Our Children and the Liturgy

“Of the several paths that lead to virtue, the broadest and the most promising is the way of imitation.”[1] In a short article on the pursuit of virtue, the renowned theologian Robert Louis Wilken rightly emphasizes the importance of imitation to the human experience and its bearings on spiritual life: “without examples, without imitation, there can be no human life or civilization, no art or culture, no virtue or holiness.”[2] In every aspect of human life, imitation and apprenticeship are integral. Children receive their most powerful formation through relation — namely, interacting with and observing and emulating their parents — such that the atmosphere in which they are reared as infants plays a significant role in their formation into adults. Likewise, self-expression and the creation of art draw inspiration from experience: by observation and emulation, a person forms their own unique personality and an artist develops their own style. Similarly, the development of thought progresses by way of discipleship and apprenticeship. 

The transmission of the experience of God was primarily accomplished, in the history of humanity and particularly among the Israelites, through imitation. As the Creator of all things, God made Himself known to Adam and Eve,[3] so that by abiding in His presence and interacting with Him, they would remain in the Image after which they were made. Even after their sin and consequent expulsion from the Garden,[4] Adam and Eve were not abandoned to the end[5] by God, but continued in a then-altered relation with Him. In this way, by relation and experience — albeit in a limited and “veiled”[6] manner — the experience of God would be delivered from person to person. By narrating their own personal experience of God and that of their ancestors to their children,[7] the Israelites handed down faith in God to each generation. This same system of discipleship is observed in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ: by taking flesh and becoming Man, God enabled humanity to abide once more in His presence and to observe Him, know Him, interact with Him, and experience Him deeply and most intimately. Thus, as Wilken remarks in a later article: “Christian faith lives by the simple act of handing down what others have passed on to us.”[8] This experiential nature of Christian life provides a most integral foundation to the pastoral dimension of liturgical administration, especially as it relates to the place, role, and function of children in the Church’s liturgical celebrations.

The Christian life necessarily flows from observation and experience guided, informed, and contextualized by the necessary component of understanding. It requires holistic involvement and cannot be relegated merely to the intellectual dimension of the human experience. Christian education is life delivered and received through an incarnate experience, requiring the whole Church. In his work Foundations for Christian Education, John Boojamra notes: 

“The whole Church educates. Not only is every person the object of the Church’s educational efforts, but every member of the Church is the subject of the Church’s educational effort. The whole Church educates in all of her life. The greatest error we can make is to identify education with children and school.”[9]

As such, the worshipping community fulfills a central function in the upbringing and education of the Church’s members: “…people, both children and adults, become Christians not by learning about Christianity but by being integrated into an existing Church through experiencing the rites, symbols, and stories of the community.”[10]

This systematic approach to Christian education comes to life beautifully in the experience of St. Athanasius of Alexandria, who has deservedly garnered the world’s attention in 2025 as a result of the 1700th anniversary of the convening of the Church in 325 A.D. for the Council of Nicaea. Approximately 27 years before this Council, Athanasius was born into a faithful Christian family amidst a time of turmoil in the Empire. Despite the severe hardship and persecution of the Christians, Michael Molloy describes:

“While just a ‘babe in arms’ [Athanasius] accompanied his parents to the services of the Church. And as everyone there prayed and worshipped, so he prayed and worshipped, too — as babies do. Before he was old enough to walk, the life of faith and worship were familiar to him: the music of the Psalter, the chiming of the bells, the fragrance of the incense, the glimmer of the candles, the chanting of the prayers, the sprinkling of the holy water, the gaze of the icons, [and] the taste of the Eucharist.”[11]

This liturgical environment became deeply formative to the young Athanasius:

“It is clear from the historical data that Athanasius was quite familiar since a young age with the liturgical prayers of the Church. For instance, a famous story recorded about him by several early Christian historians tells that one day, Pope Alexander spotted young Athanasius playing with his friends by the seashore in Alexandria. As he watched them play, he recognized that they were acting out the liturgy of baptism, and so when he had called them over and investigated their play, he discovered that Athanasius, who fulfilled the role of the bishop in the act, conducted the rite precisely and with great enthusiasm and reverence.”[12]

Through a liturgically-integrated formation, paired with a living discipleship to his family, Alexander, Antony, and others, Athanasius grew up into the pillar of Orthodoxy we know and are greatly indebted to today. 

While the importance of liturgy to faith formation cannot be understated, pastoral philosophies lead to a variety of approaches to liturgical participation with regard to children. These must be considered thoughtfully, if we hope through them to deliver the life of Faith to our children. As the great liturgical scholar, Fr. Alexander Schmemann, observed: 

“Whether we want it or not, we are challenged today with the tremendously difficult task of rethinking Church tradition as a whole, of applying it in a situation radically different from that of the past. It will take more than one generation to solve this problem, but we must at least face it and also become aware of its meaning.”[13]

The Cognitive Approach

For some, the Divine Liturgy is approached from a cognitive, or intellectualistic, perspective. This position argues that the efficacy of the liturgical service hinges upon the worshippers’ mental comprehension of the liturgy and its prayers, readings, and rites. If young children and infants are incapable of understanding the liturgy, it follows that these should not participate in the liturgy. In a disheartening article, Roman Catholic priest Fr. Michael White writes:

“There is something in Catholic Church culture that insists kids belong in the sanctuary for Mass. I must say I don’t totally understand it, but it is definitely a Catholic thing. Part of the thinking is that sheer exposure to the service imbues them with grace and other good things in some kind of effortless and mindless sort of way. But if they can’t understand the readings and they cannot take Communion, it is unclear what they are ‘receiving’ Sacramentally.”[14]

Further, infants are critiqued for disrupting the services and preventing their parents and other worshipers from devoting their full attention to the service — liturgical “crimes” which justify their seclusion in isolated crying rooms or exclusion entirely from the liturgical gathering.[15]

While a wise pastor would not advise parents to leave their children at home when they come for the liturgical services, he explores alternatives. Fr. White concludes: “This is why we invest in our children’s programs. We love the children of this parish so much we want them to have a great time and learn to love the Lord too, through age appropriate messages and worship. Meanwhile their parents can devote their full attention to worship.”[16] However, in elevating the intellect to a place of primary importance, a presumption is introduced in which the liturgy is understood as communicating theology and the Faith of the Church merely through information. As a result, liturgy comes to be understood as being “intended for adults.”[17] Consequently, it becomes subjected to an eisegetical approach: rather than allowing liturgy to itself nurture and instruct the faithful as it is intended and perfectly equipped to do, an imposition is introduced. For instance, “children’s liturgies” are established where young children are gathered apart from adults to attend a distilled version of the liturgical service violated with interruptive comments and educative lessons. This fission of the family enables the adults to participate in a different service without the “distractions” of their children, as the “children’s liturgy” is rendered a makeshift classroom, equipped with human instructors and students, so as to deliver an intellectually apprehensible experience of the sacrament.

However, as Timothy O’Malley brilliantly responds to Fr. White’s article, “[i]f participation in the Eucharistic liturgy requires the same degree of intellectual capacity as a scholarly lecture, the fruits of the Eucharistic life are reserved only for those with the appropriate intellectual understanding.”[18] While understanding certainly comprises an important component to benefiting from the liturgy, “when one reduces the liturgical act to ‘understanding,’ then there is an erasure of the contemplative, aesthetic, and thus embodied formation that is integral to a worshipful existence.”[19]

Beholding is as integral as comprehending the liturgy. This is especially relevant for infants and young children.[20] In a fascinating study, Mark Johnson reveals how the human person generates meaning through embodied movement, even before self-consciousness has fully developed:

“[Babies and children] must learn to understand what is happening to them — what they are experiencing and what they are doing…We thus grow into a meaningful world by learning how to ‘take the measure’ of our ongoing, flowing, continuous experience. We grow into the ability to experience meaning, and we grow into shared, interpersonal meanings and experiences.”[21]

Without immersion into the worshipping community, children are deprived of its formative experience. In returning to Wilken’s opening article, “before we can become doers we first must be spectators.”[22] This underlies the destructive dangers of dividing the worshipping community, especially by age.[23] Separated from their parents, children are robbed of the opportunity to observe and imitate them, and the natural progression of their growth from babes in arms to reverent adults is thereby stunted. While children may not be able to comprehend the sermon and other components of the liturgy, they are “discovering in the act of Eucharistic worship according to [their] capacity that this act really matters…They are learning the very meaning of what it means to be a liturgical creature even as they sleep in their mother’s or father’s arms during the Eucharistic liturgy.”[24] Hand-in-hand with their children, parents and adults likewise cultivate for themselves an atmosphere of edification, being invited to return again to the act of beholding liturgy. O’Malley beautifully shares:

“My toddler daughter does get bored at Mass. And my act of worship is not to whisk her away to some room where she can encounter God without me. Instead, it is to perform an act of worship where I slowly take her around the church…She is learning a worshipful mode of existence not through speech, not through some alternative liturgy appropriate to her toddlerhood. And as she learns, so do I. I learn once more to delight in genuflecting, in chanting, in singing, in beholding.”[25]

As beholders of liturgy, children require the stimulation of all their senses. The liturgy itself facilitates the satisfaction of this need: the smell of the incense, the gaze of the iconography, the beauty of the architecture, and the symphony of the hymns and prayers altogether deliver and make possible the transformative experience of the liturgy for the entire worshipping community — children and adults alike.  Therefore, as Fr. Schmemann asserts:

“[T]he first duty of parents and educators is to ‘Let the children come…and do not hinder them’ (Matt. 19:14) from attending Church. It is in church that children must hear the word ‘God’ for the first time. In a classroom it is difficult to understand, it remains abstract; but in church it is ‘in its own element.’ In our childhood we have the capacity to understand, not intellectually, but with our whole being, that there is no greater joy on earth than to be in church, to participate in church services, to breathe the fragrance of the Kingdom of Heaven, which is ‘joy and peace in the Holy Spirit’ (Rom. 14:17).”[26]

This consideration uncovers a different approach to the involvement of children in the liturgical setting.

The Sensory Approach

While some approach the liturgy from a perspective of cognitive primacy, others prefer a sensory approach. Proponents of this position maintain that by involving children in the liturgical service directly, such as through the ranks of Chanter[27] and Reader, this participation will correlate to their edification and their liturgical responsibilities will root them within the ecclesial community. This approach, however, falls short on various fronts. 

At the ecclesial level, the sensory-driven approach is not without infringement. The bestowal of ecclesial ranks upon children carries no Scriptural foundation, and in fact violates the teaching of the Scriptures regarding ordination. Ordination into the ranks of the Church was exclusively for the sake of the benefit of the service: the ranks were not means of establishing personal edification. The seven deacons selected by the Apostles in Acts 6 were ordained for the sake of the community, and not necessarily for their own upbuilding.[28] The servant is expected, in imitation of the Lord Jesus Christ, to pour himself out for the sake of those whom he serves.[29] For this reason, the criteria for election and ordination were exacting. In his advice to his disciple Timothy, the apostle Paul writes: “Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands;”[30] “Deacons likewise must be serious, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for gain; they must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. And let them also be tested first; then if they prove themselves blameless let them serve as deacons.”[31]

The ecclesial ranks, being central to the administration of the liturgical services, impart a grave accountability to God which requires understanding, a blameless manner of life, a wealth of spiritual experience, a certain mastery of the Church’s hymnology and ritual orders, and an ability to read and rightly interpret the Church’s liturgical texts and Scriptural readings. Thus, at the personal level, the ordination of children fails to account for sound human development and age-appropriate capabilities. People learn developmentally and “differently at different ages; they learn more efficiently, effectively, and meaningfully as they mature, because all learning is relational and contextual.”[32] The Lord Jesus Christ, being Himself the creator of man, understood and illustrated a proper approach to social ministry that takes into account such developmental considerations. In her book Our Church and Our Children, Sophie Koulomzin remarks: “Another aspect of the method of teaching of Jesus Christ is that He approaches each person at that person’s own particular level of development.”[33] The ordination of children into the ranks of the Church constitutes a failure to recognize their learning stages and abilities. It prematurely places upon them significant responsibilities which they are unable to adequately fulfill. Before infants can receive solid foods, they are nurtured and receive all that is necessary for their growth through their mother’s milk; circumventing this stage of their growth and feeding them with solid, nutrient-rich foods would place the infant at risk of death. Similarly, the premature conferral of ecclesial responsibility to children without their adequate preparation and before they are appropriately nurtured and formed to effectively fulfill the duties proper to the ranks to which they are ordained directly accrues to their detriment.

Meanwhile, the sensory approach engenders interpersonal conflicts within the worshipping community, particularly by inventing an occasion for stumbling for those upon whom the Church does not confer her ecclesial orders. For instance, the adolescent girl who does not yet understand the different gender-designated entrustments given to both men and women in God’s design for the human and in His arrangement for the Church will certainly feel unfairly treated when she finds her infant brother struggling at the service of the altar — a service which, due to her more advanced age, experience, and understanding, apart from her gender, she would be entirely justified in believing herself more adequately prepared to fulfill. In response, some seek to remedy this artificial contention through advocating for the conferral of new ecclesial ranks and the invention of orders for female chanters to vest and participate in novel ways in the administration of the liturgical service.[34] These, however, only give rise to further divisions and distinctions within the communal body, such as by relegating the service of chanting only to the vested choruses, thereby relegating the rest of the assembled believers to the position of spectators, whereas the liturgical hymns and congregational responses are not the responsibility or purview of a select few, but of all the faithful together, so that, as St. Ignatius of Antioch says, “with one voice and one mind, taking the key-note of God, you may sing in unison with one voice through Jesus Christ to the Father, and He may hear you and recognize you, in your good works, as members of His Son.”[35]

These interpersonal hindrances likewise uncover further issues related to the ordination of children. At the communal level, the direct involvement of children in administering the liturgical service creates barriers to offering a well-ordered and aesthetically pleasing prayer, since children are neither capable nor trained to deliver the deeply profound and transformative beauty of the liturgical experience in its requisite fullness. “The liturgy is art, translated into terms of life,” writes Romano Guardini.[36] The aesthetic dimensions of the liturgical services are important: the content and form of the liturgy cannot be divorced of each other. Beauty befits the house of God. As the Psalmist proclaims: “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.”[37] Liturgy “should be celebrated with the utmost perfection,”[38] because “liturgical celebration ideally should provide access to an experience of beauty, an encounter with beauty and an opportunity to become co-creators of beauty in God’s presence.”[39] Clare Johnson further elaborates:

“What is less-than-beautiful in the manner of celebrating the liturgy thus must be avoided at all costs. If what is at stake is the faith-life of believers, which poor celebrations risk weakening or destroying, then good celebrations, beautiful celebrations, are vital because the encounter with Christ’s beauty in the liturgy is that which changes us/opens us up to desire the promotion of what we have experienced: exposure to God’s beauty prompts us both to promote and emulate that beauty beyond the realm of the liturgical.”[40]

Through the aesthetic components of liturgy, worshippers are granted to enter into the essential act of beholding liturgy, and through it, to encounter most perfectly — that is, with all of their faculties — the beauty and presence of God. Through liturgical beauty, then, “the Church evangelizes and is herself evangelized.”[41] Dom Gérard Calvet expounds:

“…one enters the Church by two doors: the door of the intelligence and the door of beauty…[The beauty of the liturgy] deserves to be called the splendour of the truth. It opens to the small and the great alike the treasures of its magnificence: the beauty of psalmody, sacred chants and texts, candles, harmony of movement and dignity of bearing. With sovereign art the liturgy exercises a truly seductive influence on souls, whom it touches directly, even before the spirit perceives its influence.”[42]

The poorly administered service therefore fails to communicate this profound depth and beauty of the Church’s life.[43] Accordingly, children struggle to enter into the act of beholding, for either the beauty which they ought to behold is masked behind cacophony or their allocated responsibilities in the administration and celebration of the services overburden them, discourage them, and take them away from the act of beholding altogether, with the adults also themselves consequently experiencing often insurmountable barriers to both beholding and comprehending liturgy.

An Integrated Approach

The integration of both the experiential and intellectual components is therefore essential to the work of liturgy. Shawn Tribe, the founder of the Liturgical Arts Journal, explains:

“That our experiences, actions and other external dimensions of life generally have a profound influence upon us, forming us, moving us and so forth, is really a matter of common sense and experience. We are creatures founded in both of these aspects and we live and respond accordingly. What is true of life in general is also true of the liturgical and ecclesiastical life.”[44]

When each is considered in isolation or as more important than the other, an imbalance is introduced. A haphazardly-implemented model of pastoral care, as it pertains to the liturgical experience, therefore carries the potential of disturbing and distorting the efficacious work of the liturgy. The administration of the Church’s liturgical services must be carefully and thoughtfully assessed, especially as the believers of every generation are guarantors of the Church’s liturgical tradition. The Church has safeguarded and delivered to the believers a holistic model of formation, attending to both their physical and metaphysical needs. Thus, the apostle Paul, providing a paradigm for ministers, prays: “May the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”[45]

At the heart of this work of nurturing and raising healthy members of the Body of Christ is the life of liturgy, and “indeed, in a very real sense liturgy is not only at the heart of the Church’s life; liturgy is the Church’s life.”[46] From the altar, every other aspect of the Church’s life and service flows.[47] Fr. Schmemann therefore asserts:

“What then should Christian education be, if not the introduction into this life of the Church, an unfolding of its meaning, its contents and its purpose? And how can it introduce anyone into this life, if not by participation in the liturgical services on the one hand, and their explanation on the other hand? ‘O taste and see how good is the Lord’: first taste, then see — i.e. understand. The method of liturgical catechesis is truly the Orthodox method of religious education because it proceeds from the Church and because the Church is its goal.”[48]

Similarly, Boojamra notes: “Roots in the Church can be built only by a step-by-step participation in the life of the Church as well as by an increasing understanding of what the Church is.”[49] Accordingly, the pastoral model which excludes children from the liturgical gathering deprives them of the intimate experience of the Church’s life. The creation of special liturgies for children likewise inflicts damage upon their sound formation, separating them from parents and equating the act of worship with an academic endeavor. What is needed, then, is to administer the liturgical service with careful attention to both its intellectual and contemplative details. As important as the sermon and theological exposition of the day’s Scriptural readings is the ritual itself, as well as the hymnology, iconography, architecture, and every other physical component of the ecclesial experience. By fostering an atmosphere of aesthetic and intellectual beauty together, all the faithful, each according to their unique capabilities, gifts, personality, and character, are enabled to fully enjoy and benefit from the divine gift which God has freely offered to man in and through liturgy. Within such an atmosphere, we must allow children to be children, and as their caregivers, nourish them by the presence of the Lord, who said: “Let the children come to Me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”[50]

—

[1] Robert Louis Wilken, “The Lives of the Saints and the Pursuit of Virtue,” First Things (December 1990)

[2] Ibid.

[3] See Genesis 3:8

[4] See Genesis 3:23-24

[5] See The Divine Liturgy of St. Basil: The Anaphora

[6] See e.g., 2 Corinthians 3:12-18

[7] See e.g., Deuteronomy 4

[8] Robert Louis Wilken, “Hand On What You Have Received,” First Things (June 2014)

[9] John Boojamra, Foundations for Christian Education, 21-22

[10] Ibid., 30-31

[11] Michael E. Molloy, Champion of Truth: The Life of Saint Athanasius, 3

[12] Anthony A. Doss, “Athanasius, Arianism, and the Council of Nicaea — Part One: The Makings and Character of Saint Athanasius of Alexandria,” Doss Press (May 2025)

[13] Fr. Alexander Schmemann, Liturgy and Life: Christian Development Through Liturgical Experience, 14

[14] Fr. Michael White, “Why We Don’t Encourage (little) Kids In Church,” Make Church Matter (January 2019)

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Timothy O’Malley, “The Liturgy Is for (Little) Kids,” Church Life Journal (January 2019)

[19] Ibid.

[20] “We do not have special children’s services, because we realize that our experience of the services of the Church is not merely rational. Even if a child cannot yet understand all that is happening, he can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch for himself, and experience the presence of the Holy Spirit. We must not deprive our children of this experience; we must prepare them to appreciate it, to look forward to it, and to participate in it by prayer and in as many other ways as possible” (Sister Magdalen, Children in the Church Today: An Orthodox Perspective, 59).

[21] Mark Johnson, The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding, 35

[22] Robert Louis Wilken, “The Lives of the Saints and the Pursuit of Virtue,” First Things (December 1990)

[23] The division of the ecclesial community by any means is addressed in the second century by Ignatius of Antioch, who wrote to the Philadelphians: “Be zealous, then, in the observance of one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and one chalice that brings union in His blood. There is one altar, as there is one bishop with the priests and deacons, who are my fellow workers. And so, whatever you do, let it be done in the name of God” (Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Philadelphians § 4). 

[24] Timothy O’Malley, “The Liturgy Is for (Little) Kids,” Church Life Journal (January 2019)

[25] Ibid.

[26] Fr. Alexander Schmemann, Liturgy and Life: Christian Development Through Liturgical Experience, 16

[27] For a helpful discussion regarding the role and order of the Chanter, see Daniel N. Girgis, “On the Order of Chanter in the Coptic Tradition,” Living Tradition — Daniel Girgis’ Blog (November 2025).

[28] See Acts 6:1-6

[29] See Hegumen Antonios Ragheb, Ten Commandments For Sunday School Servants, 8-9

[30] 1 Timothy 5:22

[31] 1 Timothy 3:8-10

[32] John Boojamra, Foundations for Christian Education, 10

[33] Sophie Koulomzin, Our Church and Our Children, 25

[34] The subject of deaconesses remains outside the purview of this paper. However, for a nuanced historical presentation regarding deaconesses, see Aimé Georges Martimort, Deaconesses: An Historical Study. In it, Martimort pertinently writes: “…the Byzantine tradition, to the extent that it was a living tradition, did not assign any liturgical role to deaconesses at all, as we have had occasion to verify” (Aimé Georges Martimort, Deaconesses: An Historical Study, 246). He concludes: “For the fact is that the ancient institution of deaconesses, even in its own time, was encumbered with not a few ambiguities, as we have seen. In my opinion, if the restoration of the institution of deaconesses were indeed to be sought after so many centuries, such a restoration itself could only be fraught with ambiguity. The real importance and efficaciousness of the role of women in the Church has always been vividly perceived in the consciousness of the hierarchy and of the faithful as much more broad than the historical role that deaconesses in fact played. And perhaps a proposal based on an ‘archaeological’ institution might even obscure the fact that the call to serve the Church is urgently addressed today to all women, especially in the area of the transmission of Faith and works of charity” (Ibid., 250).

[35] Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians § 4. Importantly, this does not negate the specific role of the Chanter in preserving, delivering, and leading the congregation in the responses, praises, and hymns of the Church, according to their respective structures.

[36] Romano Guardini, The Spirit of the Liturgy, 73

[37] Psalm 27:4; As it relates to our earlier point, before the Psalmist inquires, he beholds.

[38] See Inter Oecumenici, Instruction on Implementing the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy § 13

[39] Clare V. Johnson, “Portals to Transcendence,” Maxwell E. Johnson, Timothy O’Malley, and Demetrio S. Yocum, At the Heart of the Liturgy: Conversations with Nathan D. Mitchell’s ‘Amen Corners,’ 1991-2012, 94

[40] Ibid., 96-97

[41] Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium § 24

[42] Dom Gérard Calvet OSB, Four Benefits of the Liturgy, 19-20

[43] “Adults who sing, or read, or serve, or share in the prayer of the congregation, must take care to do their part in a manner worthy of God, so as to inspire those present, and especially so as not to put off the children and others present who are not committed church members” (Sister Magdalen, Children in the Church Today: An Orthodox Perspective, 62).

[44] Shawn Tribe, “The Importance of Liturgical Beauty,” Liturgical Arts Journal (March 2018)

[45] 1 Thessalonians 5:23

[46] Robert F. Taft, “The Liturgy in the Life of the Church,” Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, Volume 40 (1999) Nos. 104, 188

[47] “In the Orthodox experience, Christian catechesis is comprehensible and truly possible only within the context of worship, i.e., within the living experience and expression of the faith. Worship encompasses the whole of Christian life, for worship is ‘liturgy’ in the widest possible sense, meaning both liturgical celebration in the gathered community and witness and service to Christ in the world” (Constance J. Tarasar, “The Orthodox Experience,” John H. Westerhoff III and O.C. Edwards Jr. (ed.), A Faithful Church: Issues in the History of Catechesis, 236).

[48] Fr. Alexander Schmemann, Liturgy and Life: Christian Development Through Liturgical Experience, 13

[49] John Boojamra, Foundations for Christian Education, 21

[50] Matthew 19:14

—

Cover Art: Adam van Noort, Christ Among Children (c. 16th/17th century).