This work examines the Byzantine liturgy. It encompasses the liturgy of the Great Church; a 12th-century diataxis in codex; paradigms in the formation of the Byzantine liturgical synthesis between Constantinople and Jerusalem; and the interpolation of the Sanctus into the anaphora.

The first major study of the relationship between liturgy and historiography in early medieval Rus.

Questions about space and the sacred are now central to Byzantine studies. Recent scholarship has addressed issues of embodiment and performance, power and identity, environmental perceptions and territorial imaginations. At the same time, the mobility turn in the humanities prompts new approaches to and understandings of processes of circulation of people, objects and ideas. Drawing together illuminating contributions from scholars in history, art history, literature, geography, architecture and theology, Sacred Mobilities in Byzantium and Beyond sets the stage for further cross-disciplinary dialogue concerning Orthodox Christian spiritual culture and society in the Byzantine Empire and in the centuries after its fall. Contributors are Veronica della Dora, Ekaterine Gedevanishvili, Molly Greene, Mark Guscin, Christos Antonios Kakalis, Chrysovalantis Kyriacou, Maria Litina, Andrew Louth, Mihail Mitrea, Bissera Pentcheva, Rehav Rubin, and David Williams.

Tracing the Gospel text from script to illustration to recitation, this study looks at how illuminated manuscripts operated within ritual and architecture. Focusing on a group of richly illuminated lectionaries from the late eleventh century, the book articulates how the process of textual recitation produced marginalia and miniatures that reflected and subverted the manner in which the Gospel was read and simultaneously imagined by readers and listeners alike. This unique approach to manuscript illumination points to images that slowly unfolded in the mind of its listeners as they imagined the text being recited, as meaning carefully changed and built as the text proceeded. By examining this process within specific acoustic architectural spaces and the sonic conditions of medieval chant, the volume brings together the concerns of sound studies, liturgical studies, and art history to demonstrate how images, texts, and recitations played with the environment of the Middle Byzantine church.

Abstract:

The churches of the Byzantine era were built to represent heaven on earth. Architecture, art and liturgy were intertwined in them to a degree that has never been replicated elsewhere, and the symbolism of this relationship had deep and profound meanings. Sacred buildings and their spiritual art underpinned the Eastern liturgical rites, which in turn influenced architectural design and the decoration which accompanied it. Nicholas N Patricios here offers a comprehensive survey, from the age of Constantine to the fall of Constantinople, of the nexus between buildings, worship and art. His identification of seven distinct Byzantine church types, based on a close analysis of 370 church building plans, will have considerable appeal to Byzantinists, lay and scholarly. Beyond categorizing and describing the churches themselves, which are richly illustrated with photographs, plans and diagrams, the author interprets the sacred liturgy that took place within these holy buildings, tracing the development of the worship in conjunction with architectural advances made up to the 15th century. Focusing on buildings located in twenty-two different locations, this sumptuous book is an essential guide to individual features such as the synthronon, templon and ambo and also to the wider significance of Byzantine art and architecture.

Liturgical Subjects examines the history of the self in the Byzantine Empire, challenging narratives of Christian subjectivity that focus only on classical antiquity and the Western Middle Ages. As Derek Krueger demonstrates, Orthodox Christian interior life was profoundly shaped by patterns of worship introduced and disseminated by Byzantine clergy. Hymns, prayers, and sermons transmitted complex emotional responses to biblical stories, particularly during Lent. Religious services and religious art taught congregants who they were in relation to God and each other. Focusing on Christian practice in Constantinople from the sixth to eleventh centuries, Krueger charts the impact of the liturgical calendar, the eucharistic rite, hymns for vigils and festivals, and scenes from the life of Christ on the making of Christian selves. Exploring the verse of great Byzantine liturgical poets, including Romanos the Melodist, Andrew of Crete, Theodore the Stoudite, and Symeon the New Theologian, he demonstrates how their compositions offered templates for Christian self-regard and self-criticism, defining the Christian "I." Cantors, choirs, and congregations sang in the first person singular expressing guilt and repentence, while prayers and sermons defined the collective identity of the Christian community as sinners in need of salvation. By examining the way models of selfhood were formed, performed, and transmitted in the Byzantine Empire, Liturgical Subjects adds a vital dimension to the history of the self in Western culture.

This book explores the liturgical experience of emotions in Byzantium through the hymns of Romanos the Melodist, Andrew of Crete and Kassia. It reimagines the performance of their hymns during Great Lent and Holy Week in Constantinople. In doing so, it understands compunction as a liturgical emotion, intertwined with paradisal nostalgia, a desire for repentance and a wellspring of tears. For the faithful, liturgical emotions were embodied experiences that were enacted through sacred song and mystagogy. The three hymnographers chosen for this study span a period of nearly four centuries and had an important connection to Constantinople, which forms the topographical and liturgical nexus of the study. Their work also covers three distinct genres of hymnography: kontakion, kanon and sticheron idiomelon. Through these lenses of period, place and genre this study examines the affective performativity hymns and the Byzantine experience of compunction.

This anthology surveys the development and theology of the liturgical year in the order of its historical evolution: "From Sabbath to Sunday"; "From Passover to Pascha" (Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and Pentecost); and "From Pascha to Parousia" (Epiphany, Christmas, and Advent). In addition, introductory essays on the meaning of the liturgical year and a short concluding section on the sanctoral cycle ("From Parousia to Persons") are also provided. While written as a companion to standard works in the field, beginning with graduate students in liturgy and seminarians, this book is intended for all - pastors, liturgists, catechists, religious educators - who seek to live according to the Church's theology of time as it is reflected in its calendar of feasts and seasons. Through feast and fast, through festival and preparation, the liturgical year celebrates the presence of the already crucified and risen Christ among us today. Between Memory and Hope shows that to live between past and future, between memory and hope, is to remember Christ's passion as we encounter his presence among us now and as we await his coming again in glory. Articles and their contributors are "The Liturgical Year: Studies, Prospects, Reflections," by Robert F. Taft, SJ; "Liturgical Time in the Ancient Church: The State of Research," by Thomas J. Talley; "Day of the Lord: Day of Mystery," by H. Boone Porter; "Sunday: The Heart of the Liturgical Year," by Mark Seale; "The Frequency of the Celebration of the Eucharist Throughout History," by Robert F. Taft, SJ; "History and Eschatology in the Primitive Pascha," by Thomas J. Talley; "The Origins of Easter," by Paul F. Bradshaw; "The Three Days and the Forty Days," by Patrick Regan, OSB; "The Veneration of the Cross," by Patrick Regan, OSB; "Holy Week in the Byzantine Tradition," by Robert F. Taft, SJ; "The Origin of Lent at Alexandria," by Thomas J. Taley; "Preparation for Pascha? Lent in Christian Antiquity," by Maxwell E. Johnson; "The Fifty Days and the Fiftieth Day," by Patrick Regan, OSB; "Making the Most of Trinity Sunday," by Catherine Mowry LaCugna; "Constantine and Christmas," by Thomas J. Taley; "The Origins of Christmas: The State of the Question," by Susan K. Roll; "The Appearance of the Light at the Baptism of Jesus and the Origins of the Feast of Epiphany," by Gabriele Winkler; "The Origins and Evolution of Advent," by Martin J. Connell; "On Feasting the Saints," by John F.Baldovin, SJ; "The Marian Liturgical Tradition," by Kilian McDonnell, OSB; "Forgetting and Remembering the Saints," by James F. White; "The One Mediator, the Saints, and Mary: a Lutheran Reflection," by Maxwell E. Johnson; and "The Liturgical Year: Calendar for a Just Community," by John F. Baldovin, SJ. Maxwell E. Johnson, PhD, is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and associate professor of liturgy at the University of Notre Dame. His articles have appeared frequently in Worship. He is the author ofLiving Water, Sealing Spirit and The Rites of Christian Initiation: Their Evolution and Interpretation published by The Liturgical Press.

In this book, a distinguished team of authors explores the way space, place, architecture, and ritual interact to construct sacred experience in the historical cultures of the eastern Mediterranean. Essays address fundamental issues and features that enable buildings to perform as spiritually transformative spaces in ancient Greek, Roman, Jewish, early Christian, and Byzantine civilizations. Collectively they demonstrate the multiple ways in which works of architecture and their settings were active agents in the ritual process. Architecture did not merely host events; rather, it magnified and elevated them, interacting with rituals facilitating the construction of ceremony. This book examines comparatively the ways in which ideas and situations generated by the interaction of place, built environment, ritual action, and memory contributed to the cultural formulation of the sacred experience in different religious faiths.