About the bishop's altar lamp

In the old days in Rus', whether the bishop was solemnly escorted to worship from the cross to the church, whether he was greeted only at the gates of the latter, whether various entrances and exits were made with him and with him at services, whether he stood in his hierarchal place, whether he participated in a procession of the cross or some other church procession, almost always in these cases they held in front of him or, better to say, carried a lit lamp - a candle of more or less significant size candlestick 1. Its use in the liturgical practice of the Moscow patriarchs was more frequent than in the liturgical practice of other ancient Russian saints. To present the lamp, the saints often, for example on holidays, went upstairs to the sovereign, and in the Great Assumption Cathedral it was lit at the patriarch’s place, sometimes even in the absence of the high priest himself during the service. In the so-called “walking, meeting and standing” of our hierarchs with glory, the offering and holding of the lamp was included as an essential component. “The Right Reverend was greeted with glory, he stood at the all-night vigil with glory,” says the Official of the Nizhny Novgorod Transfiguration Cathedral 2. In explanation of the latter, it should be noted that in the old days, at certain moments, in front of the hierarch, who was listening to the service in a mantle from his bishop’s place outside the altar, we had the custom of holding a staff and a lit lamp, as is still done in the east on solemn occasions. To the pat. of interest. Nikon’s question: “when should a priest light a lamp in front of a hierarch intending to go to church,” Patr. Paisius I replied that the primacyr should do this “immediately at the very beginning of any rite, so that the bishop always comes first, like a pillar of fire, leading the new Israel to the land of promise, to the heavenly Jerusalem. At vespers, a candle is lit, Paisius wrote in his letter to the patriarch. Nikon, stands until the choir begins to sing: Lord I cried, and when it comes to the words: listen to the voice of my prayer, the lampadarium, having bowed along with the canonarch, who stands near him in order to speak on time, leaves with the candle, as the old light gives way to the new. In the same way, at Matins, he immediately leaves as soon as the bishop stands on the pulpit, and then again lights the candle on the praises and it stands until the very end of Matins to commemorate the fact that the saving grace of God has appeared to all people (Titus 2:11). At the liturgy, when the bishop does not officiate, the lit candle stands until they say Blessed is the kingdom, and then it is lit again during communion and remains lit until the end; at the end of the liturgy, he accompanies the bishop to his cell. If the bishop himself celebrates the liturgy, then the lit candle remains until the bishop enters the Holy Place. altar, for the Scripture says: you are the light of the world (Matthew 5:4) 3. Over time, the number of cases of holding and carrying a lamp in front of bishops has decreased, but even now, along with the staff, the latter is one of the prominent accessories in the solemn atmosphere of the bishop's service. It can be said that, having begun to appear relatively less frequently, the frontal lamp seemed to acquire greater significance in relation to ceremoniality. Our Hierarchal official, wearing it in front of the saint, when escorting him from his cell to the church, directly connects it with the holiday time: “On other days, except for great holidays, the priest with the lamp does not come to the house of the bishops..., but in the gates of the church he removes the bishop from the deacon.” 4. Having long ago become a ceremonial accessory, the prayer lamp has now completely lost its original purpose. The immediate cause that caused it was completely forgotten, and book people, when talking about it, do not go further than clarifying its symbolism. The lighted lamp carried in front of the bishop, according to our Russian and ancient Eastern liturgists - exegetes, means both the radiance of grace that resides in him and through him given to others, and the gift of his teaching, spreading the light of knowledge of God among his flock, and the bright, pure life of the saint himself 5 . Explaining in this way the spiritual sign of the lamp preceding the bishop, they do not at all touch upon the question of the origin of the latter. Carrying a lighted lamp in front of a bishop at first seems to us to be completely similar to the walking of an ecclesiarch or deacon with a burning candle in front of a priest during censing, for example, at Vespers of the all-night vigil and in some other cases. Here and there, the burning lamp was first caused by the same reason - the need to illuminate the path. In the first centuries of the Church, Christians, often persecuted by pagans, in addition to certain times of prayer inherited from the Jews, very often gathered for it late at night or early in the morning (ante lucem) and in these pre-dawn meetings they performed the Eucharist and their other sacred rites 6 . In this case, it was almost as necessary to illuminate the path for the primate going to serve as the prayer churches themselves, and the catacomb crypts with their winding and gloomy passages, just as it later became necessary, with the help of a special church minister or a civil guardian of order, to clear the road for the bishop, removing the people from it. In some even later regulations for the Sunday service, it was prescribed, and probably from the memory of the old time, to light a lamp in front of the metropolitan when he went to Vespers and Matins, but not to mass, when there was no need for lighting 7 . Apparently, they wanted to indicate this origin and original purpose of the lamp by the image of comparison contained in the words: Thus let Thy light be enlightened (λαμψάτω, shine) before men...”, pronounced by the protodeacon at the end of the bishop’s vestments at the liturgy. In this image, the desire was expressed that the bishop would serve for the flock on the way to the Source of Light in the same way as There was once a burning lamp for him in the darkness of the night or underground. There was one last one, or there were several of them - we do not have very definite information from the most ancient era; probably this or that number of lamps preceding the procession of the bishop, as well as their material, were determined by the circumstances of the time and the position of the church community. Blessed Theodoret in his Church History (V, 34, 26) says that “Chrysostom. living being, the first to return from exile, you took away all the people, having burned candles from wax." 8 And the case of such a meeting between a bishop and many lamps was not isolated in the ancient church 9. In the staff of the Jerusalem Patriarch of the 8th–9th centuries, according to one Latin monument 10, there are twelve monks who walked in front of him with the same number of candles (monachi XII, qui cum cereis autcecdunt patriarcham XII). This, on the one hand, seems to suggest that the lamps were sometimes carried in front of the bishop in quite a large number; on the other hand, it involuntarily reminds us of the ancient Russian flames or firemen, who, including 12, 8, 6 and 4, for greater solemnity, accompanied the newly elected patriarchs, metropolitans, archbishops and bishops to the tsar, to the patriarchal cross and cathedral church 11 and were, as it were, a distant echo of the ancient church orders. But all of these were special, exceptional, one might say; cases of the use of a significant number of lamps during meetings and processions of bishops; Usually they were preceded by one lamp, and only on major holidays were two more candles added to it. The same Patriarch of Jerusalem in the 10th–11th centuries. went to Easter Matins from his chambers to the Church of the Resurrection, presenting a cross, two candles and a lamp 12. With the passing of natural need, the lamp did not disappear from liturgical practice, but, containing from the very beginning a deep symbolic meaning, indicated in the words of Christ (Matthew 5:14-16), it became, like many other things, a more ceremonial accessory of the bishop's service, but at first not of all Eastern rulers. Balsamon considered the offering of a lamp as a service advantage, which was used in his time and only within the boundaries of their diocese by patriarchs, autocephalous archbishops: Bulgarian and Cyprus and some few metropolitans 13, who received this right from the kings themselves by grant. How and why the lit lamp, initially caused by the same need for all bishops, which from ancient times became a symbol of their spiritual guidance, began to be presented in the east and in the Yugoslav lands only to some rulers, although all of them equally, according to the commandment of Christ, should shine for people with their lives and teachings - in response to this we can only make one more or less probable guess. During some ceremonies in the palace and the solemn exits of the Byzantine emperor from it, a special official (λαμπαδάριος) held or carried in front of him a kind of precious candlestick, the so-called divamvul with a lighted lamp, the edges of which were painted with cinnabar, and the middle was gilded through a petal, with three red crosses on it 14 . Difficult to explain from its lexical side, the name divamvul was sometimes used to designate the lamp that preceded the patriarch, although the latter was more often called: μονοβάμβουλον, μονάμπουλον 15. Ducange thinks that the lamp denoted by the latter term was served on less solemn occasions, and the divamvul appeared on more solemn occasions 16 . Balsamon, identifying the lamps of the queens with the patriarchal ones, compares both with the royal ones and believes the difference between them is only in the fact that the royal divamvul was girded along its rod with double gold, so to speak, crowns, and the lamps of the queens and the patriarchal ones were surrounded by one crown 17. The famous canonist sees in the divamvul a symbol of the combination in the person of the emperor of two powers - secular and spiritual, using which he not only had to teach his subjects, like the patriarch, but also had external means to spread his teaching, could influence not only their souls, but also their bodies 18. What is important for us in this case is the very fact of wearing the divamvul in front of the emperor and, even more, its comparison in terms of design and symbolic meaning with the patriarchal lamp 19 . Whether the divamvul was a remnant of the carrying of torches in front of Roman augusts in various kinds of processions, as some scholars explain its origin, not without reason, or whether there was some influence of the situation of the service of the patriarchs on the Byzantine court ceremonial - this is a controversial question and, at this time, rather indifferent; It was important to wear the divamvul in front of the emperor, whose person turned a simple ritual detail into a special official prerogative, which they did not fail to use as one of the types of royal grants only to the highest and most honorable persons of the church hierarchy. With the gradual weakening of royal power in Byzantium, the number of hierarchs who enjoyed the right to present the lamp increased, and by the time it completely ceased, this official advantage apparently became the property of all eastern bishops. Some Greek statutes of the 15th century, setting out the sequence of Sunday Vespers and Matins, say without limitation that before the metropolitan left his cell for either service, the ostarius or one of the other church and bishop’s servants lit a lamp in the monovambulum 20 . Simeon of Thessalonica explains the meaning of wearing the latter in relation to the person of every bishop without distinction. Russian liturgical-canonical monuments of the 15th – 15th centuries 21 also occasionally mention the walking of “a candle bearer with a lamp, a burning saint” and two podyaks with candles before the metropolitan, although our most ancient general bishop’s service books do not contain any indication of the presentation of a lamp and speak only about the participation of podyaks with two lamps or candles in conducting the saint from his cell to the church, or only in meeting him at the door of the latter 22. In cathedral and bishops' officials of the 17th–18th centuries. the altar lamp is already interpreted as a necessary accessory in the context of the service of all bishops without distinction 23 . At the Moscow Council of 1675, which deliberately discussed the service advantages of the highest ranks of our hierarchy, all bishops were allowed to use a lamp in their area during priestly services and to go to church carrying it, singing and ringing 24 . Very few of our hierarchs now come before the priest with a “great lit lamp” when leaving their cells, since very few of them continue to live near their cathedral church, but usually all our bishops are greeted for service with a lamp and dikirotrikiri, which probably replaced those two large candles with which the ancient Russian saints went to service on major holidays and the Patriarch of Jerusalem from ancient times to Easter Matins. In very rare cases at the present time, Eastern and Slavic despotis go to vespers and liturgy, preceded by a lamp and dikyrotrikyries; even patriarchs usually do without them, but during the services themselves: vespers, midnight office, matins and liturgy, the “hierarchy” candle, as before, was often placed, and now at certain moments it is lit in front of the patriarch, whether he is in the middle of the church or on his throne outside the altar. And this repeated lighting of the lamp during services, mainly at the beginning and at the end of them, doesn’t it mean the same thing that it was first brought to life by the need for light, illumination, by practical, but not symbolic, considerations? Over time, the latter took precedence over the former: the lamp turned into a symbol, became a visual expression of the idea that the persons in front of whom it is worn and held are “lights of grace, lamps of faith and flames of piety” 25 or at least should be so in their idea. These lamps were extinguished, but the light from their teaching and virtuous life continued, it is assumed, to shine on the flock that remained after them. A figurative expression of this was, and in some places in the East still is, the ritual of placing a lighted lamp at the feet of the deceased saint in his final resting place. Based on size, value of material and decoration, bishop's lamps, like some other utensils, liturgical clothes and accessories in general, at least in the 17th century, in Rus' were divided into three categories: large or great, medium and small or smaller. So, for example, in the “Book of Notes of Vestments and Actions” Patr. Nikon, on August 14, 1656, it was noted that at vespers on that day “the lamp was held in the middle..., and at the all-night vigil the lamp and the large chair were placed and the eagle”; under May 8: “a chair and a Sunday pillow, a carpet in place of the menshes, a Sunday lamp (Manuscript of the Moscow Synod. Bible No. 93 fol. 38 vol., 59 vol. - 60, 82). As an example of these pendant lamps, two lamps can be pointed out: one made with the blessing of Patriarch Philaret in 1622, the other - arranged by order патр. Адриана в 1692 г. Описание обеих и фотографическое изображение первой из них в Указателе Моск. патриарш. ризницы преосв. Саввы , стр. 35–36 и табл. XII, изд. 5. Μ. 1883 г. О лампадах Новгор. Софийск. собора в Археологич. описан. древн. в Новгороде архим. Макария, Part II, 236–237. The expression: walked with glory, in glory, first found in Officials and other monuments of the 18th century (Officials: Kholmogorsk. sob.. p. 235, Nizhny Novgorod. Preobrazh. sob., according to the Index under the word: arrival; Chronicle of Dvina p. 163. M. 1899. Archang. Eparch. Ved. 1894 g., parts of unofficial p. 213), in the charters and records of our cathedral service XVII table. the term corresponds: he walked with escort and singing, that is, accompanied by many people, in the presentation of a lamp with two large candles and while the singers sang the troparion of the church or the daily saint, or the ninth song of the canon, or the so-called slavnik - stichera with glory, Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy. Spirit... From here, we think, the expression itself was formed: the bishop walks with glory, by analogy with many other liturgical expressions, in which the term very commonly used in liturgical language appears: Glory (See for an example, Official Kholmogorsk collection, pp. 191, 224, 236; see Dmitrievsky Description of liturgical manuscripts of rights. East part I, Τυπιϰά, pp. 533, 559, 565, 604, 867, 870). Christ. Reading, 1881, part I, pp. 540–541; n. Arsenia Sukhanova Proscinitary, pp. 232. 238. 243. 248. 249, etc. The person wearing the lamp is now called the lamp-holder; in the old days it was worn by a clerk. In the records of patr. services. Nikon noted that in 1657, on December 21 after mass and on the 24th after vespers, he was escorted into the house “only by one lamp to the staircase and, saying: Tone despotin,” he returned to the cathedral church, “and the great bishop, turning, overshadowed all countries” (Manuscript of the Moscow Synod. Bible No. 93 l. 94, 95 vol.). In Greece, the lamp was carried in front of the bishop by different persons: lampadarium, depotate, ostary, primikirium, but mainly the carrying of the lamp was the responsibility of the latter. In Byzantium, the first, most senior officials in civil and church ranks were generally called primikirii: there were also secondikirii - second officials. From the church primikiriya we will name: the chief of notaries and the first of the readers (ὁ πριμμιϰήριος τῶν ἀναγνωστῶν). Name: πριμμιϰήριος is derived from primus and cera – candle (= primicerius). But is it not possible to derive from primus and ϰύριος. This word is also written like this: πριμμιϰύριος. Dukanja Glossarium graec. sub. vocc. δεποτάτος, λαμπαδάριος, πριμμιϰήριος. Rev. Benjamin New Tablet, p. 146, ed. 15. St. Petersburg. 1891. Simeon of Thessalonica De sacra liturgia, cap. 80, – Minya Patr. graec. t. 155. col. 257; Russian lane in the Scriptures relating to interpretation Divine service, vol. II, pp. 98–99. Acts 20:7–8; Extract from Pliniev’s letter from Smirnov F., Divine service. Christ over time Apostle page 40 approx. 2; n. Eusevia H. E. lib. III sar. 33, Russian lane I, 169–170; Tertullian De corona milit. With. 3; Created. Cyprian in Russian lane I. 348–349; II, 216–219, etc. Dmitrievsky, Τυπιϰά, pp. 164, 165, 167. Ambrose East. Jer. Ross., part I p. 330. Goara Εὐχολογ r. 315. The custom of using lit lamps in various kinds of processions in old Byzantium was quite widespread. As a sign of honor and to express joy, candles were lit at meetings of emperors, famous military leaders and other famous men. See for example the Chronicle of the Byzantine Theophanes in the translation. Obolensky and Ternovsky, pp. 150, 242. Commemoratorium de casis Dei vel monasteriis in Tobler in ero Itiner, et description., vol. I pars. II, p. 301; n. The rite of service of St. world according to the ancient charter of Jerusalem. churches in ed. Papadopoulo-Keramevsa p. 102; at Dmitrievsky p. 98. Ambrose Histor. Russian. Hierarchies, part I pp. 316, 318–319. 830; n. A. A. E. I, 158, 298; IV. 6; Additional Act. Histor. V, 146, 150. Παπαδοπούλου-Κεραμέως Ἀνάλεϰτα Ἱεροσολυμιτιϰῆς σταχυολογίας τομ. β' σελ. 189; n. Dmitrievsky Divine service. Passionate and Easter. weeks, pp. 182–184. Ῥάλλη ϰαὶ Πότλη, Σύνταγμα IV, 544–545. Тὸ διβάμπουλον μεϑ’ ἡμμένης λαμπάδος.., ἧς δὴ λαμπάδος τὰ μὲν ἄϰρα εἰσὶ διὰ ϰινναβάρεως βιβαμμένα, τὸ δὲ μέσον διὰ πεταλίου ϰεχρυσώμενον, ἔ χοντος σταυροὺς ἐντὸς ϰὺϰλῳ ϰοϰϰίνους. Codini Curopal. De Officiis, cap. VI, p. 45.Edit. Bonn. Of the several opinions proposed to explain the meaning of the word διβάμπουλον, διβάμβουλον and given in the commentaries of Gretzer and Goar to Kodin (Ibid., pp. 148–149, 275–277), the most definitive is the one according to which divampul (= duplex ampulla) was a two-lamp, and monovampul (= simplex ampulla) was a single-lamp. But such an explanation does not reconcile with the above words of Kodin, which clearly speak of one lamp or candle, distinguished at the same time from the divampul, which served as a stand for it, and does not agree with the following description of the same utensils by Balsamon: Αἱ λαμπἀδες μὲν τῶν δὲ πατριαρχῷν ϰαὶ τῆς αὐτοϰρατορίσσης ἑνὶ ϰαταϰυϰλοῦνται ϑριγϰωματι. Ῥαλλη ϰαὶ Πότλη, Σύνταγμα, IV, 544 n. 545. Ducange Glossarium graecit. s. voce διβαμβουλον. Were these surroundings or rims around the shaft of the divamvul set in expensive metal in the form of shallow dishes or bowls facing upward, originally arranged for the same purpose as rosettes around candles on modern chandeliers and candlesticks, and later turned into a crown-like ornament? Ῥαλλη ϰαὶ Πότλη, Σύνταγμα, IV, 545. Kodin, briefly explaining the meaning of the king wearing a cross, an acacia (a bag of ashes) and some clothes, directly says (De officiis cap. VI, p. 51) that the lamp is carried in front of him according to the word that states: “so let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Dmitrievsky Τυπικά, 164–165. Russian East. Bible VI, 449; Official Novgorodsk. Sofiysk soc., pp. 247–249. Described. handwritten Moscow Synod. bib. A. V. Gorsky and K. I. Nevostruev III, 1 p. 92; n. Nos. 367, 370 and 377. Officials: Novgor. Soph. personal pp. 1, 17, 28, etc., Kholmogorsk. Preobrazh. and Nizhny Novgorod. Transformation, according to the Indexes, under the words: lamp, lamp. Ambrose East. Russian. Hierarchies, part I pp. 319. 330. 337. It is not known exactly when and by whom the privilege was at one time given to the archimandrites of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery to use in the priestly service, along with other bishop’s distinctions, “a lamp or primikirium” (Ibid., pp. 355–6). But something similar happened in the east, where the abbots of some monasteries went to the church and meals and left them on solemn occasions, presented with two lamps and accompanied by the brethren. Reproduction of one of these processions made by Grigorovich-Barsky in the Lavra of St. Athanasius on Athos, given by Beylié in L'habitation Byzantine, p. 66. It is very likely that the abbots and archimandrites imitated in this case the bishops, with whom in certain respects they could equate themselves. They, as shepherds of the chosen flock, also had to guide the latter to Christ with the light of their virtuous life (Dmitrievsky Τυπικά, pp. 755, 765–766. 792–793, etc.) and more often than any other of the monks, the perception of a burning candle during tonsure could come to mind - one of the most significant rites of the latter, accompanied by the words: “So let your light be enlightened.”... Goara Εὐχολογ. pag. 480. 514: Dmitrievsky Εὐχολογια. pp. 646, 665, 799 and others. 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