THE BLESSING AND PROKEIMENON

W hile the Trisagion is being sung by the cantors and the people, it is recited by the priest and deacon. As they say it, both make

three small bows together before the altar. Then the deacon says to the priest:

Command, sir.

While both proceed to the apsidal throne, the priest says:

Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord (John r2: I 3).

Deacon : Bless, sir, the seat on high.

Priest : Blessed are you on the throne of glory in your Kingdom, sitting among the cherubim, at all times, now and always and for ever and ever.

The priest blesses the throne and sits on the seat to the south of it. When the singing of the Trisagion hymn is fimshed, the deacon comes

to the royal doors, lifts his orar with three fingers of his right hand and says:

Let us be attentive!

From his flace behind the altar, the priest blesses the people, saying aloud:

Peace be to all. Deacon : Wisdom! Let us be attentive. 1

The deacon returns to the priest behind the altar. The cantors then intone the Prokeimenon which, like the troparia. is proper to the day and is sung according to one of the eight tones. The resurrectional Prokeimenon (for Sundays) of the first tone is:

Let your mercy, 0 Lord, be upon us, according as we have hoped in you (Ps. 32:22).

1 In the Russian recension, the people answer " And to your spirit " before the deacon proclaims " Wisdom. " The deacon does not say " Let us be attentive " after " Wisdom. "

Verse: Rejoice in the Lord, you just; praise befits the righteous.

In every Byzantine church, there is an apsidal throne, an orna­mented, seat behind the altar, facing the people. The seats for the celebrants other than the bishop are on its right and left. Such an arrangement dates back to the days when the bishop was the ordinary celebrant of the Eucharist, to pre-Nicene times when the Liturgy was still celebrated in private homes. The Didascalia states that the presbyters' seats are found " in that part of the house which is turned to the East, with the bishop's throne in the midst of them. 9

There is reason to believe that this accommodation already existed in the seeond century. St. Ignatius speaks of the bishop as "en­throned as the type of God, and the presbyters as that of the college of Apostles, and the deacons entrusted with the deaconship of Jesus Christ. " 8 This is what the throne still symbolizes today : the throne of the King of Glory, whom the bishop represents. The formula used by the celebrant in blessing the throne even alludes to this symbolism, " Blessed are you on the throne of glory in your King­dom .... " Perhaps the first Byzantine Codex, that has a formula of blessing the throne is the eighth-century Codex Barberini. 4 The great respect commanded by this " throne of the King of Glory" is evident from the ancient Byzantine custom, still preserved, which dictates that no one but the bishop may ever sit on it. The priest­celebrant, even if he celebrates alone, always sits on the seat beside

• Later fourth-century evidence abounds, e.g., Canon 56 of the Council of Laodicea (c. A.D. 363), NPNF, Series II, Vol. XIV, p. 157; Testamentum Domini, i, 19 (Rahmani, Testamentum Domini Nostri Jesu Christi [Mainz, 1899], 23; Quasten, Monumenta eucharistica et liturgia vetustissima [Bonn, 1935-1937], 237); Basil, Ep., 183 (PG 18, 1252 A [Series graeca]); etc. The ancient Church of St. Clement in Rome has the bishop's throne behind the altar.

•Ignatius, Ep. ad Magnesios, 6, l (PG 3, 659 AB [Series graeca]). •Cod. Barberini, gr. 336, Brightman, LEW, p. 314, lines 16-20. The prayer

could not have been adopted universally, however; as late as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, practice differed. In the fourteenth century, for example, MS. 522, p. 19, and MS. 523, p. 20, of the Sophia Library contain a different form of the throne prayer. The fifteenth century MS. 527, p. 25, of the same Library contains no prayer for blessing the throne, while other fifteenth century Liturgika revert to the older form of the prayer, e.g., MS. 54'» p. 33, and MS. 553, p. 26, both of the Sophia Library. Absolutely identical with today's throne prayer is that contained in the fifteenth century Liturgikon of Isidore, Metropolitan of Kiev; cf. Cod. Vat. Slav., No. 14, rubrics of its Ustav, fol. 128.

it, "as Christ does beside his Father, as the Apostles did beside Christ."

The greeting" Peace be to all, "now given in the form of a blessing by the celebrant, also reaches back into early Christian days. • This is merely a slight revision of the original " Peace be to you, " and really means the same. This greeting marks the beginning of the Liturgy of the Catechumens, consisting originally in the opening greeting, the lections, the intermediate psalms, the Gospel, and the dismissals (see above, p. 60). In the Latin Mass, this greeting occurs just before the collect in the fonn of the Dominus vobiscum, " The Lord be with you, " and its response, " And with your spirit. " • In the Russian recension of the Byzantine Liturgy, the lector answers also, " And with your spirit. "

Both forms of greeting," The Lord be with you (all)" and" Peace be to you (or to all)," are ancient. From ti.me immemorial, the Jewish people greeted one another with "Shalom" (Peace be to you), and for thousands of years, the customary Oriental greeting has been " Salaam, " meaning the same. 7 In Christian ti.mes, this greeting took on a special, beautiful significance, for it was the first greeting of the Risen Christ to his own (John 20:19). In fact, it seems to have been Christ's favorite greeting after the resurrection (cf. Luke 24:36; John 20:27; etc.). During his public life, when sending his disciples to the cities and towns oflsrael, Jesus instructed them : '' Into whatsoever house you enter, first say, ' Peace be to this house'" (Luke 10:5; Matt. 10:12). The recurrent greeting of St. Paul in writing to his converts was always, " Grace to you and peace" (Rom. 1:7; I Cor. 1:3; II Cor. 1:2; Gal. 1:3; Eph. 1:2; Phil. 1:2; Col. 1:3; I Thess. 1:2) or, "Grace, mercy and peace" (I Tim. 1:2; II Tim. 1:2) or merely "Grace and peace" (Tit. 1:4; Philem. 1:3).

• The Greek-Byzantine Liturgy omits it. Cf. Brightman, LEW, p. 370, lines 35 ff.

• This form of greeting, slightly revised to read " The Lord be with you all, " is also found in the Egyptian Church in the Liturgy of St. Mark (cf. Brightman, LEW, p. I25, etc.) and in Const. eccl. aegypt. (cf. Funk, Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum [Paderbom, 1905], Vol. II, 99, ro2).

' Even today in Syria, for example, " Peace be to you " is the everyday salutation; its answer is, " The Lord be with your spirit " or " Blessed is he that comes. "

Hundreds of years before the Incarnation, Isaiah l736-700 B.c.) acclaimed Christ as ' the Prince of Peace ' (Isa. 9:6); at his birth,. the angels sang of peace; and peace is the great message of his Gospel (Rom. 10:15). It was peace together with his Eucharist that Jesus gave to his chosen ones as his last gift : " Peace is my bequest to you, and the peace which I give you is mine to give; I do not give peace as the world gives it" (John i4:27). The early Christians valued,. cherished, and used this greeting, " Peace be to you, " which they always interpreted in the christological sense. In this same sense,. they greeted one another, and they engraved the same words on the walls of the catacombs.

While the formula, " The Lord be with you, " was originally favored, all the Eastern Churches except Egypt had come to use "Peace be to you" by the fourth century. For the early rite of Constantinople, there is the testimony of Chrysostom : " When he who presides over the ecclesia enters the church, he immediately says, 'Peace be to all.'" 8 For the Pontic Church there are Gregory Nazianzen, •and the Liturgy of St. James (Greek). 10 St. Maximus (A.D. 662) indirectly confirms this when he says that the salutation of peace was made before each reading. 11 Originally, the salutation was made when the celebrant entered the church, immediately before the lessons. Later, it became separated from the entrance by the Trisagion hymn and its prayer. Its position in the present Byzan­tine-Slav Liturgy differs from the original only in that the Trisagion hymn and prayer intervene. The modem Greek Liturgy no longer has a blessing at this point, although formerly it had one 12• In this

• At Constantinople c. A.D. 407; cf. Chrysostom, In ep. ad Colossenses homil., III, 4 (PG 62, 322-323; edit. Montfaucon rr, 347 E); at Antioch, Homil. adv. Jud., III, 6 (PG 48, 870; edit. Montfacon r, 6r4 C).

•Gregory Naziamen, Oratio XXII, r (PG 35, rr3r A), but this passage could also refer to the salutation immediately before the Gospel reading.

1° Cod. Vat., gr. 2282 (edit. A. Rocchi, in A. Mai, PNB, X, ii, p. 42); cf. als<> Brightman, LEW, p. 32.

11 Maximus, Mystagogia, chap. r2 (PG 9r, 689 D); Quaestiones et dubia, 68 (PG 90, 84r D-849 A).

11 E.g., the eighth century BY2antine-Armenian Liturgy of St. Basil (Catergian­Dasian, Lie Liturgien bei den Armeniern [Vienna, r897], pp. r89, r97, 2r2); the eighth or ninth century Liturgy of Chrysostom contained in Cod. Barberini, gr. 336 (Brightman, LEW, pp. 3r4, 320); the tenth or eleventh century Liturgy of St. Basil in the Codex of Isidore Pyromal (Goar, Euchologion, pp. r8r-r82); the eleventh

instance, the ancient practice is better preserved by the daughter Slav Rite than by its Greek-Byzantine mother. Both Rites, however, have the same greeting before the reading of the Gospel.

In the Western Church, the formula Pax vobis( cum) was widely used in the beginning, but later came to be reserved to the bishop, the direct representative of Christ. 13 For the last nine hundred years, the lower clergy in the Latin Church were restricted to the Dominus vobiscum, " The Lord be with you. " This, too, has its Qrigin in pre-Christian times. In the book of Ruth (2:4), we read of Boaz greeting his reapers with, " The Lord be with you. " It must have been a frequent, if not daily, salutation among the Jews, for it is found several times in Sacred Writ, e.g., Judg. 6:12; Tobias 7:15; II Chron. 15:2; Luke 1:28; II Thess. 3:16; etc. From the Talmud, we know that this same greeting "was used when a man would recall his companions to remembrance of the Law. " u In this light, the greeting, '' The Lord be with you," could be a vestige -0f the Church's Jewish heritage, since in the early Christian synaxis

~ntury Liturgy of John Chrysostom in Cod. Burdett-Coutts, III, 42 (edit. C. A. Swainson, The Greek Liturgies Chiefly from Original Authorities [London, 1884], p. u6 b); the fourteenth century order of the Divine Liturgy in the rotulo -0f Esphigmenon of the year 13o6 (edit. A. Dmitrievsky, Opysanie liturgicheskikh rukopisej khraniaschikhsia v bibliotekakh pravoslavnago vostoka, Vol. II; Euchologia [Kiev, 1901], pp. 266, 26·,; etc.); the same also in the Cod. 38I of the Moscow Synodal Library, fourteenth century; (edit. N. Krasnoseltsev, Materialy dlja .istorii chinoposlidovania liturgii sv. Joanna Zlatoustago [Kazan, 1889], pp. 24> 26, 28); also the Ustav in the Liturgikon of Metropolitan Isidore, cf. fourteenth or iifteenth century Cod. Vat. Slav., No. 14, fol. 128.

" In the Latin Church whenever the Gloria in excelsis is said in the Pontifical Mass, the bishop greets the people with Pax vobis (" Peace be to you "). But in imparting the greeting the Latin bishop, unlike the Byuntine-Slav priest who blesses the people, merely turns toward the congregation and stretches out his hands- gesture signifying the desire to be united with the people and to draw them together into the prayer that is just beginning. In sixth century Spain, 1:he Pax vobis began to supersede the Dominus vobiscum in the Mass until it was forbidden by the Synod of Braga (A.D. 563) even to bishops. The present rule for the Pax vobiscum and its relationship with the Gloria in excelsis seems to have been stabilized after the reply of Pope Leo VII in A.D. 937 to the bishops of Gaul .and Germany : " On Sundays, the principal solemnities and the feasts of saints, we say the Gloria in e:xcelsis and Pax vobis. On other days in Lent, the Ember Seasons, the vigils of saints and fast days, we say only Dominus vobiscum (PL 132, 1o68). Pope Innocent III (u78-n80) again remarks that the Pax vobis is suitable -Only for bishops who are vicars of Christ (De s. altaris mysterio, ii, 24 [PL 217, g12]).

14 Tractate Berakoth, Tos., vii. 23.

the first lessons after the greeting were taken from the Law and the Prophets. The salutation is less definitely christological than the Pax vobis, for Dominus originally meant God. While in the Latin Liturgy, the word Dominus remains indeterminate, the implicit understanding is that the Lord God does come to us in Christ, who is our Emmanuel. Christ assured his followers that " Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them" (Matt. 18:20), a condition fulfilled in the Mass. Furthermore, he promised to be with his Church till the end of time : " And behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world" (Matt. 28:20 ).

The reply of the ecclesia in the Russ;an and Latin Rites, " And with your spirit" (Et cum spiritu tuo) also suggests a Jewish origin because of its Semitic parallelism. There are similar instances in St. Paul. 15 The Semitic expression for " yow spirit, " meaning " your person, " can be rendered, " And with you too. " It seems, however, that even in the early centuries the expression was already being interpreted in a more Christian sense. Chrysostom, for example, sees in the phrase" your spirit" the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, 11 or the special grace of the Holy Spirit received by the celebrant at his ordination. 17

After the greeting, the Latin Rite summons its people to attention for prayer with Oremus (Let us pray). The Byzantine-Slav Rite uses the direct appeal," Let us be attentive." It does this not only here before the Prokeimenon, but also before the Epistle and before the Gospel, besides the first time, immediately before the greeting. The repetition of this exhortation stresses the special attention the people must give to Sacred Scripture-the Prokeimenon, the Epistle, and the Gospel-containing the very wisdom of God. That is why the word Wisdom is added to the call for special attention in the last three instances.

16 Cf. II Tim. 4:22; Gal. 6:18; Phil. 4:23; etc. 1• Chrysostom, In II Tim. homil., 10, 3 (PG 62, 659 f. or edit. Montfaucon 11,

725 A). 17 Chrysostom, Prima de Pent., n. 4 (PG 50, 458 f. or edit. Montfaucon 2,

463 BC). Likewise, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Catecheses, vi (edit. Minganga, Commentary of Theodore of Mopsuestia on the Lord's Prayer and on the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist [Cambridge, 1933], p. 91).

The call of the deacon for attention (TCp6ax,cuµev) before the readings is ancient; it probably began as a rubric and later was incorporated into the text of the Liturgy. Chrysostom places it before the first reading (from the Prophets) in the early fifth-century Liturgy at Constantinople. 18 In the early eighth-century Armenian version of Chrysostom's Liturgy, the immediate setting of each scriptural reading was expanded to include the phrase " With wisdom " and the blessing " Peace be to all. " 10 The admonition, warning the people to pay attention, was even more explicit in the ninth-century Syrian Liturgy : before the first lesson, the deacon cried out " Sit down and be quiet! " and " Be quiet, " before all the other lessons. so

The Latin Rite summons, Oremus, has a closer Byzantine parallel in the ektenias, when the deacon announces the petitions, " Let us pray,"" In peace let us pray," etc. The Oremus could be an abbre­viation of a longer form. On Good Friday, for example, the bidding is very similar to the Eastern ektenia :

Oremus, dilectissimi nobis, pro Ecclesia sancta Dei : ut eam Deus et Dominus noster pacificare, adunare et custodire dignetur toto orbe terrarum. • • detque nobis quietam et transquillam vitam degentibus. • • etc.

Let us pray, dearly beloved, for the holy Church of God, that our Lord and God will deign to give her peace, to preserve her unity, and to guard her throughout the world ... and that he will suffer us to lead a peaceful and quiet life. Etc.

Especially worthy of note is that which followed this bidding : the deacon calls, Flectamu.s genua. The faithful kneel and pray in silence for a while. The deacon signals, Levate, and so forth. An identical ceremonial is found in one of the most ancient Eastern ektenias. 21

18 Chrysostom, In Act. Ap., xix, 5 (edit. Montfaucon 9, 159 E). 19 Cf. Aucher, La versione armena della liturgia di S. Giovanni Crisostomo fatta

sul principio delfVIII secolo, XPYCOCTOMIKA (Rome, 1908), pp. 379-38o. There is no blessing for the Gospel however.

ll• Cf. Ps.-George of Arbela, Explicatio off. eccl., iv, 4 ff. (edit. R. H. Con­nolly-W. Corringron, Two Commentaries on the Jacobite Liturgy by George Bishop of the Arab Tribes, and Moses Bar Kepha [London, 1913], pp. 9-1 I [12-13]).

11 In the Alexandrian Liturgy; cf. Brightman, LEW, p. 159.

In this light, the medieval explanation for the word collecta as meaning the collection of the various private prayers with which the priest " gathers and concludes the petitions of all " becomes clear. 22

Prokeimenon means "placed before" or "prelude. " It comes before the reading of the scriptural pericopes and consists in a verse or two from the psalms or the prophets, accommodated to the theme of the feast or saint of the day. ss The term itself was coined some­time before the eighth century, since we meet it for the first time in the Liturgical Commentary of St. Germanus of Constantinople (A.D. 715-729). H

The Sabbath Morning Service of the Jewish synagogue, on which the Mass of the Catechumens is modeled, was developed after the destruction of Jerusalem, yet its origin can be traced to earlier times. It contains a twofold blessing. The first opening the synagogue assembly, imparted by the presiding leader with the words Barku el (Bless the Lord), and the second, the Shema itself, consisting in several blessings and excerpts from the Pentateuch, 25 after which the lections were made. Likewise, in the Byzantine-Slav Liturgy there are a blessing (" Peace be to all ") and the Prokeimenon, con­sisting in excerpts from the Psalms or the Prophets. Yet, they do not correspond to the Shema of the Jewish service. The origin of the Prokeimenon is found, rather, in the singing of the Psalms of David after (and between?) the first two pericopes of Scripture to which the Apostolic Constitutions (Book II) refers : After the readings from the Law and the Prophets, " when the two lessons have been read individually, some other persons should sing the hymns of

.. Thus, Bemold of Constance (1100), Micrologus, 3 (PL 151, 979); also Walafrid of Strabo, De eccl. rer. exord. et increm., 22 (PL 114, 945); etc.

•• Technically there are two kinds of prokeimena : the "prokeimenon of the day" and " the Epistle prokeimenon, " depending on whether it expresses a closer relationship to the proper for the day (prokeimenon of the day) or to the Epsitle lection (prokeimenon of the Epistle). Cf. J. Pelesh, Pastyrskoe Bohoslovie [Vienna, 1885], p. 487, n. 2; also K. Nikolsky, Posobie k izucheniu Ustava Bogosluzhenia Pravoslavnoi Tserkvy [St. Petersburg, 1907], p. 211 .

.. Commentarium liturgicum, 28 (edit. N. Borgia, II commentario di s. Germano Patn"arca Constantinopolitano e la versione latina di Anastasio Bibliotecario [Grot­taferrata, 1912], p. 25) .

.. From Deut. 6:4-9; 11:13-21; Num. 15:37-41.

David and the people should join in at the conclusion of the verses. ,, 98

This evidently derived from the singing of the psalms in the syna­gogue when the scrolls were being put away (see above, p. 32). At some point in time, the readings from the Old Testament were dropped in the Syro-Byzantine Church, ~1 but the blessing and excerpts from the Psalms remained.

The Latin counterpart of the Byzantine Prokeimenon is the Gradual, though it now comes after the Epistle reading. But this was not always so; in the fragments of a Roman Mass book from southern Italy, the Gradual invariably follows the first of its three lessons, and the Alleluia chant follows the second. 98 Even prior to 1970, when the Latin Rite had three lecti.ons on a few occasions each year, one of the chants followed the first reading and the other the second. 11

Both the Byzantine Prokeimenon and the Latin Gradual were originally sung from the ambo. Long after the ambo disappeared from Latin churches, the idea remained of singing the Gradual from a high place. 30 Now, however, both Rites have abandoned this custom, just as both have shortened the Psalm to a mere fraction of its original length. This was probably done some time during the fifth or sixth century. Even so, the way in which the Prokeimenon is sung today is still reminiscent of that described·in the Apostolic

••Apostolic Constitutions, Book II; cf. above, p. 145, for the English, and Brightman, LEW, p. 29, for the Greek.

17 This happened during the eighth or ninth century in the Byzantine Church, for the ninth century recension of the Divine Liturgy by Anast.asius Bibliothecarius (edit. N. Borgia, op. cit., 2511.) does not refer to the reading of the prophets, though it does mention the Prokeimenon, the epistle, and the Alleluia.

•• Cf. A. Dold, Die Zfl.rcher und Peterlinger Messbuchfragmente aus der Zet des ersten Jahrtausends im Bari-Schrifttyp (Texte und Arbeiten, I, 25 [Beuron, 1934), p. :XXX).

•• Thus the Psalmellus of the Milan Liturgy comes after the first of three lections and the Alleluia chant after the second.

••Cf. Durandus, Rationale, iv. 16, John Beleth, Div. offic. explic., 38 (PL 202, 46); etc. In fact, its very name Graduale (gradus=step) in the Latin Rite derives from the lower part or step of the ambo where it was read together with the epistle. Ambos were built in Latin churches until the thirteenth century. They are still in use at Milan. For the Byzantine Rite, or rather its antecedents, we have the testimony of the Council of Laodicea, Canon 15 (Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima coUectio, Vol. II, 567); Apostolic Constitutions, Book II, 57, 5 (cf. above, p. 145, or Quasten, Monumenta euchristica et liturgia vetustissima, [Bonn, 1935-1937), 182).

Constitutions : 81 the Prokeimenon proper (an antiphon-type verse) is sung first by the lector, and then is repeated by the choir (or people); then the stikh (which takes the place of the once complete psalm) is chanted by the lector; the choir repeats the Prokeimemm by way of refrain; finally, the lector sings the first half of the same Prokeimenon and the choir the last half. as Prior to the late Middle Ages, the Latin ifradua/e was sung in an almost identical manner. Durandus,. for example, describes it in his time : The cantor intoned the first verse, the choir repeated it; the cantor intoned the second and the choir repeated the first; then the cantor intoned the first again in a higher tone and the choir repeated it. ss

01 Book II; cf. above, p. I45· .. The Ruthenians, however, abbreviate this procedure : the choir (or people)

sing the Prokeimenon, the lector the stikh, and the choir repeats the Prokeimerum (in some localities the Prokeimerwn is again repeated, with the lector singing the first half and the choir the second).

88 Durandus, Rationale, iv, 19, § 8; cf. also Ordo Rom., II, 7 (PL 78, 974). This ancient tradition was restored by St. Pius X in I'J<Yl in the Graduale Romanum (De ritibus servandis in cantu Missae, 4) : Pinita epistola aut lectione ab uno vel a duobus inchoatur responsorium, quod dicitur graduale, usque ad signum *, et cunai, aut saltem cantores designati, prosequuntur debita cum attentione. Duo diamt versum gradualis, quem ab asterisco circa finem totus chorus absolvit; aut juxta ritum responsorialem, quando magis id videtur opportunum, post versum a so/is canto­ribus aut a cantore expletum, cuncti repetunt primam partem responsorii usque ad versum.