| Photo: http://basilica.ro/ The Orthodox world is buzzing with the recent news repor t on the ordination of deaconesses in the Patriarchate of Alexandria. To the best of our knowledge, the ordination occurred after the Divine Liturgy in the nave of the temple, and appears to resemble the rite used to ordain subdeacons. This rite includes the presentation of the orarion, handlaying, a prayer, and the washing of the bishop’s hands. The reports do not offer details on the prayer said by the Patriarch. It seems that the Patriarch did not use the Byzantine Rite for the ordination of a deaconess, which takes place at the end of the anaphora (before the deacon intones the litany before the Lord’s Prayer, “Having remembered all the saints”), in the altar, and includes the deaconesses receiving Communion with the other clergy in the altar, according to order. While Patriarch Theodoros II appeared to use the rite for the ordination of subdeacons, the Patriarchate of Alexandria is referring to these newly-ordained women as deaconesses, and has appointed them to perform crucial sacramental and catechetical ministries as part of the Patriarchate’s missionary work. The ordination of these five deaconesses in Alexandria marks a turning point in the discussion about the order of deaconess within the Orthodox Church. To date, the restoration of the female diaconate has been limited to discussion, deliberation, and study – not to mention heated debate. With this ordination, we now have a historical episode of ordination and appointment to ministry, a pattern for what the female diaconate could become. Will the Alexandrian ordination become the new rite for the order of deaconess, or will the Church dust off the Byzantine rite of the ordination of a deaconess? What other ministries might the deaconesses execute? We do not know the answers to these questions. We do know that the debate on the female diaconate is going to intensify. As part of an ongoing research project, I’ve been asking Orthodox lay women and men for their opinions about the restoration of the order of deaconess. The responses seem to fit the positions presented by ideologues in the debate. Some people argue that restoring the order of deaconess is a legitimate application of ressourcement , of drawing upon our liturgical and ecclesiological history to appoint ministers who contribute to the building up of the body of Christ through particular gifts. Others depict the attempt to restore the deaconess as a trojan horse strategy to inject secular egalitarian values into the Church’s political theology. Others are unsure: one lay woman remarked that Orthodoxy “has the Panagia, and the Greek Orthodox Church has the Philoptochos Society – women essentially run the Church – why do we need a female diaconate?” |
| I. The epiclesis – a rule of faith? The problem of the epiclesis, its meaning, and its importance – or, alternatively, expendability – for the consecration of bread and wine during a Eucharistic prayer has long been a highly polemical issue 1 . Despite their differences, scholars and theologians have often taken for granted that it was the Byzantine Church that always believed in a consecratory power of the epiclesis. Indeed, from the fourth century on (i.e., from the very starting point of the development of the Byzantine liturgy), the Byzantine Eucharistic prayers contained explicit epicleses with strong consecratory statements. In this article I will demonstrate, however, that, while the Byzantines undoubtedly were very concerned about the epiclesis recited during their Eucharistic liturgy 2 , its mere existence did not always signify the importance it is ascribed in late- and post-Byzantine theological literature. For the Byzantines often pointed to some other elements of the rite as «consecratory», and were in nowise strangers to the idea of a Eucharistic consecration independent of an epiclesis. II. The Origins of the Epiclesis II.1. A Brief Overview The origins of the epiclesis are obscure and much debated. The earliest extant eucharistic prayers from the Didache contain no explicit epicletic petition 3 (though some scholars identify the acclamation «Maranatha» from Did. 10.6 with a proto-epiclesis 4 ). In pre-Nicaean Christian liturgical usage the words πικαλεν/πικαλεσθαι and πκλησις, as has been demonstrated 5 , referred more to «naming/applying the name» than to «calling forth in prayer» 6 . It is, therefore, tempting to suggest that the epiclesis in its later sense of «a call to God/Spirit/Logos to come and show/sanctify the bread and wine» is a result of the development of the early epicletic «naming the divine Name» formulae. This possibility comes to light when one compares Origen " s commentary on 1Corinthians 7:5, where he describes the Eucharistic bread as the one «over which the Name of God and of Christ and of the Holy Spirit has been invoked» (FragmCor 34) 7 , with a baptismal and a Eucharistic prayer from Acta Thomae: |
| Even in Antiquity Jerusalem was never a large church with a significant sphere of political influence, but it always had a different kind of symbolic influence, and importance, for the universal Christian imagination, chiefly as the site of the holy places where the Lord taught, suffered, and rose again. In its most important patristic phase it was the center of an internationally influential liturgical revival, which followed after Constantine’s building of the Church of the Resurrection (Anastasis) which in the West is more commonly called by its medieval name: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The story of St. Helena’s discovery of the true cross in Jerusalem was added to by several other major discoveries (by aristocrats, founders, and archbishops) of the relics of New Testament saints such as John the Forerunner or Stephen the Protomartyr; these were stories of visions and findings that electrified not only Jerusalem itself but Christian cities from Constantinople to Rome and Syria, and which led to a massive movement of the building of pilgrimage churches in the Holy Land (many of which are still being excavated – the finding of an octagonal site being the give-away evidence of it as a Byzantine place of pilgrimage). From the late 4th to the 6th centuries, Roman Palestine, with Jerusalem at its center, was renowned throughout the Christian world as a thriving church based around such pilgrim traffic. Its liturgical traditions thus spread because of this to influence many of the rites celebrated in Orthodoxy today. The influence can especially be seen in festivals such as the blessing of the waters on The- ophany (formerly a pilgrimage rite peculiar to Jerusalem, when the clergy and people would make the journey from the holy city to the Jordan river) and the ritual of the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14), which was based around the acts of veneration celebrated in the courtyard of the Anastasis church buildings where a great cross was raised containing relics of the Lord’s own cross. The current festival commemorates the loss ofthese relics from Jerusalem to Persian raiders and their eventual reclamation by the Byzantine emperor. Jerusalem also seems to have adopted the common Orthodox liturgical practice of having the multinational congregation respond to complex prayer-petitions with a simple responsorial “Lord have mercy,” easily learned, in Greek, as Kyrie Eleison. The beautiful Liturgy of St. James is still in use in the Orthodox Church today, though rarely witnessed in the course of a year. It remains as the standard liturgical rite of Jerusalem. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Antioch, Patriarchate of JOHN A. MCGUCKIN Antioch has a glorious Christian past. It was here that one of the most vibrant Christian communities in the apostolic age sprang up, and here that the first tentative workings out of the relation between Jewish and Gentile disciples of Jesus took place. The Apostle Peter was based here as a leader of the church community before he moved towards his martyrdom at Rome, and many scholars believe that it was in this church also that the Gospel of Matthew received its final editing and arrangement in the Greek text. It was one of the main cities of the international Christian world, third-ranking city of the Roman Empire (after Rome and Alexandria), site of great achievements and momentous struggles, with several martyrdoms during the time of the Roman persecutions, that made it feature high in the calendar of the saints. But the advances of Islam from the 7th century onwards left Antioch’s Christian civilization in a state of slow suffocation. It was also vulnerable to sociopolitical changes because of the way its ecclesiastical territories (those churches that looked to Antioch for guidance and which followed its traditions) were so widely scattered and into such impassable mountain territory, which made communication so hard to sustain but so easily disrupted. Several of Antioch’s greatest theologians have left their mark on the church’s universal patristic tradition: writers such as Mar Theodore the Interpreter (of Mopsuestia), St. John Chrysostom, Mar John of Antioch, Theodoret of Cyr, and numerous ascetics and saints such as Sadhona, or Isaac of Niniveh. The cultural and theological sphere of influence exercised by the Syrian Church in its time of glory was much greater than the (very large) extent of its ancient territories. The Syrian ritual gave the substructure to the Byzantine liturgical rite, for example. It was also the Syrians who perfected the art of setting poetic synopses of Scripture to sung melodies. The church’s greatest poets such as Ephrem and Romanos the Melodist were Syrians who taught this theological style to Byzantium and prepared the way for the glories of medieval Orthodox liturgical chant. The Syrian Church, especially in its Golden |
| Библиография В библиографии указаны цитируемые издания. Источники приводятся в следующем порядке: сначала издание на языке оригинала, затем использованные во французском издании переводы. Список сокращений PG – Patrologiae cursus completes. Ser. Graeca/Ed. J.P. Migne. Paris, 1857–1866. 161 t. PL – Patrologiae cursus completes. Ser. Latina/Ed. J.P. Migne. Paris, 1844–1864. 225 t. SC – Sources Chretiennes. Paris, 1940– . SO – Spiritualite orientale. Editée par l’abbaye de Bellefontaine. Φιλοκαλα – Φιλοκαλα των ιεπν νηπτικν. θναι, 1957–1963 (переизд.: 1974–1976. Τ. I-V). Philocalie – Philocalie des Peres neptiques. 11 vol. Bellefontaine, 1979–1991. Cah. (cahier) – выпуск, часть. Chap. (chapitre) – глава. Col. (colonne) – столбец, колонка. Ed. (editeur, edition) – издатель, издание. Ibid. (Ibidem) – Там же. Idem – Он же. Op. cit. (opus citato) – цитированный труд. P. (page) – страница. Trad. (traduction, traducteur) – перевод, переводчик. Источники 1. Литургические тексты Mercenier E. La Prière des Eglises de rite byzantine. T. I, II/1. 2e ed. Chevetogne, 1937; 1953. [Мерсенье Е., о. Церковные молитвы восточного обряда]. Sacrement de l’Huile sainte et Prières pour les maladies/Introduction et trad. par le P. Denis Guillaume. Rome, 1985. [Елеосвящение и молитвы о болящих]. Минея [богослужебная]. Январь. Ч. 1. М., 2002. Октоих. Ч. 2. М., 1996. Требник. М., 1991. 2. Тексты святых отцов и учителей Церкви Августин Аврелий , блж. О граде Божием. – Augustin. La Cite de Dieu. Texte de la 4e ed. de B. Dombart et A. Kalb/Trad. par G. Combes. 5 vol. Paris, 1959–1960. О Книге Бытия. – La Genese au sens litteral//PL. T. 34. Col. 219–486. Аммоний. Письма. – Ammonas. Lettres/Texte grec établi par F. Nau. Patrologia Orientalis . Т. XI. Cah. 4. Paris, 1915; Trad. du syriaque, du georgien et du grec par Dom B. Outtier et Dom L. Regnault//SO. 42. Bellefontaine, 1985. Арнобий Старший. Против язычников. – Arnobe de Sicca. Contre les païens//PL. T. 5. Col. 713–1288. Афанасий Великий , Александрийский, свт. |
| In 1918 the vast majority of the population was Roman Catholic. During World War I, Orthodoxy had been suppressed in the country, and it was also to endure some element of persecution again during World War II. When the Czechoslovakian Orthodox Church was reconstituted in the aftermath of the first war, approximately 40,000 declared themselves and a bishop (Gorazd Pavlik) was appointed for them by the Serbian patriarch. Bishop Pavlik succeeded in rallying together most of the Orthodox faithful under the jurisdictional care of the Serbian patriarch, but in 1942 he and several of his clergy were assassinated by the Nazi invaders. By 1946 the political mantle of the Soviets had fallen over the country, and the patriarch of Moscow acted independently to assume jurisdictional charge of the Czechoslovakian Orthodox. This was one of the reasons the phanar for some time looked askance at the canonical status of the churches of Czechoslovakia and Poland. The concept, and reality, of a separate Czechoslovakian Orthodox Church had been significantly shrunk by the Soviet annexation of much of its former territory in Podcarpatska Rus, but was soon after swollen in 1950 by the supposedly free return to Orthodoxy of the Byzantine-rite Catholics of the diocese of Preshov in Slovakia. These reunited congregations demonstrated their truer sentiment in 1968 when large numbers elected to return to the Roman Catholic eastern- rite communion. In 1951 the patriarchate of Moscow declared the Orthodox Church of Czechoslovakia to be henceforward autocephalous under the guidance of the metropolitan of Prague. Constantinople at first did not accept this status and declared it to be an autonomous church under the jurisdiction of Constantinople. It was not until 1998 that Constantinople recognized the autocephaly. The country separated politically once more into its chief constituent parts, namely the Czech lands and Slovakia, after the collapse of communism in the last decade of the 20th century. Even with this political severing, however, the Orthodox remained united across the national divide. There is a smaller Orthodox presence in Slovakia with 10 parishes and 23,000 faithful; while the Czech Republic has 100 parishes and 51,000 faithful who use the Slavonic rite. The total number of Orthodox in the region amounts to not much more than 74,000 faithful. |
| Michael Prokurat, Alexander Golitzin, Michael D. Peterson Скачать epub pdf BURIAL PRACTICES BURIAL PRACTICES. Recently, it has been argued that the burial practices of the people of God since the Iron Age have been quite modest. The de-emphasis of material goods in tombs is thought to point to a recognition of an afterlife beyond the realm of earthly riches in the bosom of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This attitude contrasts sharply with the elaborate and expensive funeral rites one may find in Egyptian, Greek, or Roman non-Christian cultures of the same period-and to a certain degree with the modern funeral industry of North America. Whether this argument holds from the Iron Age to the early Roman period, it does seem to be supported by the archaeological evidence and literature we have from the early and imperial church, that is, the late Roman and Byzantine periods. For example, the early Christian attitude toward the body and the Byzantine canons related to burial both show a sensitivity toward the witness of a transformed flesh, so to speak, and a proscription against the elaborate and expensive rites of cremation. The deceased was-and still is-buried facing the east so that he may arise facing Christ on the day of the general resurrection (q.v.). The resurrection of the body, rather than cultural rites and votive offerings of a material nature, became the focus of the Christian burial rite. The present-day liturgical rites of burial are thematic and include special times of prayer (q.v.). The liturgical themes, even when sung within funerary tones, speak primarily of salvation, the deliverance God provides his people, and resurrection. The liturgical colors are specified as bright. The Western Christian practices of meditating on the Cross and death and wearing dark liturgical colors for funerals, probably originating around the 8th c., are not indigenous to the Orthodox Church. These may even be considered inappropriate because the Cross and death are primarily baptismal themes, i.e., in Baptism (q.v.) the new Christian dies with Christ and takes on a new life through the Cross. On the pastoral and human level, the clergy of the Orthodox Church consider it inhumane to the surviving family and friends of the deceased to focus on the Cross and death, since they have experienced enough of this tragedy in their loss: The message they need is that of salvation, deliverance, resurrection, and hope. |
| Michael Prokurat, Alexander Golitzin, Michael D. Peterson Скачать epub pdf UNIA-UNIATE CHURCHES UNIA-UNIATE CHURCHES. Although the Unia proper began with the Council and Union of Brest-Litovsk (1596), the prehistory of the movement certainly goes back ideologically to the Reunion Councils (q.v.) centuries before. After Muscovite Christianity (q.v.) established its own patriarchate (q.v.) in 1589, the king and nobility of Poland-Lithuania requested the organization of an Eastern rite of the Roman Church. This body recognized the popes rather than the patriarchs, but preserved the Eastern liturgical rites; and it was created to compete directly with the Orthodox Church so that the Ukraine and Belarus would not fall under the influence of Muscovy. The Constantinopolitan patriarchate, which had jurisdiction over the non-Muscovite churches, protested, but was under the Turkish yoke and in no position to take effective action. The Unia in the Ukraine and Belarus was supported by the bishops, but fervently opposed by the rest of the clergy and the bratsva (lay brotherhoods). The Orthodox Church thus ceased to exist de jure in Poland-Lithuania, and its properties became those of the Uniate church. The Ukraine and Belarus followed suit, and the administration of the Uniates in every case was separate from the Latin Roman Catholics (q.v.). The Cossacks struggled intermittently to maintain their Ukrainian and Orthodox identity-and freedom from serfdom-and in an uprising from 1648 to 1654 Bohdan Khmelnitskii took the region east of the Dnieper River from the Poles and allied it with Moscow. Although the metropolitanate of Kiev should have rightfully remained under Constantinople (q.v.), from the point of view of Moscow such a course of action was dangerous, if not impossible, due to the weakened Byzantine presence. Muscovy, in an expansionist mode, wanted to make the patriarch’s title and jurisdiction correspond to that of the tsar: “All-Russia.” Kiev’s Western and Latin affiliations made themselves felt not only politically, but also theologically in such churchmen as Metropolitan Peter Mogila (q.v.). |
| “Good Earth: Caring for God’s Creation” will be the theme of the 53rd annual Pilgrimage to New Skete here on Saturday, August 10, 2019. The day will open at 8:30 a.m. with the celebration of Matins in Holy Wisdom Church. The Divine Liturgy will follow at 9:30 a.m. At 11:15 a.m., a tour and presentation on the hundreds of unique icons enshrined in Holy Wisdom and Transfiguration Churches will afford pilgrims a better understanding of the Church’s iconographic tradition. This year’s guest speaker—Dr. Gayle Woloschak, Professor of Radiation Oncology, Radiology, and Cell and Molecular Biology in the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, and Sessional Professor of Bioethics at Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, Yonkers, NY—will deliver a presentation on the pilgrimage theme at 1:30 p.m. Other afternoon events include a guided hike and an iconography demonstration. Pilgrims are also invited to visit the meditation gardens and gift shops in addition to enjoying a variety of festival foods and the nuns’ legendary cheesecakes, which will be available for purchase throughout the day. The pilgrimage will close with the celebration of Vigil and a Healing Service at 5:00 p.m. New Skete — a monastic community of the Orthodox Church in America since 1979 — was established in 1966 by a small group of Byzantine Rite Franciscan monks. In 1969, seven Poor Clare nuns from Indiana, inspired by the vision of contemporary monastic life, settled near the monks and joined New Skete. In 1983, a third community was established when eight dedicated parish members expressed their desire to live in accordance with the monastic way of life and formed the Companions of New Skete. The event is open to the public at no charge. Further information is available on the New Skete web site. Code for blog Since you are here… …we do have a small request. More and more people visit Orthodoxy and the World website. However, resources for editorial are scarce. In comparison to some mass media, we do not make paid subscription. It is our deepest belief that preaching Christ for money is wrong. |
| Материал из Православной Энциклопедии под редакцией Патриарха Московского и всея Руси Кирилла «НИКТОЖЕ ДОСТОИН» [Греч. Οδες ξιος], обозначение одной из молитв визант. чина Божественной литургии , к-рая читается предстоятелем до великого входа (согласно нек-рым рукописям, во время входа или после него), одновременно с исполнением певцами херувимской песни . По причине связи с херувимской песнью один из вариантов заглавия «Н. д.» - «Молитва херувимской»; впрочем, в рукописной традиции и в различных изданиях чина литургии заглавие молитвы часто варьируется, чем и обусловлено обозначение этой молитвы по ее первым словам: «Οδες ξιος τν συνδεδεμνων τας σαρκικας πιθυμαις κα δονας προσρχεσθαι προσεγγζειν λειτουργεν Σοι, Βασιλε τς δξης» («Никто из скованных плотскими желаниями и побуждениями не достоин того, чтобы предстать [перед Тобой] или приблизиться [к Тебе] или служить Тебе, о Царь славы…»; подробнее о вариантах заглавия молитвы и ее месте в службе см.: Taft, Parenti. 2014. P. 258-260). «Н. д.» входит в состав обоих полных евхаристических формуляров К-поля: литургии святителя Василия Великого и литургии святителя Иоанна Златоуста , тогда как в формуляре литургии Преждеосвященных Даров ее нет (хотя в нек-рых рукописях она включается в него: Alexopoulos S. The Presanctified Liturgy in the Byzantine Rite: A Comparative Analysis of Its Origins, Evolution, and Strucural Components. Leuven, 2009. P. 233-234). С Х в. «Н. д.» была интерполирована также в формуляр палестинской литургии апостола Иакова (в наиболее древней редакции этой литургии, сохранившейся в груз. рукописях кон. IX - 1-й четв. X в., «Н. д.» отсутствует). Также «Н. д.» в качестве «молитвы завесы» встречается в нек-рых списках копт. литургии свт. Григория Богослова, написанной, вероятно, в Сирии на греч. языке, но оставшейся в употреблении только у коптов ( Renaudot E. Liturgiarum orientalium collectio… P., 1716. T. 1. P. 93-94). По содержанию «Н. д.» принадлежит к т. н. апологиям - достаточно пространным молитвам священника о своем недостоинстве, произносимым от 1-го лица ед. ч. (т. е. только о себе самом) перед совершением к.-л. важного священнодействия. Такая форма не была характерна для литургической традиции К-поля; фактически к получившим широкое распространение в к-польских Евхологиях «апологиям» можно отнести «Н. д.», а также молитву Ο εσπλαγχνος κα λεμων Θες ( :) в начале чина Крещения и 5-ю молитву чина Елеосвящения (Κριε Θες μν, παιδεων κα πλιν μενος - ). При этом указанная молитва из чина Крещения имеет, по всей видимости, нек-польское происхождение (см. Желтов М., свящ. Сирийский (или палестинский?) чин Крещения в греч. ркп. Sinait. NE МГ 93//ВЦИ. 2014. Т. 1/2 (33/34). С. 116-126), как, вероятно, и 5-я молитва чина Елеосвящения. |
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