Incense in the Byzantine Liturgy
Why do Orthodox priests or deacons cense the icons and the church? What does censing signify?
The use of incense was common in ancient paganism and in the Old Testament. “At meals and on public occasions, and especially at funerals for obvious reasons, it was common to burn incense simply to perfume the atmosphere” (Taft, 2004: 150, 149).
It was frequently used at the court of Constantine for honorific function, as “even Christians used to burn incense before his portrait” (150).
In Numbers 16.46-47 incense was used to prepare for or as part of the sacrifice to purge the plague that was raging in the camp of the Israelites. Besides that, there are other numerous references to “fragrant incense” in OT (Ex 30.35, 35.8, Exod 40.27, Lev 4.7, Num 4.16).
In Revelations, too, incense burning is taken for granted and is referenced as accompanying (or as part of) the prayers of the saints (Rev 5.8, 8.3, 4, 18.13). See also Mateos, 2016: 72.
In Rev 8.5, however, it reads: “Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightening, and an earthquate.” What is significant is the fire, taken from the altar. The censer is used as a vehicle of the fire from the altar that is thrown to the earth to purges it. This is not an act of censing but an act of judgment by fire.
During the time of the persecution period in the Roman Empire the pre-gnostic Christians had aversion for ceremonies and were hostile to incense burning (Taft, 2004:149). However, after the 313 Edict of Milan (Pax Constantiniana) churches began to employ incense, despite “sporadic opposition” to it that lasted until the defeat of iconoclasm in 843 (Taft, 2004: 149).
St Ephrem (d. 373) was first (in the church history) to introduce the use of incense as propitiatory offering (based on the Old Testament references) in addition to its fumigatory and honorific use (Taft, 2004: 150).
However, Taft writes: “The vast majority of Byzantine liturgical codices say nothing whatever about an incensation at the Great Entrance, or for that matter, anywhere else” (2004: 151). The silence in surviving records does not mean, however, that it was not practiced. In fact, when the emissaries from Kiev visited Hagia Sophia in 987, the clergy is recorded to have “burned incense, and the choirs sang hymns” (Taft, 2008: 54).
Taft concludes that censing during the liturgy is an act of reverence. He writes:
From the nature of the objects censed—altar, prothesis, sanctuary, etc.—and the absence of an oblatory prayer or, for that matter, any formula at all in the early witnesses, it is clear that the incensation is not an oblation or a purification, but simply an act of reverence.
Robert F. Taft, The Great Entrance, 2004: 154.
