“We need to be thoroughly aware that we come to the temple not for individual prayer but to assemble together as the Church, and the visible temple itself signifies and is but an image of the temple not made by hands. Therefore, the ‘assembly of the Church’ is in reality the first liturgical act, the foundation of the entire liturgy; and unless one understands this, one cannot understand the rest of the celebration. When I say that I am going to church, it means I am going into the assembly of the faithful in order, together with them, to constitute the Church, in order to be what I became on the day of my baptism – a member, in the fullest, absolute meaning of the term, of the body of Christ.”

Alexander Schmemann, The Eucharist, p.23

 

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