Missing/lost anaphoras?

[dzheremi]

Hi all,

So I was just reading over today's readings in my Church (if I can't get to it physically, which I can't right now for various reasons, I figure I can at least still do that), and I noticed that one of the saints commemorated in today's Synaxarium entry is St. Marouta the Bishop, who I believe is known in the Chalcedonian world as St. Maruthas of Martyropolis (d. circa 420 AD). Wanting to find more information on him than what is available in the Synaxarium entry, I went to his Wikipedia page, and there it mentioned that among the things he authored is a Syrian anaphora.

As it so happens, I am blessed to own a very nice book which collects the Syrian Anaphoras, translated and published in 1991 by the Syriac Orthodox Church in New York. It is a substantial work (about 500 pages), and contains the major anaphoras used by the Syriac Orthodox Church (St. James, St. Mark, St. Peter, that known as "The Twelve Apostles" attributed to St. Luke, etc.; I think there's something on the order of a dozen in total), in addition to other supplication prayers and other things. It does not contain the Anaphora of St. Marouta the Bishop. I can't seem to find that anywhere, though I haven't searched in Arabic yet and lack the necessary language input on my computer to search in Syriac. It would not surprise me if it is either no longer extant, or has survived in some modified form under a different name, or incorporated in part into a different text.

This got me thinking: The EO Church is rather famous for the liturgical 'Byzantinization' (this is the term that academia seems to use) that occurred to the Eastern Chalcedonians in the places such a Jerusalem over several centuries (for that, see, e.g., Galadza Liturgy and Byzantinization in Jerusalem, published 2018 by Oxford), so it makes sense that as this was the case, there would be some change to the worship in places on the periphery of Constantinople proper. In fact, I used to believe after corresponding with a few Egyptian Greeks online that the worship of the Greeks in Egypt used to much more closely mirror the Coptic Orthodox worship (since that's what they said, and why would they assert such a thing if it weren't probably the case, given their ecclesiastical affiliation?), presumably before the worship in Egypt was Byzantinized. [Other resources such as Margoliouth's Liturgy of the Nile (1896), have caused me to doubt this idea.]

In no case that I have personally looked into on this topic (primarily Jerusalem and Egypt so far) do I remember reading of the loss of entire anaphoras as appears to have happened to the Syriacs with the anaphora of Mor Marouta and definitely happened to the Copts in the Middle Ages with regard to numerous texts (I can't remember exactly when, I think it was circa 13th century around the time of the language switch in Egypt, but it absolutely did happen and is documented in the history of the Church), when our great diversity in anaphoras was replaced by the current situation of the three (St. Basil, St. Gregory, and St. Cyril/'Coptic Mark').

Is there a known history of such lost anaphoras in the EO Church? If so, where can we read or otherwise find out more about these, their authorship, their usage, their suppression, and so on? I'm no liturgist, but I find this topic to be very interesting, as it shines a light onto our past and is a valuable way to chart the development of our liturgies and our (respective) churches.

 

[AMM]

I also think this is interesting. Anaphora and epiclesis prayers fascinate me, since they’re not something that’s found in my personal history in Lutheranism (they just say the Words of Institution), so when I was first getting into theological readings and study, it’s not something I had even thought about much (well... that’s not entirely true) until becoming Orthodox. I’ve not done much research on it, but I am definitely interested in the topic.

What’s that book called with the Syriac Anaphoras? Does it have any history of those anaphoras, or is it pretty much just the text and prayers of each?

 

[ArmyMatt]

I would assume so, but probably these would be before Sts Basil and John Chrysostom. I think the NPNF has earlier anaphoras.

 

[dzheremi]

I also think this is interesting. Anaphora and epiclesis prayers fascinate me, since they’re not something that’s found in my personal history in Lutheranism (they just say the Words of Institution), so when I was first getting into theological readings and study, it’s not something I had even thought about much (well... that’s not entirely true) until becoming Orthodox. I’ve not done much research on it, but I am definitely interested in the topic.

What’s that book called with the Syriac Anaphoras? Does it have any history of those anaphoras, or is it pretty much just the text and prayers of each?

It's just called "Anaphoras" or "The Book of Divine Liturgies". It's a big red book with "Anaphoras" across the front in classical Syriac (Estrangelo) script in gold, and the longer title in English at the bottom. Looks like this:

It is the texts of the anaphoras themselves, so aside from one reference to commentaries written by Moses Bar Kepha (d. 903) and Dionysius Bar Salibi (d. 1171), you won't find any reference to sources for study on their content. In fact, I've never read either of those commentaries, so I can't say if they contain that information either. I'd imagine that for that sort of thing, you'd do better to look at places like Beth Mardutho (The Syriac Institute) or any of the other places you can access via the links at syriac-anaphoras.org.