Epiclesis
Epiclesis (from ancient Greek ἐπικαλέω epikaléō , contracted ἐπικαλῶ epikalṓ , i phone, cause 'call) means first general since the ancient times , the invocation of one or more gods and is thus an important part of every prayer .
Antiquity
For the period of antiquity, the term Epiklese (technically mostly Epiklesis ) describes the epithet or cult name of a deity, through which special properties or aspects of the deity were invoked. These properties could e.g. B. exist in local peculiarities, mythological connections, cultic aspects. Zeus and Hephaestus were worshiped as Aitnaios on Etna . If places of worship were located on mountains, the deities often carried the epiklesis Akraia . The transfer of aspects of an originally local deity to one of the Olympian gods could also be reflected in the epiclesis, as is likely for the epithets Orthia and Henioche . Apollon as "the eater of mice" was venerated under the name Smintheus , and as a helper in epidemics he was Epicurius . Athena was invoked by numerous names , somewhat as Ergane in her capacity as the patron goddess of handicrafts.
All these epics-readings individualized the abstract deity, which could be experienced by the individual in concrete life situations: as a bringer of evil, as a repeller, as a deity of a place. The special situation in a city, a landscape or one of the Greek tribes could be expressed in this way. When in 371 BC BC founded the city of Megalopolis as the center of the Arcadian League , the most important cults of the allies were also transferred to the new city, including the cult of Zeus Lykaios , whose main sanctuary was on the Arcadian mountain Lykaion . In this way the conditions for the religious cohesion of the covenant were created.
Christianity
As a term of Christian theology , Epiclesis describes the invocation of God, in particular the calling down of the Holy Spirit . This occurs during the celebrations of baptism and the Lord's Supper , but also during ordination or consecration .
During the celebration of the Eucharist there is a core prayer (“ Prayer ”), which is again structured anamnetically and epicletically, thus addressing God as the one who did yesterday, today and tomorrow, praising and pleading. Here, epiclesis denotes the calling down of the Holy Spirit to the gifts of bread and wine (so-called epics of change or consecration) and / or to the recipients of the Eucharistic food (so-called "communion epics").
With regard to the evaluation of this Eucharistic epics reading, there is a historical, but no longer church-dividing difference in its design and evaluation between the Church of the West on the one hand and the Churches of the East on the other.
All churches of the Catholic and Lutheran type in East and West agree that after the consecration the true body and blood of Christ are on the altar ( real presence ) and that the sanctification of the Eucharistic food occurs through the work of God. Theological differences, however, exist in the question of whether this “change” is caused by repeating the Lord's words in persona Christi (“This is my body ...”) in the Eucharistic prayer , as represented by the Christologically oriented Roman Catholic and Lutheran teaching, or by the calling down of the Holy Spirit, or both, or by the whole celebration of the Eucharist, as represented by the Orthodox Church with pneumatological accentuation and also by the Old Catholic Church .
At the same time, the liturgical question arises as to when - if at all - the epiclesis should be said in the high prayer , before or after the so-called institution report . While Western Catholicism allows the epicsreading in high prayer, insofar as it contains one, as is the case today, according to the model of the Alexandrian liturgy (as a so-called change and communion epicsreading), the Antiochene custom provides the following Orthodox and Eastern Church-Catholic practice behind the appointment report and moves it spiritually and sacramental theologically into the center. So it says in the Chrysostom liturgy - used by Orthodox and Catholics - after the words of institution (sung aloud) in silent prayer: “... and call and pray and implore you: send down your Holy Spirit on us and the present gifts ... and make this bread the precious body of your Christ! But that in this cup to the precious blood of your Christ! ... transforming through your Holy Spirit! Amen, amen, amen! "
In the Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church (SELK) the epiclesis, understood here as a request for the Holy Spirit, takes place directly before the consecration words in the so-called Lord's Supper, where it says: “... Gathered in his name and in his memory, we ask You, Lord: send down on us the Holy Spirit, sanctify and renew us in body and soul and give that under this bread and wine of your Son we may receive true body and blood in right faith for our salvation ... "
The initiation report and the epiclesis are both originally and essentially parts of a prayer to God in the Eucharist , not formulas with which the speaker addresses the gifts or their recipients. It was only considered in isolation as a formula in the theological reflection of later centuries. In Western theology, the prayer was then only regarded as a pious framework for the actually sanctifying words of Christ. In the East, from Johannes Damascenus (8th century), the importance of the epiclesis for the Eucharist was emphasized more and more, until finally some orthodox theologians in the 17th century asserted that it alone had consecrative power. This view is widely criticized today, and the widespread view of Orthodox theology is that words of change and the invocation of the Holy Spirit are both necessary for the fulfillment of the Eucharist, and that the change is to be seen in the context of the entire liturgy and not arbitrarily taken up by man can be fixed at a specific point in time. Ever since the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic Church has come closer to the Eastern Churches by following the Epiclesis, i.e. H. the request to God for the Holy Spirit, a regular place in the prayers of the Mass liturgy. In the more recent forms, the so-called epics of change is placed before the institution report as a request for the sanctification of the gifts: “So we ask you, Father: the Spirit sanctify these gifts so that they become the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. “According to this, in the so-called communion epics, we pray for the fruitful reception of the Eucharistic gifts.
In the context of the Catholic-Orthodox dialogue in 1982, the two churches shared the following conviction with regard to the Eucharistic epiclesis: “The Spirit transforms the sacred gifts into the body and blood of Christ, so that the growth of the body, which is the Church, may be completed. In this sense, the whole celebration is an epiclesis, which is expressed more clearly at certain moments. The Church is incessantly in a state of epiclesis, the calling down of the Holy Spirit. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ Heinz-Günther Nesselrath : The Greeks and their gods. In: Reinhard Gregor Kratz , Hermann Spieckermann (ed.): Images of Gods, Images of God, Images of the World: Polytheism and Monotheism in the Ancient World. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2006, pp. 42-44; Jacob Burckhardt : Greek cultural history. Second volume, third section: Religion and Cultus. 5th edition. Spemann, Berlin / Stuttgart 1908, pp. 57-61 ( digitized version ).
- ↑ Sebastian Brock: The epiklesis in the Antiochene baptismal "ordines" . In: Symposium Syriacum 1972 (Orientalia Christiana Analecta 197). Roma 1974, 183-218.
- ↑ Cf. Frieder Schulz : Documentation of the ordination liturgies. In: Joint Roman Catholic Evangelical Lutheran Commission (ed.): The Spiritual Office in the Church. Bonifatius-Druckerei / Otto Lembeck, Paderborn / Frankfurt am Main 1981, p. 57ff., Here p. 65 the term "person epicreading" is used.
- ↑ See KKK No. 1105 .
- ↑ The mystery of the Church and the Eucharist in the light of the mystery of the Holy Trinity . Document of the International Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, in: Documents of Growing Consensus. Vol. 2, Paderborn - Frankfurt / M. 1992, p. 533.
