The Liturgies of the Orthodox Church

The Orthodox Church does not serve a single Eucharistic Liturgy but a small family of them: the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom on most days of the year, the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great ten times a year, the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts on the weekdays of Great Lent, and the Liturgy of St. James on rare occasions. This file describes who serves what and when, and gives a first both-sides account of what the traditional attributions to Chrysostom and Basil mean historically (§3.5).

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

Four Liturgies in Byzantine Use

The modern Byzantine rite knows four Eucharistic (or quasi-Eucharistic) liturgies in living use. Three are full Eucharistic liturgies, in which the gifts are consecrated: the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great, and — served only in a few places on a few days — the Liturgy of St. James, brother of the Lord. The fourth, the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, is not a Eucharistic liturgy in the full sense, since it contains no anaphora and no consecration; it is a solemn Vespers with Communion from gifts consecrated at an earlier Liturgy (Taft, The Byzantine Rite: A Short History, Liturgical Press, 1992, chs. 3–5; on the Presanctified, Alexopoulos, The Presanctified Liturgy in the Byzantine Rite, Peeters, 2009).

The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom

This is the ordinary Liturgy of the Byzantine Church, served on the great majority of days on which any Liturgy is celebrated — nearly all Sundays and weekdays throughout the year. It is the shorter of the two “full” liturgies, its priestly prayers (above all the anaphora) being briefer than those of Basil; its structure and its people’s parts are those most Orthodox Christians know by heart (the hub essay; see St. John Chrysostom). Because it is the default, this collection follows the Chrysostom Liturgy as its main thread, noting where Basil differs.

The Liturgy of St. Basil the Great

The Liturgy of St. Basil is identical to that of Chrysostom in outward shape but has markedly longer priestly prayers, above all the great anaphora, which recounts the whole economy of salvation from creation to the second coming (Wybrew, The Orthodox Liturgy, SVS Press, 1990, ch. 8). It is served ten times a year: the eves (or feasts) of the Nativity and Theophany; the feast of St. Basil himself on 1 January; the first five Sundays of Great Lent (not Palm Sunday); Holy Thursday; and Holy Saturday (The Lenten Triodion, trans. Mother Mary and Ware, Faber, 1978, introduction; Taft, The Byzantine Rite, 1992; see St. Basil the Great). Its comparative rarity — reserved to the greatest days and to Lent — is itself part of its solemnity.

The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts

Served on the weekdays of Great Lent (in most usage Wednesdays and Fridays, and on the first three days of Holy Week), the Presanctified Liturgy exists because the Church’s ancient discipline forbids the full, joyful Eucharistic celebration on the fasting weekdays of Lent, yet does not wish to leave the faithful without Communion (Quinisext Council, 692, Canon 52, prescribing the Presanctified for Lenten weekdays; Alexopoulos, The Presanctified Liturgy, 2009). The gifts consecrated at the preceding Sunday’s full Liturgy are reserved and distributed at a service built on Lenten Vespers (the Presanctified and the other liturgies). In Slavonic books the rite bears the name of St. Gregory the Dialogist (Pope Gregory I, d. 604), an attribution treated below and in §09.

The Liturgy of St. James

The Liturgy of St. James is the ancient Eucharistic liturgy of Jerusalem, the oldest continuously known liturgy of the Antiochene/Hagiopolite (Jerusalem) type (Wybrew, The Orthodox Liturgy, 1990, ch. 2; Fenwick, The Anaphoras of St Basil and St James, Pont. Or. Inst., 1992). It passed out of ordinary Byzantine use but has been revived in modern times and is served in some places on the feast of St. James, the brother of the Lord (23 October), and occasionally on the Sunday after the Nativity; its distinctive features include Communion of the faithful in the older manner (the Body and the Blood received separately) and a fuller set of proper prayers (the Presanctified and the other liturgies).

What the Attributions Mean: A First Both-Sides Note

Naming a liturgy “of” a saint raises a genuine historical question that this collection treats fully in §02 (the two liturgies and their authors) and pins here to what can and cannot be documented (METHODOLOGY §3.5). The essential point is that the four names function differently, and that none of them means “single-authored from scratch.”

[Disputed: what the attribution of a liturgy to a named saint asserts historically. (a) The traditional view holds that St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom each composed, or gave definitive form to, the liturgy that bears his name — a view reflected in the liturgical books, in the Byzantine mystagogues, and in the Church’s calendar, which commemorates Basil as the author of “his” liturgy. (b) The source-critical view, now the scholarly mainstream, holds that all historic liturgies are the products of gradual, communal development over centuries, and that the saints’ names mark the anaphoras’ association with these figures and sees, not a modern claim of sole authorship (Taft, The Byzantine Rite, 1992; Bradshaw and Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies, Liturgical Press, 2012). Within that consensus, scholars distinguish the cases: the attribution of the anaphora to Basil has real substance — the longer Byzantine Anaphora of St. Basil is widely judged to be Basil’s own expansion of an earlier core (Fenwick, The Anaphoras of St Basil and St James, 1992) — whereas the anaphora “of Chrysostom” is generally held to derive from the Antiochene Anaphora of the Twelve Apostles, with Chrysostom’s personal role less certain, and the full liturgical formulary a later Constantinopolitan development (Taft, The Byzantine Rite, 1992). The attribution of the Presanctified to St. Gregory the Dialogist is traditional and late — the rite is anonymous and Constantinopolitan (probably seventh-century) in origin, and Gregory’s name attaches to it only in the second millennium (Alexopoulos, The Presanctified Liturgy, 2009). The Liturgy of St. James is named for James of Jerusalem as the first bishop of the mother church, not as a documented author (Fenwick, 1992). This collection reports the association each name preserves and the source-critical account of how the texts actually grew, and adjudicates none of the traditional attributions as settled biographical fact.]

Frequency, Setting, and the Rhythm of the Year

Which liturgy is served on a given day is fixed by the Typikon, the book that governs the ordering of Orthodox worship. In the ordinary run of the year the Chrysostom Liturgy is served; the calendar reserves Basil to its ten appointed days and the Presanctified to Lent, so that the alternation of the liturgies is itself a teacher of the Church’s seasons — the longer, more theological Basil marking the greatest feasts and the Sundays of the fast, the Presanctified sustaining the faithful through the Lenten weekdays, the shorter Chrysostom carrying the rest of the year (Taft, The Byzantine Rite, 1992; The Lenten Triodion, 1978, introduction). No Eucharistic Liturgy at all is served on the weekdays of Great Lent (hence the Presanctified) or on Good Friday, the one day of the year on which the Church offers no Eucharist, keeping vigil instead before the tomb (Schmemann, Great Lent, SVS Press, 1969, ch. 3).

The number of liturgies is thus small, but their arrangement is deliberate: the Orthodox Church did not multiply eucharistic formularies but received, refined, and retained a handful of them, each with its place in the year and its own weight. The two “full” liturgies — Chrysostom and Basil — are the subject of the historical treatment that follows, and of the walk through the rite that occupies the heart of this collection.

References

Taft, Robert F. The Byzantine Rite: A Short History. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992. (The family of Byzantine liturgies and their development; the attributions.)
Alexopoulos, Stefanos. The Presanctified Liturgy in the Byzantine Rite: A Comparative Analysis of its Origins, Evolution, and Structural Components. Leuven: Peeters, 2009. (The Presanctified as anonymous, Constantinopolitan; the late Gregorian attribution.)
Fenwick, John R. K. The Anaphoras of St Basil and St James: An Investigation into their Common Origin. Orientalia Christiana Analecta 240. Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 1992. (The Basil and James anaphoras; the substance of the Basil attribution.)
Bradshaw, Paul F., and Maxwell E. Johnson. The Eucharistic Liturgies: Their Evolution and Interpretation. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012. (Liturgies as products of gradual development.)
Wybrew, Hugh. The Orthodox Liturgy: The Development of the Eucharistic Liturgy in the Byzantine Rite. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1990. (Basil and its length; the Hagiopolite Liturgy of St. James.)
The Lenten Triodion. Trans. Mother Mary and Kallistos Ware. London: Faber and Faber, 1978. (The days of the Basil Liturgy; the Lenten liturgical order.)
Schmemann, Alexander. Great Lent: Journey to Pascha. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1969. (The absence of the full Liturgy on Lenten weekdays; Good Friday.)
The Quinisext Council (in Trullo), 692, Canon 52 (the Presanctified on the days of the fast). The Rudder (Pedalion), trans. D. Cummings.