On the Divine Liturgy #8

Publication Data: Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984
Format: softcover
Number of Pages: 107
Dimensions (l × w × h): 18.4 cm × 12.7 cm × 0.8 cm
ISBN: 978‒0‒88141‒038‒9

   
St Germanus of Constantinople
The Greek text with translation, and commentary by Paul Meyendorff

Number 8 of Popular Patristics Series

“The eighth-century commentary on the liturgy by St Germanus (†733), Patriarch of Constantinople from 715 to 730, remains little known today. This is despite the fact that it exercised tremendous influence in the Byzantine Christian world from the time of its composition at least to the time of Cabasilas’ work in the fourteenth century. It was included, along with the text of the liturgies of John Chrysostom and Basil, in the first printed edition of the Byzantine liturgy. It was also influential in Russia, where it was included in manuscripts of the liturgy from the thirteenth century, as well as in the Sluzhba Tolkovaia, or ‘Liturgy commented,’ and even in some editions of the Slavonic service books, or Sluzhebnik.”
—“INTRODUCTION”

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
   THE TEXT
   THE AUTHOR
   THE LITURGY OF GERMANUS’ TIME
      A. The Preparatory Rites
      B. The Enarxis
      C. The Introit
      D. The Liturgy of the Word
      E. The Great Entrance
      F. The Anaphora
      G. The Lord’s Prayer and Communion
   THE PLACE OF GERMANUS IN THE TRADITION
      A. The Genre of the Liturgical Commentary
      B. Pseudo-Dionysius: the Alexandrian Tradition
      C. Theodore of Mopsuestia: the Antiochene Tradition
      D. Maximus the Confessor
      E. The Nature of the Liturgical Commentary
      F. Germanus: a New Synthesis
      G. Reasons for this Shift
      H. The Legacy of Germanus
ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY AND MYSTICAL CONTEMPLATION