Abstract

This paper analyzes the feast days of the Orthodox Church from the point of view of St. Gregory of Nazianzus. Liturgical scholars raise questions about the relationships between past and future, anamnesis and mimesis, the sanctification of time and longing for the eschaton. Investigation of Gregory’s liturgical theology, which has had unparalleled influence in the Byzantine rite churches, shows that all of these are false dichotomies. Gregory’s two homilies onPascha and his homilies on Christmas, Theophany, and Pentecost were preached throughout his public life. They show, in the feast days, anamnesis, in which the sacred events in Christ’s life are made present, and mimesis, the repetition of past events so as to arrive at the same future in God’s eternal kingdom. Patristics and liturgical scholars, however, have understood “mimesis” in different ways.