East Syriac Rite


The East Syriac Rite, or East Syrian Rite, is an Eastern Christian liturgical rite that employs the Divine Liturgy of Saints Addai and Mari and utilizes the East Syriac dialect as its liturgical language. It is one of the two main liturgical rites of Syriac Christianity, along with the West Syriac Rite.
The East Syriac Rite originated in Edessa, Mesopotamia, and was historically used in the Church of the East—the largest branch of Christianity operating primarily east of the Roman Empire—, with pockets of adherents as far as South India, Central and Inner Asia, and a strong presence in the Sasanian Empire. The Church of the East traces its origins to the 1st century, when Saint Thomas the Apostle and his disciples Saint Addai and Saint Mari brought the faith to ancient Mesopotamia. According to traditional accounts, Thomas the Apostle is believed to have traveled as far as the Malabar coast of southwestern India. This account is not yet confirmed, as the earliest-record for an organised Christian presence in India is from the 6th century account of Alexandrian traveller Cosmas Indicopleustes.
The East Syriac rite remains in-use within churches descended from the Church of the East, namely the Assyrian Church of the East of Iraq and the Ancient Church of the East, as well as in two Eastern Catholic churches, the Chaldean Catholic Church of Iraq and the Syro-Malabar Church of India, which are both now in full communion with the See of Rome. The words of Institution are missing in the original version of the Liturgy of Saints Addai and Mari. However, the Eastern Catholic churches have added-in the words of Institution in their version of the liturgy.
Although Nestorius was condemned in 431 AD through the Council of Ephesus, the Assyrian Church Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV and Pope John Paul II signed a common declaration at the Vatican in 1994; the Common Christological Declaration document asserted that the split that occurred due to the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD was "due in large part to misunderstandings," affirmed for both that "Christ is true God and true man," recognized "each other as sister Churches" and vowed to resolve remaining differences. In 2001, the committee, established from the 1994 dialogue, drew-up guidelines for mutual admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East, overcoming all other issues.

Usage

Versions of the East Syriac Rite are currently used by Churches descended from the erstwhile Church of the East:
The variety of terms used as designations for the rite reflects its complex history and consequent denominational diversity. The common term East Syriac Rite is based on the liturgical use of East Syriac dialect, and other terms reflect particular historical and denominational characteristics.
The Syrian and Mesopotamian Eastern Catholics were commonly called Chaldeans. The term Chaldean, which in Syriac generally meant magician or astrologer, denoted in Latin and other European languages Syrian nationality, and the Syriac or Aramaic language. For Aramaic, the designation "Chaldean" especially refers to the form that is found in certain chapters of Daniel. The broader usage of the term continued until the Latin missionaries at Mosul in the 17th century adopted "Chaldean" to distinguish the Catholics of the East Syriac Rite from those of the West Syriac Rite, which they called "Syrians". It was also used to distinguish from the Assyrian Church of the East, some of whom called themselves Suraye or even only "Christians", not with repudiating the theological name "Nestorian". Modern members of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East distinguish themselves from the rest of Christendom as the "Church of the East" or "Easterns" as opposed to "Westerns" by which they denote Greek Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox or Latin Catholics.
In recent times they have been called, chiefly by the Anglicans, the "Assyrian Church", a name which can be defended on archaeological grounds. Brightman, in his "Liturgies Eastern and Western", includes Chaldean and Malabar Catholics and Assyrians under "Persian Rite".
The catalogue of liturgies in the British Museum has adopted the usual Roman Catholic nomenclature:
Most printed liturgies of those rites are Eastern Rite Catholic.
The language of all three forms of the East Syriac Rite is the Eastern dialect of Syriac, a modern form of which is still spoken by the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, and the Chaldean Catholic Church.

History

The Chaldean rite originally grew out of the liturgy of the Church in Edessa. The tradition, resting on the legend of Abgar and of his correspondence with Christ, which has been shown to be apocryphal — is to the effect that St. Thomas the Apostle, on his way to India, established Christianity in Mesopotamia, Assyria, and Persia, and left Thaddeus of Edessa, "one of the Seventy", and Saint Mari in charge there. The liturgy of the Church of the East is attributed to these two, but it is said to have been revised by the Patriarch Yeshuyab III in about 650. Some, however, consider this liturgy to be a development of the Antiochian.
After the First Council of Ephesus -- the third Ecumenical Council—the Church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, which had hitherto been governed by a catholicos, refused to condemn Nestorius. Therefore, as part of the Nestorian Schism, the Church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon cut itself off from Western Christianity. In 498 the Catholicos assumed the title of "Patriarch of the East", and up until the 1400s the Church of the East spread throughout Persia, Tartary, Mongolia, China, and India due to the efforts of Missionaries.
However, at the end of the fourteenth century due to the conquests of Tamerlane and his destruction of Christian settlements across Asia, in addition to other factors such as anti-Christian and Buddhist oppression during the Ming Dynasty, the large Church of the East structure was all but destroyed- reducing it to a few small communities in Persia, their homeland in Mesopotamia, Cyprus, the Malabar Coast of India, and the Island of Socotra. These remaining communities were later whittled away at in other events. The Church of the East in Cyprus united themselves to Rome in 1445, there was a Schism in 1552 between the patriarchates of Eliya line and Shimun line which weakened the Church, and the Christians of Socotra were Islamized in the 16th century. The Church in India was divided and cut off from their hierarchy due to the Portuguese support for Synod of Diamper in 1599. Due to these events, the diaspora of the Church of the East diminished. The Elia line eventually developed into the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East was turned into a small community of around 50,000 people in the Hakkari Mountains under the headship of the Shimun line. A small group of Indians eventually rejoined the Assyrian Church of the East, forming the Chaldean Syrian Church in the 1900s, although the main body of the Malabar Christians remained as the Syro-Malabar Church. A large group joined the Oriental Orthodox West Syriac rite churches in their own set of schisms. Additionally, the secession of a large number to the Russian Church due to the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Urmia, a Kurdish massacre in 1843, and an attempt to form an Independent Catholic Chaldean Church on the model of the Old Catholics all resulted in more Eastern rite Assyrians separating.

The Eucharistic service

There are three Anaphorae; those of the Holy Apostles, Mar Nestorius, and Mar Theodore the Interpreter. The first is the most popularly and extensively used. The second was traditionally used on the Epiphany and the feasts of St. John the Baptist and of the Greek Doctors, both of which occur in Epiphany-tide on the Wednesday of the Rogation of the Ninevites, and on Maundy Thursday. The third is used from Advent to Palm Sunday. The same pro-anaphoral part serves for all three.
The Eucharistic Liturgy is preceded by a preparation, or "Office of the Prothesis", which includes the solemn kneading and baking of the loaves. These were traditionally leavened, the flour being mixed with a little oil and the holy leaven, which, according to tradition, "was given and handed down to us by our holy fathers Mar Addai and Mar Mari and Mar Toma", and of which and of the holy oil a very strange story is told. The real leavening, however, is done by means of fermented dough from the preparation of the last Eucharistic Liturgy. The Chaldean and Syro-Malabar Catholics now use unleavened bread.
The Liturgy itself is introduced by the first verse of the Gloria in Excelsis and the Lord's prayer, with "farcings", consisting of a form of the Sanctus. Then follow:
  • The Introit Psalm, called Marmitha, with a preliminary prayer, varying for Sundays and greater feasts and for "Memorials" and ferias. In the Malabar Rite, Pss. xiv, cl, and cxvi are said in alternate verses by priests and deacons.
  • The "Antiphon of the Sanctuary", variable, with a similarly varying prayer.
  • The Lakhumara, an antiphon beginning "To Thee, Lord", which occurs in other services also preceded by a similarly varying prayer.
  • The Trisagion. Incense is used before this. In the Eastern Rite at low Mass the elements are put on the altar before the incensing.
There are four or five Lections: the Law and the Prophecy, from the Old Testament, the Lection from the Acts, the Epistle, always from St. Paul, the Gospel.
Some days have all five lections, some four, some only three. All have an Epistle and a Gospel, but, generally, when there is a Lection from Law there is none from the Acts, and vice versa. Sometimes there is none from either Law or Acts. The first three are called Qiryani, the third Shlikha. Before the Epistle and Gospel, hymns called Turgama are, or should be, said; that before the Epistle is invariable, that of the Gospel varies with the day. They answer to the Greek prokeimena. The Turgama of the Epistle is preceded by proper psalm verses called Shuraya, and that of the Gospel by other proper psalm verses called Zumara. The latter includes Alleluia between the verses.
The Deacon's Litany, or Eklene, called Karazutha, resembles the "Great Synapte" of the Greeks. During it the proper "Antiphon of the Gospel" is sung by the people.