360 Pages
by
Routledge
Liturgical ritual was a major element of the Christian cultures of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. This was especially true of Byzantium, where court and church ritual, often intertwined, achieved a splendour unparalleled by any other aspect of civic or religious life. In this volume Robert Taft has brought together a series of studies on the formation and development of these rites and on the meaning they had for contemporaries. Particular articles look at the role of Jerusalem, Constantinople, then Mt Athos, in this process, and at the liturgy of St John Chrysostom. Also included are two important studies focusing on the role of the bema in the Syriac Church.
Contents: Sigla; The liturgy of the Great Church: an initial synthesis of structure and interpretation on the eve of Iconoclasm; The pontifical liturgy of the Great Church according to a 12th-century diataxis in codex; The authenticity of the Chrysostom Anaphora Revisited. Determing the authorship of liturgical texts by computer; Mount Athos: a late chapter in the history of the Byzantine Rite; In the bridegroom's absence. The Paschal Triduum in the Byzantine Church; A tale of two cities. The Byzantine Holy Week Triduum as a paradigm of liturgical history; Some notes on the bema in the East and West Syrian traditions; On the use of the bema in the East-Syrian liturgy; The interpolation of the Sanctus into the anaphora: when and where? A review of the dossier; Additional notes and comments; General index; Index of manuscripts.
Biography
Robert F. Taft
'Taft’s contribution to our knowledge of the development of the Eastern liturgical traditions, and particularly the Byzantine rite, has made him one of the leading scholars in this field. Some of his most seminal papers are collected together here.' Journal of Theological Studies
