Liturgy & Worship
23 topics
EssentialLiturgy & WorshipThe Divine LiturgyThe Eucharist of the Orthodox Church, and the service every other service leads toward. Its first part gathers the people around the Word: the antiphons, the Little Entrance with the Gospel book, the Trisagion, the Epistle and the Gospel. The second belongs to the baptised: the Great Entrance with the gifts, the Creed, the anaphora with its epiclesis, the Lord’s Prayer, and communion. St Nicholas Cabasilas read every part of it as a moment in the work of Christ, set out in order from the Incarnation onward, and the envoys of Prince Vladimir, who stood through it in the Great Church at Constantinople, said they did not know whether they were in heaven or on earth. Three liturgies are served in the course of the year: St John Chrysostom’s on most days, St Basil the Great’s ten times, and the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts on weekdays of Great Lent, chiefly Wednesdays and Fridays, and on the first three days of Holy Week. The Liturgy of St James, the ancient liturgy of Jerusalem, is served in some places on his feast.EssentialLiturgy & WorshipLiturgy of St. John ChrysostomThe Liturgy most Orthodox Christians have stood through week after week, served whenever the Liturgy is celebrated through the year, except on the ten days that belong to St Basil and the weekdays of Great Lent. Its anaphora, the great eucharistic prayer, is the tradition of Antioch and Constantinople, and its core has a good claim to be the prayer of St John Chrysostom himself; the rest grew around it over centuries, with the Cherubic Hymn and the Creed added in the sixth. It opens with the preparation of the gifts at the table of oblation, then gathers the people around the Word with the antiphons, the Little Entrance, the Epistle and the Gospel, and then offers the gifts: the Great Entrance, the kiss of peace, the Creed, the anaphora with its epiclesis, the Lord’s Prayer and communion. Before communion the prayer is said, I believe, O Lord, and I confess, that Thou art truly the Christ, which names each communicant as the first of sinners.EssentialLiturgy & WorshipThe Epiclesis (Calling Down the Spirit)The prayer in which the priest asks the Father to send the Holy Spirit upon the people and upon the gifts, and to make the bread the Body of Christ and the cup His Blood. This is where the Orthodox Church says the change happens. The Latin West came to locate it at the words of institution, "This is my Body", spoken by the priest in the person of Christ, and the difference is not a detail of timing: it is a difference about who acts. In the Orthodox rite the celebrant does not pronounce a formula that effects anything. He begs, and the Spirit does it, and the deacon answers Amen three times because the consecration is the Church asking rather than the priest performing. St Nicholas Cabasilas wrote a whole chapter defending this against the Latins, and St Cyril of Jerusalem was teaching it to the newly baptised in the fourth century, long before there was a dispute to take sides in.ImportantLiturgy & WorshipThe Anaphora (The Offering)The great eucharistic prayer, from "Let us lift up our hearts" to the Amen that closes the commemorations after the calling down of the Spirit. It is one prayer, not a series of them, and it holds the whole argument of the faith in order: thanksgiving to the Father, the angelic hymn, the account of creation and of the fall, the Incarnation, the supper, the cross, the tomb, the rising, the ascension and the second coming, all spoken in the past tense including the coming, because the Church remembers forward. Then the offering, then the epiclesis, then the remembrance of the saints and of the living and the dead. The Liturgy of St Basil keeps a far longer and older form of it than the one used on most Sundays.ImportantLiturgy & WorshipThe Trisagion and the Trisagion PrayersHoly God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us. It is sung three times at almost every service and stands at the head of the short sequence of prayers that begins nearly every Orthodox office, so it is the first thing a child learns and the last thing said over a grave. The tradition records it as given during an earthquake at Constantinople in the fifth century, when a child was caught up and heard the angels singing it. It is addressed to the Holy Trinity, not to the Son alone, and that is why the Quinisext Council forbade the addition "who was crucified for us": the phrase is not false of Christ, and attached to this hymn it says the Trinity was crucified.ImportantLiturgy & WorshipLiturgy of St. Basil the GreatThe longer of the two Liturgies, served ten times a year: the first five Sundays of Great Lent, Holy Thursday and Holy Saturday, the eves of the Nativity and the Theophany, and St Basil’s own feast on 1 January. It differs from St John Chrysostom’s almost only in the priest’s prayers, and above all in its anaphora, which recites the whole history of salvation, from creation through the Law and the prophets to the Incarnation and the Cross, before it calls down the Spirit to show the bread to be the body of Christ. It is very probably the prayer St Basil himself prayed at Caesarea in the fourth century, or grew from it. On most of its days the hymn to the Theotokos is not It is truly meet but All of creation rejoices in thee, O full of grace, whose icon shows the whole creation gathered round her.ImportantLiturgy & WorshipLiturgy of the Presanctified GiftsThe Liturgy of Great Lent’s weekdays, when no full Liturgy is served: Vespers, with communion from gifts consecrated at the Liturgy of the Sunday before. The Council in Trullo appointed it for the weekdays of Lent; parishes keep it chiefly on Wednesdays and Fridays and on the first three days of Holy Week, and it was meant to be served in the evening, so that the faithful came to communion at the end of a day of fasting. Its most remembered moments are its own: the priest lifting a candle to the people with the words, the Light of Christ illumines all; the psalm let my prayer be set forth as incense, sung with prostrations; and the silent Great Entrance, while the choir sings now the powers of heaven serve invisibly with us. The Greek tradition attributes it to St Gregory the Dialogist; scholars place its shape in the Church of Constantinople in the centuries around him.ImportantLiturgy & WorshipOrthros / Matins (Morning Service)The morning service, Orthros, meant for the hours before dawn. In Greek parishes it usually comes on the morning itself, just before the Liturgy; in Russian use it is joined to Vespers the evening before as the All-Night Vigil. After its opening prayers come the Six Psalms, read with the lights lowered, then the psalter in its portion for the day, and at its heart is the canon: nine odes built on the nine biblical canticles, carrying the poetry of the feast or the saint of the day. Before the ninth ode the deacon censes the whole church while the Song of the Theotokos is sung, on most days with More honourable than the cherubim after every verse. Then come the Praises, Psalms 148 to 150, and on Sundays and feasts the priest’s cry Glory to Thee who hast shown us the light, answered by the Great Doxology, Glory to God in the highest. On Sundays one of the eleven Resurrection Gospels is read at the altar, and the book is brought out for the people to venerate.ImportantLiturgy & WorshipThe Akathist HymnThe most famous and beloved hymn of the Orthodox Church, dedicated to the Theotokos. An 'akathist' means 'not seated': the congregation stands throughout. Composed in the 5th-6th century (attributed variously to St. Romanos or Patriarch Sergius). Chanted in full during the 5th Saturday of Great Lent and at other times. Contains 24 stanzas alternating 'Rejoice' invocations.ImportantLiturgy & WorshipThe Great Blessing of the WatersAt Theophany the Church blesses water, and it is the one blessing of the year that is done twice, at the Liturgy of the eve and again on the day, often at a river or the sea with a cross thrown or plunged into it. The prayer does not ask God to make the water holy as a symbol: it asks Him to send down the grace of the Jordan, since it was by being baptised that Christ sanctified the waters and crushed the heads of the dragons lurking in them. The water is taken home and kept, and the tradition that it does not spoil is old enough to be recorded by St John Chrysostom in a Theophany homily.ImportantLiturgy & WorshipThe Great EntranceThe gifts are carried from the table of preparation, out of the north door, through the nave and in again through the royal doors, while the Cherubic Hymn is sung and the choir holds the melody open in the middle of a sentence for the procession to pass. The hymn says what is happening: those who mystically represent the cherubim now lay aside every care of this life, for they are to receive the King of all. It is not yet the Body and Blood, which is why the older commentators are careful about the honour shown to it, and it is already a burial procession, which is why the large veil over the gifts, the air, is laid on them as the winding sheet.ImportantLiturgy & WorshipThe IconostasisThe icon-adorned screen separating the nave from the altar/sanctuary in an Orthodox church. Features tiers of icons: local tier (Christ, Theotokos, patron saint), Deesis tier (Christ enthroned with intercessors), Feasts tier, Prophets tier. The Royal Doors (center) open during specific liturgical moments, revealing the altar.ImportantLiturgy & WorshipThe Panikhida (Service for the Departed)The memorial service for the dead, served at the grave, in the church, and on the appointed days: the third, the ninth and the fortieth after a death, the anniversaries, and the Soul Saturdays when the whole Church remembers everyone at once. Boiled wheat is brought, because the grain must fall into the ground and die. The prayers ask for rest in a place of light where there is no pain or sorrow or sighing, and they say plainly that no one lives and does not sin, that God alone is without sin. The Orthodox Church prays for the departed and refuses to describe the mechanism by which the prayer helps them, which is where it parts from the Latin doctrine of purgatory.ImportantLiturgy & WorshipThe Paraklesis (Supplicatory Canon)A service of intercession to the Theotokos, sung when someone is in trouble and, in the Greek use, on the evenings of 1 to 13 August through the Dormition fast, except Saturday evenings and the eve of the Transfiguration. The Small Paraklesis is the one most parishes know. It is built as a canon, with the names of the sick or the afflicted read into the middle of it, and its refrain is short enough to carry a whole congregation: Most holy Theotokos, save us. Where the Akathist stands and praises, the Paraklesis asks, and that is the difference between the two great Marian services of the Byzantine rite.ImportantLiturgy & WorshipThe Proskomedia (Preparation of the Gifts)The service before the service. At a side table the priest cuts the Lamb from the first prosphoron with a lance, pierces it, pours wine and water into the chalice, and then sets particles on the diskos: one for the Theotokos at the right of the Lamb, nine for the ranks of the saints at the left, then particles for the living and for the dead by name, as many as are asked for. What stands on the diskos by the end is the whole Church gathered around Christ, the living and the departed together and no distinction drawn between them. Those particles are not communion and are never given to anyone; at the end of the Liturgy they are placed into the chalice with the words that ask the Blood of Christ to wash away the sins of all who have been remembered.ImportantLiturgy & WorshipThe TypikonThe book that orders the services: which hymns are sung on which day, how the fixed calendar of the Menaion is combined with the movable cycle of the Triodion and Pentecostarion, what happens when a great feast falls in Lent, and how strictly to fast. It is not a single book but a family of them, descending from the monastic rules of St Sabbas and of the Stoudios, with the Typikon of the Great Church governing much Greek parish usage. Every apparent inconsistency between two Orthodox parishes usually turns out to be two Typika, both ancient.ImportantLiturgy & WorshipVespers (Evening Service)The evening service, and the beginning of the Church’s day, which starts at sunset as the days of Genesis do: there was evening and there was morning. It opens with Psalm 103, the psalm of creation, read in the Greek use and at the Russian All-Night Vigil said or sung while the priest censes the whole church, and moves through the great litany and the psalter to the psalms of the lamp-lighting, Lord, I have cried unto Thee, let my prayer be set forth as incense, with the hymns of the day between their verses. The censer is carried in procession and one of the oldest hymns the Church still sings follows, O Gladsome Light, which Christians were singing at the lighting of the lamps before St Basil’s time. On feasts three readings from the Old Testament follow. The service ends with the Song of Simeon, Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, the troparion of the day, and the dismissal. Great Vespers is served on the eve of Sundays and feasts, and in the Russian use it is joined to Matins as the All-Night Vigil.Liturgy & WorshipHoly Water (Agiasmos)Water blessed by priestly prayer and the invocation of the Holy Spirit. Two forms: Great Blessing of Water (at Theophany, January 6, commemorating Christ's baptism in the Jordan) and Small Blessing (throughout the year). Used for blessing homes, objects, and persons. Drunk by the faithful after fasting. The Great Blessing makes the water truly sanctified.Liturgy & WorshipOrthodox Church ArchitectureThe traditional Orthodox church building is a theological statement in stone. Key features: cruciform plan or cross-in-square; dome representing heaven (often with Christ Pantocrator frescoed inside); narthex (entrance), nave (for the faithful), and sanctuary (altar area behind the iconostasis). The entire building is oriented East: toward the rising sun symbolizing Christ.Liturgy & WorshipProsphora (Liturgical Bread)The leavened bread offered for the Divine Liturgy. Baked from wheat flour, water, yeast, and salt, symbolizing Christ's full humanity. Stamped with a seal (usually IC XC NI KA, 'Jesus Christ Conquers'). During the Proskomedia, the priest cuts portions: the Lamb (for consecration), particles for the Theotokos, saints, living, and departed.Liturgy & WorshipCompline (Apodeipnon)The last service of the day, prayed after supper. Small Compline is the everyday form. Great Compline is served during Great Lent (Monday-Thursday evenings) and features the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete during the first week. Includes the confession of faith, Psalm 50, and the prayer 'It is truly meet to bless thee, O Theotokos.'Liturgy & WorshipThe Hours (Horai)Short services marking the canonical hours: First (6am), Third (9am), Sixth (noon) and Ninth (3pm). Each keeps its own memory. The First recalls Christ led before Pilate, the Third the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Sixth the nailing to the Cross, the Ninth His death. Monasteries serve all four daily; parishes commonly serve the Third and Sixth before the Liturgy.Liturgy & WorshipAntidoronThe blessed bread given at the end of the Liturgy, cut from the loaves offered at the preparation of the gifts after the Lamb has been taken out of them. Its name means instead of the gifts: it is given to those who did not receive communion as well as to those who did, and it is what a visitor who is not Orthodox may take from the priest’s hand. The faithful receive it as they come forward to kiss the cross, eat it in church or take it home to those who could not come, and it is not the Eucharist but a blessing, a share in the offering and in the fellowship of the one table. In some places it is eaten fasting, before anything else that day.