The mass

[The Liturgist]

The Trent mass became the common form of the mass sometime after the council of Trent (this may have varied from country to country and district to district). It remained the common form of the mass until sometime after the second Vatican council (this may have varied from country to country and district to district).

That’s true, but the differences between the Tridentine mass and the pre-Tridentine masses range from subtle, such as in the case of the Dominican, Carmelite and Sarum rites, to almost non-existant, in the case of the Roman Rite as celebrated in the Vatican prior to Trent.

Additionally, the first attempt at creating a standard use of the mass in the Western Church, (after Charlemagne imposed the Roman Rite everywhere, but it was not imposed in a uniform manner) the proto-Tridentine mass, was really the Dominican Rite mass, which was a recension or use of the Roman Rite written so that Dominican friars would not have to learn the subtle differences between different local uses of the Roman Rite in different archdioceses throughout the Roman church.

The Dominican Rite and other uses compiled for the same purpose, such as the Norbertine Rite and Carmelite Rite, as well as the Roman Rite of the same era, had come to be a synthesis of Roman and Gallican influence, since the Old Roman Rite, up to through the sixth century, was extremely conservative. Indeed the origins of the Ambrosian Rite are legendary: St. Ambrose of Milan introduced antiphonal singing during a vigil he held in a basilica in Milan which in an odd departure from Orthodoxy, Emperor Theodosius wanted to turn over to the Arians. This was intolerable to St. Ambrose, so he organized his laity and they occupied the church with a vigil until the Emperor relented. At the time, the Roman church primarily chanted in monotone (one can still here a form of monotone chant in how in many Church Slavonic churches the ordinary hours of Terce and Sext are intoned; the Byzantines and Antiochians do these with a mix of reading and chanting with a bit more flair, which is one of the areas where I prefer Syro-Byzantine praxis to Slavonic praxis; usually I prefer the Slavonic way of doing things, especially when one factors in the Violakis Typikon.

At any rate, St. Ambrose of Milan introduced antiphonal singing, “In the manner of the Eastern Churches” “lest the people perish in soulless monotony.” Additionally St. Ambrose wrote a large number of the oldest hymns of the Roman Rite, while the Eastern Rite already had hymns by this point aplenty.

The Western rites continued to chant the Low Mass in monotone until the ninth century, when the custom changed to celebrating it in silence, except in France, where the prevailing approach is to celebrate it with an organ accompaniment, which I quite like.

 

[The Liturgist]

In the Service of the word, I see no reference to either a sermon or homily that would almost always be part of a public celebration.


Interestingly, in our Lutheran Mass, the structure is very similar and even identical in some of the segments. While the Novus Ordo pretty much as it stands follows the same basic structure as the Lutheran Mass, many of the things that are carried over from the pre Trent Mass in the extraordinary form were retained in the Lutheran Mass and still are among the more traditional and conservative Synods..

The Lutheran rite in its historic Latin form is so similiar to the traditional Latin mass that the music is basically interchangeable - indeed Bach is arguably more useful for purposes of the Tridentine mass than contemporary Lutheran worship since unfortunately Latin services in the Lutheran churches have become uncommon, except in a few places such as the Thomaskirche in Leipzig.

While supporting a vernacular liturgy, Martin Luther was not opposed to the continuation of the Latin liturgy, and the Lutheran Mass in Latin is basically a use of the Roman Rite.

This is particularly true in the case of those high church Lutherans such as the early Church of Sweden which disagreed with Martin Luther about the Canon, or anaphora, and did not remove it from the mass. I myself do not understand why Luther wanted to remove the canon other than it being some misguided attempt to push back against Roman Clericalism, which I would understand, but I still disagree with it. Indeed, the main area where I think the Anglican liturgy is superior to the early Lutheran liturgies is that it reformed and clarified the Eucharistic prayer and made it audible once more, as it had been in the Low Mass prior to the ninth century, so that the laity could be edified by it, and I feel this is the approach Luther should have taken.

This is also the approach the Ukrainian Lutherans take in their recension of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, which nonetheless I feel cuts too much, and needlessly so, since there is very little in the ancient liturgy of Antioch that a Lutheran would have cause to object to.

There is even less in the ancient liturgy of Alexandria, which has two epiklesis, one of which is placed before the Words of Institution, like in the Roman Mass, which would avoid threatening the Western idea that the Words of Institution are what is consecratory.

It should be stressed on this point however that not all Eastern Christians will say that it is the epiklesis that is consecratory, by itself. Rather, going back to the fourth century, one will find Church Fathers who regard the entire Divine Liturgy as consecratory, which is why the Divine Liturgy is always celebrated with the Prothesis (the Liturgy of Preparation) and the Synaxis (the Liturgy of the Catechumens, also known as “The Liturgy of the Word”), followed by the Anaphora.

Indeed if one does not have a priest present, one can celebrate the Syanxis by itself, which is called a Typika service, which directly corresponds with the Anglican service of Antecommunion, and the Roman Missa Sicca or Missa Venatoris, or the various Protestant and Lutheran services, such as the one included in the 2006 Lutheran Service Book, which have the same scripture lessons as the Mass, but which do not have the Eucharist.

In Orthodoxy there are some cases where a Typika is required even if a priest is present, so there are a few different types of Typika Services - there are Reader Services, which can be celebrated by the laity with no clergy, not even a reader, contrary to what the name might suggest, and there are Typika services said by the clergy, which might be used, for example, on the morning of a day when a Vesperal Divine Liturgy will be celebrated, or was celebrated the night before, since Vesperal Divine Liturgies include Vespers, which marks the end of one liturgical day and the start of another, and in Orthodoxy, the rule is one liturgy per altar, per priest, per day. One common occasion for the use of a Typika is the morning of Christmas Eve.

At any rate I hope you enjoyed and found edifying this grand tour of Eastern and Western liturgical traditions. Please pray for me, because I had a nasty fall on Thursday morning, two atually, because I fell and hit my hand after falling and twisting my ankle, on some unstable crumbling asphalt, which resulted in very painful asphalt-smelling wounds to my hands, my knees and my elbow. I am not complaining, of course, because I am extremely thankful to Christ our True God and my guardian angel and our glorious Lady Theotokos for protecting me and ensuring that I did not hit my head and get conked out, or worse, or break anything, as those falls were nasty and could have been a lot worse. So I would ask everyone to pray that I continue to recover while joining me in thanking God, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and his Heavenly Host, especially my guardian angel, and the Theotokos and all the saints, for the fact that I was not more seriously injured.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Indeed if one does not have a priest present, one can celebrate the Syanxis by itself, which is called a Typika service, which directly corresponds with the Anglican service of Antecommunion, and the Roman Missa Sicca or Missa Venatoris, or the various Protestant and Lutheran services, such as the one included in the 2006 Lutheran Service Book, which have the same scripture lessons as the Mass, but which do not have the Eucharist.

Many Confessional Lutherans would also call this the Misae Ante Communio; as this is indeed the Mass without communion

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Many Confessional Lutherans would also call this the Misae Ante Communio; as this is indeed the Mass without communion

I do not think Catholics have such a thing as a mass without communion. We do have communion without a mass, Good Friday being one example.

 

[The Liturgist]

Many Confessional Lutherans would also call this the Misae Ante Communio; as this is indeed the Mass without communion

Ante Communio means “before communion” the idea in Anglicanism being that these services were to prepare you for the Eucharist, whether you were receiving it that Sunday or on a subsequent Sunday. The old BCP contains two prayers in which the minister warns everyone he is going to serve the Eucharist and to prepare, which is when you think about it a bit strange, but in general, the past thousand years saw a lot of peculiarity with the Eucharist, but those vices have now been replaced by new vices, such as casual communion and peer pressure to communicate.

 

[The Liturgist]

I do not think Catholics have such a thing as a mass without communion. We do have communion without a mass, Good Friday being one example.

You do, even today in Carthusian monasteries, where choir monks (who are ordained priests) attend a conventual mass, which was revised post-Vatican II to some extent, although not all Charterhouses (Carthusian monasteries) adopted the revised form, and then pray a Missa Sicca, or dry mass, from their hermitages.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

You do, even today in Carthusian monasteries, where choir monks (who are ordained priests) attend a conventual mass, which was revised post-Vatican II to some extent, although not all Charterhouses (Carthusian monasteries) adopted the revised form, and then pray a Missa Sicca, or dry mass, from their hermitages.

Wikipedia says:

The Missa sicca (Latin for 'dry Mass') was a form of Catholic devotion used in the medieval Catholic Church when a full Mass could not be said, such as for funerals or marriages in the afternoon after a priest had already said Mass earlier that morning. It consisted of all components of the Mass except the Offertory, Consecration and Communion.(Durandus, "Rationale", IV, i, 23)​

​

Specific types of Missa sicca included Missa nautica, said at sea in rough weather, and Missa venatoria, said for hunters in a hurry. In some monasteries each priest was also obliged to say a dry Mass after the conventual Mass.​

​

Cardinal Giovanni Bona (Rerum liturg. libr. duo, I, xv) argued against the practice of saying dry Masses. Following the reform of Pope Pius V, it gradually disappeared.​

Missa sicca - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[The Liturgist]

Wikipedia says:

The Missa sicca (Latin for 'dry Mass') was a form of Catholic devotion used in the medieval Catholic Church when a full Mass could not be said, such as for funerals or marriages in the afternoon after a priest had already said Mass earlier that morning. It consisted of all components of the Mass except the Offertory, Consecration and Communion.(Durandus, "Rationale", IV, i, 23)​

​

Specific types of Missa sicca included Missa nautica, said at sea in rough weather, and Missa venatoria, said for hunters in a hurry. In some monasteries each priest was also obliged to say a dry Mass after the conventual Mass.​

​

Cardinal Giovanni Bona (Rerum liturg. libr. duo, I, xv) argued against the practice of saying dry Masses. Following the reform of Pope Pius V, it gradually disappeared.​

Missa sicca - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That’s accurate as far as the public celebration of the mass is concerned, but it is inaccurate ovrall. The Carthusians, who are semi-hermits, what in Eastern Orthodox we would call idiorythmic monks (well, kind of, except that Carthusian choir monks are all priests, and there are lay brothers who are not priests who basically exist to feed the choir monks and take care of them, and historically the choir monks would engage in important work such as duplicating manuscripts, and now their focus is on uninterrupted prayer) still celebrate these masses, in private, and the reason for that is because they are hermits, and being alone in their rather spacious hermitages, they do not have an altar server or the means of celebrating the mass per se, so it is via the Missa Sicca that the Carthusians discharge their obligation to say mass daily.

However, they also attend a daily conventual mass, which is sung, and that mass will be celebrated by choir monks serving as the priest, deacon and subdeacon. However, a Charterhouse might have twenty or more choir monks, so for those who did not celebrate the Conventual Mass, they must pray the Missa Sicca.

 

[Bob Crowley]

Off topic a bit, but when I was a new Catholic, I wondered why they called the Catholic service the "Mass".

Apparently it's a distortion of the final dismissal "Ite Missa est". "Missa" became "Mass".

https://clarionherald.org/news/the-mass-explained-final-blessing-and-dismissal#:~:text=The%20priest%20then%20gives%20us,it%20carries%20the%20sense%20of

The priest then gives us a blessing by invoking the Sign of the Cross and finally, we come to the words, “Ite Missa est.” In the new translation, these words are rendered most literally as, “Go forth, the Mass is ended.” The Latin word “Missa” is the derivative of the English word “Mass,” and it carries the sense of mission.

 

[The Liturgist]

No.

Mea culpa.

 

[The Liturgist]

We do have communion without a mass, Good Friday being one example.

I don’t know about the current Novus Ordo, although I shall look into it, but in the Vetus Ordo, the Tridentine Mass, Good Friday did have a Mass, the Mass of the Presanctified, which corresponds to the Mass of the Presanctified in the Eastern Orthodox tradition and to the Signing of the Chalice in the Syriac Orthodox liturgy (which at present is being celebrated only by the Malankara Independent Syrian Church). There were, before Turkocratia, presanctified liturgies in the Armenian and Coptic Orthodox liturgies, and it is thought that the curious liturgy in the Coptic Euchologion known as the “Filling of the Chalice” is one such liturgy (I had misread it, and incorrectly assumed it was a liturgy for consecrating additional bread and wine in the event the celebrants ran out of the sacred Body and Blood of our Lord).

Now, there are two surviving forms of the Liturgy of the Presanctified in Eastern Orthdooxy: the Presanctified Liturgy of St. James, a new critical English and Church Slavonic edition of which, along with the Divine Liturgy of St. James, was recently published by Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, New York (which is also the main ROCOR seminary), where this Presanctified Liturgy has been celebrated in recent years, but this one of those obscure Eastern Orthodox liturgies not widely used, and indeed, sadly most Orthodox Christians are not aware they exist, even those who have attended the Divine Liturgy of St. James, which itself rare, but some churches do celebrate it on the 23rd of October each year. The Presanctified Liturgy of St. James, along with the Divine Liturgy of St. Mark, the Divine Liturgy of St. Peter and indeed the Divine Liturgy of St. James itself is one of those liturgies that ideally would be widely celebrated by Orthodox parishes, but which at present are sadly confined to occasional celebrations in monasteries, seminaries and some cathedrals where the bishop has an interest in them, almost on a par with the beautiful Mozarabic Rite liturgy, which in the 19th century was still celebrated in a handful of parishes in Toledo, but is now celebrated only in a chapel specifically set aside for that purpose, and also, I have heard, in a nearby monastery, although Pope John Paul II did celebrate the liturgy in St. Peter’s Basillica in the 1990s, but despite this endorsement, the ancient liturgy of Spain survives outside the museum set aside for it only in certain aspects of the traditional marriage liturgy as it was celebrated in Mexico and other Latin American countries. Likewise, the traditional, pre-1969 recension of the Ambrosian Rite liturgy of Milan is celebrated in only one church that was reserved for that purpose, which is inadequate for the millions of people who observe it, since the Ambrosian RIte is the second most widely used liturgical rite in the Patriarchate of the West. But I digress.

Whereas the seldom-celebrated Presanctified Liturgy of St. James is a normal liturgy, intended to be celebrated in the morning (customarily following Terce and Sext) and is no longer in common use, the Presanctified Liturgy of St. Gregory Diologos, also known as Pope St. Gregory the Great, is used by nearly every Eastern Orthodox parish, and also by most Byzantine Rite Catholic churches, and is a Vesperal Liturgy, which is traditionally preceded by the third, sixth and ninth hours during Holy Week (albeit it is usually served in the morning, and it is only served on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, with the Vesperal Divine Liturgy of St. Basil on the morning of Maundy Thursday and Holy Saturday, and no Eucharistic liturgy at all, nor any partaking of the liturgy, on Great and Holy Friday) and which is actually served in the evening during the Great Lent.

The wording of the core of this liturgy is identical to that of the Mass of the Presanctified as it was celebrated on Good Friday until 1955, which makes sense, as the Roman Mass of the Presanctified, along with Gregorian Chant, was recognized as one of the liturgical contributions of Pope St. Gregory the Great. in 1955, Pope Pius XII engaged in an ill-advised modification of the Paschal Triduum, in which he changed the liturgical color of Good Friday from black to red (historically, black vestments are traditional in Holy Week except on Holy Thursday, in not only the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, but also the Coptic Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox churches - I will verify the Armenian practice but I expect it is the same), and completely rewrote the Mass of the Presanctified, and he also moved the Paschal Vigil Mass from its traditional time on Saturday morning (which sounds counter-intuitive until one understands the reason for it, which is to facilitate the Midnight Mass on Easter Sunday, which is preceded by Paschal Matins, and in the Roman Rite under Pius XII, an attempt to restore this was confused, resulting in celebrating Paschal Vigils in the evening of Holy Saturday.

The problem is of course that Matins for Holy Saturday is a traditional part of the Good Friday liturgy, and is traditionally the time for the triumphant hymns celebrating the victory of Christ on the cross, after the more solemn portion of the liturgy being the Royal Hours and Vespers (the Tenebrae services in the Latin Rite correspond to the Twelve Gospels Service, which features lighting similar to that of the Tenebrae Hearse, which happens on Maundy Thursday at Vespers, which is the start of Good Friday, and at Vespers on Good Friday, which is the start of Holy Saturday). Also, Pope Pius XII reduced the number of Old Testament prophecies read at Paschal Vigils from twelve to four (at least fourteen prophecies are still read in the Vesperal Divine Liturgy on the morning of Holy Saturday in the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Rite Catholic churches).

The reason for the large number of Old Testament lessons at these masses is twofold: this is the occasion for reading the clearest prophecies in the Old Testament of the passion and resurrection of Christ our True God, and also, these were, and still are, read during the baptism of catechumens (for this reason, during the Divine Liturgies and Presanctified Liturgies of Holy Week, in addition to the Litany for the Catechumens, an extra set of prayers, the Litany for the Energumens, is read - Energumens, or in English, “Those Awaiting Illumination” are catechumens who have completed their Catechumenate and are ready to receive Illumination in the form of Baptism. Indeed, additional prophecies would be read if needed according to the number of catechumens being baptized. There is a specific benefit to those catechumens who are being baptized hearing these prophecies at this time, as it helps to eviscerate any remaining doubt as to the truth of the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Now, I was under the impression that the Novus Ordo had restored the Mass of the Presanctified in part, so that the wording of it once again resembled that of the Liturgy of the Presanctified of St. Gregory the Dialogist, but your statement of “receiving communion without the mass” is concerning.

Historically, in the Roman Rite, only the priest would partake of the Eucharist at the Mass of the Presanctified, and at Solemn High Masses - I am not sure if the latter remains the case even in the Traditional Latin Mass, and it is not the case in the Missa Cantata, which has many similarities with a High Mass, such as the reading of the Last Gospel and the omission of the Leonine Prayers, despite in terms of the actual text of the liturgy being closer to a Low Mass, which was the means by which most Roman Catholics partook of the Eucharist. I do not object to a change in this (for that matter, I think Vatican II was right to introduce communion in both kinds, but unfortunately the Concilium under Annibale Bugnini failed us here as well, by not mandating communion in both kinds, which is almost as much of a failure in my opinion as their ignoring the instruction of Sacrosanctum Concilium to ensure that Latin remained an integral part of the mass - as i have said repeatedly, the only part of Sacrosanctum Concilium I disagree with was the strange decision to suppress the hour of Prime, particularly given its historic significance; as i see it, merging Lauds and Matins into a single office would have made much more sense, particularly insofar as the Western Rite is unique in keeping these separate; specifically, Lauds could have been made a part of Matins, but I digress.

However, Sacrosanctum Concilium did not call for anything quite as radical as what Pope Pius XII did to the Paschal Triduum, which had the effect of destroying the historic continuity between it and the Byzantine Rite liturgy in use by Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. And this is particularly tragic in the case of the Mass of the Presanctified, which is the one place where the Roman Rite and the Byzantine Rite were word-for-word identical, with a clear attestation to Pope St. Gregory the Great, who was the last Roman Catholic Pope to be venerated as a major saint in the Eastern Orthodox church.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

I don’t know about the current Novus Ordo, although I shall look into it, but in the Vetus Ordo, the Tridentine Mass, Good Friday did have a Mass, the Mass of the Presanctified, which corresponds to the Mass of the Presanctified

The service on Good Friday is a communion service, not a mass, because a mass necessitates the recitation of the words of institution, which are not spoken on Good Friday. This applies to both the extraordinary and the ordinary forms of the mass. It is considered presanctified as the Mass of the Lord's Supper is celebrated on Holy Thursday, and the consecrated hosts from this mass are reserved for the communion service on Good Friday.

 

[The Liturgist]

not a mass, because a mass necessitates the recitation of the words of institution,

I can assure you I’m not the one who called it the “Mass of the Presanctified.”

And I haven’t heard of that definition before, and also I must confess I need to see what your source was for that, as it might be obsolete, insofar as the Roman Catholic Church recognizes Syriac Orthodox and Assyrian masses as valid, even though in many Syriac Orthodox masses the Words of Institution are paraphrased, and in the famous case of the Assyrian church, the Liturgy of Addai and Mari does not include the actual Words of Institution, but Pope Benedict XVI when he was Cardinal Prefect of the CDF declared it to be valid and that Chaldean Catholics could attend it, and vice versa, although he encouraged the Assyrian clergy to include the Words of Institution when Chaldeans were present to avoid confusion - but I have no idea whether any of them do that or not. I do know the Assyrian Church of the East is the only Eastern church that will always provide the Eucharist to Roman Catholics, and anyone else who confesses the Nicene Creed and a belief in the Real Presence

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

I can assure you I’m not the one who called it the “Mass of the Presanctified.”

And I haven’t heard of that definition before, and also I must confess I need to see what your source was for that, as it might be obsolete, insofar as the Roman Catholic Church recognizes Syriac Orthodox and Assyrian masses as valid, even though in many Syriac Orthodox masses the Words of Institution are paraphrased, and in the famous case of the Assyrian church, the Liturgy of Addai and Mari does not include the actual Words of Institution, but Pope Benedict XVI when he was Cardinal Prefect of the CDF declared it to be valid and that Chaldean Catholics could attend it, and vice versa, although he encouraged the Assyrian clergy to include the Words of Institution when Chaldeans were present to avoid confusion - but I have no idea whether any of them do that or not. I do know the Assyrian Church of the East is the only Eastern church that will always provide the Eucharist to Roman Catholics, and anyone else who confesses the Nicene Creed and a belief in the Real Presence

I have heard of it being called such by Conservative, Confessional Lutherans; its use is rare in our tradition, but not unheard of.

 

[The Liturgist]

I have heard of it being called such by Conservative, Confessional Lutherans; its use is rare in our tradition, but not unheard of.

I’m such a huge fan of the Presanctified Liturgy, my only regret is that we Orthodox only use it in Lent and Holy Week. I would love to see it during the other great fasts: the Apostles’ Fast, the Dormition Fast and of course Advent, which is a luxurious six week long fast in our tradition (and I have heard some Lutherans do a six week Advent also - actually every Liturgical rite except for the Roman Rite and the derivatives thereof, such as the various regional uses (Sarum, Lyonaise) and religious uses (Dominican, Carthusian) and Protestant derivatives (Anglican etc) has a six week Lent, including the other traditional Western rites that are still in use, the Mozarabic and Ambrosian.

The thing I love about the Presanctified is that, aside from the beautiful wording, and the hymns that are used for it in the Orthodox tradition (such as Let My Soul Arise, and Taste and See that the Lord Is Good , which are hauntingly beautiful in the Church Slavonic, it that it is an extremely powerful confession in the reality of the real presence and the real change in the Eucharist - a church that is receptionist, or which adheres to a Calvinist or Zwinglian understanding of the Eucharist would not be in a position to celebrate a Presanctified liturgy.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

The Lutheran rite in its historic Latin form is so similiar to the traditional Latin mass that the music is basically interchangeable - indeed Bach is arguably more useful for purposes of the Tridentine mass than contemporary Lutheran worship since unfortunately Latin services in the Lutheran churches have become uncommon, except in a few places such as the Thomaskirche in Leipzig.

While supporting a vernacular liturgy, Martin Luther was not opposed to the continuation of the Latin liturgy, and the Lutheran Mass in Latin is basically a use of the Roman Rite.

This is particularly true in the case of those high church Lutherans such as the early Church of Sweden which disagreed with Martin Luther about the Canon, or anaphora, and did not remove it from the mass. I myself do not understand why Luther wanted to remove the canon other than it being some misguided attempt to push back against Roman Clericalism, which I would understand, but I still disagree with it. Indeed, the main area where I think the Anglican liturgy is superior to the early Lutheran liturgies is that it reformed and clarified the Eucharistic prayer and made it audible once more, as it had been in the Low Mass prior to the ninth century, so that the laity could be edified by it, and I feel this is the approach Luther should have taken.

This is also the approach the Ukrainian Lutherans take in their recension of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, which nonetheless I feel cuts too much, and needlessly so, since there is very little in the ancient liturgy of Antioch that a Lutheran would have cause to object to.

There is even less in the ancient liturgy of Alexandria, which has two epiklesis, one of which is placed before the Words of Institution, like in the Roman Mass, which would avoid threatening the Western idea that the Words of Institution are what is consecratory.

It should be stressed on this point however that not all Eastern Christians will say that it is the epiklesis that is consecratory, by itself. Rather, going back to the fourth century, one will find Church Fathers who regard the entire Divine Liturgy as consecratory, which is why the Divine Liturgy is always celebrated with the Prothesis (the Liturgy of Preparation) and the Synaxis (the Liturgy of the Catechumens, also known as “The Liturgy of the Word”), followed by the Anaphora.

Indeed if one does not have a priest present, one can celebrate the Syanxis by itself, which is called a Typika service, which directly corresponds with the Anglican service of Antecommunion, and the Roman Missa Sicca or Missa Venatoris, or the various Protestant and Lutheran services, such as the one included in the 2006 Lutheran Service Book, which have the same scripture lessons as the Mass, but which do not have the Eucharist.

In Orthodoxy there are some cases where a Typika is required even if a priest is present, so there are a few different types of Typika Services - there are Reader Services, which can be celebrated by the laity with no clergy, not even a reader, contrary to what the name might suggest, and there are Typika services said by the clergy, which might be used, for example, on the morning of a day when a Vesperal Divine Liturgy will be celebrated, or was celebrated the night before, since Vesperal Divine Liturgies include Vespers, which marks the end of one liturgical day and the start of another, and in Orthodoxy, the rule is one liturgy per altar, per priest, per day. One common occasion for the use of a Typika is the morning of Christmas Eve.

At any rate I hope you enjoyed and found edifying this grand tour of Eastern and Western liturgical traditions. Please pray for me, because I had a nasty fall on Thursday morning, two atually, because I fell and hit my hand after falling and twisting my ankle, on some unstable crumbling asphalt, which resulted in very painful asphalt-smelling wounds to my hands, my knees and my elbow. I am not complaining, of course, because I am extremely thankful to Christ our True God and my guardian angel and our glorious Lady Theotokos for protecting me and ensuring that I did not hit my head and get conked out, or worse, or break anything, as those falls were nasty and could have been a lot worse. So I would ask everyone to pray that I continue to recover while joining me in thanking God, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and his Heavenly Host, especially my guardian angel, and the Theotokos and all the saints, for the fact that I was not more seriously injured.

Glad I am not a "Contemporary Lutheran".

 

[The Liturgist]

Glad I am not a "Contemporary Lutheran".

Me too! By the way did you say there was a traditional language variant of the Lutheran Service Book?

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Me too! By the way did you say there was a traditional language variant of the Lutheran Service Book?

Divine Service 3 in Lutheran Service Book. Or Page 15 in "The Lutheran Hymnal" (1941).

 

[The Liturgist]

Divine Service 3 in Lutheran Service Book. Or Page 15 in "The Lutheran Hymnal" (1941).

I love the 1941 Lutheran Hymnal, and also the 1959 Lutheran Hymnal and Service Book, which was the last good Lutheran liturgical book published until the LSB of 2006.