The Earliest Liturgies: An Introduction

The Earliest Liturgies: An Introduction

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How the early church worshipped, and the plan of this part of the book.

How the Church Worshipped

The first Christians did not worship from a book. We learn how they prayed from short descriptions (the Didache, Justin Martyr), then from church orders that give model prayers (the Didascalia, the Apostolic Constitutions), and then from the great liturgies that were written down in the fourth century and later. This part puts them all in one line, from the earliest to the latest, so you can see how the same shape of worship (the greeting, the readings, the prayers, the offering, the thanksgiving over the bread and cup, the Lord’s Prayer and communion) appears in every rite. Where we have the original Greek, Syriac, Coptic, Ge'ez, Armenian or Latin, it sits in a column beside the English.

The rites

The liturgies in this part are grouped by rite, in the order below. Within each rite the earliest comes first.

Earliest witnesses

Descriptions and model prayers before fixed liturgical books.

Alexandria (Greek and Coptic)

Mark, Serapion, and the Coptic liturgies of Basil, Gregory and Cyril.

Jerusalem and Antioch (Greek and Syriac)

James, Clement, and the West Syriac anaphoras.

Constantinople (Byzantine)

Basil, Chrysostom, the Presanctified, and the Orthodox service books.

Church of the East (Syriac)

Addai and Mari, Theodore, Nestorius, and the Malabar rite.

Armenian

The liturgy of Gregory the Illuminator and of the Armenian Church.

Ethiopic (Ge'ez)

The Anaphora of the Apostles and the other Ethiopic anaphoras.

The Latin West

Roman, Ambrosian, Gallican, Spanish and Celtic rites.