Vladika Seraphim (The Theology of Wonder) suggests that the Grail stories of the medieval romances are a figure of theosis. The Sacred Cup is the Eucharist after the Resurrection. This raises a question and a delightful expansion of the theology of the Eucharist.
An Orthodox monk once addressed the Yale Russian Chorus, when we visited Trinity-Sergievo Lavra in 1971, congratulating us on learning the language of the angels in heaven. For in eternity,all worship - including the Holy Eucharist - will be transcended (since we will be joined eternally in the Body of Christ, without need of sacraments) and we will simply sing God's praises. I remember that the monk was the choirmaster of the great monastic choir - the best in the world, in my opinion. So, perhaps Archimandrite Mattfey can be excused for forgetting the Lord's own promise to drink anew of the Vine in the Kingdom.
For that New Vintage - the Eucharist after the Resurrection - is what the Holy Grail signifies and represents. The Knights of the Grail are the heroic spiritual warriors, seeking theosis. And the divinization they seek is not for themselves alone, as individuals, but for the whole world. The divinization of the Cosmos is the goal.
Vladyka Serphim notes the forgotten author, Arthur Machen, who seems to have understood the matter. The Grail stories appear to have been an attempt to portray the Mystical side of Eucharistic theology, as the Schoolmen were describing it rationally. I can't help but consider this in conjunction with my reading of Submerged reality, a new study of Sophiology, by a Western medievalist, Michael Martin. The nominalists severed reason (science) from art and religion. The Romantics tried to reintegrate them (Goethe, &al.). A hundred years later, the Russian "silver age" produced Soloviev and Bulgakov and their Sophiology. [Something could be said, perhaps, from a Eurasianist perspective: the Russian contribution had roots slightly different from the Western Europeans. The Orthodox Slavs were already familiar with the Divine Feminine and the mysterious figure of Holy Wisdom.]. Could it be that the Grail as mystical transcendence is somehow related to Haighia Sophia, and that the Divine Liturgy, in its Eucharistic aspect, is also eternal?
The notion of a post-Resurrectional Eucharist seems to expand it from a Mystical re-presentation of Christ's Death "until I come again," to a Mystical entrance into the Resurrection itself, as with Christ we drink anew of the Vine in the Kingdom.
An Orthodox monk once addressed the Yale Russian Chorus, when we visited Trinity-Sergievo Lavra in 1971, congratulating us on learning the language of the angels in heaven. For in eternity,all worship - including the Holy Eucharist - will be transcended (since we will be joined eternally in the Body of Christ, without need of sacraments) and we will simply sing God's praises. I remember that the monk was the choirmaster of the great monastic choir - the best in the world, in my opinion. So, perhaps Archimandrite Mattfey can be excused for forgetting the Lord's own promise to drink anew of the Vine in the Kingdom.
For that New Vintage - the Eucharist after the Resurrection - is what the Holy Grail signifies and represents. The Knights of the Grail are the heroic spiritual warriors, seeking theosis. And the divinization they seek is not for themselves alone, as individuals, but for the whole world. The divinization of the Cosmos is the goal.
Vladyka Serphim notes the forgotten author, Arthur Machen, who seems to have understood the matter. The Grail stories appear to have been an attempt to portray the Mystical side of Eucharistic theology, as the Schoolmen were describing it rationally. I can't help but consider this in conjunction with my reading of Submerged reality, a new study of Sophiology, by a Western medievalist, Michael Martin. The nominalists severed reason (science) from art and religion. The Romantics tried to reintegrate them (Goethe, &al.). A hundred years later, the Russian "silver age" produced Soloviev and Bulgakov and their Sophiology. [Something could be said, perhaps, from a Eurasianist perspective: the Russian contribution had roots slightly different from the Western Europeans. The Orthodox Slavs were already familiar with the Divine Feminine and the mysterious figure of Holy Wisdom.]. Could it be that the Grail as mystical transcendence is somehow related to Haighia Sophia, and that the Divine Liturgy, in its Eucharistic aspect, is also eternal?
The notion of a post-Resurrectional Eucharist seems to expand it from a Mystical re-presentation of Christ's Death "until I come again," to a Mystical entrance into the Resurrection itself, as with Christ we drink anew of the Vine in the Kingdom.
I think Vladyka Serphim's thesis is correct. The Rationalization of the Christian matter in the Medieval period was not simply the work of the nominalist. The realist (for short cut, think of them as Platonist) converted doctrine into rational statement, e. g. The fall of man meant the Satan acquired a legal right to all human individuals which could only be reversed by the sacrifice of a man which had not sinned. Nominialism attempts to reverse that by asserting a positive revelation. There is in either camp no mediation. As my favorite Romantic at present said: thinking without experience/experience with thinking. Where is the mediation to come from. Answer: the story. So one can see that the Grail legend is attempt to restore narrative to the Christian matter. 19th century romantics are arguing for the narrative. Who does that better than that late Slavic echo of Romanticism: Soloviev and Bulgakov.
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