From the point of view of our modern liturgical practice, everything about this rule is extraordinary. Let us not interpret, as some commentators do, this rule in the sense that the Council of Nicea wanted to stop the “insolence and self-will” of the deacons, as the Council of Trullo (692) really wanted to do with its 7th rule: “Since we have learned, that in some churches deacons have church positions, and therefore some of them, allowing themselves insolence and self-will, preside over the elders...” To interpret the 18th canon of the Council of Nicea in 325 in the light of the 7th canon of the Council of Trullo means committing an anachronism. The era of the Council of Trullo did not correspond at all to the era of the Council of Nicaea. In addition, the 7th canon of the Council of Trullo deals with the ministry of deacons in the field of church government, as is clear from the text of the canon itself, while the 18th canon of the Council of Nicaea speaks exclusively of their liturgical functions. The “willfulness and insolence” of deacons in church administration, which the council wanted to put an end to, were not only not eliminated from church life, but significantly intensified after the council. Until the fall of Byzantium, the rule remained a dead letter. Some deacons holding high positions under Patriarch of Constantinople, the so-called “staurophori” or, in the words of the famous 12th-century Byzantine canonist Balsamon, cardinals, occupied places in patriarchal and royal ceremonies not only above ordinary bishops, but even metropolitans. The fate of the 18th Nicene Rule was different: it gradually fully entered into church practice. It cannot talk about the “insolence and self-will” of the deacons, but it is about the old liturgical practice, which began to change approximately from the second half of the 3rd century, or, perhaps more precisely, about some distortions of this practice. If this last assumption is correct, then the council, wishing to eliminate the disorders of the old liturgical practice, eliminated not only them, but also abolished the practice itself. The Council states: 1) that in some places deacons teach the presbyters the Eucharist, that is, the Eucharistic gifts, and 2) that some deacons even before the bishops touch the Eucharistic gifts, that is, they receive communion. Regarding the first point, the council indicates that it is contrary to “canon and custom” for deacons to teach the body of Christ to presbyters, since presbyters have the power to “offer,” that is, to celebrate the Eucharist, but deacons do not have this power. The first thing to note is the ambiguity and imprecision of the wording. We know that usually the cathedral rules were edited very carefully. Therefore, the assumption in itself is that this imprecision in wording is to some extent intentional. We do not know which “canon” the council had in mind, since we do not have a written rule related to the subject about which the council spoke. As for custom, deacons are indeed for the most part They did not teach the elders the body of Christ. In this the council is right, but the situation was completely different with regard to the Eucharistic cup. From Justin's Apology we know that the deacons taught the Eucharistic gifts to all participants in the Eucharistic Assembly. The more common practice was for the bishop to teach the Eucharistic bread and the deacon to teach the cup. In Hippolytus of Rome we find a slightly different practice. The bishop in the baptismal Eucharist teaches the body of Christ with the words: “Heavenly bread in Christ Jesus - Panis caelestis in Christo Jesu”, the elders teach the cup, as well as the deacons, if there are not enough elders. Thus, during the time of Hippolytus in Rome, the deacons were to some extent excluded from the distribution of the Eucharistic gifts. The distribution of bread rests with the bishop, who is assisted by the presbyters. If the presbyters distribute Eucharistic bread together with the bishop, then the deacons bring it to the presbyters on a platter (“diskos”). It is possible that in other places deacons retained the distribution of the cup. After these instructions, it should be clear to us why the elders, according to the 18th canon of the Council of Nicaea, received the Eucharistic gifts from the hands of the deacon. While the bishop celebrated the Eucharist, they sat in their places. During the distribution of gifts, the deacons approached them with gifts, both for themselves and for distribution to the faithful. Using our terminology, we would say that first the bishop who celebrated the Eucharist received communion, then the deacons who served him, and after them the presbyters.

This same order of communion explains to us how deacons could “touch” the gifts before bishops. Of course, we are not talking about the bishop presiding at the Eucharistic meeting, but about the guest bishops who, as we saw, were seated in the most honorable places. It is possible that at the beginning of the 4th century the custom became established in some churches that the presiding bishop himself would administer the Eucharistic gifts to the visiting bishops, while in other churches the custom was maintained that the Eucharistic gifts were brought to them by the deacons.

The Council of Nicaea changed the ancient order of communion, ordering that deacons should not administer either the Eucharistic bread or the Eucharistic cup to the presbyters. For us now it is more important to note not so much the order of communion as the fact that the Council of Nicea continued to proceed from the basic principle, by virtue of which one bishop, with the assistance of a deacon, celebrated the Eucharist. Thus, the 18th canon of the Council of Nicea is authentic evidence that the only celebrant of the Eucharist, despite a number of liturgical changes that occurred, was the bishop and the fathers of the council did not know about any “concelebration” in our sense. Only with this principle in mind will the very rule of the council become clear to us. If we introduce our modern principle of “concelebration” into the era of the Council of Nicea, then its rule will remain mysterious to us. By changing the order of communion, the council did not at all think about touching on the basic principle of the celebration of the Eucharist by one bishop, sanctified by the entire previous history of the church.

3 . I could stop my historical essay here, since my task was not to show how the Orthodox Church the basic principle of the celebration of the Eucharist, but to show that this principle was the only one that the church knew from the first pages of its history. Each of us knows the final result of the process of changing the principle of celebrating the Eucharist by one bishop. We have become so accustomed to the new principle of celebrating the Eucharist that it is difficult for us to imagine that in ancient times it was different from what we have now. But let us not make the most common mistake of absolutizing our modern liturgical practice. We cannot reject the evidence of history, and even more, we cannot change it. Our liturgical practice of “concelebration” during the celebration of the Eucharist is not only not original, but represents a significant change in it. I will therefore limit myself to a brief indication of when and why this change occurred.

We talk a lot about the consequences of the union of church and state in the Constantinian era, but we do not always take into account what influence this union had on the liturgical life of the church. The persecuted church was content with internal solemnity, in which there was no place for external solemnity. The militant church was also the triumphant church. In the ante-Nicene period, Christians faced confiscation of property, torture, exile, and even death from time to time, but they knew that the Roman colossus was powerless. In every Eucharistic meeting they met the Lord. “Our Lord comes” was the jubilant and solemn cry of the Christians. It was a cry of victory, a victory that conquered the world. Not the persecutors, but the persecuted were the victors, because the first had an earthly Caesar, and they had the Lord - Kύριος, whose God “He seated Him at His right hand in the heavens, above all principality and authority and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the age to come, and put all things in subjection under His feet, and made Him the head of the Church above all.”(). Not in the splendor of the imperial court with its magnificent ceremony, but in the modest houses of the remote parts of the city or in the twilight of the catacombs, Christians met the one Lord and one King. Before the splendor of the glory of the glorified Christ, human solemnity at the Eucharistic meeting was not needed. In the pre-Nicene period, solemnity was not needed for the bishops either, since even without external solemnity they, as the primates of the “Church of God in Christ,” had an authority beyond which nothing could be. From the acts of martyrdom we know that the internal authority of the martyred bishops was such that it even embarrassed Roman officials. If we know from the bitter accusatory words of Origen that there were bishops who tried to imitate “the princes of this age,” then they were an exception, but they also surrounded themselves with solemnity outside the Eucharistic assembly, and not at it.

Solemn simplicity was not sufficient for the state church, and the state could not be satisfied with the internal solemnity of its church. It required brilliance and external solemnity. In addition, there was a natural need human heart surround your liturgical life with as much solemnity as possible. This was understandable and legal, especially when paganism continued to persist long after the reconciliation of church and state by living force. Human genius gave itself to the service of the church, just as it had previously given itself to the service of paganism. If this had not happened, we would not have the greatest treasury of art that we have. Liturgical life gradually becomes solemn, but solemnity does not penetrate its foundations. She actually stops on the steps of the altar. In this period of church history, the faithful met their Lord in the Eucharist, as before, in humble simplicity. However, the balance between the solemnity surrounding the church and the simplicity of the Eucharist was not always maintained. It was violated both through the fault of the state and the fault of the Christians themselves.

Even before the Edict of Milan, in the Palmyra kingdom, the Christian bishop became one of the highest government officials. The Council of Antioch in 268, in its letter on the condemnation of Paul of Samosata, wrote: “We will not say how arrogant and exalted he was, clothed in worldly distinctions and wished more to be called a ducenarius than a bishop - with what pride, surrounded by many spearmen in front and behind , he walked through public squares, reading letters loudly in front of all the people as he walked, so that from the arrogance and arrogance of his heart, our very faith was subject to criticism and hatred. Let us not mention his pomp in church meetings, which he took care to express in his love of glory and dreaminess, thereby astonishing the souls of the inexperienced. He, not as a disciple of Christ, built himself a pulpit and a high throne, like worldly leaders... He put hymns in honor of our Lord Jesus Christ out of use, saying that they are the works of later and later persons: on the contrary, among the church, on Happy Easter, ordered to sing in honor of himself, and for this he appointed women whom, listening, it was impossible not to shudder... Those who sang in his honor and praised him among the people claimed that their wicked teacher was an angel who descended from heaven, and the proud man not only did not forbid similar speeches, but was still present at them...” This is just a small excerpt from this message. condemned Paul of Samosata, both for this and for his teaching, and with the help of the Roman state authorities, acting for their own political reasons, removed him from the pulpit. When Eusebius wrote his history, the atmosphere of church life had changed. The example of Paul of Samosata was followed by many bishops, but the fact that Eusebius considered it necessary to place in his history the entire message of the Council of Antioch indicates that at the beginning of the Nicene period the church had not yet forgotten the condemnation of Paul. Probably, for Eusebius, the message of the Council of Antioch was a kind of indictment against the bishops of his day. Gradually, principles that were unknown to the ante-Nicene church entered church life. Under the influence of the imperial court ceremonial, a solemn ceremony of patriarchal entrances to the church was developed. He enters into liturgical life and liturgical rites. A number of moments in the appointment of state dignitaries by the emperor are transferred to the appointment of bishops, which are retained to this day. Solemnity is included in the first part of the liturgy, in the so-called “synaxis”, which roughly corresponds to our current Liturgy of the Catechumens. The elders begin to take an active part in it. However, the celebrant of the “Liturgy of the Faithful” continues for a long time to be one bishop or presbyter, if he serves in his church. When the bishop celebrated the Eucharistic canon, the presbyters remained completely silent.

We have information about this from various sources, which I do not need to fully cite here. I will point only to the evidence of the "Apostolic Constitutions", a monument which as a whole was compiled in Syria at the end of the 4th or at the beginning of the 5th century. Book VIII of this monument is a reworking of the “Apostolic Tradition” of Hippolytus of Rome. Despite the significant changes that have occurred in liturgical life over approximately two and a half centuries, the principle of the celebration of the Eucharist by one bishop has remained unshakable. As in the “Apostolic Tradition” of Hippolyta, the newly installed bishop, without the “concelebration” of the bishops gathered for his installation, alone celebrates the Eucharist with the assistance of the deacons. “And the next morning the other bishops place him on the throne that belongs to him, and everyone greets him with a kiss in the Lord. After reading the law and the prophets, also our epistles and deeds and the gospels, let the ordained one greet the church saying: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the Father...”. The newly installed bishop is placed on the throne of the primate of the church and, as its primate, he welcomes the entire church assembly, including those guest bishops who take part in the Eucharistic meeting. “When he (i.e., the bishop) finishes the teaching word, let everyone stand up, and the deacon, having ascended to the dais, let him proclaim: “Yes, no one from those who listened, and no one from the unbelievers...”. The deacon reads a series of petitions corresponding to our litanies. Here it is necessary to stipulate that the deacon does not read prayers. Even in our current rite of liturgy, the liturgy is not the Church, read by the deacon, but an invitation to prayer for the entire church. The reading of prayers in the exact sense belongs only to the bishop or presbyter, if the presbyter heads the Eucharistic Assembly. The deacon is a “co-servant” of the bishop, as his direct assistant in the celebration of the Eucharist, but he does not “co-serve” him in our current sense. At the end of what we call the “Liturgy of the Catechumens,” the deacons “bring gifts to the bishop to the altar, and the presbyters stand on the right and left sides, like disciples standing before a teacher.” I note this detail, which was not known to the liturgical rite of Hippolytus of Rome. The elders from their places approach the altar (throne). We find the same detail in Cyril of Jerusalem in his “Mystery Words,” written in the second half of the 4th century. “So, you saw that the deacon gives water for washing to the priest (i.e., the bishop) and the elders surrounding God’s altar.” This washing of hands applies not only to the bishop and presbyters, but symbolically to all the faithful, since, continues Cyril, “he does not give for the sake of bodily uncleanness; because, having bodily uncleanness, we would not have entered the Church at all. On the contrary, washing serves as a sign that you must be clean from all sins and iniquities. Since hands signify activity, through washing we let one understand the purity and impeccability of actions.” From the words of Cyril of Jerusalem it is clear that during the celebration of the Eucharist by the bishop, the presbyters are not in their places, but surround the altar.

If the “Secret Words” were compiled earlier than the “Apostolic Constitutions,” then it can be assumed with some probability that the custom we are describing originated in Jerusalem. Given the close relations between Palestine and Syria, he probably penetrated into Syria relatively soon. The widespread dissemination of the “Apostolic Constitutions” in the East contributed to the spread of this liturgical detail and probably determined the features of the temple structure in the East, in which special places for presbyters disappeared. Essentially, this approach of the presbyters to the altar during the bishop’s celebration of the Eucharist did not change anything, since it was only a change of place in the church, and did not indicate the “concelebration” of the presbyters with the bishop. They are only students who surround the teacher, but the teacher remains the only celebrant of the Eucharist. If there had been an idea of ​​concelebration in the mind of the compiler of the Apostolic Constitutions, it would first of all be expressed in the joint service of the newly installed bishop with the bishops who installed him, and we have no indications about this in the Apostolic Constitutions. On the contrary, we have a number of indications that indicate a complete absence of the idea of ​​concelebration in the compiler of our monument. Having mentioned that the elders are on both sides of the altar, the compiler of “Ap. P." indicates that the high priest stands before the altar, dressed in a light robe. “Let the high priest praying to himself together with the priests and dressed in a light robe and standing in front of the altar, making the sign of the cross on his forehead with his hand: “The grace of the Almighty God and the love of our Lord Jesus Christ...”. Compiler "Ap. Resolutions" does not speak of any special attire for the bishop, but only of a "light robe." This bright robe, which neither the presbyters nor the rest of the faithful have, was an indication of his priestly dignity as the celebrant of the Eucharist. All prayers of our current Eucharistic canon are read by the bishop and sealed with the exclamations of the entire people. After pronouncing the establishing words, the bishop continues: “We offer to You, the King and God, according to His order, this bread and this cup, thanking You for them, for whom You have vouchsafed us to stand before You and to perform sacred acts to You.” Next comes the invocation of the Spirit on the bread and on the cup. Then the bishop offers a prayer for the Church: “and for every bishopric that rules the word of truth. We also pray to Thee, the bishop continues, beginning a new petition, and for my insignificance, who offers Thee, and for all the presbytery (more precisely, for the entire presbyterium), for the deacons and for the entire clergy, and having made everyone wise, filled with the Holy Spirit... We also pray to Thee about these people, may you show them, in praise of Thy Christ, the royal sacredness, the holy tongue...” In this new petition, the bishop prays on behalf of the entire local church gathered at the Eucharistic Assembly, listing separately the different “orders” within it. First he prays for the bishop, who alone is designated as the bearer of gifts. There is only one bringer, since he alone “brings” gifts on behalf of the Church. The formula “bearing gifts,” common in our time, was completely unthinkable for the compiler of the “Apostolic Constitutions.” After the bishop’s “holy to holies,” the people cry out: “one is holy...” and “God is the Lord, and appeared to us: Hosanna in the highest.” This solemn cry of the people is evidence of the coming of the Lord of glory in the Spirit, unequivocal with the cry of the apostolic church of Maran-afa. “After this, let the bishop receive communion, then the presbyters, deacons, subdeacons, readers, singers, ascetics, and among the women - deaconesses, virgins, widows, then children, and then all the people in order, with modesty and reverence, without noise. Let the bishop present the offering, saying: “the body of Christ,” and let the recipient say: “Amen.” Let the deacon hold the cup and, as he gives it, let him say: “the blood of Christ, the cup of life,” and let the drinker say: “Amen.” From this it is clear that, according to the Apostolic Constitutions, the Eucharistic bread is distributed by the bishop himself, and the cup by the deacon, starting from the presbyters. This order of giving the gifts follows from the principle of the celebration of the Eucharist by one bishop, which remained unchanged in the era of the Apostolic Constitutions. We do not find in our monument the idea of ​​“co-service” of presbyters with the bishop. If the 18th canon of the Council of Nicaea had any influence on the order of communion, it was very minor. The ancient order proved, at least for some time, more vital than the decrees of the great council.

4 . Within a hundred years from the beginning of the Nicene era, we were able to note only one change in the issue that interests us: the approach of the elders to the altar. This change could have been the starting point for the emergence of the idea of ​​“concelebration” in our sense, but apparently this did not happen in Byzantium. It is possible that, starting from the 5th century, in certain places there was a tendency towards this, but it did not receive its final development and was not introduced into practice. It is very significant that this idea is still alien to the compiler of “On the Church Hierarchy.” Only the “hierarch” officiates, and everyone else remains silent. In the description of the Eucharist, the author of “On the Church Hierarchy” mentions “priests,” i.e., presbyters only once: “When all this is sacred - done according to the stated order, the hierarch, standing before the most holy symbols, washes the hands of the priests with water with an honest face ". This is all the more significant since his theology of the Church and the Eucharist does not coincide at all with ancient ecclesiology. If the idea of ​​“concelebration” in our sense begins to find a place in the liturgy, then it is limited, as said above, to the preliminary part of the liturgy. This part becomes more complicated and acquires a solemn character, but the celebration of the “Eucharistic canon” remains the exclusive responsibility of the bishop. “Hitherto, using his time,” wrote Herman of Constantinople, the priest performed the service in the same way as the Forerunner taught baptism; now, seeing the bishop entering, he withdraws from his place and quietly, as if silently saying the same thing that John said: This is how it should grow, but I should grow small, and from this moment allows the bishop to perform the highest secret acts. The bishop proclaims: for holy art thou our God...” Even in the 15th century, the idea of ​​“concelebration” did not penetrate the church consciousness. For Simeon of Thessaloniki, the ideologist of the episcopal ministry, the celebrant of the “Eucharistic canon” is still one bishop.

5 . In Byzantium, liturgical thought seemed to be powerlessly striving to cross a threshold that could not be violated. She did everything to introduce external solemnity into the celebration of the Eucharist, but limited all this to the first part of the liturgy. She did not dare to change the basic principle of the celebration of the Eucharist by one bishop, and therefore left the Eucharistic canon untouched. Only modern times violated this principle, but having violated it, it turned out to be powerless not only to substantiate the idea of ​​concelebration, but also to determine the boundaries of concelebration. Our practice of concelebration during the celebration of the Eucharist remains theologically unsound, but nevertheless it is deeply rooted in our consciousness. Speaking about concelebration in catholic church, in which it is very little developed, Pere L. Bouyer writes that the practice of the ancient church of celebrating the Eucharist by one bishop seems little pious at the present time. It seems even more impious to the Orthodox. Let us be careful in our judgments. Let us ask ourselves how a Christian of the 2nd or 3rd century would feel if he found himself at our present liturgy. Perhaps our practice would seem to him as little pious as the practice of the ancient and apostolic church seems ungodly to most of us. “C"est done la forme d"Eucharistie solennelle primitive, et celle de toute l"Eglise antique, qúune messe celebree par l"eveque, ou un autre celebrant unique qui le represents, et ou les pretres assistent simplement et communient. L"idee, si courante aujourd"hui dans le clerge, qúune telle pratique serait insuffisamment "pieuse" n"est qúune insulte gratuite a l"Eglise apostolique.

6 . It was so, but does that mean it should be so? Over the long period of the church's history, profound changes have occurred in it.

Many of these changes are explained by various kinds of extraneous influences, but some of them, at least, are the development of what she carried within herself from the very beginning. We cannot, on the basis that the Nicene and Chalcedonian dogmas were unknown to the first generation of Christians, not accept them. They were “implicitly” contained in the New Testament teaching and only in a certain historical era, under the influence of various reasons, were they clothed in formulas. This is also true in the liturgical field. Our liturgical life was gradually enriched. If not all liturgical sequences, then most of them are the greatest works of Christian genius, who gave himself to the service of God for His glorification. We have no right to refuse them on the grounds that the apostolic church did not know them. She didn't know them, but she carried them within herself. However, the question still remains, is everything in our liturgical life a development of what the Church contains, or is our liturgical life in some points not a continuation of the ancient liturgical life, but some more or less radical change in its foundations? Let's pose this question specifically. We have seen that the ancient church was completely unaware of the idea of ​​“concelebration” in our sense. I emphasize in our sense, because in another sense it was all built on the idea of ​​concelebration. Is the modern idea of ​​concelebration a development of what it contained and contains, or is this idea in a certain sense alien to genuine Eucharistic consciousness? To answer this question, it is necessary to turn to apostolic times and find out in what sense, based on the nature of the Eucharistic consciousness, the ancient church recognized or rejected concelebration.

II. Concelebration of the people with the bishop.

1 . The Eucharist was instituted by Christ at the Last Supper. “He said: go into the city to so-and-so, and tell him: The Teacher says: My time is at hand.”(). His time has come, the time for which He came into the world. “Before the Feast of Passover, Jesus, knowing that His hour had come, to pass from this world to the Father (demonstrated by deed that), having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”(). His time passes into His hour. And this hour was the hour of suffering and death, and the hour of the Last Supper, at which, having loved those in the world to the end, He instituted the Eucharist. “This is My body, which is given for you... This cup is New Testament in My blood, which is shed for you"(). The Last Supper was truly a supper or evening meal. If modern liberal theology tries to speculate that the Last Supper was a meal, then we almost forget about it. By using Slavicism, we have to some extent lost the meaning of the word we use, but something is stopping us from replacing this Slavicism with our everyday word “dinner”. Indeed, devoid of religious meaning, our word cannot accurately convey the nature of the last meal of Christ with his disciples. Due to various reasons we have lost in our lives religious meaning eating food.

For every pious Jew of the era of Christ, eating food had a religious character, which was especially evident in the evening meals of Saturdays, holidays and Easter. All meals were performed according to an established ritual, which not a single Jew dared to violate under normal conditions. The ritual of the evening meals of Saturdays, holidays and especially Easter differed from each other, but they all had some common basis. All of them were of a religious nature and were a kind of sacred rites performed by those who presided over the meals. In addition, in all of them there was the “breaking of bread”, as a necessary part of all meals, which was accompanied by thanksgiving.

Every Jewish family had Saturday evening and holiday meals. How could Christ have meals with his disciples? We now know that in the era of Christ, special commonwealths or brotherhoods were widespread among the Jews, which had the task of internal development their members and partly charity. Members of such communities, which were called “chaburah” (from “chaber” - friend), organized common meals. It is more than likely that Christ and his disciples formed such a community. The ritual of such communities did not differ from the ritual of home meals, since the role of the owner of the house was played by the oldest member of the community, its primate. Such a meal was the Last Supper of Christ.

2 . Information about the Last Supper is available from weather forecasters and St. Paul and in a somewhat special way in St. John. Basically, this information is the same, but differs in details. The main difference lies in the question, was the Last Supper the Passover meal or not? The weather forecasters seem to make it clear that this was the Easter meal, while John categorically indicates that Christ celebrated the Last Supper on the eve of Easter. There is no way to reconcile the information of the weather forecasters on this issue with the data of the Gospel of John, but one must choose one solution or another. For me this question does not matter here, although in itself it is extremely important. Therefore I only mention it without intending to resolve it. Regardless of one solution or another, there remains beyond any doubt the breaking of the bread and the blessing of the cup performed by Christ. Connected with these acts were the special words of Christ, through which the Eucharist was established by Him. I do not consider it necessary to dwell on the hypothesis according to which no special words were spoken by Christ when he distributed the cup. There are no serious grounds for this, since a completely arbitrary operation on the text of Luke cannot be considered proof. Moreover, the bread about which Christ said: “This is my body” for you or for many, presupposes the shed blood of Christ, through which He acquired the people of God - “the blood of the New Testament.”

I pointed out that Jewish meals were of a religious nature. This character was strengthened in public meals, as well as in meals taken in commonwealths. This character reached its highest point in the thanksgiving or blessing of the bread and cup. We can almost speak of these acts as having a sacramental character. The bread and cup were consecrated through thanksgiving. Bread and wine lost their sold character and thereby differed from bread and wine in general. At the Sabbath meal there was a special cup over which a special blessing was pronounced, through which the Sabbath was sanctified: through this sanctification the Sabbath lost the character of ordinary days.

The thanksgiving or blessing of bread and wine, as well as all dishes at meals, was always pronounced by the same person: at home meals by the head of the house, and at chaburah meals by the head of the community. There was one exception: the blessing over the cup, if there was one, other than the “cup of blessing,” was pronounced by each participant separately. Thanksgiving or blessing was a kind of sacred act, which was performed by one person on behalf of all participants in the meal and with their consent. This is clear from the following dialogue before the cup of blessing between the leader of the meal and its participants. “Let us give thanks to our Lord God,” the primate invites. “Blessed be the name of the Lord now and ever,” the participants answer. “With your consent, we will give thanks to Him who makes us partakers of His benefits.” “Blessed be He who makes us partakers of His blessings, for from His mercy we live...” The officiating person at meals remained the same, and did not change from meal to meal. His sacramental authority did not derive from his priestly dignity, which he usually did not have, but from his primacy. Christ always presided over the meals that He had with His disciples during His earthly life, just as He presided over His last meal. When He was invited to meals, He was only a participant, and the primacy belonged to the owner of the house, who hosted the meal. “It happened on the Sabbath that He came to the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees to eat bread...” (). “One of the Pharisees asked Him to eat food with him; and He entered the house of the Pharisees and lay down... You did not give Me a kiss... You did not anoint My head with oil..."(). Usually the primate of the community or the head of the house was helped at meals by the youngest participant, if there was no special minister. Such a “servant” at Christ’s meals was supposed to be John, but at the Last Supper the servant was Christ himself: “For who is greater, the one who reclines or the one who serves? Isn't he reclining? And I am among you as one who serves.”(; cf.) .

3. The observance of the Eucharist arose neither from temple worship nor from synagogue worship. The latter influenced the “synaxis”, which later formed the first part of our liturgy. The following of the Eucharist arose from the following of meals, more precisely from the following of the Last Supper. When the disciples began to gather for the Eucharistic meeting after Pentecost, it included a meal, as was the Last Supper. They broke the bread after giving thanks and blessed the cup. Both the thanksgiving and the blessing were no different from those spoken by Christ. When the Eucharist separated from the meal in the real sense, which began to be celebrated separately, or more precisely, when the Eucharist became a meal that included only the breaking of bread and the cup of blessing, the order of the celebration of the Eucharist moved somewhat away from the order of the celebration of Jewish meals, and prayers also underwent changes , pronounced over the bread and over the cup, but the basis of the sequence remained the same. Our liturgy, that is, its Eucharistic canon, preserves not only this basis, but also some details that go back to the Jewish meals. The priest washes his hands before the liturgy and after communion or after the end of the liturgy. Whatever symbolic meaning we give to it, it goes back to the order of Jewish meals. The burning of incense and its blessing, and partly the lighting of candles, are also associated with these meals. Hellenization, which occurred in the history of the development of theological and liturgical thought, remained only a shell behind which the basis of our Eucharist in its original form is preserved.

The genetic connection between following the Eucharist and Jewish meals is explained by the fact that the Eucharist itself, in one aspect, is the ongoing Last Supper of Christ. “Do this in remembrance of Me”. These words of Christ, around which there is still controversy, do not have exactly the same meaning for us and for the first generation of Christians from the Jews, exactly the apostles. For them, the emphasis lay more on the second part of Christ’s commandment - "in my remembrance", – than on the first – “Do this”. Christ knew that the apostles, like the Jews, would serve meals after His death, but when they served them after Pentecost, they must celebrate them at memory Christ. Through Golgotha, and the resurrection, participants in meals in memory Christ will become the people of God, gathered “in Christ.” The Jewish meal celebrated by the apostles will become a sacred rite or, to use a term unknown to the New Testament writings, a sacrament of the Church. For us, the emphasis lies equally on two parts: and on “Do this” and on "in my remembrance". Before His second coming, we must celebrate a glorious supper in His remembrance, since in it and through it the glorified Christ returns to us. By doing it, we gather into the “Church of God in Christ.” “When you gather together in...” Our table becomes the Lord's table.

4 . Who celebrated the first Eucharist? We know that the first Eucharist was celebrated after Pentecost, because only after the sending of the Spirit was the Eucharist established by Christ at the Last Supper actualized. It could not have been accomplished before Golgotha, because in it we “we proclaim the Lord until He comes”(). But the meals that the Lord celebrated with the apostles after His resurrection were not Eucharistic meetings, since Christ did not ascend “to his Father and our Father, his God and our God”() and the Spirit, whom the Son would implore from the Father, did not descend on them (). One person had to preside at the first Eucharist, since there was only one place for Christ, which He occupied at the Last Supper. We can say with almost certainty that this place was taken by the ap. Peter. In any case, one of the apostles, since only one could lead the meal and only one could say thanksgiving over the bread and the blessing of the cup. At some point, which is difficult for us to determine, James became the head of the Eucharistic Assembly of the Jerusalem Church. The Primate of the Eucharistic Assembly was the Primate of the Church, and conversely, the Primate of the Church was the Primate of its Eucharistic Assembly. This flowed from the nature of the Church itself.

The community of Christ during His earthly life with His disciples turned through the Spirit into a Christian community. It became like a fellowship of the people of God in Christ. Just as the head of the community was the head of the meals, so the head of the Church became the head of the Eucharistic assembly. This was the case not only in the Jerusalem church, but also in all the local churches founded by the apostles. In each local church the primate of its Eucharistic assembly was the primate of the Church. It was so and it could not have been otherwise. The Old Testament temple structure allowed for the offering of sacrifices by the high priest and priests, together or separately from each other. During His earthly life, Christ did not have the Levitical priesthood, but for the Church of God He became its High Priest. As High Priest, He sacrificed Himself "ejapax". The one who took the place of Christ in the Eucharistic Assembly also did not have the Levitical priesthood, just as all the participants in the first Eucharistic Assembly did not have it. Christ “once” presided over the Last Supper, just as “once” he made a sacrifice for everyone. “Once” in the sense that the Last Supper, at which Christ instituted the Eucharist, was celebrated “once”, and in the sense that He alone and no one else celebrated the Last Supper together with him. Therefore, "ejapax" is celebrated under the presidency of one, in the Eucharistic assembly, which is always one, like one Christ, in space and time. We cannot imagine that at the Eucharistic meeting of the Jerusalem Church, in which at first all the apostles participated, there were several primates or there were several offering “thanksgiving.” We also cannot imagine that one of the apostles pronounced “thanksgiving” over the bread, and the other “blessed” the cup. If this were so, then there would be no Eucharist, since this would be the division of Christ and the cutting of His body, and the Eucharist would not be the Lord's Table. The apostles could not act this way, because they would have violated the commandment “Do this in remembrance of Me”. As a sacrament of the Church, the Eucharist is always celebrated by one and only one. This is included in her nature. There is no Eucharistic Assembly without the Church, just as there is no Church without the Eucharistic Assembly, but there is no Eucharistic Assembly without its primate, as the primate of the Church. There is only one place for Christ at the Last Supper, and only one can take it at the Eucharistic Assembly. And the one who occupies it is the head of the church. Later, as we have already seen, Ignatius the God-Bearer will express this basic position of the nature of the Eucharist in the form of a statement that there is no Eucharist without the bishop, as the primate of the church. In this statement, what was new was only in the form, and not in its content, which was already present in the first Eucharist, perfect, as we assumed, by St. Peter. The Christian “chaburah,” like the Jewish one, could not exist without a leader. And such a primate of the Jerusalem Church at its very beginning was St. Peter, and as its primate, he took a central place in its Eucharistic assembly. The remaining apostles, like all the first participants in the first Eucharistic meeting, were not performers of “thanksgiving,” just as they were not at the suppers that they celebrated during Christ’s earthly life. At the moment of the Eucharist, there was no distinction between the apostles participating in it and all other believers. The only difference was between the one bringing “thanksgiving” and the rest of the participants. When ap. Peter yielded the leadership of the Jerusalem Church to James, and he thereby yielded to him the leadership of the Eucharistic Assembly. Then James, and not Peter, alone said “thanksgiving,” and Peter took his place among the rest of the apostles. From the very beginning of the existence of the Church, “thanksgiving” at the Eucharist was said only by one and the same person, as long as he remained its primate.

At Jewish meals there was not only their leader, but also servants. Who was the officiant at the first or first Eucharistic meetings? “Then the twelve, having called together a multitude of disciples, said: It is not good for us, leaving the word of God, to take care of the tables (to serve meals)”(). The distribution of food to widows was, according to the direct instructions of Acts, daily. The Eucharistic meeting took place on Sunday - the first day after Saturday - in any case, it was not daily, but it was associated with the distribution of food, since it was its source. This connection emerges from the entire context of the narrative of the establishment of the “seven”. Luke says that there was murmuring among the Hellenists regarding the daily “service” of their widows, and the twelve instructed the believers that they should not forsake the word of God for the sake of “serving” the tables. From these words of the apostles, more precisely from the words of St. Peter, who was their "porte-parole", it is clear that the service at meals was performed by the apostles at the time when they proposed to establish "seven". It continued after meals in the form of daily service to widows. Ap. Peter does not say that he should not preside at the Eucharistic meeting, but that the apostles should not be “servants” at it, since the increase in the number of the faithful caused the expansion of the “ministry” of meals into the daily service of widows. Peter continued to preside at the Eucharistic meeting until James took the place of primate, and the “seven” served as his servants.

5 . Everything that we said about the head of the church celebrating the Eucharist with the help of “servants” or, in later terminology, deacons, is only one side of the Eucharistic assembly. The Eucharist is the “table of the Lord,” and therefore, in addition to the primate, there must always be those whom the primate presides over. We have already seen that at Jewish meals, in addition to the head of the family or the head of the community, members of the family or community took part. There could be no meal without them. The thanksgiving over the bread and the blessing of the cup were pronounced by the primate not on his own behalf, but on behalf of all participants and with their consent. This was a general thanksgiving and a general blessing, pronounced by one on behalf of everyone, since there could not be those present at the meals, but only participants. This participation was expressed in joint thanksgiving and joint eating, which was closely connected with one another, since one could not exist without the other. There were also no people present at the Eucharistic meeting, but only its participants. As in Jewish meals, this participation was twofold: they all served God together in Christ and all ate together at the Lord’s table. The Eucharist is a sacred service celebrated, and therefore it was a common service of all who took part in it, through one who led the Eucharistic Assembly.

The people of God, who were gathered by God “in Christ,” became the bearer of the priesthood in the Church. The Levitical priesthood was replaced in the Church by the general priesthood of the people of God, or otherwise, the Levitical priesthood was extended to all members of the people of God. In the New Testament, “in Christ,” the promise was fulfilled that all of God’s people would become a royal priesthood, a people taken as an inheritance (). This ministry of the priesthood is performed, that is, when all the people are gathered together for the same thing (ἐπι τὸ αὐτό) with their leader. Therefore, as we said above, there is no Eucharistic meeting when there is no Church, that is, when there is no meeting of the people of God under one leadership. Carrying out the priesthood of the Church, at the Eucharistic meeting everyone will serve their primate, and the primate will serve together with everyone on behalf of everyone. This double aspect of the celebration of the Eucharist cannot be divided into its separate parts: there can be no service of the primate without the concelebration of the entire people, and there cannot be a service of the people without the concelebration of their primate. Whoever does not concelebrate at the Eucharistic meeting cannot participate in it, because without serving there it is impossible to partake of the Lord’s Table, and whoever participates in it will certainly concelebrate with its leader. The Primate cannot preside at the Eucharistic meeting without the concelebration of its participants, since he serves on their behalf. Everyone serves together with everyone else, and therefore, at the moment of the Eucharist, all its participants, as was the case at Jewish meals, do not differ from each other: among the people serving God, only its primate stands out. This does not mean that there was no difference at all between the members of the Eucharistic Assembly. This difference was expressed not in the degree of participation in the Eucharistic meeting, but in the place occupied by the members of the meeting during the celebration of the Eucharist. At the first Eucharistic meetings of the Jerusalem Church, at the time of the celebration of the Eucharist under the presidency of Peter, there was no difference between the apostles and the rest of the faithful in the degree of participation in its celebration. The difference between the apostles and the faithful was the place they occupied. It was the most honorable after the central place. The place occupied by one or another member at the Eucharistic Assembly was not only an expression of purely human differences “in honor” among its members. Place signified service, and service flowed from the will of God. The primate bringing “thanksgiving” was distinguished by his place, which was central and without which the Eucharistic meeting itself could not have taken place. This was Christ's place at the Last Supper. Taking the place of Christ at the Last Supper, he did not replace Christ, since Christ cannot be replaced. Christ cannot be replaced because no one can replace the Son of God and His ministry. He cannot be replaced also because He Himself is present at His “meal” with His friends.

Already during the time of the apostles, in the churches they founded, after the primate, the most honorable places were occupied by elders. Their place was also an expression of their ministry, which was the ministry of governing the people of God together with the primate. When the primate celebrated the Eucharist, the presbyter did not differ from the rest of the church members, since he served the primate together with all the people, as every member of the church served together. The presbyter was distinguished from other members by a ministry that other members did not have, which was expressed in his special place at the Eucharistic meeting. In relation to liturgical functions, this difference manifested itself only when, on behalf of his primate, he headed the Eucharistic Assembly, performing “thanksgiving.” When he heads the Eucharistic Assembly, all its other members will concelebrate with him, including the presbyters. For complete clarity, it is necessary to once again emphasize the position of the presbyter at the Eucharistic meeting of the ancient church. He, like all members of the local church, is headed by the primate of the church, he is the same participant in the celebration of the Eucharist when the bishop celebrates it, like everyone else, since he will serve the primate in exactly the same way. When celebrating the Eucharist, he does not differ from the rest of the people, but he differs from them in that he has a special service. By virtue of this ministry, he can, on behalf of the bishop, lead the Eucharistic Assembly.

As was said above, the deacon has his place in the Eucharistic assembly, which reveals his special ministry when the bishop celebrates the Eucharist. He is an “employee” in the strict sense of the word. He is a “servant” in the Eucharistic Assembly, but not a “servant” in the sense that he participates in the ministry of the primate. At the same time, the deacon is a “co-servant” with the bishop, as a member of the people of God along with the other members.

Concelebration is part of the nature of the Eucharistic Assembly, as is the leadership of the assembly by one person. Both are expressions of the priestly ministry of God's people. Therefore, the concelebration of the people of God does not mean the division of the sacred service between different persons. The ministry of sacred rites, like other ministries, in the apostolic and ancient church was inseparable between different persons, but was fully performed by those persons who were called to it. The concelebration of the people of God gathered at the Eucharistic Assembly does not coincide with the ministry of its primate. These are different ministries that cannot be mixed and separated. This basic position about the difference in ministries does not in the least contradict the fact that the ministry of the people is shared by the primate, since he is the primate because he belongs to the people of God and together with them performs royal-priestly service.

6 . We have established that the nature of the Eucharistic Assembly itself lies in the celebration of the Eucharist by its primate alone in the concelebration of the entire church people. Without actually recognizing the concelebration of the people with their primate, modern practice has normalized the concelebration of the presbyters with the bishop, understanding by it the participation of the presbyters in the celebration of the Eucharist by the bishop. Despite all the changes that the rite of the liturgy has undergone, it clearly testifies to the concelebration of the people with the primate. The same modern order does not determine what and how the active participation of the elders in the celebration of the Eucharist by the bishop should be expressed. Our contemporary practice is the fruit of liturgical creativity. Is this development of liturgical creativity in the line of the natural development of the rite of the Eucharist? We therefore return to the question posed above, whether modern practice violates the basic principles of the Eucharistic Assembly that we have just discussed.

The offering of “thanksgiving” is a special service that belongs to the bishop. Can a bishop share this ministry with someone else? Modern practice allows this, since the “co-service” of presbyters to a bishop is nothing more than a division of his ministry of primacy. If the elders really participate in the service of offering “thanksgiving,” then in the Eucharistic Assembly there will be not one, but several offering “thanksgiving,” and this does not correspond to the nature of the Eucharistic Assembly. What can it mean that “thanksgiving” is performed not by one primate, but by several, of which one is the eldest? Does this mean that the performance of “thanksgiving” by one primate is to some extent incomplete? The very formulation of this question shows its dogmatic absurdity. It is not only incomplete, but it is precisely it that is complete when “thanksgiving” is performed by one primate. What then can the “concelebration” of elders mean?

The development of the idea of ​​“co-service” of elders proceeded simultaneously with the darkening in the theological consciousness of the doctrine of the concelebration of the people of God with their primate. The basic principle of the concelebration of the people was replaced by the concelebration of the elders. The transfer of the concelebration of the people to a separate group of elders could not but be accompanied by some obscuring of the nature of the Eucharist. Being a sacrament of the Church, in the theological consciousness it becomes one of the sacraments in the Church. On the other hand, school dogma changes the original teaching about the performer of the sacraments. With the emergence of the idea of ​​dedication, only the “initiated” become the performers of the sacred rite, and not the entire people of God, gathered by God with their primate. In school dogma, the sacraments turn into individual acts performed by those who have received this ability. The church people can, if they are present in the church, pray for what the initiate does to happen, but they do not participate in the accomplishment itself. On the one hand, that what the initiate does should be accomplished, and on the other hand, the prayerful call of the entire people for the sending of the gifts requested in the sacrament. Therefore, according to school teaching, the sacraments are performed even without the people of God, if they are performed by persons capable of performing the sacraments. The participation of the people is not necessary, since the people do not have initiation. As a sacrament in the Church, the Eucharist also becomes an individual act performed by the initiates, and therefore it can be celebrated without the participation of the people. The people of God cannot concelebrate with the primate or primates, since only those who have been consecrated can concelebrate with him, even if not to the full extent. In turn, this leads to a darkening of the idea of ​​primacy, since it presupposes the doctrine of the service of the people of God in the performance of sacred rites. Even if the term “primate” is preserved, its content changes significantly. The primate actually ceases to be the leader of the people of God, to which he belongs and who perform sacred rites in the Church in their entirety. From the concept of “ἐκκλησία” its essential element – ​​the meeting – dropped out. In fact, there are no meetings, but only sacred acts performed by initiates. The modern “concelebration” in worship is a consequence of the doctrine of “consecration.” According to modern practice, elders during concelebration actually participate in the celebration of the sacraments. The sacraments can and are performed by one initiate, but they can be performed by several initiates. Maybe prot. Maltsev, when he argued that presbyters during concelebration should say everything that the bishop says during the celebration of the Eucharist, completed what school dogmatics did not dare to complete. The modern idea of ​​“concelebration” excludes the concelebration of the people, and the concelebration of the people excludes modern concelebration.

7 . If we discard the extremes in the definition of the “concelebration” of the elders and consider the “concelebration” of the elders as a more active expression of the concelebration of the people, then in this case, too, the modern idea of ​​“concelebration” cannot be derived from the nature of the Eucharistic assembly. What remains for the presbyter during “concelebration”? Some kind of auxiliary actions and uttering some exclamations. But wouldn't this be a confusion of ministries? The “servant” at the Eucharistic meeting is the deacon, since this is his ministry. The liturgical ministry of the presbyter does not consist in being a “servant”, but in being able to preside over the Eucharistic Assembly. If he is a “servant” when the bishop celebrates the Eucharist, then he is not performing his own ministry, but the ministry of a deacon. A bishop, like a presbyter, if he celebrates the Eucharist, can celebrate it without a deacon. Because of this, the Eucharist does not lose its “sacred-fulfilling” character, in the words of pseudo-Dionysius. When a bishop or presbyter celebrates the Eucharist without a deacon, this does not lead to confusion of services, since all actions during the celebration of the Eucharist are included in the Eucharist itself. The deacon is an assistant during the celebration of the Eucharist, but the bishop can be without an assistant. Mixing of ministries only occurs when the one who can celebrate the Eucharist is assigned only auxiliary actions, which constitutes the special ministry of the deacon. If there is no deacon with the bishop or presbyter celebrating the Eucharist, then neither one nor the other can assign his duties to the reader or subdeacon, since this would lead to a confusion of ministries. The same mixture of ministries is the utterance of certain exclamations by the presbyters when “co-serving” the bishop. These exclamations must be pronounced by the bishop himself. Can the bishop give them to the presbyter? This is an improper mixture of ministries, for which the bishop is not authorized. He cannot delegate to anyone any part of his leadership ministry. The Eucharist gains nothing from this transfer, but the ministry of primacy is only disadvantaged. If the Eucharist remains complete when celebrated by one bishop or one presbyter, then this means that “concelebration” is not necessary. If this is so, then it cannot be an active expression of the co-service of the people. There may be a “concelebration” of elders, but there may not be one. This is exactly what cannot be said about the concelebration of the people. Without it there cannot be a Eucharistic assembly, since the latter is truly a gathering of the people of God. This cannot be said about the primate: without him there can be no Eucharistic meeting, since it always includes a primate. To be convinced of this, it is enough to turn to the modern rites of the liturgy. They know only two who perform it: the primate (bishop or presbyter) with or without a deacon, and the people. Both of these sides act actively, since the celebration of the Eucharist belongs to the Church. The people and the primate are who we find in our modern ranks, but we do not find any place in them for the “co-service” of elders. All prayers are said on behalf of the people by the bishop or presbyter. The bishop is, in the words of Theodore of Mopsuestia, “the mouth of the Church.” The same mouth is used by the presbyter if he celebrates the Eucharist. But the “mouth of the Church” presupposes, that is, the gathered people of God, who through their primate offer “thanksgiving,” and not an empty temple. When a bishop serves, the presbyters cannot be the “mouths of the Church,” since there is only one mouth of the Church. Isn’t it significant that modern liturgical practice leaves it unclear what exactly the bishop can or should convey to the presbyters when they serve him. It would be absurd to assume that a bishop can delegate to his “co-servant” presbyter the pronouncement of the words of establishment. And if he cannot convey them to him, then why can the presbyter pronounce them to himself? The modern idea of ​​"concelebration" remains liturgically unfounded. If the modern practice of “concelebration” cannot be substantiated eucharistically, or more precisely, it cannot be substantiated in such a way that it does not violate the basic principles of the Eucharist, then only one consideration remains in favor of “concelebration”. It adds great solemnity to the service. Whatever importance one may attach to solemnity in liturgical life, in any case it has a precisely defined limit, beyond which a violation of the basic principles of the Eucharist begins. Moreover, the understanding of solemnity may vary and may change from one era to another. Our understanding of the solemnity of worship does not coincide, as we have already seen, with the understanding of solemnity in the ancient church. We pay more attention to the external solemnity that we inherited from Byzantium, covering with it the lack of internal solemnity. Wasn't the Eucharistic Assembly really solemn in the ancient church? Isn’t the order of worship described in the protocol of Cirta solemn? We are not satisfied with this now. Is this not an indication that we have not only gained something over a long period of liturgical development, but, on the contrary, have lost something significant? Can there be more solemnity than when the whole church gathers for a Eucharistic meeting under the presidency of a bishop surrounded by his presbyterium, who alone performs “thanksgiving” with the help of deacons, just as Christ performed “thanksgiving” alone, surrounded by the apostles? Compared to this solemnity, our modern solemnity seems earthly and too earthly. We must not forget about this. “Let all human flesh be silent, and let it stand with fear and trembling, and let it think of nothing earthly within itself.”

The bishop alone celebrates the Eucharist, since he alone is the primate of his church, which he received from God as an inheritance or inheritance (21st canon of the Council of Antioch). He is the actual primate of his church, as he was in the ancient church. It was he, and no one else, who received membership into his church. It was he who presided at the Eucharistic meeting. There was nothing in the church that happened apart from him, just as there was nothing in the church that happened apart from the people. This is genuine co-service of the people to their leader. Our modern “co-service” has very little connection with this real “co-service”. We cannot and should not stretch out our hands to change what was established by Christ and the apostles, but we can and must gradually free our liturgical practice from various kinds of accretions, the duration of which is very, very limited, and especially from those that lead not to to strengthening the Eucharistic life, but to weakening and darkening it.

III. Presbyter as celebrant of the Eucharist.

1 . The Eucharistic assembly of the ancient church was a gathering of all under the presidency of one. We do not know exactly what the presiding officer at the Eucharistic meeting was called in apostolic times, but we know that the central place at it always belonged to the same person. The Eucharistic meeting was a continuation of the Last Supper, performed by Christ on the eve of His death on the cross. After His glorification, His disciples began to serve suppers. His place was the only one, and the only one was the person who occupied this place. The first Eucharist was celebrated in Jerusalem by the apostles, who, like the Jews, knew that the same person was always the leader at their meals. At home meals, the head of the house was the leader, and at community meals (chaburah), the head of this community was the leader. When local churches began to arise among the pagan world, the celebration of the Eucharist by one person who constantly occupied a central place in the meeting was already a tradition. Neither Barnabas nor Paul could change this tradition. In any case, Paul, as has already been indicated, was a man of tradition. His teaching was not basically his own teaching, but the teaching of the Church, received from the Lord through the apostles. He passed on to the churches he founded what he had received from the Lord. “For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you...”(cf. 15:3). Here Paul was not talking about what he directly received in the Lord's appearance to him on the road to Damascus. He received the tradition of the Last Supper from the apostles, most likely from the Apostle Peter, with whom he spent 15 days (), but what he received from Peter was from the Lord. Having accepted the tradition of the Last Supper, he also accepted the tradition of how the apostles celebrated the Eucharist in Jerusalem. If the New Testament writings do not directly say that the celebrant of the Eucharist was always the same person, then it does not follow from this silence that the celebrant of the Eucharist changed from meeting to meeting. As an organism, she carried within herself the principle of structure and order, but as an organism living by the Spirit, she perceives this principle from the Spirit. Because of this, tradition is not opposed to the Spirit, but is created by the Spirit. For the Apostolic Church, the “law of the Spirit” was that in the Eucharistic Assembly the celebrant of the Eucharist was always the same person, designated by the Spirit. In light of this fact, it does not matter to us what the name of this person was. It existed in the church and it was constant.

2 . In the middle of the second century, in the vast majority of churches, the head of the Eucharistic Assembly bore the title of bishop. We already know, according to the testimony of Ignatius the God-Bearer, that the bishop was the only celebrant of the Eucharist. And even more: without him there could be no Eucharist. He could transfer the celebration of the Eucharist to another person, in all likelihood, to the presbyter, but this transfer was performed in exceptional cases - in the absence of the bishop or during his illness. In other cases, it is difficult to imagine that a bishop could transfer, at least temporarily, to a presbyter his ministry, to which he was called by God and to which he was appointed, so that, as a high priest, he would bring gifts to the holy Church. For Ignatius B., the church was where the bishop was. This was an expression of the actual state of affairs, and not an abstract truth that did not find full application in practice. The faithful gathered together for the Eucharistic Assembly under the presidency of their bishop.

Around this time in the East it penetrates into the countryside. Residents of rural areas far from the city did not have the opportunity to take part in the city Eucharistic meeting. Churches arose in it, in which the Eucharist was celebrated. For the most part, the city was the mother church of rural churches. However, it would be a gross historical mistake if we transferred our ideas to this distant time, and on this basis we would believe that the city bishop sent his elders to celebrate the Eucharist in rural churches. In Roman times, the countryside was one with the city: the “city - polis” included the city in our sense and the surrounding countryside. Contrary to this administrative principle, the village church was a separate church headed by its own bishop. Historians who talk about the correspondence of church and state structures in the ante-Nicene period must not forget this fact, which indicates the opposite. The Church followed the state structure when it found it necessary for itself, but also deviated from it when its structure required it. The bishop led the village church, just as the bishop led city ​​church. It could not be otherwise, because without a bishop there could be no Eucharistic Assembly. Later, around the second half of the third century, rural bishops received the special name of chorebishops. Initially, the chorebishop was a full-fledged bishop, like the city bishop. He participated on a par with the city bishops at the councils. The relationship between urban and rural churches that are part of one “polis,” although they were of a closer nature, was built according to the type of relationship between urban churches.

If there were certain exceptions to this basic order, they did not undermine it in the least. We know that in Egypt, for example, elders stood at the head of churches for a long time. In addition to the special nature of the church structure of Egypt, this deviation was due to the fact that for a long time only the bishop of Alexandria bore the title of bishop. In fact, the presbyters were bishops. This happened in some other places as well.

3 . We have already stated above that initially there was one Eucharistic meeting within one local church. However, the numerical increase in the city church on the one hand, and on the other hand persecution, during which it was dangerous for everyone to gather together in one place, caused the division of the single city assembly. Naturally, this kind of division should have occurred earlier in large cities, since in small cities there was no external motivation for dividing the episcopal city Eucharistic Assembly. These external circumstances were supplemented by internal ones related to the development of the teaching about the Church, which I do not have the opportunity to talk about here. The result of the mutual action of external and internal reasons was the granting of the right to celebrate the Eucharist to the presbyters.

The original additional city worship centers were not considered as separate Eucharistic congregations. They were, as it were, a continuation or extension of the episcopal assembly. Therefore, ideally at this stage of development of the church structure, the bishop remained, as the sole primate of the church, the sole celebrant of the Eucharist. The presbyter did not have the opportunity to celebrate the Eucharist on his own unless he received a special commission from the bishop. The further development of the church structure contributed to the attachment of elders to certain liturgical centers. This attachment occurred, for the most part, first in rural churches, and then only in urban ones. Chorebishops are gradually disappearing, and in their place are presbyters who preside at the Eucharistic meeting of rural churches, but not independently, but under the general leadership of the city bishop. City religious centers began to be built according to this type. Within a single city church, parishes appear as semi-independent parts of this church, having their own liturgical center, their own specific territory and a certain number of parish members. Along with the bishop, as the head of the local church, the presbyter became the celebrant of the Eucharist. This was one of the most profound changes that occurred in the history of the church. This was not only a change in the administrative principle of dividing the church, but also a change in the very doctrine of the Church. The main position of ancient ecclesiology was that the head of the Eucharistic Assembly was the bishop, as the head of his church. The unity of the local church was manifested in the unity of the Eucharistic Assembly, which determined the unity of the episcopate in the local church. Modern teaching considers the parish presbyter as the head of the Eucharistic Assembly, without considering him the head of the church, since the presbyter does not have any church. The Eucharistic meeting has ceased to be a sign of the unity of the local church, since it no longer reveals the veto, as it did before. God in all its fullness. The parish is only a part of the episcopal church, and therefore it does not reveal it. Partly related to this is the doctrine of the Eucharist as a sacrament in the Church, and not as a sacrament of the Church itself. When within the local church the only celebrant of the Eucharist was its primate, then the Eucharist was a sacrament of the Church, and when within the episcopal church several Eucharistic assemblies were formed under the authority of one bishop, then the Eucharist inevitably, in dogmatic teaching, had to become one of the sacraments in the Church: Doctrine of the Church departed from its original Eucharistic foundations.

4 . The celebration of the Eucharist by the primate of the local church follows from the very nature of the Eucharist. The church structure must be in accordance with the Eucharistic principles, and not vice versa. In this matter, as in a number of other issues, the immediate task is not so much to radically change the church structure, but to put the correct theological meaning into it. In our theological consciousness, we must return to the basic principle of the Eucharist, that its celebrant is the primate of the local church. The existence of parishes in the episcopal church, or, more precisely, in the episcopal diocese, is a fact of our modern church life that must be taken into account. Approaching our modern church structure to Eucharistic principles is possible in two ways. The first is that the bishop should be considered, as before, the sole celebrant of the Eucharist, and the presbyters only his delegates. Under this condition, the parish Eucharistic Assembly would only be a spatial extension of the episcopal assembly. The natural consequence of such a view of the parish would be the loss of its liturgical and economic independence, which was so solemnly approved for it by the Moscow Council of 1917/18. The unity of the Eucharistic Assembly of the Episcopal Church would only be ideally preserved, since in fact there would be several Eucharistic Assemblies within the Episcopal Church, but this ideal unity would testify to the preservation in the dogmatic consciousness of the Eucharistic principles of ecclesiology.

The second way out is not to weaken the independence of parishes, but to strengthen it. The modern parish most closely resembles the original local church. Like her, the parish has, or at least should have, one Eucharistic meeting, to which all its members gather. Based on the principle that the celebrant of the Eucharist is the head of the church, we could recognize the parish presbyter as the head of the church. With this understanding, the parish ceases to be part of the diocese, but becomes a local church. The diocese in turn becomes an ecclesiastical district, as it was in the beginning, consisting of a number of local churches.

This is the topic of the upcoming theological discussion. It is inevitable after the resolution of the Moscow Council, which, having agreed on what was planned in the history of the development of the church structure, revealed the conflict between it and the teaching about the Church. For the first time in the history of the Orthodox Church, the Moscow Council proclaimed that the local church, as an ecclesiastical unit, was divided into dioceses. This was a completely new idea for Orthodox world. Church consciousness in Byzantium, with the exception of the failed doctrine of “κηδεμὸνία παντῶν,” always considered episcopal churches as ecclesiastical units from which metropolitan and patriarchal districts were formed.

IV. Concelebration of the elders.

1 . The emergence of parishes was associated with a violation of the basic principle of ancient church teaching about a single Eucharistic meeting within the episcopal church, but it did not necessarily entail a complete violation of the remaining Eucharistic foundations of church life. The parish Eucharistic Assembly not only can, but must remain a meeting of all members of the parish for the same thing. If this principle is violated in parish life, then the reason for this lies not only in the parish structure of life, but also in the fact that this principle - always everything and always together - has fallen out of the church consciousness. Naturally, this principle cannot receive its full meaning in a parish structure, since a parish Eucharistic Assembly can only unite members of the parish, but not members of the entire local church. However, the parish priest, appointed by the bishop, is the head of the parish, and as the head of the parish, he can and should be the sole primate of the parish Eucharistic Assembly. The modern practice of celebrating the Eucharist by several presbyters, that is, the “co-service” of some presbyters with others, is a liturgical paradox.

When the presbyter, on behalf of the bishop, first began to celebrate the Eucharist, he celebrated it alone with the assistance of a subdeacon or deacon. There could be no talk of any concelebration of elders, since it actually could not take place. Presbyters who were not sent by the bishop to celebrate the Eucharist in additional liturgical centers remained with the episcopal church. They sat in their places while the bishop celebrated the Eucharist. If, during the celebration of the Eucharist, the presbyter would have been another presbyter or other presbyters, then the Eucharist was always celebrated by one presbyter, to whom the bishop entrusted, and not all together. The rest of the elders participated in the Eucharist, as did the rest of the people. They received the Eucharistic gifts from the hands of the presbyter present at the meeting, but did not teach themselves the gifts. Just as Christ at the Last Supper took the bread, gave thanks, broke it and distributed it, and then divided the cup, blessing it, so the one who celebrates the Eucharist takes the bread and cup after the blessing and distributes them either directly himself or with the help of the deacons. Only the one present at the Eucharistic meeting gives himself the gifts. Hierarchy is observed in the order of teaching the gifts, but it cannot be expressed in the teaching of gifts to oneself. The one who celebrates the Eucharist takes the place of Christ at the Last Supper, and since this is the only place, he only bestows gifts on himself. Because of this, in the ancient church the bishop himself celebrated the Eucharist, and the presbyter only in the absence of the bishop. A bishop participating in a Eucharistic meeting, at which a presbyter would preside, would have to receive gifts from the hands of the presbyter, because not he, but the presbyter would take the place of Christ. In his presence, the bishop could only invite another bishop, if he was a guest in his church, to celebrate the Eucharist. The 18th rule of the Council of Nicea, which was discussed above, establishing the order of communion, proceeded from the fact that the bishop celebrates the Eucharist. The fathers of the Council of Nicaea had not yet foreseen the case of a presbyter leading the Eucharistic Assembly when a bishop participated in it. A bishop in the ancient church could not receive the Eucharistic gifts from the hands of his presbyters, since the presbyters did not celebrate the Eucharist in his presence.

2 . “Rural elders in a city church cannot officiate (more precisely, bring gifts) in the presence of the bishop or city elders, and also neither share the bread nor the cup during prayer. If they are absent, and one villager is invited for prayer, then he teaches.” This 13th canon of the Council of Neocaesarea, which was, in all likelihood, several years before the Council of Nicaea, is important to me in that it confirms what was said above regarding the celebration of the Eucharist by the presbyter in the presence of the bishop. Leaving aside some controversial points, I will focus on what is completely indisputable in it. The Council forbade the rural presbyter to celebrate the Eucharist if there was a city bishop or city presbyters in the Eucharistic Assembly. It goes without saying that this prohibition also applies to the city presbyter if the city bishop is present. Although the rule does not give reasons for its prohibition, they are quite clear to us. The celebration of the Eucharist by a rural presbyter in the presence of a bishop or city presbyters is unacceptable, since the presbyter, while celebrating the Eucharist, would be teaching them the Eucharistic gifts. Because of this, a rural presbyter can celebrate the Eucharist in a city church if the city bishop and his presbyters are absent from its Eucharistic meeting.

The same council that forbade rural presbyters to make offerings in a city church allowed the chorebishops to do so when its Eucharistic Assembly included its bishop and city presbyters. I have already pointed out more than once that, according to generally accepted practice, the bishop of the local church usually invited his guest, another city bishop, to celebrate the Eucharist. The question therefore arises as to why the Council of Neocaesarea considered it necessary to confirm this practice in relation to rural bishops. As stated above, initially a rural bishop differed from a city bishop in that his see was not in the city, but in the village. There were no other differences between them. All rural churches located in rural areas administratively belonging to the city gravitated towards the city church as their center and as their mother church. This attraction was not originally of a legal nature, but was an expression of love that existed between local churches. By the end of the 3rd century, and especially from the beginning of the 4th century, the relationship between urban and rural churches was changing. They move into the phase of legal subordination of the chorebishops to the city bishop. A rural bishop remains a bishop, but, so to speak, of a slightly lower rank. The Neokosarian Council indicates that rural bishops are placed in the image of the seventy apostles, thereby implying that the city bishops are placed in the image of the 12 apostles. However, the village bishop remained a real bishop even in the 4th century. The Neokosarian Council itself testifies to this, calling them “co-servants - sulleitourgoi,” meaning by this that they performed the same ministry as the city bishops. Based on the 14th rule of the Neocaesarea Council, we are able to conclude that at the beginning of the 4th century there was doubt about the episcopal dignity of chorebishops. This explains the publication by the cathedral of a special rule regarding the celebration of the Eucharist by the chorebishop in the city church. He could celebrate the Eucharist, because he could, having the same ministry as the city bishop, distribute gifts to bishops and presbyters. It goes without saying that the term “co-servant”, used by the council in relation to the rural bishop, does not indicate that he could “co-serve” the city bishop in our modern understanding. If “concelebration” in our sense had existed in the 4th century, then why could not the rural bishop or rural presbyters concelebrate with the city bishop? There was no need to issue special rules for this, i.e. because this is clear in itself. Rules 13 and 14 of the Neocaesarea Council are another piece of evidence that in the church consciousness of the 4th century the idea of ​​“concelebration” in our sense was completely absent.

3 . If we accept “concelebration” in the modern sense, then it can be accepted with very great reservations in relation to the bishop and the elders of his church, but it is completely unacceptable to accept “concelebration” in relation to the elders who co-served each other. In the ancient church, elders formed a presbyterium under the bishop. They sat in their places while the bishop celebrated the Eucharist, as if surrounding him. Later they approached the altar, remaining in their former functions. Whatever position the presbyter occupied, there could not and cannot be a presbyterium with him, who could surround the altar when one of them celebrated the Eucharist. The latter performs it on behalf of the bishop. The idea of ​​“co-service” of elders was mechanically transferred from bishops to elders. With one presbyter, there is actually no place for other presbyters, which is why it is so difficult to determine what and how the “co-service” of presbyters should be expressed.

If the modern church structure allows for the presence of several presbyters in one parish, then only one of them celebrates the Eucharist, and the rest participate in it and concelebrate in the true sense of the word. Therefore, they must accept gifts from the hands of the serving elder. If the position of the parish presbyter in our church structure can be, as I indicated, a subject of discussion, then there can be no discussion on the question of how the communion of clergy is administered. Everyone, without exception, receives the Eucharistic gifts from the hands of the celebrant, since during the celebration of the Eucharist there is no one in the church congregation who at that moment is superior to him. We must not, for the sake of human differences, violate the order established by the Lord at His Last Supper. The bishop celebrates the Eucharist (despite all the changes, he remains the only celebrant in his church), surrounded by those elders who are with him. They will serve him, just as all the people entrusted to him by God will serve him. They are silent when the people are silent, because the “mouth of the Church” is the bishop. This does not, as I said above, erase the hierarchical difference between them and the rest of the church. The hierarchical difference between them remains, since the presbyter can celebrate the Eucharist with the consent of the bishop, which no one else from the people can do. If for some reason the bishop allows the presbyter to celebrate the Eucharist in his presence, then he gives up his place in the Eucharistic Assembly, the place that the Lord occupied at the Last Supper. By giving up his place to him, he at the same time allows him to celebrate the Eucharist not partially, but completely, and receives the Eucharistic gifts from his hands. This is included in the bishop’s very order, which leaves the presbyter to celebrate the Eucharist. When the elder makes thanksgiving over the bread and breaks it, when he blesses the cup, he distributes them to all participants in the meeting. I repeat again that no one can take the Eucharistic gifts from the throne except the one who has given thanks. To change this is to introduce human differences where there should be no place for them. The distinction of ministries is ordained by God. The difference between the ministry of a bishop and the ministry of a presbyter is that he, and not the presbyter, leads the Eucharistic Assembly when he participates in it. The maintenance of the distinction between bishop and presbyter, when the presbyter celebrates the Eucharist in the presence of the bishop, does not stem from the difference of ministry. By allowing the presbyter to “perform thanksgiving,” the bishop provides him with the most important and highest things, and therefore cannot retain for himself anything that includes “thanksgiving.” A non-serving bishop, like a non-serving presbyter, receives gifts from the hands of a serving presbyter. If this Eucharistic order seems impious to anyone, then I can again say that this was the case in apostolic times. If this order is impious, is not the Eucharist itself, from whose nature this order follows, impious? Is it possible to avoid this imaginary “ungodliness” by allowing a non-serving bishop or presbyter participating in the Eucharistic Assembly to not receive communion? But can there be participation in the Eucharist without communion? This is the last question to be considered in this work.

Perhaps it is permissible to make another assumption regarding the establishment of "seven". This establishment marks a turning point in the history of the Jerusalem church and the beginning of the wider missionary activity of the apostles. Before the establishment of “seven”, ap. Peter, as the head of the church, presided over the Eucharistic meeting, at which the rest of the apostles served. Passing on the ministry at the seven meals, St. Peter simultaneously handed over the leadership of the Eucharistic Assembly to James, and at the same time the leadership of the Jerusalem Church. Peter and the rest of the apostles left behind them the ministry of the word of God. They remained in the Jerusalem Church, they continued to participate in its Eucharistic meeting, but they no longer had the ministry of presiding, nor the ministry of meals.

A. Mingana. Woodbroke Studies, vol. VI, 1933. I quote from the article by B. Sauvé “The Eucharist in the Ancient Church and Modern Practice) in the Collection “Living Tradition”, Paris, p. 181.

14th rule of the Neocaesarea Council. His translation according to the “Book of Rules”: “But the chorebishops, placed in the image of the seventy apostles, as concelebrants of the bishop, also officiate in the city church, accepting honor for the sake of caring for the poor.” The translation is inaccurate, but the meaning of the rule does not change due to the inaccuracy of the translation. Therefore, I do not consider it necessary to give my personal translation.

Every Orthodox man meets with clergy who speak publicly or conduct church services. At first glance, you can understand that each of them wears some special rank, because it’s not for nothing that they have differences in clothing: different color robes, headdresses, some have jewelry made of precious stones, while others are more ascetic. But not everyone is given the ability to understand ranks. To find out the main ranks of clergy and monks, let's look at the ranks of the Orthodox Church in ascending order.

It should immediately be said that all ranks are divided into two categories:

1. Secular clergy. These include ministers who may have a family, wife and children.
2. Black clergy. These are those who accepted monasticism and renounced worldly life.

Secular clergy

The description of people who serve the Church and the Lord comes from Old Testament. The scripture says that before the birth of Christ, the prophet Moses appointed people who were supposed to communicate with God. It is with these people that today's hierarchy of ranks is associated.

Altar server (novice)

This person is a lay assistant to the clergy. His responsibilities include:

If necessary, a novice can ring bells and read prayers, but he is strictly forbidden to touch the throne and walk between the altar and the Royal Doors. The altar server wears the most ordinary clothes, with a surplice thrown over the top.

This person is not elevated to the rank of clergy. He must read prayers and words from scripture, interpret them ordinary people and explain to children the basic rules of Christian life. For special zeal, the clergyman can ordain a psalmist as a subdeacon. As for church clothes, he is allowed to wear a cassock and a skufia (velvet cap).

This person also does not have holy orders. But he can wear a surplice and an orarion. If the bishop blesses him, then the subdeacon can touch the throne and enter through the Royal Doors into the altar. Most often, the subdeacon helps the priest perform the service. He washes his hands during services and gives him the necessary items (tricirium, ripids).

Church ranks of the Orthodox Church

All of the church ministers listed above are not clergy. These are simple peaceful people who want to get closer to the church and the Lord God. They are accepted into their positions only with the blessing of the priest. Let's start looking at the ecclesiastical ranks of the Orthodox Church from the lowest.

The position of deacon has remained unchanged since ancient times. He, as before, must help in worship, but he is prohibited from independently performing church services and representing the Church in society. His main responsibility is reading the Gospel. Currently, the need for the services of a deacon is no longer required, so their number in churches is steadily decreasing.

This is the most important deacon at a cathedral or church. Previously, this rank was given to a protodeacon, who was distinguished by his special zeal for service. To determine that this is a protodeacon, you should look at his vestments. If he wears an orarion with the words “Holy! Holy! Holy,” that means he’s the one in front of you. But at present, this rank is given only after a deacon has served in the church for at least 15–20 years.

It is these people who have a beautiful singing voice, know many psalms, prayers, and sing at various church services.

This word came to us from Greek language and translated means “priest.” In the Orthodox Church this is the lowest rank of priest. The bishop gives him the following powers:

• perform divine services and other sacraments;
• bring teaching to people;
• conduct communion.

The priest is prohibited from consecrating antimensions and performing the sacrament of ordination of the priesthood. Instead of a hood, his head is covered with a kamilavka.

This rank is given as a reward for some merit. The archpriest is the most important among the priests and also the rector of the temple. During the performance of the sacraments, archpriests put on a robe and stole. Several archpriests can serve in one liturgical institution at once.

This rank is given only by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' as a reward for the kindest and most useful deeds that a person has done in favor of the Russian Orthodox Church. This is the highest rank in the white clergy. It will no longer be possible to earn a higher rank, since then there are ranks that are prohibited from starting a family.

Nevertheless, many, in order to get a promotion, abandon worldly life, family, children and go forever to monastic life. In such families, the wife most often supports her husband and also goes to the monastery to take monastic vows.

Black clergy

It includes only those who have taken monastic vows. This hierarchy of ranks is more detailed than that of those who preferred family life to monastic life.

This is a monk who is a deacon. He helps clergy conduct sacraments and perform services. For example, he carries out vessels necessary for rituals or makes prayer requests. The most senior hierodeacon is called "archdeacon."

This is a man who is a priest. He is allowed to perform various sacred sacraments. This rank can be received by priests from the white clergy who decided to become monks, and by those who have undergone consecration (giving a person the right to perform the sacraments).

This is the abbot or abbess of a Russian Orthodox monastery or temple. Previously, most often, this rank was given as a reward for services to the Russian Orthodox Church. But since 2011, the patriarch decided to grant this rank to any abbot of the monastery. During initiation, the abbot is given a staff with which he must walk around his domain.

This is one of the highest ranks in Orthodoxy. Upon receiving it, the clergyman is also awarded a miter. The archimandrite wears a black monastic robe, which distinguishes him from other monks by the fact that he has red tablets on him. If, in addition, the archimandrite is the rector of any temple or monastery, he has the right to carry a rod - a staff. He is supposed to be addressed as “Your Reverence.”

This rank belongs to the category of bishops. At their ordination, they received the highest grace of the Lord and therefore can perform any sacred rites, even ordain deacons. According to church laws, they have equal rights; the archbishop is considered the most senior. By ancient tradition only the bishop can bless the service with the antimis. This is a quadrangular scarf in which part of the relics of a saint is sewn.

This clergyman also controls and guards all monasteries and churches that are located on the territory of his diocese. The generally accepted address to a bishop is “Vladyka” or “Your Eminence.”

This is a high-ranking clergy or the highest title of bishop, the oldest on earth. He obeys only the patriarch. Differs from other dignitaries in the following details in clothing:

• has a blue robe (bishops have red ones);
• white hood with a cross trimmed precious stones(the rest have a black hood).

This rank is given for very high merits and is a badge of distinction.

The highest rank in the Orthodox Church, the main priest of the country. The word itself combines two roots: “father” and “power”. He is elected at the Council of Bishops. This rank is for life; only in the rarest cases can it be deposed and excommunicated. When the place of the patriarch is empty, a locum tenens is appointed as a temporary executor, who does everything that the patriarch should do.

This position carries responsibility not only for itself, but also for the entire Orthodox people countries.

The ranks in the Orthodox Church, in ascending order, have their own clear hierarchy. Despite the fact that we call many clergymen “father,” each Orthodox Christian must know the main differences between dignitaries and positions.

How place of honor the bishop himself in the cathedral.

In all languages, the history of the use of the word “throne” in an allegorical sense is the same as that of the term “department” (lat. cathedra, Greek καθεδρα - chair, throne): an honorary seat intended for the bishop in the temple, conveys the association with episcopal power and is its symbol.

In Russian, this creates several additional homonymous effects.

Usage example:

When blessed John, Bishop of Novgorod, after twenty years of labor in managing his flock, weakened in strength, left the episcopal throne and retired to a monastery, then this blessed Niphon, who had already shone with the rays of his virtues throughout all countries, by the will of God was elected by all to the episcopal throne of Novgorod and was ordained bishop in Kyiv by Metropolitan Michael.

St. Demetrius, Metropolitan of Rostov. The life of our venerable father Nifont, Bishop of Novgorod

In other languages, there is no confusion between the episcopal and altar thrones: the latter is called either by the stone consecrated by the bishop and placed in the altar of a Catholic church (English. Altar stone), or German and Polish Mensa, from lat. mensa- table. Holy Table (Greek) Αγία Τράπεζα - but not a “holy meal” in the sense of food!) The altar throne is also called in Greece; the word form itself is Greek. Τράπεζα at the same time is the ancestral one for the “trapezoid” as a quadrangular geometric figure- by definition, the altar table in Orthodoxy is supposed to be quadrangular, with four pillars.

Here the term “bishop’s throne” has a different etymology, and in English language also (but for a different reason) a specific homonymous effect occurs. The name of the place where the bishop sits is derived here from Lat. sedes- Wed rus. seat, sit . But if this root is preserved in Romance languages ​​(Spanish. Sede episcopal, port. Se episcopal), then in English it was transformed into English. Episcopal see. The homonym that appears here is with the verb “to see” (eng. see) may here evoke a false association with “looking” as an allegory of (episcopal) power.

The episcopal seat was the earliest symbol of the power of the bishop, emphasizes the Catholic Encyclopedia, and therefore the noun see also often used in relation to the entire territory over which the authority of the first clergy extends, and not necessarily of episcopal rank. Thus, in the document “The Lay Council and Congress of the See of Ebbsfleet” the expression “ within the see of Ebbsfleet" translates as "within the parish of Ebbsfleet". On the other hand, a larger unit may also be implied - for example, patriarchy (“Christianity in Crete (to 827)”).

Usage example:

• Holy see- the throne of the Pope.

Notes

Wikimedia Foundation.

2010.

See what “Throne (episcopal)” is in other dictionaries: BULGARIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH - [BPC; Bulgarian Bulgarian Orthodox Church]. Currently At the time, the jurisdiction of the BOC extends to the territory of Bulgaria, as well as to the Orthodox Church. Bulgarian communities of the West Europe, North and Yuzh. America and Australia. The highest spiritual authority in the BOC... ... Orthodox Encyclopedia

BYZANTINE EMPIRE. PART II- Law and Church Reception of Roman law in Byzantium. The concept of Byzantine law Legal culture of V. and. from the beginning of its history until the fall of the field, it was based on the reception of classical Roman law. Sources of Rome. rights were divided into... Orthodox Encyclopedia

- (Greek, from kata above, and hedra seat). 1) an elevated place in classes and auditoriums from which the teacher gives a lesson. 2) a seat in the altar, on which, from time to time, the bishop sits during divine services. 3) the place where the episcopal throne is established... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

INVESTITURE- [lat. vestitura, investitura, from investire to clothe], in the Middle Ages. Zap. In Europe, a formal legal act of taking possession of property or holding a position (secular or ecclesiastical), which was accompanied by the ritual transfer of insignia, ... ... Orthodox Encyclopedia

CATHERINE THE GREAT MARTYR MONASTERY AT SINAI- [῾Ιερὰ Μονὴ ῾Αγίας Αἰκατερίνης τοῦ Θεοβαδίστου ῎Ορους Σινᾶ], autonomous, self-governing, male, hostel, located in the south. parts of the Sinai Peninsula. Abbot E. v. m. is the Archbishop of Sinai, Parano and Raifa (for more details, see article... ... Orthodox Encyclopedia

JERUSALEM ORTHODOX CHURCH TOC- (TOC; Patriarchate of Jerusalem; Greek. Πατριαρχεῖον τῶν ῾Ιεροσολύμων; Arab.; English. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem; French. Patriarchat Greek Orthodoxe de Jérusalem), the oldest Christian. Church. The TOC is headed by His Most Divine... ... Orthodox Encyclopedia

ANTIOCHE ORTHODOX CHURCH- (Patriarchate of Antioch [Arabic, English: The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, French: Patriarchat Greek Orthodoxe d Antioch, Greek: Πατριαρχεῖον ̓Αντιοχείας]). Currently time jurisdiction orthodox. The Patriarchate of Antioch extends to... ... Orthodox Encyclopedia