The Anaphoras of Mar Theodore of Mopsuestia in the East Syriac Rite and of St. John Chrysostom in the Byzantine Church – Structure and Theology

Abstract

The Liturgy (Mass) is the very life of the Church and its way of existing. In the core of the Liturgy there is the Anaphora, specific to each rite. Regarding the East Syriac Church, one mainly knows three important anaphoras “ of Mar Addai and Mari, of Mar Theodore of Mopsuestia and of Mar Nestorius. This paper is focused on the Anaphora of Mar Theodore of Mopsuestia in the East Syriac rite, analysed in parallel with that of St. John Chrysostom, the most used anaphora in the Byzantine Tradition. Both of the authors are significant representatives of the Theological School of Antioch. This subject was scarcely analysed by the contemporary scholars and it gets a plus of importance in my case for accompanies an on-going process of translating the Syriac text of Theodore™s anaphora into Romanian, for the benefit of the Romanian theologians. The paper will be divided into two sections “ the first one colligated to the authorship of the two anaphoras, and the second, focused on their structure and theology. Concrete conclusions regarding the identification of some liturgical-theological constants in both the anaphoras will end my research. Keywords: Anaphora of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Anaphora of John Chrysostom, liturgical theology, epiclesis, Theological School of Antioch.