The church of creation: The blessing of the fruits of the vinetranslated

Office of the Hieromonk Gennadios Manolis, Theologian; Editor-in-Chief of the Orthodoxy-Pemptousia Unit

According to Basil the Great, nothing exists without a cause, nothing is accidental, everything has some secret and inexpressible wisdom. Likewise, plants and their fruits, in addition to their ecological importance as producers of ecosystems, are schools of logic and theognosis, which manipulate the mind and lead it from the visible and the tangible to the realm of the invisible.

Plants are an important element in the worship of the Orthodox Church. During the Eucharist, bread and wine are used, products of wheat and the vine. The wheat, the wine and the oil are blessed during the sequence of the bread offering. In addition, through the liturgical and liturgical practice, the fruits of the earth, such as grapes and figs, are offered and blessed during their ripening season and in general every act and work connected to the earth and its agriculture is accompanied either by thanksgiving to the Creator or by a request that the cultivation and harvest be fruitful and fruitful.

There has always been a tradition in the Church during the…