The Presanctified and Gregorian Tradition

In the Orthodox Church the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts — served on the weekdays of Great Lent, when the full Eucharistic liturgy is not celebrated and the faithful commune from Gifts consecrated the previous Sunday — bears the name of St. Gregory the Dialogist, and many Orthodox service books head it “the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts of our father among the saints Gregory the Dialogist, Pope of Rome.” This liturgical attribution, together with the Dialogues, is why Gregory is “the Dialogist” in the East. Yet the historical connection between Gregory and the rite is a genuine question: the practice of communing from presanctified Gifts is older and broader than any single author, and most liturgical scholars regard the attribution as honorific rather than a claim of composition. In the West, likewise, Gregory’s name became attached to liturgical chant. Both attributions are examined here with positions on each side.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (pre-Schism; Pope of Rome; Great Hierarch)

“The Dialogist”

In the Christian East Gregory is known above all as Gregory the Dialogist (Greek Gregorios ho Dialogos), the name derived from his Dialogues (see The Life of Benedict and the Italian Saints). The name carries with it a second, liturgical association that has become inseparable from it: Gregory’s connection, in the Orthodox tradition, with the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. In Orthodox practice the Presanctified Liturgy is the rite by which the faithful receive Holy Communion on the aliturgical weekdays of Great Lent (chiefly Wednesdays and Fridays) and on certain other Lenten days — not a new consecration, but a solemn vespers joined to the communion of the people from the Holy Gifts consecrated at the preceding Sunday Liturgy (Schmemann 1969, 47–53; on the season, see Great Lent). The rite expresses the penitential, fasting character of Lent: the joyful full Eucharist is reserved for Saturdays, Sundays, and feasts, while on the fasting days the Church still feeds her people from the previously sanctified Gifts.

In the received Orthodox tradition this Presanctified Liturgy is attributed to St. Gregory the Dialogist, and his name is read in its title; this is the living liturgical memory of the Church and the principal ground, alongside the Dialogues, of his Eastern veneration (see Veneration as a Great Hierarch).

The Historical Question

The attribution of the Presanctified Liturgy to Gregory raises a real historical question, which Orthodox liturgical scholars themselves have addressed candidly. The practice underlying the rite — communion from Gifts consecrated beforehand, and the reservation of the full Eucharist from the weekdays of Lent — is older and more widespread than any single author, and is attested in the Eastern Church before and independently of Gregory.

[Disputed: the connection between Gregory and the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is assessed differently by tradition and by historical scholarship. The received liturgical tradition names the rite after St. Gregory the Dialogist, Pope of Rome. Liturgical historians, however — including Orthodox scholars such as Alexander Schmemann and the historian of the Byzantine liturgy Robert Taft — observe that the Presanctified rite is an organic development of the early and Byzantine Church, that the practice of presanctified communion long antedates and exceeds any contribution of Gregory's, and that the Byzantine form of the rite took shape in the East rather than being composed by a Roman pope; the canon often cited in this connection, Canon 52 of the Quinisext Council (Trullo, 692), prescribes the Presanctified Liturgy for the weekdays of Lent without naming Gregory. The attribution to Gregory is therefore widely regarded by scholars as honorific — a later association, perhaps arising from his fame in the East and the reverence for his name — rather than a claim that he authored the Byzantine rite. Schmemann (1969, 47–53) treats the rite as a development of the Church's lenten discipline; the historical caution does not diminish the Church's veneration of Gregory or the propriety of his name on the rite as the tradition has received it (METHODOLOGY §4)].

For an Orthodox reader the two things are held together without conflict. The Church’s veneration of Gregory and the placing of his name on the Presanctified Liturgy belong to the living tradition and are not undone by the historical observation that the rite is older and broader than the man. At the same time, honesty about the history is itself part of the tradition’s self-understanding: the rite is the Church’s, developed over centuries in the East, and Gregory’s name graces it as that of a beloved father rather than as a documented composer. The Quinisext canon’s silence about any author, and the rite’s deep roots in Eastern practice, are simply part of the record.

“Gregorian” Chant

A parallel attribution attached itself to Gregory in the West: the great body of Latin liturgical plainsong came to be called “Gregorian” chant, on the medieval tradition that Gregory collected, organized, and standardized the Church’s chant, founding the Roman schola cantorum for the purpose. This tradition, like the Presanctified attribution, is venerable but historically questioned.

[Disputed: the attribution of the codification of liturgical chant to Gregory is regarded by most modern musicologists as legendary in its strong form. The repertory now called "Gregorian chant" took shape largely in the Carolingian period (eighth–ninth centuries), in the fusion of Roman and Frankish musical practice, well after Gregory's death; the tradition that Gregory himself compiled the chant — and the famous image of the dove dictating the melodies into his ear — is a later, largely ninth-century development that lent the prestige of his name to the Carolingian reform. Some scholars allow that Gregory may have had a genuine role in organizing the Roman liturgical schola and its texts, so that the attribution preserves a kernel; but the wholesale ascription of the chant-repertory to him is not historically sustainable (Markus 1997; standard histories of plainchant). As with the Presanctified Liturgy, the name honours Gregory rather than documenting his authorship].

The Pattern of Attribution

The two attributions — the Presanctified Liturgy in the East, “Gregorian” chant in the West — form a single, instructive pattern. Gregory’s name was so great in both halves of Christendom that later ages attached to it liturgical and musical traditions that were in fact the work of the whole Church over generations. This is not deception but a recognizable hagiographical habit: the Church names her institutions after the fathers who embody them, even where the documentary line of authorship is loose. For this guide the discipline is the one METHODOLOGY §4 requires — to honour the living tradition that calls the rite Gregory’s and names him the Dialogist, while reporting clearly what the historical record shows about the rite’s deeper and broader origins. The veneration stands; the history is told straight; the two need not be set against each other.

References

Schmemann, Alexander. Great Lent: Journey to Pascha. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1969, 47–53. (The Presanctified Liturgy as the lenten communion of the Church.)
Taft, Robert F. Studies in the history of the Byzantine liturgy (Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome). (The development of the Byzantine rites and the place of the Presanctified.)
Quinisext Council (Council in Trullo), 692, Canon 52. (Prescribes the Presanctified Liturgy for the weekdays of Lent, without naming an author.)
Markus, R. A. Gregory the Great and His World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. (Gregory and liturgical tradition; the chant attribution.)
The Lenten Triodion. Trans. Mother Mary and Kallistos Ware. London: Faber, 1978. (The Presanctified Liturgy in the Orthodox service books and its attribution to St. Gregory the Dialogist.)