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 evolution has respected this primitive outline that was presented in last week’s article. I shared with you the four basic periods identified in the development of our Liturgy. What is really apparent in the third period, the period of the unification of rites, is a filling in of the basic common outline of the Eucharist at the three “soft points”: (1) before the readings, (2) between the Word’s service and then the Eucharistic prayer (Anaphora), and (3) at the communion and dismissal that follow this prayer. It should be noted that in the primitive liturgy these are the three points of action without words: (1) entrance into church, (2) kiss of peace and transfer of gifts, and (3) the fraction, communion and dismissal rites. What could be more natural than to develop these three ceremonial actions with chants and add to them suitable prayers? For one of the most common phenomena in later liturgical development is the steadfast refusal to let a gesture speak for itself.

This evolutionary process often took the form of a permanent addition to the service rites which added an exclusively local scope to the festive rites of a particular time and place. When added to the Eucharistic rite as permanent integral parts, they inevitably lost their original connection to the religious topography of their place of origin – and hence their original scope and meaning — and assumed a life      independent of their past. This too has been a common occurrence in liturgical history. It is especially noticeable in the rites derived from certain prominent cities like Rome, Jerusalem and Constantinople, the three most important centers of liturgical diffusion in the period after Chalcedon (451). Remember, the Liturgy was performed in a different manner in each of these cities.

As ceremonial and text rush in to fill the vacuum at the three action points of the liturgy, thus overlaying the primitive shape with a “second stratum,” a contrary movement of the Liturgy is provoked. The liturgy, thus filled out, appears overburdened and must be cut back. And so another evolution then took place.

General Characteristics of Byzantine Liturgy