Eucharistic Prayer - opening dialog

[Bonifatius]

Dear all,

Common Worship - the official prayer book of the Church of England - has several Eucharistic Prayers. All of them offer an alternative to the usual opening:

The Lord be with you
and also with you

Alternative:

The Lord is here.
His spirit is with us.

Does anyone know where this second option derives from? I assume there must be ancient or Eastern Orthodox exampels for that formula as the liturgical comitees who put together the texts in CW did incorporate a lot of that kind of material (eg. one of the Eucharistic Prayers is the coptic orthodox Anaphora of St. Basil).

Does this second formula sound familiar to Orthodox Christians?

Greetings
Boni

 

[Marjorie]

The Orthodox formula is actually:

Peace be unto all.
And to your spirit.

But I think the origin of the new CoE one might just be a creative rendering of the traditional Latin formula:

The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit.

The "is here" and "his spirit is with us" seems a little strange to me, although it does remind me of another Orthodox liturgical greeting not given during normal Liturgy (or when it is, it is between people at the kiss of peace):

Christ is in our midst.
He is and he shall be.

Anyway, these are random thoughts...

In IC XC,
Marjorie

 

[ExOrienteLux]

Not really. The closest thing we have to that dialog is the dialog at the Kiss of Peace:

Priest: "Christ is in our midst!"
People: "He is and ever shall be!"

Or, from Pascha to Pentecost:

Priest: "Christ is Risen!"
People: "Indeed He is Risen!

Or, from Nativity to Presentation:

Priest: "Christ is Born!"
People: "Glorify Him!"

{edit} DUH! Of course there's the dialog "Peace be unto all of you." "And with thy spirit." done several times through out the Liturgy. {/edit}

Xpictoc Bockpece!
-Philip.