The Liturgical Sermon as an Organic Part of the Liturgy. A Look at the Theology of Liturgical Preaching

Abstract

In ecclesiastical scholarship, preaching has a separate section, homiletics. While theologians attach great importance to preaching as a type of church ministry, little attention is given to describing the meaning of preaching, which is mostly understood as an independent part of pastoral ministry. From the point of view of its special form, audience, goals, and tasks, devotional preaching is analyzed in great detail in the articles of E. E. Golubinsky, N. I. Barsov, and other theologians and historians of the Russian Church. From the point of view of its organic connection with the divine service performed and the special meaning arising from it, preaching is not practically considered. The sermon is studied as a genre, the form of the sermon is spoken about, but the phenomenon of sound speech in the divine service and its connection with the reading of Scripture is not comprehended.  The distinctive feature of the sermon as an organic part of divine service is that it is the only spontaneous part of the liturgy that is not bound by the canon of performance, in contrast to all other liturgical texts. The liturgical place of the sermon is determined by its meaning – the disclosure of the meaning of Holy Scripture, through which the liturgical sermon acquires its special role in worship - giving new meaning to the liturgy in the context of the Gospel passage read and equally understood by the congregation. 

In the article an attempt to understand the sermon from a theological point of view, in order to highlight the moral aspect of preaching as an integral part of Orthodox worship.