By the way, speaking of Eastern Orthodox divine liturgies, the seldom used Divine Liturgy of St. Mark, which like its Coptic translation the Divine Liturgy of St. Cyril, is derived from the ancient Alexandrian liturgy we see in tne 2nd century Strasbourg Papyrus and the Euchologion of St. Serapion of Thmuis* features two Epiclesis, one before the Institution Narrative and one after, which sets the ancient Alexandrian liturgy apart from the Antiochene/Byzantine/Hagiopolitan, East Syriac, Roman and Gallican liturgies, and as I mentioned previously it is along with the East Syriac Divine Liturgy of Addai and Mari a contender for the oldest liturgy in terms of textual attestation.
Just as the use of the Divine Liturgy of St. James has increased in recent years, with the splendid new ROCOR translation from Holy Trinity in Jordanville containing both the ordinary and Presanctified forms (the latter probably derived from the now lost Syriac Orthodox presanctified liturgy, since there is reason to believe that, like the hymn Ho Monogenes, the practice of Presanctification originated with St. Severus of Antioch**, I wish there was more use of the Divine Liturgy of St. Mark, especially since unlike that of St. James, the 1890 edition from the Patriarchate of Alexandria couples it with the same synaxis as used by the Divine Liturgies of St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom (differing only in one respect - the prayers normally prayed quitely by the Priest during the three Antiphons or Typical Psalms are taken from older recensions of the St. Mark liturgy, differing from those found in the other liturgies using that synaxis, which also includes the very obscure Divine Liturgy of St. Peter, which takes the Roman Canon and attaches it to the Byzantine synaxis, and also due to Byzantine influence, the Armenian Apostolic Anaphora of St. Athanasius, which is a recension of the Anaphora from the Divine Liturgy of St. James.
Thus, since the only parts of the Divine Liturgy of St. Mark which differ from the liturgies of St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom are in the prayers usually said quietly by the priest, this liturgy is actually ”drop-in compatible”, in that a priest could probably serve it without anyone noticing. It would be especially appropriate for the feast days of St. Mark the Evangelist, St. Peter the martyred Pope of Alexandria, his successor St. Alexander, who is a confessor, having been tortured in the Diocletian persecution, and his successor St. Athanasius the Great, and then St. Cyril the Great, who defended the Church from Nestorius just as St. Athanasius defended the church from Arius (and also translated this liturgy and other services into Coptic, which was important since we have strong reason to believe that some heretical sects were already publishing manuscripts in Coptic at that time, like the Manichaens and other Egyptian Gnostics, and St. Anthony the Great and most of the early Desert Fathers were Copts). The Divine Liturgy of St. Mark was used by all of these illustrious men of the church, just as St. John Chrysostom used the Anaphora of the Twelve Apostles, the ancient liturgy of Alexandria, which the Byzantine liturgy of his is almost identical to (just slightly more eloquent, which one would expect).
Interestigly the Syriac Orthodox Anaphora of St. John Chrysostom is unrelated, but they still have the Anaphora of the Twelve Apostles; likewise their Anaphora of St. Mark is completely different from the ancient Alexandrian one, but they have a version of it, under the name of St. Cyril due to their close relations with the Copts. The Syriac Orthodox version of the Divine Liturgy of St. James is much closer to the Byzantine version, although it lacks the hymn “Let all mortal flesh keep silent.”
One thing I love about the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox liturgies is they leave absolutely no doubt that the congregation is partaking of the actual Body and Blood of our Lord. This is accomplished in the Syriac church through the diaconal chant “how awful and dreadful is this moment when the Holy Spirit takes wings and descends upon the gifts, changing them into the body and blood of our Savior” at the opening of the Anaphora, quoted above, and in the Coptic and Byzantine Rites through a confiteor ante communionem. “i believe, O Lord, that this is truly thy precious body...” and the Coptic confiteor chanted by the celebrant:
Amen, Amen, Amen. I believe, I believe, I believe and confess to the last breath that this is the life-giving flesh that Your only-begotten Son, our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ, took from our lady, the lady of us all, the holy Theotokos, Saint Mary. He made it One with His divinity without mingling, without confusion, and without alteration. He confessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate. He gave it up for us upon the holy wood of the cross, of His own will, for us all. Truly I believe that His divinity parted not from His humanity for a single moment, nor a twinkling of an eye. Given for us for salvation, remission of sins, and eternal life to those who partake of Him. I believe, I believe, I believe that this is true. Amen.
Thus we have in one confiteor a repudiation of both the error that the Eucharist is not the actual body and blood of our Lord, and the error of Nestorianism.
The Byzantine Rite also has the powerful intonation said after the Epiclesis “Thine Own of Thine Own, we offer unto Thee, on behalf of all and for all.” This is exquisite, although some churches change the wording to “Your own of your own” in a needless attempt to make the liturgy easier to understand, even while leaving the text of the Lord’s Prayer untouched from the KJV version, which does not working for me. However the Oriental Orthodox as one can tell from the translation above use simplified translations even more excessively; fortunately I do have a Coptic Euchologion with more traditional English in my library. I am curious if my dear friends
@dzheremi or
@Pavel Mosko have heard the Coptic liturgy in more traditional English.
The Syriac Orthodox conclude the liturgy with the beautiful metrical homily or confessional hymn Haw Nurone, by St. Jacob of Sarugh, who I regard as the Flute of the Spirit and successor to St. Ephrem the Syrian, and not his rather Nestorian rival Mar Narsai:
The Lord Whom the seraphs fear to look at,
The same you behold in bread and wine on the altar.
The lightning clothed hosts are burned if they see Him in His brilliance.
Yet the contemptible dust partakes of Him with confidence.
The Son's Mysteries are fire among the heavenly beings,
Isaiah bears witness with us to have seen them.
These Mysteries which were in the Divinity's bosom,
Are distributed to Adam's children on the altar.
The altar is fashioned like the cherubim's chariot,
And is surrounded by the heavenly hosts.
On the altar is laid the Body of God's Son,
And Adam's children carry it solemnly on their hands.
Instead of a man clad in linen, stands the (priest),
And distributes alms (the Eucharist) among the needy.
If envy existed among the angels,
The cherubim would have envied men.
Where Zion set up the Cross to crucify the Son,
There grew up the tree that gave birth to the Lamb.
Where nails were driven in the Son's hands,
There Isaac's hands were bound for an offering.
Welcome, priest, who carries the Mysteries of his Lord,
And with his right hand distributes life to men.
Welcome, priest, who carries a pure censer,
And with its fragrance makes the world sweet and pleasant.
Welcome, priest, whom the Holy Spirit did raise up,
And on his tongue bears the keys to the house of God.
Welcome, priest, who binds man in the depth below,
And the Lord binds him in heaven on high. Halleluiah.
Welcome, priest, who unbinds men on earth,
And the Lord unbinds him in the highest. Kyrie eleison.
Praise be to the Lord. His mercy upon you and absolution for me.
And good commemoration to Mor Jacob the malphono.
*This was used by Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus a few years ago - I would love to see a translation of his recension because the text in the Euchologion contains only the Bishop’s parts)
** St. Severus is a saint who ought to be on the Eastern Orthodox calendar since it is now established that historically the Oriental Orthodox were confused with the Eutychian monophysites, who were anathematized by the OO and the Chalcedonians, and the Oriental Orthodox never had a patriarch embrace iconoclasm, and we also now know that St. Isaac the Syrian was a member of the Church of the East when their theology was in some respects less orthodox than it is today, despite the attempts of some traditionalists to discredit the scholarship of Sebastian Brock and others.