By bringing the humble human gifts of bread and wine – our earthly food and drink – and placing them on the altar, we perform, often without thinking of it, that most ancient, primordial rite that from the first day … Continue reading
Category Archives: Learning About the Practices of Our Religion
There are many ways in which one can approach the history of the development of the Divine Liturgy. It seems that an appropriate way is to approach in a structural and historical manner, that is, to identify and isolate individual … Continue reading
What is universally verifiable is that the core of the primitive liturgy has, throughout its development, always remained the same. I would now like to take a closer look at the general characteristics of the byzantine Eucharistic Liturgy that we … Continue reading
In order to understand the Divine Liturgy, one must also consider the ways of liturgical development. If you compare later developments (the way we celebrate the Liturgy today) to Justin’s original order of the Eucharist service, you see that liturgical … Continue reading
The history of the eucharistic service, the Divine Liturgy, can be divided into several periods. Initial Period: The Lord’s Supper is separated from the agape and the Word service becomes permanently joined to it. This emerges in the Middle of … Continue reading
All Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Christians believe that during the Divine Liturgy the bread and wine offered are turned into the Body and Blood of Christ. Western Catholics also believe this, albeit this miracle is expressed in a different manner. … Continue reading
I have tried in this article to exhort my readers to do everything in their power to become engaged in an “intelligent” worship of our God. For our worship to be intelligent, we must be mindful of the prayers that … Continue reading
I have been stressing the importance of understanding that what we do in in the Eucharistic Liturgy is to make Christ truly present in our lives in the present as He was to His disciples in the past. One of … Continue reading
While I realize that the previous article in my Bulletin, Understanding Our Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, truly seemed to overlap this article on the Divine Liturgy, it is my intention that this article stress more the liturgical theology connected with our … Continue reading
One of the very important aspects of our Byzantine Liturgy is that we very clearly specify the anamnesis and the epiclesis. It is very evident by the way that I have chosen to serve the Liturgy since I take both … Continue reading