Ship of Fools: Byzantine rite of the presanctified gifts

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Posted by Forthview (# 12376) on :

At certain times of the year the Byzantine rite,be it Orthodox or Catholic,celebrates the liturgy of the presanctified gifts.

Assuming that the presanctified gifts are consecrated on the Sunday preceding the rite, where and how are the sacred species reserved ?
I read that they are kept in a special pyx,but where is the pyx kept.

I know that the Byzantine rite Catholic church here has a tabernacle, but what happens in an Orthodox church ?

Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on :

What are those certain times of the year?

I know the Western Church uses the Reserved Sacrament, from Maundy Thursday, at the subsequent Good Friday liturgy, though I think this is a fairly recent development in the C of E.

FWIW, at Our Place, the consecrated hosts for Good Friday are kept in the sacristy safe, with a white light burning nearby, as is customary when the Sacrament is in Its usual place in the aumbry.

IJ

Posted by Forthview (# 12376) on :

My understanding is that these are certain weekdays during Lent, when a full liturgy might be considered too joyful during the season of repentance.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

Holy week. Consecrated bread splashed with consecrated wine are kept on the altar, then mixed with "new" wine to create the chalice for the faithful. I don't know about "festive." I believe the liturgy used is that of St. Mark, similar to the everyweek liturgy of the Copts.

Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on :

In what kind of vessel or container are the elements so kept, mousethief?

IJ

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

I'm not entirely sure but I believe it's just a chalice. Maybe with a cap but I do not know.

Posted by The Scrumpmeister (# 5638) on :

The ROCOR Western American Diocese produced a very detailed and informative DVD on the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. Unfortunately my copy is faulty and refuses to play.

There are variant practices on the reservation. In some places, as Mousethief says, the Holy Things are reserved in a chalice. In others, they are placed in the tabernacle, (most Byzantine Rite churches have a tabernacle on the Holy Table, although it is often referred to as an ark).

The Liturgy used is ascribed to St Gregory the Great, Pope of Rome, although this is an honorific naming and does not indicate authorship or influence on the development of the rite as it does in other liturgies.

While the Presanstified Liturgy is customarily served on the Wednesdays and Fridays of Lent, it can be served on any weekday. In Eastern Orthodoxy there is a canonical prohibition on celebrating the Eucharist on the weekdays of Lent, which was one of the deliberately anti-Western decisions of the controversial Council of Trullo.

One traditional exception to this rule is the occasion of the feast of the Annunciation falling on a weekday in Lent.

One more recent exception is the case Western Rite parishes and monasteries who are under Eastern Orthodox bishops, where an allowance is made because, when they get down to facing the reality of it, the bishops know that the fathers of that council were simply having a snipe at the Roman Patriarchate and that there is nothing truly unOrthodox about offering the Eucharist on a lenten weekday. The festal character of the Divine Liturgy which is deemed inappropriate is specific to the Byzantine Divine Liturgy, and does not apply to the traditionally more austere forms of the Mass in the various rites of the Western Church.

This also applies to the ember days, traditionally days of fasting for Western Christians and still observed by Western Rite Orthodox, despite the Council of Trullo condemning the practice of observing Saturdays as days of fasting.

Sadly, the acceptance within Eastern Orthodoxy of that council as having Ecumenical status means that it can be used as a stick by some anti-western rite people to beat their sisters and brothers.

Incidentally, the Presanctified Liturgy is one of those areas where there is a slight theological difference between the Greek and Slav churches about whether the unconsecrated wine in the chalice becomes consecrated by virtue of contact with the previously reserved Holy Body. If I recall correctly, the Greeks say yes, and so simply immerse the Body alone into the wine. The Russians say no, and so, prior to reservation, will soak the Holy Body with some of the Precious Blood.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

posted by Bishops Finger

quote:

I know the Western Church uses the Reserved Sacrament, from Maundy Thursday, at the subsequent Good Friday liturgy, though I think this is a fairly recent development in the C of E.

Not so: very common in those trained at Staggers or Mirfield from at least the late 1930s onwards.

posted by Forthview

quote:
My understanding is that these are certain weekdays during Lent, when a full liturgy might be considered too joyful during the season of repentance.

I've never heard that one before: the only days in Lent when a full communion is inappropriate are Good Friday and Easter Eve and it is then that the reserved sacrament can come into play, although IME most clergy deem it inappropriate to give or receive communion on those days except in the case of the Last Rites.

mousethief: "...just a chalice. Maybe with a cap... - I think that means a ciborium.

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:

quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
My understanding is that these are certain weekdays during Lent, when a full liturgy might be considered too joyful during the season of repentance.
I've never heard that one before: the only days in Lent when a full communion is inappropriate are Good Friday and Easter Eve and it is then that the reserved sacrament can come into play, although IME most clergy deem it inappropriate to give or receive communion on those days except in the case of the Last Rites.

I think Forthview was referring to a Byzantine/Orhodox understanding, not to a Western understanding.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
"...just a chalice. Maybe with a cap...
- I think that means a ciborium.

I could be wrong, but I'm not sure ciboria as such are found in Byzantine/Orthodox rites.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
posted by Bishops Finger
quote:

I know the Western Church uses the Reserved Sacrament, from Maundy Thursday, at the subsequent Good Friday liturgy, though I think this is a fairly recent development in the C of E.
Not so: very common in those trained at Staggers or Mirfield from at least the late 1930s onwards. ....

I think that depends on what one means by 'fairly recent'.

Reservation would have been unknown from 1559 until sometime in the second generation of Anglo-Catholicism. At that time it would have been regarded as aggressively daring by its proponents and very illegal by everyone else.

It wasn't one of the things Bishop Edward King was accused of doing in 1888. So I think we can assume that however advanced St Peter at Gowts was in Lincoln at that date, it wasn't that advanced.

I suspect you're right in your dating of when it started to become more widely done. It was, though, still regarded as a bit of an Anglo-Catholic badge and not that widespread in the 1950s.

So if 'fairly recent' means since the experimental service books started to come in (end of the 1960s) then it isn't fairly recent. But if 'fairly recent' means when an innovation was made relative to CofE history since the Reformation, then it is.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

Enoch is right. Communion from the presanctified on Good Friday (never on Holy Saturday) would be widely practised in self-consciously Anglo-catholic parishes from, I imagine, the 1920s onwards. But never in more moderate or 'Prayer Book Catholic' places. It was the publication of 'Lent, Holy Week and Easter' in I think 1984 that encouraged such places to adopt the custom.

I believe that some 'self-consciously Evangelical' parishes would actually celebrate the Eucharist (BCP rite of course), but that wasn't common in MOTR places.

At the risk of prolonging this tangent, it's interesting that the reservation of the sacrament was regarded with such horror in many Anglican circles until quite recently. It doesn't seem to bother people so much now.

Posted by Forthview (# 12376) on :

I must say that whenever I go to an Anglican church ( and I do this often when I am in England) I always look for the aumbry with veil and light and I usually see one. I get the impression, however, that few people apart from the clergy are really aware of the aumbry and its contents.

If in a Byzantine rite church the Sacred species are left in a chalice I suppose that it would be behind the iconostasis and therefore out of sight of the majority of the faithful who might be visiting the church.

Posted by The Scrumpmeister (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
posted by Forthview
quote:
My understanding is that these are certain weekdays during Lent, when a full liturgy might be considered too joyful during the season of repentance.
I've never heard that one before: the only days in Lent when a full communion is inappropriate are Good Friday and Easter Eve and it is then that the reserved sacrament can come into play...

This is what I was referring to above. You have given the classical rubrical tradition of the Roman Rite. However, the Quinisext Council (commonly known as the Council of Trullo) at the end of the 7th century, which is considered as having Ecumenical status among the Eastern Orthodox, promulgated this canon (52) among other controversial ones:

quote:
On all days of the holy fast of Lent, except on the Sabbath, the Lord’s day and the holy day of the Annunciation, the Liturgy of the Presanctified is to be said.

So it is far from being a novel or little-known idea. Trullo is, in fact, one of the points of "us vs. them" that often get an airing among those Catholics and Eastern Orthodox of a less ecumenical persuasion.

The Wikipedia article on the council gives an idea of how it was received in parts of the Church the years following.

quote:
mousethief: "...just a chalice. Maybe with a cap... - I think that means a ciborium.

[/qb][/QUOTE]It's definitely a chalice.

As Nick Tamen rightly said, the western ciborium is all but unknown in Byzantine practice. When the Holy Things are kept in a chalice, I've seen them covered with a small paten or with the houseling cloth , which is then secured aound the stem of the chalice.

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