During the past several weeks I have shared information about the oldest Liturgy that that Church developed. It is the Clementine Liturgy and is the basis for all subsequent Eastern, Liturgies.

The Clementine Liturgy enables us to form a reasonably accurate picture of late fourth-century Eucharistic worship in the province of Antioch. It testifies to the consolidation of the liturgical tradition in the East, parallel to that revealed by Ambrose of Milan in the West. I present this information as a means of sensitizing my readers to our own Liturgy. Knowing something about its development, I think, helps us to appreciate it more.

The Eucharistic prayer, at least up to the third century, was extemporaneously spoken by the leader (bishop or priest). After this time it became a fixed text. There was of course nothing like the uniformity of text and practice which later came to characterize eucharistic worship throughout the Church. It was still possible for new eucharistic prayers to be composed, of course following traditional lines; and considerable variety existed in the manner of celebrating the service. But the Clementine Liturgy provides us with a reasonable guide to the basic shape of the Liturgy of Constantinople at the end of the fourth century, as well as containing a number of features which are closely paralleled in the rite of the capital when clear evidence for its form and details appears. It offers us an adequate starting-point for tracing the specific development of Byzantine Eucharistic worship which we use.

Because the Eucharistic Liturgy is the faith-expression of a community, I believe it is extremely important that each faith community finds how to integrate some uniqueness into a fixed Liturgy. Why? To make the Liturgy a true expression of    the community’s faith. While practiced uniformity in the ritual of worship does, I believe, show the universality of Christian worship, it can limit the expression of worship by individual communities and, at times, force just simple, rote celebration. It is critical, I believe, that worship be the personal expression of the people who are worshiping. The celebrant – worship leader – has to find ways to make the worship, within the context of structured ritual, personal and unique. It is truly imperative that community worship become truly community worship – a true expression of the faith of the local community. This is the challenge of communal worship. The challenge is one of attempting to make our Liturgy the expression of our unique community and, at the same time, the traditional worship of our Church.

Its critical that WE WORSHIP GOD!