Stefanos Alexopoulos and Maxwell E. Johnson, Introduction to Eastern Christian Liturgies

Abstract

Maxwell E Johnson and Stefanos Alexopoulos have accomplished an impressive feat in their co-authored book, Introduction to Eastern Christian Liturgies: to survey, in a single, coherent volume, the major rituals of all seven surviving Eastern Christian liturgical rites, Armenian, Byzantine, Coptic, Ethiopic, East Syrian, West Syrian, and Maronite. There are two ways to write such a book, a book that seeks to articulate a common liturgical “ethos”(p. 356) among these traditions, while celebrate the rich variety among them. Either one dedicates each chapter to one of the seven traditions, or one dedicates each chapter to a different liturgical ritual (eucharist, initiation, liturgical year, etc.) and discusses all seven traditions in every chapter. The authors chose the latter, and intentionally so; it allows them to showcase the comparative method of liturgiology, which holds that no liturgical rite can be studied on its own. Liturgies evolve and grow in conversation with other liturgies, perhaps especially in the Christian East. This book serves as a vindication of that method, and achieves, for the most part, the delicate balance of commonality and difference. Among all the book’s chapters, Chapter 1 on initiation and reconciliation makes the strongest case for genealogical as well as theological commonality among the Eastern liturgical traditions. Eastern rites, especially in their early stages, emphasized baptism not so much as a ritual for the remission of sins, but as a symbol and enactment of new birth in water and the Spirit. Similarly, while not every tradition keeps the practice of private confession and absolution (the East Syrian tradition being an important exception here as elsewhere among the Eastern rites), they share a common view that reconciliation is not about punishment but about renewal. Chapter 2 on Eastern eucharistic liturgies is a tour de force and is now the best short study of the topic available. The authors show, with as much ease as this complicated topic allows, the labyrinthine ways in which these rites have grown and influenced each other through history. This presentation is aided by the authors’ judicious use of charts, which prove to be indispensable for viewing liturgies from a bird’s-eye view. The presentation of eucharistic theology, which is derived largely from eucharistic prayers themselves, is similarly impressive. Yet the authors could have emphasized the fact that the 1181460 ATR0010.1177/00033286231181460Anglican Theological ReviewBook Reviews book-review2023