and economic organization. For this reason even when he confesses his sins, the

modern man no longer repents ... [he] shares his problems with the confessor - expecting from

religion some therapeutic treatment which will make him happy again and well-adjusted.4

However, the great Canon, says Father Alexander, reintroduces us to the truth about sin and oursinfulness. It directs us back to the culture of Creation, Fall, and Redemption where we may have

some chance at once again to recall our experience and existential failures within our life, therefore

repentance from sin is: "...the shock of man who, seeing in himself the "image of the ineffable

glory," realizes that he has defiled, betrayed and rejected it in his life; repentance as regret coming

from the ultimate depth of man's consciousness; as the desire to return; as surrender to God's love

and mercy ... [allows confession to become] meaningful only if sin is understood and experienced in

all of its depth and sadness, as the rejection of communion with God.5

Unfortunately, the culture in which we live excludes the concept of sin or distorts its notion inrelation to the biblical and Christian tradition. For if sin is, first of all, humanitys fall from an

ncredibly high altitude, the rejection by humanity ofits high calling, what can all this mean within a

culture which ignores and denies that high altitude and calling, and defines a human not from

above (according to the image and likeness of God) but from below (according to mere biology or

physiology). Sadly this culture we live in thinks of human life only in terms of material goods and

thus ignores the fact that human beings have a transcendental vocation.

The biblical and Christian tradition of sin has a depth and density which the culture in which we live

is simply unable to comprehend and which makes confession of sins something very different fromtrue Christian repentance. For this reason the great Canon reminds and teaches us that the ground

that we need to walk in order to return to anything resembling the "image of the ineffable glory" is a

field that we too often leave uncultivated and neglected. For most of us, locked into the familiarity

of institutionalised, rule bound, and well worn praxis the simple words in the Canon which have so

much to do with acts of self-denial and obedience, are a wilderness of exceptionally rich and

unfamiliar ground, in the culture in which we live and which shapes our world-view.

Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent(New York: St Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1996), 63-67.

Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent(New York: St Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1996), 63-67.

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A Summary and Brief Overview of the Main Theme of Repentance

This poem, beloved by the Eastern Church, lets us overhear a conversation between Christ and an

old man, who knows he will soon die and then face judgment on all the deeds of his life.

It is a dialogue between St. Andrew and his soul. The ongoing theme is an urgentexhortation to change the direction ones life. St Andrew always mentions his own sinfulness placed

in juxtaposition to Gods mercy, and uses literally hundreds of references to good and bad examples

from the OT and NT to convince himself to repent.

Andrew asks renewed forgiveness for his known sins and the light to uncover any hidden leanings

still within him that, if uttered, would show how unfit he was to talk openly with his Lord. Christ, in

words found in Scripture, reminds Andrew of how all-inclusive the two commandments of love are,

and how eager he is to greet prodigals when they return.

To many the mere thought of anyone having to face judgment will be terrifying. Imagine: an all-

knowing God coming to question us, weak from age, about things we did in youth, middle age, and

later years!

When, however, we hear this poem chanted in church, it will strike us as indeed grave, but still

consoling because it shows Christs never-failing desire for us to become one with Himself. He wants

to talk personally with us in the way God did with Adam in the coolness of the afternoon.

Andrew has a vivid sense of his own failings, but, despite this, the conversation between him andChrist is between people who love one another. Andrew is talking to his soon-to-arrive judge, but he

knows Him to be presently anxious to help him put on the wedding garment guests need to wear.

The old man grieves over his past wrongdoing, but expressions of this concern are interspersed with

memories of his master trying to find lost sheep or search for lost coins that have the kings image

stamped on them. Even more to the point, Christ condemns our failings because He wants us to be

better and to live fully.

n listening to Andrew, Christ hears an old man who has spent his life seeking to find what his Masterwants. Now, in these last days, that old man is striving to know whether there are unknown

commands he has not heeded, or failings he has neither recognised nor confessed. From the bottom

of his heart he is begging his Lord to help him become a good disciple; he fears being disowned by

someone he loves and whom he knows wants him not to fail.

There is no better way for any of us to learn what God wants of us than meditating on the stories of

good and bad men spoken of in Scripture. Andrew has been pondering on them during all the years

of his monastic life. Now, in old age, he is going over in his mind texts grown dear to him and peering

into them in hope of discovering lessons he has missed.

He does not, like some scholar, speak in an orderly way of all parts of Scripture simply because they

are there to be read dispassionately. Instead Andrew will be listening for messages God set down for

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us to heed. In the light of those stories there is one more chance to find out how he falls short of

thinking and feeling as God does.

Memories of past blindness renew his worry about wrong desires that may still be lurking in some

corner of his heart. Therefore he keeps asking for both forgiveness for the failings he knows about,

and help for him to uncover still hidden ugliness.

The great Canon shows us the thoughts of someone who reads the Scriptures in an effective way. He

knows stories about Gods interaction with outstanding men and women from the past, and, as he

thinks about them, he uncovers their bearing on him. So his impending meeting with Christ is not

something unlooked-for; on the contrary it is a culmination of many years spent talking with his

Master about his actions and how to make them better.

The church invites us to listen to this poem during Lent firstly, because we too will have to face

judgment and secondly, Lent is a time for readying ourselves to rise into the newness of life madepossible by Christs death and resurrection.

The church punctuates verses of the poem by inserting familiar litanies and other prayers well

known to the faithful. These additions give us time to pause and see how Andrews words relate to

our life. Most importantly, the church, after each verse, adds a petition we will want to make more

meaningfully our own when we recognise some message in Andrews poem as addressed to us,

something that will make us want to say:

Have mercyon me, O Lord, have mercy on me

By joining our minds and hearts to these words as they are chanted, we may, with the help of the

Holy Spirit, gradually come to see hidden failings in our life, and so more clearly recognise our need

for forgiveness and purification.

Because the great Canon has the possibility of taking on real importance in our spiritual life, we

should make an attempt to say exactly what kind of poem it is. A well-known theologian, Olivier

Clement, calls it A Song of Repentance.

As we grow older and have a wider experience of coping with the world, we will, as we pray,

recognise how much we need to take a deeper look at what we are doing. We will discover

unsuspected ways Gods commandments bear on what we are or not intent on doing. What loving

God and our neighbour means will emerge gradually through prayer and meditation on scripture

and our own mindset. Again, as this happens, our pleas for mercy and forgiveness will become more

to the point and more earnest.

On each of the three Sundays before Lent, the church brings before us a plea for repentance, set to

sacred music. Here are the words of that prayer:

Open unto me, O Giver of life, the gates of repentance.

For early in the morning

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My spirit seeks Thy Holy Temple,

Bearing a temple of my body all defiled.

But in Thy compassion cleanse it

By Thy loving-kindness and Thy mercy. (Lenten Triodion, p. 101)

Before Lent the church tells us to pray for repentance, and then during the first four weeks of Lent it

has us listen to Andrews poem. This proximity of antiphon and poem suggests a connection

between Lent and the hope for repentance.

This theme stands forth in the opening words of Andrews poem:

Come wretched Soul with thy flesh to the Creator of all.

Make confession to Him, and abstain from thy past brutishness;

And offer to God tears of repentance (Canticle 12).

After looking at these suggestive texts we need to ask what the term repentance means. Andrew

seeks to answer this question by looking at an example:

David once joined sin to sin,

Adding murder to fornication;

Yet then he showed at once a twofold repentance

David once composed a hymn setting forth,

As in an icon the action he had done

and he condemned it, cryingHave mercy on me for against Thee only

Have I sinned.

O God of all, do Thou cleanse me(Canticle VII 5)

A violent change came over David when he awoke to the fact that he had forsaken God. This

response was not just another good action he did during his lifetime. It was a shaking experience and

it profoundly changed his relationship with God.

To help us understand this let us look at more things Andrew says:

I fall down, Jesus, at thy feet;

I have sinned against thee; be merciful to me

Take from me the heavy yoke of sin,

And, in thy compassion, grant me tears of compunction.

Enter not into judgment with me

Bringing before me the things I should have done,

Examining my words and correcting my impulses,

But in thy mercy overlook my sins,

And save me, Lord almighty. (Cant. 1, last two verses)

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Falling down before Christ because we realise we have sinned, asking Him for mercy, begging that

the heavy weight of sin be removed, are all parts of repentance, and so is praying for grace to help

us shed tears of remorse. David abjectly fell down before God as soon as he recognised that his

actions toward Bathsheba and her husband betrayed his duty toward God. This discovery happened

suddenly. David learned that God condemned his actions since by doing them he had forgotten God.

In his sinful state David no longer talked to God about his desires, his hopes, or his fears. Wrong

choices had taken over his life. He had to spend his time thinking up excuses and lies to keep others

from finding out what he had done. He did not even think of asking God for help. For the first time in

his life he was walked alone without the awareness of the presence of God. What God does or

doesnt want was no part of his concern. This attitude was decidedly new for David. When he

decided to kill Goliath, he did so because he thought it was wrong for an uncircumcised heathen to

threaten those whom God had chosen for His own. Now only Bathshebas beauty filled Davids mind.

Andrew accurately describes Davids new experience as anawakening; and for that reason the

words of the poem tell us accurately what repentance is and they invite us to see how, like David,

and, indeed, Andrew, we can change our path even when we sin.

What is crucial here is the once of Davids mind fixed on Bathshebas beauty and the later of his

repentance. Repentance is the decisive change that happened between these two moments. It took

a special intervention from God for David to change. Repentance is something new and sudden like

our being created or our Baptism.

Prior to hearing Nathans message Davids mind did not waver. As soon as he saw Bathsheba, he

forgot God, seduced her. Then he started to worry how he could get away from the trouble that

might arise when others learned what he had done. When his first efforts at a cover-up failed, he

arranged for the womans husband to be murdered. Safeguarding his reputation filled his mind. For

him to repent, something outside these thoughts had to burst in on his darkened mind because

Davids eyes could not be opened of themselves; God had to intervene. God, unlike David, wanted

their close friendship to live again. The wellspring of repentance is God actively seeking out the

sinner and helping them change their mind, heart, and therefore their path.

Gods messenger, the Prophet Nathan, was skilful in the way he approached David. He came to the

kings court ostensibly to complain about the injustice some rich man had done to a poor neighbour.

Nathan claimed this rich man had refused to kill any of his own flock to feed a suddenly arrived

guest, and instead stole the lone ewe a poor neighbour owned and loved so much. A king in Israel is

anointed to defend the poor against the rich. When he does so a king is doing what God named him

to do. Nathan aroused this still uncorrupted side of Davids mind; and so the king with indignation

asks: Who is that man?

Nathans abrupt reply: You are the man, brings David back tohimself; and he was able to speak toGod again and say:

Against thee alone have I sinned;

And I have done evil before thee. (Psalm 51:4)

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David now knows his heart has for a long time been turned away from God. He had settled into

adultery and murder. That turn of mind makes him worthless; he is just one more man fleeing from

God. That is why he can say, Against thee alone have I sinned.

Taking Bathsheba and killing her husband are indeed sins against them, but by cheating them David

broke the commandments of God and robed himself of his right to life. The parallelism between

Nathans words and Davids deeds was so close that Davids ears were immediately opened. He saw

how he was misguided and so pleaded for mercy. This is the true meaning of repentance.

Before his sin David of course knew the commandments, and was consequently, on one level, aware

that adultery and murder were wrong. That knowledge, however, existed in a separate part of his

mind than the operative part absorbed in Bathshebas beauty. In this sense, Andrew expects us to

think of repentance as an awakening to the realisation that we have turned from the path of life

established by God because of our corrupt choices and actions.

Without concern for what God wants from us, our life is trivial and has no true goal. But our desire

to please Him joins us to the immensity of Gods activities and purposes for His creation. The first of

these is His merciful and unexplainable decision to bring the cosmos and us, out of nothingness into

existence.

Inseparable from this mysterious kindness, is His equally unfathomable desire to share His own

divine life with us, to communicate intimately with us. He had no intention of creating us and then

forgetting us. His coming to talk with Adam in the coolness of the afternoon is as genuine a fact as

His creating us. He wants to share His life with us and asks that we share freely ours with Him. We

know this marvel and feel guilty because we have not consistently tried to keep pace with Him in our

daily life.

Andrew knows that his life and all of humanitys life are encompassed in Gods divine plan.

Astounding as it sounds, we are called to glory, to be with God. This fullness is already present

among us; Christ by His death and resurrection has outdone evil and death. It is a mistake to think of

the world and not see the evidence of Gods presence in it and therefore rejoice in it. The kingdom

of God is, as Christ says, within us. It shines forth in the faith of millions living and dead (asleep in

Christ) who display the truth of what He says.

Andrew writes his poem because this uniquely worthwhile link between us and the loving God is

dear to him. We are to one degree or another separated from God when we fail to see Gods gift of

life to us. Stories in the Old and New Testament spur Andrew on to ask pardon for the known and

unknown moments in his life when he forgot to lovingly share his life with his Maker.

n this poem, written at a time close to the day he will face judgment, he is once more going over the

record of things God has told us about Himself and what He wants from us. Andrew now wants to

hear any messages God has sent him and that selfishness may have driven him to ignore.

This is the purpose underlying the long reviews Andrew makes of his life, in the great Canon. He is

begging God to show him sides of himself that make him unable to be a man whose whole heart and

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mind are fixed on loving God above all things, and to love and serve his neighbour as himself. The

great Canon is an effort to reach that purity of heart. It is a plea for full repentance.

We will not learn of Andrews past failings in any detail nor will we be privy to new discoveries he

makes. He is talking to God who already knows what Andrew has to say and is waiting to hear the

admissions it will be good for his disciple to make.

f we want to understand the great Canon we must remember the already mentioned fact that it is a

conversation between lovers. Andrew does not want to disappoint Christ. Every genuine lover thinks

he or she is not worthy of being loved. Each of us almost surely has just reason to suspect his or her

words and actions have not always been what they should have been. These memories, though

heavy, will not erase the certitude that Christ unfailingly loves each of us and is calling us to repair

our past by living with Him. Because of our failures, feelings of guilt haunt us. Because of our

blindness in the past we have reason to fear other impairments may be darkening our sight. True

lovers unrelentingly struggle for purification. Andrew is asking Christ to make him now fit for their

imminent meeting.

We too need to ask for this help, and we can count on getting it. It may however come to us in

strange ways. God does not start off as a mere spectator of our actions and then turn into a judge.

He follows each turn in our actions. The Holy Spirit in His mysterious way knows how to enlighten,

strengthen, and guide us while still leaving us free to venture out on our own. God hears us when we

pray, though He in His wisdom often fails to give us exactly what we ask for; a refusal is sometimes

the favour we need. All of us can probably discover examples in our life when this was true.

God wants our real good and helps us reach it. He grieves when we are far off and rejoices when we

return to Him. There is therefore nothing plain or prosaic about our life; it is mysterious because God

is entangled in it and we are entangled with Him even when on the surface of our mind we are busy

only with the people and things around us. Andrew knows that, especially at this late hour, he must

talk to Christ about his past failings, so that by growing beyond them he can even at that late date

become clean as God wants him to be.

Christ told us to become perfect as His heavenly Father is perfect. That goal stays beyond rational

explanation; nevertheless it is, as we have remarked, the primary truth about human life. Squirm as

we sometimes do, there is no escape. The only counterweight to our feebleness is trust in a God

willing to help us meet Him on His terms. We can count on being more able to love, if we remember

that someone has first loved us.

Andrews poem is full of examples from Scripture showing this truth about how God is operative in

the world and in personal lives. Andrew is talking to someone who cares for him and in his poem he

will share with us his reasons for thinking so.

Scripture to the degree we understand it tells us what God intends. It contains stories of Gods

relationship with His people. That gives us a start on finding who we are. To learn more, we must

search this record of what He thinks and keep on comparing it with memories of what we have in

fact loved and neglected.

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God sees the meandering of our actions and all their strange interconnections and unfolding, and He

looks on them with the same loving concern that guides Him while He made and makes us. Nothing

happens separate from this benevolence. Reading Scripture in its ecclesial context, under the

guidance of the Holy Spirit, gives us a share in this accurate sense of what is going on in the world.

When Moses and Elias met with Christ at the time of Christs Transfiguration they recognised Him as

the fulfilment of the work they had begun for the race of humanity. Christ too, a man like them,

heard His Father praise Him lovingly and tell the Apostles listen to Him. They fell on their faces

before the splendour shining from Christ and His two predecessors. Those Apostles had, unknown to

themselves at the time, their own place in this continuing story of Gods care for His creation. At that

moment they did not know their own future; they only knew it was good for them to be there.

Peters offer to build three tabernacles, one for each of the three heroes of our spiritual history, is,

unbeknownst to him, a prophecy of what the church they would help to build would bring about.

That same church, active in the whole world, is now making it ready for Christs return in glory at the

end of time.

If, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we are able to see in Andrews verses that which describes

our own relationship to Christ, we are blessed. Each such awakening is a step on our road to sharing

Gods nature by His grace. We, like Andrew, must try to uncover hidden complexes in our thoughts

and actions that keep our minds and hearts apart from God.

The obstacles that halter our accent to being Christ-like are idols, counterfeit forms that try to usurp

the place of the source of life. God assesses whether we place priority in His creations or in Him, our

Creator and source of life. When a person voluntarily rejects God, their heart is hardened and they

become impudent according to the great Canon. This is so because instead of living as an image of

God in light of Jesus Christ our Archetype, one lives as an idol, or follows the idols of their

imagination as though they are the archetype. Consequently the unity of ones psychosomatic

functions is ruptured and the integrity of the person is shattered.6

This state is mentioned at the

beginning the Canon where it offers a clear depiction of the state of glory and beauty of the human

being as it was created by God, and the effects thereafter:

The tabernacle fashioned by God

The first robe

That the Creator wove for me in the beginning

The beauty of the image

The beauty which was first created

The first fruits of the original beauty (canticle 2)

Panagiotis Nellas, Deification in Christ, trans. Norman Russel (Crestwood, N.Y: SVS Press, 1987), 179.

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This tabernacle, the human being, fashioned by God is what St Paul spoke of to the Corinthians as

the body which is created as a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19). This body leads humanity to its

ultimate purpose in life, to experience the delight of the eternal kingdom (Canticle 1). Humanity has

been granted the royal dignity the diadem and purple robe...and is wealthy and righteous laden

with riches and flocks. (Canticle 4)

However, humanity voluntary changes its direction or objective and becomes its own idol limiting

itself to time and space, and instead of becoming a theological being capable of transcending itself

by Gods grace, it becomes a biological one, living by his *its+ own nature7, confined to mere

creation:

A famine of God has seized thee

Knowing myself stripped naked of God (canticle 1).

We should note that although the most central theme in the Canon is repentance from sin,theologically, it does not talk about sin in the common sense of committing an error and the

expected punishment from the Judge. Instead, St. Andrew speaks of sin as something that arises

from deep inside, from a darkened and confused mind and heart. It is like a self-inflicted wound. He

speaks of God as all-compassionate, rushing toward us with healing love, like the Good Samaritan or

the father of the Prodigal Son. In this concept of approaching the tern sin, there's no sense that

God's justice or honor have to be satisfied by Christ's suffering before we can be forgiven. Christ's

suffering, instead, is the "battle scars" of His fight to free us from Death and the Evil One. For this

reason, salvation is not just a "legal fiction" that imputes righteousness we don't really have; it is life

"in Christ," saturation in the lightbearing presence of God.

After reciting psalm 50 of repentance, immediately afterwards the marathon struggle of the great

Canon begins, and signals the time the whole of the human person is to participate, and is invited to

purification:

Come, wretched soul, with thy flesh to the Creator of all. Make confession to Him, and abstain

henceforth from thy past brutishness; and offer to God tears of repentance. (Canticle 1)

The ability to weep with a repentant attitude is regarded as a gift from God, something that a heart

of stone or selfishness cannot achieve by its own power. Repentance is regarded as the first phase oftransformation. The gift of tears or weeping for ones distance from God is a prerequisite disposition

in reaching God.

St Andrews great canon teaches and instructs us to live a certain life-style appropriate and befitting

of our purpose in this life. It demonstrates the sinfulness of all except Jesus and Mary, and yet it

highlights salvation offered to all who are willing to repent and accept the good news of Jesus

Christ, out of love.

Therefore the purpose of the great Canon is to help humanity become aware of the tragic nature of

the unnatural situation in which it finds itself corrupted by sin. Humanitys broken communion with

Makarios of Egypt, Spiritual Homilies cited in Panagiotis Nellas, Deification in Christ, trans. Norman Russel (Crestwood, N.Y:SVS Press,

1987),175.

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God (humanitys brokenness) is renewed by the incarnation of Christ which not only heals but also

offers an irresistible hope, as humanity is oriented back to its Archetype. It is reminded that it was

created in the image of Christ, and its goal is His likeness.

In the first canticle, the canon tells us of our natural state as it was before the fall:

As the potter moulds the clay,

Thou hast fashioned me,

Giving me flesh and bones,

Breath and life

The first line is directly taken from Gen. 2:7 The Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and

breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. This signifies that the

life within us is Gods own life. The life of all creation is in Him.8 This makes more sense when

reading the prophecy of Jeremiah which clarifies the incarnation of Christ:

I went to the potters house And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potters hand,

and he reworked it into anothervessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do (Jeremiah 18:3-4)

God constructs mankind as a potter moulds clay. The potter has full control of the material at hand.

The creator constructs (Thou has fashioned me) that which pertains to the body (flesh and

bones) and to the soul (breath and life). Panagiotis Nellas affirmed this cosmological theme when

he said: These two dimensions of man unite the human person organically with the material andspiritual dimensions of creation, and make him a recapitulator of the universe, a microcosm.

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This shows that mankinds existence has origins, reasons, and cosmological significances rooted in

God, since it is created in the image of God. Mankind cannot find beauty without its creator who

initially bestowed the miracle of creative and personal existence; this is what it means to approach

the likeness of God.

The great Canon is part of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, but really, it's part ofeveryChristian's

tradition; we all go back to first-century Jerusalem. The Canon makes more sense when youexperience it in context, as part of the continuous flow of Orthodox prayer, liturgy, fasting, and

sacraments. Within the Church, says Nellas, we have a different cosmology that incorporates a

different conception of time and space. This is expressed by Byzantine architecture and iconography

and is also presupposed by Byzantine hymnography. Everything in the Church seems a metaphorbut

in actuality is a reality. These anthropological and cosmological settings are to be taken seriously in

order to grasp the churchs life as an active, decisive, and salvific reorganisation and refashioning of

the limited dimensions and functions of the created world and the created being of mankind.10

Frederica Mathewes-Green, First Fruits of Prayer: A Forty Day Journey through the Canon of St Andrew (Brewster, Massachusetts: Paraclete

Press, 2006), 6.

Panagiotis Nellas, Deification in Christ, trans.Norman Russel (Crestwood, N.Y:SVS Press, 1987), 173.

0Panagiotis Nellas, Deification in Christ, trans. Norman Russel (Crestwood, N.Y: SVS Press, 1987), 169.

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By repenting and living in awareness of ones brokenness from the source of Life, St Andrew inspires

each person who reads the poem to struggle for salvation as did our forefathers. To achieve this

goal, St Andrew transfigured scripture by personalising, interiorising, and subjectifying all biblical

events and characters evoked in the poem (except Jesus and the Theotokos).11

For this reason the

poem becomes his own creative masterpiece, yet loyal to the Scriptures and Holy Tradition

conveyed in the form of poetry; and it relates and penetrates each of us to always keep in mind our

task, our salvation in Christ on a personal and communal level.

One the one hand, the beauty of the canon is witnessed as a theological treatise which leads

humanity to repentance - to refashion ones self and ones environment. On the other hand, it is an

ecclesiastical liturgical act that transfigures one personally, and in turn the whole world is saved in

the one person who returns to God.

Conclusion

The great Canon of St Andrew, Bishop of Crete, is the longest canon in all of our

services and is associated with the initial stages of the spiritual journey of great Lent. There is no

other sacred hymn which compares with this monumental work, which St

Andrew wrote for his personal meditations. Nothing else has its extensive typology and

mystical explanations of the scripture, from both the Old and New Testaments. One can

almost consider this hymn to be a survey of the Old and New Testament. It's other

distinguishing features are a spirit of mournful humility, hope in God, and complex and

beautiful Trinitarian Doxologies and hymns to the Theotokos in each Ode.

St Andrew wrote the Canon to challenge the faithful spiritually. For Eastern Orthodox, all spiritual

exercises are designed to heighten our perception of basic reality: Sin is much more serious than we

think, and God's forgiveness is much more vast than we think. Left to ourselves, we go around with

Playskool impressions of what's at stake. So the goal of all spiritual disciplines are to cultivate

charmolypi to use a Greek term coined by the 6th-century abbot of the monastery on Mt Sinai, St.

John of the Ladder. Charmolypimeans the kind of penitence that flips into joyous gratitude, "joy-

making sorrow," repentance shot through with gold.

There is a tone of awe and mystery that runs throughout its expression a sense ofseriousness and

urgency for the restoration from the old Adam to the new Adam based on the incarnation. The great

Canon provides the faithful with the tools not only to approach God but more importantly, to unite

with Him. Its main theme is: repentance, the return form sin or the unityof the cosmos and the

human race - as one creation united in love - to its Creator. The great Canon invites the faithful to

utilise all aspects of their existence including all their senses to communicate with their Creator, in

order to live with Life itself. For this reason St Andrews Canon contains both anthropological and

cosmological themes, which include:

How we should think about ourselves:

1 (Father) Doru Costache, Reading the Scriptures with Byzantine Eyes : The Hermeneutical Significance of St Andrew of Cretes Great

Canon, Phronema 23 (2008).

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Where shall I begin to lament the deeds of my wretched

life? What first-fruit shall I offer, O Christ, for my

present lamentation? But in Thy compassion grant me

release from my falls Mon:1.1

Desire to change - dialogue with the soul:

Come, wretched soul, with your flesh, confess to the

Creator of all. In the future refrain from you former

brutishness, and offer to God tears of repentance Mon:1.2

Recognizing Reality:

The end is drawing near, my soul, is drawing near! But

you neither care nor prepare. The time is growing short.

Rise! The Judge is at the very doors. Like a dream, like

a flower, the time of this life passes. Why do we bustle

about in vain? Mon:4.2

How to pray - Laments and supplications to God:

Thou art the Good Shepherd; seek me, Thy lamb, and

neglect no me who have gone astray Mon:3.5

OT and NT examples of righteousness and unrighteousness,

for the purpose of emulation or avoidance:

Do not be a pillar of salt, my soul, by turning back; but

let the example of the Sodomites frighten you, and take

refuge up in Zoar. (Genesis 19:26) Thu Ode 3:5

I have reviewed all the people of the Old Testament as

examples for you, my soul. Imitate the God-loving

deeds of the righteous and shun the sins of the wicked. Tue Ode 8

Therefore the function and purpose of the great canon is to reveal sin to us and to lead us thus to

repentance, and it reveals sin not by definitions and enumerations but by a deep mediation on the

great biblical story which is indeed the story of sin, repentance and forgiveness. It indicates to us the

revealed Biblical world-view of humanity, of its life, its goals, and its motivation. It helps us to see

that sin is first of all the rejection of life as offering/sacrifice to God; in other words sin is the

rejection of the divine orientation of life, sin is therefore the deviation of our love from its ultimate

object and subject, the presence of God, God Himself. By offering us this deeper realisation about

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ourselves and our life, the great canon restores in us the fundamental framework within which

repentance again becomes possible, having now found the true dimension of our life by its guidance.