“The chief place in Christian worship belongs to the sacraments or, as they are called in Greek, the mysteries. ‘It is called a mystery,’ writes Saint John Chrysostom of the Eucharist, ‘because what we believe is not the same as what we see, but we see one thing and believe another ... When I hear the Body of Christ mentioned, I understand what is said in one sense, the unbeliever in another’ (Homilies on 1 Corinthians, 7:1 (P.G. 61, 55)). This double character, at once outward and inward, is the distinctive feature of a sacrament: the sacraments, like the Church, are both visible and invisible; in every sacrament there is the combination of an outward visible sign with an inward spiritual grace. At Baptism the Christian undergoes an outward washing in water, and he is at the same time cleansed inwardly from his sins; at the Eucharist he receives what appears from the visible point of view to be bread and wine, but in reality he eats the Body and Blood of Christ” (Ware 274). The sacraments bring us closer to God by instilling grace in us. “The sacraments are personal: they are the means whereby God’s grace is appropriated to every Christian individually. For this reason, in most of the sacraments of the Orthodox Church”(Ware 276).
