A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

In celebrating these three liturgies, the Greeks observe the following order. The liturgy of St. Basil, as appears by the introduction, is sung over ten times in the year; namely, on the eve of Christmas day, on the feast of St. Basil, on the eve of the feast of Lights, on the Sundays of Lent, excepting Palm Sunday, on the festival of the Virgin, and on the Great Sabbath. The liturgy of the Presanctified is repeated every day in Lent, the forementioned days excepted. The rest of the year is appropriated to the liturgy of St. Chrysostom. (See Liturgy.)

LITURGY. (See Common Prayer, Formulary, and Public Worship.) From the Greek word λειτουργία, a public act or duty. This term was originally used to denote the service or form employed in the celebration of the eucharist. In the Eastern Churches, that service was frequently called the “Divine” or “mystical” liturgy; while in the West, though the term “liturgy” was used, yet the name of “missa” was more common. At the present day, the word is employed to designate the ordinary prescribed service of the Church, either with or without the Communion Office. (See article on Formularies, where the general question of forms of prayer is treated.) The history of liturgies may thus be briefly stated.

When the Christians were no longer in fear of the violence and persecutions of the heathens, and in that age when the Church came to be settled, (that is, from the time of Constantine to that of St. Augustine,) we find there was a liturgy in the Eastern Church.

The first Cyril of Jerusalem mentions some parts of an ancient liturgy used in that place, both in respect to the form of baptism, and the celebration of the eucharist.

St. Basil composed a liturgy himself, which is to be seen in the Bibliotheca Patrum, and in his book De Spiritu Sancto; and he tells us how the service of the Church was directed by rules and rubrics.

In St. Chrysostom’s time, Omnes unam eandemque precem concipiēbant, and this was not only a public prayer, but a public form; for in that collection of his works set forth by Sir Henry Saville, we find a liturgy of his own making, which was translated out of the Syriac by Masius, and used generally throughout all the Greek churches.

Now, if it should be granted that premeditated prayers are not required by God in our private addresses to him, yet it is plain from those instances already mentioned, such prayers were always held necessary in the public services of the Church; and this further appears by the form prescribed by our Saviour himself, who, when we pray, commanded us to say, “Our Father,” &c.; and St. Matthew tells us, that he went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.

The Apostolical Canons mention some set forms of prayer, both before and after the communion; and St. Basil and St. Chrysostom, before mentioned, not only composed set forms themselves, but they describe set liturgies as having been composed by St. Mark and St. James; and the adversaries to such forms have no other plausible pretence to deny these authorities than by alleging these liturgies to be supposititious, which is an answer that may serve upon any occasion to evade an argument, which cannot otherwise be answered.

St. Ambrose and Prosper tell us, there were set forms of prayers used in the Church in their time; and they give the reason for it, ne in diversum intellectum nostro evagemur arbitrio: and St. Hilary hath this expression on the 66th Psalm, viz. Let those without the Church hear the voice of the people praying within. Now the word praying of the people must signify something more than the bare suffrage Amen; it must import their joint concurrence in the actual performance of the whole duty, which cannot be done but where the prayers are in a set form.

And these are the prayers which Isidore tells us were used in the ancient congregations of the Christians; and it is most certain that such were in use in that great apostate Julian’s time; for Nazianzen informs us, that he endeavoured to establish the heathen ceremonies in imitation of the Christian services, by appointing, not only certain times, but set forms of prayer.