Worship in the East Syrian Churches

(Faith : Worship)
East Syrian Churches, Eastern Worship Tradition, Mid-Century Worship

Worship in the Wast Syrian Churches: Nestorian, Chaldean, and Malabar

The East Syrian Christians engaged in widespread missionary activity across the Asian continent, but the rise of Islam reduced their communities to small remnants. The liturgy of these churches is doxological in character, filled with expressions of praise and emphasizing the fulfillment of Christian hope in the Kingdom of heaven.

Antioch was the orginal center of Syrian Christianity, with a second center developing by the end of the second century in Edessa.
Edessa itself became divided by early Christological disputers between Monophysites (one person, one nature in Christ) and Newtorians (two persons, two natures in Christ, and soon political pressure drive the Nestorians further east into the Persian Empire.

The Churches:

The Nestorian church was centered at Nisibis and organized as disinct church in the fourth century by the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. Because it developed outside of the Roman Empire, it did so with a large measure of independence from what it called "the churches of the West"
The Nestorian church preserves a very primitive layer of liturgical evolution.

These East Syrian Christians adhered to the decrees of Nicea, but not to htose of Ephesus or Chalcedon, and eventually they adopted Theodore of Mopsuestia A;D.428, who was condemned by the Chalcedonian churches, as their champion theologian.
From the 4th to 7th centuries they engaged in great missionary activity throughour the East.
The rise of Islam, however, put a stop to their missionary expansion, cut the mission territories (such as the Malabar church) off from the mother church, and left the Nestorian church but a remanant community living peaceably, if under severe restrictions, among the Muslims. Since the sixteenth century some have been united to the church of Rome, these being the Catholic Chaldeans, while others remain non-Chalcedonian Nestorians.

The Malabar church, also called St. Thomas Christians because they claim Thomas the apostle as their link to the apostolic church, came under the missionary influence of the Persian Nestorians until they were cut off from them by the advance of Islam. The St. Thomas Christians were rediscovered in the 16th century by Portugese missionaries, who tried unsuccessfully to impose the Latin liturge upon them.

The liturgy of the Nestorian, Chaldean, and Malabar churches is essentially the same. The primary anaphora (eucharistic prayer) is that of Sts. Addai and Mari, which is unique in taht no words of institution are to be found in it. Two other prayers are also found in the tradition, one attributed to Nestorius and one to Theodore of Mopsuestia, through these are used only occasionally by the Malabar church.
The text cited to examine the East Syrian liturgical tradition as it lives today is in the revised text of the Syro-Malabar church (Bibleical, Celebration of the Eucharist According to the Syro-Malabar Rite).

The major differences between the Chaldean and Nestorian liturgies are the saints who are called upon in the prayers and , of course, the insertion of the institution narrative in the Addai-Mari text.

The Liturgy:
Introductory Rites.
The introductory rites of the liturgy are remnants of a monastic office. They consist of an abbreviated doxology (Glory to God in the hightest and to all on earthm peace and hope forever. the Lord's Prayer, a variable psalm, and a prayer of incense, which concludes with the lakhoumara, a fourth-century prayer of praise to Christ the Lord.
In an earlier version of both rites, the gifts were prepared more formally between the lakhoumara and the trisagion.

Liturgy of the Word.
The liturgy of the Word befins with the trisagion (Holy God, holy strong one, holy and immortal, have mercy on us)and consists of two (Malabar) or four (Chaldean) readings.

Pre-anaphora.
The pre-anaphora includes the access to the altar by the celebrants, transfer of the gifts or their presentation and preparation.

Anaphora.
The anaphora or Qurbana of the Apostles (Addai and Mari) follows.

There follows the prater of remembrance, praters of intercession, the invocation of the Spirit and concluding doxology.

Post-anaphora.
At the conclusion of the anaphora priest and people proclain faith in the living and life-giving bread of heaven. The bread is broken and signed with the precious blood. The people are invited to approach the mysteries of the precious body and blood of our Savior with an invitation as well to turn away from our faults. A litany prayer for forgiveness and the Lord's Prater a second time lead into the distribution  of Communion to all. This is followed by a brief thanksgiving prayer, blessing and dismisdsal.

Theology and Spirit:
The overall tone of the Syro-Chaldean liturgy is one of glory and praise to God.
The liturgy is heavily Christocentric.
The East Syrian liturgy is a remembrance that looks forward to the eschaton rather than to the past (the Lord's Supper) or present.
Finally, the East Syrian liturgy exhibits a theological note derived from Theodore of Mopsuestia who considered the bread and wine,
the institution narrative, where it is inserted by the Catholic Chaldeans and Malabarese, is in fact a somewhat awkward fit; most probably the original text served as a perfectly adequate eucharistic prayer without it. If so, it bears witness to a primitive strain of eucharistic understanding that was lost to other liturgical traditions.