All Eastern Liturgies

[OrbisNonSufficit]

Hello my Eastern brothers in Christ. For a long time now, I have been interested in all Rites of Church, including of course Eastern Rites. How many Liturgies are there in the East (including therefore also Antiochene and Alexandrian Rites, not just Byzantine)? Now, I am already familiar with Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil and Liturgy of Pre-Sanctified Gifts- however, I find Liturgies of St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom to be very similar, and Liturgy of Pre-Sanctified Gifts to be distinct. How many “distinct” Liturgies are there in the Eastern Catholic Churches? Are they all available in Churches who are in full communion with Rome?

 

[ziapueblo]

Liturgies are there in the Eastern Catholic Churches?

Someone correct me if I’m wrong:

Alexandria rite - Liturgy of Saint Mark
Armenian rite - not sure if there is a specific name for their liturgy
East Syriac rite - Divine Liturgy of Saints Addai and Mari
West Syriac rite - Divine Liturgy of Saint James

Are they all available in Churches who are in full communion with Rome?

Yes, all are available:

ZP

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

what about local Eastern Liturgies, such as Liturgy of St. James or Liturgy of Mark? Are those distinct from Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in anything? Are there similar occasions where other Eastern Liturgies are different than usually?

 

[ziapueblo]

I’m not sure. The only other Liturgy I’ve encountered in the Byzantine rite is the Divine Liturgy of Saint James, and that’s only on his feast day, and not all Byzantine Churches use it on that day.

I myself have never been to any other Eastern Church outside of Byzantine.

ZP

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

The Maronites have their own unique liturgy that is neither an East or West Syrian liturgy, but has elements of both.

 

[Dio_ti_benedica]

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

Thanks for this, that’s very helpful. Do you have any information on how different are those Liturgies? For example, Liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil (Byzantine) only differ in Anaphora, which for me (I attend Byzantine Liturgy but all that seemed to change were parts that always change), did not seem too evident of a difference. Are there any other Liturgies that differ only in such things?

 

[Diaconia]

There are many differences, but I have found difficulty in attending the more obscure ones, to experience it first hand.

The vast majority of Eastern Catholics (in total number of individual persons, not churches) follow the Byzantine usage.

Similarly, almost every western Catholic follows the Latin rite (even though there are several tiny others: Ambrosian, Dominican, another from Spain [Andalusian, maybe?]

Blessed is the Church breathing from both lungs,
Deacon Christopher

 

[HeDa]

Mozarabic. Look in the post above by Dio_ti_benedicta on the right hand side where all the Liturgies of the Roman Church are written.

I think I am going to visit the different Liturgies in my area during 2019. There are at least 8 so it might take the rest of the year as some are only celebrated a few times/year with a visiting priest.

 

[Vico]

Hello my Eastern brothers in Christ. For a long time now, I have been interested in all Rites of Church, including of course Eastern Rites. How many Liturgies are there in the East (including therefore also Antiochene and Alexandrian Rites, not just Byzantine)? Now, I am already familiar with Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil and Liturgy of Pre-Sanctified Gifts- however, I find Liturgies of St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom to be very similar, and Liturgy of Pre-Sanctified Gifts to be distinct. How many “distinct” Liturgies are there in the Eastern Catholic Churches? Are they all available in Churches who are in full communion with Rome?

There are various traditions: Alexandrian, Antiochene, Armenian, Chaldean and Constantinopolitan.
The liturgies developed in each with differing languages. The older liturgies include The Divine Liturgy of St. James. There are many anaphoras (eucharistic prayers) across the various traditions.

[https://aws1.discourse-cdn.com/cath...8b133401d51c39ec54a769286050cace3a96e1d8.jpeg]

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

Are the main differences mostly in Anaphoras? For example, Liturgy of Pre-Sanctified Gifts is totally distinct from Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, but Liturgy of St. Basil resembles Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom a lot to me.

 

[RyanBlack]

Are the main differences mostly in Anaphoras? For example, Liturgy of Pre-Sanctified Gifts is totally distinct from Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, but Liturgy of St. Basil resembles Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom a lot to me.

That’s because the Pre-Sanctified Liturgy is a Vespers service with a Communion service added. The Divine Liturgies of St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom are essentially the same, apart from having distinct anaphorae.

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

are same distinctions present in other types of Liturgies (such as Antiochene or Alexandrian) or are they just different because of anaphoras?

 

[RyanBlack]

Although I have attended a few liturgies in the Alexandrian, West Syriac, East Syriac, and Armenian Rites, I don’t have the familiarity with them that I do with the Byzantine Rite, so I’m not able to answer that question.

 

[dochawk]

For example, Liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil (Byzantine) only differ in Anaphora,

Note that these liturgies vary in details by church, too.

The first time I attended a Melkite liturgy, I was serving at the altar (and helping train a young boy, the only other server.

In Ruthenian usage, after the Words of Institution, there is ample time for the server to prepare the incense, which will be needed right after the Epiclesis.

Doing so left me in an unexpected full prostration holding the censor:scream:.

The lengths of the prayers at this point is a bit different between the two . . .

There are others, but this one kind of whacked me over the head . . .

 

[Vico]

Are the main differences mostly in Anaphoras? For example, Liturgy of Pre-Sanctified Gifts is totally distinct from Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, but Liturgy of St. Basil resembles Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom a lot to me.

For those two, yes. From my notes on liturgy, see articles in Catholic Encylopedia.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01571a.htm

Antiocene |-> Chaldean
Antiocene |-> Byzantine ->Armenian
Antiocene |-> Gallican____ |
Antiocene |-> Latin_______ |-> Latin
Antiocene |-> Alexandrian |-> Coptic
Antiocene |-> Alexandrian |-> Abyssinian

Alexandria and Antioch are the starting-points of the two original eastern rites.

The earliest form of the Antiochene Rite is that of the “Apostolic Constitutions” written down in the early fifth century. From what we have said it seems that this rite has best preserved the type of the primitive use. From it is derived the Rite of Jerusalem (till the Council of Chalcedon, 451, Jerusalem was in the Antiochene Patriarchate), which then returned to Antioch and became that of the patriarchate (see ANTIOCHENE LITURGY and LITURGY OF JERUSALEM).

Antioch:

Antioch first absorbed the Rite of Jerusalem (St. James), itself derived from the primitive Antiochene use shown in the “Apostolic Constitutions” (see LITURGY OF JERUSALEM).

In this form it was used throughout the patriarchate till about the thirteenth century (see ANTIOCHENE LITURGY). A local modification was the Use of Cappadocia.

About the fourth century the great Byzantine Rite was derived from this (see RITE OF CONSTANTINOPLE).

The Armenian Rite is derived from an early stage of that of Byzantium.

The Nestorian Rite is also Antiochene in its origin, whether derived directly from Antioch, or Edessa, or from Byzantium at an early stage. The Liturgy of Malabar is Nestorian.

The Maronite Use is that of Antioch considerably romanized.

Alexandria:

The other Eastern parent rite, of Alexandria, produced the numerous Coptic Liturgies and those of the daughter Church of Abyssinia.

Gallican:

The Gallican Rite is certainly Syrian in its origin.

Only Gaul and north-west Europe generally, though part of the Roman Patriarchate, kept its own rite till the seventh and eighth centuries.

 

[Margaret_Ann]

There’s a Nestorian Catholic Church? I thought Nestorianism was a heresy.

 

[Margaret_Ann]

The Anaphora of St. Basil the Great is much longer than that of St. John Chrysostom. The official Ukrainian Catholic catechism, Christ Our Pascha, is based on the Anaphora of St. Basil the Great:

http://catechism.royaldoors.net

 

[Margaret_Ann]

The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts was composed by Pope St. Gregory the Great. (True trivia tidbit to impress your friends: Pope St. Gregory the Great was the Apostolic delegate to Constantinople before he became pope. ) It’s Vespers combined with the pre-Communion ektenia and prayers plus special hymns that are unique to Presanctified Liturgy which were composed by Pope St. Gregory.

When I was growing up, we had Byzantine Stations of the Cross. In the 1990s, we were told to return to the practice of Presanctified Liturgy and stop doing the Stations. We did so but our sister parish still has the Byzantine Stations of the Cross as well as Presanctified.

Personally, I love Presanctified Liturgy.

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

Wow, that reminds me of when I was altar server in Novus Ordo for our bishop but in another country. I was already very stressed about it and I was not used to there being around 20 altar servers and needless to say it got chaotic for me. In my parish, we ring bells twice during Eucharistic prayer but not before. In my grandfather’s parish they ring it before once, and twice during. Everybody was used to second use, so when neighbouring altar server saw me doing nothing as we were kneeling down, he quickly grabbed bells in what I consider amazing gymnastic trick and took my job for me. Needless to say, I felt pretty embarassed. My only part came when I was supposed to ring it again during Agnus Dei, and I got reminded to do that a lot by other server still not what we do in our parish.

I guess every liturgy has some local variations