Abstract
Maxwell E Johnson and Stefanos Alexopoulos have accomplished an impressive feat in their co-authored book, Introduction to Eastern Christian Liturgies: to survey, in a single, coherent volume, the major rituals of all seven surviving Eastern Christian liturgical rites, Armenian, Byzantine, Coptic, Ethiopic, East Syrian, West Syrian, and Maronite.
There are two ways to write such a book, a book that seeks to articulate a common liturgical “ethos”(p. 356) among these traditions, while celebrate the rich variety among them. Either one dedicates each chapter to one of the seven traditions, or one dedicates each chapter to a different liturgical ritual (eucharist, initiation, liturgical year, etc.) and discusses all seven traditions in every chapter. The authors chose the latter, and intentionally so; it allows them to showcase the comparative method of liturgiology, which holds that no liturgical rite can be studied on its own. Liturgies evolve and grow in conversation with other liturgies, perhaps especially in the Christian East. This book serves as a vindication of that method, and achieves, for the most part, the delicate balance of commonality and difference.
Among all the book’s chapters, Chapter 1 on initiation and reconciliation makes the strongest case for genealogical as well as theological commonality among the Eastern liturgical traditions. Eastern rites, especially in their early stages, emphasized baptism not so much as a ritual for the remission of sins, but as a symbol and enactment of new birth in water and the Spirit. Similarly, while not every tradition keeps the practice of private confession and absolution (the East Syrian tradition being an important exception here as elsewhere among the Eastern rites), they share a common view that reconciliation is not about punishment but about renewal.
Chapter 2 on Eastern eucharistic liturgies is a tour de force and is now the best short study of the topic available. The authors show, with as much ease as this complicated topic allows, the labyrinthine ways in which these rites have grown and influenced each other through history. This presentation is aided by the authors’ judicious use of charts, which prove to be indispensable for viewing liturgies from a bird’s-eye view. The presentation of eucharistic theology, which is derived largely from eucharistic prayers themselves, is similarly impressive. Yet the authors could have emphasized the fact that the eucharistic prayer is rarely said aloud in most Eastern Christian traditions, and thus the theology the prayers express remains largely inaccessible to the faithful.
Chapter 3 contains a truly staggering amount of information about the liturgy of the hours and the liturgical year, areas in which we see great diversity among the Eastern rites. The liturgical year in particular is an aspect of worship that is always enculturated. Feasts and fasts are shaped by local customs, foods, and ecologies. Only so many examples could be included in a book this size, but the authors leave plenty of tantalizing breadcrumbs to be picked up, hopefully, by enterprising liturgical scholars. I was especially intrigued by the short discussion of the Coptic calendar’s organization around the annual flooding of the Nile (pp. 149–150). Also, by laying out the various, complicated systems of daily liturgical prayer, the chapter comprises a valuable starting point both for the scholar and also, perhaps, for the practitioner seeking to reclaim these practices, which are rarely celebrated today in their full form.
Chapter 4 is on marriage and holy orders. The section on marriage documents the history of nuptial rites and the changes wrought by modern needs and challenges. The section on holy orders is largely a reproduction (with permission) of portions of the book Rites of Ordination: Their History and Theology (Collegeville, 2013) by liturgical scholar Paul Bradshaw, with updates on the topic of the ordination of women deacons, a rite that is historically found in several Eastern traditions. Chapter 5, on anointing of the sick and burial, demonstrates again the great variety of liturgical practices among the Eastern Christian traditions.
The authors conclude, “All Eastern Christian traditions are highly liturgical, for, indeed, liturgy is at the heart of the life of these churches and their faithful”(p. 355). What these churches also share is a brutal modern history of persecution, which has threatened the very survival of many of them. Eastern Christian liturgies possess immense riches, which is amply proven by the generous quotations of prayers featured in this volume. In order for these riches not to be lost, they need to be celebrated and shared. This book, in providing a skillful presentation of the common ethos of these traditions amid all their variety, and in amassing a superb bibliography that will be the standard reference point for future study in the field, has set a course for doing just that.