Alexandrian rite

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The Alexandrian rite or Alexandrian liturgy is the name given to the Christian worship in the ancient church patriarchate Alexandria and its successor churches: the two Alexandrian patriarchates of the Copts and the (Greek-Orthodox) Chalcedonians (modern times each with smaller Catholic sister churches), today's patriarchates of Ethiopia and Eritrea . The Coptic and Ethiopian Churches each developed their own liturgical history, so that one can also speak of a “ Coptic Rite ” and an “ Ethiopian Rite ”. The daughter church of Alexandria in Nubia went under , of whose worship only monumental and written sources (church buildings, book fragments and inscriptions) have survived.

The basic language of Alexandrian-Egyptian liturgy was and remained Greek. Various Coptic languages ​​were still used in late antiquity, and Nubian and Ethiopian in the mission areas. After the Arabization of Egypt, Arabic was taken up for the biblical and hagiographic readings and used in the priestly prayer books as an aid to understanding in marginal translations. In modern times, Arabic is increasingly used in the texts of the community.

Liturgical history

The beginnings of Christian worship in Alexandria are as dark as the origins of its Christian community. Some similarities with the early urban Roman liturgy are striking .

We know the "classic" Alexandrian-Egyptian liturgy of the Fathers' Church primarily through:

  • scattered references in the early church literature,
  • an ever increasing number of papyrological documents ( papyri , ostraca, limestone, wooden panels),

such as

  • three prayer collections:
    • the small Euchologion of the R. Roca-Puig Collection († 2001), previously in Barcelona, ​​now in the Abadia de Montserrat (P. Monts. Roca 1), handed down in a mixed code of the 4th century ,
    • the Serapion Euchologion ( German translation )
    • the excerpts from an Alexandrian Euchologion, including an extensive baptismal book, in the special property of the Ethiopian Traditio Apostolica .

A new liturgical historical situation arises with the split of Alexandrian-Egyptian Christianity into:

The traditional Alexandrian rite, which was inherited from the early church, has since been cultivated by two quite different groups and each developed in their own way:

  • the Chalcedonians in and around Alexandria ("Alexandrian-Melkite liturgy"), as well as
  • the Christians in Nubia, who - although confessionally and organizationally linked to the Coptic Patriarchate - used Greek exclusively for the priestly prayers in worship for the duration of their church history.

In contrast, the Alexandrian patriarchate , which was increasingly influenced by the Copts and the Coptic , and the opponents of the Council of Chalcedon, is not continuing the worship traditions of the undivided Alexandrian-Egyptian Church . Rather, it develops its own liturgical order in which the Alexandrian-Egyptian “homeland” is combined with imported texts from neighboring churches, especially from Syria, and with readings from pseudapostolic literature: the Coptic Rite.

With the widespread adoption of the Byzantine-Constantinopolitan liturgy by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and the fall of Christianity in Nubia, the pure Alexandrian rite fell out of use with a few remains.

They celebrate

Eucharist

The traditional form of the Eucharist developed in Alexandria is the Markos liturgy named after the evangelist who was revered as the founder of the church, with the Markos anaphora as prayer . In the Coptic liturgy, both bear the name of the Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria . A number of fragments on papyrus have survived from late antique and early Islamic times. The entire liturgy is attested by medieval manuscripts in Greek (from both Chalcedonian and Coptic milieu) as well as various Coptic and Arabic translations.

Myron consecration

The Church of Alexandria took over from Antioch the highly solemn form of consecration of Saints introduced there towards the end of the 5th century. Myron . After the split in the church, it remained common in both factions, the Melkites and the Copts. The Alexandrian-Melkite order of worship in Greek is only preserved in handwriting. A fragmentary witness from a southern Italian manuscript of the 12th century was published, as well as the text of an incomplete Rotulus from Sinai recently.

Times of day (hourly prayer)

The early church celebration of the hours lives on in different forms in the developed divine service of the Copts

  • Incense offering in the evening and in the morning, taken from the fund of the evening and morning praise of the cathedrals,
  • Horologion from the monastic Liturgy of the Hours, mainly recitation of psalms,
  • Celebration of the "Psalmodia" after midnight, after the morning office and after Compline, previously probably the chanted parts of the monastic divine office, today separate services.

literature

  • Heinzgerd Brakmann: Between Pharos and the desert. Research into Alexandrian-Egyptian liturgy through and after Anton Baumstark . In: Robert F. Taft / Gabriele Winkler (eds.): Acts of the International Congress Comparative Liturgy Fifty Years after Anton Baumstark (1872-1948) . Rome, September 25-29, 1998. Pontificio Instituto Orientale, Rome 2001, ISBN 88-7210-333-9 , ( Orientalia Christiana Analecta 265), pp. 323-376, (with further literature).
  • Heinzgerd Brakmann: Defunctus adhuc loquitur. Worship and prayer literature of the lost church in Nubia . In: Archiv für Liturgiewwissenschaft 48, 3, 2006 (published 2008), ISSN  0066-6386 , pp. 283–333.
  • Geoffrey J. Cuming: The Liturgy of St Mark . Pontificum Instituto Studiorum Orientalium, Rome 1990, ( Orientalia Christiana analecta 234, ISSN  1590-7449 ).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jürgen Hammerstaedt : Greek anaphore fragments from Egypt and Nubia . Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen et al. 1999, ISBN 3-531-09947-7 , ( Treatises of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, special series Papyrologica Coloniensia 28); Celine Grassien: Préliminaires à l'édition du corpus papyrologique des hymnes chrétiennes liturgiques de langue grecque . Diss. Paris 2011; Ágnes T. Mihálkó: Writing the Christian Liturgy in Egypt (3rd to 9th cent.) . Diss. Oslo 2016.
  2. ^ André Jacob: Cinq feuillets du Codex Rossanensis (Vat. Gr. 1970) retrouvés à Grottaferrata . In: Le Muséon 87, 1974, ISSN  0771-6494 , pp. 45-57.
  3. ↑ Viktoria Panteri: Ο Καθαγιασμός του 'Αγιου Μύρου στα Πρεσβυγενή Πατριαρχεία της Ανατολής. Εκδότης: ΓΡΗΓΟΡΗ, Athens 2017. ISBN 978-960-612-036-7 .