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I’ve mentioned my interest before in the Epworth Chapel on the Green in Boise, which is an oasis of liturgical conservative Methodism, similiar to a planned mission church in Indiana being organized by a Nazarene pastor who is a member of the Society of Wesleyan Anglicans, the latter intending to use Wesley’s Sunday Service Book (and presumably The Book of Common Prayer).
As a member of my LiturgyWorks group has been for a time compiling a traditional Methodist service book, I have been keenly watching the field of Wesleyan liturgics. I was interested to note that Epworth Chapel on the Green is not actually using the Sunday Service Book or the Book of Common Prayer, but a similar text with some changes in wording, however, the rubrics surrounding the consecration of the Eucharist, which features a history of salvation economy and a somewhat strong Epiclesis resulted in a striking and beautiful service. In the following video, the Anaphora, or Eucharistic Prayer, starts at one hour five minutes, preceded by a confiteor:
I realized I need to ask the presbyter for a copy of the liturgical texts he is using. Anglican members such as my friends @Shane R @Paidiske @PloverWing and @Deegie might be interested in this celebration of the 1549 BCP for Reformation Sunday at Old North Church in Boston:
This got me thinking, however: are there any other interesting anaphoras I have missed, or that I have read but not seen? In the latter category unfortunately is the Byzantine form of the Divine Liturgy of St. James: I have three texts of it, one in the beautifully bound Divine Liturgies published by New Skete Monastery (an OCA monastery with unusual liturgical practices including use of a Divine Office inspired by the Asthmatic Office of Hagia Sophia*, and revised forms of the liturgies of St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil and St. James), one in traditional language of Byzantine Catholic provenance, and one in contemporary language by Archimandrite Ephrem, memory eternal, but unfortunately not the official ROCOR sluzhbenik or GoArch liturgikon (priest’s service books). However, last year and this year, some churches uploaded videos of this liturgy to YouTube, which I have posted for the benefit of interested members such as my dear friends @prodromos @Ignatius the Kiwi and @HTacianas. Interestingly, Balsalmon thought that this liturgy, and those of St. Mark and St. Peter were corrupt and their use uncanonical, however, ROCOR, the OCA, GoArch and the Jerusalem Patriarchate, among other jurisdictions, disagree.
Alas videos of the 1890 recension of the Divine Liturgy of St. Mark compiled by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria have not surfaced, nor a celebration of the Divine Liturgy of St. Peter found in a manuscript with Mount Athos that resembled a lost Russian Old Rite manuscript confiscated by Turkish authorities from a group of Old Rite Orthodox under the Patriarch of Constantinople when, some years back, conditions forced them to leave Turkey, nor have I been able to find a video or the exact service text used by Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus when, a few years ago, he celebrated the liturgy found in the Euchologion of the fourth century Egyptian bishop St. Serapion of Thmuis, which frequenters of Traditional Theology will note is the oldest complete, dedicated liturgical service book**. However, as @dzheremi and @Pavel Mosko will note, the Coptic Liturgy of St. Cyril, which has essentially the same Anaphora, or Eucharistic Prayer, as the Greek Liturgy of St. Mark and the liturgies in the aforementioned Euchologion of St. Serapion and the Strasbourg Papyrus, all four being specimens of the traditional Alexandrian liturgy commonly referred to as St. Mark by scholars, is fairly regularly celebrated in Lent, and happily I have attended it in person.
My Lutheran friends @MarkRohfrietsch and @ViaCrucis might be interested in this service, from the ALC Service Book and Hymnal of 1958, which is the first English language Lutheran service book I have found that features the Litany of Peace, and which is quite good, particularly, in my opinion, compared to more recent ELCA liturgies:
And of even more interest, Luther’s German Mass i English:
Lastly we have the Mozarabic Rite, which is known for having a highly variable text, but while I can read the Latin just fine, I cannot find a copy of the Mozarabic missal or breviary anywhere on the Net. At one point I found an Italian language website with the six Eucharistic Prayers of the post-Conciliar Novus Ordo Ambrosian missal (the Ambrosian rite was one of those substantially modified, and not for the better in my opinion, the others being of course the Roman Rite, the Maronite Rite, and the Carthusian Rite, where a minor change was made, but not adopted by all Charterhouses. I have heard of possible changes to the Mozarabic Rite but cannot confirm that they happened. If @chevyontheriver or @pdudgeon or another of my Catholic friends know anyone in OBOB who might know where such missals can be found, I would appreciate it.
*Alas I also don’t have the text for New Skete’s Divine Office; it was sold out last time I looked.
** Of course liturgical texts are also present in older manuscript fragments, including a similiar liturgy to that of St. Mark and St. Serapion in the Strasbourg Papyrus, making it the oldest attested liturgical text, and the Apostolic Constitutions, and of course the famed Antiochene liturgy in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus used correctly by the Ethiopian Orthodox, but used in the minimal form from Hippolytus with only the celebrant’s text as the basis for the omnipresent Eucharistic Prayer 2 in the Novus Ordo Missae, and its derivatives in other revised Western liturgies, such as Eucharistic Prayer B from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer - these tend to be overused because they are the shortest, but their brevity is arguably the result of a mistake by Msgr. Annibale Bugnini.
As a member of my LiturgyWorks group has been for a time compiling a traditional Methodist service book, I have been keenly watching the field of Wesleyan liturgics. I was interested to note that Epworth Chapel on the Green is not actually using the Sunday Service Book or the Book of Common Prayer, but a similar text with some changes in wording, however, the rubrics surrounding the consecration of the Eucharist, which features a history of salvation economy and a somewhat strong Epiclesis resulted in a striking and beautiful service. In the following video, the Anaphora, or Eucharistic Prayer, starts at one hour five minutes, preceded by a confiteor:
I realized I need to ask the presbyter for a copy of the liturgical texts he is using. Anglican members such as my friends @Shane R @Paidiske @PloverWing and @Deegie might be interested in this celebration of the 1549 BCP for Reformation Sunday at Old North Church in Boston:
This got me thinking, however: are there any other interesting anaphoras I have missed, or that I have read but not seen? In the latter category unfortunately is the Byzantine form of the Divine Liturgy of St. James: I have three texts of it, one in the beautifully bound Divine Liturgies published by New Skete Monastery (an OCA monastery with unusual liturgical practices including use of a Divine Office inspired by the Asthmatic Office of Hagia Sophia*, and revised forms of the liturgies of St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil and St. James), one in traditional language of Byzantine Catholic provenance, and one in contemporary language by Archimandrite Ephrem, memory eternal, but unfortunately not the official ROCOR sluzhbenik or GoArch liturgikon (priest’s service books). However, last year and this year, some churches uploaded videos of this liturgy to YouTube, which I have posted for the benefit of interested members such as my dear friends @prodromos @Ignatius the Kiwi and @HTacianas. Interestingly, Balsalmon thought that this liturgy, and those of St. Mark and St. Peter were corrupt and their use uncanonical, however, ROCOR, the OCA, GoArch and the Jerusalem Patriarchate, among other jurisdictions, disagree.
Alas videos of the 1890 recension of the Divine Liturgy of St. Mark compiled by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria have not surfaced, nor a celebration of the Divine Liturgy of St. Peter found in a manuscript with Mount Athos that resembled a lost Russian Old Rite manuscript confiscated by Turkish authorities from a group of Old Rite Orthodox under the Patriarch of Constantinople when, some years back, conditions forced them to leave Turkey, nor have I been able to find a video or the exact service text used by Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus when, a few years ago, he celebrated the liturgy found in the Euchologion of the fourth century Egyptian bishop St. Serapion of Thmuis, which frequenters of Traditional Theology will note is the oldest complete, dedicated liturgical service book**. However, as @dzheremi and @Pavel Mosko will note, the Coptic Liturgy of St. Cyril, which has essentially the same Anaphora, or Eucharistic Prayer, as the Greek Liturgy of St. Mark and the liturgies in the aforementioned Euchologion of St. Serapion and the Strasbourg Papyrus, all four being specimens of the traditional Alexandrian liturgy commonly referred to as St. Mark by scholars, is fairly regularly celebrated in Lent, and happily I have attended it in person.
My Lutheran friends @MarkRohfrietsch and @ViaCrucis might be interested in this service, from the ALC Service Book and Hymnal of 1958, which is the first English language Lutheran service book I have found that features the Litany of Peace, and which is quite good, particularly, in my opinion, compared to more recent ELCA liturgies:
And of even more interest, Luther’s German Mass i English:
Lastly we have the Mozarabic Rite, which is known for having a highly variable text, but while I can read the Latin just fine, I cannot find a copy of the Mozarabic missal or breviary anywhere on the Net. At one point I found an Italian language website with the six Eucharistic Prayers of the post-Conciliar Novus Ordo Ambrosian missal (the Ambrosian rite was one of those substantially modified, and not for the better in my opinion, the others being of course the Roman Rite, the Maronite Rite, and the Carthusian Rite, where a minor change was made, but not adopted by all Charterhouses. I have heard of possible changes to the Mozarabic Rite but cannot confirm that they happened. If @chevyontheriver or @pdudgeon or another of my Catholic friends know anyone in OBOB who might know where such missals can be found, I would appreciate it.
*Alas I also don’t have the text for New Skete’s Divine Office; it was sold out last time I looked.
** Of course liturgical texts are also present in older manuscript fragments, including a similiar liturgy to that of St. Mark and St. Serapion in the Strasbourg Papyrus, making it the oldest attested liturgical text, and the Apostolic Constitutions, and of course the famed Antiochene liturgy in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus used correctly by the Ethiopian Orthodox, but used in the minimal form from Hippolytus with only the celebrant’s text as the basis for the omnipresent Eucharistic Prayer 2 in the Novus Ordo Missae, and its derivatives in other revised Western liturgies, such as Eucharistic Prayer B from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer - these tend to be overused because they are the shortest, but their brevity is arguably the result of a mistake by Msgr. Annibale Bugnini.
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