ANAPHORA

(Lifting of the Symbol of Christ)

The earliest record of Anaphora is the third century document called the Postsanctus of Addai and Mari, “one of the most ancient anaphoras extant, a prayer believed to have been in continuous use in the age-old East-Syrian Christendom of Mesopotamia from time immemorial” (Taft, 2018: 57). Jesus’ institution of the Last Supper, as narrated in the Gospels (as also recited during Anaphora in the Divine Liturgy and as it is commonly called the Institution Narrative) is missing in this document, although the elements of the Institution Narrative are implied and scattered throughout the prayer. It reads:

Do you, O my Lord, in your manifold mercies make a good remembrance for all the upright and just fathers, the prophets and apostles and martyrs and confessors, in the commemoration of the Body and Blood of your Christ, which we offer to you on the pure and holy altar, as you have taught us in his life-giving Gospel…

And we also, O my Lord, your servants who are gathered and stand before you, and have received by tradition the example which is from you, rejoicing and glorifying and exalting and commemorating this mystery of the passion and death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And let your Holy Spirit come, O my Lord, and rest upon this offering of your servants, that it may be to us for the pardon of sins and for the forgiveness of shortcomings, and for the resurrection from the dead, and for new life in the kingdom of heaven.

And for your dispensation which is towards us we give you thanks and glorify you in your Church redeemed by the precious Blood of your Christ with open mouths and unveiled faces offering glory and honor and thanksgiving and adoration to your holy name, now and at all times, and for ever and ever. Amen!

Taft, 2018: 86-87. By citing Postsanctus of Addai and Mari, Taft offers a mild criticism of his teacher Juan Mateos, who in 1971 cited the Anaphor of Hippolytus (from the Apostolic Tradition) as originating from the third century. Since late 1980’s, however, the Apostolic Tradition is found to be “a composite collection assembled and redacted several times,” including materials from the 4th century and later and from more than one church tradition (see Taft’s footnote 48 in Mateos, 2016:64). Hippolytus of Rome lived between c. 170-235 (ibid.).

As we can see, there is no expressed formula: “Take, eat; this is my Body which is broken for you…” The tradition has it that this Institution Narrative was brought by St. John Chrysostom from Antioch, Syria, when he became Patriarch in Constantinople in 398. He and St. Ambrose (d. 397) both held that it is Christ’s Word at the first institution (not the priest repeating Christ’s Word in the Liturgy) that transforms or consecrates the bread and wine into Christ’s Body and Blood (Taft, 2018: 80-81). Chrysostom also believed that the Holy Spirit at the epiclesis (the invocation of the Holy Spirit to come down and to make the Elements Christ) was also at work in transforming them into the Body and Blood of Christ (Taft, 2018: 81).

It is Ambrose who first located the moment of “transubstantiation.”  Even though it was Aquinas who (in the 13th century) used the term,[1] it was Ambrose who (in the 4th century) suggested that the real transformation of the bread and the wine occurs in the moment the words of the Institution are uttered: “This is my body… this is my blood.”  Ambrose writes: “… the sacrament which thou receivest, is consecrated by the word of Christ.”[2] 

[1] Summa, vol. 3, Q75, Art. 4.  The term was first articulated in the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and was reaffirmed at the Council of Trent (1563) against the Reformation denial of the real presence of Christ.  It was once again upheld by Pope Paul VI in Mysterium fidei (1965).  See “The Eucharist in the West,” Michael C. McGuckian, New Blackfriars, Vol. 88, No. 1014 (March 2007), p. 142-43, available at http://www.jstor.com/stable/43251116. 

[2] Concerning the Mysteries, in On the Mysteries and the Treatise on the Sacraments (387 AD), trans. Rev. T. Thompson, (Aurelius Ambrosius Classic, 1919), 9.52.    

The moment of transubstantiation or transformation is called the moment of ‘consecration’ (‘setting aside’). Sacred or holy means setting aside.

St John Damascene makes it clear in On the Orthodox Faith (PG 94: 1145): “The bread of the prothesis and the wine and water, are supernaturally changed into the Body and Blood of Christ, through the Epiclesis and the coming down of the Holy Spirit” (as quoted in Mateos, 2016: 69).

In Chrysostom’s Anaphora that we have today, the following formula is missing: “Do this in commemoration of me.” However, we find the formula in all other Anaphora, including the Liturgy of St. Basil. See Mateos, 2016: 65.

The formula, “This is My Body,” belongs to the formula for distributing Communion, as in “The Body of Christ” that the priest says as he gives the Bread. The former (“This is My Body”) does not indicate the moment of consecration, according to Mateos. In support, Mateos points to Mark 14.22-24 where the formula is used for distribution: “He took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank it. And he said to them, ‘This is My Blood of the covenant which is poured out for many.’” The same sequence of event is described with respect to the Bread (14.22). Moteos adds: “it is certainly impossible that Christ used these last words to consecrate, after the Apostles had already drunk of the chalice” (2016: 67). In any event, the dispute over the exact moment when the bread and wine are consecrated, it seems to me, belongs to physics or metaphysics rather than to a genuine theological question.

Like the trisagion (“Holy, holy, holy…”), the commemoration of the living and the dead is an appendix added to Anaphora later, although “[t]her commemoration of the saints is very ancient” (Mateos, 2016: 71). They break the unity of Anaphora. Mateos sums up the ancient, pristine anaphora as follows:

Thus, the anaphora, which is really one single prayer, has two parts: 1) the part of praise and thanksgiving for the marvels of God on our behalf, divided [later] into two sections by the Sanctus, and the Anamnesis [‘Do this in memory of me’]-Epiclesis element which must be considered together. The commemorations of the dead and the living, which now follow the Epiclesis, were added later.

Mateos, 2016:64.

The Old Entrance to the Sanctuary

Mateos traces back to the earlier form of the act of transference of the gifts to the sanctuary as follows:

The Liturgy of the Word, up until the end of the ‘Prayer of the Faithful’ that is, the synaptē or litany of peace, was celebrated in the nave of the church; the clergy were in the center facing the sanctuary. Once the litany was finished, the choir started the hymn of the transfer of the gifts, now the Cherubic Hymn. The bishop and priests went from the center of the church to the sanctuary, reciting the prayer of the entrance, which is also called the Prayer of the Proskomide or the Prayer of the Offering: “O Lord God almighty, who alone are holy…” [See below]. As the priests, or the bishop and the priests were making their entrance into the sanctuary, the deacons brought the gifts from the diakonikon or side sacristy, where they had been prepared. The bishop placed the gifts on the altar and recited the prayer: ‘O God, our God, who have sent forth the heavenly Bread…,’ which was introduced by the deacon who said: ‘For the precious gifts here present, let us pray to the Lord.’ Then the anaphora began.

Mateos, 2016: 59.

See the Great Entrance to understand how this simple act of transference of the gifts had developed into a royal procession.

In the present form of the Divine Liturgy, the Prayer of the Offering is followed by Peace Greeting, which is then followed by the Creed. According to Mateos, the Creed or Symbol of Faith is “a formula to be recited by the catechumens who were to receive baptism” (Mateos, 2016: 59). It was introduced to the Liturgy by Patriarch Timothy (512-518); and the allusion to the Creed in the diaconal exhortation to the kiss of peace (“Let us love one another, that with one mind we may confess…”) was added in the 11th or 12th century (59).

The rubric of waving the veil “does not appear in some places until the nineteenth century” (Mateos, 2016: 61). Mateos says further, “[I]mmediately before beginning the anaphora, while the deacon says the admonition, ‘Let us stand aright…,’ the priest lifts the veil from the Gifts. The Ukrainians keep this old custom and lift the veil after the Creed” (61).

The Prayer of the Offering

Before the 8th century, “the preparation of the gifts was made immediately before the eucharistic liturgy began”—after the Liturgy of the Word, which took place outside the sanctuary, in the nave (Mateos, 2016: 58). “All the actual prayers and commemorations did not exist” before the 10th century, except for The Prayer of the Offering (58), which runs:

O Lord God almighty, who alone are holy and receive the sacrifice of praise from those who call upon you with their whole heart, accept the prayer also of us sinners; bring us to your holy altar, enable us to offer you gifts and spiritual sacrifices for our sins and for the people’s transgressions, and deem us worthy to find favor in your sight, that our sacrifice may be pleasing to you, and that the good Spirit of your grace may rest upon us, upon these gifts here present, and upon all your people.

Mateos, 2016: 56-57; “us” in italics is Mateos’ insert.

This is “not an offertory prayer [a prayer for the gifts], but a prayer for the entrance of the celebrants as they go in procession from the bema or ambo in the middle of the church [Hagia Sophia] to the sanctuary” (Mateos, 2016: 57).  The prayer then belongs to the Anaphora and functions as “the opening prayer of the eucharistic liturgy” (Mateos, 2016: 57), because initially it is said as “the clergy approach the altar and the gifts are put on it“ (57). This is the first time when the clergy approach the altar, as the Liturgy of the Word takes place outside the sanctuary in the nave/bema/ambo in Hagia Sophia.

It is interesting to note that the prayer prays to be accepted as prayer—i.e., a prayer that prays about itself—and that the clergy pray that they may be brought to the holy altar—i.e., that they themselves may become acceptable offerings to be sacrificed on the altar, like Christ who brings himself to sacrifice and to be the sacrifice (Heb 4.14, 7.24-25).

We Receive the Risen Lord

From the plate and the cup, we receive the Body and Blood of the risen Lord. As Mateos emphasizes:

To signify that we receive the risen Christ, the Church instated a special ceremony before Holy Communion in all the liturgies: the commingling of the species of the bread, the Body of Christ, with the species of the wine, the Blood of Christ, symbol of life.

[…]

To stress the presence of the risen Christ in the eucharist, the Byzantine liturgy added a new ceremony to the ordinary mingling water with the wine in the preparatory rites before the anaphora. This is the addition of hot water to the consecrated wine just before communion. The priest blesses the boiling water by saying: ‘Blessed is the warmth of your holy (Gifts).’ The warmth can be either the symbol of life or that of the Holy Spirit, meant in St. John’s Gospel by the living water; possibly both significations are intended: life given by the Holy Spirit.

Mateos, 2016: 75.

That we receive the risen Christ in partaking of the Eucharist provides another support for our understanding the Great Entrance as the procession of the risen King of glory; and that the (self) sacrifice Christ offers on the altar symbolizes the heavenly sacrifice He offers perpetually as the High Priest in the order of Melchizedek in his risen Body at the right hand of God.

By partaking the Bread and Wine, we enter into a communion with the Father made possible through the Son’s sacrifice/offering/intercession, and in and through (the working of) the Holy Spirit.

Thus, reciting the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father…” is absolutely necessary as a preparation before participating in the communion and to ask to ‘give us this day our future bread’ [as in Aramaic] “cannot have any other meaning than the eucharist itself, which conceals the Life of the future Kingdom,” and which we are about to receive in symbol (Mateos, 2016:78). The Lord’s Prayer, then, belongs to the Divine Liturgy and should always be followed by the Communion.