Introduction to the Rites of Eastern Christendom 9781607240709, 160724070X

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Introduction to The Rites of Eastern Christendom

Analecta Gorgiana

131

Series Editor George Kiraz

Analecta Gorgiana is a collection of long essays and short monographs which are consistently cited by modern scholars but previously difficult to find because of their original appearance in obscure publications. Carefully selected by a team of scholars based on their relevance to modern scholarship, these essays can now be fully utilized by scholars and proudly owned by libraries.

Introduction to The Rites of Eastern Christendom

Archdale King

i gorgias press 2009

Gorgias Press LLC, 180 Centennial Ave., Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2009 by Gorgias Press LLC Originally published in 1948 All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2009

1 ISBN 978-1-60724-070-9

This is an extract from Archdale King's The Rites of Eastern Christendom, Vol. 1, Chapter I.

Printed in the United States of America

CHAPTER

I

INTRODUCTION " Liturgy is the first and indispensable source of the true Christian spirit." Pius X, Motu proprio, Nov. 23, 1903.

T h e Catholic religion is devotion to the person of Jesus Christ, true God and true man, and the yearly cycle of the liturgy venerates and honours, with a marvellous variety of expression, our divine Lord, the author and founder of the Church, as " K i n g and Lord, and as King of kings." "In this continuous praise of the Christ-King,'' the Sovereign Pontiff in the encyclical letter instituting the feast of the Kingship of Christ (Quas primas, December 11, 1925) says: "one can easily discern the wonderful harmony between our rites and those of the East, so that once again the adage holds good : 1 ' T h e rule of prayer establishes that of faith.' " Evolution of the Liturgy From the foundation of Christianity, the substance of the liturgy or eucharistie service has been the reproduction of what our Lord did in the upper room "on the day before he 1 Legem credendi statuai lex supplicandi. St. Celestine I (422-432), De gratia Dei Indiculus (cap. 8), joined to Epist. 21 (to the bishops of Gaul against Pelagianism), Apostolici verba praecepti. DENZINGER, Enchiridion Symbolorum (edit. 21-23, 1937), p. 66. Bossuet (Défense de la Tradition et des saints Pères, p. 551), commenting on this adage, says : " C'est le principal argument dont saint Augustin appuie toute sa doctrine."

T - A . A . KING, The Rites of Eastern Christendom

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suffered," and this has always formed the basis of the Mass of the faithful. T h e taking of bread and wine, mingled with a little water, the giving of thanks, the blessing of the elements and breaking of the bread, after repeating the words of institution, and finally the feeding upon these sacred species in holy communion have found a place in every Catholic liturgy from the days of the apostles, who in obedience to their master did these things "in remembrance of him." In the Acts of the Apostles we also find the beginnings of the Mass of the catechumens, in lessons from the Old Testament, psalm-singing and preaching. These aids to divine worship seem to have been taken from the use of the synagogue, 2 where we find the offering up of prayer by a recognised official minister. T h e prayer called "Great Love" (*Ahabah Rabbah) was said before the reading from the Law, and the lessons were followed by a further prayer known as "Prayer" (Tephilla) or the "Eighteen Benedictions" (Shemoneh "Esreh). T h e later development in the Christian liturgy of offering intercessions after the gospel (prayer of the faithful) also appears to owe its origin to the synagogue service, which had a long series of prayers and blessings. In early days, this first part was often divorced from the eucharist, although it sometimes preceded the holy sacrifice, especially when it formed the vigil service of Sunday (pannuchis), which was held in commemoration of the resurrection, and in a widely spread belief that our Lord would shortly come again as judge (parousia). T h e celebrant in the first two centuries of the Christian

J NX'. O. E. O e s t e r l e y , Psalms in the Jewish Church, chap. V I I I , pp. 144-145. London; Skeffington, 1910; cf. Morning prayer for Saturday, Schacharit.

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era appears to have improvised at will, and within the limits set down above much of the service was extempore. Several things, however, tended to stereotype liturgies, thus bringing to an end the necessarily temporary period of freedom in the order and wording of the eucharist. In the first place, a constant repetition of prayer, praise, thanksgiving and intercession round a central theme inevitably produced a set form of words, at least in a given district. Secondly, the service came to be attended by concelebrating presbyters, as well as by the faithful laity, and it became increasingly necessary to have a more or less fixed order, so that each section of the worshippers might take its share in the liturgy. This custom of concelebration, ! the presbyters with the bishop, grew up "during the 2nd century, between Clement (ab. 99) and Hippolytus (235)." Finally, the liturgical expressions used in an important church or by a well known bishop were copied by others. Thus, in course of time, the great sees, especially those of patriarchal rank, developed stereotyped liturgies, which their daughter churches were required to adopt, although even here we find additions and amendments in later centuries. This grouping of liturgies round a patriarchal or metropolitan see developed in the 4th and 5th centuries, producing distinct types in respect to the arrangement of some of the prayers. The so-called Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, written about the year 225 and showing signs of an earlier work, has a short liturgy, beginning with the kiss of peace and ending with the doxology of the eucharistic prayer. An Etbiopic form of this rite underlies an anaphora which is still in use in the Ethiopic Church. ' Gregory Dix, Shape of the Liturgy, chap. I I , p. 34.

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T h e Testament of the Lord 4 is an expanded version in Syriac of the work of Hippolytus, but it is not now considered to be of a date earlier than the 4th century. T h e absence of the sanctus is explained as either a local custom or an intentional omission designed to give it a more ancient appearance. T h e Didache, which probably originated in Egypt or Syria, is so entirely sui generis that it may possibly have been the production of a local sect. Dom Leclercq 5 considers its composition to have been before the end of the 1st century of our era, perhaps about the year 80 or 90, but modern scholarship tends to treat the document as descriptive of the Eastern agape in pre-Nicene times, and representative of 2nd century ideas about the liturgical eucharist. The Apostolic Constitutions (VIII), which Dr. Neale and others have called the Liturgy of St. Clement, appear to have been a purely "literary" work, and never in actual use. Dom Gueranger 7 maintains that it was already completed by the time of the council of Nicea (325), but it would seem more likely to have been written between the year 370, when St. Basil wrote, and 390, when public penance was abolished, and also that at the time of its appearance the disciplina arcani was still in existence. T h e intercessions, however, are in the anaphora, which would seem to point to a later date. The first liturgy which has come down to us is that of St. James, emanating from the patriarchal see of Antioch in the 4th century, and strongly influenced by Jerusalem. With Liturgia, XXIII, chap. I l l , p. 880. Diet. d'Archeol. Chret. et de Lit., art. Didache. ' Gregory Dix, loc. cit., chap. IV, p. 93. 7 Institutions Liturgique, t. I l l , pp. 26-27. " L E B R U N , Explication de la Messe, t. II, pp. 19-25. ' S. S A L A V I L L E , s

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additions and alterations, it is used to-day in Greek by the Orthodox, 9 on two days in the year and in two places, and in Syriac by the Syrians, 1 " Catholic as well as dissident, and by the Jacobites of Malabar and the Malankarese Catholic converts. Tradition has ascribed the abridgement and rearrangement of this liturgy to St. Basil (ab. 329-379), who produced that which is known to-day as the Liturgy of St. Basil. This was introduced at Constantinople, where it became the normal Byzantine rite. Soon, however, another and still shorter liturgy was formulated, called after the name of St. John Chrysostom (ab. 347-407), but in general of later date. This succeeded in relegating the Basilian service book to certain days in the year, which the Orthodox church to-day has retained. Thus, the ordinary Byzantine liturgy is St. John Chrysostom, with St. Basil ten times annually. Two more Antiochene liturgies came into being in the 5th century. One, the East Syrian rite, which was in use in the church of Edessa, and is found to-day among the Nestorians, as well as the Chaldean and Malabarese Catholics, and the other, the Armenian rite, which is a form of the Byzantine liturgy, received from Caesarea, and used by the whole nation, Gregorian and Catholic alike. A second oriental parent rite is that of Alexandria, existing to-day in the Coptic and Ethiopic liturgies, which have been built up on the Liturgy of St. Mark. The history of these several extant rites will be considered in the chapters which follow, but the liturgical developments ' Zakynthos (island of Zante) on the feast of St. James (October 23), since 1886, and Jerusalem, since 1900, on December 31. In recent years this liturgy has also been celebrated in Athens and Cyprus. '" A form of the liturgy of St. James is used in Syria by the Jacobites, and also by the Catholics of the Syrian and Maronite rites.

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in the West, centring round the Apostolic See of Rome must be left to another volume. With the evolution of the great patriarchates 11 came the custom of "rite following patriarchate," 12 although, as we shall see, the imperial ambition of N e w Rome reduced a more or less rigid uniformity on all those churches which remained in communion with Constantinople. T h e christological heresies of the Nestorians and Monophysites alone saved the rites of the East from a total Byzantinisation. Schism 1054 has been the generally accepted date of the final schism between Rome and Constantinople, but historians are beginning to find that the separation between East and West was a gradual process, later in some countries than in others. T h u s , Professor Dvornik 11 says: " O n e thing is sure: in spite of what happened in 1054, the faithful of both churches remained long unaware of any change in their relations and acts of intercommunion were so numerous that 1054 as the date of the schism becomes inadmissable .... These and other circumstances converge on the Crusades as the first starting 1 From the 5 th century, the liturgies seem to have grouped themselves round the patriarchates and some of the more important metropolitan sees, but the patriarchal division of Christendom was not a primitive feature in the Church. T h e council of î>icea (canon 6; 325) certainly recognised Rome, Alexandria and Antioch as sees of outstanding importance, but St. Gregory Nazianzen (+ ab. 390) wrote (Orat. 42, 23) of the " older bishops" generally as " patriarchs", and as late as the 6th century, we find Celidonius, bishop of Besançon, called "the venerable patriarch" (Acta SS. Febr., I l l , 742 - Vita Romani, 2). 12 T h e Italo-Greek-Albanian rite of Magna Graecia is an exception to this general rule. " Eastern Churches Quarterly. Church History and Christian Reunion, pp. 29-30. January-March 1945.

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point of the schism, or more correctly, of the estrangement that arose between East and West. Some historians date the schism from the failure of the emperor Manuel ( 1 1 4 3 - 1 1 8 0 ) to regain his possessions in the West and so to restore relations between the five patriarchates." Reunion Several groups, which are Catholic to-day, have claimed perpetual orthodoxy, maintaining that their spiritual forbears were never out of communion with Rome, but it seems highly improbable that there is any historical justification for such an assertion. All the separated churches of the East have in the course of centuries yielded many converts, who have been received with their own specific service books, hieratic languages and customs. Matters of faith, however, admitted of no compromise, whether the believers were European, Asiatic or African, white, brown or black. The Church of God is "One" and "Catholic," all holding the creed in exactly the same way, in peace and communion with the Apostolic See, and at the same time sweeping over all national boundaries, extending throughout the whole earth. These Orientales uniti sanctae sedi are sometimes called "Uniates" but the term, which was coined by the opponents of the Ukrainian synod of Brest, is generally used in an offensive sense by non-Catholics, and is never found in the ecclesiastical acts of Rome or in such publications as the Annuario Pontificio. The word is derived through the Polish unia, M but the more respectful term for "union" is jednosc. lr' "Uniatism" implies hybridism or latinisation. " Russian, unija; Greek, ounia. " Russian, soedinenie; Greek, enosis.

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Thus, Fr. Cyril Korolewskji, 1 6 one of the consultors of the Sacred Oriental Congregation, says: "Uniatism is evil in itself: it is to sound orientalism what individualistic piety, the forsaking of liturgical offices, the love of devotionettes and small chapels, rose water piety is to strong and healthy Western Christianity." The importance of the Eastern Catholics is out of all proportion to their numbers, for out of 330 millions of Catholics less than 9 millions are of the oriental rites. Yet, despite their minority, "this variety of rites ... declares the divine unity of the Catholic faith," 1 7 "for they adorn the common Mother Church with a royal garment of many colours." 18 All these "are to be held in equal esteem and equal honour," 19 since "the Church of Christ is neither Latin, nor Greek, nor Slav, but Catholic, it does not make any distinction between its sons, be they Greeks, Latins, Slavs or members of other national groups, all hold the same position before this Apostolic See." In the face of these pronouncements on the part of recent popes it would be manifestly disloyal as well as ignorant for Western Catholics to assume an ecclesiastical superiority complex in their regard. St. John Chrysostom, St. Athanasius and St. Ephrem were not semi-orthodox or semi-Catholic, and a Ukrainian, Syrian or Armenian in communion with Rome is a Catholic exactly in the same degree as an Englishman or Italian who belongs to the Church. There are 9 Eastern rites, as well as a number of ByL'Uniatisme. Prieuré d'Amay-sur-Meuse. " Leo X I I I in the encyclical Orientalium dignitas (1894). " Pius XII in the encyclical Orientalis Ecclesiae (1944). Leo X I I I in the encyclical Orientalium dignitas (1894). *" Benedict X V in the "motu proprio" Dei *rrovidentis (1917).

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zantine variants, used by different national groups converted at different times and under different circumstances. As we have seen, each group of converts from heresy or schism retained the rite to which it had been accustomed; and there was for example no idea of putting a member of the West Syrian rite under the jurisdiction of the Melkite patriarch of Antioch, although many of the Melkites would consider this to be right and proper. Thus it has come about that there are three Catholic patriarchs of Alexandria 2 1 and four of Antioch, 2 2 while Aleppo has two archbishops 21 and an apostolic administrator. 24 In ancient times, a plurality of prelates in a city was strictly forbidden, and we find the East Syrian synod, convened in 410 by Mar Isaac, prohibiting the "confusion" of having two or three bishops in the same town. T h e 4th council of the Lateran (1215) made a similar enactment: " W e forbid altogether that one and the same city or diocese should have several pontiffs, like one body with several heads, which would be a monster." This regulation was explained and defended by Pope Benedict XIV (1740-1758). T h e actual situation to-day, however, works well, and there is neither serious rivalry nor cross-jurisdiction, although there are those 2 ' who look forward to the day when Syria Latin (non resident), Melkite (a personal title still retained) and (now in abeyance). Latin (non resident), Melkite, Syrian and Maronite. Armenian and Syrian. Maronite (bishop of Cyprus). e. g. Philip Assemrany, in an article in Al-Manara, the official publication of the Maronite patriarchate (January 1939), in which the author claims that Christian unity will only be found in the East when the " pure Antiochene rite, proper to Syria" is restored to all. Guglielmo DE VRIES, Cattolicismo e Problemi Religiosi nel Prossimo Oriente (Rome 1944), II, P- 4421

Coptic " " J*

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will have "one rite, one patriarch and one episcopal authority." Canon 26 law protects the Eastern Catholics from proselytising on the part of the Latins, and without a serious reason and special permission from Rome no change 37 of rite is permitted. Attendance, however, at the Mass of another rite to one's own fulfills the Sunday obligation for all Catholics, and holy communion may be received in any church, even when the custom is to receive under both kinds. Eastern Catholics are under the care of the Sacred Congregation for the Oriental Church, of which the Pope himself is prefect. A more detailed description of the action of Rome throughout the centuries in respect to the East will be found later in the chapter. Many of the proposals for union were made with the Eastern Orthodox church, and the majority of oriental Catholics come from one or other of its national churches, but it is a serious mistake to suppose that the Byzantine church is the only and exclusive witness of the ancient and authentic eastern tradition. During the octave of the Epiphany in the church of S. Andrea della Valle, Rome, Mass is said or sung on each of the eight days in a Western rite and an Eastern rite, while a sermon is preached every day in a different language. The custom was started in 1836 by the Venerable Vincent Pallotti (1798-1850), founder of the Pious Society of Missions, as an affirmation of the unity and universality of

"

Canon 98, 2. Canon 98, 3. " Code of canon law, 866.

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the Catholic Church, and at the same time to afford an opportunity for prayer that they "all may be one" in one fold and under one shepherd. L e g i t i m a c y of the Liturgies T h e legitimacy of the liturgies rests on the consent and approbation of the Church, which can be readily given since they all, at least in substance, date from before the days of schism. Some of the Syrian anaphoras seem to have been composed after the separation from Rome, but they have little in their composition which is heterodox. After secession, each of the several churches seems to have hated liturgical novelty and clung to antiquity, recalling the dictum 20 of the council of Nicea ( 3 2 5 ) — " L e t ancient customs prevail." T h u s the eastern rites were substantially preserved from heterodox interpolations, and on the return to unity of groups of their members but little was required in the way of alteration or amendment. A u t h e n t i c i t y of the Liturgies T h e authenticity of the liturgies is derived from the constant and living use of the Church, rather than from the names of the alleged authors, " many of which are manifestly false. In a certain sense, however, we may allow 3*

ra up)(aia edrj Kparelroi. " Tales porro sunt Liturgiae, de quibus hue usque diximus, et quarum commendatio praecipua, non tarn a nominibus eorum tribuuntur, quam a communi usu Ecclesiarum, quae a multis saeculis ad altaria iis ntiintur, petenda est." RENAUDOT, Lit. Orient, t. I, p. XLIX. 31 e. g. T w e l v e Apostles in the Syrian and Ethiopic rites; St. John the Evangelist in the Syrian rite. 3"

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St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom; while in regard to St. James it may be affirmed that the liturgy originated at Jerusalem, and seems to have been known to St. Cyril, if we may judge from the Catecheses mystagogicae. 32 St. Mark as the author of the liturgy of Alexandria was repudiated by Theodore IV Balsamon, patriarch of Antioch (1186-1203), but his intention was to force all those in communion with Constantinople to use her service books and none other, and a study of the liturgies of Egypt points to a very remote antiquity for the Alexandrine type. Antiquity, Origin and Integrity of the

Liturgies

The antiquity and origin of the liturgies have been already referred to, and it will be shown how careful Rome has been to maintain their integrity, sometimes ordering the removal of some latinism perpetrated by an ill advised oriental. It has often been said, for the most part by non-Catholics, that Rome is the bitter foe of "national liturgies." One of the outstanding supporters of this mendacious statement u was Dr. Neale, :i3 who after recounting the fate of the Gallican, Mozarabic and Neo-Gallican liturgies said that Rome "would have, had it lain in her power, destroyed, with equal readiness, the venerable liturgies of the East." Speaking of the rite of Malabar, the same writer says of Menezes, archbishop of Goa, that he "so completely extirpated the 1J

Catech. X X I I I ; written ab. 347. The statement can be more truly applied to Constantinople. " The question of Western liturgies is not under discussion in this volume, which deals solely with those of the East. Essays on Liturgiology and Church History, chap. IX. Prospects of the Oriental Church, p. 279. London ±867. " Ibid, p. 279.

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rites of one of the most ancient churches in the world—the Christians of St. Thomas—that they are now absolutely unknown." It will be seen from chapter VIII of this book how ludicrous and false is such a perversion of the facts. "Everyone knows," continues Neale, "and no one complains more bitterly than Renaudot—that the Roman revisions of Eastern liturgies make them absolutely worthless; and that the changes wrought in the Syrian and Armenian offices have rendered them utterly unlike their original selves!" Certainly some revisions and alterations have been needless and unnecessary, and scholars like Renaudot have been at pains to point them out, but deliberate "uniatism" has been the work of ill-advised Latins against the wishes of the Apostolic See or of the Eastern Catholics themselves—et inimici hominis, domestici ejus. 17 In any case, despite the alterations, all the Oriental rites have retained their integrity. T h e restoration of the pope's name to the diptychs, necessarily demanded on a return to Catholic unity, was of the nature of a revival of the status quo ante. Liturgical Texts T h e Liturgical texts in some of the rites used by Catholics are better and more accurately produced than in the corresponding books of the dissidents, but in 1928 the writer saw a euchologion of the Orthodox on the altar of a Rumanian Catholic church. In 1937, however, Pope Pius XI expressed a wish that, wherever possible, a Catholic edition of the liturgy might be used. The liturgies were in manuscript until the 16th century, 17

Matt. X, 36.

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at which time many of them were virtually unknown in the West. Pope Clement XI (1700-1721) established a congregation for the correction of the oriental liturgical books, and Pius IX (1846-1878) in 1862 requested the Eastern patriarchs and bishops to send to Propaganda all the books that might need revision or amendment. A t an audience on February 8, 1930, Pope Pius XI approved the setting up of a liturgical commission within the Congregation for the Eastern Church for the liturgical publications of the different rites. Liturgical

Languages

T h e language of the liturgy depends upon authority, and in the case of the Catholic rites upon that of the Apostolic See. In the first centuries of the Church, the spread of the gospel was facilitated by the universality of Greek in the civilised world, and the Septuagint version of the Bible and the earliest liturgies were written in that language. T h e Aramaic spoken at the Last Supper in the Upper Room at Jerusalem appears to have soon given place to Greek. By the year 50 Greek was used in the liturgy at Antioch, and it is probable that the whole Bible was translated into Greek before A. D. 200. It has been thought that Greek persisted at Antioch till the 13th or 14th century. To-day, Greek is used by the Byzantine Catholics 38 of Greece and Constantinople, the Italo-Greek-Albanians of Italy and Sicily, the Melkites (occasionally), and in the Hungarian eparchy of Hajdudorog.

" It seems hardly necessary to point out that the Orthodox e q u d l y use Greek for the liturgy.

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At a solemn papal Mass, the epistle and gospel are sung in Greek, as well as in Latin, while the evangelical lesson is preceded by the exclamation