From Lux Occidentalis, by Fr. John Connely
Used by permission
Used by permission
The Liturgy of St. Peter (commonly known as the Liturgy of St. Gregory), is found, substantially as it has been used in the Latin Church until Vatican II (1969)1,
in the Sacramentaries of St. Gregory [590], Gelasius [491] and St. Leo
[483]. The Roman Liturgy is attributed to St. Peter by ancient
liturgical commentators, who founded their opinion chiefly upon a
passage in an Epistle of Innocent [fifth century], to Decentius, Bishop
of Eugubium. St. Gregory revised the variable parts of the liturgy, the
Collects, Epistles, and Gospels; but the only change which he made in
the Ordinary was by the addition of a few words which is noticed by the
Venerable Bede [Hist. Eccl. Lib.2, c.I.].2
Since the time of St. Gregory the Roman Liturgy has been used over a
large part of the Western Church, and, until 1969, was practically the
only one allowed by Rome. From the Roman Liturgy in its primitive form
were derived that used by the Churches of North-western Africa, and the
Ambrosian Rite of the Church of Milan.
The Liturgy of St. John, or of St. Paul, i.e. the Ephesine Liturgy,
was the original of that which was used, probably in three forms, in
Spain, France, and England during the earlier period, and the only one
besides the Roman which obtained a footing in the Western Church. This
appears to have been abandoned in Ephesus at the time of the Council of
Laodicea in Phrygia in the fourth century. The 19th Canon of that
Council giving directions for the substitution of the Liturgy of St.
Basil, which use continued to modern times. However, at a much earlier
date, missionaries had taken the Liturgy of St. John to Lyons, the city
from which Christianity spread throughout France. As late as A.D. 177,
the Christians of Lyons wrote to the Churches of Asia respecting the
martyrdoms which had occurred in that city. The primitive Liturgy of
Ephesus thus became the liturgy of France and by additional missionary
work, that of Spain also. This Liturgy continued in the French Church
until the time of Charlemagne [742-814]. Minor additions had been made
by Musæus, Sidonius, and St. Hilary of Poitiers. These additions were
restricted to the Introits, Collects, and Minor Propers. This 'Gallican'
Liturgy was partly supplanted by the Roman at the time of Pepin, who
introduced the Roman system of chant and psalmody and finally it was
altogether superseded through Charlemagne, who obtained the Sacramentary
of St. Gregory from Rome and issued an edict that all priests should
celebrate only in the Roman manner. In Spain the same Liturgy had been
used in a form called Mozarabic; but Pope Gregory VII, caused Alphonso
VI., king of Castile and Leon, to abolish the national rite and
substitute that of Rome. The Mozarabic Rite was restored in the
sixteenth century by Cardinal Ximenes who endowed a college and chapel
for its use at Toledo, which continues to this day.
When Augustine [of Canterbury] came to England in 595, at the direction
of St. Gregory of Rome, he expected to find a heathen land. What he
discovered was an ancient and regularly organized Church and that its
usages were in many ways different from those of his native Rome. By the
advice of St. Gregory, he introduced some changes into the existing
Liturgy, not from the Roman Sacramentary but rather from forms already
in use in the south of France. The English Church of St. Augustine's day
and for long after, consistently claimed that its customs derived from
St. John and from the Church of Ephesus, by way of Lyons. This is the
Liturgical heritage that was revised by St. Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury,
in 1085. A directory of services was compiled by Richard le Poore
[d.1237] and soon the Sarum Use [Salisbury] was followed in nearly the
whole of England, Wales, and Ireland.
Most interesting is the recent reprinting of an English Sacramentary
that predates St. Osmond and the Norman Conquest [1066] by nearly a
century. The Sacramentary is known as the Missal of Robert of Jumièges.
Robert served as Bishop of London from 1044, and, in 1051, on St.
Peter's Day [29 June], was enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury. Robert
had given this Missal to the monastery of Jumièges in France as a
memorial of himself as he had once presided there as abbot. The book
remained at Jumièges until the dissolution of the monastery in 1791,
when it passed to the Public Library of Rouen, where it is still
preserved! At Rouen it has been known as "the book of S. Guthlac" as the
first leaf of the manuscript contains a Mass for the Feast of S.
Guthlac. The manuscript is a fine specimen of English writing and
illumination from about the year 1000, as evidenced by the Votive Mass
and Vespers of St. Edward Martyr [†978]. The Missal now
contains 228 numbered leaves, measuring nearly 13 1/4 inches by 8 3/4
inches. This Missal is available in an edition by the Henry Bradshaw
Society, the Boydell Press, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, 1994.
It is a simple matter to compare the Orthodox Missal (1995)
containing the Western Rite Liturgy of today, with the vast tradition
of old Roman Missals from the time of the Sacramentary of St. Gregory
[590]. The obvious differences in the "Rite of St. Gregory" in the Orthodox Missal and
in the old Missals from the sixth century on is 1) the translation into
English from Latin; 2) the commemoration of the Patriarch and Synod of
Antioch rather than Rome; and 3) the addition of an explicit
"descending" invocation (epiclesis) of the Holy Ghost (following the Institution Narrative) in the Canon of Consecration (anaphora).
The Revd. John Connely is a graduate of the University of Colorado and holds the degree Artium Magistri Religionem from
Yale University. He is Pastor of St. Mark's Parish, Denver, Colorado
and Dean of the Central States Deanery, Western Rite Vicariate, The
Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America.
1 The Novus Ordo Missae,
as promulgated (1969) by Pope Paul VI, was soon copied by Lutherans,
Episcopalians, and other protestants. It is allegedly a reintroduction
of disused liturgical forms which the Catholic Church had discarded
before the Patristic period. Western Rite Orthodox regard the Novus Ordo Missae as a work of modernist liturgical fiction.
2 "The holy Pope Gregory,
among other things, caused masses to be celebrated in the churches of
the apostles, Peter and Paul, over their bodies. And in the celebration
of masses, he added three phrases full of great goodness and
perfection: 'And dispose our days
in thy peace, and preserve us from eternal damnation, and rank us in
the number of thy elect, through Christ our Lord.'" -Everyman's Library No.479. J. M. Dent & Sons, LTD. The Aldine Press, 1910
