Liturgies Eastern and Western (Hammond)

St. Basil. St. Chrysostom. The Armenian.

From the Liturgy of St. Basil emerged, on one hand, the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom, and on the other, the Armenian Liturgy. We shall have more to say about all of these later.

2. Alexandrian Family. Characteristics.

2. The second major Eastern original: "Oriental" family, that of Alexandria, is marked by the same consistency original: "invariability"; but it has two specific characteristics: the very prominent role assigned to the Deacon ¹, and the placement of the Great Intercession A series of prayers for the Church, the state, and various groups of people, both living and dead. in the middle of the Preface The introductory portion of the Eucharistic prayer leading into the "Holy, Holy, Holy" (Sanctus).. This last feature is seen in the Greek Liturgy of St. Mark, the Coptic St. Cyril, and the Ethiopic; but it is not found in the other two Coptic Liturgies of St. Basil and St. Gregory. We know independently, from the letter of St. James of Edessa "to Thomas the Presbyter" original: "ad Thomam Presbyterum" written in the seventh century (see below, p. xlvi), that this position of the Great Intercession was the primary difference between the orders of the Syrian and Alexandrian Liturgies of his time. The reason the other Coptic Liturgies follow the Syrian (or Greek) order is likely because the Greek Liturgy of St. Basil was introduced into Egypt at some point. Its Anaphora The central and most solemn part of the Eucharistic liturgy., slightly modified, was then joined to the native introductory original: "pro-anaphoral" service. The resulting form of the Liturgy was the Coptic St. Basil, which is the standard original: "normal" Liturgy of the Copto-Jacobites (Monophysites) A group of Egyptian Christians who held a specific theological view on the single nature of Christ.. The Anaphora of St. Gregory is modeled after St. Basil's, and the Copts use the same introductory service for all three of their Liturgies.

The old Alexandrian Liturgy.

The surviving form of St. Mark’s Liturgy, like that of the Greek St. James, has clearly been modified at some point under the influence of Constantinople. We likely get a more accurate idea of what the old Alexandrian Liturgy was like by comparing it with the Coptic St. Cyril. The latter is clearly based upon an old Greek Liturgy similar to St. Mark's and matches it word-for-word in many parts, as well as with the Ethiopic version. That the original Liturgy was written in Greek, here as well as in Syria, is shown both by the nature ² of the language in which the prayers are written...

¹ Something similar to this is also noticeable in the Syriac St. James’ Liturgy of the first family.
² "The presence of compound names—which those languages lack—and occasionally the incorrect translation of words, point so clearly to Greek sources that..." original: "Nominum compositorum quibus illae linguae carent, verborumque aliquando non recta interpretatio, Graecos fontes ita perspicue designat, ut..."