www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Troparion in the Epiclesis

Hmm. Does that perhaps mean that the knee is quicker than the eye?

Fr. Serge

We may be getting a bit off-topic here, but since the subject
has been raised by the learned and highly esteemed Archimandrite:
I know that in the Slavic Churches, at least, one is not
supposed to knerl on Sundays because kneeling is viewed as
a penitential posture and we are celebrating the Ressurection.
(I have heard reports, however, that in Russia kneeling during
Sunday DL is by no means unknown.) Having bony knees and
nothing to kneel on but a wooden floor, I am quite content to
follow this rule.

But kneeling and prostrating both may be adorational rather than
penitential, and when I prostrate myself at the epiclesis
that is what I am doing. And, if as Fr. Serge says, it is
proper for those in the altar to prostrate, I cannot see why
it is not proper for everyone.

Edmac

At the Ustav list Fr. John R. Shaw (an astute liturgical scholar for those of you unfamilair with him) had this to say:

"As for the Tropar of the Third Hour, it was only inserted in the Slavonic books a little before Patriarch Nikon's reforms: and the rubric prior to his time said that it was "optional", at the discretion of the priest.

In the early printed Slavonic Sluzhebniki, the Tropar of the Third Hour appeared only in the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, not in the Liturgy of St. Basil.

My own practice is to say it at the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, but not at the Liturgy of St. Basil, where its insertion in the middle of a sentence disrupts the text too
much."

What is interesting about the epiclesis in the Basilian liturgy is to note that some liturgical texts have changed the Basilian epiclesis to make it conform to the Johanian epiclesis.

The new Ruthenian DL does not -- but I know that others do.

For example, the Melkite Liturgical text that I have (Archbishop Raya's edition) has the priest saying (from Chrysostom's liturgy) "Changing them by your Holy Spirit" as the third prayer instead of the prayer "Shed for the life of the world" from the Basil Liturgy. (I also have an Antiochian prayerbook that makes the same substitution.)

Does anyone know when this transformation of liturgical texts took place and/or in what traditions it is practiced?

*I can guess as to "why" the change was made -- when the prayer before the epiclesis is said silently in the Basil liturgy, the people do not hear the prayer for the Holy Spirit and thus if only the three traditional "out loud" prayers are said, there is no public epiclesis (from the congregant perspective).

Some traditions that I have served in stipulate that the priest should kneel during the "Our Father." This is the way I was trained to serve ...

As it happens, that troparion is included in the Anaphora of the service-books published by the Old Ritualists.

Fr. Serge