Anyone up for a chat thread?

The Liturgist said:

alienated by the closure of our favorite attractions like the Skyway and the Peoplemover during the Paul Pressler era.

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I was baffled for a moment there, because I know Paul Pressler as a major figure in the Southern Baptist Convention's conservative movement. What does he have to do with Disney? (Quick google...) Oops, never mind...

We went to Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando for the first time 2 years ago. The trip was sponsored by the Gary Sinise Foundation and Snowball Express, with additional sponsorship for all the airfares by American Airlines. We just had to go to a major American served airport, which was Cleveland at that time but they've added Columbus John Glenn Int'l to the list now, which is much more convenient for me. If traffic is good I can get to John Glenn in 1 hour. We were lodged at the Coronado Springs Resort and they had buffet service in the grand ballroom for us most days, as well as meal vouchers for eating in the parks. I don't remember how many they gave me but I still had about $40 worth at the end. We can go every 3 years until both girls turn 18. So next year will be our next time up in the queue. Of course we only get this due to the circumstances of their mother's death in service in the US Navy.

They set up one of the side conference rooms with a flag for every fallen service member who has a family member at the event. It was hundreds of flags. They also had a wall somewhat like the very famous Vietnam wall in Washington D.C. but it is portable and has the names of everyone who died in the Global War on Terror and Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraq and Afghanistan and that whole boondoggle.

PloverWing said:

I was baffled for a moment there, because I know Paul Pressler as a major figure in the Southern Baptist Convention's conservative movement. What does he have to do with Disney? (Quick google...) Oops, never mind...

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I actually met Paul Pressler, the Disneyland guy, and he was actually nice enough, but he was more suited to run the Disney Store as he was a retail guy. I will say Disneyland under Pressler, for all its faults, was infinitely better than it is at present.

Shane R said:

So next year will be our next time up in the queue. Of course we only get this due to the circumstances of their mother's death in service in the US Navy.

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I admire you and your wife, may her memory be eternal, so much. By the way the deacon in Southern California you gave those vestments to will soon be advancing to the priesthood.

Shane R said:

They set up one of the side conference rooms with a flag for every fallen service member who has a family member at the event. It was hundreds of flags. They also had a wall somewhat like the very famous Vietnam wall in Washington D.C. but it is portable and has the names of everyone who died in the Global War on Terror and Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraq and Afghanistan and that whole boondoggle.

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That sounds like a splendid tribute to the heroes of our generation.

The Liturgist said:

By the way the deacon in Southern California you gave those vestments to will soon be advancing to the priesthood.

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I don't have much spare stuff now. I have an extra green stole, a cheap cotton surplice, a Roman style cassock that no longer buttons comfortably on me, and a black funeral set that I have never used which came out of a UMC church. I am curiouss how old the funeral vestment is because most of the Methodists here haven't worn any vestment in 30 years. I had an extra cope and stole which I had ordered to match the burgundy and gold preferences of many S. American jurisdictions but I gave that to Bishop Gore of Virginia. His consecration service was so fly by night I was surprised they didn't cut a branch out of the trees at the church for him to have a crozier. The service was held at an historic Episcopal chapel in Virginia, which is no longer an active parish, and the curator was getting a bit perturbed as they packed up after the deed was done because she thought they were trying to skip out on paying her the usage fee. I don't know who ended up covering it but it wasn't me, nor should it have been.

Shane R said:

I don't have much spare stuff now. I have an extra green stole, a cheap cotton surplice, a Roman style cassock that no longer buttons comfortably on me, and a black funeral set that I have never used which came out of a UMC church. I am curiouss how old the funeral vestment is because most of the Methodists here haven't worn any vestment in 30 years. I had an extra cope and stole which I had ordered to match the burgundy and gold preferences of many S. American jurisdictions but I gave that to Bishop Gore of Virginia. His consecration service was so fly by night I was surprised they didn't cut a branch out of the trees at the church for him to have a crozier. The service was held at an historic Episcopal chapel in Virginia, which is no longer an active parish, and the curator was getting a bit perturbed as they packed up after the deed was done because she thought they were trying to skip out on paying her the usage fee. I don't know who ended up covering it but it wasn't me, nor should it have been.

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I know of some inexpensive vestment suppliers.

By the way, I myself like black vestments on Lent; unless they had something morbid on them like a skull and crossbones (which one occasionally sees on Roman Catholic catafalques although I haven’t seen anything like that on a vestment, ever, except for the Great Schema, which isn’t really a vestment but a monastic habit which symbolizes that the schemamonk or schemanun has died to the world). Black vestments on weekdays in Lent and Holy Week (except Maundy Thursday) are traditional in the Roman Rite, the Ambrosian Rite, the Byzantine Rite, and in Holy Week except Maundy Thursday, they are also the norm in the Syriac Orthodox and Coptic Orthodox churches. They also represent the only alternate paraments used by the Syriac Orthodox. Conversely, all Orthodox churches use white, to symbolize the resurrection, at funeral and burial liturgies. However, purple (not violet, but purple) is used on Soul Saturdays in Lent, but on the Soul Saturday preceding the Sunday of the Last Judgement, which was a week ago, gold is typically used, and likewise green, gold or white is what one will find on the Soul Saturday preceding Pentecost (Soul Saturdays are equivalent to All Souls Day in the Roman Rite). Likewise, memorial liturgies, or pannikhidas, which can be held throughout the year, are served in the liturgical color appropriate to the day. But if someone is being baptized, the clergy has to vest in white for that and then potentially change before the divine liturgy (but there have been so many baptisms lately I’ve seen them done using the vestments of the day).

The only time black was (intentionally) used for funerals in the Christian East was in Czarist Russia; the Imperial family saw this in the West and demanded the Russian church use black at their funerals, and this was in the 19th century after Czar Peter I had seized control of ecclesiastical finances and uncaonically suppressed the office of the Patriarch, and reduced the Holy Synod to four members: three bishops and a layman appointed by the Emperor, the Procurator, who had custody of the finances, which was massively uncanonical. This era would have been one of great stagnation were it not for the evangelization of Alaska and the likes of St. Seraphim of Sarov, St. Ignatius Brianchaninov and St. John of Kronstadt, and a popular hesychastic movement in Russia and Ukraine, with much vitality at the Kiev Lavra and the Valaam monastery.

So I myself would be very interested to see that Methodist vestment.

Half way into Lent.

Mother's Day in the UK next Sunday - we get a Lent break for that!

Waving because I miss you all, since life got in the way of CF for a while there.

A lot of Anglicans might think there are a number of Eucharistic prayers, some argue too many, in Common Worship, the 1979 BCP, Enriching Our Worship, etc.

However, the liturgical group I am a member of, which includes some Anglicans, and which has completed a modular BCP intended for use by continuing Anglicans which we would have begun distributing last year except for the fact that I have been too ill to complete the website that allows for the modules to be selected, recently began what has been a pet project I have been internally campaigning for since 2019, which is using an LLM specifically optimized to do Syriac translations to tackle the large number of untranslated anaphoras of the Syriac Orthodox and Maronite churches, and rapid progress has been made.

In the past week, we translated approximately 50 of the 86 surviving anaphoras of the Syriac Orthodox Church, and still have more to do, where we have access to the text, and we are preparing to begin translating the approximately 71 anaphoras of the Maronite Church.

Most of these anaphoras, or Euhcaristic Prayers, are fairly similar, although one thing that might surprise some people is that in the case of the Syriac Orthodox Church, a minority of the anaphoras paraphrase rather than directly quote the Words of institution. For example, the Anaphora of Mar Dionysius Bar Salibi does this:

The celebrant, waving his hands over the elements, prays silently:
Holy is the Father, Who begets and is not begotten, holy is the Son Who is begotten and is not begetter, and holy is the Holy Spirit Who proceeds from the Father and takes of the Son, the one true God Who redeemed us by His mercies and compassion.

The celebrant takes the host from the paten with his right hand. He puts it on the palm of his left hand, and raising his eyes skyward, says aloud:
When He prepared for the redemptive passion, he took bread and blessed + + and sanctified + and broke, and called it His Holy Body for eternal life for those who receive it.

People: Amen.

The celebrant takes the chalice with both hands, then he holds it with his left hand and makes over it the sign of the Cross three times. Then he puts the second finger of his right hand on its edge and tilts it crosswise, saying:
And also the cup blended of wine and water, He blessed + + and sanctified + and completed as His Precious Blood of eternal life for those who receive it.

People: Amen.

However, increasingly all three Syriac Orthodox jurisdictions (which are the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, and the Malankara Independent Syrian Church, which is itself in full communion with the Mar Thoma Syrian Church, which is a member of the Anglican Communion), have been using the Words of Institution with these anaphoras instead of the paraphrasing to avoid confusion.

In our translation project, to reduce the workload, we are primarily focusing on translating the Institution Narrative, Epiclesis and certain other prayers that tend to vary between Syriac Orthodox anaphoras, so as a result all of the anaphoras we have done feature the full Words of Institution even where they are paraphrased in the original.

I would also note that the Syriac Orthodox paraphrasing is still less dramatic than in the Anaphora of the Apostles Addai and Mari used by the Assyrian Church of the East, which is widely regarded to be one of the three oldest extant liturgies, along with the Anaphora of the Twelve Apostles and its variants (including the third century version quoted by St. Hippolytus, which became Eucharistic Prayer B in the Episcopal Church with minor modificaitons, and Eucharistic Prayer 2 in the Roman Catholic Church a decade earlier with more substantial modifications - it appears the Romans thought it was the original Roman Catholic liturgy, but this now appears doubtful and the current consensus seems to be that St. Hippolytus translated it because even in the third century, the Antiochian style of anaphora was the most widespread).

At any rate, if we are able to translate even two thirds of these anaphoras, which I think we will be able to do so, there will be a choice of at least two Eucharistic prayers available for every Sunday of the year. For obvious reasons I would not recommend that anyone actually do that, except for the fact that these are extremely similiar, and traditionally, the Gallican Rite and the Mozarabic Rite used Eucharistic Prayers which were proper to specific liturgical days, which could vary widely, to the point of being different anaphoras, and thus, such variation in the Eucharistic prayer is not unprecedented.

However it is unusual in the Eastern churches, where traditionally, the Liturgy of the Faithful including the anaphora is invariant, lacking proper prefaces, etc, so that only the entire Eucharistic prayer changes, rather than individual parts (Eucharistic Prayer D is unpopular among many Episcopalian clergy known to me because its lack of variable prefaces, but this was in keeping with the original text it was translated with, the Greek version of the Egyptian form of the Anaphora of St. Basil the Great, and the reason why it was done is that Eucharistic Prayer D was particularly intended for use in joint ecumenical worship services, a sort of 1970s antecedent to the Lima Liturgy proposed in the 1990s by the World Council of Churches).

By the way, imagine trying to cram 86 anaphoras into a printed edition of the Book of Common Prayer, or 71 for that matter in the case of the Maronites.

The only thing that makes such a large number of anaphoras potentially useful is really the widespread presence of tablets. This entire project has been enabled by technology, in the form of modern AI, and will depend on technology in the form of tablet computers to be useful.

Also there are so many anaphoras that they need to be catalogued using a system of tags, based on shared characteristics. For example, some of them are extremely penitential, some of them strongly stress the doctrine of the Trinity, some of them have strong Christological stresses.

They are less dissimiliar to each other than the 14 or so anaphoras used by the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church, which vary even more widely than the Anglican anaphoras one finds in Common Worship. For example, the Ethiopians have the only version to have been in continual use since antiquity of the ancient Antioch anaphora that uses the exact text quoted by St. Hippolytus in the Apostolic Tradition (the version of the anaphora used by the Syriac Orthodox has slightly different wording, and is actually very similiar to the Byzantine form of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, which is a minor modification of it with slightly more intense language, whereas conversely the Syriac Orthodox form of the St. John Chrysostom llturgy uses language that is semantically comparable to that of the Byzantine anaphora but which is not actually word for word in common with the Anaphora of the Twelve Apostles). Yet from this most ordinary of anaphoras, the Ethiopian liturgical catalogue runs the gamut, featuring a number of exciting and distinct Eucharistic prayers. The most unusual is the Anaphora of St. Mary, which is filled with intercessory prayers directed to the Theotokos, to the extent that they constitute most of the text of the Eucharistic prayer, although contrary to what some people claim, the anaphora does not ask the Theotokos to change the bread and wine into the body and blood of our Lord - the prayers in it that one would expect to be addressed to God are addressed to God.

Compared to that extreme, these West Syriac anaphoras are all very similiar. The Maronites have one oddball in their repetoire, which has sadly become disused since the post-Vatican II liturgical reforms (which have really adversely impacted the Maronite rite in that they eliminated the distinct flowery language that historically was shared between the Maronite and Syriac Orthodox liturgical traditions, in some cases the exact texts, that being the Anaphora of Peter (Sharar). That anaphora is interesting not because of its content, like the aforementioned Ethiopian Eucharistic prayers, but rather because it has an East Syriac structure like that of the three anaphoras of the Assyrian Church of the East such as the aforementioned Addai and Mari (but, like the other two Assyrian anaphoras, it has the words of institution - indeed due to Roman Catholic influence, the Maronites do not paraphrase the words of Institution as they are regarded as consecratory, whereas the Syriac Orthodox appear to take the common Oriental view that the Epiclesis is consecratory, or that the entire liturgy is consecratory).

Such fascinating work. Thanks for sharing! I have a real interest in the development of eucharistic prayers. I presume you've read Prayers of the Eucharist: Early and Reformed? Bradshaw and Johnson point out that the Roman Catholic Church recognizes the validity of Addai & Mari even without a narrative of institution. I was quite surprised when I read that! I'm curious what you think of the translation of that anaphora in PEER. I love how poetic it is while still being...punchy, perhaps? There's another interesting tidbit about A&M: at least according to Johnson (whom I tend to trust completely on such matters), the priest spoke much of the prayer silently not for secrecy but simply because there was music being played.

And your last point about what part of the anaphora is consecratory (verba, epiclesis, or the entirety) is such a fun conversation to have! I've observed this as a place where many priests and congregations have actions that don't fit their theology. So, for example, in many Episcopal parishes, there are Sanctus bells or gongs rung at the words of institution even though if you asked, I doubt many would say that's actually when the consecration occurs. Same with bows and genuflections. In my experience, it's a place where tradition has outlived its usefulness.

Deegie said:

Such fascinating work. Thanks for sharing! I have a real interest in the development of eucharistic prayers. I presume you've read Prayers of the Eucharist: Early and Reformed? Bradshaw and Johnson point out that the Roman Catholic Church recognizes the validity of Addai & Mari even without a narrative of institution. I was quite surprised when I read that! I'm curious what you think of the translation of that anaphora in PEER. I love how poetic it is while still being...punchy, perhaps? There's another interesting tidbit about A&M: at least according to Johnson (whom I tend to trust completely on such matters), the priest spoke much of the prayer silently not for secrecy but simply because there was music being played.

And your last point about what part of the anaphora is consecratory (verba, epiclesis, or the entirety) is such a fun conversation to have! I've observed this as a place where many priests and congregations have actions that don't fit their theology. So, for example, in many Episcopal parishes, there are Sanctus bells or gongs rung at the words of institution even though if you asked, I doubt many would say that's actually when the consecration occurs. Same with bows and genuflections. In my experience, it's a place where tradition has outlived its usefulness.

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Indeed, I have practically all of Bradshaw and Johnson’s works. My favorite is Essays on Early Eastern Eucharistic Prayers edited by Paul F. Bradshaw.

You are indeed correct that the RCC recognized the Anaphora of Addai and Mari as valid. This happened when Pope Benedict XVI was head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith, and I think it was the correct decision. The Assyrian Church of the East is the only Eastern church where Roman Catholics are always able to receive the Eucharist, since the Assyrians will give the Eucharist to anyone who believes in the Nicene Creed and the Real Presence. Eastern Orthodox usually will not give the Eucharist to Roman Catholics, but some Oriental Orthodox are reported to do so (specifically the Syriac Orthodox in places like Turkey, and perhaps the Armenians, but not the Copts).

Deegie said:

And your last point about what part of the anaphora is consecratory (verba, epiclesis, or the entirety) is such a fun conversation to have! I've observed this as a place where many priests and congregations have actions that don't fit their theology. So, for example, in many Episcopal parishes, there are Sanctus bells or gongs rung at the words of institution even though if you asked, I doubt many would say that's actually when the consecration occurs. Same with bows and genuflections. In my experience, it's a place where tradition has outlived its usefulness.

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I believe the early church regarded the entire Eucharist as consecratory, and this appears to be the prevailing view among the Orthodox. Since otherwise, one could delete everything except the Epiclesis, and there would be no need for reserving the sacrament for serving it to those who are ill. But we never celebrate the Eucharist without the Synaxis (the Liturgy of the Word).

Indeed, even the very peculiar text in the Coptic Orthodox Euchologion called “The Filling of the Chalice” which is thought to be possibly the ancient Coptic presanctified liturgy, but it is no longer in use, and why it is in the Euchologion I frankly have no idea, (some of the rubrics suggest it was intended for use if they ran out of the Body and Blood during the liturgy, but other Coptic clergy I have discussed this with insist this is not the case) contains designated scripture lessons.

Thus I think it is a pointless discussion.

The main problem is that there are a few otherwise very traditional churches which believe that the Words of Institution are consecratory and some of them oppose the use of Eucharistic Prayers that feature an Epiklesis.

Deegie said:

Such fascinating work. Thanks for sharing! I have a real interest in the development of eucharistic prayers.

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I should give you access to the LiturgyWorks resources so you can see the translations in progress. You might also be somewhat interested in the modular BCP project, which is intended to provide a replacement for the 1928 BCP for Continuing Anglicans and other Anglicans around the world using traditional BCP editions. It was facilitated by the fact that the Episcopal Church releases their editions of the BCP into the public domain (although not the supplemental material) and all of the other historic BCP editions are also in the public domain in the US.

Everything we do is in the public domain or a license permitting open source redistribution, since we are a 501(c)3 educational entity that aims to provide liturgical resources for all traditional churches. About half of our members are Anglicans, the rest being Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist and Congregationalist. Anyone can be a member or participant. The only limitation is due to my illness, our public website is not finished yet, but we took the decision to delay completing it as we were more interested collectively in refining the texts before publishing them.

Also, we are internally discussing how to deal with the unfortunate problem that some people might be prejudiced against us because of our ecumenical composition of membership, and there has been some discussion of restructuring the group as an association of sub-associations of liturgists of different denominations, which might well solve the problem but at the cost of more organizational complexity. One of our precepts is to not tamper with the doctrine of other denominations, so if we work on a liturgical text, it is for a denomination that at least one of our members is a member of, and it is to be done according to the doctrine of that denomination or the group within that denomination the member is a part of. Also the majority of our projects consist of arrangements and compilations of existing text rather than new text, although there is a legitimate need for new liturgical material even in churches like the Eastern Orthodox Church, for example, there are many saints who lack a full set of services, and have only a troparion and kontakion which is then used with a generic hymn from the General Menaion, and the same is true in the Oriental Orthodox churches and I suspect in many others - I would be surprised for example if every person commemorated in the Anglican calendar has a collect or other liturgical propers.

By the way, the different way different denominations commemorate saints and holy days is fascinating. The specific structure of propers is one of the most interesting and underappreciated aspects of liturgics - it has not been well studied, since so much of it actually happens in Matins, traditionally, Matins being the office that most churches use to contain the majority of their propers (even if they celebrate Matins at night, which is not uncommon; the Eastern Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, Copts and Ethiopians all have a vigils service that includes Vespers followed by Matins and one also occasionally sees this in the Western church with Paschal Vigils, for example.

One of my personal projects is an illustrated encyclopedia of the liturgies of the world, which is intended to show people the beauty of each liturgical rite.

The early church was always liturgically diverse, and I love how Anglicanism is so respectful of that diversity, and has been for some time. For example, one article in our collection is a Mexican Episcopalian prayer book which is in Spanish and English and consists of a translation of the Mozarabic liturgy traditionally used in Spain, still celebrated at the cathedral in Toledo, which also survives to a limited extent in Mexico in that the way weddings are performed in Mexico traditionally contains Mozarabic elements, so it was a natural move for the Episcopalians in Mexico to want to restore the Mozarabic liturgy, which sadly became the least used liturgy in the Roman Catholic Church (although they have preserved it, it is only preserved at a special chapel in the cathedral of Toledo and in a nearby monastery; in the 19th century, on the other hand, there were still seven Mozarabic Rite parishes in operation in Toledo). This is in contrast to the Ambrosian Rite in Milan, which like the Mozarabic, is one of the variant forms of the ancient Gallican liturgy, but the Ambrosian Rite is still used by around a million people in the area of Milan.

The Liturgist said:

I believe the early church regarded the entire Eucharist as consecratory, and this appears to be the prevailing view among the Orthodox. Since otherwise, one could delete everything except the Epiclesis, and there would be no need for reserving the sacrament for serving it to those who are ill. But we never celebrate the Eucharist without the Synaxis (the Liturgy of the Word).

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I agree with your take on the early church -- at least to the extent they believed they were consecrating anything and not just having a fellowship meal. Especially since, as we've discussed, there is historical evidence of prayers without an institution narrative and/or without an epiclesis. And when an epiclesis did develop, it was quite diverse in both language and theology. Indeed, for the first century or two, it appears the eucharistic prayers were largely improvised by the celebrant and didn't even have a fixed form.

The Liturgist said:

I should give you access to the LiturgyWorks resources so you can see the translations in progress. You might also be somewhat interested in the modular BCP project, which is intended to provide a replacement for the 1928 BCP for Continuing Anglicans and other Anglicans around the world using traditional BCP editions. It was facilitated by the fact that the Episcopal Church releases their editions of the BCP into the public domain (although not the supplemental material) and all of the other historic BCP editions are also in the public domain in the US.

Everything we do is in the public domain or a license permitting open source redistribution, since we are a 501(c)3 educational entity that aims to provide liturgical resources for all traditional churches. About half of our members are Anglicans, the rest being Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist and Congregationalist. Anyone can be a member or participant. The only limitation is due to my illness, our public website is not finished yet, but we took the decision to delay completing it as we were more interested collectively in refining the texts before publishing them.

Also, we are internally discussing how to deal with the unfortunate problem that some people might be prejudiced against us because of our ecumenical composition of membership, and there has been some discussion of restructuring the group as an association of sub-associations of liturgists of different denominations, which might well solve the problem but at the cost of more organizational complexity. One of our precepts is to not tamper with the doctrine of other denominations, so if we work on a liturgical text, it is for a denomination that at least one of our members is a member of, and it is to be done according to the doctrine of that denomination or the group within that denomination the member is a part of. Also the majority of our projects consist of arrangements and compilations of existing text rather than new text, although there is a legitimate need for new liturgical material even in churches like the Eastern Orthodox Church, for example, there are many saints who lack a full set of services, and have only a troparion and kontakion which is then used with a generic hymn from the General Menaion, and the same is true in the Oriental Orthodox churches and I suspect in many others - I would be surprised for example if every person commemorated in the Anglican calendar has a collect or other liturgical propers.

By the way, the different way different denominations commemorate saints and holy days is fascinating. The specific structure of propers is one of the most interesting and underappreciated aspects of liturgics - it has not been well studied, since so much of it actually happens in Matins, traditionally, Matins being the office that most churches use to contain the majority of their propers (even if they celebrate Matins at night, which is not uncommon; the Eastern Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, Copts and Ethiopians all have a vigils service that includes Vespers followed by Matins and one also occasionally sees this in the Western church with Paschal Vigils, for example.

One of my personal projects is an illustrated encyclopedia of the liturgies of the world, which is intended to show people the beauty of each liturgical rite.

The early church was always liturgically diverse, and I love how Anglicanism is so respectful of that diversity, and has been for some time. For example, one article in our collection is a Mexican Episcopalian prayer book which is in Spanish and English and consists of a translation of the Mozarabic liturgy traditionally used in Spain, still celebrated at the cathedral in Toledo, which also survives to a limited extent in Mexico in that the way weddings are performed in Mexico traditionally contains Mozarabic elements, so it was a natural move for the Episcopalians in Mexico to want to restore the Mozarabic liturgy, which sadly became the least used liturgy in the Roman Catholic Church (although they have preserved it, it is only preserved at a special chapel in the cathedral of Toledo and in a nearby monastery; in the 19th century, on the other hand, there were still seven Mozarabic Rite parishes in operation in Toledo). This is in contrast to the Ambrosian Rite in Milan, which like the Mozarabic, is one of the variant forms of the ancient Gallican liturgy, but the Ambrosian Rite is still used by around a million people in the area of Milan.

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Such a cool project. And I would have thought of the ecumenism as a feature, not a bug! Liturgics as an academic field is still very heavily ecumenical. Even the traditionally "non-liturgical" churches are getting in on it these days. (N.B. Purists would likely say there is no such thing as a non-liturgical church, but I use it as shorthand since it's a phrase people tend to understand.)

Deegie said:

and/or without an epiclesis.

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Actually we have not found any complete Eucharistic prayers which lack an Epiclesis, except for presanctified liturgies which are not regarded as consecratory.

The oldest liturgy I have found which has no epiclesis structure at all is the Latin mass as revised by Martin Luther, which interestingly enough, we did a translation of it along with his German mass as an experiment to see if we could do this project.

I should stress that I don’t really care that much, but it is the case that all ancient anaphorae we have seen (except for that in the Didache, if it is an anaphora, which is debateable) have a sursum corda, a sanctus, an Institution Narrative, but not always the Words of Institution, and an epiklesis.

For instance, the Anaphora of Addai and Mari you referred to doesn’t have the Words of Institution explicitly quoted as such (except when this is added, for example, by the Chaldean and Syro Malabar Catholics), but instead has a narrative which describes what happened.