3.38 FC – Liturgy and Hymnography

In the early phases of their development, the national Churches of the Caucasus adopted the liturgical practices of Jerusalem. Accordingly, the Georgian, Armenian and Caucasian Albanian Churches show an expected convergence of liturgical practices. This typological unity is evident in the structural uniformity observed in the early lectionaries preserved in Georgian and Armenian manuscripts. The…

Liturgical Byzantinization has been studied largely through the eucharistic liturgies, lectionaries, and liturgical calendars. Medieval Melkite euchologia—attested in Syriac, Arabic, and Christian Palestinian Aramaic manuscripts across eight centuries—remain comparatively unexamined as a witness to the same process. This paper tests Byzantinization against three prayer concerns from Melkite pastoral life: the blessing of the Nile waters, the…

In the last century it was thought that there was a major reform of the lection system of the Greek Orthodox Church in the eighth, or the ninth century. Robert F. Taft wrote that “Iconoclasm was a major turning point in Byzantine liturgical history”, the starting point for the synthesis of Palestinian monastic and Constantinopolitan…

Fasting is an essential practice for Christians. With roots in ancient Judaism, fasting features prominently in the Gospels (Christ’s forty-day fast, John the Baptist’s diet of locusts and wild honey) and plays an important role in the lives of saints. In hagiographic texts devoted to monks and hermits in particular, fasting often goes hand in…