There is one remarkable passage in the divine services of the day of Theophany, in which this connection is so really expressed that it can appear to a person of little faith as a great temptation: at the end of the hours, the troparion is sung, which is addressed to John the Baptist.

The Holy Church is aware that the Baptism of the Lord, which was once on earth and is now being performed again in the Church, is imminent, the great consecration of the Jordan is imminent, and not the partial blessing of water in the church. Who should be called to celebrate the celebration? Of course, the one who did this before, who baptized the Lord. "Thy hand, which touched the Most Pure Lord, Thou didst show us with it and His finger, lift up for us to Him, the Baptist, as having much boldness: for Thou hast borne witness to the pains of all the prophets from Him. And thine eyes, having seen the packs of the All-Holy Spirit, as having descended in the form of a dove, lift up to Him, the Baptist, and do mercy to us: and come, stand with us, seal the singing and begin the celebration."

If one believes in this seriously, and the Church has nothing in her liturgical experience that we are rich in, that the temporal world is rich in, that she takes only that which is eternal, that which is active, that which is holy, if one believes in all this together with the Church, then with what great trepidation and reverence must one approach the divine services!

In another place, on the day of the Meeting of the Lord, we ask that the daughter of Phanuel, i.e. Anna the Prophetess, come and stand with us:

O daughter of Phanuel. Come, stand with us...

The recent feast in honor of Gregory the Decapolites says in one of the troparia of its canon the same about the memory of the saints:

"Today the synod of fasting and venerable saints rejoices with us, the Apostles and Martyresses will celebrate the patriarchs and prophets in thy memory, O blessed, and with them remember those who revere thee faithfully, O Wonderful."

It is this connection between us and the heavenly world, this merging of the heavenly and the earthly, that gives us that great power which is contained in the prayer of divine services.

And for us, who approach prayer from these two sides, who believe that, on the one hand, we participate in the divine services as part of the visible world, not alone, but with all of nature, and, on the other hand, that the angelic world also copulates in celebration with us, it is clear to them how bold the Church is; it does not say: "Let us remember how it was—how Christ was born, how He was baptized, how the Lord was transfigured, crucified, betrayed, and buried." True, sometimes it says about this: "Today we have gathered together let us sing this and that," or: "Today let us praise this or that saint," is sung in some stichera, canons, troparia, but the Church says something else for the most part: "Today is the transfiguration of God's favor...", "Today the Virgin is brought into the temple." Now all are filled with light, heaven and earth, and hell: let all creation celebrate the rising of Christ, in Him it is established," says the Paschal canon.

Today, and not sometime then, no, at this time, at this minute, when the divine service is being performed.

The Church has this boldness because in herself she is not temporary, but eternal, she is outside the world, above it, she is pre-worldly.

The Church is bold because it is not only we who perform divine services, we who have gathered here who are (as people) the highest part of the visible world, but we believe and hope that the powers of heaven serve with us invisibly, we believe and hope that through divine services we in the twentieth century have the opportunity to come into contact in divine services and prayerful illumination with events that have long passed, to come into contact and participate in them as in eternity.

It is this connection with the heavenly world and the visible world that is the greatest thing that makes the divine service not a remembrance, not a simple experience, it may be very good, but temporary and individual, but eternity, which unites everyone and everything – the visible and invisible world – and here, in the Church, those people who did not live when those great events took place, now they participate in them, join them as eternity.

This communication is carried out (to a greater or lesser extent) depending on whether a person has "honestly" undergone his upbringing. We must be brought up here, educate our hearing, sight, smell, touch, taste, bring up in conditions of pre-worldliness, temporality.