A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

In Christ Church cathedral in Dublin, within memory, two silver gilt candlesticks with large wax candles in them always stood on the holy table on Sundays and holy-days, and were lit when required at the evening service, then celebrated at a late hour.—Jebb.

In the Hiereugia Anglicana there are a great many detailed proofs adduced of the use of lights and candlesticks on the holy table in the English Church, from the Reformation downwards. The authorities are all given.

LINCOLN. (See Use.)

LITANY. The term “Litany” is used by ancient writers in many different senses. At first it seems to have been applied as a general appellation for all prayers and supplications, whether public or private. In the fourth century it was given more especially to those solemn offices which were formed with processions of the clergy and people. Public supplications and prayers to God, on occasions of especial urgency, were certainly prevalent in the Church during the fourth and fifth centuries. (See Rogation Days.) These supplications were called Litanies in the Eastern Church, from whence the name passed to the West. Here they were known as Rogations or supplications, until the name of Litany became more prevalent than any other. The Church of England appears to have received the stated Rogation or Litany days of the Gallican Church at an early period; and, from that time to the present, she has reckoned them among her days of fasting. Formerly, in this Church, there were processions on all these days.

The Litany of the Church of England is not an exact transcript of any ancient form, though composed of materials of very ancient date. It differs essentially from the Romish Litanies by containing no invocations to angels and departed saints. Our invocations are made to the three persons of the sacred Trinity, and to them alone, while the office of Mediator and Intercessor is throughout ascribed only to our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the original arrangement, the Litany formed a distinct service, not used at the time of the other services. But by later usage it has been united with the morning prayer, though still retaining its separate place in the Prayer Book. Formerly there was a rubric, requiring that, “after morning prayer, the people being called together by the ringing of a bell, and assembled in the church, the English Litany shall be said after the accustomed manner;” and it was also required by the 15th canon, that “every householder dwelling within half a mile of the church should come or send some one at the least of his household, fit to join with the minister in prayers.” The ordinary arrangement was to hold morning prayer at eight o’clock, the Litany and the Communion at ten. This practice is still observed in some of the English churches; and Bishop White, in his “Memoirs of the American Church,” remarks that when he was in England, being on a visit to the archbishop of Canterbury, he observed that on Wednesdays he, with the other bishops, retired to the chapel before dinner; and on accompanying them he found that their object was to use the Litany, in compliance with the original custom.

The Litany is usually considered as embracing four main divisions, viz. the Invocations, Deprecations, Intercessions, and Supplications.—See Nicholls on the Common Prayer.

The word Litany is used by the most ancient Greek writers for “an earnest supplication to the gods, made in time of adverse fortune:” and in the same sense it is used in the Christian Church for “a supplication and common intercession to God, when his wrath lies upon us.” Such a kind of supplication was the fifty-first Psalm, which begins with “Have mercy upon me,” &c., and may be called David’s Litany. Such was that Litany of God’s appointing (Joel ii. 17); where, in a general assembly, the priests were to say with tears, “Spare thy people, O Lord,” &c. And such was that Litany of our Saviour, (Luke xxii. 42,) which kneeling he often repeated with strong crying and tears (Heb. v. 7); and St. Paul reckons up “supplications” among the kinds of Christian offices, which he enjoins shall be daily used (1 Tim. ii. 1); which supplications are generally expounded Litanies for removal of some great evil. As for the form in which they are now made, namely, in short requests by the priests, to which the people all answer, St. Chrysostom saith it is derived from the primitive age. And not only the Western, but the Eastern Church also, have ever since retained this way of praying. This was the form of the Christians’ prayers in Tertullian’s time, on the days of their stations, Wednesdays and Fridays, by which he tells us they removed drought. Thus, in St. Cyprian’s time, they requested God for deliverance from enemies, for obtaining rain, and for removing or moderating his judgments. And St. Ambrose hath left a form of Litany, which bears his name, agreeing in many things with this of ours. For when miraculous gifts ceased, they began to write down divers of those primitive forms, which were the original of our modern office: and about the year 400 these Litanies began to be used in procession, the people walking barefoot, and saying them with great devotion. And Mamertus, bishop of Vienna, did collect a Litany to be so used, by which his country was delivered from dreadful calamities, in the year 460. And soon after, Sidonius, bishop of Arverne, [Clermont in Auvergne,] upon the Gothic invasion, made use of the same office; and about the year 500, [511,] the Council of Orleans enjoined they should be used at one certain time of the year, in this public way of procession; and in the next century, Gregory the Great did, out of all the Litanies extant, compose that famous sevenfold Litany, by which Rome was delivered from a grievous mortality, which hath been a pattern to all Western Churches ever since; and ours comes nearer to it than that in the present Roman missal, wherein later popes had put in the invocation of saints, which our reformers have justly expunged. But by the way we may note, that the use of Litanies in procession about the fields, came up but in the time of Theodosius in the East, and in the days of Mamertus of Vienna, and Honoratus of Marseilles, namely, in the year 460, in the West; and it was later councils which did enjoin the use of it in Rogation Week; but the forms of earnest supplications were far more ancient and truly primitive. As for our own Litany, it is now enjoined on Wednesdays and Fridays, the two ancient fasting days of the Christians, in which they had of old more solemn prayers; and on Sundays, when there is the fullest assembly: and no Church in the world hath so complete a form, as the curious and comprehensive method of it will declare.—Dean Comber.

Epiphanius referreth this order to the apostles. The Jews in their synagogues observed for their special days of assembling together those that dwelt in villages, Mondays and Thursdays besides the sabbath. The precedent of the Jews directed the Church not to do less than they did. They made choice of Mondays and Thursdays, in regard of some great calamities that befell their nation upon those days; and that they might not be three days together without doing some public service to God. The Church had the like reason of Wednesdays and Fridays, whereon our Saviour was betrayed and crucified; the moral reason of once in three days, with a convenient distance from Sunday, concurring. The observance of these days for public assemblies was universal, and the practice of the oldest times.—Bp. Cosin.

Next to the Morning and Evening Service in our Prayer Book stands the Litany, or more earnest supplication for averting God’s judgments, and procuring his mercy. This earnestness, it was thought, would be best excited and expressed by the people’s interposing frequently to repeat with their own mouths the solemn form of “beseeching” God to “deliver” and to “hear” them: in which however the minister is understood to join equally; as the congregation are in every particular specified by him. Such Litanies have been used in the Church at least 1400 years. And they were appointed first for Wednesdays and Fridays, these being appropriated to penitence and humiliation, and for other fasts; but not long after for Sundays also, there being then the largest congregation, and most solemn worship: and our Litany is further directed to be used at such other times as the ordinary shall think proper. Originally it was intended for a distinct service, to come after the Morning Prayer, as the rubric of our liturgy still directs, and before the office for the Communion, at a proper distance of time from each: of which custom a few churches preserve still, or did lately, some remains. But, in the rest, convenience or inclination hath prevailed to join them all three together, excepting that in some places there is a psalm or anthem between the first and second; and between the second and third, almost everywhere: besides that the latter part of the Morning Prayer is, most of it, ordered to be omitted, when the Litany is said with it. But still by this close conjunction many things may appear improper repetitions, which, if the offices were separate, would not. However, as it is, they who use extempore prayers in public have small right to reproach us on this head. For doth it not frequently happen that, during one assembly of theirs, different ministers praying successively, or the same minister in several prayers, or perhaps in one only, shall fall into as many repetitions, as are in the different parts of our liturgy, or more? But, be that as it will, to these last all persons would easily be reconciled, if an interval were placed, in their minds at least, between the services; and they would consider each, when it begins, as a new and independent one, just as if it were a fresh time of meeting together.