Liturgy of Jerusalem from the Fourth to Fifth Centuries

Abstract

This essay will present the Jerusalem liturgy in the fourth and fifth centuries, a period of the formation of the liturgies throughout the Christian world. More than all other major centers of the Christian world, Jerusalem has preserved written detailed descriptions of its liturgy since the fourth century. The primary sources on which the description of the Hagiopolite liturgy depend are the Catechesis of St. Cyril of Jerusalem (CE 348 – 386), the narrative of Egeria ’ s pilgrimage (CE 381 – 384), the Armenian Lectionary (CE 430), and the Georgian Lectionary (fifth to eighth centuries). Egeria, in her account, gives us the primary liturgical source that describes the liturgical year and the daily liturgy, but nothing is said to us regarding the texts used. This gap was filled by both the Armenian Lectionary published by British scholar Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare in the famous Rituale Armenorum , and the Lectionary of Jerusalem 121 published by French scholar Athanase (Charles) Renoux and which witnesses to the same content, of the same type around CE 417 – 434, fifty years after the Egeria pilgrimage to Jerusalem. 1 The Georgian Lectionary (GL) is a Georgian translation of the Greek Kanonion of Jerusalem, written during the time of Bishop Juvenal (CE 422 – 458) or later. 2 Some say it can be attributed to hymnographer St. Sophronius of Jerusalem (CE 634 – 638). 3 Before Egeria, already in the third century, the Fathers of the Church testified to the existence of a liturgy known in Jerusalem: the Hierosolimite Liturgy. The main two fathers are Origen in CE 240, and Hesychius of Jerusalem 4 essay, will speak about the main churches where the Liturgy of was cen-tered, then the main characteristic of this liturgy, its major elements, the liturgical language of Palestine, the ministries of religion in Jerusalem at that period, and finally the Jerusalemite Liturgical year.