Christian liturgy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A liturgy is a set form of ceremony or pattern of worship. Christian liturgy is a pattern for worship used (whether recommended or prescribed) by a Christian congregation or denomination on a regular basis.
Though the term liturgy is used to mean public worship in general, the Byzantine Rite uses the word "Liturgy", especially when preceded by the adjective "Divine", in a more specific sense, to denote the Eucharist.[1]
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[edit] Partial list of Christian liturgical rites (past and present)
Different Christian traditions have employed different rites:
[edit] Roman Catholic church and churches in communion with the Roman church
- Western (Latin) tradition
- Roman Rite, whose historical forms are usually classified as follows
- Pre-Tridentine Mass (the various pre-1570 forms)
- Tridentine Mass (1570-1970, still in restricted use)
- Mass of Paul VI (the post-1970 form)
- Anglican Use (restricted to formerly Anglican congregations)
- Ambrosian Rite (in Milan, Italy and neighbouring areas)
- Aquileian Rite (defunct: northeastern Italy)
- Bracarensis Rite (in Braga and within the archidiocesis limits, Portugal)
- Durham Rite (defunct: Durham, England)
- Gallican Rite (defunct: 'Gaul' i.e. France)
- Mozarabic Rite (in Toledo and Salamanca, Spain)
- Celtic Rite (defunct: British Isles)
- Sarum Rite (defunct: England)
- Catholic Order Rites (generally defunct)
- Roman Rite, whose historical forms are usually classified as follows
- Eastern liturgical rites
- Alexandrian liturgical tradition
- Antiochian (Antiochene or West-Syrian) liturgical tradition
- Maronite Rite
- Syrian Rite
- Syro-Malankara Rite
- Armenian Rite
- Chaldean or East Syrian liturgical tradition:
- Byzantine (Constantinopolitan) liturgical tradition (very uniform except in language)
See also:Roman Catholic calendar of saints
[edit] Eastern Christian (Byzantine) Churches
The Eastern Christian Church use the following Eucharistic liturgies:
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- Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (external: Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom)
- Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great
- Liturgy of St. James
- Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts
- Liturgy of St. Tikon (Western Rite Orthodox only)
[edit] Oriental Orthodox Churches
See Oriental Orthodoxy.
[edit] Assyrian Church of the East: East Syrian Rite
[edit] The Anglican Church
[edit] Some Lutheran churches
[edit] Some Methodist or Wesleyan traditions
[edit] Frequent liturgical practice
The Roman Catholic Mass is the service in which the Eucharist is celebrated. Eastern Orthodox churches call this service the Divine Liturgy.
Many Protestant Christian traditions, while often following a fixed "order of worship", have a liturgical practice that varies from that of the broader Christian tradition.
[edit] Other liturgical offices
Matins refers to prayers generally said in the morning, without the Eucharist. Vespers refers to prayers generally said in the evening, without the Eucharist. Matins and Vespers are the two main prayer times of Christian Churches, these two prayer times now being called morning and evening prayer more commonly. These two offices in the Roman Catholic church were part of a more extensive collection of prayer hours. This larger collection was called the Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours. The Divine Office consisted of eight parts, Matins (sometimes called Vigils), Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline. These "Hours" usually corresponded to certain times of the day. When said in the monasteries Matins was generally said before dawn, or sometimes over the course of a night, Lauds was said at the end of Matins, generally at the break of day. Prime at 6 AM, Terce at 9AM, Sext at noon, None at 3PM, Vespers at the rising of the Vespers or Evening Star (usually at around 6PM), and Compline was said at the end of the day, generally right before bed time.
In Anglican churches, the offices were combined into two offices: Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, the latter of which is known as Evensong when it is sung. In more recent years, the Anglicans have added the offices of Noonday and Compline to Morning and Evening Prayer as part of the Book of Common Prayer. There is also a full Anglican Breviary, containing 8 full offices, but that is not part of the official liturgies of the Anglican Church.
The Eastern Orthodox Church maintains a daily cycle of seven non-sacramental services:
- Vespers (Gk. Esperinos) said at sunset
- Matins (Gk. Orthros) said at dawn
- The four services of the Hours (Gk. Hores): First (sunrise/7 AM), Third (9 AM), Sixth (noon), and Ninth (3 PM). The First Hour is an extension of Matins, and the two are generally said together.
- Compline (Gk. Apodeipnou -- "after supper")
- Midnight Office (Gk. mesonychtikon)
Great Vespers as it is termed in the Eastern Orthodox Church, is an extended vespers service used on the eve of a major Feast day, or on the evening before the Eucharist will be celebrated.
A liturgy can also refer to the public burdens assigned to the wealthy in ancient Athens, such as outfitting warships, holding banquets and training choruses. See noblesse oblige.
Some Reformed Protestant liturgies include additional translation of the sermons such as drama skits and the Children's message.
[edit] History of the Roman Catholic Mass (Liturgy)
This section will describe the evolution of the liturgical celebration known as the Mass by Roman Catholics, which is similar to Anglican Holy Eucharist, and called the Divine Liturgy by many groups of Orthodox Christians.
Generally it is theorized that the Apostles obeyed the command "do this in memory of me", said during the Last Supper, and performed the liturgy in the houses of Christians.[citation needed] Besides repeating the action of Jesus, using the bread and wine, and saying his words (known as the words of the institution), the rest of the ritual seems to have been rooted in the Jewish Passover Seder, and synagogue services, including singing of hymns (especially the Psalms, often responsively) and reading from the Scriptures (Bible).
Until the 4th century, when the church established a Biblical canon, a manner of things were read during the liturgy besides the Prophets, including papal encyclicals from Pope St. Clement.[citation needed] Many elements of these liturgies began to be fixed in several popular settings, and a book called the Apostolic Constitutions, from the fourth century, shows an outline for the liturgy which is incorporated in almost all Western and Eastern rites. This includes the use of the prayer known as the Sanctus, which is prefaced by a long introduction; it also includes a fairly fixed series of prayers leading up to the consecration.
Vestments worn by the Bishops and Priests at this point were academic robes of the educated class.[citation needed] Later, as fashions changed the styles for the clergy remained the same and were embellished. Following the custom of the synagogue, the liturgy was normally sung. Many places divided the congregation into male and female. At some point both Western and Eastern churches adopted the use of curtains to mask the clergy at the altar at certain points; this curtain became the rood screen and altar rails in western churches, and iconostasis in the Byzantine East, while still being used in Armenian and Syriac Churches.
The language used in most of the liturgies was Greek. Later a Pope from Africa, where Latin was the vernacular, convinced the Roman Church to use Latin instead. As Christianity spread to different nations around the Mediterranean, several distinct traditions developed, each with a different liturgical language: the Alexandrine Tradition (Coptic), Syriac Tradition (Syriac), Byzantine Tradition (Greek), Armenian Tradition (Armenian), and the Latin Tradition (Latin). These basic traditions gave rise to several distinct rites. The Coptic and Ethiopic rites came from the Alexandrine Tradition; The Chaldean, Malabar, Syriac, Malankar, and Maronite rites developed from the Syriac Tradition; the Greek and Slav variants of the Byzantine liturgy emerged from the Byzantine Tradition; the Armenian rite developed from the Armenian Tradition; and the Roman, Ambrosian, and Mozarabic rites came from the Latin Tradition.
The liturgy of the western Church was heavily affected by the decisions to allow the Priests to say the mass separate from the bishops (usually almost every public liturgy was celebrated by the bishop, as Christianity spread out of the major urban centers this became more difficult). Thus much of the western rite involved paring down the ceremony to apply to a priest. This did not occur as much in the eastern churches.
Leading up to the time of the Great schism, the rites of the western and eastern churches began to diverge. The eastern was heavily influenced by the use of the iconostasis, a large wall with doors in front of the altar, while the western church was seen as assimilating many of the pious practices of the pagans it had converted in northern Europe.
Before the council of Trent, the western liturgy was very affected by local cultures and trends. In particular, the French had a large influence over many developments in the liturgy, so much so that it could be called a different rite, the Gallican Rite. Priests and Bishops were known to improvise and extend prayers, have long periods of silence, and other innovations. The Council of Trent called for a standardized western rite and created a system for printing missals which would have to be used by every congregation unless their rite was at least 200 years old. In the West, these rites included the Dominican, the Ambrosian rite, and the Mozarabic rite.
[edit] Commonalities
There are common elements found in all liturgical churches which predate the Protestant Reformation. These include:
- The Invocation or "Call to worship"
- Confession
- Absolution
- Introit, Psalms, Hymns, spiritual songs.
- Kyrie & Gloria
- Salutation
- Collect
- Liturgical Readings (call and response)
- Alleluia Verse and other responses
- Scripture readings, culminating in a reading from one of the Gospels.
- The Creed
- The Prayers
- The Lord's Prayer
- Commemoration of the Saints and prayers for the faithful departed.
- Intercessory prayers for the church and its leadership, and often, for earthly rulers.
- Incense
- Offering
- A division between the first half of the liturgy, open to both Church members and those wanting to learn about the church, and the second half, the celebration of the Eucharist proper, open only to baptized believers in good standing with the church.
- Communion
- Sanctus prayer as part of the anaphora.
- A three-fold dialogue between priest and people at the beginning of the anaphora or eucharistic prayer.
- An anaphora, eucharistic prayer, "great thanksgiving," canon or "hallowing", said by the priest in the name of all present, in order to consecrate the bread and wine as the Body and Blood of Christ.
- With one exception, that of Addai and Mari, all of the extant anaphoras incorporate some form of Jesus' words over the bread and wine at the Last Supper: "This is my body" over the bread and, over the wine, "This is my blood."
- A prayer to God the Father, usually invoking the Holy Spirit, asking that the bread and wine become, or be manifested as, the body and blood of Christ.
- Expressions within the anaphora which indicate that sacrifice is being offered in remembrance of Jesus.
- A section of the anaphora which asks that those who receive communion may be blessed thereby, and often, that they may be preserved in the faith until the end of their lives.
- The Peace or "Passing of the Peace"
- Agnus Dei
- Benediction
[edit] Notes
- ^ Mother Mary and Ware, Kallistos Timothy, Festal Menaion (3rd printing, 1998), St. Tikhon's Seminary Press, p. 555, ISBN 1-878997-00-9
[edit] External links
- Liturgy Archive
- Liturgy (Catholic Encyclopedia)
- Liturgy website Contemporary liturgy - theory, history, practice
- [5] Orthodox Worship
- Orthodox Tradition and the Liturgy
