Liturgy

Liturgy
("service")

The Christian liturgy memorializes the mysteries of Christ's life, death, and resurrection. It uses objects, such as bread, wine, and water, and gestures, such as anointing, and processing, symbolically. Each of these symbols has a fixed set of meaning depending on the Church (Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Anglican). The ceremony is generally comprised of both fixed and variable elements. The "ordinary" is the basic foundation of the liturgy that does not change with the day, feast, or season. The "proper" refers to the parts of the liturgy that change according to the day, feast, or season.

In Byzantium, one of the most important aspects of liturgy was the ritual of the Eucharist or Divine Liturgy. Two Constantinopolitan formularies exist, one attributed to John Chrysostom and the other to Basil the Great. The liturgy of Basil was most common until ca. 1000 when John Chrysostom's became more popular. Following 1000, Basil's liturgy was only performed ten times a year on the Sundays of Lent, 1 January, the Thursday and Saturday of Holy Week, the vigils of the Nativity and Epiphany, and two feasts with paramone. Originally, the Eucharist was only celebrated on Sundays, Saturdays, and feast days.

The Byzantine liturgy reached its complete form by the twelfth century. In its maturity, the liturgy had four parts. The first part was the prothesis rite or the preliminary preparation of the bread and wine. The prothesis rite was followed by the enarxis , an introductory service of three antiphons, litanies, and prayers. Next followed the Liturgy of the Word marked by the Little Entrance, scriptural readings, psalmody, litanies, and prayers. The Little Entrance introduced the Liturgy of the Word. It was lead by a deacon, accompanied by priests and servers, who carried the Gospel Book from the altar into the nave and through the templon back to the altar. The Little Entrance symbolized the Christ's coming as the Word. In the early church, the Little Entrance was the silent entrance of the clergy and the people into the church, marking the beginning of the liturgy. The Liturgy of the Eucharist followed the Liturgy of the Word. It included the Great Entrance, the preanaphoral rites, anaphoral dialogue, anaphora, precommunion, communion, thanksgiving, and dismissal. The Great Entrance marked the beginning of the second part of the liturgy. The deacon carried the paten with the eucharistic bread and the priest carried the chalice with the wine from the prothesis chamber into the nave and then through the templon to the altar. The entrance of the eucharistic gifts symbolized Christ's coming in the sacrament of the Eucharist. In the early church, the Great Entrance consisted of the transfer of the gifts offered by thecongregation. The gifts were brought from the skeuophylakion or treasury to the altar by the deacons.

The two entrances marking the start of each part of the liturgy were important focal points of the early church, symbolizing the two parts of the liturgy. After the period of Iconoclasm and the Latin occupation of Constantinople (1204-1261), the liturgy was greatly influenced by monastic practice. This influence led to the compression of these ritual processions. They were confined to the interior space of the church and reduced to symbolic turns that ended where they began. Monastic influence is also thought to have brought changes in the church buildings themselves. The scale of the building was greatly reduced, the rituals of the church became more and more private, retreating to the enclosed sanctuary as the templon evolved into a screen, which prevented the congregation from witnessing many of the rituals performed by the priest, and the synthronon in the apse of the church, which elevated the clergy in front of the congregation was eliminated. BLR

BIBLIOGRAPHY
"Eucharist." Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Ed. Alexander Kazhdan. 3 vols. New York: Oxford University Press. 737-738.

"Great Entrance." Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Ed. Alexander Kazhdan. 3 vols. New York: Oxford University Press. 868.

"Little Entrance." Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Ed. Alexander Kazhdan. 3 vols. New York: Oxford University Press. 1238-1239.

"Liturgy." Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Ed. Alexander Kazhdan. 3 vols. New York: Oxford University Press. 1240-1241.