By the Very Reverend John W. Fenton
Liturgical Theology is the study of Christian liturgy. Liturgy itself, broadly understood, studies the Church’s ritual, prayer, and worship practices. Generally, it does not include individual practices or prayers, and may even exclude so-called non-liturgical devotions such as Stations of the Cross, the Rosary, etc. Rather, it includes these subdisciplines:
- The texts that are used, and have been used in various times and places, for prayer, blessing, making and giving sacraments, and other forms of public worship.
- The ceremonies that are used in the liturgy, including the rubrics or directions that command or suggest those ceremonies.
- The items or implements, the art and architecture, the music and instrumentation, the fabrics and colors, the sewing and clothing arts, and whatever else is necessary or used in the conduct of liturgy.
- The context of liturgy, including the cultural, linguistic, practical, geographic, musical, and historical influences on liturgy.
- The meaning and importance of liturgy itself, as a Christian activity; and its place in the Church.
- The level and significance of liturgical participation by the laity, choir, and various clergy.
In the Orthodox context, liturgical theology understands the Church’s official worship as the definitive primary source for any theology. This operational principle is reflected in the age-old adage lex orandi, lex credendi, which in its earliest formulation implies that the “law of faith,” or belief content, is determined, or shaped, by the “law of prayer,” or liturgical praxis. This last point—the place of liturgy within the framework of theological disciplines, is the most significant which I’ll address in a different series of lecture. For now, however, we want to consider the primary sources of Christian liturgy.
A scientific approach to liturgical theology indicates that the sources must be documents that either were actually used in liturgical worship, or that record liturgical events. Those who take this scientific approach usually begin with documents recorded after the Ascension of Our Lord—whether from the New Testament or from post-apostolic sources. Many understand that these documents are rooted in Hebraic tradition. In other words, Christian liturgy did not start from nothing, nor was it simply the brainstorm of Jesus and the Apostles. Rather, Christian liturgy builds on the Temple liturgy that was the pattern of prayer and ceremony known to the children of Abraham at the time of Christ. The extent to which the early Christians reformed, in a protestantizing way, those pre-Christian liturgical texts and rites is considered in yet another lecture I’ll offer.
For now, then, let us understand the challenges of examining the primary sources of Christian liturgy. A first challenge is that very few documents exist until the 4th and 5th centuries. One reason should be rather obvious: Christianity was a persecuted and, at times, literally an underground religion. Christians worshipped in catacombs or cemeteries; they followed strict security protocols; their highest ranking and leading members were often the first to be tortured and executed; they were outcasts not only from society but from their own families; and so they ministered to the poorest of the poor, the most downcast, and those with little hope of longevity. If records were kept, they were most likely destroyed either by the government or to safeguard others.
Another reason for few documents would be the difficulty of writing and copying documents, even in the best of times. Only the wealthy could afford and house books. And so many of our sources are either secreted away, or preserved by those who were not Christian but had received either some testimony or had some curious interest in cultish groups. Combine that with the fact that the need to survive does not produce many historians or historical records, and you can see the challenge.
I think, however, that the greatest reason there are few early records has less to do with persecution or wealth, and more to do with how worship is conducted. By its nature, Christian liturgy is best done when it is done without a book. The Psalms are sung by memory. The prayers follow a pattern that is inculcated in the mind but not necessarily written in a book. The ceremonies are conducted according to a flow that is natural in a structured culture. The songs follow the usual melodic forms for solemn prayer. And all of this is colored, influenced, and culturally dictated by the Old Testament temple worship.
This, to me, leads to one inescapable but rarely mentioned conclusion: the primary liturgical book for Christian liturgy in the earliest days was simply the Bible. This Bible was, at first, exclusively the Old Testament with worship leaning heavily into the Psalms, with readings from the Torah and Wisdom literature. In short order, it is reasonable to assume that some of the recently circulated “memoirs of the Apostles” (Gospels) and a few significant letters (Epistles) were read, as the bishop saw fit. But that was about it, at least for written documentary texts. And, frankly, the Bible is still the foundation for Christian liturgy. For the Scriptures are, and have been even in the Old Testament, a liturgical book first and foremost. In other words, the Scriptures are recorded and collected for use in the liturgy, and only later for outside reading, study, and sourcing in debate.
Yet even the Bible, as documentary liturgical text, gives us very little about how Temple or Christian liturgy was conducted. Only centuries later, from the sixth century through the 16th century, are directions or rubrics given that describe or prescribe how the rite is to be conducted. And even these fail in helping us see the liturgy. For even to this day, liturgical worship is learned not by reading a book or even watching a YouTube video. Liturgical worship is learned—truly embedded and inculcated in the heart—by experience; and not just once or twice, but by standing in the nave or at the altar week after week, month after month, year after year.
And this leads two my second major point. The science of liturgical theology relies heavily on the study of documents, architecture, art, and other ‘hard evidence.’ But Christian liturgy—in fact, all worship in any religion—is, by its very nature, experiential. In other words, the documents and other ‘hard evidence’ only give you an outline of what happens in liturgy, but not a complete or fulsome picture of the actual happening. And while anecdotal evidence may help color in some of the outline, even at its best this ‘soft evidence’ merely describes what happened in one or a few occurrences, during one era, in one location.
With the Scriptures, then, what should be the primary source for Liturgical Theology in order to gain a more well-rounded understanding of Christian liturgy? Coming from an Orthodox perspective, that primary source should be Tradition. And ‘tradition’ refers more to the Spirit’s work through the ages than to interesting ceremonial quirks, occasional rubrics, or theologized rituals. I would argue that even the preponderance of the earliest liturgical documents don’t capture the Tradition since they not only can’t explain how the rite is done, but they often describe the hierarchical liturgy—not the daily or Sunday worship in the typical parish church; in other words, not what most Christians in most times and places have experienced.
Where, then, is the Tradition manifest? The answer is not evidence-based in the sense that it can be examined minutely by an objective observer. Rather, the answer is evidence-based but more malleable, requiring someone with ‘inside’ information. For the Tradition of liturgy depends greatly on the phrase: “Here’s how we do it,” or “Here’s how I was taught,” or “Here’s what the bishop wants.” And that last phrase is, by far, the most important. Not just because the bishop’s role is to direct the liturgy in his diocese, or because the best priests look to and copy the bishop’s manner of serving, as best they can in their circumstances; but more importantly because the bishop is the guarantor and embodiment of the Tradition since he is both the conduit of the Spirit’s movement in the Church as well as a direct spiritual descendant of the Holy Apostles. Let me say that again. The evidence-based view of how liturgy is done is the bishop, in his time and place, precisely because he is the guarantor and embodiment of the Tradition since he is both the conduit of the Spirit’s movement in the Church as well as a direct spiritual descendant of the Holy Apostles
Now, this answer is not objectively, scientifically satisfying, because everyone knows that bishops will have different tastes, knowledge, attention, perspectives, and even liturgical theologies; and that different pastoral circumstances will dictate different solutions to specific details. For example, one bishop may insist on a declaimed canon or anaphora, another on an audible canon spoken over or in conjunction with the singing, and another a whispered canon. And the reasons may be myriad: time, instruction, theory, literacy of the communities, or simply preference. Yet, since Tradition as living because it is the Spirit’s ‘vehicle’ for continuing the Faith, the ‘living’ part in “Living Tradition” is the bishop himself, who has been graced by the Spirit to “rightly divide the word of Truth” in order “to be in word and conversation a wholesome example to the people committed to his charge; that he with them may attain unto everlasting life.”
The attainment of everlasting life is the goal of Christian liturgy. And the bishop’s primary role is to aid the liturgy so that his local church remains within the Tradition in a way that does not frustrate but sets forward our salvation. Because of him, then, the liturgy in a particular time and place brings the documentary evidence alive within a prescribed setting (architecture) using the arts (music, fabric, icon) that he deems beneficial.
This “boots on the ground” view of liturgical theology is, to my mind, foundational in examining not only what liturgy is but also why it is. It recognizes that, more than any encyclical, catechism, textbook, preaching, or social media, the day in and day out experience, adoration, and imploring of God as the Body of Christ is the place and way in which we work out our salvation. That “we” includes the infants as well as the adults, the educationally challenged as well as the elites, the poorest as well as the richest, and every person from every ethic, cultural, linguistic background. But most of all, in the liturgy we, together beside and united to one another, present to Our Lord the offering of ourselves, beset and besmirched with so many and varied ungodly passions and fears. And the purpose of the liturgy is both to give us hope as well as to give us the wherewithal to continue to struggle, both downward and upward, into the kingdom of heaven.
If the discipline of liturgical study devolves into little more than academic presentations about what, how, where, and when Christian worship is or has been done, then it has missed its most important task—to aid bishops, priests, deacons, and laity in offering our best using our best. That was the initial impetus of the Liturgical Movement in the 20th century, both in the church of Rome and in the Orthodox churches, driven most notably by the diaspora Russians. These pioneers of Liturgical Theology understood that liturgy was not about history or dogma, but about the work of the Holy Spirit. What they missed—what both Catholics and Orthodox missed—was the vital role of the bishop. For he was the living embodiment of how liturgy is done, putting flesh on the skeleton and finishing touches on the framework.
The bishop’s role, then, is not merely a role; not a character or actor is the choreography called liturgy. The bishop’s role is fundamental. Implicitly or explicitly, passively or with clear direction, he helps breath life into the liturgy. To say it awkwardly, the bishop Spirits Jesus in our worship. To say it more elegantly using the words of Our Lord, the bishop leads us in worshiping in Spirit and in Truth.
Let me conclude, then, with my thesis: the heart of an Orthodox study of Liturgical Theology begins and ends with understanding that St Ignatius is not talking about administration or ecclesial dogma, but is making a profoundly liturgical statement when he declares: “wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be; as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”