ELIJAH THE PROPHET

The Holy Prophet of God Elijah is the last of the prophets whose memory is still truly revered in Orthodox folk piety. He is not just a biblical figure, but an active actor in all of human history. He is a prophet-miracle worker who inspires fear. In the thunder and lightning of natural cataclysms, it still seems to us that nature is not at all “disenchanted.” After all, Elijah is racing across the sky with all his might toward the Second Coming of the Lord.

1 On August 2nd, the Orthodox Church celebrates the memory of the Prophet Elijah. This theme is both theologically and morally inexhaustible. Let us first recall that Elijah was a prophet of the 9th century BC. At that time, the kingdom of God’s people had already been divided into two parts. The first, called “Israel,” or the Northern Kingdom, had become godless and pagan. The second, the Southern Kingdom of Judea, continued to honor the one God. Elijah preached in the kingdom of apostates and godless kings. They seized power as if by tacit divine consent, “by default,” as we would say today. But God’s will—that is, his effective, gracious, saving power—was barely manifested. The God of the Bible and the prophets was angry with the people who had strayed from the covenant. God hid his presence.

2 In the early Church, in the Byzantine Empire, the prophets of the Old Testament were highly venerated. This is evidenced by the complete texts of the liturgical services in our Menaion. Many saints, even the greatest, sometimes do not have their own services, and we are forced to use the General Menaion, where the names of the saints are “inserted” into the common songs and hymns for specific groups of saints. The prophets, on the other hand, have their own services dedicated to them.

3 It is noteworthy that the Office as a liturgical process and the Office as a bureaucratic phenomenon derive from a common source: the lives of angels. Our contemporary, the philosopher Giorgio Agamben, wrote extensively, in detail, and argumentatively on this topic. Angels are God’s bureaucrats. The true prophets of the Bible tried to resemble them. But they failed, for angels are inimitable. Hence the great tragedy of the prophets, their inescapable pathos. As medieval theologians claimed, each angel is uniquely created; there is no common race of angels. Therefore, they can neither repent nor reverse a decision. Unlike humans, they can neither preach nor proselytize. After all, repentance is a creative process. Angels are very powerful, but they lack creative power.

4 The prophets of the Old Testament were honored with complete liturgical texts, not least because the Byzantine emperors considered themselves the successors of the Jewish kings. In the major cities of the East, the tombs of the prophets were venerated, and even their relics were displayed.

5 When we were studying at the seminary in the 1990s, some of our professors still remembered the teachers who had lived long enough to see those who taught under the Ancien Regime before the 1917 revolution. They said that at that time, seminarians had to memorize the names of all the kings of Judea and Israel. And there were many of those names! This means that at that time, centuries after Byzantium, the Russian Empire considered itself the heir to the biblical tradition. We seminarians at the end of the last century no longer knew the names of all the kings by heart. We remembered only a few, the most important of them. We had to know the names of all the prophets only.

6 “The glorious Elias, incarnate messenger of God, pillar of prophets, and second forerunner of the coming of Christ, sent grace from on high to Elisha that he might cleanse lepers and heal sickness for all those who honour him,” says the troparion to the prophet Elijah. He is not only the “pillar of the prophets” but also the last prophet, not only in the eschatological but also in the liturgical sense. Finally, unfortunately, all other prophets are no longer actively venerated in Orthodox popular piety. The feast of Elijah seems to have absorbed the feasts of all the other prophets.

7 It is often claimed that Elijah is widely venerated in the Russian Church because the Slavic pagans identified him with the deity of thunder and lightning. But why, then, is there nothing comparable in Polish Christianity, which is also strongly Slavic?

8 Historically, it is assumed that the Baptism of Rus’ began in August 988. Since Elijah was the prototype of John the Baptist, the feast in his honor was apparently part of the celebration of the baptismal events under Prince Vladimir. Due to a lack of sources, this cannot be historically proven. However, dogmatic theology has the right to make such assumptions; this is not only its legitimate area of expertise, but also its duty.

9 The feast of the Prophet Elijah can be called the “lesser Transfiguration.” In traditional Orthodox exegesis, Elijah ascended to heaven to appear alongside Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. He was a fervent believer in the one God. And here he is at Jesus’ side on the eve of the crucifixion. This became for the apostles a clear and extremely important proof of Jesus’ truthfulness in all things.

10 Staying with the theme of the little Transfiguration, let us pay attention to Peter’s words: “Lord, how good it is for us to be here! If you are willing, let us make three tents here: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” (Matthew 17:4). These tents or tabernacles of which Peter speaks can be interpreted in different ways.

11 In the context of the liturgical office and of the aforementioned “archaeology of office” a la Giorgio Agamben, the tabernacle is the place of the presence of the angelic realm, from which the divine administration of the world emanates. “You received the law through the ministry of angels,” preaches the apostle Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 7:53). According to the Gospel account, the apostles wanted to sit at the right and left of Jesus the Messiah. And each time they were convinced that he was the true Messiah, they began to ask for it with renewed urgency, even demanding it. After witnessing the Transfiguration and the appearance of Moses and Elijah, the apostle Peter asked for “three tabernacles to be set up,” to participate in the angelic administration of reality. “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him!” was the divine response (Matthew 17:5). Jesus is neither an angel nor a Kafkaesque official of God; he is the sole heir. Jesus is the Lord of the Bible and the beginning of the New Testament. The ministry of the angels is not his responsibility. He is above all else. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, as stated in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 22:13).

12 “Elijah was a man like us,” James says in his letter (James 5:17). This means: If we persevere in goodness until our last breath, if we remain in orthodoxy and orthopraxy to the end, we, like Elijah, will not die but will ascend to heaven in a chariot of fire. Like the prophets, we already do this constantly, partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ. Let us not linger to be with Elijah on the mount of the transfiguration of the world. Like lightning, the takeoff of an airplane, or an unimaginable high-speed train, the transfiguration of Christ at his Second Coming will inevitably occur very soon and bring history to an end.