Andreas Andreopoulos - "All in all" and the Eschatological Mystagogy of Maximos the Confessor

One of the strangest problems in the study of the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom is the meaning of the phrase “kata panta kai dia panta” (for all and in all) in the anaphora. Although this phrase (which could be read in several ways) is in the most significant and most theologically charged part of the Divine Liturgy, it has not been interpreted in any of the medieval and Patristic liturgical commentaries. The most systematic and detailed among them, the Commentary on the Divine Liturgy written by Nicholas Cavasilas, simply repeats the phrase, not venturing an interpretation – although it discusses extensively almost every other part of the service. This lack of interpretive foundation in the Fathers exacerbates the problem, since the phrase is grammatically ambivalent to begin with. Modern liturgical scholars (such as Robert Taft) generally connect it with the recount of the historical work of Christ, but although this is possible, there is no Patristic support for it. In addition, in my opinion, the current mainstream interpretation is somewhat limited in its theological view.

A different possibility is offered by a careful reading of the Mystagogy of St Maximos the Confessor. His analysis of the Divine Liturgy omits the anaphora (various explanations have been given for this), yet between his comments on the Sabbaoth Hymn and the Lord’s Prayer (the parts before and after the anaphora) include a strangely off-the-topic relatively lengthy reference to St Paul’s  eschatological “o theos panta en pasin” (God will be all in all) (1 Cor 15:28). Although St Paul’s phrase is grammatically different, the similarity of the two phrases is striking.

My short introduction to the problem will try to present the possibility of a different reading of the liturgical phrase, which is more consistent with the eschatological liturgical view of St Maximos. According to this reading, although St Maximos does not directly engage with the meaning of the anaphora in his Mystagogy, enough indirect clues may be found in the 24^th chapter of the Mystagogy and elsewhere, to suggest that his interpretation of the liturgical phrase was not the same as the current modern interpretation, but offers instead a much more strongly eschatological reading of the anaphora and the entire Divine Liturgy.