The Oblation

Yesterday there was an argument between some brethren about the office of Proskomedia (oblation) in our Church. The question was: is it permissible to commemorate non-Orthodox Christians in the Liturgy? The argument reminded me of two scholars in our Church, Metropolitan George Khodr and my friend Father George Massouh who is with God. I will leave you a gift from each of them. In a meeting I was in, Metropolitan George said that, after he became a priest, he spent years not commemorating at the Liturgy a relative of his from another Church. Then he discovered an Orthodox document that led him to commemorate him. The second gift: we were, at Father George's house in Aley, talking about the Liturgy. He was categorical in his saying that the tray (Diskos), on which we remember the Lord (Lamb), His saints and the brethren, both alive and dead, is an image of the One Church. A brother with us asked him: “do you remember non-Orthodox?”. He replied: "I am afraid if I say: "No", that you will confine me ecclesiastically to the earth. The Eucharist, as Father Schmemann says: "is an ascent," I say, in love, beyond the divisions of the earth”! Scholars know best.