Reserving the Sacrament

[Rocky8311]

Question: is the Blessed Sacrament reserved in Byzantine Churches? Whenever I pass an Orthodox Church (it’s not often) I make the sign of the cross just as I would when passing a Catholic Church. I affirm that the Holy Eucharist is also confected in Orthodox Churches, but I wonder each time I pass a Greek Orthodox church, for example, whether Christ is reserved there at that moment.

The devotion of making the sign of the cross while passing a Catholic church is intended to reverence Christ truly present in the Eucharist in the Tabernacle at that moment not that Christ was present there in the sacrament earlier in the week, but the sacrament has since been consumed.

So to repeat: is the Blessed Sacrament reserved in Byzantine Churches?

 

[Aramis]

YES!!!

Orthodox or Catholic, yes. The ancient canons require it.

 

[Rocky8311]

That’s what I figured. I’m a theology student and everything I read indicates that it’s been a practice since antiquity. This makes me happy, I can acknowledge Christ’s True Presence with more confidence now that I know He is reserved there in the Sacrament!

 

[bpbasilphx]

Yes, the Holy Mysteries are reserved in both kinds in Orthodox Churches. The priest takes fragments of the Lamb (as we call it) and placed a drop of the Precious Blood on each.

However, the purpose is to provide the Eucharist for the sick. Devotion to the Holy Gifts, such as Benediction or Adoration, is not really part of Byzantine spirituality.

On the Sunday before the Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is celebrated during Lent, the Priest consecrates a separate Lamb and likewise throroughly wets it with the Precious Blood. This is kept on the Altar (usually) and used for the Presanctified Liturgy. A lot of incense and prostrations are made as the Lamb is carried in procession during the Great Entrance, so you could say that this service fulfils the devotional needs served by Benediction and Adoration in the West.

 

[Aramis]

Also, in missions, or rarely, parishes, where there is a deacon but not a priest, The reserved Eucharist might be distributed if all of (1) the community can’t expect a priest for several weeks and (2) there are sufficient quantities reserved, and (3) the bishop/eparch has blessed the deacon to lead the deaconal form of the Presanctified liturgy, and (4) the faithful have been shriven recently… 4 goes hand in hand with 2, usually.

Deacon-lead Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is not “normative,” tho by several accounts it has origins back centuries.

The normative praxis is to simply have a “typica,” normally a liturgy of the word, when the priest is absent or unassigned.

Keep in mind:
The normal Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is an adaptation of Vespers (evening prayer); it is written for the priest to lead it. The Diaconal form is different, tho related.
Byzantine Praxis does not require weekly communion for the faithful.

 

[bpbasilphx]

\(2) there are sufficient quantities reserved, and (3) the bishop/eparch has blessed the deacon to lead the deaconal form of the Presanctified liturgy\

Properly, this woud be Typica with Communion from the Reserved Gifts.