Liturgy & Worship
The 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 and the people answer 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.
The text
The Epiclesis of the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom
Again we offer unto Thee this reasonable and bloodless worship, and we ask Thee, and pray Thee, and entreat Thee: send down Thy Holy Spirit upon us and upon these gifts here set forth.
And make this Bread the precious Body of Thy Christ.
Amen.
And that which is in this Cup, the precious Blood of Thy Christ.
Amen.
Changing them by Thy Holy Spirit.
Amen. Amen. Amen.
Ἔτι προσφέρομέν σοι τὴν λογικὴν ταύτην καὶ ἀναίμακτον λατρείαν, καὶ παρακαλοῦμέν σε καὶ δεόμεθα καὶ ἱκετεύομεν· κατάπεμψον τὸ Πνεῦμά σου τὸ Ἅγιον ἐφ᾽ ἡμᾶς καὶ ἐπὶ τὰ προκείμενα Δῶρα ταῦτα.
Καὶ ποίησον τὸν μὲν Ἄρτον τοῦτον τίμιον Σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ σου.
Ἀμήν.
Τὸ δὲ ἐν τῷ Ποτηρίῳ τούτῳ τίμιον Αἷμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ σου.
Ἀμήν.
Μεταβαλὼν τῷ Πνεύματί σου τῷ Ἁγίῳ.
Ἀμήν. Ἀμήν. Ἀμήν.
The deacon and the people answer each petition. Nothing here is a formula the priest pronounces over the gifts: every verb of asking is in the first person plural, and the verb that acts is God’s.
Sources
- The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the anaphora CCEL, the Fathers
- St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagogical Catechesis V.7 NPNF
- St. Nicholas Cabasilas, A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, ch. 27-29
- St. John Chrysostom, On the Priesthood III.4 CCEL, the Fathers