ABSTRACT
The circumstances of Petre Tutea's life were such that his faith became truly grounded in the reality of lived experience. Tutea's early life had brought him into contact with the world of cosmopolitan Western and Central Europe, a far cry from that of the Orthodox priest's son brought up in a rural village in Romania. Tutea's life and work are founded on the traditional understanding that through the Eucharistic presence God feeds humanity. What Tutea valued in Orthodoxy was not just its elaborate ritual, but the way in which it draws upon the simple Eucharistic elements and their primary symbolism, offered to humanity in the 'upper room', and valid for all time. As the early Christians sought to proclaim the majesty of God in ever grander buildings, liturgical celebration similarly became more and more elaborate. Christ's Lordship was integral to his whole being, not only spiritually and intellectually, but also physically in the most profound sense.
