Transmitting the Orthodox Faith through the Liturgical Year: Why Liturgical uniformity is important !

By Archim. Photios Tsamis

This topic, which I initially presented at the annual 2023 Clergy Retreat of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Canada in Kingston from October 2 to 5, addresses two significant and interconnected themes for pastoral responsibility. To evaluate the transmission of the Orthodox Faith as an expression of ecclesiastical consciousness through the festive liturgical cycle, one must also grasp the importance of uniformity in the Church's rituals. Thus, it is essential first to explore the theology of divine worship and the Church's spiritual life, elucidating the significance of the holy place, the holy way, and the holy year.

This exploration helps clarify the transmission of the Orthodox Faith through the liturgical year, which is intrinsically linked to these three elements and closely tied to liturgical uniformity. This connection ensures that the God and Father of our Lord is glorified with one voice. Furthermore, it is crucial to consider the rich Byzantine tradition and the historical factors that shaped and solidified the current Typikon of the Orthodox Church, as practiced by the Church of Constantinople.

Ι. Transmitting the Orthodox Faith through the Liturgical Year.

Α. The divine worship and the spiritual life of the Church.

The mystagogic connection of the faith of the Church with the sacramental experience of the faithful members is reflected in divine worship, which is based on the Holy Eucharist and the sacramental life of the Church. From the day the Church was revealed to the world, the divine liturgy became the innermost and unchanging core of Christian worship. On the holy altar, the whole content of the Church's teaching and life is summed up in word and deed. Also, the teaching of the great Fathers formed the unshakable foundation upon which the ceremonial magnificence of the Byzantine tradition was based and crystallized.

Certainly, the divine liturgy was not only the unique and inexhaustible source of the entire spiritual life of the faithful but also the indisputable ecclesiastical criterion for guarding the unity of the Orthodox Church from non-religious and heterodox challenges. In this sense, the sacred temple was and always remains the holy place where the spiritual experience of the Orthodox Faith is experienced through divine worship.

Therefore, the main common traditional and inexhaustible source of transmitting the Orthodox Faith has proven to be divine worship, which expresses the redemptive message of hope in the face of the adversities of the world in every time and era. It grants comfort, protection, and reinforcement to believers facing their hard trials during troubled times. From this, of course, comes the inner unity of all the institutional functions of the Church and the Orthodox peoples. Indeed, the historical course of Orthodoxy, regardless of any personal weaknesses, preserved and still preserves the celebration of the holy altar uninterrupted so that the sacramental table of the Christian flock never ceases to be celebrated as its spiritual cohesion is constantly strengthened amid the challenges of the contemporary world.

Thus, while the holy temple becomes the common place, divine worship proves to be the common way to preserve and transmit the Orthodoxy of the Faith. However, the struggle for the preservation of Orthodoxy undoubtedly gives rise to the phenomenon of adherence to ritual formulas in the form of liturgical uniformity, which weakens the spiritual radiation of the theological depth of divine worship but at the same time prevents any frivolous innovations or uncritical confusions in this sensitive area.

Β. Divine worship and the festive cycle of the Church.

Divine worship, as we have seen above, is the core of spiritual life. Through it, believers are strengthened in their struggle toward moral perfection. The paschal mystery of Christ and its personal experience by Christians during the celebration of divine worship is the center of the whole religious life of the Church, manifested in the daily, weekly, and annual cycle of the Year of the Lord.

The liturgical year of the Church began to take shape as early as apostolic times. In contrast to the Jewish Sabbath, Sunday was established as the first day of the week and the preeminent weekly Christian holiday during which the Resurrection of the Lord was celebrated.

Parallel to Sunday, the annual holidays were also established. The oldest annual holidays were Pascha, during which the passion and resurrection of the Lord were celebrated, and Pentecost, during which the descent of the Holy Spirit in the Church was celebrated. Pascha and Pentecost were the first great feasts of the annual cycle of the Church, summarizing the spiritual experience of the eighth day of creation, from the resurrection of the Lord to His glorious Presence at the end of times. The promise of the Presence of the Lord in His Church to the close of the age1 and the promise of sending the Holy Spirit as another Paraclete linked inextricably the Paschal mystery of Christ with the mystery of Pentecost in the overall spiritual life of the Church.

In the same spiritual context, Wednesday and Friday were established as fasting days from apostolic times because they were associated with important events of the holy passion. The Paschal interpretation of the weekly cycle was sealed by the anamnesis of the resurrection (Sunday) and the passion of Jesus Christ (Wednesday and Friday), indicating the way of living in Christ's redemptive path, summed up in the Holy Pascha.

The feast of the Theophany must have been established during the 3rd century as the feast of the manifestation of Christ in the world during His baptism. A first list of holidays is given by Tertullian2 and Origen3. From the 2nd century, every local church also celebrated the dies natalis4 of the martyrs, the day of the death of its martyrs during the persecutions.

C. The Orthodox Faith and the ecclesiastical consciousness of the faithful.

The Christ-centered ontology of the Church is clearly defined by the mystery of Christ and the mystery of Pentecost. The realization of the entire divine dispensation was sealed, on the one hand, with the person of Jesus Christ during His life in the world in a specific place, time, and era—starting from the day of the Annunciation of the Virgin when the Word became flesh5 up to the day of His Ascension into the heavens when He brought human nature before God and the Father and seated it at the right hand of the throne of God's glory. On the other hand, with the descent of the Holy Spirit as a fulfillment of His promise to the Apostles, revealing the Church as the body of Christ in the world and starting the Evangelization of the Nations. This consciousness of the disciples about the connection between the mystery of Christ and the mystery of the Church determines the deepest meaning of the spiritual life of Christians. Therefore, living in Christ is possible only through the link of the whole body of the Church with the life-giving breath of the Holy Spirit who welds together the whole institution of the Church6. In this sense, the participation of the faithful in the paschal mystery of Christ is amplified by the illumination of the Holy Spirit, who grants a variety of gifts and makes possible the rebirth of man in a new reality, that of Christ.

Therefore, the consciousness of the first Christians concerning the Church was certainly Christ-centered since the whole mystery of the divine dispensation, that is, the great mystery of piety, relates to the incarnation of the Word of God. But the authentic experience of the new reality for the realization of the Kingdom of God in the world is Spirit-centered. Therefore, in the sacramental experience of the faithful, the fullness of the mutual sharing of the paschal mystery of Christ with the mystery of Pentecost is experienced in every time and era to make possible the birth and formation of Christ in the life of every believer. In this way, the Church becomes the mother of the new generation of Christians, giving birth to the new humanity and renewing all creation.

This ecclesiological position is emphatically expressed by the apostle Paul as the relation between head and body. Christ is the Head of the Church, and the Church is His body. The faithful are the members of this body, which extends throughout the history of salvation until the end times 7. Christ, as the Head, joins and knits the whole body together by every joint with which it is supplied when each part is working properly, making bodily growth and upbuilding itself in love 8. The assembling of believers into the body of Christ takes place with the sacraments of baptism and chrismation and is experienced continuously in the Holy Eucharist.

Thus, the Holy Eucharist has been the center of the spiritual life of every Christian community since the apostolic era. The entire religious life of the faithful is connected to it, and through it, their union with Christ—the Head of the Church—is experienced. The role model for believers is, of course, the Lord Himself, who is also the center of their entire spiritual life, since anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him. But if Christ is in us, although our bodies die because of sin, our spirits are alive because of righteousness9, and this is because our bodies are members of Christ 10.

Therefore, the faithful, when they put on Christ through baptism, become innate and partakers of Christ's life and His holiness; they are revived in the new man who is constantly renewed according to the image of its Creator 11, Jesus Christ, and live the new life under the guidance of the Holy Spirit 12until Christ is formed in them 13. This Christ-centered view of the spiritual life makes it clear that we must do whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious—if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise 14. The moral teaching of Christians certainly enumerates specific virtues, not in the sense of recording an exhaustive system of ethics, but mainly in the sense of a more direct application of the sermon for salvation in the life in Christ for the formation of the image of Christ in our person.

Therefore, the inclusion of the faithful in the body of Christ through baptism, chrismation, and the Holy Eucharist establishes the Christ-centered interpretation of the entire spiritual life of Christians who, in this way, experience the entire content of the Orthodox faith in all aspects of their lives. In this sense, the divine grace and gifts of the Holy Spirit highlight the appeal of the faithful to achieve their spiritual perfection through their liturgical connection with the whole body of the local church. At the same time, the moral life of the faithful has as its model the life of Christ Himself. It is true that the first Christians were fully aware that they were of the same body and the same blood with Christ through their participation in the divine liturgy. By observing the apostolic commandments and the teaching of the Church, they strived to rise to the highest possible moral perfection, to become imitators of the life of Christ. This constant struggle for moral perfection strengthened the hope of salvation and their conviction that they are sojourners 15 in this world. This transmission of the Orthodox faith by Christians over the centuries produced rich fruits for the Church, determining its attitude towards the world and its love towards all humanity, according to the example of God’s love.

D. Holy Time for the Divine Worship.16

The triumph of Christianity in the 4th century marked the end of the early Christian period and the beginning of a long, continuous evolutionary course of divine worship, which is impossible to trace from the sources and manuscripts. It is undeniable, however, that this formative period also led to the consolidation of the festive year of the Church, expressed in the annual, weekly, and daily cycle of divine worship.

The center of the weekly cycle of divine worship, as aforementioned, was and remains Sunday as an extension of the Pascha, while at the same time the Church linked Wednesday and Friday with the events of the Divine Passion. The daily cycle followed the same path, interpreting the events of Pentecost (Third Hour), the Crucifixion (Sixth Hour), and the Death of Christ (Ninth Hour) with the Service of Hours 17. The doxology for the coming of Christ into the world as the True Light (First Hour) refers to the Resurrection of Christ but also has eschatological implications.

Undoubtedly, the feast of Pascha became the center of a very wide cycle of celebration and worship, which extended fifty days before and about sixty days after the feast. Based on the Paschal holiday, the following holidays were formed during the Byzantine period of the evolution of the liturgical cycle of the Church: a) Palm Sunday, b) Lazarus Saturday, c) Thomas Sunday, d) Ascension, and e) Transfiguration.

The feast of Christ’s Nativity was established as it is today (December 25) during the 4th century after it was distinguished from the feast of Theophany (January 6) and introduced a new cycle of feasts in the Liturgical Year: a) The feast of Theophany or Epiphany as a celebration no longer of the appearance of Christ during his baptism in the Jordan but of the Holy Trinity, b) the Circumcision of Christ, c) the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple, d) the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and e) the birth of the Forerunner and his beheading.

However, parallel to these two main axes around which the calendar of the Church was formed, both in the movable and stable cycle of the liturgical year, the Theometorical feasts were established, mainly because of the Third Ecumenical Council (431 AD). Indeed, the Holiness of the Virgin Mary was proclaimed by the Council's decisions and was consolidated by establishing a special festive cycle: a) the feast of the Annunciation of the Theotokos, b) the feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos, and c) the feast of the Birth of the Theotokos. The Presentation of the Lord, a feast day for Christ, was enriched from the 5th century and took on the content of a Theometorical feast.

The birthday of the martyrs of the local churches established during the 2nd century evolved into the festive cycle of the Apostles and Martyrs. The local character of these holidays led to the creation of the Martyrologies and the dissemination of the Lives of the Saints throughout the Church. Early on, three great feasts of this cycle were already established: a) of the holy Apostles, b) of the First Martyr Stephen, and c) of all the Martyrs, which evolved into the feast of All Saints.

ΙΙ. The importance of Liturgical Uniformity.

The topic of Liturgical uniformity stands between the Pauline position that all things should be done decently and in order 18 and the proverbial phrase as it pleases the Officiator 19. However, the problem with this subject is that if it’s taken as a system of ritual directives, it lacks its essential meaning since not even the officiants themselves understand the how and, mostly, the why of the importance of uniformity. However, if the question of uniformity is based on the spiritual life of the Church, it interprets both its importance and its value as a means of transmitting the Orthodox Faith through the Liturgical Year. In this sense, the issue of uniformity cannot be understood if the ecclesiastical consciousness of the importance of the celebrated events and the honored persons in the Church's festive cycle is not considered.

Indeed, as we have seen above, the evolution of divine worship was inextricably linked to the development of the spiritual life of the faithful, and it always functioned in relation to local traditions and historical changes. The immovable basis of the spiritual life of the Church was the anamnesis and the living in Christ, and this became the criterion both for the formation of the Liturgical Year and for the development of Divine Worship centered around the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. The consciousness of the first Christians was reflected in their desire to participate in the passion and resurrection of the Lord and was expressed in the enthusiastic tendencies of the early Christian period with the martyrdoms of Christians. Consequently, the martyrs became the genuine imitators of Christ's passion, and in this way, the creation of the local feasts of the saints began. The periods of doctrinal falsifications of the Orthodox Faith brought the great personalities of the Fathers, in whom the Church consciousness recognized the sanctity of life for the protection of Orthodoxy from dangerous heretics.

In this sense, the order of the holy services and sacraments followed a long evolutionary path, interpreted both by enthusiastic tendencies and by the constantly growing moral and spiritual life of the Church. The constantly evolving Liturgical Year of the Church provided relative freedom in investing the sacred way with the creative composition of hymns and ecclesiastical music inside the holy place. However, the Typikon of the Liturgy began to consolidate, with the demand for uniformity becoming more imperative whenever the Orthodoxy of the Faith was threatened by counterfeits and dangerous heretical groups.

Thus, while the Orthodoxy of the Faith was constantly renewing its spiritual wealth with the development of ecclesiastical education and art, it also sought to stabilize the order of Divine Liturgy on the basis of the handed-down tradition, indicating not only the way but also the reason for whom every sacrificial act is performed. This also led to the creation of the Typikon of the Holy Liturgy. Of course, contemporary scientific research does not yet have any evidence from manuscripts about the manner of celebrating sacraments before the 8th century. Even though there are sporadic references in the sources, it is impossible to group them into a single system of Typikon since the testimonies are minimal. Also, the liturgical sources between the 2nd and the 8th century provide only the texts of the blessings and the services without any Typikon.

The first testimony about how the Divine Liturgy was celebrated with an interpretation comes from the attributed work to the Patriarch of Constantinople Germanos I (+733), entitled: Ecclesiastical History and Mystical Theory 20. As an example, we mention the most important manuscripts of the 10th century as primary sources that testify to the existence of a system—and consequently—the need for a Typikon and uniformity in the Church of Constantinople. These are: The Typikon of the Great Church 21, the Codex of Isidore Pyromallis in its Latin translation by Johannisberg 22,De cerimoniisaulaeByzantinae 23 of Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, and the testimony of the Arab captive Harun Ibn-Yahya on the Imperial Procession in Hagia Sophia of Constantinople 24.

The recording of the Typikon continues until the appearance of the first printed editions of the Euchologion 25 in Venice in the 16th century and of the Archieratikon 26, ending up in the 19th-century editions and in the modern Typika, Priest’s Books, and other Liturgical Books of the Church. In the spirit of the above, the impressive edition of the liturgical books, with many corrections from time to time, highlighted the importance the Church gave to the issue of uniformity from a ritual point of view. However, the fixation on ritual uniformity seems to ignore the deeper theological and spiritual reason for its importance during each Liturgical Year.

For this reason, the importance of uniformity must be sought in the essence, which, as we saw above, has as its basic element the entire spiritual life of the Church. The imitation of Christ and consequently the imitation of the saints, the living in Christ and consequently the living in the saints, are the characteristics that express the consciousness of the Church every time it gathers as a body to offer Doxology and Eucharist to God and Father. This mimesis finds absolute application in the ecclesiological principle that everything we practice is what we received from the Lord and the Apostles 27. The Apostles, as the authentic preachers of the Gospel, handed down what they received to their successors. The succession of the Apostles in the function of each local church brought the order of Bishops, while the communion with the Head of the Diocese and obedience to him expressed the unity of the Church in the Holy Eucharist. Consequently, the communion of Bishops among themselves expressed the unity of the entire Church.

In this sense, the importance of uniformity must be understood between the saying of the apostle Paul about decency and order and obedience to the Officiant. There is no opposition between the two phrases, which bind together the ritual of the Church as long as their main exponent is the competent ecclesiastical authority of each place. In this way, uncritical deviations and arbitrariness will be avoided, which ultimately damage not only the self-awareness of the members of the Church but also its unity. These are also capable of causing contentious behavior with painful consequences in the body of the local church and the Church as a whole.

ΙΙΙ. Conclusions.

In this presentation, an attempt was made to present a rather sensitive and dual subject: on the one hand, the transmission of the Orthodox Faith through the Liturgical Year and, on the other hand, the importance of liturgical uniformity.

A. As we have seen, the frequency and spirituality of the participation of the faithful in divine worship strengthened the spread of the Orthodox Faith and the Christian ethos. The unshakable faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior and Redeemer of humanity, the healthy piety, the unassuming character, the simplicity, the decency, the unpretentiousness of the person, and the absolute commitment to the moral commands of the Lord and the Apostles adorn the Christians of every time.

B. The above resulted in the reverent adherence of Christians to honoring the martyrs and holy persons, shaping in this way the Liturgical Year of the Church and enriching the liturgical tradition through art with hymns and psalms, which glorify the Triune God, remind the faithful of the life of saints as a model of life in the adverse conditions of this world, and call them to imitate them as they imitated Christ.

C. Christ's obedience to the Father's will during His salvific work in the world is the model and cornerstone for the formation of ecclesiastical institutions. As Christ submitted to the Father's will, accepting the cup of martyrdom 28, in the same way, the saints accepted martyrdom for the sake of Christ and the Church.

D. The Keepers of the Orthodoxy of the Faith and the unity of the Church are those to whom the Christian flock owes obedience according to the above standard of the imitation of Christ and the saints. In this sense, the body of the Church, with its various gifts, must function in absolute harmony and order just as the choir of angels and saints functions in heaven where the Head of the Church is.

E. For this reason, the feasts celebrated in the holy temple, which bring the anamnesis of both the events of the life of Christ in the world and the life of the saints of each era, must be held uniformly by the local churches through obedience to the competent Ecclesiastical authority to preserve the Orthodoxy of the Faith and to continue to spread the Gospel through time.

As an epilogue to this presentation, we note the words of Saint Nicodemus the Athonite, noting that uniformity: brings order among Patriarchs, harmony among archbishops, decorum to the priests, modesty to the deacons, reverence for the clergy, the eurythmy to the monks, the required knowledge to the spiritual fathers for correction, the due honor to the rulers, and the proper Christian education of the Orthodox Peoples so that the earthly ecclesiastical hierarchy becomes an imitation and imprint of the heavenly hierarchy. Then both hierarchies become together as one, playing the same piece of music harmoniously and in instrumental harmony 29.

1 “and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen.” (Mt 28:20).

2 “The Pascha provides the day of most solemnity for baptism, for then was accomplished our Lord's passion […] After that, Pentecost is a most auspicious period for arranging baptisms.”, EVANS Ernest, Q. SeptimiiFlorentisTertulliani, De Baptismo Liber, “Tertullian’s Homily on Baptism, The Text edited with an Introduction, Translation and commentary by Ernest EVANS D.D. Oxford, Hon. D.D. Glasgow”, London 1964, p. 40-41.

3 “If it be objected to us on this subject that we ourselves are accustomed to observe certain days, as for example the Lord's day (Sunday), the Preparation (Παρασκευή - Friday), the Pascha, or Pentecost, I have to answer, that to the perfect Christian who is ever in his thoughts, words, and deeds serving his natural Lord, God the Word, all his days are the Lord's, and he is always keeping the Lord's day.” Origenes, Contra CelsumVIII:22, Translated by Frederick Crombie. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04168.htm (last consultation June 2024).

4 “There the Lord will permit us to come together according to our power in gladness and joy, and celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom, both in memory of those who have already contested, and for the practice and training of those whose fate it shall be.”(Martyrdom of PolycarpXVIII:3),The Apostolic Fathers with an English translation by Kirsopp Lake in two volumes, vol II, “The Shepherd of Hermas, The martyrdom of Polycarp, The Epistle to Diognetus”, London: William Heinemann, New York: The McMillan CO 1913, p. 337.

5 “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (Jn 1:14).

6 Idiomelon from Pentecost Vespers.

7 Cf Mt 28:20.

8 “that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” (Eph 4:14-16).

9 “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” (Rm 8:9-10).

0 “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not!”(1Cor 6:15).

11 “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him”(Col 3:3-10), Cf Eph 4:22-24.

12 “But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.” (Rm 7:6), Cf Rm6:3-4.

13 “My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you” (Gal 4:19).

14 “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” (Philip 4:8”).

15 “Christians […] dwell in their own fatherlands, but as if sojourners in them;” (The Epistle to Diognetus V:5),The Apostolic Fathers with an English translation by Kirsopp Lake in two volumes, vol II, “The Shepherd of Hermas, The martyrdom of Polycarp, The Epistle to Diognetus”, London: William Heinemann, New York: The McMillan CO 1913, p. 359.

16 Indicative ancient sources mentioned in the formation of the feasts include: the ecclesiastical historian Eusebius (Evangelical Demonstration I:10 and On the Paschal Feast), St. Athanasius the Great (Letter 28), the Pilgrimage of Egeria, the Apostolic Constitutions (V:20 and VIII:33), Gregory the Theologian (Oration 18:29), Gregory of Nyssa and St. John Chrysostom (Homily on the Ascension), St. Basil the Great (Homily on the Holy Nativity of Christ), Proclus of Constantinople (On the Circumcision of Christ), Hippolytus of Rome (On Daniel chapter 4), the Martyrologies, and the Encomiastic Orations of Ecclesiastical Writers from the 3rd century onwards. Indicative bibliography on the topic of the evolution of the Liturgical Year: DUCHESNE L., Origines du cultechrétien (1925), QUASTEN J., Monumentaeucharistica et liturgicavetutissima, vol. I, "FlorilegiumPatristicum 7" (1935), HOLLARD A., Les origines des fêtes chrétiennes (1936), LAURIN J.-R., Le lieu du culte chrétien d’après les documents littéraires primitifs, "Analecta Gregoriana 70" (1954).

17 Cf ΣΚΑΛΤΣΗ Ι. Παν., Οι ακολουθίες των Ωρών και των Μεσωρίων, «ΙΖ’ Πανελλήνιο Λειτουργικό Συμπόσιο Στελεχών Ιερών Μητροπόλεων », Κόρινθος 2018, p. 4 (where the indicative Bibliography and the relative reference to the sources).

18 “Let all things be done decently and in order.”(1Cor 14:40).

19 This expression can be found in many Greek Liturgical Books like the Triodion. For example, it appears on the Monday Matins of the 1 st week of the Holy and Great Lent.

20 GERMANOS Patriarch of Constantinople, On the Divine Liturgy, edition and translation by Paul MEYENDORFF, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1984.

21 MATEOS J., Le typicon de la Grand Église, τ. I-II, «Orientalia Christiana Analecta» 165-166, Roma 1962- 1963.

22 Cf TAFT R., The great entrance. A history of the transfer of gifts and other preanaphoral Rites of the Liturgy of st. John Chrysostom, «Orientalia Christiana Analecta» 200, Roma 1975.

23 ΚΩΝΣΤΑΝΤΙΝΟΥ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ, Ἔκθεσις περὶτῆς Βασιλείου τάξεως, Constantini Porphyrogeniti, De cerimoniisaulaeByzantinae libri duo graece et latine, e recesione Io. Iac. Reiksii, «Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae», Bonn 1829.

24 VASILIEV A., Harun-ibn Yahya and his description of Constantinople, «SeminariumKondakaovinium», vol. 5 (1932), p. 149-163.

25 ΕΥΧΟΛΟΓΙΟΝ, Ἐνετίησιν, ἐνοικίᾳ Ἰωάννου Ἀντονίου (sic) καὶ Πέτρουτῶν Σαβιέων καὶ αὐτα δέλφων, ἐνἔτει 1526.

26 HABERT Is., ΑΡΧΙΕΡΑΤΙΚΟΝ : Liber Pontificalis Ecclesiae Graece, Paris 1643.

27 “For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.” (1Cor 11:23-26).

28 Cf Mt 26:39, Mk 14:36, Lk 22:42. Jn 4:34, 5:19, 5:30, 6:38, 8:29, 12:49, 14:31, Philip 2:8, Heb 5:8, 10:7 etc.

29 ΑΓΑΠΙΟΥ ΙΕΡΟΜΟΝΑΧΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΝΙΚΟΔΗΜΟΥ ΜΟΝΑΧΟΥ, Πηδάλιον τῆς νοητῆς νηὸς τῆς Μιᾶς, Ἁγίας, Καθολικῆς καὶ Ἀποστολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας, ἥτοι ἅπαντες οι Θείοι καὶ Ἱεροὶ Κανόνες, Ἀθῆναι 1993, σ. ιστ΄. (st. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, The Rudder, text translated from Greek).