Antioch

Worship in the East Syrian Churches: Nestorian, Chaldean, and Malabar

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The East Syrian Christians engaged in widespread missionary activity across the Asian continent, but the rise of Islam reduced their communities to small remnants. The liturgy of these churches is doxological in character, filled with expressions of praise and emphasizing the fulfillment of Christian hope in the kingdom of heaven.

Antioch was the original center of Syrian Christianity, with a second center developing by the end of the second century in Edessa. Edessa itself became divided by early Christological disputes between Monophysites (one person, one nature in Christ) and Nestorians (two persons, two natures in Christ), and soon political pressure drove the Nestorians further east into the Persian Empire.

The Churches

The Nestorian church was centered at Nisibis and organized as a distinct church in the fourth century by the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. Because it developed outside of the Roman Empire, it did so with a large measure of independence from what it called “the churches of the West” (i.e., everything to the west of itself). The Nestorian church preserves a very primitive layer of liturgical evolution.

These East Syrian Christians adhered to the decrees of Nicea, but not to those of Ephesus or Chalcedon, and eventually they adopted Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. a.d. 428), who was condemned by the Chalcedonian churches, as their champion theologian. From the fourth to the seventh centuries they engaged in great missionary activity throughout the East. The rise of Islam, however, put a stop to their missionary expansion, cut the mission territories (such as the Malabar church) off from the mother church, and left the Nestorian church but a remnant community living peaceably, if under severe restrictions, among the Muslims. Since the sixteenth century, some have been united to the church of Rome, these being the Catholic Chaldeans, while others remain non-Chalcedonian Nestorians.

The Malabar church, also called St. Thomas Christians because they claim Thomas the apostle as their link to the apostolic church, came under the missionary influence of the Persian Nestorians until they were cut off from them by the advance of Islam. The St. Thomas Christians were rediscovered in the sixteenth century by Portuguese missionaries, who tried unsuccessfully to impose the Latin liturgy upon them. These missionaries did succeed, however, in heavily Latinizing the Malabar liturgy, a deed which has only recently been undone. Liturgical revisions begun in 1962 have restored the Malabar Eucharist to its Syro-Chaldean form and translated it from Syriac into modern Malayalam.

The liturgy of the Nestorian, Chaldean, and Malabar churches is essentially the same. The primary anaphora (eucharistic prayer) is that of Sts. Addai and Mari, which is unique in that no words of institution are to be found in it. These words are inserted in the text by the Catholic Chaldeans and Malabarese. Two other prayers are also found in the tradition, one attributed to Nestorius and one to Theodore of Mopsuestia, though these are used only occasionally by the Nestorians and Chaldeans, and not at all by the Malabar church. These prayers do contain the institution narrative in its proper place, which makes its absence from the Addai-Mari text, in spite of great efforts to prove otherwise, most probably a simple omission rather than a reasoned deletion.

The text cited to examine the East Syrian liturgical tradition as it lives today is in the revised text of the Syro-Malabar church (Biblical, Catechetical and Liturgical Centre, Bangalore, Celebration of the Eucharist According to the Syro-Malabar Rite [1973]). Differences between this and the Chaldean liturgy are noted. The major differences between the Chaldean and Nestorian liturgies are the saints who are called upon in the prayers and, of course, the insertion of the institution narrative in the Addai-Mari text.

The Liturgy

Introductory Rites. The introductory rites of the liturgy are remnants of a monastic office. They consist of an abbreviated doxology (“Glory to God in the highest and to all on earth, peace and hope forever”), the Lord’s Prayer, a variable psalm, and a prayer of incense, which concludes with the lakhoumara, a fourth-century prayer of praise to Christ the Lord. The gifts are prepared in the Chaldean rite simply, and before the liturgy begins; in the Malabar rite the offerings are prepared during the pre-anaphora after the celebrants have come to the altar. In an earlier version of both rites, the gifts were prepared more formally between the lakhoumara and the trisagion.

Liturgy of the Word. The liturgy of the Word begins with the trisagion (“Holy God, holy strong one, holy and immortal, have mercy on us”) and consists of two (Malabar) or four (Chaldean) readings. A homily, prayer of the faithful (Malabar), and creed conclude this part of the liturgy. An earlier version of both rites concluded with an imposition of hands and blessing of the people, and probably the dismissal of catechumens as well.

Pre-anaphora. The pre-anaphora includes the “access to the altar” by the celebrant(s), transfer of the gifts (if prepared elsewhere) or their presentation and preparation.

Anaphora. The anaphora or Qurbana of the Apostles (Addai and Mari) follows. The anaphora includes more than the eucharistic prayer alone. It begins with a prayer of gratitude on the part of the ministers (“ … through the multitude of your mercies, you have made us worthy to be ministers of the sacred mysteries of the body and blood of your Christ … ”), the greeting of peace, the unveiling of the gifts (the veil is folded and placed around the gifts to represent the sepulcher of Christ), and the incensing of the gifts. After the customary dialogue, the eucharistic prayer gives thanks to God for creation, leads into the “Holy, Holy, Holy,” and continues in thanksgiving for the incarnation and redemption. At this point the narrative of institution is inserted.

There follows the prayer of remembrance (anamnēsis), prayers of intercession (it is characteristic of the East Syrian tradition to locate the intercessions here), the invocation of the Spirit (epiklēsis), and the concluding doxology.

Post-anaphora. At the conclusion of the anaphora, priest and people proclaim faith in the living and life-giving bread of heaven. The bread is broken and signed with the precious blood. The people are invited to “approach the mysteries of the precious body and blood of our Savior” with an invitation as well to “turn away from our faults.” A litany prayer for forgiveness and the Lord’s Prayer (a second time) lead into the distribution of Communion to all. This is followed by a brief thanksgiving prayer, blessing, and dismissal.

Theology and Spirit

The overall tone of the Syro-Chaldean liturgy is one of glory and praise to God. This doxological note is set at the very beginning with the “Glory to God” and the Lord’s Prayer. It continues in the prayer that concludes the psalm (“For all the helps and graces you have given us, for which we cannot thank you enough, we will praise and glorify you unceasingly in your triumphant church forever”) and in the lakhoumara (“You, Jesus Christ, we glorify; you are the one who raise our bodies, and you are the savior of our souls”). After the trisagion, and before the first reading, the presiding priest prays, “that love and hope may grow in us, that we may find salvation, and praise you forever.” Before the gospel: “O Christ, light of the world and life of all, glory forever to the eternal Mercy that sent you to us.” In coming to the altar, the priests pray: “We give you thanks, our Father, Lord of heaven and earth, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for though we are sinners, you have made us worthy by your grace to offer you these holy, glorious, life-giving and divine mysteries … ” A prayer of praise introduces the greeting of peace (“We offer you praise and honor, worship and thanksgiving now and always and forever”) and again the fraction rite (“Glory be to your name, O Lord Jesus Christ, and worship to your Majesty forever”). Finally, the concluding prayers and blessing continue this theme to the end: “It is our duty, O Lord, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to offer always to your most blessed Trinity praise and honor, worship and perpetual thanksgiving … ” and “Let us sing the praises of Christ who has nourished us with his body and blood.”

The liturgy is heavily Christocentric. While many of the prayers are addressed to the triune God or simply to the Father, many more are addressed directly to Christ himself. Even within the anaphora, a prayer most often addressed exclusively to the Father, the section on redemption is addressed to Christ.

The East Syrian liturgy is a remembrance that looks forward to the eschaton rather than to the past (the Lord’s Supper) or present (this eucharistic offering or the heavenly mysteries as they are now being enacted). This is captured most forcefully in the epiklēsis of the Addai-Mari anaphora; “let your Holy Spirit come and rest upon this oblation of your servants; may he bless it and sanctify it that it may be unto the pardon of our offenses and forgiveness of our sins, and for the hope of resurrection and for the new life with the just in the kingdom of heaven.”

Finally, the East Syrian liturgy exhibits a theological note derived from Theodore of Mopsuestia who considered the bread and wine, once placed upon the altar and before the invocation of the Spirit, to represent Christ in the tomb, with the epiklēsis itself signifying the Resurrection. Once the gifts are prepared, the veil is folded around them “as a sepulcher” and is not removed until after the epiklēsis.

The Addai-Mari anaphora has several distinctive marks. In addition to being in part addressed to Christ, the intercessions are placed between the anamnēsis and epiklēsis, and therefore form part of the offering itself. The anamnēsis is untypical in that, while it does commemorate the “passion, death, burial and resurrection” (no mention is made in the anamnēsis of the future coming of Christ), it does not lead into the offering of the gifts, but only to the more general offering of “praise and honor, worship and thanksgiving.” Finally, the institution narrative, where it is inserted by the Catholic Chaldeans and Malabarese, is in fact a somewhat awkward fit; most probably the original text served as a perfectly adequate eucharistic prayer without it. If so, it bears witness to a primitive strain of eucharistic understanding that was lost to other liturgical traditions.

Introduction to the Eastern Orthodox Churches

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The liturgical traditions of the East derive ultimately from the forms of worship used in Antioch and Alexandria. As with all ancient Christian liturgies, the Service of the Word led into the sacramental offering of the Eucharist. The Eastern traditions comprise the East and West Syrian, the Byzantine (including the Greek and Russian Orthodox), the Armenian, and the Coptic/Ethiopian.

The distinction within the ecumenical church between the churches of the East and the churches of the West is rooted in patterns of evangelization and evolution in the first six centuries of the Christian era. As Christianity spread beyond Jerusalem to the whole Mediterranean world, four regions, in addition to Jerusalem, became major centers of Christian life: North Africa (Carthage), Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria, each developing its own distinctive forms of faith and prayer.

These initial centers had varying destinies. Jerusalem was destroyed in a.d. 70. The church of North Africa, where Latin Christianity was born and developed (Tertullian, d. c. a.d. 240); Cyprian, d. c. a.d. 258), was destroyed by the Moors in the seventh century, but not before exerting a major influence on the church of Rome. This latter (Rome) evolved in three stages: a primitive apostolic stage (Clement of Rome (fl. c. a.d. 80); a developed Greek stage (Hippolytus of Rome, d. a.d. 235), and, in the fourth century, Latin Rome (usually taken to be the Roman tradition) which adopted as its own, and further evolved, the Latin Christianity of North Africa. The church of Alexandria developed for a time as the major intellectual center (Clement, d. a.d. 215; Origen, d. a.d. 253/254; Athanasius, d. a.d. 373; and Cyril (d. a.d. 444)] until the Council of Chalcedon (a.d. 451), which Alexandria rejected. Alexandria is also known for its monastic movement, which likewise had an effect on its evolving liturgical forms.

The Antiochene influence was felt throughout Asia Minor with the churches of Cappadocia (Basil of Caesarea, d. a.d. 379; Gregory of Nazianzus, d. a.d. 389; and Gregory of Nyssa, d. a.d. 394) helping further to shape both theological and liturgical evolution. Finally, from the later fourth century onward, the new imperial capital at Constantinople began to emerge as yet another major Christian center, under whose influence the later Byzantine church, still Antiochene in root, would develop its own distinctive liturgical forms.

The term liturgical tradition, as it is employed here, refers to these five centers (Jerusalem, Rome, Carthage, Antioch, and Alexandria), the forms of faith and prayer characteristic of each, and the forward evolution of these forms in the many churches that constitute the one church of Jesus Christ. Though there are countless instances of mutual influence, one tradition on another, it can generally be said that the Latin tradition (Carthage and especially Latin Rome) is the root tradition of the churches of the West, while the Syriac and Greek traditions (Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria) form the root traditions of the churches of the East.

Because of the early disappearance of the Jerusalem church, the extant liturgical traditions of the East are derived from either Antioch or Alexandria. The Jerusalem tradition was absorbed into certain strains of Antiochene Christianity and no longer exists as an independent living liturgical tradition. Antioch gave rise to an East Syrian strain manifest in the Nestorian and Chaldean churches of Iran and Iraq and in the Malabar church in India, and a West Syrian strain that appears in several layers of evolution. In its most primitive form it shows itself in the Syrian (monophysite [holding that Christ’s nature was divine only, not divine and human] and Catholic) and Maronite churches of the Middle East, and in the Orthodox and Malankara churches of India. In a more complex and developed form it appears in the Byzantine churches and also in the Armenian church, which has been significantly influenced by other traditions (e.g., Cappadocia and Rome) as well. The two primary manifestations of the Alexandrian tradition are the Coptic church in Egypt and, though again with a variety of secondary influences (especially West Syrian), the national church of Ethiopia.

The primary focus here will be on these [eucharistic] traditions as they exist in living churches today. The aim is to examine each of these ritual forms and uncover the distinctive theology and spirituality which they contain.

All of the churches follow the standard ritual pattern where proclamation of the Word precedes and leads into the sacramental offering. It is the general Eastern custom to prepare the bread and wine for offering at the beginning of the liturgy, and it is a common understanding in the East that these gifts somehow already represent Christ even before the consecratory anaphora or eucharistic prayer. In many of the churches, the ancient custom of conducting the first part of the liturgy from the bema (raised platform for the celebration of the Word) and away from the altar is being restored. Except in cases where Western influence imposed other practices, these churches generally use leavened bread and distribute the eucharistic wine by intinction [dipping the bread into the wine], by spoon, or directly from the chalice. Some of the liturgies, notably the Byzantine and the Armenian, and to some extent the Coptic, are space-dependent [i.e., the celebration of the liturgy depends upon certain architectural features of the place of worship]; others less so, or not at all.

Council of Constantinople

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Soon after the Arian controversy, another conflict arose over the person of Christ. The question here was whether the divine nature of Christ absorbed the human, or whether the two remained apart in his person. Again the West was content with the teaching of Tertullian that both natures were complete, but the East was divided by differences of interpretation in the rival schools of Alexandria and Antioch. The Alexandrian school explained the two natures as fused in a single personality; Antioch stressed the separateness of the two natures. Apollinaris, Bishop at Laodicea, thought the true explanation of Christ’s nature was that his body and mind were human, but that his spirit was replaced by the Logos.

Impact: Since Apollinaris’ doctrine marred the perfection of his humanity, it was condemned at the Council of Constantinople in 381. This same Council asserted the divinity of the Holy Spirit. From that time the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity has held the orthodox position in Christianity.

Jerome

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Jerome (c. 345-420) was born in Dalmatia, or modern-day Croatia, of Christian parents. He went to Rome at the age of 12 to study Latin and Greek. He became a Christian at 19 and decided to move to Antioch. Here he lived in a cave and spent his time studying the Scriptures and learning Hebrew from a local rabbi. In 382 Pope Damasus called him to Rome to become a papal secretary and to undertake a new translation of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. He completed the work many years later from a monastery he oversaw in Bethlehem. His translation, known as the Latin Vulgate, became the official and authorized source text for the Roman Catholic Church.

Chrysostom, John

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John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) was born in Syria. He studied rhetoric under the famed teacher Libanius. After his mother’s death, he entered a monastery near Antioch in 373 and remained there until about 381. That year he was named deacon of Antioch, a position he held for five years. In 386 he became the chief preacher in the city, due primarily to his great oratorical skills (Chrysostom means “golden mouthed”). In 398 he was named archbishop of Constantinople. Here he condemned the immorality of Queen Eudoxia which led to his banishment. He continued to care for the spiritual lives of the church through correspondence and contact with friends. He died in exile. His commentaries on the Bible along with his faithfulness during persecution made him a leading figure in the early church.