The Great Euchologius and other books used in practice by pastors in the East

Our parish priest in his practical activities is usually guided by two liturgical books: the Service Book and the Trebnik, while the Greek priest in this case is completely satisfied with only one book called: Εὐχολόγιον τό μέγα, the full title of which in Russian is: “The Great Euchologium, in which The rite contains seven successions of the sacraments and everything that was published in the first printed euchologies 1, the rites of consecrations are added in accordance with the presentation in the Archeraticon, as well as the continuation of the renovation of the church according to the publication in Bucharest, also the apostles and gospels and very much more in the funeral sequence of the Priests. All this is harmonious and in better order than in the first printed euchologies, set out, now reprinted, cleared of many errors and corrected with great diligence in Venice 1777.” The title itself tells us both for its actual composition, which exhausts the entire sum of liturgical rites and prayers for various occasions, and for the fact that this book reached such completeness, its current composition, only in relatively recent times. So, for example, the rite of renovation of the church mentioned in the table of contents was printed for the first time in separate brochures in Bucharest in 1703 in December at the expense of Metropolitan. Auxentius, and before that time there was another similar rank, borrowed from manuscripts in the first printed Euchologius. If we review 2 at least in general terms the historical fate of this book, which is very important for the pastor of the Church, then we will understand that a lot of time passed before it received its present form. Book 8 of the Apostolic Constitutions can be called the prototype of modern Euchologia. In the book of the Apostolic Constitutions that we mentioned, an unknown compiler included sequences of liturgies and sacraments, and prayers for various occasions, that is, if we do not take into account the component parts, all those parts that we see in the current Euchology. But in the proper sense, the history of modern Euchologia should begin with the so-called Barberine list of Euchologia of the 8th century, first discovered and published in abbreviation 3 by the Catholic scholar Jacob Gohar in 1647 (Codex Barberinum No. 77) 4 . This Euchology, in content, is very complete and consists of the rites of the liturgies of Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, presanctified gifts, prayers of vespers, midnight office, matins, psalms of praise, rites of baptism, consecration of water, peace, churches, rites of ordinations, monastic tonsure, marriage and many prayers for various occasions 5 . The general character of this manuscript is such that, despite its completeness of its constituent parts, it contained mainly only prayers and bypassed the so-called ritual actions of the priest and deacon caused by the prayers themselves. So, for example, in the rite of the liturgy there is no description of the proskomedia, about which only the initial prayer gives a faint hint, with the inscription: αποτιθεμενοο τον αρτου εν τψ διοκψ 6. There are quite a lot of liturgical lists with prayers alone in different libraries, and they all date mainly from the 8th century to the 14th century, although many are known from the 17th century. From this it becomes clear why the Greeks preferred such manuscripts over other names to the names of euchologies, i.e. prayer books or prayer books. True, in the 13th–14th centuries, when expositions of ritual actions along with the prayers themselves began to appear in euchologies, manuscripts of this kind received the name taktikons (from ταξις rank, order), but such a name did not stick with them for long, as can be judged from the small number of monuments themselves. A representative of this type of monument can be considered the handwritten Taktikon of the Byzantine emperor John Kantakouzenos (14th century), now stored in the Moscow Synod, bib. under No. 279. The composition of this manuscript is no different from the manuscripts called euchologii. The Taktikon of Kantakouzeno includes the rites of liturgies without proskomedia, the succession of the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, marriage and consecration of oil, the prayers of the priest in the evening and in the morning, the service in the evening on the day of Pentecost, the rite of washing the feet, the blessing of water on the day of Epiphany, prayers for various occasions and the order of the royal hours on the eve of Christmas, Epiphany and Good Friday. Meanwhile, in fact, it would be very natural to retain the now mentioned name of taktikon for this book, especially at a time when the so-called Διάταξις τῆς ἱεροδιακονίας 7 appeared on the pages of the Euchologia in the 13th-14th century, usually attributed to Patriarch Philotheus of Constantinople (1354–1355, 1362–1376) 8. The name of euchologies, however, was retained by the manuscripts even at a time when almost the very first page of it was decorated with Διάταξις, which contained only the most detailed and thorough presentation of ritual actions separately from prayers. Obviously, the force of custom in this case prevailed, and the name behind the real book of euchologies, as we have seen, passed into its first printed editions and remains to this day. Very early in the East, they began to distinguish from the general composition of Euchologia the rites of the liturgy, which were written on parchment and sometimes rolled up in the form of scrolls on a rolling pin for ease of transfer and use during the celebration of worship, as the rites most often used. This kind of scrolls are called ilitaria 9, kontakia and even liturgiaries (λειτουργιάριον), which translated into Slavic means Service Book, although with this last name we associate a slightly different idea than that given by the name itself and the oldest composition of this kind of liturgical monuments. Since the time of printing, the liturgiaries have not been lost, but have been put on the printing press, and thus a small, but very convenient for the parish clergy, book has appeared with the title: πατέρων ἡμῶν Ιωάννου τού Χρυσοστόμου, Βασιλείου τού μεγάλου, 1785. T. e. Divine liturgies in our saints John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, Gregory the Great or the Presanctified Gifts, Venice 1785. The title itself completely exhausts the content of this book. Apart from the mentioned rites of the liturgy, set out in accordance with the “Great Euchology”, there is nothing in it. It would seem that the modern parish priest of the Orthodox East should be completely satisfied with the books we mentioned, the Euchologium and the Liturgiary. In them he can find everything he needs in parish practice. But in reality we see something different. The modern Greek Church has found the use of Euchologia not entirely sufficient for the parish clergy, partly due to the high cost of this book, but mainly due to its inability to adapt to the circumstances of the time. Therefore, the Synod of Athos and some private individuals, well acquainted with the needs of the Greek parish clergy, found it necessary to publish for it several other books, which would either replace the Great Euchologium, or would supplement what is missing in this latter. Since for the most part these books guide the Greek clergy of our time in their practical activities, we will become more familiar with their contents. The first place between these books should be occupied by the book: Ἱεροτελεστικὸν τεῦχος, the full title of which in Russian: “The Book of Sacred Rites, composed by Hieronymus Bogiatzi, teacher of the Greek language of Dimitzana, second edition of Secopulus, as determined by the Holy Synod and the Minister of Church Affairs and public education for the benefit of priests and every Christian. This is the second edition. Its first edition appears to have been published in 1868.” The entire book is divided into two parts, so to speak, theoretical and practical. In the first part, explanations are made of the names of the daily services and liturgical terms included in these services (chapter 1), the meaning of sacred vestments (chapter 2), vessels and accessories of the church (chapter 3), an explanation of the liturgy (chapter 4), something in the form of excerpts from our teaching news, such as: regarding the preparation of the priest for the liturgy, the preparation of the necessary vessels and vestments, prosphora and wine, and regarding the occasion the priest's forgetfulness to pour wine and water into a vessel (chap. 5), and also if the priest gets sick during the liturgy or dies, if the priest is called to baptize a sick child during the liturgy, if the church catches fire or is shaken by an earthquake (chapter 6), if the priest notices that St. The lamb is touched by a mouse, and in St. A spider, or one of the harmful animals, fell into the cup before the consecration of St. Gifts or after consecration, if a particle of blood is spilled on the floor or on clothes, or the entire vessel is spilled, or falls on the floor of the saint. Lamb (chapter 7), finally, regarding the preparation of the Lamb for the whole year on Maundy Thursday (chapter 8), the rite of the small requiem (ακολουθία τοῦ νεκροσίμου τρισαγίου), the litany on the funeral Saturday, the rite burials on Easter (chapter 9), entrance verses and dismissals on the Lord's holidays, prayer over the penitents, prayer over the koliv, exclamations after each song of the canon on Easter, a sample of canonical testimony and the prayer of the holy Bishop of Jerusalem Modest, read over every mortal disease and disease of bulls, horses, donkeys, hinnies, sheep, goats, bees and other animals. This same part includes the cacoon before St. communion, which is read in the evening during Compline, after reading “I Believe in One God,” and serves as the evening rule for parish priests of the Orthodox East. This canon is followed by prayers before communion (τῆ δὲ εὐαὐριον), preceded only by the usual beginning, and prayers after communion (εὐχαριστιου μετά τὴν θείαν μετάληψιν). These last prayers have at the beginning “motivating verses for this thanksgiving,” which in translation read like this: “Whenever you have been granted the wonderful communion of the life-giving mysterious Gifts, immediately sing, bring great gratitude and from the depths of your soul say to God: Glory to Thee, God, glory to Thee, God, glory to Thee, God.” The first part of this book ends with the investigation of a priest who was tempted in a dream. The second part of the book contains, in the proper sense, the Service Book. This part begins with the rite of Vespers, followed by the rites of Compline, Midnight Offices of the day and Sunday, Matins, the following of the Divine Liturgy, which thus occurs in the Great Church and on the Holy Mount Athos (Διάταξις τῆς θείας λειτουργίας, γινομένης οὕτως ἐν τῆ μεγάλη ἐκκλησία ἐν τψ άγίψ ὄρει κλπ.) rites of the liturgies of John Chrysostom, Basil the Great and Gregory Dvoeslov. This part of the book ends with the daily evening prokeimenon, the Typikon of church succession for highly solemn days and marked by the most important events in the history of the Greek people and the doxology of the great environment with its history, written in syllabic verses. As a feature of this part of the book, it is necessary to pay attention, among other things, to the fact that in it the prayers of all orders are set out in the very sequences in those places where, according to the Rule, they should be pronounced by the priest. The description of ritual actions is presented here in very detail, in relation to the Charter of the Great Church, used in the liturgical practice of modern Greek churches. Here, just as in the Typikon of the Great Church, difficult cases of practice or places of rites that are important from a dogmatic point of view are explained by means of notes under the line. Thus, Hieronymus Bogiatsi’s Ἱεροτελεστικὸν τεῦχος comes closest to our modern Missal, although it differs from it in significant completeness, thoroughness and greater logical consistency in presentation. This book gives everything a modern pastor of the Greek Church needs when performing daily services. In preparing for the celebration of the Liturgy, he does not need to run from the Missal to the Breviary, from this latter to the Canon, in order to fulfill all the instructions of our church and liturgical practice, which requires a lot from our pastors - the performers of the liturgy. The shepherd of the East in this book will find not only how this or that order of the daily service is performed, but also why it is performed this way and not otherwise, how to explain the meaning of this or that liturgical term, this or that liturgical accessory, etc. In the field of the Trebnik, the practice of the Greek Church has not yet developed such a book, but private attempts in the field of individual rites have already been made and very successfully. Among this kind of publications, bearing in mind the requests of the parish clergy, there is a book entitled: Εξομολογητάριον, the full title of which in Russian: “Confessor or the most beneficial book containing an abbreviated teaching for the confessor, how he should confess with benefit, the (penance) canons of St. John the Faster, accurately interpreted, frank advice to the repentant on how he should confess properly, and a soul-helping word about repentance, extracted from the works of various teachers and brought into the best order by the ascetic of the holy mountain, the ever-memorable teacher Nicodemus, ninth edition, Venice, 1885.” The rite of confession, both in our Trebnik and especially in the Greek Euchology (ακολουθία των έξομολογονμένων) belongs to the most disordered. In none of the ranks is so much freedom given to the modern pastor as in this particular rite, especially at the moment of the secret confession of the penitents before the priest. Even in our Breviary, at least some attempt is made to point out to the priest-confessor the questions that he can offer to the penitents in order to bring their sins to memory and to encourage them to freely present them before him, and they even give, although not entirely successfully, examples of the sins themselves, whereas in the Greek Euchologia this is not even the case. Here the instruction regarding the priest’s questions to the penitent is expressed very generally by the following vague phrase: “and the confessor asks him (i.e., the penitent) about all his sins” 10 . Meanwhile, nowhere is a pastor required to have such extensive knowledge of human nature, the human heart, spiritual experience and theological and canonical knowledge as when performing this sacrament, for which it is not enough to have the right to confess the penitents and read over them in the Trebnik the prayers prescribed during confession. That is why the modern Greek Church does not grant the right of confession to all pastors, but only to certain certain clergy who are experienced in all respects and have extensive knowledge. In the Greek Church, not every pastor is a confessor, but only a priest specially appointed for this purpose and having a letter from the bishop for the right to confess. That is why, for a very long time, 11 in the Greek Church there were attempts to create special manuals for these confessors, which would not only define the qualities of a confessor, the rules regarding the imposition of penances on penitents, and the performance of the rite of confession itself, but also the very method of confession of persons coming to confession of different positions in society, in the spiritual and civil hierarchy, and, moreover, different in age and gender. The book of Saint Nicodemus that we mentioned, the title of which we cited in its entirety above, in our opinion, fully satisfies its purpose. This, by the way, is supported by the fact that in 1885 this book was already published in its ninth edition. Indeed, this book is precious in all respects: it is equally useful for confessors and repentant sinners. For the former, it is important in the sense that it fully and clearly sets out the teaching about the qualities, knowledge and virtues of confessors, and explains the penance canons of St. John the Faster and indicates the means for penitents that a confessor can offer to his spiritual children. For those who repent, questions are offered here regarding sins against all ten commandments of God's law, they are reminded of ordinary, grave and mortal sins, and they are given full opportunity to express everything that lies on their conscience frankly, without which confession itself cannot be of any use. Therefore, in this book we find special questions for kings, bishops, monks of all kinds, abbots of monasteries, confessors themselves, men, wives and children. At the end of the book there is an impressive and touching word on repentance, from which the confessor can draw abundant instructions for the penitent. Sometimes detailed scholarly notes, scattered by the author in abundance under the line, not only clarify the meaning of the book itself, but mainly the correct understanding of the cathedral canons and the meaning of church practice. In due course, when we talk about the practice of repentance in the modern Greek Church, we will return to this book and introduce our readers in more detail to some of its most important chapters. Bearing in mind the fact that the Greek Mέγα Εὐχολόγιον contains the rites of ordinations, the consecration of churches and the world, and other rites and prayers 12 used mainly during bishop's services, one would think that in the publication of a special book like our Bishop's Official, containing exclusively almost rites performed by the bishop are not necessary in the Greek Church. But in fact, here, as in our Rus', a special book is published for the bishop, and, moreover, in a large sheet format, with the following title: Αρχιερατικόν, its full title in Russian: “The book of the bishop’s service, containing the divine and holy liturgies of John Chrysostom, Basil the Great and Gregory the Dvoeslov or the Presanctified, also the ranks of all ordinations, already published for the benefit of the bishops, now (i.e. 1778) in the second edition, printed with some necessary prayers through the efforts and expenses of Cyril, Archbishop of Thebaid, Mount Sinai, in Venice. 1778." This title speaks quite clearly about the content of the book itself. As for the “necessary prayers” mentioned in the title, they mean prayers: over the koliv, over the penitent, farewell over the dead, for the blessing of trees, dishes for Easter, grapes and icons, as well as the rite of small blessing of water and dismissal in the morning and evening on the Lord's holidays. The presentation of the ranks themselves does not differ in any way from those published in the Great Euchologie. The rites of the liturgy consist only of prayers and exclamations pronounced by the bishop during the liturgy, but there is no presentation of ritual actions or bishop’s ritual. This edition of Euchologia differs from the first printed one. In addition to the different order of its constituent parts and some new ranks, it lacks the ranks that were in the first printed euchologies, for example, κοιμηθέντας υπο επτα ιερεων ποιημα Νικολαου μητροπολίτου αθηνών (Ευχολόγ. 1566 an. pag. 191 and 204) and some others. A brief history of Greek Euchology is available in the book by Prof. Mansvetova “Metropolitan Cyprian in his liturgical activity” p. 9, etc. The list of liturgies was published in complete and carefully corrected form by Swainson. The Greek Liturgies Lond. 1884 an. pages 88–94. Its translation into Russian is published in the collection of liturgies. St. Petersburg. 1875, issue. 2, pp. 120–132. Ευχολόγ. edit. Venet. 1730 an. praefac. et. pages 83–85 et. set. A detailed list of all the articles included in the Barberine list of Euchologia was made by Bunsen in his work Hippolyth. und seine Zeit band II, pages 535–537. Ευχολόγ. Goar.page 150 not. i.e., the prayer that the priest reads in the container, while placing the bread on the paten. The title we mentioned above the prayer of the sentence is found only in the rite of the Liturgy of Basil the Great, but in the rite of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom not only does not have any inscription above the prayer, but the prayer itself is read completely differently. Ibid. page 83. This Διάταξις τῆς ἱεροδιακονίας was reprinted by Gohar in his Ευχολoγιον-e on pp. 1–8 from the Venetian Missal of 1638. I. D. Mansvetov, exploring the question of whether Διάταξις belonged to Patriarch Philotheus of Constantinople, came to the conclusion that there is no positive evidence for this ownership of the “Charter”, except for the inscription in the title. “At least, says Prof. Mansvetov, he does not have authorship rights in the liturgy. This latter, according to Greek lists, is known earlier than Philotheus and prevents his activities by almost a whole century. And since the rules of Vespers and Matins stand in the closest connection with the rules of the liturgy, and both of these parts bear the stamp of the work of one person, one editor, it is impossible not to come to the conclusion that Philotheus was not the author of the section that relates to Vespers and Matins. It is very likely that he owned the final edition of the ordo, and under his sanction as patriarch, it was put into use and received practical significance” (Metropolitan Cyprian in his liturgical work, p. 18). All these judgments were expressed by the late professor almost exclusively on the basis of the first-printed Venetian euchologies without sufficient acquaintance with this kind of handwritten monuments, which lead us to somewhat different conclusions. It is true that it is currently impossible to prove that Διάταξις belonged to Patriarch Philotheus, but his participation in this kind of work, and what is especially important for us, his participation in the development of the rite of the liturgy, in particular, is not subject to the slightest doubt. In one of the manuscripts of the Vatopedi Library of the 14th–15th centuries (according to the catalog of this 13th century library), we even saw the interpretation of this hierarch on the rite of the liturgy, still unknown in our science and entitled: Προθεωρία κεφαλαιώδης περί συμβόλων καί μυστηρίων πονηθείτα καί προτροπή καί άλιπος τού ἱερωτάτου ἐπισκόπου Φιλοθέου, in which Patriarch Philotheus explains the deep secrets of Christian doctrine, embodied in the symbols and rituals of the liturgical order. One must think that this interpretation refers to the rite of the liturgy, at least from the time of the patriarch himself, who (i.e. rank), as can be seen from the interpretation itself, was in many respects at odds with the rank we now know with his name. Further, the work of this patriarch in the field of liturgical rites is evidenced, by the way, by the very eloquent, in our opinion, fact that on Athos at present there are quite a lot of lists of the liturgical rite with the name of Patriarch Philotheus. Τοῦ μακαριωτάτου καί ἐγιωτάτου ἀρχιεπισκόπου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως νέας Ρώμης καί οικουμενικού πατριάρχου κύρ ἐν ἡ καί τα διακονικὰ (rkp. 16th century No. 27, l. 48, bib. Russian-Athos. mon.) or (RKP. of the same bib. 1545), etc. This is how the rite of the liturgy is titled in many manuscripts. But asserting the fact that Patriarch Philotheus took an active part in the processing of the rite of the liturgy, we still cannot indicate with certainty which of the known lists of the rite of the liturgy attributed to the patriarchs. Philotheus, is closest to his rite of liturgy. In the same way, we cannot even say positively whether the rite of the liturgy consisted of one charter, or whether it also contained prayers, because we saw such lists of the liturgy with the name of Patriarch Philotheus, in which Διάταξις stood separately from prayers (RKP. No. 27 biblical Russian. Pant, mon.), such in which both prayers and Διάταξις represented one whole (RKP. Holy Sepulcher Bibl. in Const. No. 425 of the 16th century) and finally, those in which this connection was made very ineptly and seemed to indicate that at one time Διάταξις stood separately from prayers (RKP. Russian-Athos. Pant. Mon. 1545). In general, we think that the final judgment regarding the Διάταξις of Patriarch Philotheus can be definitely stated only later, when a sufficient number of lists of this rank have been studied. The names of the manuscripts, ilitaries and kontakia, indicate their format and are contrasted with another name for their notebooks (τετράδιον). Ευχολόγ. edit. Venet. 1777 an. page 190 Much earlier than the Exomologitary of Saint Nicodemus, the following similar works were known: Ἐξομολογητάριον ἀναγκαῖον περὶ τοῦ μυστηρίου τῆς μετανοίας 1673 Διδασκαλία ὠφέλιμος περὶ μετανοίας καί ἐξομολογήσεως παρὰ 1724. Ευχολόγ. 1777 an. pag. 135–161 et cet. You might be interested in: