THE INSISTENT EKTENIA

A fter the sermon, the royal doors are closed. 1 Going out of the sanctuary, the deacon takes his usual place before the royal doors,

and begins the Insistent Ektenia : Let us all say with our whole soul and with our whole

mind, let us say :

People: Lord, have mercy. Deacon : Lord almighty, God of our fathers, we beseech

you, hear us and have mercy. People : Lord, have mercy. Deacon : Have mercy on us, 0 God, according to the great­

ness of your mercy; we beseech you, hear us and have mercy.

People: Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

In the meantime the priest recites the folluwing prayer in a low voice : 0 Lord, our God, accept this earnestly repeated supplica­

tion from your servants, and have mercy on us according to the greatness of your mercy. Send your compassion upon us and upon all your people who are expecting from you the riches of your mercy.

The deacon continues : Again let us pray for His Holiness, our Universal Ponti.ft"

N--, Pope of Rome, for our Most Reverend Archbishop and Metropolitan N--, for our God-loving Bishop N--, for those who labor and serve in this holy church, for our spiritual fathers and all our brothers in Christ. z

1 In many of the Ruthenian churches, however, the royal doors are not closed at this point.

• When the Divine Liturgy is celebrated in monasteries, the foregoing petition reads : " Again let us pray for His Holiness, our Universal Pontiff N--, Pope of Rome, for our Most Reverend Archbishop and MetropOlitan N--, for our God-loving Bishop N--, for our Very Reverend Fathers, the Protoarchimandrite N-, the Archimandrite N--, the Protohegwnenos N--, and the Hegu­menos N--, for those who labor and serve ... , etc. "

People : Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

Deacon : Let us pray for our sovereign authorities and for all the armed forces. a

People : Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

Deacon : Again let us pray for the people here present who expect from you great and abundant mercy, for those who have given us offerings and for all orthodox Christians.

People : Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

Priest: For you are a merciful God and the Lover of man­kind, and we give glory to you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and always and for ever and ever.

People : Amen. •

Translating the Greek ex:r~c; 8t7)CTLI,; (or ex't'c:vljc; txc:crEoc) or the Slavonic suhuba ektema as double or t'tDOf old ektema could induce a wholly erroneous concept of this beautiful chain of petitions. Ren­dering them as redoubled ektema, in the sense of repeating or re­echoing, would be much more desirable and correct in that, after the first two petitions, all the responses " Lord, have mercy " are repeated three times. Such a rendering would also have the added

• This petition may also be : "For our God-protected Emperor (or King) N--" etc., depending on the type of government in a given country.

• After the first three petitions, the Russian Catholic recension of the Insistent Ektenia varies considerably : while the responses of the faithful are the same, the deacon's petitions are as follows :

" Again let us pray for His Holiness, our Universal Pontiff N--, Pope of Rome, for our Most Reverend Archbishop (or bishop) N--, and for all our brothers in Christ.

" Again let us pray for our sovereign authorities and for all the armed forces (or For our God-protected Emperor--).

" Again let us pray for our brother priests and monks, and for all our brothers in Christ.

" Again let us pray for the blessed and ever-remembered founders of this holy church (or monastery), and for all our orthodox fathers and brothers who are gone before us and who are laid to rest here or elsewhere.

" Again let us pray for our benefactors, for those who bring offerings to this holy and venerable church, for those who labor in its service, the singers and the people present here who expect from you great and abundant mercy."

The doxology is the same as that of the Ruthenian recension.

merit of suggesting the redoubled fervor urged on the congregation by the exhortations of the deacon. That may be the reason why this ektenia is also known as the Ektenia of Fervent Supplication. We have translated the title of this ektent'a as insistent because its introductory petitions do indeed express persistence, urgency, and pressing need. The threefold responses are a sign of this insistent intensity designed to compel divine attention. The first three sup­plications introduce the rest of the petitions with a magnificent crescendo of insistence, urgency, and desperation which culminates in the threefold cry for mercy by the people or ecclesia.

In the first supplication, the deacon urges the people to pray with their whole soul and mind, that is, with their whole being. There is, however, deeper meaning in the words" soul and mind." One of the main ascetic principles of the early Byzantine era must be taken into consideration : intense inner discipline was required of every person in the struggle against the passions, a struggle which numbered among the inner foes all " cogitations, both sinful and neutral, " i.e., the whole contents of the " psychic" against the " pneumatic " life of thought and heart. In short, spirit against soul. The deacon's exhortation urges all to pray with their whole " har­monized inner being, " that is, with their whole consciousness emptied of all extraneous contents, even" neutral cogitations. " The second petition is a direct appeal to the Omnipotent Lord. The God who spoke to Moses, the transcendent, almighty God, whose worship early Byzantine piety borrowed from Judaism.

The expression " God of our fathers " is typically Judaic. 6 The early Byzantine Christian oscillated between fear and hope, between the God of Mercy and the God of Justice, as this petition shows. The third introductory supplication also reveals its Jewish character in that it repeats the purely Judaic expression, 0 God, according to the greatness of your mercy. •

•E.g., the beginning of Jewish Berakha in the Prayer of the Eighteen Bene­dictions : " Blessed be thou, 0 Lord God of our Fathers. "

• In the Morning Service, in the prayers on entering the synagogue, Adler translates it, "0 God in the multitude of thy mercy," a translation much more akin to the original Slavonic and Greek expressions. In fact, the Greek and Slavonic are literal translations of the Hebrew. Cf. Adler, Servi" of the Synagogue, New Year (New York : Hebrew Publishing Co.) p. 25, for original.

The celebrant's prayer, prayed silently during the recital of the Insistent Ektema, appears to be a type of the ancient prayer-collect in that it is a summary of the preceding intercessions by the deacon and people. Judaic influence shows itself here as it did in the intro­ductory supplications, especially in phrases like " 0 Lord, our God ... ; according to the greatness of your mercy; the riches of your mercy, " etc. Though the actual date of its composition is an open question, both the prayer-collect form and its Judaic expressions would suggest a date hundreds of years before it first appears in the Barberini text of the eighth century, perhaps as early as the pre­Nicene era. This introduction, revealing as it does Judaic and early Byzantine characteristics, can without doubt be numbered among the oldest parts of the ancient " common prayers " after the readings in the Christian service (see, pp. 41 f., 63).

The introduction itself is lengthy when compared to the small number of petitions which follow : there are today three introductory supplications and three petitions comprising the Insistent Ektema. This lengthy introduction alone suggests how truncated the present ektenia has become. Its former length, aside from historical evi­dence, can be deduced by combining all the ektenias found now in the other parts of the Divine Liturgy and inserting them here, which was their original place, or perhaps more correctly after the Ektenia of the Catecbumens and their dismissal. The Dismissals and prayers of the Apostolic Constitutions (Book VIII) are representative of the fullest development of these post-Gospel intercessions and, as a mediate antecedent, they also serve to illustrate what this ektenia had been before most of its petitions were shifted to the other parts of the Divine Liturgy. The actual length and content of the uni­versal prayer of intercession (and of its dismissal) in the primitive Church are unknown, but there can be little doubt that even the earliest Christian synaxis ended with it 7 as the Jewish synagogue

7 Besides Justin Martyr (chaps. 65 and 67 of his First Apology, cf. above, 41 f.), HipPolytus refers to it (Trad. Apost., edit. Dix, pp. 29, 6o), Cyprian indicates it (communis oratio, De dom. or,, chap. 8, in CSEL, III, 271), as well as Origen ("let us arise and pray," In Num. homil., xx., 5 [PG 9, 66o A : Series graeca]); likewise the sermon in the African Church during Augustine's time often ended with "Turn to the Lord," i.e., to the Bast, for a prayer (Ep. 55, I8, 34 [CSEL, XXXIV, 209)); also Sarapion, Euchologion, which has a prayer "after the rising up from the sermon" (n. 20, cf. above, p. 9I); etc.

service, on which the Christian synaxis was modeled, ended with the Shemoneh Esreh and the final prayer-blessing (cf. above, p. 32).

When Justin mentions this prayer of intercession in the 67th chapter of his First Apology, he merely states : "We all then stand up together and recite a prayer" without giving a hint of its content. In the 65th chapter, he gives but slightly more information : " ... (we) say earnest prayers in common for ourselves, for the newly­baptized, and for all others all over the world, so that we who have come to the knowledge of the truth may also by the grace of God be found worthy to live a good life by deed and to observe the command­ments by which we may gain eternal life. " Since he calls these prayers xow<li;, or " common, " this seems to indicate that either the entire community said the same formula in unison or that it took up, phrase by phrase, the prayer which was being said by the celebrant. No other second-century writer sheds any light on the matter. As already seen, Cement's famous prayer (chaps. 59 and 61 of his Epistle to the Corinthians) may have been just such a common prayer at the end of the Christian synaxis (see above, p. 34 ff.).

It is believed that, before the invention of the ektenia in the fourth century, the subject or petition of this " common prayer" was announced by the celebrant and that the congregation was invited to pray at a signal from the deacon (probably, " Let us bend the knee "). The people would then kneel and pray in silence. After a moment's prayer, the deacon or subdeacon would tell the congregation to rise and the celebrant would announce another petition, and so on. Such a practice is still found in the Roman Liturgy in the prayers of Good Friday (see above, p. 412). Later, the invitation to prayer and the" bidding" passed from the celebrant to the deacon, These prayers are very ancient : Not only are they found in the oldest Sacramentaries : they also name the confessores after the clergy-which indicates that they belong to the time of persecutions, when witnesses to the faith enjoyed the rights and privileges of clerics. 8 These prayers, though probably dating from the fourth or fifth century in their present form, could be similar

• Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition (edit. Dix, 18 f.) and Baumstark, Missale Romanum. Seine Entwickhmg, ihre wichtigsten Urkunden und Probleme (Bindhoven­Nijmegen, 1929), p. 20.

to those used in the third century. They begin with a petition for the Church, '' that our Lord and God be pleased to keep her in peace, unity and safety throughout all the world. " The next petition is for the Pope, the bishop, the clergy and rulers, for the catechumens, for all who are in danger and tribulation. The last are for heretics and schismatics, for the Jewish people and pagans.

We already have had occasion to point out another instance which is thought to contain elements of the pre-Nicene common inter­cessions; this is the very ancient litanic (prelitanic ?) form of prayer in the Alexandrian Liturgy (see above, p. 361 n. 5). Both the Roman Good Friday Prayers and the Alexandrian are similar in form and, to a certain extent, in content also. Both may serve as examples of what these common intercessory prayers in the syn.axis may have been before the very full developments of the fourth-century Syrian Church and the invention of the present form of the ektenia. The similarity between the Roman and Alexandrian prayers seems to indicate that the pre-Nicene petitions were substantially the same in both East and West. Their position in the Divine Liturgy did not vary either. One of their characteristics was that they were offered by the whole ecclesia as a corporate act, with each " order, " the celebrant (bishop or priest), the deacon, and the laity actively discharging their distinctive function.

Before the end of the fourth century, the different Churches began to use different variants in their intercessory prayers. The trans­ference of the petitions themselves from their position after the sermon to the anaphora (i.e. of those parts of the petitions which are now embodied in the text of the anaphora) as well as the development of the ektenia as such in the Antiochene Church, certainly played the most important, if unwitting, part. •

By the end of the fourth century, there had already developed an elaborate system of dismissals in which the more recent form of intercessory prayer, the ektenia, played a vital role. According to the Apostolic Constitutions (Book VIII), this system consisted in four sets of dismissals, set up according to definite, plans (see above, pp. 109-118). The first set of dismissals, for example, begins with the

• The veil screening off the sanctuary from the sight of the congregation may also have played an indirect part.

deacon bidding the catechumens to kneel; then he announces a series of petitions for their intention; in answer to each petition the congregation prays," Lord, have mercy." Besides answering this, the catechumens took no active part. When the ektenia is finished, the deacon bids them to bow for the bishop's blessing (a rather lengthy prayer), and finally they are told to depart. A similar plan is followed for other categories of people : those possessed of evil spirits, those who have almost finished their preparation for baptism, and the penitents. Because of the elaborateness of such a system, we may be inclined to believe that the compiler of the Apostolic Constitutions imagined most of it. Such a practice, however, obtained in the Antiochene Church and probably also in the Cappa­docian Church. Chrysostom, in homilies he preached in Antioch, leaves little doubt, at least as regards the first half of the petitions. Neither do the Canons of the Council of Laodicea (c. A.D. 363) referring to the Church of Asia. 10 In the Cappadocian Church (c. A.D. 270-275), after the sermon, it was the &xpowµevoL," hearers," who were first dismissed but without a prayer, 11 then the catechu­mens, the xe:Lµoc~6µevoL, "energumens "; 11 finally, the l'.,7to7tbt"C'ov"t'e:c:;, " kneelers," were told to depart after a prayer. 13 After that, came the prayers of the faithful, followed by the " bidding " of the deacon. 14

There was a subtle difference between the older form of inter­cession and the newer. The former had the people praying in silence, the latter has them answering, " Lord, have mercy, " aloud. While originally the celebrant offered a summary prayer or collect after each petition, he now does so only after or during a series of

1° From Canon 19, we know that the sermon was followed by a prayer for the catechwnens and their departure; this in turn was followed by a prayer for the penitents, who received a blessing before their departure; finally, the three Prayers of the Faithful were recited (NPNF, Series, II, Vol. XIV, p. 136).

11 Gregory the Wonderworker, Ep. can., II (PG 10, 1048 AB). 11 In Canon 17 of the Council of Ancyra, the dismissal of the energumens,

though not specifically mentioned, can safely be assumed, since the Canon mentions their presence at the service before this; cf. NPNF, Series II, Vol. XIV, p. 70.

18 Gregory the Wonderworker, loc. cit.; though he does not tell us the relative order of the disxnissals, See also St. Basil, Ep. 217, 56, 15 (PG 32, 697 A, 804 AC); Gregory of Nyssa, De bapt. Christi (PG 46, 421 C).

" Cf. Canon 2 of the Council of Ancyra, which states that one of the duties of a deacon is "to make proclamations " (K1Jp6aae:Lv), lit. " to act the herald "; cf. NPNF, Series II, Vol. XIV, p. 63.

pennons. While the celebrant prayed with those who had been interceding, he now offers a single prayer-collect for them. Thus the ektenia was born. 15

The ektenia never was a dialogue between the deacon and the people, nor is it today. The deacon for the most part speaks to the people (by proclaiming the subject for which to pray), while the people answer, not the deacon, but God.

In the old form of the petitions, the deacon's role was never that of an active intercessor (that was reserved to the celebrant and the people), whereas in the new form, the deacon does sometimes assume that role, for instance, in the first petition and the one near the end, " Help us, save us .... "

In the Ruthenian recension of the Byzantine-Slav Liturgy, only a few of the many original petitions remain. Those for the Church hierarchy and civil authorities have been left in at this point, while similar petitions for the hierarchy and civil rulers have been inserted in three other places.

Early Christians, despite the affiictions, sufferings, and tortures inflicted upon them by the state, always managed to em.brace their civil rulers in the charity of their prayers. For hundreds of years, the Byzantine Christian held that the basileus was the model of devotion, and his palace, the focal point, not only of civil and social action, but also of ecclesiastical devotion. Praying for temporal and spiritual authorities was equally indispensable. Cabasilas writes : " And what prayer could be more fitting for all, after the Gospel, than one for those who keep the Gospel, who imitate the goodness and generosity of Christ, the shepherds of the people, those who govern the state. These, if they are faithful to the precepts of the Gospel, as the Apostle says, ' achieve after Christ that which is lacking in Christ, ' in governing his flock as he would wish .... " 10

The divine origin of the princely power, based on biblical and patristic traditions, endowed the prince with great dignity and implied obedience to him as to a "minister of God" (Rom. 13:14).

15 This is somewhat different, of course, from the intercessions inserted in the anaphora.

18 Nicolas C.S.basilas, A Commantary on the Divine Liturgy, chap. 23, trans. by J. M. Hussey and P.A. McNulty (London, 196o), p. 63.

Yet, the Byzantine political doctrine of sacred autocracy was not preached in early Kievan Russia-Ukraine, even by the Greek clergy. Political circumstances in the Slav state prevented any real " deifi.ca­tion" of power. The kniazy or princes (translated by the Greeks as <lpx.o'll't'e:i;, rulers, commanders, governors-high officers of imperial administration) who ruled the Kievan lands enjoyed no such prerogative. Unlimited or autocratic power for the Russian tsar came much later.

The early Kievan Church demanded of temporal rulers obedience to religious and moral law; in fact, Kievan religious literature-­what little there is left of it-is more concerned with having the princes obey the law than with having the people obey the princes. 17

After spiritual and civil rulers, the same petition goes on to intercede "for those who labor and serve in this holy church." 18

Cabasilas explains this as applying to " those who in any way con­tribute to the common good of the Church and of religion. " 11

Besides lectors and cantors (holding minor orders in the Byzantine Church), singers are included, and also all those who keep the churches clean and in good repair. In the Byzantine-Slav Church, such tasks are assigned to lay people, called starsm bratia (older brothers) and starsm sestrychki (older sisters). Their duties in addition to cleaning, include replacing burned-out candles, washing altar linens, polishing the metal utensils, etc. In earlier days, the starshej brat whould also light the stove before the services. so

However, in many churches of the Ukraine and Russia there was

1• Kievan chroniclers in general are very outspOken about the sins and vices of their princes. Some would even consider a revolt of citizens against their princes as an act of God's will, as the chastening providence of the Almighty (Lavr., 1068). Perhaps the constitutional place of the veche, the people's assembly in the Kievan state, influenced this justification.

18 The Russian recension has "for those who labor in its [the church's} service, the singers," etc. (Sluzhebnyk, Rome, 1942, p. 225).

10 Op. cit., p. 63. •• An eighty-year old starshej brat in a country parish in eastern Saskatchewan

used to walk five miles to church even during forty-five degree below-zero weather to perform his duties! A truly monumental feat when we remember that he had to get up at four-thirty in the morning in order to get to church two hours before the Liturgy began. When forbidden to do this during the severe winter weather (for fear of his freezing to death), he went off quietly by himself and wept.

no heating of any kind, even in the coldest winter weather. Bearing the cold was regarded as a form of penance. The starshef brat and 1tarsha sestra parallel the faithful attendants who " served in the temple" at Jerusalem, such as Sim.eon and Anna, mentioned in the Gospel.

The petition goes on to pray " for our spiritual fathers. " The term" spiritual fathers " is unique to the Ruthenian recension. The Greek and Russian recensions have '' for all our orthodox: fathers.," which may not mean the same. The Ruthenian ottets dukhovnej, "spiritual father," refers to anyone who has exercised the office of father confessor, although not necessarily to one with the power of sacramental absolution. An ottets dukhovnef could be a monk without sacred orders, to whom the laity went for spiritual direction and advice. Since all the known pre-Mongolian Eastern Slav monasteries were built in the immediate outskirts of towns, it seems that their primary role was religious guidance. 21 The Eastern Slav always seems to have unburdened his soul to a monk in preference to a secular priest. The inspiration for this sincere trust in the monk is epitomized by Dostoevsky in the remark of Father Zossima, the staretz of Alyosha Karamazov, who talked to the peasants, to the poor and forsaken : " The Russian monk has always been on the side of the people." Deeper than that, however, reverence and filial trust for the monks was engendered by the various authors of early Russian-Ukrainian "admonition literature." The Admonition of the Father to His Son, for example, exhorts :

"My son ... have recourse to them [the monks] and they will comfort you; shed your sorrows before them and you will be gladdened; for they are sons of sorrowlessness and know how to comfort you, sorrowing one. '' ... seek a God-fearing man ... and serve him with all your strength. After finding such a man, you need grieve no more; you have found the key to the Kingdom of Heaven; adhere to him with soul and body; observe his life, his walking, sitting, looking, eating, and examine all his habits; first of all, my son, keep his words, do not let any of them fall to the

81 Later when the totally contemplative spirit was developed in Russia and the Ukraine, monks did seek isolation from the world in forests, in underground cells. etc., far from the turmoil of the world.

ground; they are more precious than pearls ... the words of the saints. " 21

Simple Slav people took such advice eagerly to heart, and accepted the monk as" spiritual father."

The petition continues, "For all our brothers in Christ." In­herited from the Byzantine Liturgy (which in turn had obtained it from earlier Christian sources), this phrase is colored with a special meaning for the Ukrainian and Russian, embracing all fellow Christians and ultimately all fellow men in kinship. This sense of common origin or common blood imparts a certain warmth, a certain family tenderness in human relationship. Kinship names are con­tinually on the lips of the Russian and Ukrainian peasants, even in addressing strangers. The appellations "father," "grandfather,'' "uncle,"" brother" (and the corresponding feminine designations) are chosen in accordance with the age or degree of moral and social importance of the person addressed. In this light, all social life can be said to have been shaped as the extension of family life, and raised to the level of blood kinship. This gens-ethic stems back to the pre-Christian Kievan era when the rod (gens, or even Celtic clan) was a vital social reality related to the worship of the minor gods, the dead. The founder of the rod, the ancestral chief, was always a special patron of the house and as such was called " house-spirit " ( Domoooi). 28 Another manifestation of this feeling for the rod is found among the Russian and Balkan Slavs in that they have pre­served the use of patronymic names. Of the two personal names which every Russian has, for example, the second is a derivative from his father's; i.e., if my father's name was Ivan and mine was Vladimir, I would be called Vladimir Ivanovich. In the gens-ethic of the rod, Christianity had fertile soil for its doctrine of brotherhood in Christ.

Between this petition and the next, the celebrant may, if he wishes, insert the ektenia of special petitions; that is, a group of supplications for special intentions.

11 Translation from G. P. Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind (New York : Harper Torchbook edit., 1960), p. 215.

•• Remains of the pagan belief in the Domotioi could still be found among the Russian peasants of the last century.

Then comes the general petition for the attendance : " Again let us pray for the people here present who expect from you great and abundant mercy, for those who have given us offerings."

The meaning of this petition is obvious. The Slav caritative ideal is perhaps best seen in the very word mylostynia (giving of offerings, almsgiving), the root of which is myslost (love). Mylostynia, in fact, literally means a manifestation of love, kindness. In addition to the offerings or charitable acts, there must be also inner love, a feeling of tender compassion for the recipient. The " love duties " so frequently stressed in the early religious literature of ancient Kiev are very clear on this point. The author of the Hundred Chapters, for example, after urging his readers to feed the hungry, to visit the sick and imprisoned, adds '" and sigh as you witness their distress. '' After reminding them to care for the sick, he emphasizes that" when he (the sick man) is moaning with pain, you must shed tears of compassion" (chap. 61).