I was a newly minted Anglican clergyman and I sensed that I should be doing something active and visible for Christ in the local community. I began praying with other Anglicans in front of Planned Parenthood once a week. Having been previously Reformed, “social action” and anything that smacked of the “social Gospel” was mocked and condemned both by my friends and myself. In fact, my RUF leader in college told us that preaching against things like abortion from the pulpit was an abuse since the pulpit was solely for “Gospel preaching” not “political issues.” I thought that this sounded a bit off, but I did not question it.

Now that I was praying in front of an abortion clinic with a collar around my neck, I began to see that Christianity is much more than preaching, reading “solid” books, and debating doctrine. Teenage girls were crying. Men were dropping off girlfriends for their dirty deed. It was terrible, and yet somehow I knew that Christ was working through those present in a special way.

Here’s the kicker. On each day that we went to pray before Planned Parenthood, there were always many, many Catholics and usually at least one Catholic priest. They were kneeling in the gravel and praying. After a few months of observing this, one begins to ask himself: “Why are these Catholics here humiliating themselves and praying for people who mock them? Where are the Lutherans? Where are the Baptists? Where are the Reformed?” The denominations weren’t there. That’s not to say that they are not pro-life. However, it demonstrates that in this case, Catholicism is somehow more socially aware.

As I got to know these Catholics and their priests, I learned that they were not flimsy “social justice only” types. They went to Mass daily. They prayed. They defended the Creeds and Councils. They even studied Sacred Scripture. It was a balance that is rarely achieved in the realm of Protestantism.

I’m not saying that this one event “made me Catholic,” but it opened my eyes to authentic Christianity. The combination of theological rigor and corporal acts of mercy was something that I found very attractive and it certainly lead to my conversion.

My conclusion now is that Catholic liturgy naturally makes one socially aware. This would be a longer post for another time.

Godspeed,

Taylor Marshall

It is difficult to say anything about this particular thing, beyond St. Paul’s exclamation: But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world (Galatians 6:14). The Catholic Church takes Paul’s words about the Cross symbolically and, much to the consternation of some, literally. Bits of wood are preserved around the world and presented to the faithful as fragments of the very cross upon which our Lord was crucified. For the life of me, I cannot see how this is any more offensive than the claim that, as a matter of historical fact, the Son of God was put to death by being nailed to this gibbet.

Of course, some have tried to say something about this archetype of our faith, and among many attempts I particularly appreciate the following, especially in light of today’s Feast: The Dream of the Rood (Old English poem, c. 7th century) and The Elevation of the Cross (Alexander Schmemman, Celebration of Faith, vol. II: The Church Year. See Part II, Chapter 1, “The Elevation of the Cross,” beginning on page 41.)

The Exaltation of the Cross is Good Friday viewed through the prism of Easter Day, which is to say that today is something like the epitome of Christianity.

And the serpents bit the people; and much people of Israel died.  Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.  And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a brazen serpent, and set it for an ensign ; and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.  And Moses made a serpent of brass, and set it up for an ensign, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.

(Numbers 21:6-9, Lesson for Matins)

Dearly beloved, when we look to Christ lifted up on the Cross, the eyes of faith see more than what the wicked saw, unto whom it was said through Moses : And thy Life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy Life.  They saw in the Crucified nothing but the work of their own wickedness.  As it is written : They feared greatly.  But their faith was not unto faith, which giveth life by justification, but unto the torture of their own bad conscience.  But our understanding is enlightened by the Spirit of Truth.  And so with pure and open hearts we can see the glory of the Cross shining over heaven and earth, and discern by inward sight what the Lord meant when his passion was nigh at hand, and he said : Now is the judgment of this world ; now shall the prince of this world be cast out ; and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.

(From a Sermon by Pope St. Leo, Lesson for Matins)

In light of this area of agreement among Catholic and Reformed Christians, I want to take the occasion of September 1st, which marks the beginning of the Church Year in the Byzantine Rite, to again raise the topic of the sanctification of time, this time with respect to the liturgical year. In the introduction article for this website, I noted that, in becoming Catholic, I had left some things behind, and found other things (while some things remained the same). Among the things found is a greater application of the principle that, through the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Lord, Christians have been brought out from under the tutelage of the Mosaic Law, not by way of the destruction of the Law, but through its fulfillment in Christ. The corporate life of God’s people is no longer conformed to the pattern of the things revealed to Moses, but to the pattern of Christ, who is the reality (the “body” and the “true form”) to which those former things testified (Colossians 2:16-17; Hebrews 10:1-10).

Therefore, Christians no longer observe the “holy days” and “sabbaths” of the former Covenant, nor do we offer sacrifices “of bulls and of goats.” Yet, there “remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God,” and “we have an altar” from which we are mystically nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ. Likewise, we have been given an example, or pattern, for the sanctification of life as lived in the course of the natural year. We have annual holy days and seasons of festival and fasting, as a fulfillment of the religious feasts of Israel before Christ. This new pattern has been given to us in the Gospels, so that the people of God journey together, throughout the year, in the steps of our Lord, from his Advent to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Church. Pentecost then leads us back to Advent, not so much in a circle as a spiral, since Advent has a two-fold significance, corresponding to the Incarnation (the “first coming” of the Son of God) and the Eschaton (the “second coming” of Christ). The seeds of the liturgical year are therefore present in Scripture, and develop over time through the life of the Church. This development, which includes the growing sanctoral cycle, or synaxarion, is a function of that liturgical spiral in which time is both infused with and moves towards the “fullness of time.”

Easter, or Pascha, is historically and theologically central to the liturgical year. This year, though one in its essential orientation (Pascha), pattern (the life of Christ) and purpose (the sanctification of time), has been variously developed in the Eastern Church (where the Byzantine Rite is predominant) and the Western Church (where the Roman Rite is predominant). In short, the traditional Western liturgical year has more of a bipolar aspect (of course I do not mean that in any pejorative sense), with a “Christmas cycle” (inclusive of Advent and Epiphany) and an “Easter cycle” (inclusive of Lent and Pentecost), whereas in the East, Pascha stands out more clearly as “the Feast of feasts,” accompanied by twelve “great feasts,” including Christmas, the Feast of the Nativity. Christmas is therefore not as prominent in the Eastern arrangement as in the Western. In both ritual traditions, every Sunday is “Resurrection Day,” a “mini-Easter,” though this Paschal theme is more pronounced in the Byzantine Rite. Finally, both Roman and Byzantine rites follow our Lord’s intention that his disciples should fast (Matthew 9:15) by observing seasons of corporate fasting. Lent is, of course, the most notable among these. For Byzantines, Advent is also a season of corporate fasting (often referred to as the “Nativity fast,” or “St. Philip’s fast,” as it begins the day after the feast of St. Philip and lasts through Christmas Eve). In the West, Advent has the character of a “penitential season,” though not to the same degree as Lent. Christians of the Byzantine Rite also observe two additional (though relatively short) fasts.

What follows is an outline of the liturgical year in the Roman Rite and the Byzantine Rite, respectively. For the sake of those who want more information, I have inserted links to wikipedia articles for each liturgical season and great feast, along with some of those particular feast days by which the beginning or end of a liturgical season is marked. Easter is a moveable feast, so the holy days and seasons associated with it do not fall on the same calendar day each year. Christmas, of course, is an immovable feast, always celebrated on December 25th, and the observance of associated holy days and liturgical seasons is relative to that date.

You might notice that the linear development of the Byzantine calendar (analogous to the prayers in the Divine Liturgy) is distinctively Marian. The first major feast is the Nativity of the Theotokos, and the twelfth great feast marks her Dormition. This, it seems to me, underscores both the temporal sequence and the soteriological effectiveness of our Lord’s life and mission; i.e., obviously, the Mother was born before the Son (according to his human nature), and she is, from her conception to dormition, the crowning achievement of her Son’s work of redemption.

Between Good Friday and Pascha (Easter), there is a beautiful commemoration of the death of Christ with a woven image of Christ’s burial that rests on a “tomb” that reminds the faithful of what our Gracious Lord endured for our sake.

When I first saw my son serving as an altar boy on Holy Saturday, I was shocked by a simple procession that my priest and spiritual father made on that fateful day. He placed the shroud over his head and held it in his hands as he walked through those holy doors. As he got close to the holy doors, I noticed that his hands were full, because he was holding the burial shroud. I saw my young son and hoped he would grab the door to open it for our priest. To my dismay, he wasn’t moving towards the doors. Instead, I was shocked to see our priest come up to the door and knock the doors open with a swift jerk of his head. He had headbutted the holy doors open!

Was this a mistake because of my sluggish son? I learned this was definitely not the case. Instead, the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ led to an opening of the Holy Doors. As violent as it seemed, my priest was not opening the doors with his head because of anger, but because of the conquering victory of Christ, who is risen from the dead. From Pascha (Easter) Sunday through Bright Saturday, the doors that symbolize the division between the heavenly kingdom and earth are left open, because Christ opened the division through his death and resurrection.

The idea that Tradition leads to a division between the people of God and our Lord is therefore a gross oversimplification of what we believe and practice.

It emphasizes that despite our regard for holiness and the like, we acknowledge that the saving work of Christ has led to a breaking down of those barrier walls. Everything that keeps us from holiness and divinization has been accomplished through the cross.

May this year’s bright week lead to a breaking down of the barriers that keep us from His Love, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Dix examines the development of the liturgy giving ample attention to the ante-Nicene Church about which I was thrilled. His style isn’t especially breath-taking but it’s readable, simple, and always easy to understand. You never have to read a sentence twice and with so many sentences to read – that is warmly welcomed.

His historical work is excellent. No one could accuse him of being unfair, except perhaps those from within his own tradition. That is to say, he takes special care to deal with alternative views as fairly as possible. He’s always scientific and never overreaches the evidence. Only an expert in liturgical history would walk away not having received a thorough education. In fact, I don’t really have anything negative to say about the book except that it dragged on a bit at the end.

Anglicans will be particularly interested in the second to last chapter which deals exclusively with the development of the Anglican liturgy from the 16th century until the early 19th. Dix is decidedly not a fan of Cranmer and concludes that he is essentially Zwinglian in his Eucharistic theology.  Dix also has a few strong opinions about the direction modern Anglican liturgy should take. From what I understand, some more traditionally minded Anglicans have taken issue with him on these points but that is a fight in which I do not have a dog. For what it’s worth, he convinced me.

From a Catholic standpoint, one thing of particular interest was Dix offers a real picture into the mind of the pre-Vatican II theologians and some of the perceived issues which Vatican II sought to address.  Even though Dix was not a Catholic, he was a renowned scholar respected by experts in this field from various communions. His scholarship exemplifies the best of 20th century liturgical historians and he was a real player in the liturgical restoration movement of the early 20th century.  The importance of rightly understanding the liturgical action of the early Church is something Dix stresses repeatedly and the language he uses to describe it is recognizable for those familiar with the actual intentions of the fathers of the Second Vatican council.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in developing a strong, overall history of the development of the liturgy.

It’s true that what we offer to the saints and the Mother of God sounds like worship to the ears of a Protestants, and it may be good for us to just admit that that is exactly how our prayers and songs sound. What we say in these prayers sounds more flowery than what many Protestants ever say about God Himself. In that sense, we should admit that what we pray to the Mother of God is “worship”, from the Protestant perspective of the depth of praise that can be offered to anyone, God included. But in isolating our prayers to angels and saints, they have not considered what we think about actual our worship of God Himself. If they realized the depth of the splendor that we pour forth in our worship to God, they would not think that our prayers to the Mother of God were idolatrous.

It’s an interesting perspective-to say that our prayers and worship to God are so much more self-emptying that when you consider our prayers to saints, you will never consider those prayers to be idolatrous. It’s a completely different view of praise and worship.

And I think that a clear distinction between this view of our life of worship comes from the saint whose memory we commemorate today on the Byzantine Calendar. St. John Chrysostom, that great bishop who composed our chief liturgy as Byzantine Christians by modifying the other chief Byzantine liturgy of St. Basil, wrote about the priesthood. In fact, when his commemoration was celebrated on the Latin calendar Bryan Cross posted here on this same holy man, with reflections coming from his own perspective. I commend it to you as well, and you can read it here.

What I’d like to bring to your attention in this current reflection is the following: his description of the priesthood describes our praise of God in a manner that takes the typical Protestant view of the priesthood and Hebrews, making it seem as though it were turned upside down. Many Protestants read this epistle as a rebuke to converts from Judaism who long for the beauty of the Jewish temple, as though that were a proof that Christian worship should be lacking such beauty. The regulative principle of worship which is advocated in most Presbyterian circles is a key example of taking this principle to extremes, but I think it can be found everywhere (and for what it’s worth, I’d call the “RPW” a very consistent exercise of Presbyterian principles, but I digress) in Protestantism. Instead of thinking that the pomp and glory of the Jewish liturgy fades on earth to usher in the Christian life of prayer in a world of no art or majesty, St. John Chrysostom sees the Old Testament temple prayer life as a shadow of the glory and splendor awaiting the earthly prayer life of the Church. He writes:

4. For the priestly office is indeed discharged on earth, but it ranks among heavenly ordinances; and very naturally so: for neither man, nor angel, nor archangel, nor any other created power, but the Paraclete Himself, instituted this vocation, and persuaded men while still abiding in the flesh to represent the ministry of angels. Wherefore the consecrated priest ought to be as pure as if he were standing in the heavens themselves in the midst of those powers. Fearful, indeed, and of most awful import, were the things which were used before the dispensation of grace, as the bells, the pomegranates, the stones on the breastplate and on the ephod, the girdle, the mitre, the long robe, the plate of gold, the holy of holies, the deep silence within. But if any one should examine the things which belong to the dispensation of grace, he will find that, small as they are, yet are they fearful and full of awe, and that what was spoken concerning the law is true in this case also, that “what has been made glorious has no glory in this respect by reason of the glory which excels.” 2 Corinthians 3:10 For when you see the Lord sacrificed, and laid upon the altar, and the priest standing and praying over the victim, and all the worshippers empurpled with that precious blood, can you then think that you are still among men, and standing upon the earth? Are you not, on the contrary, straightway translated to Heaven, and casting out every carnal thought from the soul, do you not with disembodied spirit and pure reason contemplate the things which are in Heaven? Oh! What a marvel! What love of God to man! He who sits on high with the Father is at that hour held in the hands of all, and gives Himself to those who are willing to embrace and grasp Him. And this all do through the eyes of faith! Do these things seem to you fit to be despised, or such as to make it possible for any one to be uplifted against them?

Would you also learn from another miracle the exceeding sanctity of this office? Picture Elijah and the vast multitude standing around him, and the sacrifice laid upon the altar of stones, and all the rest of the people hushed into a deep silence while the prophet alone offers up prayer: then the sudden rush of fire from Heaven upon the sacrifice:— these are marvellous things, charged with terror. Now then pass from this scene to the rites which are celebrated in the present day; they are not only marvellous to behold, but transcendent in terror. There stands the priest, not bringing down fire from Heaven, but the Holy Spirit: and he makes prolonged supplication, not that some flame sent down from on high may consume the offerings, but that grace descending on the sacrifice may thereby enlighten the souls of all, and render them more refulgent than silver purified by fire. Who can despise this most awful mystery, unless he is stark mad and senseless? Or do you not know that no human soul could have endured that fire in the sacrifice, but all would have been utterly consumed, had not the assistance of God’s grace been great.

Our golden-mouthed saint views the offerings of prayers to God at a Church service as something so cosmically different from my Reformed and Evangelical past, that I am reminded of the emissaries of the great Prince Vladimir of Kiev. The ones who visited the Christians worshipping at the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople said:

‘We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth, for surely there is no such splendour or beauty anywhere upon earth. We cannot describe it to you: only this we know, that God dwells there among men, and that their service surpasses the worship of all other places. For we cannot forget that beauty.’

Instead of making the worship of God more “heavenly” in the sense that it is disconnected from earth by “earthly trappings”, the Traditional view of liturgy is open to the very earth itself becoming heaven through God’s presence on earth, especially through the Holy Eucharist. It is open to a depth of splendor on earth where we can call the kingdom of God blessed here and now (and always unto ages of ages, Amen!).

So I wonder, on this feast of St. John Chrysostom, if any Reformed brethren of mine sense the emptiness of their services, in terms of how they call upon God. Feeling such a vacuum where my whole body, mind and soul was engaged in prayer and adoration to God during a liturgy was one of the strongest attractions to Tradition that I felt as I considered the claims of Catholics, and at times I think it is more powerful than the most pithy intellectual reflection found in a book or blog posting here or elsewhere.

As this video sings in a hymn to St. John Chrysostom, so I close this brief post, making it my prayer for us all.

Grace shining forth from your lips like a beacon has enlightened the universe! It has shown to the world the riches of poverty. It has revealed to us the heights of humility. Teaching us by your words, Father John Chrysostom, intercede before the Word, Christ our God, to save our souls!

Becoming Reformed after a six year sojourn in the evangelical world of Calvary Chapel, I was pleased to give up speculations about the end of the world via the notion of an imminent Rapture. There was a lack of historical support for thinking this way, and there was also a pleasing emphasis on Scripture as opposed to the newspaper. But every once in awhile, I must admit that the pure joy of thinking about the coming of God Himself to earth seemed to be too distant for someone like me to continue to enjoy. Was there any place for a continued hope of God coming to earth? Or was all of that joy based on predictions that so often never came to pass?

It was an amazing truth to appreciate that in the Catholic view of things, the eternal kingdom of God became present, and not through some theocracy of sorts. It was a far more mystical vision of God becoming present through our liturgy. The rapture was not distant–it was a real experience that comes through the Eucharist.

Being an Eastern Catholic, our liturgy enters into the mystery of the Eucharistic sacrifice with many beautiful prayers. The main liturgical service that we celebrate is the divine liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. There are so many thoughts that I have about this service, and I hope to spend future posts considering how our liturgy informs all of our theology. Truly the law of prayer provides the law of belief (lex orandi, lex credendi).

As we listen to the words of an Eastern Christian service, we hear these words that juxtapose the past, present and future all into one, for the presence of God puts us into contact with eternity Himself.

In that liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, we hear these words:

Priest:
Together with these blessed powers, merciful Master, we also proclaim and say: You are holy and most holy, You and Your only begotten Son and Your Holy Spirit. You are holy and most holy, and sublime is Your glory. You so loved Your world that You gave Your only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. He came and fulfilled the divine plan for us. On the night when He was delivered up, or rather when He gave Himself up for the life of the world, He took bread in His holy, pure, and blameless hands, gave thanks, blessed, sanctified, broke and gave it to His holy disciples and apostles, saying:
Take, eat, this is my Body which is broken for you for the forgiveness of sins.

People:
Amen.

Priest:
Likewise, after supper, He took the cup, saying:Drink of it all of you; this is my Blood of the new Covenant which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.

People:
Amen.

Priest:
Remembering, therefore, this command of the Savior, and all that came to pass for our sake, the cross, the tomb, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension into heaven, the enthronement at the right hand of the Father, and the second, glorious coming,

We offer to You these gifts from Your own gifts in all and for all.

This is the faith that we profess. It enters the eternal world where there is a sense in which the second coming is not a future event, for all things are present to Him who is beyond time. And this is not a particularly Eastern thought, with no parallels in the Roman Rite. Let’s look at a Roman Canon (canon I, to be precise), for if we do we will hear similar words speaking the same truth which transcends time. After the same consecration and recitation of the words of Institution of Christ, we hear this prayer at the Holy Roman Mass:

Father, we celebrate the memory of Christ, your Son. We, your people and your ministers, recall his passion, his resurrection from the dead, and his ascension into glory; and from the many gifts you have given us we offer to you, God of glory and majesty, this holy and perfect sacrifice: the bread of life and the cup of eternal salvation.
Look with favor on these offerings and accept them as once you accepted the gifts of your servant Abel, the sacrifice of Abraham, our fathers in faith, and the bread and wine offered by your priest Melchizedek.
Almighty God, we pray that your angel may take this sacrifice to your altar in heaven. Then, as we receive from this altar the sacred body and blood of your Son, let us be filled with every grace and blessing. Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.

This is our profession of what happens in a Church service. It goes beyond intellectual proclamations of faith, which we see as most clearly expressed in things like the Creed. It leaves this miry world of sin and calls us to the heavenly kingdom. It is a Rapture, a seizing up of our earthly life to the real spiritual existence which is our inheritance, in Christ.

This is of critical importance, for many people have chided Churches for having luxurious vestments and buildings. “I thought that we were supposed to lay up our treasures in heaven!”, or so the objection would roughly run. That objection only makes sense, however, if what we think we are doing is something this-worldly. If all we are doing is singing a feel good song and listening to a spiritual lecture of sorts, of course we ought not give our best for what we wear, and the room that we inhabit, and the chalice and paten/diskos that holds the wine and bread that go to the altar for a mere remembrance. But if there is something far deeper, something otherworldly to our worship, we will reach out and give our everything to strive to enter into that Sabbath rest, as the epistle to the Hebrews puts it. We will be raptured from day to day existence into another kingdom.

And so, as Christians of an ancient faith, there is a deep sense in which we are caught up into heaven already, while we remain in the world of not yet. We enter into that spiritual kingdom via a rapture that is not the end of a Church age, but is the continuation of a transcendent reality that can make a poor sinner like me united to the God of the universe, through His blessed kingdom.

Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, always ever and forever, Amen.

Listen to the lecture: (27 minutes)

Or download the MP3 here.

Original Notes:

Introduction

The following notes presuppose some familiarity with the Catholic mass.

The primary points of contact for our knowledge of the first century liturgy lie on one end with the Jewish liturgies, and the little data which can be gleaned from the New Testament, and the far later, but well documented, fourth century liturgies. We do have a few texts, reliable but vague, from the second and third century that help us piece together the puzzle. But ultimately our study lies in drawing on what we know from these ends, and reconstructing the development in-between.

Three liturgies would have been common place in the first century: the Synaxis, the Eucharist, and the Agape meal. We will look at these each individually but first, a few milestones or key points of interest are important to keep in mind:

The Judeo-Centricity of Early Christianity

1. For about the first 10 years of Christianity, it was almost exclusively composed of Jewish converts.
2. The early Christians were in the habit of attending temple daily.¹
3. The early Christians continued celebrating in the Synagogues alongside the Jews on the Sabbath for several years in some places.
4. Up to nineteen years after Christ’s resurrection, new converts to Christianity, generally speaking, had to convert to Judaism before becoming Christian. Namely, they were to be circumcised, to eat Kosher, and to follow the Mosaic Law. The Jerusalem Council was called to settle this controversy in 49 AD²
5. St. James, the bishop of Jerusalem, while the temple was still standing was in the habit of wearing the priestly robes, entering the temple, and offering intercessory prayer on behalf of his flock.³

The Domesticity of Worship

The Jews allowed Gentiles to participate in their public liturgies at the Synagogue. Gentiles were even allowed to enter the outer courts of the temple.⁴ But there was a rigorous exclusion of Gentile participation in the sacred home liturgies (such as the Seder meal). Initially Christians had no public liturgy, only domestic liturgy and so the controversies regarding the direct inclusion of the Gentile converts into the Christian Church are easily understood within this context.⁵

The Destruction of the Temple

In AD 70, the temple was destroyed. This was an earth shattering event for the Jews and a radical shift for the Jewish-Christians. It was a powerful sign that the “Kingdom” had come “with power.”⁶

The book of Hebrews was written in the 60s to explain to the Jewish Christians that Jesus was the true High Priest,⁷ that animal sacrifices were no longer necessary,⁸ and that Christ’s sacrifice was perpetually sufficient.⁹ These facts seems obvious to us in hindsight, but they weren’t obvious to the early Jewish Christians, particularly while the temple was still standing.

The Synaxis

‘Synaxis‘ is the Greek word meaning “meeting” and is the organic continuity of the Saturday Synagogue worship. When the Christians were no longer allowed in the synagogues, they continued celebrating approximately the same rite with added Christian developments and themes. The original liturgies would have been held, like the synagogue service, in Hebrew, and some of the words, like “amen” and “hallelujah,” survive to this day. In the early part of the first century, it is unlikely that the Synaxis would have be recognizably different from the Synagogue service except for the setting. The Synaxis can be understood as the seed of what we now call the Liturgy of the Word.¹⁰ Some key differences include that, in the first century, there were no introduction rites, no penitential rite and no Gloria. These were all later developments.

Basic Structure

1. Greeting and Response (The Lord be with you – or Peace be unto you)
2. Lections & Psalmody (The Jews read in order of descending importance, starting with the Pentateuch. The early Christian kept the original order of the Synagogue, but as Christian Scripture became available, it was tacked on at the end. Thus the order of importance became reversed for Christians. They read in ascending order of importance)
   i. Old Testament Reading
   ii. Pslamody (or chanted Psalm)
   iii. New Testament Reading (sometimes included non-canonical books like 1 Clement)
   iv. Psalmody
   v. Gospel Reading
3. Homily (Bishop delivers while seated)
4. Dismissal of Catechumens by Deacon
5. Intercessory Prayers of the Faithful
6. Dismissal of the Faithful

Occasionally a collection would be taken for the poor at the end. This was not the offertory.

The Eucharist

Derived from the Seder meal, in its fullest proper setting, the Eucharist is the celebration of the new Passover. ‘Pascha‘ (or Easter) is the pinnacle of Christian worship. Initially, it is possible that in some or many Christian Churches, the Eucharist was celebrated but once a year at Passover. The celebration of this high feast of Christian worship expanded to Jewish feast days like Pentecost, and by no later than the end of the first century, the liturgical practice of the Church was to celebrate every Sunday as a mini-Easter. The Eucharist would have been celebrated early on Sunday morning, a working day in the Roman empire.

The Eucharist was understood as the duty of the bishop and initially, we have every reason to believe that all Eucharists were celebrated by the bishop. But as the Church grew, this became impractical. By the end of the first century, this duty was being delegated to presbyters.¹¹

Basic Structure

1. Greeting & Response
2. Kiss of Peace
3. Offertory (Communicants bring their own bread & wine to the deacon who sets them on the altar)
4. Eucharistic Prayer (The earliest Eucharistic prayer would have been simply a direct continuity of the Jewish eucharistic (thanksgiving) prayer with added Messianic meaning. Noticeable differences in the first century Eucharistic prayer and today’s include: a. no Sanctus, b. no Lord’s prayer, c. no narrative) The Anaphora of Hippolytus is the oldest Eucharistic prayer we have in tact and it dates around AD 215.
5. Fraction
6. Communion (Received standing)
7. Dismissal

The Agape

There was probably a time where the Agape meal was celebrated along with the Eucharist, as seems to be the case in 1 Corinthians 11. But this practice died out sometime in the first century although the Agape continued by itself for several centuries. The only specific and technical reference to the Agape in the New Testament is found in Jude.¹²

The Agape has connections with Mediterranean funeral feasts, said in honor of a deceased hero or family member, and with the Jewish chaburah meal. This was a communal meal Jews would eat on the eve of the Sabbath and all important Jewish feasts. Jesus would have had this meal many times with His disciples. The Christian “Agape meal” was liturgical, although less formal than the Eucharist or even the Synaxis. Only baptized Christians were allowed to participate in this meal.

Like all early Christian liturgies, it was celebrated in the home. But unlike the Eucharist, it would not be celebrated in the atrium/tablinum area but in the dining room (triclinium). Thus, it would be celebrated by smaller numbers and in various homes throughout the Christian community.¹³ The Christians traditionally celebrated the Agape on Sunday evenings.

Basic Structure

1. Introductory Prayer (the president blesses the food)
2. Meal (In the West, it seems that the breaking of the bread was part of the meal; in the East, it followed the meal. In the West, each person blessed their own cup which would have been consistent with the Jewish tradition at the chaburah meal as opposed to the communal cup for high feasts like the Seder meal.)
3. Washing of Hands
4. Lighting of the Lamp (brought in by the deacon, blessed by the bishop)
5. Psalms/Hymns
6. Bishop blesses the cup (kiddish or kiddush cup, not the cup of blessing which was reserved for the Eucharist only.)
7. Bishop gives thanks for the bread and distributes

Notice the order in contrast to the Eucharist. In the Agape meal, the cup precedes the bread. The Agape is described using the name “eucharist” in the Didache chapter 9. We know this because the cup precedes the bread. Later, in chapter 14, the Eucharist proper is explained. The term Eucharist means “thanksgiving” of course, and in the first century, it was not yet a technical reference to what we now call the Eucharist. Any prayer of thanksgiving at a meal would have been a “eucharistic prayer.”

Summary

By the end of the first century, the standard Christian liturgical observations would be as follows. On Saturday, you would attend the Synaxis. On Sunday morning you would attend the Eucharist, before dawn. You would go to work that day and then in the evening, you would attend an Agape meal at the house of a presbyter or perhaps the bishop’s house.

Suggested reading:

Mike Aquilina, The Mass of the Early Christians

Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy

1. Acts 2:46
2. Acts 15
3. Recorded by Hegesippus and Preserved by Eusebius in Church History 2.23.4-6. Compare with the requirements for priestly garments in Exodus 28:41-43.
4. Dix, Gregory The Shape of the Liturgy, p. 16 (1945)
5. See particularly Galatians 1-2
6. Mark 9:1. Also see Mark 13 & its synoptic parallels.
7. e.g. Hebrews 4:14
8. Hebrews 9:9,23, 10:1, etc…
9. Hebrews 10
10. The “Liturgy of the Word” is the first part of the Catholic mass.
11. Thus in the early second century St. Ignatius of Antioch says to the Smyrnaeans, “Let that eucharist alone be considered valid which is celebrated in the presence of the bishop, or of him to whom he shall have entrusted it.”
12. Jude 1:12
13. Paul seems to indicate that the “home” is the proper place for this in 1 Corinthians 11:22 (as opposed to the particular home which would likely have been blessed by the bishop as the location for celebrating the Eucharist.) Centuries later, certain canons forbade the use of Church buildings for Agape meals.

The ante-Nicene Church was, from a political perspective, an illegal network that broke away from the tolerated Jewish religion. This underground status made Christian unity a true challenge. After the Edict of Milan in 313 AD when Christianity became legal, great strides were made towards liturgical and episcopal unity, but that unity developed and flourished from a foundation of unity which extends all the way back to the Jerusalem Church of Acts. I would like to examine three principles of unity in the early centuries of Christianity: government, liturgy, and doctrine.

Government
The Church, as the Scriptures explained, is a Body and therefore her unity is hierarchical. This episcopal unity is expressed most clearly in the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch and in St. Cyprian of Carthage, particularly in his treatise De Unitate. But this unity isn’t mere pragmatism; it is intrinsically related to the apostolic mission. Jesus commanded the apostles to “Do this in memory of Me” and also to “make disciples of all nations,” and in carrying out this mission, they appointed elders and overseers in the churches they planted. The early fathers then rightly saw the episcopal office as a key principle of sacramental unity. To be outside of the rightful bishop was to be outside of the altar of Christ. The mission of the Church was to offer the sacrifice of Eucharistia, and this was impossible outside of the rightful leaders who had been entrusted with the episcopacy.

Liturgy
Although Charlemagne made great strides towards this end, it wasn’t until the Council of Trent that liturgical uniformity dominated the face of the Western Church. One can only imagine what type of liturgical variance you would find in the ante-Nicene Church as you visited communities in different areas. As far as liturgical texts go, we have next to nothing from this period outside of Hippolytus so we are left to piece the early liturgy together as an archeologist constructs a dinosaur from incomplete fossils. This reconstruction is largely based on 4th century texts, and by the time these descriptive texts surface, several strands of liturgical tradition are in place. But we know that they all developed from a single liturgical tradition.

The existence of these differences does not indicate a lack of true liturgical unity. In fact, when St. Polycarp visited Rome, despite their lack of agreement, Pope Anicetus conceded the administration of the Eucharist to the Eastern bishop. This moving account is a powerful testimony of the liturgical unity even between East and West in the mid second century. St. Polycarp’s disciple, St. Irenaeus, is another liturgical bridge from East to West; moving from Asia Minor to Gaul where he was eventually installed as the bishop of Lyons.

The liturgy was normative for the Church in both action and belief. Lex orandi lex credendi; the prayer of the early Church informed her faith and vice versa. This faith of the Church, which logically precedes the faith of the individual who is united to it,¹ is built on the apostolic foundation. Thus, when the Christological controversies appeared, the Church looked, in part, to the unified source of her liturgical life. As scholars such as Pelikan have observed, she responded, “We’ve been worshiping Jesus this whole time, He must be God!”

It is clear that this liturgical unity resulted from an original unified source. It was not a “lowest common denominator” unity, nor was it an average of the different strands of tradition. This unity was not an alliance of churchmen; that is to say, most importantly, it was not manufactured by men.

Doctrine
The importance of doctrinal unity must not be overlooked. Again, we obviously begin with a wholly unified source (the apostolic teaching), but as generations passed, could the Church be self confident that she had retained it without error or corruption? St. Hegesippus believed so in the second century. En route to Rome, he made inquiries of many bishops and found them to be united in doctrine all over the Christian world. Tertullian, in his days as a Catholic, finds that only churches which were apostolic had the right to interpret the Scriptures, but younger churches, who were not founded by an apostle, were also called apostolic in virtue of their submission in unity to that same apostolic deposit.

The regula fidei, that which had been believed ‘everywhere and always,’ was a powerful unifying force in the early Church. Of course, this deposit must be understood in its correct context, i.e. informed by the divine liturgical life of the Church and in submission to the rightful leaders. Doctrine was a unifying force, but alone it could not suffice for the sacramental unity we see in the early Church.

Conclusion
We have seen that in spite of her challenges as an illegal institution, the ante-Nicene Church was strongly united for several important reasons. Even the sporadic persecution of the ante-Nicene Church was in some ways a catalyst to unity. In the dispute with Paul of Samosata, secular legislation began to play a significant role in Church uniformity, and this would be increasingly true at Nicaea and thereafter. But the ante-Nicene Church was sacramentally united before these developments solidified her ecclesiology. The Holy Spirit used all of these things to preserve the unity of the Church.

If we are to revive that sacramental unity enjoyed by our forefathers, it will only be through the vehicle for unity which Christ established. We will not study our way into unity, nor will we arrange our liturgies until they are similar enough. We cannot ignore enough doctrinal differences until we feel united, and we cannot draw up an arbitrary list of ‘essentials for salvation’ and pretend that this will suffice. This is all to say that if we are to be united once again, as the ante-Nicene Church was, it shall be achieved through the Church and not the university. Reunification will not be achieved by textual criticism or by commentary and far less by sentimentalism. It will be achieved by Christians on their knees before Christ’s altar.

1. CCC 1124 – http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p2s1c1a2.htm