CONSTANTINOPLE
318
CONSTANTINOPLE
Basil's Liturgy it is: "We pray and beseech thee, O
Holy of Holy ones, that according to the mercy of thy
favour thy Holy Spirit come down on us and on these
present gifts to bless them, sanctify them and to
make. ..." (Chrysostom: "Send down thy Holy Spirit
on us and on these present gifts. . . ."). Then, after an
irrelevant interpolation, with two verses from Ps. 1
about the celebrant's own soul, he continues (Basil):
"this bread the precious Body itself of our Lord and
God and Saviour Jesus Christ" (Chrys. : "and make
this bread the precious Body of thy Christ ") . Deacon :
"Amen. Bless, Sir, the holy chalice." Celebrant
(Basil): "But this chalice the Precious Blood itself of
our God and Saviour Jesus Christ" (Chrys.: "And
what it is in this Chalice the precious Blood of Thy
Christ"). Deacon: "Amen. Bless, Sir, both." Cele-
brant (Basil): "That was shed for the life and salva-
tion of the world" (Chrys.. "Changing it by thy Holy
Spirit"). Deacon: "Amen. Amen. Amen." Both
then make a deep prostration, and the deacon waves
the ripidion (fan) over the Blessed Sacrament. This
ceremony, now interpreted mystically as a symbol of
adoring angels, was certainly once a practical precau-
tion. They have no pall over the chalice and there is
a danger of flies. The waving of the ripidion occurs
several times during the Liturgy.
In the Byzantine Rite, as in all the .Antiochene fam- ily of liturgies, the Intercession follows at this point. First comes a memory of saints ; the deacon then reads the Diptychs of the Dead, and the celebrant says a prayer into which he may introduce the names of any of the faithful departed for whom he wishes to pray. Prayers for the living follow (in Russia for the second time occur the names of " Our Orthodox and Christ- loving Lord Nicholas, Czar and Autocrat of all the Russias" and of all his "right-believing and God- fearing" family), with the names of the patriarch (or Synod) and metropolitan, and the ending: "and all [masc] and all [fem.]" xal Tdyruii' nal iraciov. The deacon then reads the Diptychs of the Living; more prayers for them follow. Here ends the Anaphora. The celebrant blesses the people : " The mercy of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ be with all of you." Choir: "And with thy spirit." And the deacon goes out to his place before the ikonostasis and reads a lit- any, praying for various spiritual and temporal fa- vours, to each clause of which the choir answers: " Kyrie eleison", and at the last clause — "Having prayed in the union of faith and in the communion of the Holy Ghost, let us commend ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ, our God." To Thee, O Lord (2oi, Ki/pie). — Meanwhile the celebrant says a long prayer silently. The people sing the Lord's Prayer, and the celebrant adds the clause: For Thine is the Kingdom" etc. The Inclination follows. The deacon says, "Bow your heads to the Lord" (our "Humiliate capita vestra Domino"); they answer, "To Thee, O Lord", and the celebrant says the Prayer of Inclination (different in the two Liturgies). The preparation for Communion begins here. The deacon winds his orarion (stole) around his body, the curtain of the royal doors (they have besides the doors a cur- tain that is continually drawn backward and forward during the Liturgy) is drawn back, and the celebrant elevates the Holy Eucharist saying, " Holy things for the holy", to which the answer is: "One only is holy, one only is Lord, Jesus Christ in the glory of (!od the Father. Amen." The Communion hjann (koiujuk^i') of the day is sung, and the Communion begins. While the clergy Conununicate in the Sanctuary a sermon is .sometimes preached. The celebrant breaks the Holy Bread into four parts, as it is marked, and arranges them on the diskos thus: - I i: N I K A
X s Ho puts the fraction marked I- into the chalice, and
the deacon again pours into it a little warm water (tl
use of warm water is a very old peculiarity of this rit<
The part marked XS is divided into as many parts
there are priests and deacons to Communicate. Mea
while, prayers are said ; those about to Communica
ask pardon of their ofTences against each other. Tl
celebrant says, " Behold I draw near to our immort
King" etc., and receives Holy Communion in the for
of bread, saying: The precious and all-holy Body
Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is given to me ]
priest [or bishop] for the forgiveness of my sins and f
life everlasting." Then he says, " Deacon, approach
and gives him Communion with the same form CJ
thee N. deacon etc.). The celebrant then drinks
the chalice with a corresponding form — The precio
and all-holy Blood — and communicates the deacon
before. After Communion each says silently a ve
beautiful prayer — I believe. Lord, and I confess th
Thou art in very truth Christ, the Son of the livii
God etc. (Brightraan, op. cit., 394.) The rest of tl
clergy are Communicated from the portion marked I
that has been put into the chalice and is therefo
soaked in the consecrated wine, with one form (Tl
precious and all-holy Body and Blood). The eel
brant divides the portions marked NI and KA, and tl
deacon puts them into the chalice with a sponge. Tl
doors are opened and the deacon .says, " Draw near
the fear of God and with faith". The celebrant com
down to the doors with the chalice and the spoon ai
communicates the people with the Holy Bread dippf
in the chalice, and with one form, as before. The pe
pie stand to receive Communion (the Byzantine Ri
knows practically no kneeling at all). Finally, tl
deacon puts all the remaining particles into the chalii
and carries it back to the prothesis. Those other part
cles (prosphora) originally cut off from the bread ha'
lain on the diskos (paten) since the proskomide. It h;
been a great question whether they are consecrated i
not. The Orthodox now say that they are not, ar
the deacon puts them into the chalice after the Cor
munion. It is obviously a question of the celebrant
intention. The L'niat priests are told to consecra
them too, and in their Liturgy the people receii
them in Communion iFortescue, op. cit., 417; "Echi
d'Orient", III, 71-73).
Here begins the Dismissal. The deacon imwin( his orarion, goes back to the choir before the ikonosti sis, and says a short litany again with the choir. I then goes to the prothesis and consumes all that is le of the Holy Eucharist with the prosphora. Meai while, some of the bread originally cut up at the Pn thesis has remained there all the time. This is no brought to the celebrant, blessed by him, and given ( the people as a sacramental (the French pain bcnit- see Antidoron). After some more prayers the eel brant and deacon go to the diakonikon, the doors ai shut, they take off their vestments, and the Liturgy over. The whole service is very much longer than oi Mass. It lasts about two hours. It should be note that all the time that the choir are singing or litanii being said the priest is saying other prayers silent! (/luo-TiKus) . The Byzantine Rite has no provision fc low Mass. As they say the Liturgy only on Sunday and feast-days, they have less need for such a rite. I cases of necessity, where there is no deacon, the eel brant supplies his part as best he can. The l'niat who have begun to celebrate every day, ha^■e evolve a kind of low Liturgy; and at the (ireek College . Rome they have a number of little matuiscript bool containing an arrangement for celcliriiling with priest anil one lay server only. But in the Levant, any rate, the Liturgy is always sung, and inren.se is: ways used; so that the minimum of persons requiri for the Liturgy is a celebrant, server, and one oth man who forms the choir.
The Liturgy of the Presnnciifieil is fitted into the ge cral framework of St. Chrysostom's Rite. It is us
