RIT 1101 - Lecture 1

Introduction

• In the Church of Alexandria and all churches in the beginning, the main meeting of the Church was a weekly meeting for "breaking bread" or have Communion
• We have daily prayer which is Liturgical but not Eucharistic
  • Liturgical Prayer is any kind of rite that is offered in worship
  • Eucharistic Prayer is the Liturgy which has communion in the end
• Synaxis is a Greek word meaning "gathering"

Daily Prayer in the 1st Century

• "So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart" (Acts 2:46)
  • Two different gatherings - daily with one accord in the Temple
  • Temple
    • Outside of Jerusalem they would go to the Synagogue first
    • After 70AD, the Temple was destroyed
  • Breaking bread from house to house
    • house to house, each house, etc. - Greek is ⲕⲁⲧ ⲟⲓⲕⲟⲛ which refers to "specific houses" (i.e. churches)
    • Even from the beginning, it was not allowed that someone just celebrates the Eucharist at their own house or with their family. 

    • "Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To Philemon our beloved friend and fellow laborer, to the beloved Apphia, Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house" (Philemon 1:1)

      • They used to, when they gather in the Church, read a passage from the Scripture (OT) and then one of the letters or writings of the apostles. This is why St Paul tells Philemon to greet the Church - he intends for him to read it to his church
• Josephus: "Twice every day, at the dawn thereof and when the hour comes for turning to repose, let all acknowledge before God the bounties he has bestowed on them through their deliverance from the land of Egypt. Thanksgiving is a natural duty, and is rendered both in gratitude for past mercies, and to incline the giver to others yet to come."
• Didache: "And do not pray like the hypocrites, but pray as the Lord commanded in His Gospel; Our Father... for Yours is the power and the glory for ever and ever. Pray thus three times in the day." (Didache 8:3-11)
  • "O Azariah the Zealot, evening and morning and at noon, glorify the power of the Trinity..." - 3 times
  • "O You who on the sixth day and in the sixth hour... I cried to God and the Lord heard me. God hear my prayer and do not refuse my petition. Be attentive to me and hear me in the evening and the morning and at midday..." - 6th Hour Litany

Daily Prayer in the 4th Century

• Monasticism
  • Monasticism began as a non-clergy movement. It was unacceptable to have many priests, usually only one and sometimes no priests.
    • St Anthony, St Pachomious,
    • St Athanasius was in Upper Egypt and wants to ordain St Pachomius to the priesthood, so he fled and hid himself. St Athanasius told the disciples of St Pachomius
    • If monasticism was related to priesthood, St Anthony would have been the first one to be ordained... his life of holiness, his relationship with the patriarch, etc.
• Cathedral Rite
  • Cathedral means "throne of the bishop"
  • Cities in the Early Church were not like cities now. A city in those days was very small... walk from one side to another in a few hours.
  • Cities have clergy that can offer incense, celebrate the Eucharist, etc.
  • Eusebius:
    • "For it is surely no small sign of God's power that throughout the whole world in the churches of God at the morning rising of the sun and at the evening hours, hymns, praises, and truly divine delights are offered to God. God's delights are indeed the hymns sent up everywhere on earth in his Church at the times of morning and evening. For this reason it is said somewhere, "Let me praise be sung sweetly to him" and "Let my prayer be like incense before you."
  • "Concerning the gathering of all the priests and people in the church every day. Let the priests gather in church every day, and the deacons, subdeacons, readers, and all the people, at cockcrow. They shall do the prayer, the psalms, and the reading of the books and the prayers..." (Canon 21 from Canons of Pope Athanasius II)
• Monastic Rite
  • In the Monastic Rite, they don't have clergy - so how can they celebrate incense or Eucharist?
  • The mind of the monastic wants to adopt the system of "unceasing prayer."
  • Monastic Communities
    • St Antony late 3rd Century
    • St Pachomius early 4th Century
    • St Macarius mid 4th Century
    • St Shenoute late 4th Century