The Liturgy of St.

Peter
I first heard of this little-known service of the Orthodox Church, not from any bookish or learned source, but from someone who remembered attending it years ago in Turkey. Several thousand Cossack Old Believers had left Russia in the time of Peter the Great and sought refuge in the domains of the Sultan, where they lived under foreign rule, but in their own communities, more or less autonomous, and free from official meddling in their prayer life. However, by I963 these Cossacks had come to be so intermarried that they had difficulty finding spouses not forbidden by their rather strict religious rules. It was then decided to leave Turkey, and a majority went to the thenUSSR while a smaller group came to thh United States. Many of these Old Believers were of the "priestless" type, but there was a significant contingent who accepted priests and, while in turkey, had clergy ordained for them by the Greek Church. These "priestists" maintained the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, according to the old manuscript and early printed books they had carried out of Russia with them when they left. One of these contained several rare or unusual texts for the Divine Liturgy, including the Liturgies of St. James, St. Mark and St. Peter, in Church Slavonic. Unfortunately, it was confiscated by the Turkish authorities as an item of "historical value" when the Cossacks emigrated, and has not been heard of since. It was only years later that I learned of a Greek manuscript book, called the Rossano manuscript, containing much the same material as this lost Slavonic one, and came to' the conclusion that the two were related. The Rossano manuscript is, or for years was considered, the oldest source for the Liturgy of St. James, which gives it some importance. This past January, a visiting Serbian liturgist from Belgrade, Dr. Predrag Miodrag, told me with some enthusiasm of the recently discovered Church Slavonic text of the Liturgy of St. Peter in the library of the Hilandar Monastery at Mt. Athos. Through the kindness of the Hilandar Center at the University of Ohio, I was able to view this manuscript. Although it belongs to the Serbian rather than the Russian manuscript tradition, I am inclined t o believe it is close to the other Slavonic text that was described t o me. There have been various opinions put forth, mostly by non-Orthodox scholars, as to what this Liturgy of St. Peter represents. Thus one can read in the

Oxford Dictionary

of thr

Christian Church that it may have been "only a lirerar~

experiment"--i.e. little more than someone's theoretical jottings as to how such a service might look. But this view borders on the preposterous: why should an experimentHbe made part of books that were used in church for centuries--and translated into other languages? Furthermore, there are still living people who remember and describe celebrations of the Liturgy of St. Peter as mentioned above--and archival descriptions of this service from other centuries are also extant. So it was no mere experiment. Another very telling detail about the Liturgy of St. Peter is the progressive (6 Byzantinization7' it underwent over the years. Had it not been in occasional use, it would have been left on its library shelf, and not undergone any modification. The text that has come down to us shows slightly mot-r accommodation to Byzantine forms than do the Liturgies of St. James and St. Mark; this accommodation means that this service was ceIebrated and that a need was felt to regularizev some points that seemed awkward. The central prayer of this service is a form of the Roman Eucharistic Canon, based on a form at least as old as any surviving Latin source, but set in a Byzantine structure, and fitted out with a number of prayers that appear to be of Greek rather than Roman origin. Outwardly the text is much like the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, but differs by not having a Litany of the Catechumens, giving a slightly different text at the Words of Institution, as well as certain differences in the celebrant's "excIamations" during the Eucharistic Canon and a Uferent selection of Ambon Prayers at the end. Interestingly enough, the Liturgy of St. Peter provides the earliest manuscript source for the text of the Prothesis or Proscornide before the Divine Liturgy. The explanation one might give for the existence of this text in Greek and Church Slavonic is that a collection of the various Orthodox Eucharistic Liturgies had been made at some time in the Greek-speaking part of the Mediterranean and included the Eucharistic Prayer of the Church of Rome, prior t o the latter's falling away. These Liturgies --those of St. James, St. Mark and St. Peter-- were in use among ;he Greeks of Southern Italy and were brought by monks from there t o Mount Athos in the later Middle Ages. O n Athos they were translated into Church Slavonic, doubtless because they were celebrated in those days by at least some of the Greek Athonite monasteries. It was rob ably from the Slavic monks on Athos that a book containing these various Liturgies fell into the possession, and worship, of the Cossacks and remained part of their liturgical worship untiI at least I962 or I 963.
66 66

T h e Eucharistic Canon of St. Peter is of cottrse better known in its other setting, and it forms the basis of the Western Rite in the Orthodox Church. In that case the surrounding structure is Western, but the Canon is the same. Since there were Latin parishes in what is now Albania that remained under the jurisdiction of the Greek Metropolitan of Dyrrachion until the 12th century, or after the Greek Liturgy of St. Peter is attested by the manuscripts, and communities in the United States have been using this Eucharistic Anaphora continuously since about 1961--we now see that this ancient Roman Canon has never been "out of use" in the Orthodox Church. Although there were intervening centuries when it was not celebrated (by the Orthodox) in Latin, it was none the less celebrated in Greek and Slavonic.

THE DIVINE LITURGY OF ST. PETER. (Slavonic Text).

1. P r a y e r o f I n c e n s e a t P r o t h e s i s .

2. Prayer of Prothesis.

3. D i s m i s s a l o f P r o s k o m i d i a .
4 . Deacon: Bless Master.

5 . P r i e s t : B l e s s e d i s t h e Kingdom.
Prayer of Entrance.

..

6 . 'And h a v i n g r e a c h e d t h e E n t r a n c e w i t h t h e G o s p e l " ,

7. Deacon: Wisdom, l e t u s a t t e n d .

8 . C h o i r : 0 come l e t u s w o r s h i p ....
10. Salutation; L e t us pray;

P r a y e r said by P r i e s t .

11. Great Doxology.

1 2 . Deacon: L e t u s p r a y . P r i e s t s a y s second P r a y e r .

13. Singing of T r i s a g i o n . P r a y e r of Trisagion.

1 4 . Deacon: L e t u s ' a t t e n d . P r i e s t : Peace be u n t o a l l .

15.

E p i s t l e and G o s p e l .

1 6 . L i t a n y w i t h P r a y e r of F e r v e n t S u p p l i c a t i o n .

17.

P r a y e r of Bowed Heads.

18. Great Entrance.

1 9 . L i t a n y ; "Let u s complete o u r p r a y e r unto t h e Lord, f o r heaven

and e a r t h a r e f u l l o f H i s g l o r y " .
20.

Kiss of P e a c e ceremony w i t h t e x t s s i m i l a r t o L i t u r g y o f S t . J a m e s .

2 1 . E u c h a r i s t i c D i a l o g u e and P r e f a c e . S a n c t u s . 22. E u c h a r i s t i c Canon, c l o s e t o Roman b u t w i t h n o t e w o r t h y d i f f e r e n c e s .

2 3 . E x c l a m a t i o n f o l l o w e d by L o r d ' s P r a y e r .

2 4 . " F o r Vhine i s t h e Kingdom..

.I1

P r a y e r o f Sowed Heads (Embolism).

25. P r a y e r b e f o r e F r a c t i o n . Holy T h i n g s a r e f o r t h e h o l y .

2 6 . T e x t of "One i s Holy" same a s i n L i t u r g y o f S t . Mark.

L i t u r g y of S t . P e t e r . p . 2.
27.

Agnus Dei and P r a y e r s b e f o r e Communion.

2 8 . P r a y e r o f T h a n k s g i v i n g a f t e r Holy Communion. 2 9 . "With f e a r of God and f a i t h draw n e a r , u n t b t h e h e a l i n g o f s o u l and body".

30. 0 God s a v e Thy p e o p l e and b l e s s Thine i n h e r i t a n c e .

31. P r a y e r s a i d s e c r e t l y ( d u r i n g L i t a n y ) a n d . E x c l a m a t i o n . 32. L e t u s d e p a r t i n p e a c e . Let u s p r a y t o t h e L o r d . 33. Ambon P r a y e r ( a c h o i c e o f s e v e r a l i s provided)-.

3 4 . The b l e s s i n g o f t h e Lord b e upon y o u . . . D i s m i s s a l .