List of liturgical books of Orthodox Christianity

Ostromir Gospels

Moscow Apostolar , 1564

The following liturgical books are used in the services of the Orthodox Churches in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople :

Liturgical books

• The Euchologion (Eὐχολόγιον) includes all or part of those prayers that bishops and presbyters have to say as presidents of divine services.

Divine liturgy

• The liturgicon (also called "hieraticon"). It essentially contains the order and the texts of the Divine Liturgies of John Chrysostom , of Basil the Great and the Liturgy of the Sacred Gifts .

Biblical texts

• The Gospel Book or Evangelistary . It contains the texts of the four Gospels to be read in the service . In the course of the service, the believers venerate the Gospel book by bowing to it and kissing it.
• The Apostolar (Apostolos). It contains the pericopes from the Acts of the Apostles , the Pauline letters and the Catholic letters .
• The psalter . It contains the psalms , divided into 20 sections, called cathisms ; Every Kathisma has additional prayers.

Prayers and chants

• The Menaeon (Book of the Month). It contains the texts of the worship service, divided into calendar days of the individual months.
• The Octoechos (Book of Eight Tones). It contains various readings and prayers for the Sunday and Saturday evenings, divided into the “eight notes” of the psalmody . One of these eight notes is read every Sunday. Song and prayer texts are also assigned to each tone.
• The Triodion of Lent with songs and prayers for the pre-Lent and Great Lent from the Sunday of the tax collector and the Pharisee up to and including Holy Saturday .
• The Pentekostarion or flower triodion with songs and prayers for the 50 days of Easter from Easter Sunday to Sunday All Saints' Day (Sunday after Pentecost ).
• The hourly prayer book ("Horologion"), divided into hours of prayer or hearing ; it also contains canons.
• The Synaxarion records the worship celebrations in the course of the church year .
• Menologion

Other important books of the Orthodox Churches are

• The typicon contains all the regulations that concern the execution of church services . Also for monastery rules, etc. Ä.

Apart from the Prophetologion there are no scholarly editions of the liturgical books of living Byzantine tradition.

history

The oldest New Testament manuscripts were probably also used for readings in church services. The first psalteries in Greek date from the 6th century. Further liturgical books (Menea, Triodia) were compiled and expanded in the course of the following century.

With the missionary work of Cyril and Methodius in Moravia and Pannonia, the first translations into the Church Slavonic language arose in the 9th century. The oldest surviving manuscripts are from the late 10th century.

From the 16th century onwards, many Orthodox liturgical books appeared in print. In the 19th century, Alexej Maltzew translated the most important Orthodox liturgical books into German.

literature

• Georg Galitis, Georg Mantzaridis, Paul Wiertz: Faith from the heart. An Introduction to Orthodoxy. 2nd edition, TR-Verlagsunion, Munich 1988.
• Johannes Peterfalvy ( Archimandrite ): Orthodox Catechism. Munich 1968.
• Elena V. Velkovska: Libri liturgici bizantini . In: Scientia Liturgica. Manuals di liturgia . A cura di Anscar J. Chupungco. 1: Introduzione alla liturgia . Casale Monferrato (AL) 1998, 244-258.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 70 Greek liturgical books of the 16th century in Italy , (see Greek liturgical books in Venice, incomplete list)