The Catalog of Good Deeds: Introduction to Liturgics

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In this commentary series on the Divine Liturgy I would like examine the original transition from the so-called “Liturgy of the Catechumens” (i.e. the first part of the service to which catechumens were welcomed) to the so-called “Liturgy of the Faithful” (i.e. the second part of the service from which catechumens were excluded and to which only the communicant faithful were welcomed). As we saw in my previous commentary on the Liturgy, the Byzantine liturgical developments have displaced this transition somewhat: originally the catechumens were prayed for and sent out immediately after they were prayed for after the Gospel reading and the sermon. The original intercessions of the Church for the world were only offered after the catechumens had departed. The insertion of the Litany of Fervent Supplication before the Litany of the Catechumens (our present arrangement) disturbs this original arrangement, dislodging the original transition. The original beginning of the Liturgy of the Faithful came not after the sermon, but after the dismissal of the catechumens. It began with the prayers of intercession for the world (what we now call “the Great Litany”) and made a final visual transition as the clergy approached the altar.

We must try to imagine what the Liturgy looked like during the time of Chrysostom and of Maximus the Confessor a couple of centuries later. In that time while the catechumens were being prayed for and dismissed, and then as the prayers of intercession were offered, the deacons exited the church through the north door to enter the little building adjacent to it where the holy vessels were kept. There they gathered up the bread and wine, the chalices, cloths, spoons, spears, and everything needed for the Eucharist and came back with them to the altar, where the episcopal celebrant was waiting for them. While they were gong, the bishop and his presbyters were preparing themselves for the Eucharist: they washed their hands and moved to take their places around the altar. Today the priestly celebrant stands at the altar for the entire service, but originally their place during the readings was sitting on their seats in the far east end of the apse, on the synthronon. Thus the transition from the service centered on the Gospel to the service centered on the Eucharist had a distinctly visual component, for one could observe the clergy leave their seats where they had sat throughout the readings to gather around the altar table.

The prayers accompanying this transition express what they are doing, and may be aptly described as prayers of access to the altar. Today these prayers are mistitled “The Prayers of the Faithful”, since they come at the place where the Prayers of the Faithful for the world—i.e. the Great Litany—once stood. But they are clearly not the prayers of the people, but the private devotional prayers of the clergy. Even a quick look at the prayers themselves reveals this: the clergy pray that God who “have accounted us worthy to stand even now before Your holy altar” may “enable us whom You have placed in this Your service, blamelessly and without offence to call upon You at all times and in every place”. The second prayer asks that God would “grant us to stand blameless and without condemnation before Your holy altar” and would “grant also to those who pray with us [i.e. the laity] growth in life and faith and spiritual understanding”. The silent prayer which the celebrant offers while the Cherubic Hymn is being sung says the same: “Enable me who am endowed with the grace of the priesthood to stand before this, Your holy Table, and perform the sacred mystery of Your holy and pure Body and precious Blood”. Yet another prayer, offered after the Great Entrance has taken place, is another prayer of access to the altar: “Accept also the prayer of us sinners, and bring us to Your holy altar, enabling us to offer unto You gifts and spiritual sacrifices for our sins and for the errors of the people”.

Why such a plethora of prayer all begging the same thing? Because it is a great and fearful thing for mortal man to stand before the consuming Fire of the holy God. We tend to imagine that a church service is simply a matter of us on earth sending our prayers “upstairs”, and launching our supplications to heaven. It is much scarier than that: it is a matter of inviting the Lord of all, before whom even the glorious cherubim and the fiery seraphim veil their faces in awe, to come “downstairs” and to dwell in our midst. “Who among us can dwell with the devouring fire?” asked the sinners of Zion with trembling (Isaiah 33:14). Who indeed? Yet we sinners in the Eucharist invite the devouring Fire into our midst, inviting a collision of sinful man with the holy God. In this collision (with the clergy in the front seats—hence all those prayers of access to the altar), we take a tremendous risk. Some found this to their cost, as St. Paul reminded his Corinthian converts who received unworthily (1 Corinthians 11:30). But if we all approach in penitence, in humility, forgiving others with contrite hearts and asking for our own forgiveness, this collision does not destroy us, but heal us. We are not consumed by the devouring fire, but illumined, warmed, transformed. These prayers of access to the altar reveal that the Eucharist to which we now transition is a daring epiclesis, invoking the fire of God upon us and inviting into our midst both judgment and salvation.

This Eucharist is not only a collision, but also a coalescing, as heaven joins with earth. In the days of Chrysostom and Maximus, the gifts of bread and wine were brought into the church to the accompaniment of a psalm—almost certainly Psalm 24:7-10. It was an obvious choice, since the psalm speaks not only of the Lord of glory coming in (i.e. Christ coming to us in the Eucharist through the Chalice), but also of doors and gates. What better psalm could serve for the procession as it re-entered the nave through the doors and gates leading to and from the sacristy outside? And the refrain of the psalm expressed the nature of the Eucharist which followed—originally the refrain was simply a triple “Alleluia”, but later was added to it the words “Let us who mystically represent the cherubim and who sing the thrice-holy hymn to the life-creating Trinity now lay aside all earthly cares that we may receive the King of all who comes invisibly upborne by the angelic hosts”. The refrain was sung over and over between the verses of the psalm until the procession reached the altar and placed the gifts upon the table. (Eventually the psalm dropped out, leaving the refrain all by itself, which was later split in half in mid-sentence to allow for intercessions during the procession.)

But however it is now sung, the words of the refrain reveal the true nature of the Eucharist as a joining of heaven and earth, an intersection of time and eternity. It is not simply a matter of us on earth singing like the cherubim while the cherubim themselves sing in heaven. No: Christ comes upborne by those angelic hosts, and we represent the cherubim by giving audible earthly expression to their spiritual songs as they accompany Christ as He comes to us in the Eucharist. Heaven joins with earth, and earth is lifted up to heaven. That is what the celebrant means when he says to the people to “Lift up your hearts!”—he is not exhorting them to cheer up, but to ascend to heaven. It is easier than it sounds, for in the Eucharist heaven comes down to us on earth. We serve and receive the Eucharist with the angels of heaven, with the saints, and with all the faithful who have gone before. Our Christian dead may indeed be described as “the dearly departed”, but in the Eucharist we find that they have not departed very far. They are with Christ, and so with us as well.

All this is revealed in this original transition to the Liturgy of the Faithful. That Liturgy is a collision and a coalescing, and it brings the potential for both judgment and salvation into our very midst.

By Fr. Lawrence Farley

Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/nootherfoundation/commentary-divine-liturgy-transitioning-eucharist/

I sometimes cannot help asking myself three liturgical questions whenever I visit churches which serve the Liturgy in the “classic” pattern I learned in seminary — all of those questions quite rhetorical. I would like to share them here in a spirit of calm inquiry in the hope of provoking helpful discussion about things liturgical. My approach might be styled as motivated by a spirit of “liturgical reform” by some, or even “renovation” by the less sympathetic, but my aim is not so much reform or renovation as a return to patristic common sense. That is, at Liturgy I cannot help wondering what St. John Chrysostom would think about what we have done with the Liturgy ascribed to him, and concluding that he would be less than thrilled at some of the changes that have evolved over the years. This does not mean that we should take the liturgical scalpel to the texts as Vatican II has done with the Roman Mass. But it does mean that if certain aspects of our praxis would raise the eyebrows of a Chrysostomus redivivus, perhaps we should revisit that praxis.

Question one: why do the people say “Amen” to prayers that they have not heard? Where the practice obtains of saying the prayers silently, the priest will say (for example) the prayer after the Great Litany silently or quietly enough not to be heard by the congregation, and then raise his voice so that the final bit of the prayer can be heard: “for unto You are due all glory, honour, and worship: to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever unto ages of ages”. The congregation (or perhaps the choir, substituting for the congregation) then answers, “Amen”. The part that can be heard is not a prayer, or even a sentence, but simply a clause. The problem, of course, is that such a practice makes nonsense of the people’s response “Amen”. The word “amen” does not mean “the prayer is over”. As St. Justin Martyr explained long ago, it signifies “so be it” (in his Greek, genoito/ γενοιτο), and represents the people’s participation and assent to what has been said. This congregational assent transforms the utterance from being the private wish and prayer of the celebrant into being the corporate prayer of the gathered church. As Schmemann says (in his book The Eucharist), “With this word the ecclesial assembly concludes and, as it were, seals each prayer uttered by the celebrant, thereby expressing its own organic, responsible and conscious participation in each and every sacred action of the Church”. This presupposes, of course, that the prayer has been uttered and heard. Of course the people know (maybe) what the priest has said silently, but private knowledge is not the point. Liturgical worship is not private knowledge, but public utterance. As it is, the people are sealing not a prayer, but a clause, one with minimal content. The fact that this is not felt as odd reveals how greatly the role of the laity has been devalued and rendered liturgically irrelevant.

And sometimes it is worse than this. In places where the priest serves without a deacon, it is customary for him to intone the Great Litany, and then straightway intone the final clause of the prayer (the so-called exclamation or ekphonesis), and then, after the Amen has been sung, say the prayer quietly during the singing of the First Antiphon. (Presumably this is why that prayer is called in the liturgy books “The Prayer of the First Antiphon”.) This means that the people are saying their Amen not only to a prayer that they have not heard, but to a prayer that has not yet been said. Their “amen” and their role then is not only irrelevant, but nonsensical. I can imagine St. John Chrysostom raising his eyebrows.

The second question is this: why do we sometimes talk to people who aren’t there? I refer of course to catechumens in congregations where catechumens do not exist. Whether or not a congregation has catechumens within it, oftentimes the deacon and priest will assume they are there and talk to them. The deacon begins by addressing them, “Pray to the Lord, you catechumens!” and then goes on to pray for them. He will conclude by talking to them again, bidding them, “Bow your heads unto the Lord, you catechumens!” Then the priest prays a prayer, asking God to look down upon the catechumens “who have bowed their necks before” Him and unite them to His holy Church through baptism. After all this, the deacon again talks to them, ordering them twice to “depart” and again to not remain. But if no catechumens are there, who are priest and deacon talking to and about? Generally speaking, sane people do not talk to people who are not there as if they were.

If a congregation does have catechumens, it is reasonable for them to pray for these catechumens even when they are absent—but not to talk to them. In the case of absent catechumens, the church might reasonably pray for them in the third person, omitting the lines in which catechumens are addressed in the second person (e.g. “Pray to the Lord, you catechumens!”). And of course one would not tell people to leave who were not present in the first place. As it is, we are talking to catechumens who aren’t there, and then telling them to leave, when we would in fact want them to remain even if they were there. When Chrysostom had his catechumens dismissed, he expected them to actually leave. That is, his words had existential meaning and a corresponding reality in congregational life. He would wonder why we pretend we have catechumens when we don’t, why we tell them to pray and bow their heads to the Lord when they are not there, and why we tell them to leave when we expect them to stay for coffee hour, or at least until the end of the service.

Question three: why do we pretend things have happened when they haven’t? Here I refer to several things. In some congregations the deacon cries out before the Gospel, “Stand upright!” (or “Let us attend!”; the Greek is orthoi/ ορθοι) and in some places this is taken as the signal to kneel. We tell people to stand up straight, and then don’t bat an eye when they do the opposite. Their piety may be commendable (if a touch uncanonical), but it makes nonsense of the liturgical direction.

It is similar later on when the people are bidden to bow their heads to the Lord (i.e. bow their heads forward so that the priest may extend his hand over them to bless them), and everyone present remains with unbent neck—except, oddly enough, the priest who turns his back on them to bow his head to the Lord. Or, most strangely of all, the diaconal command, “In the fear of God and with faith, draw near!” This is, of course, not a suggestion, but a command to all those listening to come forward to receive Holy Communion. The liturgical text assumes that the people have obeyed and that everyone present drew near, for the next diaconal litany begins, “Stand upright! Having partaken of the divine, holy, most pure, immortal, heavenly, life-creating and awesome mysteries of Christ, let us worthily give thanks unto the Lord”. In some congregations hardly anyone comes forward to receive (I remember being in one packed Greek church of about 500 people, where my wife and I and four other people were the only communicants), but the deacon insists on chanting as if the congregation had partaken of the divine and holy mysteries. In all this we see a gap between what we say and what actually happens. Our liturgical words have been, if not exactly emptied of meaning, then certainly subject to an existential erosion of meaning. We no longer mean exactly what we say. Constantinople’s pastor, I suggest, would not be amused.

What to do? One sometimes hears that no one can do anything to close the gap between words and reality in the Liturgy without the pronouncements of an Ecumenical Council. Such a view of history is defective. As a matter of historical fact, liturgies evolved throughout the centuries through shared local variation, quite apart from the mandates of an Ecumenical Council. Such councils, whether “ecumenical” or “provincial”, only concerned themselves with liturgical details when abuses and problems became widespread enough to merit their attention. Thus the Council of Nicea ruled that deacons should not commune presbyters (canon 18), and that one should not kneel liturgically on Sundays, or during the Paschal season (canon 20). Thus the “Quinisext” Council ruled that the pre-Eucharistic fast should be maintained even on Holy Thursday (canon 29), and that milk and honey should not be offered on the altar (canon 57). In all these rulings the councils were not concerned to police every liturgical development that occurred (which was beyond their power even if they had wanted to), but to simply curb developments they felt were widespread abuses. Liturgy grew and developed because it was alive, and quite apart from conciliar decrees. (For a quick overview see Taft’s The Byzantine Rite: A Short History.) The bishops had the major share of decision-making and control because the bishops then (unlike now) were the local pastors. As such, of course they had liturgical authority over the churches in which they had the weekly burden of pastoral care.

For now, the best we can hope for is to at least start the discussion. It is not an unimportant one. And we should hold the discussion realizing that St. John Chrysostom is watching us with interest. He might not now get a vote in the proceedings, but his approval or disapproval should surely matter to us.

We invoke his name and his authority at the conclusion of every non-Lenten Liturgy, and we will one day have to face him and perhaps explain to him why it is we serve “his Liturgy” the way we do.

By Fr. Lawrence Farley

Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/nootherfoundation/three-liturgical-questions/

I would like to conclude this commentary series on the Divine Liturgy (or at least the first part of the Liturgy, the so-called “Liturgy of the Catechumens”) with a reflection on the reading of the Gospel. In the Liturgy, after the reader chants the prokeimenon and the epistle, the Gospel lesson is then chanted. But it is not chanted without a somewhat elaborate preparation. Prior to the priest taking the Gospel book from the altar table and giving it to the deacon who will read it, the Gospel is censed from all four sides. The Church recognizes the holiness of objects by censing them, so that it censes the holy icons on the icon-screen before the start of the service, the holy Gifts of bread and wine before they are moved to the altar table, and the holy people of God as they assemble for worship. In the same way the holy Gospel book is also censed before it is picked up because the book represents Christ—we show our reverence for Him by showing reverence to the volume containing His words.

It is easy to miss the significance of this censing, since (for some reason unknown to me) the deacon censes not only the Gospel book but also the interior of the altar, the people within the altar, the icons on the icon-screen, and the people standing in the nave. The rationale for the censing is thus easy to lose sight of, as one might suppose the deacon is censing the altar table along with pretty much everything else in church. But he is not censing the altar table; he is censing the Gospel book, which happens to be resting on top of the altar table. The focus and rationale for this censing is even easier to lose if the comprehensive censing is done during the reading of the epistle, for one might then imagine that the censing has something to do with the epistle. It does not. It has nothing to do with the epistle, and everything to do with the Gospel.

The censing of the Gospel book at this point shows the importance of the reading. The epistle is important too, but we do not cense the epistle-book before reading it. The Gospel book, alone among the books we use, is censed before being read. This reveals the supreme importance of those words—among all the other holy words, these words represent the Holy of Holies, the very words of the Master, the ipsissima vox of Christ Himself, and in them Christ even now stands in our midst to speak to our hearts.

Hearing these words brings with it a tremendous responsibility, for we will no longer be able to claim ignorance of the divine will if we fail to carry it out. The Lord warned us, “To whom much is given, much is required” (Luke 12:48), and once we receive the gift of hearing the words of Christ, we will be required to fulfill them. We need therefore to let these words sink not just into our outer ears, but also into our inner hearts. That is why in every Christian liturgical tradition a prayer precedes the reading of the Gospel, asking that we might be worthy of hearing it. The Gospel prayer in our present Liturgy asks that God might illumine our hearts with the pure light of His divine knowledge and open the eyes of our mind to the understanding of His Gospel teachings so that we might think and do such things as are well-pleasing to Him. The prayer, too often said silently, is clearly meant to be said aloud, for it represents not the private devotional prayer of the priest, but the prayer of the entire congregation about to hear the words of the Gospel. It is only after that prayer is said that the deacon dares to read the Gospel to the people of God.

To do this, he stands among them, not reading the Gospel from the ambo at the front of the Church facing the people, but standing in their very midst. That is because it is not the deacon who speaks so much as Christ Himself, dwelling in the midst of His assembled people, and speaking His words. We honour the Lord who thus manifests Himself in our midst by holding candles before the book containing His words, standing as a kind of honour guard around Him. The psalm sung as a prokeimenon between the epistle and the Gospel always has as its refrain the cry, “Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!”, because the words of the Lord always produce joy in the hearts of those who hear them with faith.

Before reading the Gospel, the deacon asks for a blessing, since he is mindful of the importance of the work he is about to do. The celebrant responds by blessing him as he requested, asking that God, through the prayers of the Evangelist whose book he is about to read, may indeed enable him to proclaim the good news with great power, fulfilling the purpose of the Gospel. It is only after receiving this priestly blessing that the deacon reads the Gospel. And the people also require a blessing to hear the words of Christ fruitfully: the priest therefore blesses them also, saying, “Peace be unto all!” The words of Christ are chanted to the cry, “Glory to You, O Lord, glory to You!”, for these are not the words of someone long dead, but those of One even now alive in their midst.

All this extra ritual emphasizes something fundamental, not only about the Gospel reading, but also about the Liturgy as a whole—that in the Liturgy, Christ Himself comes to meet and transform us. Liturgy is not like a funeral, wherein someone offers a eulogy praising someone no longer among them. It is a banquet given by our divine Host who sits among us as we come to His festal table. Even more than that, Christian Liturgy represents the voice of Christ Himself, praising His Father from the midst of His people. That was the insight of the writer of Hebrews 2:11f: the verse from Psalm 22:22, “In the midst of the church I will sing hymns to You” finds its fulfillment in Christ. In the midst of the Church He sings our hymns to the Father, for we are His Body. He stands among us, in the midst of His lampstands (Revelation 1:13), healing us with His Word, feeding us with His Body and Blood. Every Liturgy is our saving rendezvous with this ever-living and saving Son of God.

By Fr. Lawrence Farley

Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/nootherfoundation/commentary-divine-liturgy-gospel/

In the Orthodox Divine Liturgy, after the Trisagion Hymn comes the chanting of the prokeimenon and of the epistle. In many places the prokeimenon now has practically no purpose or significance, and looks like a verbal tag chanted in haste by the reader to introduce the epistle which follows it, for the people either make no congregational response to the chanting of the prokeimenon or a distinctly minimal one.

Originally of course the prokeimenon was chanted precisely in order to facilitate a congregational response, because the prokeimenon was the refrain they were to sing interspersed among the verses of the psalm that the reader chanted. The prokeimenon then did not serve as an introductory tag to the epistle, but as part of a psalm which was inserted between the Old Testament reading and the epistle. This psalm provided an opportunity for the people to rest from listening and to refresh their attention by singing before listening to the next lesson. (We see this same practice of inserting a psalm between numerous readings in the Vespers of Holy Friday, when the faithful listen to substantial readings from Exodus 33, Job 42, Isaiah 52-54, and 1 Corinthians 1. The prokeimenal psalms there are interspersed between these readings and provide a break from listening.) In today’s usage, the Old Testament reading has dropped away from the Liturgy, leaving the interspersed psalm hanging with not much to do, its once-numerous verses now reduced to a single verse. No wonder in some places even this verse is now omitted; its original function has now become superfluous. One could wish for the restoration of the first lesson and the interspersed psalm, not the further reduction of the psalm’s refrain.

But however the prokeimenon is chanted, after it comes the reading of the epistle, usually from the pen of St. Paul. The reader chants it from the midst of the assembly, facing east along with the rest of the people, for it represents the abiding voice of the apostle still sounding in the midst of the Church. It is too easy to under-value this reading, especially if the deacon insists upon doing the pre-Gospel censing of the Gospel book and much else during the time when the epistle is being read. The deacon may regard it is a kind of liturgical multi-tasking, but it actually serves to denigrate the significance of the epistle. St. Paul should not have to compete with the deacon and the bells on his censer for the people’s attention. His words should command the undivided attention of all—including the deacon.

We can miss also the full significance of the epistles. We regard it as “Scripture”, a holy text, and of course it is. But it is also a personal letter addressed and written to people other than ourselves. In listening to the epistle we are in fact reading someone else’s personal mail. Think of how it would look if we read a letter addressed to someone else in a public place—say a personal letter written by the bishop and addressed to the priest. Wouldn’t this be regarded as a bit odd, and perhaps a little inappropriate? But no one regards the reading of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians as odd or inappropriate, despite the fact that we are not Corinthians and the letter was written to people other than ourselves.

This is because the value of the letter resides not in the personal circumstances which Paul addressed, but in the abiding apostolic witness. These epistles reveal how the apostles dealt with problems in their own day, and thus how they would deal with the same problems should they befall us. The Corinthians were told, for example, that the person who was living in open and serious sexual sin (in this case, living with his step-mother) must be excommunicated (1 Corinthians 5:1f), and so through this particular example we know how the apostles would deal with open and serious sexual sin in our own congregations today. We can learn from these epistles what the apostles thought about who Jesus was, what salvation consisted of, and thus how we must therefore conduct our lives. Because the Church is apostolic, their words and views have an abiding and authoritative significance for us. Paul’s words to the Corinthians are not out-dated vestiges of controversies and cases long dead, but living words of contemporary counsel. No wonder we read them every time we meet to celebrate the Lord’s Eucharistic presence among us.

The epistles also reveal the nature of our salvation—that is a corporate reality, not an individual and private one. If Christianity were a philosophy, it might be embraced and followed privately, without much reference to others who decide to adopt that philosophy themselves. But our faith is not a philosophy, but a family. Each one of the epistles was written to a community, a family, a group of believers who met together every week as the body of Christ. The exceptions of the epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, prove this rule, for they were written to individuals to give them advice for ruling and living in the church community (see 1 Timothy 3:14-15). Salvation consists of being part of the Church, and of finding our identity and healing within it.

It is easy to zone out mentally during the reading of the epistle, or to regard it as a mere add-on. This is especially so if the homily is routinely based not on the epistle, but on the Gospel reading. But we must not let our attention flag and our minds wander, as if St. Paul had nothing important to say to us that day. We should listen up and pay strict attention. After all, before the epistle is read, the deacon cries out, “Wisdom!” and “Let us attend!” If we want to leave the Church assembly with more wisdom than we had when we entered it, we should indeed attend to what Christ’s apostles say to us.

By Fr. Lawrence Farley

Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/nootherfoundation/commentary-divine-liturgy-epistle/

One sometimes comes across mild debates in Orthodox circles about whether or not our Sunday Divine Liturgy should employ the archaic forms (e.g. “Thou hast”) or the contemporary ones (e.g. “You have”). Our own O.C.A. website has perhaps wisely decided not to jump into the debate and take definitive sides, but to offer the liturgical texts in both forms, so that one has a choice of downloading either the “You/ Your Version” or the “Thou/ Thy Version”. What can one say about this debate?

First of all, one can recognize that there is no such thing as an inherently holy language. Muslims declare that Arabic holds such a privileged position, so liturgical prayers must be offered in Arabic regardless of whether or not the Muslim worshipper understands the language. But Christians have never made such claims for their own faith, and accordingly liturgical Christian prayer has been offered in all languages. That of course was part of the point of Pentecost: now all the tongues of men have been sanctified by the indwelling Spirit so that one can pray with complete authenticity in one’s native tongue. This Pentecostal truth finds expression also in our Bible translations: despite the fact that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew (and Aramaic) and the New Testament written in Greek, the Bible may be and has been translated into many languages, and no one suggests that the product is not actually the Bible. Of course some translations are better than others, but we do not follow our Muslim friends. They deny that Scripture can be authentically translated at all and they dub such translations as only “the meaning of the Quran” and not the actual Quran itself. Unlike them, we say that Scripture may indeed be authentically translated. The King James Version or the English Standard Version, for example, whatever their virtues and flaws, are still the Bible. All language is simply a vehicle; it is the meaning that matters.

Secondly, since it is the meaning that matters, the meaning of prayer must be comprehensible and understood by the person doing the praying. That is why liturgical prayer has always been translated from the original to the vernacular of the nation using it. Cyril and Methodius, though doubtless saying their own prayers in Greek, took pains to translate those prayers into the tongue of the Slavs for use in their later missionary endeavours. They did not insist that the Slavs learn Greek in order to commune liturgically with God. Some people in their time opined that the Church’s worship must be conducted in either Latin, Hebrew, or Greek, the three languages atop the cross of Christ announcing to the world that He was the King of the Jews. Cyril and Methodius demurred, and with them the rest of the Orthodox Church. Pentecost means that all vernaculars are acceptable, and moreover “it is a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God to minister the Sacraments in a tongue not understanded of the people” (to coin a phrase).

Thirdly, the importance of liturgical comprehensibility means that both the “You/ Your Version” and the “Thou/ Thy Version” are legitimate, since both are equally well understood by speakers of English. The debate over which English forms to use in North American churches pales in comparison with the debate over whether to worship in English or (for example) Slavonic. The former debate is not unimportant, but needs to be put into its proper context. For the debate over whether to use archaic or contemporary English concerns the proper amount of reverence required for worship; it is important but less important than the concern for comprehensibility. Worshipping in a very reverent Slavonic does the English worshipper no good if he or she cannot understand Slavonic. It would be like listening to glossolalia: the Slavonic speaker in tongues may give thanks well enough, but the other man is not edified (1 Corinthians 14:17)—better in such a case to speak five words that can be understood in the vernacular than ten thousand in a tongue (v. 19).

Fourthly, it is true that divine worship must be not only comprehensible, but also reverent. This debate is muddied by the fact that use of the form “Thou” is sometimes lauded as more formal and reverent than the form “You”, when in historical fact the form “thou” was intended as the familiar, not the formal. In the Anglican classic Book of Common Prayer, God was addressed as “Thou” since Christ taught us to invoke Him with loving familiarity as our abba; it is only the bishop in that book who is addressed with the formal “you”. But after all language is more than history, and what was familiar in one age may end up being formal in another age. Certainly the present use of the term “thou” does savour of a reverent and specialized usage.

Some people say that the Liturgy must be conducted “in the language of the street” while others insist that it must not be. One must be careful to define exactly what is meant by the term. If one means by this that there should be no difference between the language used when speaking to our buddies at Starbucks or the hockey game (to say nothing of the locker room), and the language used when speaking to God in church, then this is clearly wrong. People like Fr. John Whiteford have pointed out that the Church has always used the best and most elevated form of language available for its divine worship. (See his excellent fatherjohn.blogspot.ca/2016/09/king-james-english-and-orthodox-worship.html .) But if by the term “the language of street” one simply means an actual vernacular, then such a language should be acceptable, for the vernacular can still be sufficiently elevated and poetic. Take love poetry for example: a man may write elevated poems of great tenderness and beauty to his beloved without necessarily addressing her as “thee”. Language need not be archaic to be elevated and beautiful.

Take for a liturgical example the exclamation of the Prayer of the Thrice-holy recited by the priest just prior to the singing of the Trisagion Hymn. At our own St. Herman’s parish the prayer ends with the words, “for holy are You, O our God, and unto You we send up glory: to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages”. It is not much different than praying “for holy art Thou, O our God, and unto Thee we send up glory”. The former is not any more an unworthy “language of the street” than the latter. Rendering it in true “street language” would look something like “for You’re holy, God—glory to You forever”. One need only glance at this true street version to see the difference. Poetry, beauty, and an elevated spirit do not depend upon verbal archaism. A poet knows that things as simple as an inversion of words (“holy are You” instead of “You are holy”) and the use of the vocative “O” (“O our God” instead of simply “our God”) can work wonders, bringing the language away from the Starbucks tables and into the divine throne room of God. It is contemporary, but still elevated. Once again, comparison is instructive: at Starbucks I might say to my buddy, “you’re looking good, my friend”; I would not say, “looking good You are, O my friend”. If I did, he would look at me rather oddly, and perhaps ask me why I was talking like Yoda.

Finally, if both the archaic and the contemporary can be equally reverential and elevated, why choose one over the other? I would suggest that the contemporary possesses the added advantage as being closer to our speech during the time when we are not in church. There is always a terrible temptation for all of us to separate our Sunday morning behaviour from our behaviour after we leave the church. We can hermetically seal off Liturgy from life, and neglect what some have called “the liturgy after the Liturgy” so that we are afflicted by a kind of spiritual schizophrenia, with our worship split off completely from the rest of life. This can be exacerbated if we possess a special language in which we address God (not, I hasten to add, that those who opt for the archaic forms are guilty of this. I speak here only of temptations and of my own heart). As St. James long ago pointed out, out of the same mouth come both blessing and cursing—with the same tongue we bless the Lord and Father and also curse men who are made in His likeness (James 3:9-10). It may be of some help if we forego use of a specialized liturgical tongue and retain the same language for both God and men, for then the inconsistency of which James warns us can be more easily detected and avoided. Using the contemporary vernacular to bless the Lord and Father ought to carry over after the Liturgy has concluded so that we refuse to use that language to curse men made in His likeness. Liturgical language can help unify our lives and our hearts, so that the holiness of the time spent praying to God flows over into the rest of our lives as well.

One last added thought: it is important after we have made our liturgical choices to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:3). Both choices can be and have been made by people genuinely concerned to honour God and to please Him. As St. James reminds us, honouring Him means holding our brethren in honour as well, regardless of whether or not their own liturgical choices are the same as ours.

By Fr. Lawrence Farley

Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/nootherfoundation/liturgy-language-street/

The Eucharistic canon is the heart of the Divine Liturgy because it is during this moment in the service the bread and wine become the Holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. This part of the Liturgy is also called the anaphora, which means the lifting-up or the elevation. Let us take a look at the first prayer of the anaphora.

In the altar the priest reads the following words which conclude the introductory part of the anaphora (known as Praefatio in Latin): “though there stand before Thee thousands of archangels and ten thousands of angels, the cherubim and seraphim, six-winged, many-eyed, borne aloft on their wings.” With these words comes the indication for the next part of the anaphora also referred to as sanctus (“Holy” in Latin) and implies that this part is no longer an earthly matter but rather that of the Heavens with an angelic undertone. If the first part of the anaphora implies people praying on earth and showing their thanksgiving through prayer, then this part elevates the prayer into the angelic realm where the angels also participate in the eucharistic thanksgiving. Through this we see an indivisible unity between the church on earth on the Heavenly church.

The priest exclaims: “Singing the triumphant hymn, shouting, proclaiming and saying”, while at the same time making the sign of the cross with the star over the diskos and the prepared Lamb (this signifies that the Angles are glorifying Christ who has suffered and died on the Cross for all mankind). The star is then placed on the side on the antimension. It is interesting to note that during this part of the anaphora and the last words of the previous eucharistic prayer there is a four part structure to the prayers.

For example, the priest says “six-winged, many-eyed, borne aloft on their wings”. In the next part, we hear that the angelic forces are singing the triumphant hymn, shouting, proclaiming and saying (the victory song of Christ over the devil, sin and death). It all has an important meaning. The fact is that in the Old Testament and New Testament several saints (Prophets Isaiah Ezekiel and Apostle John the Theologian) saw the heavenly world, in which there are certain mysterious angels appearing in the form of a man, a lion, a calf and an eagle. The saints actually saw them. These Angels are often portrayed as symbols of the evangelists. An angel in human form - the holy apostle and evangelist Matthew (symbol of the connection of the Old and New Testaments, the symbol of the messiahship of our Lord Jesus Christ); the lion - the holy apostle and evangelist Mark (symbol of royalty, the Divine nature of the Savior); calf - the holy apostle and evangelist Luke (symbol of Christ's atoning sacrifice); eagle - the holy apostle and evangelist John the Theologian (symbol of the ascended spiritual state, heavenliness, the divinity of the Savior's teachings).

Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel along with Apostle John the Theologian have seen these angel-like creatures, as we see from their writings in the canonical books of the Old and New Testament:

«Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the River Chebar, that the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. On the fifth day of the month, which was in the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity, the word of the Lord came expressly to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the River Chebar; and the hand of the Lord was upon him there. Then I looked, and behold, a whirlwind was coming out of the north, a great cloud with raging fire engulfing itself; and brightness was all around it and radiating out of its midst like the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Also from within it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: they had the likeness of a man. Each one had four faces, and each one had four wings. Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the soles of calves’ feet. They sparkled like the color of burnished bronze. The hands of a man were under their wings on their four sides; and each of the four had faces and wings. Their wings touched one another. The creatures did not turn when they went, but each one went straight forward. As for the likeness of their faces, each had the face of a man; each of the four had the face of a lion on the right side, each of the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and each of the four had the face of an eagle.» (Ezekiel 1:1–10).

«Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and on the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white robes; and they had crowns of gold on their heads. And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices. Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. Before the throne there was a sea of glass, like crystal. And in the midst of the throne, and around the throne, were four living creatures full of eyes in front and in back. The first living creature was like a lion, the second living creature like a calf, the third living creature had a face like a man, and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle. The four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they do not rest day or night, saying: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!”» (Revelation 4:5–8).

Prophet Isaiah also speaks of the Angels glorifying the Lord in their songs: «In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!”» (Isaiah 6:1–3).

After the priest says the words of the «Triumphant Hymn…» the choir responds with: «Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord of Sabaoth! Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory! Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!». It is as if people are glorifying God following the angelic example. And we believe that at this moment the Angels truly sing together with us.

This is exactly why this part of the eucharistic canon is referred to as Sanctus or “Holy”. This part ends with the words “Hosanna (save us or save us Lord) in the highest!”(as one from the Heavens, from God), blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord”. These were the words people exclaimed when they greeted Christ as he entered into Jerusalem.

This connection within one prayer “Holy...and Hosanna” demonstrates an unbreakable bond between the Old and New Testaments as well as the Heavenly angelic church and the church of mankind on earth.

By Priest Andrei Chizhenko

In the Divine Liturgy, after the antiphons, comes the Trisagion Hymn, prefaced by a prayer in which the celebrant prays that the God who is hymned by the seraphim, the cherubim, and by every angelic power in heaven, may also deign to accept the hymn we now sing to Him on earth. In many churches this beautiful prayer is said silently, so that the faithful hear only the final clause of the prayer (“For holy are You, O our God, and unto You we send up glory…”) and so miss the rationale for saying this prayer prior to chanting the Trisagion. When we look carefully at the Trisagion Hymn, however, we see something a little odd—and something that provides a clue to the hymn’s original function and its present meaning.

That odd bit to which I refer is the presence of the words “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages”—sometimes referred to in liturgical shorthand as “the Glory Now and Ever”. Why are these words found at the conclusion of the Trisagion Hymn? They are not found at the end of other hymns such as the Cherubic Hymn (“Let us who mystically represent the cherubim…”) or the anaphoral hymn to the Theotokos (“It is truly meet to bless you, O Theotokos…”) or the post-communion hymn “Let our mouths be filled with Your praise…”) Why do we sing it at the conclusion of the Trisagion? The answer: its presence in the Trisagion is a vestige of the psalm of which the Trisagion once formed the repeated refrain. It is, in fact, all that is left of the psalm—unless one counts the way the Trisagion is sung during a Hierarchical Liturgy with the bishop. In that service, the Trisagion is sung not just three or four times, but many times, and in between some of the Trisagion refrains the bishop chants the verses of Psalm 80:14f, “Look down from heaven, O God, and behold, and visit this vine which Your right hand has planted and establish it”. It is not a fancied-up version of the original Trisagion, but a vestige of the original.

In the original usage, the Trisagion was sung as a refrain to Psalm 80. The cantor would chant verses of the psalm as all walked in procession and the people sung the Trisagion hymn as its refrain after every verse. Like all psalms, this psalm concluded with the “Glory Now and Ever”, after which the refrain was sung one final time. In other words, the Trisagion Hymn once served as an entrance chant, something everyone sung while entering the Church. Now that it is preceded by the Great Litany and the Antiphons, its original function as the entry chant has become obscured. But a final vestige of this function can still be seen if one watches the clergy very carefully—as the singing of the Trisagion comes to an end, they leave their place in front of the altar table and walk to the High Place at the far east end, the place where the clergy seats originally stood. That is because these seats were their original destination—in the days of Chrysostom the clergy entered the Church, walked through the nave, up into the altar area and took their seats at the far east end. Only then after the initial greeting did the service begin with the readings. The clergy now stand in the altar for quite some time before the Trisagion, but their final arrival at the High Place for their seats is still deferred until after the Trisagion has been sung.

The fact that the Trisagion was originally an entry chant also reveals its true meaning and the meaning of the Liturgy as a whole. That is, the Liturgy represents our drawing near to God, our leaving the world and coming into His Presence, our spiritual access into heaven where we stand before His face as His children. That is why we sing the song of the angels: in heaven the angels sing the thrice-holy hymn, crying “Holy, holy, holy!” (see Isaiah 6:1-3), and we sinners also sing a thrice-holy hymn to the heavenly God. It takes boldness for us, frail creatures of dust and ashes who drink iniquity like water (Job 15:16), to stand before God as the holy angels do. That is why in the preceding prayer the celebrant says that God does not despise the sinner, but instead appointed repentance unto salvation and has granted us to stand in the holy place and offer the worship and praise which are His due. That is why we boldly enter His presence—not through our worthiness, but through His grace. Through Christ and by His Spirit, we have an access into the divine presence not granted to the rest of the world.

We must not however take this access for granted and become complacent because we routinely enter into Church and take our respective places before the face of God. The psalmist long ago told us what we need to bring to God if we are to receive that grace—anyone who dares to ascend the hill of the Lord and stand in His holy place needs clean hands and a pure heart, walking in integrity and humility (Psalm 24:3-4). If we live as hypocrites and not a penitent disciples of Christ, walling off our Sunday devotion to Him from the rest of the week, we are in no condition to ascend into His holy place and sing the thrice-holy hymn of the angels. Better to remain afar until we have repented and come to our senses. Then we can join the throng of the baptized and enter with them into the holy place.

The Trisagion Hymn witnesses to the function of Liturgy as one of entrance. Once we were far from God, separated from the covenants of grace. Now in Christ we have been brought near, and boldly enter into the very presence of God. When we sing the Trisagion Hymn we are reminded of that entrance, and of the grace by which we enter.

By Fr. Lawrence Farley

Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/nootherfoundation/commentary-divine-liturgy-trisagion/

The Divine Liturgy is truly a gift of the Holy Spirit to humanity. It is an initiation into the mysteries of the Spirit, a mode of the revelation of God and of all things heavenly. There is nothing in the Liturgy which is not revelatory of the Godhead and of the energies of the Holy Trinity.

Because we know and believe that God is our Father, we view the church, especially when we celebrate the Liturgy, as our true home. We come in and go out freely, we are happy to be here, we make the sign of the cross, we light our candles, we speak with our friends, and it is easy to see that the Orthodox feel that the church is their home… The Liturgy is our family our gathering, our house. And what a spacious house it is! Together with us are those who are absent, along with sinners, and with the wicked, and the dead, indeed, even those who are in hell, but who may yet remember something about God….

So we come to church, to our true home, and we are truly glad. This is the greatest privilege which a Christian can have. Here we experience the grace of God. We experience our salvation, the results of the redemptive work of our God, of Christ, the great “High Priest.”… Christ lives for us, he prays for us, and raises his hands to the heavenly Father… He has not ceased to urge our saints — and particularly His Mother of God — to intercede for us to the heavenly Father, for our hearts, for our sins, for our pains, for the disappointments of our life…. So don’t think that when we go to church, we are simply entering and exiting an ordinary building. Instead, we go up to, and make our entrance into, the Holy of Holies, into the heavens themselves…

When we enter church, then, we are traversing the distance from church to heaven… We see the bread and wine, but who among us does not believe they are Christ? We inhale the fragrance of wine and bread, but who among us does not believe this to be the body and blood of he Savior?…This is a sacrament. This is what a “mystery” of the church means…

Our liturgy is an exceeding great gift. No one is worthy of such greatness. No one can do anything without God. He alone makes these magnificent blessings real, and places them in our hands and hearts.

…And for this we say: Thank you, Lord our God, because you have brought down the ranks of angels and raised us up to heaven. We are found worthy to stand before the heavenly Father. What blessedness! What happiness!

But let each of us ponder how great and rich God has made us; how highly he has exalted us, dispite the fact that we are sinners! “Woe is me,” said Isaiah the prophet, for God himself has descended upon me, and I am afraid I will die. And this is what we should also say when we come to church. We should be afraid, but we should also rejoice. We should tremble, but our hearts should also leap for joy, because we are embracing God, and God is embracing us.

So we have come to church, to the Liturgy! Let nothing disturb the tranquility of your soul. God is present. Wherever we look, God is before us! If we don’t see Him, this doesn’t mean He isn’t there, but only that our eyes are not used to seeing Him…

With the eyes of our mind, let us see the king for whom we sinners opened the way, and let us say with the Psalmist: “Come let us worship and fall down before Him and cry to the Lord… for He is our God.” (Ps 94.6-7) Let us open the depths of our hearts to the Lord, who is present here with us, and let us advance more each and every day, so that we will be able to discover everything that God, our redeemer, has done for us.

By Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra

Source: http://orthodoxwayoflife.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-divine-liturgy-is-gift-of-holy.html

In the Divine Liturgy, after the Great Litany, come the three antiphons and their litanies/ prayers. These antiphons exist in several forms. The original Greek practice is to use psalms for the antiphons, interspersing the verses of the psalms with repeated refrains. For the first antiphonal psalm the refrain is, “Through the prayers of the Theotokos, O Saviour, save us!” The refrain for the second antiphonal psalm is the refrain, “O Son of God, save us who sing to You, Alleluia!” The refrain for the third antiphonal psalm is the troparion of the feast or day. (In the original antiphonal sequence, the Emperor Justinian’s troparion “Only-begotten Son and immortal Word of God” was the refrain for the third antiphon.) The Slavic use substitutes the hymns of the Typica service, namely Psalm 103, Psalm 148, and the Beatitudes, normally sung without any refrains, though it retains the original usage of psalms and their refrains for feasts. The origin of the practice of singing these antiphons is to be found in the streets of Byzantium.

After the Peace of Constantine, the Church was allowed to emerge blinking into the bright sunlight of a new day. One benefit of this emergence from the (metaphorical) catacombs was that the Church could express its faith publicly without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or martyrdom. And so, in certain large cities such as Jerusalem, Rome, and Constantinople, the practice began of taking to the streets and holding parades—i.e. liturgical processions. In Jerusalem these processions were centered around the holy places consecrated by the Lord’s presence. Rome had the shrines of many martyrs. In Constantinople, despite the lack of plentiful martyrs’ shrines and the lack of places the Lord had visited, there were still many processions (a tenth century Typikon mentions 68 processions a year). The procession would begin at a set place and then proceed singing to the Church where the Liturgy would be held. They did not walk in silence. They sang hymns, the cantor chanting the verses of the psalms and the people chiming in with the refrain. That was why the refrains were so short—they had to be brief enough to be sung by a crowd of people while walking to church. These three processional antiphons were so popular that they continued to be sung in Church even on days when there was no procession to the Church.

These processions fulfilled an added purpose apart from the devotional love of singing. They also served to express the ascendancy of the Christian Faith, including its triumph over heretical alternatives (in the Theodosian Code of law, heretics were forbidden to hold such processions). Formerly the Christians had to keep their heads down and their mouths shut and to mind their place. Now they could safely hold their heads high and praise Christ in public. The processions were a way of proclaiming that “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” (Psalm 24:1)—including the city streets. The streets and the city containing them also now belonged to the Lord. Everyone loves a parade, especially if it is your own victory parade.

In those days it was the whole city which served as liturgical space. That is, the city as a city, held festival and exalted Christ, for the city now lay under His care and protection. The cities were smaller than our modern metropolises, and one could easily walk from one part of the city to the other. Processions through the city or from one church building to another were quite possible, unlike today where cities are often so large that one could not walk through them. Now most people must drive to church of necessity. It was otherwise in Byzantium; at that time its cities could still serve as liturgical space.

This change from the original practice of singing the antiphons as a crowd on the way to church to our modern practice of singing the antiphons only once we have reached the church also symbolizes a radical change in our situation. In Byzantium the whole city was regarded as liturgical space. Now the urban spaces and city streets are emphatically secular, and Christian worship must be confined to one’s own property. Christians may sing their songs within their churches, but may not simply take to the streets en masse to sing of the supremacy of Christ. At very least, a parade permit is required, and sometimes the city may not be happy to grant one. It is significant that Gay Pride Parades are part of the annual festivities of most cities, and are an established tradition; Christian parades are not. Christian prayer, praise, preaching, and proclamation are allowed, but are restricted and may only take place within the privacy of Church property. If you doubt this, try and hold a large mass parade to Christ today down the routes used for Gay Pride Parades as you sing to Jesus. You will find out quickly enough that Christendom has fallen, and that Byzantium is dead. Increasingly we are being herded back to the catacombs. The pre-Constantinian degree repression is of course not complete. But it often seems well on its way. This observation is not based on alarmist paranoia (though one remembers the aphorism of Dr. Johnny Fever of WKRP, “When people are out to get you, paranoia is just good sense”), but on a regular reading of newspapers and social media. The war against faith is real, even if it is undeclared. The fact that the war is undeclared of course makes it worse: when you know people are likely to shoot, you are prepared to duck. It is when one is unsuspecting of being fired upon that victims can multiply. The lesson for us in the twenty-first century is that we must raise our children and grandchildren to live counter-culturally, and to recognize that pretty much everything in our culture pushes them in the wrong direction. This is not to inculcate paranoia, but realism. Byzantium has fallen; the streets no longer belong to Christ.

The second lesson to be learned from the antiphons is the primacy of praise. A saying often ascribed to St. Augustine is, “We are an Easter people, and alleluia is our song”. That remains true regardless of whether or not the bishop of Hippo said it. We are the people whom God has formed for Himself through baptism; we must declare His praise (Isaiah 43:21). We are His royal priesthood, His holy nation, created to proclaim the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvellous light (1 Peter 2:9). We have a choice, since spiritual reality abhors a vacuum just as does physical reality—we can either spend our time praising God or we can spend it fuming, worrying, and grumbling. It is too easy for us fallen sinners to do the latter, forgetting how much God has given us already. But why fume and fret? How much better to open our eyes to see His wonders in our daily lives, and open our mouths and declare His praise! Singing the antiphons sets us up for the coming week. Though Christendom has fallen, we need not fear or cower. We can still hold our heads up and bless the Lord. We are an Easter people, and whatever the condition of the city streets, alleluia is still our song.

By Fr. Lawrence Farley

Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/nootherfoundation/commentary-divine-liturgy-antiphons/

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