Rituals Section Facing the East
Rituals Section
Facing the East
We build our churches facing east. And we pray while facing east, because the east directs our hearts toward contemplations we cherish, until it has become for us a symbol. And also because of the importance of the east in the thought of God as well. If God cared about it, let us also care about it…
1- Before God created man, He prepared the east for him as a source of light. And God saw the light, that it was good. In our language we say about the appearance of the sun that it is its rising. And the phrase “the sun rises” means it appears from the east, meaning it gives light. And the sun was created on the fourth day before the creation of man on the sixth day (Gen. 1).
And the rising of the sun is a symbol of the Lord Christ and His light. The Lord was called “the Sun of Righteousness,” and it was said, “The Sun of Righteousness shall arise, with healing in its wings” (Mal. 4:2).
2- And before the creation of man also, God planted for him the Garden of Eden in the east (Gen. 2:8), and placed him in it, and there also was the Tree of Life, and there was man’s first life before sin. And the Garden of Eden symbolizes the Paradise we look forward to.
And man’s facing the east came to symbolize his looking toward the Paradise from which sin deprived him, and symbolizes his looking toward the Tree of Life.
3- We also notice that the Lord Christ was born in the lands of the east, and the Magi saw His star in the east (Matt. 2:2). And this star symbolized divine guidance. And when the Magi followed it, it led them to the Lord. How beautiful this contemplation is!
4- And Christ who was born in the east, and whose star was in the east, His mother the Virgin was likened to a gate in the east (Ezek. 44:1–2).
5- And thus we see that salvation came to the world from the east. For Christ was also crucified in the lands of the east, and there He shed His blood for the forgiveness of the sins of the whole world.
6- And in the east began religion and the Church. In the east, in Jerusalem, the city of the great King, and in it the first Church in the world was founded. And from the east the message of the Gospel spread to the whole world. And in it was shed the blood of the first martyr in Christianity.
7- Likewise, the Holy Bible spoke much about the glory of God in the east.
In (Isa. 24:15) “In the east glorify the Lord.” And in the Book of Ezekiel there is a prophecy about the coming of Christ in His glory from the east. He says: “And behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east, and His voice was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone with His glory” (Ezek. 43:1–2).
8- Therefore the majority of theologians say: the Second Coming will be from the east, and as He ascended, so He shall come (Acts 1:11). For in the prophecy of Zechariah (14:3–4) that “the Lord’s feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east.”
9- Speaking about the east is beautiful, and its memories are sweet.
In Ezekiel (47:1–9) he speaks of “rivers of life in the east,” and in (2 Kings 13:17) he speaks in the east of “an arrow of deliverance for the Lord.” And in (Isa. 24:15) “In the east glorify God.”
10- Memories have an effect on the heart: they have their spiritual influence on the soul. And I like that when Daniel the prophet challenged pagan worship, he went up to his upper room to pray, opened the window that looked toward Jerusalem, and knelt and prayed… Truly God exists everywhere, but facing Jerusalem in the east had a meaning and a deep effect on the heart, and memories give the heart an importance for certain places whose remembrance stirs holy emotions.
11- We are not mere intellect in our worship: the senses work, and are affected, and affect the feelings of the spirit. An example of this is that we pray and lift our eyes upward, while God is everywhere… But looking upward stirs in our hearts spiritual feelings that give our prayer a special depth. Likewise facing the east…
And Christ Himself, on more than one occasion, looked upward, although the Father is in Him and He in the Father. But looking upward has a special significance…
12- And when we look toward the east, we are facing the altar that is in the east, because the sacrifice has in our hearts its spiritual place, and Christ our Passover was a sacrifice in the east.
13- And in baptism, also in a symbolic way, the baptized person and his sponsor face west to renounce Satan, then they face east to recite the Creed. And by this he feels that in baptism he moves from west to east, that is, from darkness to light.
14- And we ask: why fight the east — with all it carries of symbols, spiritual meanings, contemplations, and holy memories, supported by texts from the Holy Scripture — while there is in it no doctrinal error that would stir holy zeal?!
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