WEST SYRIAN LITURGY

                  West Syrian Liturgy belongs to the Antiochene family of liturgies of which East Syrian (Edessa), Byzantine, Maronite and the Armenian liturgies are the other members. The Syrian Orthodox (Antioch), Malankara Orthodox (India), Syrian Catholic, Syro-Malankara and the Independent Syrian Church of Malabar are the churches that follow this rite. The Mar Thoma Syrian Church and the Saint Thomas Evangelical Church use a reformed version of the west syrian Liturgy.

                 The West Syrian Church, known as Jacobite (after Jacob Baradeus, the sixth century organizer of it) and as “Monophysites” or ‘Non-chalcedonians” (as they were opposed to the diophysite Council of Chalcedon-451 AD), inherited the antiochene liturgy in its fifth century form. Following the expulsion by the Emperor Justin I (518-27), the Non-chalcedonians took refuge in the Syriac speaking areas of Mesopotamia and organized their own liturgical tradition, maintaining early antiochene features (eg.litanies) and incorporating several Mesopotamian elements (eg.hymnody).

 ANAPHORA:

             In the first half of the fifth century, the Antiochene Church seems to have adopted Saint James Liturgy of Jerusalem, incorporating a few local features, such as long christological thanksgiving prayer and anamnesis. The anti-chalcedonians of Mesopotamia translated the anaphora of Saint James into Syriac, probably in the second half of the sixth century. Later Jacob of Edessa (+708) made a more ‘accurate’ Syriac version on the basis of existing Greek texts. Jacob of Edessa is also credited with the Syriac translation of the West Syrian Baptismal ordo, of which the Greek original has been attributed to Severus of Antioch (+538). Jacob is believed to be the author or compiler of most of the West Syrian Liturgical texts.

                 The Eucharistic liturgy has the following structure: 1. Preparation rites;

2.Pre-anaphora (Entrance, Liturgy of the Word, censing, Creed and the lavabo);

3. Kiss of Peace; 4.Trinitarian blessing and the dialogue; 5.Sanctus; 6.Institution;

7.Anamnesis; 8.Epiclesis; 9.Commemorations; 10.Fraction; 11.Lord’s Prayer;

12.Sancta Sanctis; 13.Communion; 14.Dismissal; 15.Post-Communion. The structure of the anaphora (nos.3-13) was fixed in the seventh century, while the preparation rites and the post-communion as well as the ordo communis and the Diaconale were added later. The present form of the Eucharistic celebration belongs to the 16^th century.

                West Syrians have the largest number of anaphoras. More than seventy are known and about a dozen are still in use. They have been attributed to the apostles, early    church fathers and the West Syrian doctors, patriarchs or famous prelates. All the anaphoras follow the structure of Saint James and retain the main themes of the prayers, though the wording varies considerably. The anaphora attributed to Thomas of Harkel (+616) has a curious formula which combines the words of institution and anamnesis.

‘ When he duly united with the form of a servant, as the one who has to accomplish the preparations of our salvation, he took bread and wine and blessed, sanctified, broke and gave to his disciples, saying: Take, share (it) and do likewise, and when you receive it, believe and be convinced that you eat my body and drink my blood for the memory of my death until I come’. Similar formula is found in the Anaphora of John Bar Shusan.

               The Liturgy is now celebrated mostly in the vernacular (Malayalam in Kerala). The Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch continues to use Syriac, which is not always understood by the congregation. In the course of evolution, litanies have been replaced with hymns to assure the participation of the community.

                 Baptismal rite has about a dozen of liturgies, and most of them are not in use. Almost all the liturgical celebrations, including the daily offices and the lectionary have several versions. Most of them still exist in manuscripts. It was in fact the printing that contributed to the fixation of the liturgical texts and the disuse of different versions.

TWO TRADITIONS:

                 In the Syrian Orthodox Church, there existed two liturgical  centers: Turabdin (SE Turkey) in the Patriarchate of Antioch and Mosul (N.Iraq), the former seat of the ‘Maphrian’ (the Syrian Orthodox counter part of the Nestorian Patriarch). Both the centers produced liturgical texts with considerable diversity, in spite of the basic unity in the structure of the celebration. The Mosul tradition shared several original Mesopotamian features with the East Syrians, which gradually disappeared under the influence of Turabdin.

BREVIARY: 

               The Breviary exists mainly in two versions: the Common Prayer (Shhimo) for the weekly cycle and ‘the Festal Breviary’ (Penkito or Hudro) for the annual cycle.

Daily offices are divided into seven canonical hours, beginning with Ramso (Vespers), followed by Sutoro (Compline), Lilyo (Night in four nocturnes), Sapro (Morning), Third, Sixth and the Ninth hours. Each day and hour has fixed or main themes. The ninth hour and the office of Saturday have ‘the departed’ for theme. The theme of Sunday is always the resurrection, and that of Wednesday is ‘the Mother of God’ and of Friday is ‘the cross and the martyrs’. The offices, especially those of the Great Lent and the Holy Week include a series of genuflection, symbolizing repentance.

                 The Psalms take comparatively a small place in W.S.Liturgy and are replaced by songs in the form of antiphons, known as Qolo (hymn) and Bo’utho (Petition), whose origin is traced back to the poet-theologians like Saint Ephrem (fourth century) and Jacob of Serugh (fifth century). Shorter antiphons known as eqbo and eniyono also have their place in the offices.

                 The most characteristic west syrian prayer is Sedro (= a row; order or series), a long prayer in the form of a series of expositions or meditations, usually preceded by a Promiun (=introduction). Often Sedro provides a summary of the West Syrian theology. Thus the sedre of the office of the Pentecost is an excellent summary of the pneumatology.

LITURGICAL COMMENTARIES:

                     Several liturgical commentaries exist on the Eucharist, Baptism and the consecration of Myron, which include those by Jacob of Edessa (+708), George, bishop of the Arab tribes (+724), John of Dara (9^th cent.), Moses Bar Kepha (+903), Dionysius Bar Salibi (+1171) and Bar Hebraeus (+1286). Most of them have been published. The most influential model for the Syriac commentators was The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy  of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, which was known to them in a sixth century Syriac translation. However their mystagogy was rather a blend of alexandrine theoria  (a word which occurs in most of the commentaries), the antiochene historia and the original mesopotamian exegesis, which was largely indebted to the targumic tradition. In their commentaries, the west syrians had used literary genres such as mystagogical homilies, metrical homilies (memre), epistles, letters and treatises. Metrical homilies, the most original contribution of the Syrian tradition in this domain, were originally destined to be sung during liturgical or sacramental celebrations.

LITURGICAL YEAR:

                The liturgical year of the West Syrians begin with the ‘Sunday of the Consecration of the Church’ (First Sunday of November or 30/31^st October if fall on a Sunday), followed by the ‘Sunday of the Renewal of the Church’ and the Sundays of Advent. The liturgical year could be divided into a cycle of seven periods (each consisting approximately of seven weeks), centered on the Nativity, Epiphany, the Great Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul (June 29) and the Feast of the Cross (Sept.14).

LITURGICAL MUSIC:

               In liturgical music, the West Syrians follow the Octoechos, a modal system in eight modes or tunes (attributed to Severus of Antioch), analogous to the Byzantine Octoechos and the eight-mode Gregorian system. The chants are organized in an eight-weekly modal cycle in the following order: 1-5; 2-6; 3-7; 4-8; 5-1; 6-2; 7-3; 8-4.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

S.Brock, Syriac Studies. A Classified Bibliography (1960-1990), Parole de l’Orient,

Kaslik, 1996.

J.M.Sauget, Bibliographie des liturgies orientales (1900-1960), Rome, 1962.

Liturgical Texts:

Anaphorae Syriacae,A.Raes and others(eds), Rome, 1939.(Syriac & latin).

Ma’de’dono: The book of the Church Festivals, ed.Athanasius Yeshue Samuel     (Metropolitan), 1984. (Syriac text & English translation).

The Book of Common Prayer of the Syrian Church, Trans. Bede Griffiths, Vagamon,

Kerala (n.d.).

Liturgical Commentaries:

R.A.Aytoun, ‘ The Mystery of Baptism by Moses Bar Kepha compared with the odes of Solomon’, The Expositor, Ser.VIII-ii, 1911, 338-358. Reproduced by J.Vellian (ed), Studies on Syrian Baptismal Rites, Kottayam, 1973, 1-15.

S.Brock, ‘ Jacob of Edessa’s Discourse on the Myron’,Oriens Christianus 63, 1979,

 20-36

R.H.Connolly & H.W.Codrington (ed.tr.),  Two Commentaries on the Jacobite Liturgy by George, Bishop of the Arab Tribes and Moses Bar Kepha…. London, 1913.

B.Varghese (tr), Dionysius Bar Salibi: Commentary on the Eucharist, Kottayam, 1998.

B.Varghese (tr), John of Dara: De Oblatione, Kottayam, 1999.

Studies and General Introductions

A.Baumstark, Festbreviar und Kirchenjahr der syrischen Jakobiten, Paderborn, 1910.

S.Brock, ‘Studies in the Early History of the Syrian Orthodox Baptismal Liturgy’, JTS (ns) 23, 1972, 16-64

_____, ‘Two Recent Editions of Syrian Orthodox anaphoras’, Ephemerides Liturgicae 102, 1988, 436-445 (gives information on all published anaphoras)

H.W.Codrington,  Studies of the Syrian Liturgies, London 1952.

Christine Chaillot, The Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and all the East, Geneva, 1998.

Archdale A.King,  Rites of Eastern Christendom, Vol.I, Rome, 1947, 61-208.

B.Varghese, Les onctions baptiamales dans la tradition syrienne, CSCO.512, Subsidia 82, Louvain, 1989

_____, ‘Canonical Fasts in the West Syrian Tradition’, The Harp 7, Kottayam, 1994, 89-108.

____, ‘Holy Week celebrations in the West Syrian Tradition’, A.G.Kollamparampil (ed), Hebdomadae Sanctae Celebratio, Rome, 1997, 167-186.

____, ‘Early History of the Preparation Rites in the Syrian Orthodox Anaphora’, R.Lavenant (ed), Symposium Syriacum VII , OCA-256, Rome, 1998, 127-138.