Liturgy of St. Basil the Great

The 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.