Rituals
Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom
Also Known As Divine Liturgy Used without qualification, this is normally the Chrysostom liturgy, which is served on most days of the year. · The Divine Liturgy
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Origin Core prayers attested by the Barberini codex, c. 800; the attribution to Chrysostom (d. 407) is conventional
The Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom is the eucharistic service celebrated on most days of the year throughout the Byzantine Rite, which makes it, by frequency of use, one of the most celebrated liturgies in Christendom. It bears the name of John Chrysostom, the golden-mouthed preacher who was archbishop of Constantinople from 398 to 404, though the service as now used is the work of many centuries. Shorter and more direct than its companion liturgy of St Basil, it carries the ordinary worship of the Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churches from Sunday to Sunday.
Facts
Origins
Origin PeriodCore prayers attested by the Barberini codex, c. 800; the attribution to Chrysostom (d. 407) is conventional 1 The manuscript attestation is secure; the personal authorship of Chrysostom is a traditional attribution, not a scholarly finding. Place of OriginConstantinople, in the Byzantine Rite 2 Historical OriginTraditionally attributed to John Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople in the late fourth century, though scholars judge the liturgy in its familiar present form to have taken shape gradually over the centuries that followed rather than as his single finished composition. 2 Practice
Who Performs ItClergy or ordained officiants 1 FrequencyDaily 1Tradition: Eastern Orthodoxy Cadence DetailMost days of the liturgical year when the eucharist is celebrated 1Tradition: Eastern Orthodoxy Liturgical and Scriptural RoleThe Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom is the eucharistic liturgy used on most days of the year in the Byzantine Rite, traditionally attributed to the fourth century archbishop of Constantinople though shaped by later liturgical development. 3 Status
Current StatusThe most frequently celebrated of the Byzantine liturgies today, used on most Sundays and ordinary weekdays throughout the year across Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churches alike. 1 Meaning
Literal MeaningThe Orthodox Church identifies the service as the eucharistic liturgy attributed to John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, naming it the form celebrated on most Sundays and ordinary days across the Byzantine liturgical year. 1 Attributions
PurposeCelebrates the Eucharist as the ordinary liturgy of the Byzantine Rite, used on most days of the year outside the fixed occasions reserved for the longer Liturgy of St Basil. 1 Text
Source TextThis short history of the Byzantine rite identifies the liturgy attributed to John Chrysostom as the ordinary form celebrated on most Sundays and feast days throughout the Byzantine liturgical year, in contrast to the rarer Liturgy of St Basil. 2 Learn More
The Ordinary Liturgy of the Byzantine Church
The service unfolds in three movements. Before the public liturgy begins, the priest performs the proskomedia at a side table, preparing the bread and wine and commemorating the living and the dead with particles arranged around the central Lamb. The Liturgy of the Catechumens follows, the gathered half of the service, with its litanies, antiphons, the entrance with the gospel book, the appointed epistle and gospel, and in ancient practice the dismissal of those not yet baptised, a dismissal still spoken though the catechumens now stay.
The Liturgy of the Faithful is the eucharist proper: the great entrance, in which the prepared gifts are carried in procession through the church while the Cherubic Hymn is sung, the kiss of peace and the creed, and then the anaphora, the great prayer of offering that runs through thanksgiving, the words of institution and the epiclesis, the explicit calling down of the Holy Spirit on the gifts which Orthodox theology treats as belonging to the heart of the consecration. Communion is given in both kinds from the chalice with a spoon. Around this skeleton the rite has grown centuries of hymnography that change with the day and the tone, so that the same liturgy is never quite the same twice, and the whole is sung throughout, for the Byzantine tradition does not speak its worship.
A Name and Its History
The attribution to John Chrysostom is ancient, but it is a banner rather than an author's signature. Chrysostom came to Constantinople from Antioch in 398, and it is entirely plausible that he brought Antiochene eucharistic usage with him; the liturgy that bears his name is of the Antiochene family, and scholars have found real correspondences between phrases of its anaphora and the wording of Chrysostom's genuine sermons, which is as close as the evidence comes to his hand. What is certain is that the service grew for centuries after him.
The Barberini euchologion, the oldest surviving Byzantine service book, copied around the year 800, gives the core prayers but attributes only some of them to Chrysostom, and the elaborate preparatory rite, the great entrance ceremonial and much of the hymnography are later growth, reaching their familiar form in the medieval Typikon. By the second millennium the Chrysostom liturgy had displaced the longer liturgy of St Basil as the ordinary Sunday service, with Basil's reserved for ten appointed days of the year. The name, then, records what the Byzantine church believed about the pedigree of its worship and honoured in its greatest preacher, and the scholarly consensus that the text is a layered corporate work does not diminish the liturgy; it simply makes the whole church its author.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Assembled From
Sung in the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom after the consecration.
Sung at the Great Entrance of the Byzantine Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom.
In Byzantine practice the Kyrie is sung dozens or hundreds of times within the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom.
The great prayer of the Byzantine liturgy attributed to Chrysostom.
The epiclesis of the Byzantine liturgy attributed to Chrysostom.
The Lamb is divided into four along the lines of the seal.
Belongs to Tradition
Kept in the Church of Cyprus, autocephalous since the Council of Ephesus in 431.
Kept in the Church of Greece.
Kept in the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the see of first honour among the Orthodox churches.
Kept in the Georgian Orthodox Church, which has used its own language and script in worship since the fifth century.
Kept in the Greek Orthodox churches.
Kept in the Romanian Orthodox Church, the one Orthodox church of the Byzantine tradition whose language is Romance.
Kept in the Russian Orthodox Church, in the Slavonic recension of the Byzantine books.
Kept in the Serbian Orthodox Church.
The Liturgy of St John Chrysostom is the ordinary Sunday liturgy.
Kept in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Conducted By
A hieromonk is a monk ordained to the priesthood and serves the Divine Liturgy in his monastery.
The Liturgy of St John Chrysostom is served by a presbyter, or by a bishop when he is present.
Named For
This edge restates authorship attribution rather than a contested claim in its own right. The Liturgy's own origin-period fact already states its core prayers are attested by the Barberini codex around 800 and that the attribution to Chrysostom, who died in 407, is conventional rather than a matter of direct authorship, in full.
Originates in Language
Related To
Given to everyone present at the end of this liturgy.
Cut at the prothesis before this liturgy; the stamped square becomes the Lamb.
Sources
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