Historical explanation of the rites of the liturgy

(From lectures † Prof. A. P. Golubtsov) The meaning of the word "Liturgy". Instructions for the priest on how to prepare for the celebration of the Liturgy. Entrance prayers. Proskomedia. Type and number of prosphoras. Removal of the lamb and parts from the prosphora in honor of the Mother of God and the saints. Etching and its original meaning. About the time of the first entrance into the altar of the celebrant of the Liturgy. About the priest's reading of liturgical prayers secretly. Small Entrance and end of the Liturgy of the Catechumens. How the Liturgy of the Faithful began in ancient times. The Great Entrance and its original meaning. Features of the most ancient church practice, preserved in the current environment of this rite. Explanation of the exclamations: “Let us love one another”, “Doors, doors”, “Mercy of the world”, etc. The general content of the prayers of the canon of the Eucharist. Calling on the Holy Spirit for the transubstantiation of the Gifts; the antiquity of this prayer. Rite of Communion. Our task will be to explain the positive, historical side of the liturgical rite and to show the basic grain from which it began its existence; how this grain then developed and under what conditions took its present form. Eastern liturgical exegetes set themselves completely different goals. Their explanation of the service was nothing more than a more or less consistent implementation of certain dogmatic and ecclesiastical ideas into the content of the Liturgy, and these ideas, in the opinion of the interpreters, found expression and justification in the very system of the liturgical service. But this mystical view, not to mention the complication of its edifying and religious goals, by its very beginning is not free from conventions and stretches. The interpreters had in mind an already established system of rituals and attached to it a ready-made subjective theory, which, as regards particulars and individual rituals, sometimes rested on an artificial connection and revealed more wit than serious exegetical tact. The failure of such methods, with all due respect to the depth of the theological thought of our interpreters and the importance of the main idea penetrating their interpretation, was that the interpreters, leaving the historical soil, got lost in the sphere of abstractions and speculations, they themselves gave the tone to the system of worship, and did not proceed from it in their exegetical conclusions. A scientific explanation of worship, in our extreme understanding, must satisfy, first of all, the goals of the immediate historical understanding of the rite and answer the question of why this or that entered into church practice, took a certain form and took its definite place in the whole system of worship. If I may say so, the task of historical interpretation is the genealogy of the ritual, an explanation of the path by which it reached its present state and position in the general structure of the service. No matter how difficult it is to complete this complex task completely with existing scientific means, nevertheless, I will now try to present the experience of such an interpretation of the Liturgy, following the text of the current missal and constantly keeping on the basis of the Eastern rite, only where necessary comparing it with the Western. Without considering it necessary to go into all the details of the liturgical rite, we will dwell on those of them that are of more historical interest. But first of all, a few comments about the very name of this service: “Liturgy” or “Divine Liturgy.” The word “Liturgy,” as is known, comes from the Greek: λεῖτος (λεώς, λαός) - popular and ἔργον - work and among classical writers meant the administration of a public office associated with a monetary duty, which in Greece every adult citizen was obliged to bear for the benefit of society. In particular, the name λειτουργίαι was used to refer to voluntary donations from wealthy citizens, which were made by them to facilitate government expenses and to support any enterprise in cases of emergency. In agreement with this and Ap. Paul denotes the work of Christian charity with the word λειτουργία (2 Cor. 9:7,12; cf. Luke 1:23; Acts 13:2). Among church writers, this word means both the performance of church offices and mainly priestly services, as well as the very rituals, actions and prayers that are part of the church service. The Council of Ephesus calls morning and evening prayers liturgies, and the Council of Antioch calls services in general. Thus, in the ancient church language this word had a broader meaning than it does now, and embraced the concept of church cult in general. It is still used in this sense in Western liturgical language. Subsequently, on the basis that the main and essential part of Christian worship, the service κατ’ ἐξοχήν, became the celebration of the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the word Liturgy received the specific meaning in which it is used now. But in the ancient church language the following names were used to designate the Sacrament of the Eucharist: τράπεζα Κυρίου, εὐχαριστία, εὐλογία, προσφορά, σύναξις, ἀναφορά, oblatio, communio, sacramentum altaris. Our Old Russian mass is an inaccurate translation of the Greek δεῖπνον and is based on the idea of ​​dinner, that is, a meal, a supper that is spiritually celebrated and offered at this service. In our ancient service books, the Liturgy bears the name: “Divine Service” or simply “service”, which is nothing more than a translation of the Greek: λειτουργία or θεῖα λειτουργία. In the current missal, the rite of the Chrysostom Liturgy is preceded by a brief instruction to the priest on how to prepare for the celebration of the Sacrament and what kind of spiritual disposition he should have when intending to celebrate the Eucharist, while his preliminary actions upon entering the church are outlined, and further the troparia and short prayers read before the altar and at the entrance to it are indicated. Of the preliminary rites of the Liturgy, this part is the latest in origin and appeared in this place and in this form no earlier than the 13th–14th centuries. According to the presentation itself, it bears a monastic imprint and was edited under the influence of monastic customs and monastic subordination. This special relationship is indicated by the expressions: the priest bows to the primate, that is, the abbot. Having united with the deacon (previously the priest served alone in most cases), both kissed the local icons of the Savior and the Mother of God, which naturally presupposes a very late structure of the iconostasis and a completely established distribution or placement of icons in it. The processing of the rules for the preparation of servants and their inclusion in the missal refer to the edition of the Liturgy that appeared in the 13th century. and then became known under the name Filofeeva. In the earliest Christian antiquity, this rite was replaced by the prayer of entry - the present small one, which at the same time was the first entrance of the priest into the altar. The immediate complication of this act was that the priest, preparing to serve, before entering the altar, said petitionary prayers, to which they later began to add prayers of permissiveness or repentance, borrowed from the rite of permission of penitents and applied to the face of the priest. The reason for placing them in this place was the preparation for communion of the laity and confession before receiving the Holy Gifts, in general - the custom of fasting. Intended initially for lay communicants, they were then applied to the person of the serving priest and began to be written on his behalf in the first person. But that they came here by accident from the ancient rite of confession of the laity and do not belong to the person of the priest is clear from the fact that they mention such gross sins (against chastity and against one’s neighbor), the presence of which does not allow the priest to serve. This entrance part is especially detailed in our Slavic service books of the 16th–17th centuries, and this comes from the time of the Council of the Hundred Heads, which revised this rite and furnished it with new troparia and prayers. Since then, they have begun to be included in service books, but not all of them. In printed publications they were abolished, and thus the present abbreviated rank was established. In the ancient Syrian and Greek records of the Liturgy, in place of the present ritual setting preparatory to the celebration of the Liturgy, a whole series of prayers is usually placed, from which it is partly possible to reconstruct the very course of the beginning of the Liturgy. The first prayer without a name is of repentant content; the second εὐχὴ τῆς παραστάσεως, that is, the prayer of standing before the throne, is short, of general content, and concludes with the glorification of God; third εὐχὴ τοῦ θυμιάματος τῆς εἰσόδου – prayer of the censer before entering the altar; the fourth τῆς ἐνάρξεως is the prayer for the beginning of the service: it talks about the first entry of the people into the church, and they, the people, are called προσιοῦσα ἐκκλησία - the coming, approaching Church; the fifth is the prayer of the priest, giving a blessing to the deacon before the start of the service and entering the altar; the sixth is a short response prayer (εὐχὴ ἀποκριτική) to him by the deacon with a mention of the song of the Trisagion, which, as we will see, accompanied the priest’s first entry into the altar; seventh in order, the prayer of the entrance itself is read with the following inscription: “the priest says this prayer, walking from the gate (πυλῶν - entrance doors) to the altar,” that is, on the way to the altar. That this prayer has the same content as the present one of the Small Entrance is evident from its content, which speaks of entering the Holy of Holies, standing before His holy altar, and worthy offering of the Gifts. Then, after the litany, the Trisagion hymn, the prayer of the Trisagion, follows, and the Liturgy continues in the usual order, close to the present one. After vesting, the priest and deacon, says the missal, having come to the proposal - εἰς τὴν πρόθεσιν, wash their hands and then begin to perform proskomedia. Πρόθεσις, or sentence - in modern liturgical language, means the compartment on the left side of the altar, where there is an altar on which proskomedia is performed. This practice is based on the ancient church custom of offerings, which has now largely deviated from its original meaning and purpose. The current offering is the remnant of that table, or better yet, the altar section, where the faithful brought their gifts before the start of the Liturgy. The present rite of proskomedia arose on the basis of this custom of offerings, and the memory of the latter is preserved in the very name προσκομιδή, which denotes the entire preliminary liturgical act associated with this ancient Christian rite of offering. The rite of proskomedia, which has no place at all in Western liturgies, and in Eastern liturgies was developed after Chrysostom, in our modern missal consists of a whole series of actions on prosphora and service wine. The first are placed in a certain number of five. The current prosphora, in a certain later form of liturgical bread, corresponded in ancient times to offerings of bread (and wine) for the Eucharist, and this by itself makes it clear that they did not have a special appearance, as they do now, and were not limited to a normal number. Judging by the images of the Eucharistic contents in the catacombs, these were round loaves of bread with a cross-shaped cut on the top crust and corresponded to those breads that were prepared for home use or everyday use in the East and West. From the fact that even in the 5th–8th centuries these breads were bought for monastic services at the auction, sending a steward there, we can conclude that even at this relatively late time they were not embarrassed by their shape. However, there are indications of the existence of prosphora breads at monasteries at that time, and this, of course, could lead to the separation of proskomedia breads from ordinary ones and to their special preparation. But that even in the 7th century they still served on the bread offered, the following incident, relayed in a conversation by Pope Gregory Dvoeslov, shows. One woman, approaching communion and accepting bread from the presbyter, smiled, and when she was then asked about the reason for such a strange act, she answered: “It was the bread that I made with my own hands and brought to church; when, handing it to me for communion, you said: “here is the Body of Christ,” it seemed very strange to me, and I smiled.” In the ancient lists of Liturgies there is no definite indication of the number of prosphoras, and therefore our domestic dispute with schismatics on this subject, unfortunately, has little, very little data for its decision. At the beginning, the number of loaves, of course, was large and had to correspond to the number of communicants, and in the ancient Church, as we know, everyone present took communion, and not just one priest. Patr. Herman mentions one piece of bread from which the Lamb was taken out, and the prosphora itself, according to him, had a σφραγίς or seal, in all likelihood an image of a cross. With the preparation of the Lamb, in fact, the processing of the proskomedia in the sense of the present rite began, and for this part it was necessary to have only one prosphora. Their larger number should have corresponded to further development. To trace the increase in this number step by step, the sources do not give positive indications, and it is quite natural to assume that different places had their own customs in this regard, which diversified significantly in the 11th–12th centuries. When Chartophylax Peter was asked whether it was possible to serve at one prosphora, he answered: “if there is no memory of a saint or remembrance of the dead, there is no obstacle.” It can be seen that at that time it was already customary to use several prosphoras at the proskomedia, but one was considered essential. According to Chartophylax Peter, it was possible to get by with one prosphora when there was no memory of a saint (deliberate), who had to be remembered at a special prosphora, since it was not allowed to commemorate anyone at the lamb service. Likewise, if there was no funeral mass, then there was no need for a special prosphora to commemorate the deceased. In Kirik's questions, Nifont allows serving at one prosphora if there is nowhere to get another, and the bargaining is far away. But the more common number seems to have been three, because the same Niphon tells Kirik that the funeral Liturgy should always be served on three prosphoras: one should be a large mandrel, from which the Lamb is taken out and on which the dead are not commemorated, and the other two for the repose. According to this uncertain state of affairs, in the Slavic service books of the 12th century. one lamb prosphora is mentioned, but others are mentioned vaguely: “and having mixed the prosphora” - in what quantity is not said. But that this number was not the current normal five is clear from the following data: in the charter of the emperor. Irene and in the charter of the Synod. Studiysky XII century. there is mention of seven prosphoras or breads at the Liturgy. Of these, according to the Studite charter, six were small, and the seventh, large, for the repose of the founder of the monastery, was to be divided among the brethren. According to the imperial charter. Irene, the first bread is the Lord’s, the second is the Mother of God’s, the third is for the daily saint, the fourth is for the king, the fifth is for the nuns of the monastery, the sixth is for the departed; about the seventh it is not specifically said for whom it is offered. Simeon of Thessalonica, who lived in the 14th century, is supposed to have several prosphoras, but exactly how many is not known. From the first prosphora the Lamb, or part, is taken “in remembrance of the Lord and God and our Savior I. Christ.” The setting of this action and the words spoken by the priest (“like a sheep led to the slaughter” (Is. 53:7)), show that the memory of the suffering and death of the Savior is connected with it. This circumstance leads to some considerations regarding the meaning of ritual actions in the sequential course of the Liturgy. The ancient interpreters wanted to bring all the variety of liturgical rites under a well-known system; Of these systems, the most successful must be recognized as the historical-typological system of interpretation of patras. Herman and Nikolai Kavasila. But the actual course of the service at the very first steps contradicts this systematic plan of the ritual setting, when it takes us straight to the last days of the Savior’s life, completely neglecting the historical sequence. This fact is one of the strongest proofs against the strict historical plan of liturgical rites and confirmation of the idea that the basis of individual parts of the Liturgy was not based on such a typological idea on which Eastern exegetes base their interpretation. Wanting to apply his theory to all parts of the Liturgy consistently, Patr. Herman completely abandons the literal meaning of the proskomedia rite and, despite his explanation of the meaning of the words of the rite itself, gives his own special interpretation, with which he thinks to restore the real historical order in the composition of liturgical actions. He directly says that the removal of the lamb from the prosphora means the birth of Christ from the Virgin, and the prosphora itself symbolically resembles the womb of the Virgin Mary; and all further proskomedia acts are timed to coincide with the circumstances of the Savior’s life in Bethlehem and Nazareth. – Other exegetes tried to eliminate the obvious inconsistency that violated the harmonious plan of theoretical interpretation with more subtle dogmatic considerations. Here, they said, only a preparatory act for the Eucharist is being performed, it is not about the sacrifice of Christ, but only the elements for the Sacrament are being prepared: the Sacrament itself with symbolic rites relating to the last events of the Savior’s life must come after; therefore, there is no need to attribute the proskomedia act to the events of the suffering and death of Christ. This explanation, more decisive and direct, did not solve the actual matter, but only cut the Gordian knot, denying the literal meaning of the act and its setting within the meaning of the missal. This is already an obvious stretch, not reconciled even by the assumption that the Lamb is presented here prophetically and transformatively, as a victim doomed to the slaughter at his very birth. In our opinion, the difficulty that they wanted to get around through such explanations is irremovable precisely because the entire proskomedia part is a later addition to the Liturgy, which is based not on any symbolic act, but on the simple action of offering. If in our Liturgy it received such an extensive ritual setting and such a symbolic meaning, then this is completely conditional for the subsequent parts of the Liturgy. What is the significance of removing parts from the prosphoras in honor of the Mother of God and the saints? The removal of these particles is a remnant and reduction of the ancient act of offering. The ancient Christian Church assimilated to the Eucharist the symbolic meaning of the sacrifice made by the Savior on the Cross, and made offerings for the living and mainly for the dead of its members and extended the saving meaning of this act to all living and living members of the Church of Christ - both perfect and imperfect, righteous and unrighteous. The current proskomedia act is a remnant of this ancient church custom, but has already changed and acquired a slightly different character. In the current proskomedia, the Church, remembering the saints, singles out its imperfect members from their ranks, does not pray for them, but, by virtue of Augustine’s rule: “prayer for a martyr is offensive to him,” calls on them to strengthen our prayer and makes this remembrance “in honor and memory” of them - εἰς τιμὴν καὶ μνήμην. In the words of Dionysius the Areopagite, the calling of saints means their heavenly and holy union with Christ. In later parts of the Liturgy, such as the proskomedia, composed, one might say, anew, without revision, on the basis of ancient models, the formula for the remembrance of saints is already completely adapted to the spirit of this view and directly expresses it; in the earlier parts of the Liturgy a different view is held. The priest, having performed the proskomedia, censes the offered gifts. This custom, as well as censing in general in the Church, is interpreted by interpreters to have a spiritual meaning, finding in the burning of incense symbols of various kinds of moral relations. But in the present case, the proskomedia act and censing are brought together by a close historical connection. Believers brought to the altar not only bread and wine, but also oil, candles and incense. All these objects equally constituted προσφοράν and were used for the service of the Church. So, incense before the Gifts is a remnant of the ancient Christian custom of offering incense among the gifts. This, by the way, is indicated by the prayer itself, read on this occasion by the priest: “censer (or more precisely, from Greek, incense, θυμίαμα) we offer to You, Christ our God..." During the celebration of the proskomedia, the priest and deacon are in the offering and, in fact, outside the altar, just as in ancient times, gifts were brought and left in a special part, separate from the altar and the throne - in the offering (πρόθεσις, σκευοφυλάκιον), and therefore the last The proskomedia prayer was called: εὐχὴ ἐν τῷ σκευοφυλακίῳ. After the proskomedia has been performed, the priest and deacon, the missal says, proceed to the throne. Based on fragmentary instructions in church services, by analogy with the entrance to Vespers and Matins, it should be recognized that the entry of the priest with the deacon into the altar before the Liturgy and the opening of the curtain is a later custom, and in the ancient Church this part was not performed near the altar and not inside the altar, but outside it, and the altar remained closed at least until the entrance with the Gospel or even until the time of the removal of the catechumens from the church. On what can this opinion be based? Based on data preserved in current church practice, especially on the comparison of the bishop's missal with the priest's missal. Traces of the original church practice, in the sense we have clarified, were preserved primarily in the setting of the small entrance. The small entrance in ancient times did not have the same meaning as it does now, and was nothing more than the removal of the Gospels from the diaconium or σκευοφνλακίου, where church utensils were kept, into the middle of the church. This coincided with the time when it was appointed, according to the charter, to read the Gospel. 1 But at first the deaconium (= skeuophilakium) did not form one whole with the altar, but was arranged separately from it, and the Gospel was brought into the middle of the church, not from the altar, as now, but from a side compartment. Some expressions of the ancient charter hint that there was no direct communication between the altar and its side parts, and therefore it was possible to enter the altar only from the pulpit and the royal doors, and not from the inside. Let us point out several facts that confirm our idea. In the breviary, in the rite of consecration of the throne, it reads: His Holiness the Patriarch from the mitatorium or deaconium, preceded by the deacon, with the right side of the church, having gone around the solya, enters the altar. Why make such a detour if there was a direct internal connection between the altar and the real altar compartment? Ancient Russian churches preserved traces of such an arrangement of the altar and its side sections. – Let us further pay attention to the content of the prayers pronounced by the priest during the entrance itself and upon entering the altar, before the chanting of the Trisagion. In the first prayer, the priest asks God to create the entrance of the holy angels with the entrance of the priest. Obviously, we are talking about the entrance to the altar. But what special motivation did the compiler of this prayer have to concentrate the entire essence of its content on the “entrance”, if this entrance were not the first to the altar, and if it were not associated with a special meaning for the priest approaching the altar? The prayer of the Trisagion, immediately following the small entrance, with its content complements the path traversed by the priest and represents him already standing face to face to the throne, because in this prayer the priest thanks God for having vouchsafed him to stand at that hour before the glory of His holy altar, before which it is as if he appears for the first time during the singing of the Trisagion. In general, the entire setting of this rite is calculated on the act of entry itself, and not on the Gospel presented. The deacon says: Bless, O Master, the holy entrance, and the priest answers: Blessed is the entrance of Thy saints. Let us now compare the order of hierarchal service with these data - and we will see a remarkable analogy with the facts just noted. The bishop's missal retained the memory of this rite even more clearly. It is known that the bishop himself does not begin the Liturgy, but remains among the church until the small entrance and only with this procession enters the altar. In Maximus the Confessor, in his interpretation of the Liturgy, the small entrance is represented as the first appearance of the bishop before the meeting for the celebration of the Liturgy, followed by the entrance to the altar and to the high place. The people enter with the bishop, after which the reading of the Divine Scriptures begins. 2 Since for the named interpreter the bishop’s service does not differ in any way from the ordinary priestly service, then what he said regarding the bishop has full force for the Liturgy celebrated by the priest. What now constitutes the peculiarity of the bishop's official is nothing more than the happily preserved remnant of the ancient Christian Liturgy, regardless of whether it was performed by a priest or a bishop. “In the episcopal service we have two forms of small entry at a time: ancient and recent. The first remained in the movement of the bishop; the second represents the priest’s exit, which then merges with the bishop’s and, so to speak, is destroyed in the latter.” 3 – The entry of a bishop or priest into the altar was connected with the opening of the royal doors or the opening of the curtain, as a result of which the very inside of the altar became accessible to the gaze of the people. But it is known that various clans of catechumens were deprived of this right and the sanctuary was strictly guarded against them, and therefore the royal gates were not opened in their presence. Due to this same precaution, in the ancient times of the Church, when there were many catechumens, the entire first half of the Liturgy, before their exit, was celebrated behind closed doors... This ancient period of church practice corresponds to the content of the prayer read by the priest at the beginning of the Liturgy of the Faithful. In it, the priest thanks God for deigning him to appear at His holy altar. The question arises: what is this strange repetition of the same thing that we heard in the Trisagion prayer, and what is the meaning of double gratitude for the same thing, moreover, gratitude expressed as if anew and for a new situation? This depended, very likely, on the fact that the Liturgy of Chrysostom in its current edition bears the remnants of the liturgical practice of various eras, represents a layering, united in one edition and somewhat contradicting itself upon careful study of the matter. This prayer begins the Liturgy of the Faithful, the most ancient part. And in ancient times, when there were many catechumens, the altar remained closed until their exit, and the priest had not yet approached the throne. Subsequently, when the number of catechumens decreased or even disappeared altogether, the priest approached the throne earlier, namely, around the time of the small entrance. In the current missal, the Liturgy begins with the well-known exclamation of the priest: “Blessed is the Kingdom”; but this beginning of the Liturgy is already relatively late and did not take place under Chrysostom. In his time, it began with the priest’s goodwill addressed to the people: peace to all, followed by readings from the Old Testament and general prayers for the people and their needs. This is how Chrysostom presents the matter in his conversations to the Antiochians, and this is how the most ancient of the written Liturgies begin; for example, the Liturgy of Mark begins with the exclamation of the priest: peace to all; the people answer: and to your spirit; deacon: pray; people: Lord have mercy, three times, and then the priest reads three prayers, between which the same exchange of greetings takes place between the priest and those present. But the present beginning of the Liturgy also formed very early, and Sophronius of Jerusalem already mentions it in his interpretation of the Liturgy. The exclamation is followed by a large litany and two small ones with antiphons between them and then a small entrance. As for the litanies, they occupy the same place here as in antiquity, only their current number and order 4 have no basis in news from the first 4–5 centuries and in the most ancient records of the Liturgies; in all likelihood, they were established in the Constantinople district and were developed in the local Liturgy, which became famous with the name of Chrysostom and Basil the Great. Patr. mentions three litanies with the same number of intermediate antiphons. Herman and the so-called Sophronius in his explanations, and the prayers of the antiphons according to other lists of the Liturgy are unknown, except for Chrysostom and Vasilyeva. This order and these prayers, 5 as one might think, were first established by the practice of the Great Church, on the basis of the tripartite division, in relation to the three persons of the Holy Trinity. Now a few comments about the meaning of the word itself: litany. Litany comes from ἐκτενὴς (from ἐκτείνω; δέησις, of course, long, intensified), 6 and means a series of short prayers or petitions, following one after another continuously. A more ancient name for this type of prayer - συναπτή (from συν and ἄπτω) - gives the concept of a complex composition and corresponds to the Latin: collecta. They are also called: εἰρηνικά - after the first word with which they begin: ἐν εἰρήνῃ τοῦ Κυρίου δεηθῶμεν, and therefore are sometimes translated with the word: peaceful. The deacon proclaims “peaceful.” In our service books, by analogy with the Greek: διακονικά, litanies are called deaconship, deaconship, because their pronunciation is learned by the deacon. – Now the litany concludes with an exclamation from the priest, containing the doxology of the Holy Trinity. What is the relationship between this last and the litany, and what does it actually refer to? The exclamation does not refer to the litany and does not constitute its formal conclusion, as one might think based on the current state of affairs, but to the prayer of the priest, which followed the litany. So, for example, in the Liturgy of the Apostolic Constitutions, the last petition: “for the salvation of every Christian soul” is followed by the invitation of the deacon: “Rise up, stand up... and let us surrender ourselves to the living God through His Christ.” Next, the prayer is read, which was pronounced by the bishop, and which ends with a doxology: “through Whom (i.e., the Son) to You be glory and honor in the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.” But then the prayers were read aloud, and the doxology was most appropriate; now it does not have a particularly important meaning, because the prayer to which it refers is read by the priest secretly, and we have in the exclamation no more and no less than the conclusion of the winemaking period. The prayers of the antiphons, as well as the prayer of entrance, the priest, as noted in the missal, reads secretly (μυστικῶς) and pronounces publicly (ἐκφώνως) only one exclamation or final doxology. This separation of the priest from the people during worship and his solitude from those present in the circle of prayers assigned to him alone and available to him alone is in conflict with ancient church practice. According to the view of the ancient Church, both the shepherd and the flock, and the priest and every believer were full participants in the performance of divine services; They participated with their offerings, and prayers, and the reception of the Sacraments, and the celebrant of the Liturgy was a representative of the people, an exponent of their prayers, and therefore, everything that came from his lips was and should have been a thought, a feeling, a prayer, a desire in the minds and lips of the people. The spirit of the ancient Church denied this separation of the celebrant of the Sacraments and the people present as far as the performance of the Sacraments was concerned. He did not mark out a special circle for both of them, did not consider one thing accessible only to the priest, the other to the people as part of the Liturgy; but just as all believers received the Eucharist, so they all listened to the celebration of the Liturgy from beginning to end. It would be enough for us to refer to a well-known passage from Justin’s apology as proof of our thought; It would be enough to show that there the public, public proclamation of prayers by the primate is assumed by itself. In the oldest list of the Liturgy, the Alexandrian Lidolf, it is directly noted about the canon of the Eucharist: “and the people repeat the words of the bishop,” but there the prayers are short, and their literal pronunciation does not present any difficulty and does not require much time. In our Liturgy, the litany preceding the Cherubic Song ends with the deacon’s invocation: “wisdom.” This expression, according to its use in liturgical practice, ancient and modern, always occurs where it comes to arousing the attention of listeners to some important reading or action. But in this place, neither in the ancient nor in the modern Liturgies, anything other than priestly prayers is found. In our opinion, the appeal: “wisdom” aroused the attention of listeners to the priest’s prayer following the litany. Now, when all the prayers, except for one behind the pulpit, are read by the priest secretly, the original meaning of this appeal is lost, and instead of a complete prayer, the listeners have to hear its ending in the form of the last half of the period. The first motive that led to the abolition of the public reading of prayers could be the increase in the composition of the Liturgy, which reached an enormous size in the 3rd–4th centuries. Reading all these prayers out loud would take too much time, and the attention of the listeners was no longer as focused as before. For them, it was necessary to replace this hearing with singing and shorten the course of the service, allowing the priest to read prayers secretly while the deacon and the congregation celebrated parallel parts of the service. The current symmetrical arrangement of the litanies and the duration of the singing of certain church songs while the priest secretly reads the prayers prescribed in the service book, this symmetrical arrangement is adapted to the number, volume and order of the prayers themselves and, obviously, was formed under the influence of current practice. The church charter commands the deacon to conform in his pronouncements to the actions of the priest. A remarkable rule regarding this has been preserved in some ancient Greek and Slavic copies of the Liturgy of Chrysostom. At the end of the litany, after the deacon’s petition: “Intercede, save, have mercy,” the following is read: “with this verb, the deacon looks to the priest and, when he finally recognizes him, having finished his prayer, he says: wisdom.” – The disciplina arcana also had its influence on this aspect of the matter. Its main motive - the non-publicity of worship - was applied and understood differently in different eras of the Church in relation to different members of the community. When the establishment of the cathumenate began to decline in the Church, this system found a new form and received a new application. Now, by virtue of it, there was a strict division between the performer of the sacraments and the people, between the clergy and ordinary members of the church. The first to acquire the highest knowledge, the highest illumination of the Spirit, in general the highest measure of spiritual understanding, and therefore they were given participation in the highest sacraments of faith; the remaining members, as not initiated into these secrets, were excluded from this participation and limited to their special area of ​​​​prayer and service. When this division was carried out, it was natural that the priest fell to the lot of many and, moreover, the most important prayers, which he was obliged to read μυστικῶς, secretly from the people, as they alone were accessible to him in content. The “hierarch,” in the words of Dionysius the Areopagite, “although he favorably lowers to his subordinates his unique sacred and superior knowledge, but immediately, as elusive for lower things, returns to his superior service.” This is the general expression of that system, which, having drawn a distinction between the clergy and the laity in relation to the rights of service and understanding, closed the priest in the circle of liturgical functions available to him alone, and left the layman only to be content with the grains that fall from this rich meal of hierarchical knowledge and service. We can add to this one more circumstance that had an influence on the formation of this closedness of the Liturgical rite. In ancient times, all believers, without exception, received Holy Communion. The Tain together with the priest, and due to the custom of offerings, participated more closely in the celebration of the Liturgy than Christians of subsequent times, when the custom of offerings ceased and they began to take communion less and less often. – How the replacement of public prayers with secret ones affected the very structure of the Church service is easy to understand from the fact that it somewhat violated the integrity of the liturgical act, tore it into two parallel parts and introduced discord into what in itself constitutes one indissoluble whole. What is this, so to speak, separate service provided to a layman next to another parallel one, going on in the altar and performed by the priest? We hear, for example, the exclamation of a priest, but we do not know what it refers to, what it confirms and explains, because the prayer associated with the exclamation is read by the priest secretly. But doesn’t hearing one end mean hearing only words without thoughts? Isn’t there too much reliance on the personal understanding of those present, when they themselves are entrusted with complementing what is missing, connecting the scattered and giving meaning to what is so carefully hidden from the eyes of those present? What happened to the Eucharistic canon - this most mysterious part of the Liturgy - that part which retains tangible traces of the ancient church spirit and which concentrated such reverent care on the part of the ancient Church? This part is presented to the people in scant passages, often not very well chosen. There is no visible connection between them and it is not easy to restore it to someone who is not familiar with the contents of the service book and has not read the prayers themselves. Meanwhile, the Eucharistic canon is an extremely harmonious and rounded whole, there are so many high prayer elements in it, all of this remains inaccessible to the people. The ancient hierarchy, having made worship completely open to the faithful, presenting it in an integral and complete system to the consciousness of everyone, was guided by a more faithful and deep psychological tact than the Church of later times. – Something similar to this custom in ancient times can be found in the so-called silent prayer (εὐχὴ διὰ σιωπῆς), which in the Liturgy of the Apostolic Constitutions immediately followed the exit of the catechumens from the Church, at the very beginning of the Liturgy of the Faithful. But this secret prayer was completely different from the later established custom of secret prayers. At their origin, they served as one of the expressions of freedom in the matter of religious relations, and did not constrain this freedom and had nothing to do with the subsequent restriction of the liturgical rights of the people, which we see in the establishment of secret prayers for the priest. Secret prayer during worship gave everyone the opportunity to express their inner feelings in conversation with God, to state their needs, and thus distinguished each member of the Church as an independent body. Due to their exceptional significance, these prayers could not remain in Church practice for long and were replaced by general, public prayers and began to be pronounced by a deacon, who served as an exponent of these feelings and dispositions of those praying. We know the meaning of a small input. Let us make a few comments about the liturgical actions grouped around it. According to our missal, the deacon, bringing the Gospel into the altar, says: “Wisdom, forgive!” – σοφία, ὀρθοί! What do these expressions mean? In the ancient Church they were used instead of a sign that aroused the attention of listeners. Ancient Christians sat during worship, and this was allowed, for example, during readings from the Old Testament and singing the psalms of David, during the sermon and the Apostle, and during some prayers and litanies they prayed on their knees. But when any important action occurred, for example, reading the Gospel, saying important prayers, then the deacon exclaimed: “Wisdom, forgive me!” inviting with this exclamation to get up from their seats or rise from the ground and stand straight and unyielding. It is necessary to keep in mind the duration of the ancient Liturgies in order to understand the origin of the custom of sitting during this service. In many of the Syriac and Coptic Liturgies, before the beginning of the canon of the Eucharist, the deacon exclaims: qui seditis assurgite, ad orientem adspicite! in the Liturgy of Mark: οἱ καθήμενοι, ἀνάστητε! In the present case, the exclamation: σοφία, ὀρθοί! prepared believers specifically for hearing the Gospel. This fact helps us restore the ancient course of the Liturgy and the connection of its parts, disrupted by later additions. Our antiphons correspond in the ancient Church to the singing of psalms, which began every divine service, as well as the Liturgy. 7 While the psalms were being sung, those present sat: when the time came to preach the Gospel, everyone, according to the word of the deacon, had to get up from their seats, and thus, σοφία, ὀρθοί! served as a connection for the transition from the readings of the New Testament to the readings from the New. And, consequently, those parts that in the present case fill the gaps between the deacon’s exclamation and the reading of the Apostle and the Gospel constitute the later addition, namely: the litanies, the hymn “Only Begotten Son” and the Trisagion with his prayers. After the small entrance to the altar, the deacon turns to the priest and asks for his blessing to begin the singing of the Trisagion with the words: “Bless, Vladyka, the time of the Trisagion.” The answer to this is the exclamation of the priest: “How holy art thou, our God,” and then, with the well-known techniques indicated in the missal, the deacon pronounces at the royal doors: “Lord, save the pious... and forever and ever,” and then the singing of the Trisagion begins. It is not easy to understand this mass of ritual details and establish connections between them, and this stems from the fact that, along with the ancient and (logically) clear parts, several relatively later details came here that have only a distant connection with the construction of this part in antiquity. The main rites include: entry, singing of the Trisagion, prayer of the Trisagion and blessing of the people by the priest. “Lord, save the pious” is a later addition and is not found not only in ancient Liturgies, but also in Slavic service books until the 15th–16th centuries, and in general this part was established under the strong influence of the bishop’s official and the cathedral service in the great church and in cathedral churches. “Lord, save the pious” is, as it were, a replacement for the bishop’s blessing to the people, expressed in the words: “look down from heaven, O God.” And regarding “and forever and ever,” we will give an excerpt from the ancient charter of the cathedral Liturgy in one Greek euchology - a typical XII-XIII century - an excerpt that casts a different light on the construction of this part. “You need to know,” it says here: “that on holidays we sing the Trisagion, and when the singers reach the Glory (while singing the Trisagion), the deacon approaches the priest, holding the orarion in his right hand, and says: Bless, Master, the Glory (i.e., sing the Trisagion for the Glory of the Father). The priest answers: “Blessed is God, glorified in the Holy Trinity,” and the deacon, turning to the people, shows them the orarion, and then the domestic (regent) begins: Glory. While singing this, the priests and deacons come together to the altar and, when the protodeacon says: “command, lord,” and the priests: “blessed is he who comes,” they approach the saint. pulpit (high place), and the deacon, pointing to it, says: “Bless, Master, St. department." This characteristic passage paints the matter as follows. Before starting the singing of the Trisagion for Glory, that is, for the last time (the fourth), the deacon went out to the royal doors and, with the movement of the orarion, gave the sign to the domestic to begin singing. The present: “and forever and ever,” during which the deacon leads the orarion in a certain way, was at first nothing more than an order directed to the singers. It is very likely that he said at the same time: “Glory to the Father and...”, from which the current exclamation was developed: “and forever and ever.” However, the Trisagion was sung not only by the singers, but also by those serving at the altar, when they were serving at the cathedral, and there were performers in person. The further movement of the Liturgy in our rites, in some actions, somewhat deviates from the patterns of ancient church practice and from the order that existed under Chrysostom. After the Gospel, for example, (to which, according to Paul the Silentiary and the so-called Sophronius, those present were allowed to kiss), teachings were pronounced, closely adapted to the content of the section of scripture read; The sermon was followed by prayers for the catechumens, the penitents, and the possessed, who all then left the church, having received the blessing of the priest. It is not known on what basis and for what types this order was violated by the introduction of a special litany or prolonged prayer, which did not exist in this place either before or during the time of Chrysostom. And it is remarkable that this results in too large a concentration of litanies in the present place. The assignment of the sermon to the end of the service has its reasons and is closely connected with the fall of the institution of catechumens. In the ancient Church, preaching had a missionary-catechetical significance, and therefore its real place was in the Liturgy of the Catechumens, in that part that was accessible to everyone. But when these times passed, and the very situation of the Liturgy in this part became noticeably more complicated, then it became completely unnecessary to hold the sermon in this place. They also find another reason for this rearrangement, which, however, is not entirely easy to agree with, but to which, according to its historical relations, it would not be superfluous to pay attention. In the ancient Church, the zeal for preaching was so great that many came to the service just to listen to the preacher, and immediately after that they left the church without waiting for the end of the service. This circumstance was the reason that the Church on major holidays, in order to especially please the people, appointed double sermons - in the morning and in the evening. But if Chrysostom at one time bitterly complained about the impoverishment of the disposition to worship itself and the preference for preaching, then this was Chrysostom’s personal merit - a phenomenon the solution to which lay not in the position of the sermon, but in its state, in the relationship of the sermon to the public consciousness. Chrysostom said: “I searched in vain with my eyes for this countless number of people who had gathered here and listened to me with such attention at the hour of the terrible sacred rite. How bitterly I suffered, seeing that they listened to me with all zeal, oppressing each other, vying with each other to grab my every word, and at the same time, when Christ appeared in the Holy Sacrament, the church remained empty; and others said directly: why should I go to church if I don’t hear the preacher there?” The end of the Liturgy of the Catechumens in ancient times was arranged much more fully than it is now. It should be noted that in the ancient Church the catechumens were divided into several classes that did not have the right to attend the Liturgy of the Faithful. These were the catechumens in the proper sense - κατηχούμενοι, who were at the first stage of preparation for Christianity; then - those possessed by unclean spirits and a special category of them, the so-called ἐνεργούμενοι, kneeling; then those preparing for Baptism - φωτιζόμενοι, competentes and, finally, repentants, that is, those who, for serious crimes, were relegated to the level of catechumens. All these persons, placed in special groups and each having a special place, were called to prayer by the deacon with the exclamation: προσεύχεσθε, orate; they prostrated themselves, prayed along with the faithful words of the prayer pronounced by the deacon, then received - each group separately - a special blessing from the priest, listened to a special prayer and left the church in the order we have outlined. In the current rite of the Liturgy, this division is abandoned, and for all types of catechumens there is one litany, one prayer by the priest and one general invitation to leave the church. A comparison of the prayer for the catechumens now read by the priest with the same prayer in the Apostolic decrees shows a close connection between them, and the content of the litany for the catechumens is almost literally similar in presentation to the same source. Regarding the reduction of complex prayers and rituals associated with the exit of the catechumens from the church, the following should be noted. James of Edessa (7th century) notes that prayers for the catechumens, the demon-possessed and the repentant were already abolished in his time, although in other places the deacon, according to ancient custom, proclaimed them. The litany and prayer for those enlightened or preparing for Baptism were assigned to the Lenten time, when Baptism was taught to catechumens. As for the repentant, it is known that in Constantinople under Patr. To Nestorius, Chrysostom's predecessor, public repentance was replaced by confession before a priest. And consequently, public prayers for the repentant no longer took place. The opening acts of the Liturgy of the Faithful present a remarkable composition of rites aimed at establishing order and discipline among those present. The deacon's first appeals to them are intended to preserve the inaccessibility of this part to the uninitiated and to establish order among the most faithful. “Yes, no one from the catechumens, and no one from the uninitiated and who cannot pray with us! get to know each other!” - these are the reminders with which this part of the Liturgy began. Then, in the order of our Liturgy, follows the Great Entrance - μεγάλη εἴσοδος, which between the initial acts of the Liturgy of the Faithful occupies a prominent place and deserves special attention. The historical basis of this rite lies in the staging of the ancient proskomedia and returns us to those meetings with which we have already met, explaining the content of the proskomedia as a simple rite of bringing to the altar and placing on the throne the bread and wine necessary for the sacrament. If these gifts had already been collected before, they were kept in a special compartment, which was called the offering, pastophoria, proskomedia altar, from where, after sorting and proper preparation, they were transferred to the altar; and if the offering took place after the removal of the catechumens, it consisted of bringing them to the throne. In this latter form the matter is presented in the Apostolic Decrees and in Chrysostom. The current solemn atmosphere of the Great Entrance is in close connection with the treatment of the proskomedia, as a preliminary part of the Liturgy, and develops at the expense of this latter, as an action in essence identical with it. It is not surprising, therefore, that the description of the Great Entrance is first found in patr. Herman is called that way. Sophrony, who also report on the rituals of proskomedia. Have the features of the original staging of this rite been preserved and in what ways in its presentation according to the current missal, and is it possible to guess from it the traces of the ancient act? These traces can still be seen: a) in the commemoration of the living during the Great Entrance, b) in the bishop’s acceptance of the Gifts before the royal doors and c) in the content of the offering prayer. The first feature is self-explanatory. In the ancient Church, the names of the bearers of gifts were publicly pronounced when they were placed on the throne. But since the kings and members of the reigning house, present at the Liturgy, not only brought gifts from themselves, but also enjoyed the special right to bring them to the altar in person, it is natural that between the first names in the diptychs there were the names of emperors and members of the royal family. This is the origin of the custom of commemorating the reigning house, the bishop and all Orthodox Christians at the Great Entrance. The second feature of similarity was preserved in the bishop's missal and consists in the fact that the bishop does not come out himself with the Holy Gifts, but receives them at the royal doors, that is, he does the same thing that the bishop did at that time, according to the instructions of the Apostle. Resolutions. “The deacons,” it says here, “bring gifts to the bishop to the altar (θυσιαστήριον), and the elders stand near him on both sides.” Finally, the content of the prayer read by the priest upon placing the gifts on the throne leads to an understanding of the original meaning of the Great Entrance. This prayer is inscribed: εὐχὴ τῆς προσκομιδῆς and is very similar in content to the current prayer at the Proskomedia. This is actually the same prayer, only in two editions, and they relate to the same act and at least serve as a continuation of one another. The first says: “Bless this offering and accept it into Your heavenly altar, remember those who offered and those for whom they offered.” In the second: “Deign us to offer You gifts and spiritual sacrifices for us and for human sins.” (In the Liturgy of the Apostle James, the prayer after the proskomedia: “God, our God”) is the same as in our Chrysostom Liturgy. The Roman Catholic and Nestorian liturgies do not know proskomedia in the sense of a special preliminary part and kept the offertorium in the place where it should have been according to the meaning of the ancient Christian rite, that is, before the beginning of the Liturgy of the Faithful. – As for the prayer of the Cherubic song: “No one is worthy,” then, although in our service books it is inscribed either with the name of Basil the Great or Chrysostom, this is completely arbitrary. The first news of the introduction of the Cherubic Song into the Liturgy dates back to the end of the 6th century. and is associated with the name of the constants. Patriarch John Scholastic, just as in his presence it was supposed to be sung on Maundy Thursday: “Thy secret supper.” Perhaps the patriarch himself was the composer of these songs. The course of the following parts of the Liturgy is more stable. This is because the Liturgy of the Faithful was processed much earlier than other parts and received a monotonous appearance. It is not surprising, therefore, if it retained much more similarities with ancient church practice. Between the offering of the Gifts and the canon of the Eucharist, the Ancient Church allowed several preliminary actions, which had partly religious and moral, partly disciplinary purposes. These include the deacon’s exclamation: “Let us love one another.” This exclamation is nothing more than a revised formula of a more ancient and direct address: “Kiss one another with the holy kiss: ἁσπάσατε ἀλλήλους ἐν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ.” Not to mention the identity of the internal meaning, the exclamation also has a close resemblance to it in the expression itself, because love - ἀγάπη in liturgical language is identified with a kiss as its expression. 8 Additional words of the deacon's exclamation: “Let us confess with one mind” are not read in the ancient copies of the Chrysostom Liturgy: they are adapted to the reading of the Creed, as a confession of the Holy Trinity, introduced at the Liturgy in the Eastern Church of Constantinople. Patr. Timothy in 510, and in the West even later, namely, the Council of Toledo in 569. The exclamation of the deacon: “Doors, doors - θύρας, θύρας” now refers to the raising of the curtain on the royal doors, but in ancient times it had a different meaning and drew the attention of subdeacons and doorkeepers in general to ensure that they guard the entrance to the meeting and do not allow any outsiders into the church, so that not only from the catechumens, but also from the faithful could enter it, because the act of offering the Gifts was over, and those who did not participate in it could not participate in the prayers for the consecration of the Gifts and begin to accept them. Note from Ap. Decrees: “deacons should stand at the doors of men, and deaconesses (according to friend. reading: subdeacons) at the doors in the women's quarters, so that no one leaves; the doors should not open even if one of the faithful entered during the ascension,” shows how strictly this rule was observed. The Council of Laodicea extends its strictness on this subject to the point that it forbids the doorkeepers to leave the door even for a short time, but to guard the entrance to the church with all vigilance. “Mercy of the world”... There is a double reading of this passage: one way, instead of mercy, one should read: oil - oil, precisely in the Liturgy of St. Jacob (Russian translation, pp. 171–172). What is the meaning on the side of this reading, and what does it have to do with the second? It relates to the time when there were material offerings of Christians to the altar, among other things, in the form of oil, which was immediately used at the service itself. Therefore, when the deacon proclaimed that the holy offering - ἀναφοράν - should be performed in peace, the people, as if presenting their offerings in response to these words, testified that they would be present at the offering of the oil of peace and the sacrifice of praise. The relationship between the concepts of oil, as a symbol of peace, and the sacrifice of praise shows that there is an internal, logical basis on the side of this understanding. On the contrary, the expression: “mercy of the world” (ἔλεος εἰρήνης, misericordia pacis) is very unclear, the relationship between these concepts is artificial, and if this formula has prevailed in church usage, it is probably due to the consonance between the words: ἔλεος - mercy and ἔλαιον – oil; and the historical basis for its retention was the abolition of the custom of offerings for the Liturgy, as a result of which the expression: “oil of peace” lost its living, immediate meaning. Now let us trace the content and course of the very act of consecration of the Gifts, the so-called canon of the Eucharist or ἀναφορά. With the preliminary setting of this part of the Liturgy, the ancient Church wanted to show that she looked at it as a special, closed part of the Liturgy, in which the whole essence of the Eucharist is concentrated. What we have learned so far about the prayers and preliminary actions of the Liturgy of the Faithful served only as an introduction to the ἀναφορά, to the canon itself. Its isolation and, so to speak, exclusive significance are visible from the preface or praefatio. This is the name given to the priest’s exclamations that begin the canon. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” ... is nothing more than a common formula of an ancient greeting or good wish: “Peace to all.” And with these and similar appeals, according to the ancient writers, the Liturgy began. By this sign, despite the complication of this part with relatively later additions, it is possible to determine the most ancient basis and the point from which ἀναφορά began. That is why in many and, moreover, the most ancient copies, the Liturgy begins with precisely these exclamations, and these exclamations themselves, with some differences in their presentation, constitute a necessary accessory to all Liturgies known to us. To the last exclamation of the priest: “we thank the Lord,” the answer was a short one: “worthy and righteous” without further words. At least none of the ancient liturgical lists provides the complete formula, as it is read in the current missal. Ancient interpreters of the Liturgy: Cyril of Jerusalem, Chrysostom, Patr. Herman, they also don’t know this increase. 9 Yes, it’s not entirely appropriate here. The prayers and proclamations of the canon of the Eucharist refer to the person of God the Father as the recipient of the sacrifice, the performer of which is the Son of God. The exclamation: “we thank the Lord” has the same meaning; and therefore, answering it with the words: “worthy and righteous,” the ancient Christians only confirmed the words of thanksgiving and confirmed in relation to God the Father, because further in the first prayer of the Eucharist it is said: “it is worthy and righteous to sing to You, to glorify, praise and thank, to worship You, ineffable God, Father of the Only Begotten Son.” True, in the Liturgy of Chrysostom, thanksgiving to Christ and the Holy One is given here. Spirit, but the ancient Liturgies do not have such a trinitarian connotation. The content of the prayer of thanksgiving is addressed to God the Father, and the Son of God is mentioned as the mediating Person through whom we offer our prayers. This is precisely the structure of the first prayer of thanksgiving in the Eucharistic canon in the Liturgies of Cyril of Jerusalem, the Apostolic Constitutions and, what is especially remarkable, in the current Liturgy of Basil the Great, where, although the Son of God is mentioned, thanksgiving and glorification do not refer to Him. In connection with this nature of prayer, it becomes clear that the response song of the people is limited to the words: “worthy and righteous.” – A similar small addition should be noted in the following hymn: “holy, holy, holy”... In ancient Liturgies, as in the Liturgy of the time of Chrysostom, it is read without adding words: “Hosanna in the highest, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.” These last words violate the integrity of the Eucharistic canon, and the direct relationship of this hymn to the words of the priest recalling the Cherubic doxology is lost sight of. In this addition, just like in the previous one, the later understanding of the prayers of the canon in relation to all persons of the Holy Trinity was mixed in, which, according to the general structure of the canon and according to its idea, cannot be allowed. “Hosanna in the highest”... is an appeal to Christ and is connected with the cherubic glorification only in an artificial way. In Post. Apostle, however, this hymn as a whole reads as follows: “and all the people say: holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of your glory: blessed forever” (this hymn is also sung in the Roman liturgy); but this addition: “blessed forever” is not at all the same as what is used in our current Liturgy: “hosanna in the highest”... As for the response chant of the people or clergy: “We sing to You, we bless You...” to the priest’s exclamation: “Thine from Thine, brought to Thee...”, it has no direct textual connection either with the exclamation itself or with the content of the prayer then read by the priest. All the prayers of the Eucharistic canon, from which we now hear short and fragmentary exclamations, in ancient times were read in full and aloud to the people; the priest's present proclamation was then, as it is now, a natural and consistent continuation of the second prayer of thanksgiving. The connection of thoughts in this place of the canon is as follows: “remembering the establishment of the Sacrament of the Eucharist, suffering, death, Resurrection, Ascension into heaven and the second glorious Coming, we bring to You Yours from Yours for all and for everything - τὰ σὰ ἐκ τῶν σῶν σοί προσφέρομεν, κατὰ πάντα καὶ διὰ πάντα. 10 The isolation of this verse from the general composition of the canon was probably caused by the need to fill up the long gap that was not occupied by anything for the people during the priest’s secret reading of the following prayer. Some of the new interpreters consider this entire exclamation to be a later addition, supposedly breaking the connection of speech; but this opinion does not have sufficient grounds for itself and excludes the ancient formula from the Eucharistic canon only because it is associated with a relatively later addition in the form of a response hymn: “We sing to you...” But in fact, in the content of the canon this is a member that is both logically clear and documented authentic, because it is found in all known lists of the Liturgy, although it is read with some differences in expression. Let us say more: this exclamation of the priest, this member of the canon constitutes an undoubted expression of the ancient church view of the Eucharist as a gift to God, brought by the zeal of the faithful. This idea about the material offerings, from which the substance of the Eucharist is composed, is expressed precisely in the words τὰ σὰ: while the spiritual, mysterious side of the Eucharist is expressed in the expressions: “we still offer this verbal and bloodless service to You” - expressions that already indicate the revelation of the concept of the Eucharist, as a symbol of Christ’s sacrifice, as an educational-spiritual act. Comparing the variants of the formula we are considering according to the ancient lists of the Liturgy, we will clearly see that the words: τὰ σὰ ἐκ τῶν σῶν δώρων have precisely this meaning and are opposed to the idea of ​​the Eucharist as a spiritual thanksgiving sacrifice. From a comparison of the most ancient liturgical lists (for example: Alexander-Ludolfovo, the Liturgy of the Apostle James, etc.), it is also undoubtedly revealed that the act of offering in the Eastern Liturgy ended with the formula of invoking the Holy Spirit or ἐπίκλησις -om. The antiquity of this formula can be traced back to the times of Justin and Irenaeus, and is confirmed by all the copies of the Eastern Liturgy, to whatever time and place they may belong. An exception to this system is the Roman missal, in which there is no prayer for invoking the Holy Spirit, and the consecration of the Gifts is accomplished by pronouncing the words of the establishment of the Sacrament. As is known, this gap constitutes one of the larger features of the Western Liturgy and a prominent religious difference between Catholicism and Greek teaching. Following the prayer for the consecration of the Gifts, our missal contains petitionary prayers for deceased and living members of the Church, combined with the remembrance of various saints. This part was an integral part of all ancient Liturgies and, despite additions and revisions in later editions, stands in close connection with the ancient order of celebrating the Liturgy. Only the position of this part in the overall composition of the Liturgy was different; namely, in the Liturgies of the Alexandrian branch these prayers are read after the first prayer of thanksgiving of the canon, before the remembrance of the establishment of the Sacrament, and in the editions of the Antiochian branch they are placed at the end of the canon itself - where they are read in the current Liturgy of Chrysostom. This difference existed in the 7th century and was brought to light with all clarity by Jacob of Edessa. Without touching on the meaning of these prayers, according to the view of the ancient Church, we will now only make a note about how this part was organized in ancient times. Here are the main features of this organization: a) prayers, which contain memories of the living and the dead, were read out loud, out loud to everyone; 11 b) at the end of the prayers, diptychs were read by the deacon and, probably, from the pulpit; c) at the end of the reading of the diptychs, the deacon exclaimed: “and everyone and everything”; the people repeated this exclamation, and then further parts of the Liturgy followed. Diptychs were nothing more than our memorials; they were divided into two columns or two pages, hence their very name: one of them was filled with the names of the dead, and the other with the names of the living. In the ancient Church, diptychs had the meaning of records in which the community tried to preserve and commemorate the names, first of all, of its more valiant members, and therefore the first place on the pages of diptychs was occupied by the names of martyrs, then - the names of the most revered bishops and other members of the Church, who left behind a memory with their life and zeal. This was the main and primary content of the diptychs, the most necessary part of them, and therefore the diptychs served as the basis for our church calendars and, together with the martyrologies, preserved for the memory of the Church the names of the most ancient martyrs and confessors. Dionysius the Areopagite directly states that the reading of diptychs proclaims “the names of those who lived holy lives.” But just as the ancient Church, together with the saints who had perfected their faith in their faith, remembered all those who had departed from this life, then, naturally, the diptychs should have included the names of ordinary believers who only died in union with the Church. In parallel with the tables of the dead, that is, on the side of the living, first the names of bishops were written down, then of persons known for their good deeds to the Church and, finally, of other members of the community. Turning now to real practice, we see that in its main features the ancient custom is fully preserved, but it is now furnished somewhat differently. Clearer traces of the ancient order were retained in the bishop's service book. It is known that during the bishop’s service, the deacon on the pulpit says: “and everyone and everything,” as the conclusion of the words of prayer for the living and the dead, and then pronounces the names: the Holy Synod, the bishop, the sovereign; commemorates the army and all Christians, to which the clergy responds with the words: “and everyone and everything.” There are no words that repetitions are already allowed here, violating the integrity of speech, but in the order itself one cannot help but see a close resemblance to ancient practice. The current missal defines in detail the method of communion for the laity. Judging by the fact that nothing is said about it in the ancient copies of the Liturgy of Chrysostom, and that the rule about this was included in our charter of the Liturgy in the form of a special instruction, we have the right to conclude that it is not only not contemporary with Chrysostom, but did not take place in the later editions of his Liturgy. The current practice has no basis in the ancient rite of the Liturgy and was caused by special, relatively later considerations. The way this part is now performed in the altar between the priests, with the omission of some details, can serve to some extent as an example of the ancient communion of the laity, when both the Body of Christ and the Cup of Blood were received separately and used separately. The altar in the ancient Church was not so decisively separated from the middle part as it is now, and the priest was not closed from the people by such an impenetrable curtain, such heavy partitions, as now; and it must be said that this external position was perfectly matched by the moral closeness of the celebrant of the Sacrament to the people - a closeness about which tradition and the spirit of the ancient Church speak so clearly. 12 We know how the first Christians received communion from Justin’s description, namely: the deacons brought the Holy Body and the Cup of Blood mixed with water to everyone present; those present took part of the bread, drank wine and water, and those absent due to blessed guilt received communion in their homes, where the consecrated Gifts were brought through the deacons. This was the simplest form of communion. The next form was different in that those present at the service themselves approached the altar and here, while singing psalms, they received the Holy Spirit. The body from the hands of a bishop or presbyter and the Cup of Blood from the hands of a deacon; At the same time, special care was observed so that particles of Bread did not fall to the ground and get lost. 13 This was the case during the times of Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen, the Apostolic Constitutions (cap. 13 paragraphs 3–4 of the eighth book) and later. What wide and free use the believers of Tertullian’s time could make of these Gifts can be seen from the fact that they had the right, having received the Body of Christ, not to receive communion directly, but to take it to their home and use it daily early in the morning. Tertullian tells a Christian woman married to a pagan that it will be strange for the latter to see how his wife secretly eats Bread in the morning, before any food, and, not knowing the meaning of this Bread, the pagan may think God knows what, and may easily suspect her of superstition. From other sources we learn that some of the Christians who received the Eucharistic Gifts at the Liturgy, after the service, often with this pledge of Christian love and the greatest shrine, went to spectacles and thereby insulted the Holy Sacrament. Tertullian’s truthfully harsh expressions on this matter are remarkable: “You go from the church to the theater with unclean wishes and even dare to bring the Holy of Holies with you to the house of harlots. Having just left the Lord’s table and, according to custom, still having the Body of Christ with you, you handle it near shameful women.” To store the Eucharistic Gifts for home use, Christians had special boxes or vases where particles of the Holy Body were kept as a home shrine. 14 The story of Cyprian, how one Christian, who dared to touch the Holy Gifts with unclean hands, was burned by fire coming from a vessel, directly indicates the existence of these reliquaries and the practice of communion we are considering. This practice of communion at home had its basis in the straitened circumstances of the persecuted and persecuted Church, and in turn explains the origin of the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts and the Roman custom of receiving communion under one view of the Body of Christ. In general, it should be noted that in the ancient Church the Gifts of the Eucharist were used more widely than in the Church of the present time. They were sent by bishops to each other as a guarantee of unity, and were used as a symbol of fidelity and oath and in many other cases. About how they received communion in the fourth century, we have a wonderful testimony from Cyril of Jerusalem. “When you come,” he says, “approach not with outstretched hands and not with spread fingers, but make the throne a throne for the right hand that has to receive the King, and, having received the Body of Christ, say: Amen. Then, with caution, having sanctified your eyes with the touch of the Holy Body, partake, observing carefully so as not to lose anything. After you have partaken of the Body of Christ, approach the Cup of Blood not with outstretched hands, but in a bent position, with worship and honor, saying: Amen. And while there is still moisture on your lips, touching with your hands, sanctify your eyes and forehead and other instruments of the senses.” From this instruction regarding the reception of the Eucharist, given by Cyril of Jerusalem to all the laity, it is easy to see that in the 4th century there was a rule to receive the Bread of the Eucharist in hands folded crosswise, 15 and that this rule applied equally to both men and women. But soon a custom entered into church practice, which already established a division between men and women in this regard. Caesar of Arles says that in his time, men who began communion were required to wash their hands first, and women were required to have a white handkerchief (mappa, sudarium orarium) on their hands, in which they received a particle of bread. Little is known about this practice in the East, but in the West it was in great use between the 6th and 8th centuries, and several council decrees date back to this time, ordering women to strictly observe this rule. – How and under what circumstances the transition to the current practice of communion occurred in the East, history does not give a clear answer, just as ancient liturgical records ignore this aspect of the matter. Tradition assimilates the origin of the current custom of giving communion to the laity through a spoon, and the matter is about joint and simultaneous teaching of both types on a spoon, Chrysostom, but without sufficient grounds. At least, the well-known legend about a woman who used particles of the Eucharist for magic cannot be accepted in a strict historical sense, but indicates only one of the motives that led to the abolition of the previous method of communion. The name of Chrysostom alone, with which the Church connected the idea of ​​the origin of the Liturgy attributed to him, was sufficient reason for him to assimilate the introduction into Church practice of the current method of communion and the use of a spoon during communion. Contrary to these assumptions, in Chrysostom’s conversations we find clear evidence of the existence in his time of the early Christian method of communion and the absence of actual indications of the use of a spoon. “Think, Whom are you taking in your hand?” he asks from his flock: “with what hand do you dare to touch the Holy Table?” Here is a sample of expressions that St. father used to denote the practice of sharing his time. 16 The fact that in the Liturgy of St. James there is a clear allusion to the use of a lie. In one prayer, the priest asks God to “make us worthy to take the fiery coal with clean tongs and place it in the mouths of the faithful.” In the prayer from which these words are quoted, the speech is presented in figurative language. It is known that in the language of mystical interpreters, a liar is compared to the tongs with which the cherub touched the lips of the prophet, and in the same church language Christ is called a coal, in whom two natures were united as closely and mutually as in a burning coal the fire and the coal itself are inseparable. But the quotation we have given cannot have great historical significance, because the Liturgy of Jacob in its lengthy version, where the real prayer is read (Lit. Russian translation, p. 191), bears traces of a multi-temporal composition and in its entirety belongs to a later period. So, there is no reason to attribute the introduction of the current method of communion to the time of Chrysostom, and to recognize the remark contained in the current missal about the method of communion for the laity as the rule of the Church of his time. – With this we conclude the analysis of Chrysostom’s Liturgy according to the current missal and our thoughts on the relationship of this latter to its ancient basis. That is why, perhaps, according to some missals, the deacon, when bringing out the Gospel, says: “Bless, Master, this proposal.” Scriptures, related to interpretations. Divine Services, vol. I, 323–324. Mansvetov, On song succession, p. 59. ΝΒ. On the question of the Liturgy of the Catechumens. The later Church Charter, wanting to make the Liturgy of the Catechumens more rounded, did not it set it out on the model of the Liturgy of the Faithful and, by the way, with the inclusion of litanies? As for the three prayers of the priest, read before the beginning of the Liturgy of the Catechumens, they are adapted to the order of the three antiphons, and the use of their endings in the form of exclamations to the litanies is explained by the requirement of symmetry and uniformity in this part of the Liturgy and was introduced in violation of the integrity of the liturgical sequence itself and the logical harmony of the liturgical speech itself. Ἐκτενεῖτε in the Liturgy of Mark means: pray fervently. Apostle Fast. 11, 57; Russian lane page 90. The deacon’s exclamation was directed towards the same goal: “Know one another, but none of the infidels.” Given the small number of the early Christian community, those gathered easily recognized each other and with one inspection of those present they could be convinced that no outsiders remained in the church, that only the faithful were present. Between these latter, that exchange of goodwill, reciprocity and love took place, which was expressed in a kiss. – The kiss of peace, osculum pacis, φίλημα, which was already part of the Liturgy under Justin, received a special, significant meaning in it during the times of Tertullian and Cyprian. Tertullian found the fulfillment of this custom so necessary that without it, the prayer of a Christian, in his opinion, lost one of its essential accessories and was deprived of its power and meaning. “Is it possible to approach the peace of God (ad pacem Dei) without peace (sine pace)?” He speaks in his conventional and strong language. He condemns those who, under the pretext of observing fasting, refuse to fulfill this custom, and sees impure motives in such reluctance. However, it should be noted that during the days of Great Lent and especially on Good Friday, believers did not give each other the kiss of peace (deponebant osculum, as Tertullian puts it: De oratione b. 18) and because, of course, at that time there was no Liturgy and there were no meals of love. With the initial simplicity of morals and mutual relations between Christians, this custom was observed between persons of different sexes, but then it was limited, and in the Liturgy of the Apostolic Decrees a strict distinction is made between the sexes: men must kiss men, and women must kiss women. But during the time of Tertullian, at the beginning of the 3rd century. was freer in this regard. Recognizing the inconvenience of marriage between Christian women and pagans, Tertullian among other things says: “What husband, being a pagan, would let his wife go to nightly meetings for prayer! Will he allow his wife to receive a kiss from one of his brothers?” This means that in the church practice of that time such a custom existed and, of course, seduced the pagans who looked at these relations from their own point of view. In addition to the Liturgy, the kiss took place during Baptism, Marriage, Ordination and during burial, when the last kiss was given to the dead. The ancient eastern Liturgies - we mean many Syrian, Coptic and Alexandrian - have special prayers for this case, so-called. εὐχαὶ ἀσπασμοῦ. These prayers were said by the priest during the general kissing and clarified the spiritual meaning of this act and called on Divine participation so that nothing unworthy and unclean would be added to this expression of pure Christian love. Over time, the custom of kissing was abandoned and in the Western Church received a new, somewhat mechanical direction with the introduction of the so-called osculatorium (osculatorium, tabula pacis). This name refers to a sculptural, carved image of a crucifixion or a tablet with the image of Jesus Christ and the words: “My peace I give to you.” This tablet was kissed by clergy and laity, instead of a mutual kiss. The use of this image in the east is unknown, but in the west it became known for the first time in the 13th century. A remark must also be made regarding the time of osculi in the Greek and Latin Liturgies. In Eastern Liturgies it precedes the canon of the Eucharist, and in Western liturgies it occurs immediately before communion. This can be explained by the difference in the most ancient practice of the Church; at least for the blessed one. Augustine provides a direct basis for the present Roman practice: but in the ancient Liturgies - Milanese and Mozarabic - the osculum pacis is celebrated at the same time as in the Eastern Liturgies. See Nikita Pustosvyat’s petition, page 107. In the Greek Liturgy, therefore, the act of offering - προσφορά - is performed three times: the first time - during proskomedia, when the brought gifts are prepared; the second time - during the Great Entrance, when the prepared gifts are transferred to the throne for consecration, and the third time, when the gifts appointed for consecration rise above the throne, when the words are pronounced: “Thine from Thine”... Jerome: publice diaconus in ecclesia recitat nomina offerentium. The leading Christians, participating in the divine service, received communion without exception. The obligation of communion for all those present during the service is evident from the fact that the bringing and communion of the Gifts constituted one inseparable whole, because everyone who brought their gifts considered it incongruous and impossible to evade participation in communion. Some ascetics of Tertullian's time, not wanting to break their fast by participating in communion, therefore themselves refused the osculum pacis and listening to the Eucharistic prayers. It seemed strange and inconsistent to them to participate in the preliminary rites of the Sacrament, but not to begin to receive It. Tertullian, although he does not approve of this custom, recognizes the completely consistent way of thinking and considerations that guided the persons we have named. He says that the significance of fasting is even more elevated by participation in the Eucharistic service, that one should not distance oneself from receiving the Eucharist, but together with others one should accept the Body of Christ, only, having received the body of Christ, one can not immediately use it, but keep it with oneself until a certain time. Tertullian considers a complete deviation from public worship and custom-sanctified practice to be a violation of Christian unity and an innovation contrary to the ancient Christian view of the Eucharist. As for the way in which Tertullian reconciles asceticism with church practice, it should be noted that this method was not his personal invention, but had grounds in ancient church practice, at least in the African Church, this custom - taking the gifts of the Eucharist with you to your home - was followed as legal. Remarkable evidence of this method of storing and using the Holy Gifts is found in a letter from Vasily Vel. to the wife of a patrician Caesarea. Approving daily communion, he answers the question in the affirmative: is it possible for the laity to receive communion from their own hands at home, while he refers to the following facts from contemporary practice: “monks living in deserts where there is no priest, keeping Communion in the house, give communion to themselves. And in Alexandria and Egypt, for the most part, every baptized layman has Communion in his home and takes communion whenever he wants. When the priest has made and delivered the sacrifice, the one who accepted it receives it as if in its entirety and, even if he received communion in his own home, has the right to think that he is receiving and receiving communion from the one who taught it. For even in the Church the priest teaches only a part, and the receiver with full right holds it and brings it to his lips with his own hands. Therefore, it makes no difference whether someone accepts from the priest one part or several at a time.” Created. Kirill Ierus. letter 89, p. 220. Obviously, this practice is not in conflict with the following rule of the Council of Trullo: “None of the lay people should teach themselves the Divine Mysteries when there is a bishop or presbyter or deacon. Anyone who dares to do anything like that, as if he were acting against the order, shall be excommunicated from church communion for one week, admonished not to philosophize, any more than it is appropriate to philosophize,” - Right. 58 Tr. personal John II. 447. John of Damascus speaks in the same spirit. in exact terms. Right faith... “If anyone wants to have the Most Pure Body during the Liturgy and be one with it through Communion, let him form his hands in the image of the cross and so let him approach and receive the communion of grace. For from gold or another substance, instead of a hand, we do not at all approve of those who construct a container for receiving the Divine Gift and through this most pure communion, as if they prefer the image of God to a substance that is soulless and subordinate to human hands”... This wonderful rule belongs to the Trullo Council, in a row it is 101st. You might be interested in: