For the past three centuries, studies on the West Syrian liturgy have been mainly concerned with the texts or tracing the history of the rites. West Syrian liturgical theology has received little attention. This is the first book to explain the important orientations of the West Syrian liturgical tradition. What is the role of liturgy in the life and witness of the Church? What does the Church aim to accomplish in and through the liturgy? How is the celebration related to the fundamental principles of the Christian faith? These are some of the questions that this book attempts to answer. An historical sketch of West Syrian liturgy and summary of the structure of the celebrations, namely the Daily Office, Anaphora and other sacraments, sets the context for the deeper explorations into the West Syrian liturgy. Explaining the meaning of the arrangement of the liturgy in various liturgical units, Fr Varghese draws on the West Syrian liturgical commentaries and homilies on liturgical celebrations. Other oriental orthodox liturgical traditions and East Syrian sources are also examined, and key theological principles and ecclesiological and eschatological dimensions are explored. A bibliography of the West Syrian liturgy and a glossary of Syriac terms is provided.

In Introduction to Eastern Christian Liturgies, renowned liturgical scholars Stefanos Alexopoulos and Maxwell E. Johnson fulfill the need for a new, comprehensive, and straightforward survey of the liturgical life of the Eastern Christian Churches within the seven distinct liturgical Eastern rites still in existence today: Armenian, Byzantine, Coptic, Ethiopic, East Syrian, West Syrian, and Maronite. This topical overview covers baptism, chrismation, Eucharist, reconciliation, anointing, marriage, holy orders, burial, Liturgy of the Hours, the liturgical year, liturgical ethos and spirituality, and offers a brief yet comprehensive bibliography for further study. This book will be of special interest to masters-level students in liturgy and theology, pastoral ministers seeking an introduction to the liturgies of the Christian East, and all who seek to increase their knowledge of the liturgical riches of the Christian East.

Presents the insights of St. Ephrem and Jacob of Serugh, two of the earliest representatives of the theological world-view of the Syriac church.

This essay is centered around five questions: (i) What is the proper place of liturgical theology? (ii) Which evolutions have there been in the past and which current tendencies are there in the field of liturgical theology? (iii) Which contents must liturgical theologians focus on? (iv) How can liturgical theologians engage in research? And (v): How can liturgical theology appropriately respond to what happens in Church and society? Each question corresponds with one part. The rationale behind ordering the content of this essay in this way is the following: starting from a reflection about the non-evident place of liturgical theology, an attempt is made to give it a fitting profile again on the basis of its genealogy in the Liturgical Movement. Correspondingly, liturgical theology can be considered a full-fledged research program, which does not simply deal with Christian rituals, festivals and sacraments, but with the core of Christian faith.

Tracing the origins of daily prayer from the New Testament and Patristic period, through the Reformation and Renaissance to the present, this book examines the development of daily rites across a broad range of traditions including: Pre-Crusader Constantinopolitan, East and West Syrian, Coptic and Ethiopian, non-Roman and Roman Western. Structure, texts and ceremonial are examined, and contemporary scholarship surveyed. Concluding with a critique of the present tenor of liturgical revision, Gregory Woolfenden raises key questions for current liturgical change, suggests to whom these questions should be addressed, and proposes that the daily office might be the springboard for an authentic baptismal spirituality. The author explores how prayer and poetic texts indicate that the thrust of the ancient offices was a movement from night to morning - from death to resurrection.

The Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church exists as a hybrid church by blending the Eastern liturgical elements of the Oriental Orthodox Church and the evangelical ideas of the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. This Church is a bridging church, connecting Protestantism and Oriental Orthodoxy. The reformation in the Malankara Church (1836) instigated a new impetus for this church in constructing an ecclesial identity and pattern of mission. A major missiological imperative employed by CMS missionaries in India was solely centered on the scripture. Against this popular understanding, the Mar Thoma Church, through its reformation process showed that liturgy can also be an imperative for mission. The translation and revision of the Eucharistic liturgy is the basic visible expression of reformation in the Malankara Church. Hence, this book explicitly places how the Eucharistic liturgy of the Mar Thoma Church is observed as the foundation for mission in its course of growth. In order to accomplish this objective, the writer has examined the historical evolution and the developmental process of the Eucharistic liturgy of the church, which is a revised version of the liturgy of St. James. In a nutshell, this study is an appraisal of various missiological themes reflected in the Eucharistic liturgy of the church. This study throws ample light on how the Mar Thoma Church integrated liturgy and evangelism in its course of development. The writer systematically illustrates how the church made a serious effort to bring missional themes employed in the liturgy into the practical realm by its ancillary organizations, convention gatherings, and sociocharitable works. This volume asserts that an emphasis on Eucharist-centred ecclesiology guides and motivates the church to enliven a mission-oriented life, which is crucial for accomplishing a relevant mission.

This fourth collection by Sebastian Brock focuses on three areas: the christology of the Church of the East, with the argument that the traditional characterisation of this Church as 'Nestorian' is not only unsatisfactory, but also thoroughly misleading; the distinctive phraseology of the invocations to the Holy Spirit in the Syriac liturgical tradition, hearkening back to Jewish roots; and two important early Commentaries on the Liturgy.