ANAPHORA

(Lifting of the Symbol of Christ)

The earliest record of Anaphora (Lifting of the Symbol of Christ and transforming it to Body and Blood of Christ) 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.

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 (Taft, 2018: 81).