by Fr. Jonathan H. Cholcher
The Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts, or Presanctified Liturgy as it is popularly known, is the distinctive weekday service during the Orthodox season of Lent. “On all the days of the holy fast of Lent, except on the Sabbath (Saturday), the Lord’s day (Sunday), and the holy day of Annunciation (March 25), the Liturgy of the Presanctified is to be said” (Canon 52, Quinisext Council).
In many Orthodox parishes during Lent, the Presanctified Liturgy is served at least on Wednesdays, and in some on Wednesdays and Fridays, although it can be served on any and every weekday. In the Roman Catholic tradition, retaining as it does some of its Orthodox roots, the Presanctified Liturgy is appointed for one day of the year during Holy Week, on Holy Friday (the day of Christ’s Crucifixion), interestingly the one day of the Orthodox year in which no Liturgy is to be served.
ORIGIN OF THE SERVICE
The Presanctified Liturgy was compiled by St. Gregory the Great (d. 604) who was the Orthodox Bishop of Rome. He traveled back and forth from Rome to Constantinople and had experience with the practices of the Church throughout the Roman Empire which was undergoing, at that time, fracturing strains from outside, barbarian forces. St. Gregory took an existing practice from the Christian home and placed it within the common house of God, the Church. This not only minimized any abuses of the practice by individuals, but it consolidated and united the spiritual life of persons within the Church for learning, attention in prayer, and mutual encouragement.
We know that in the earliest centuries of the Church’s existence, Christians took some of Holy Communion, the very Body and Blood of Christ, home with them to consume each day of the week, until they gathered again for Divine Liturgy especially on Sunday, the day of Resurrection. The Body and Blood of Christ were kept at home by the faithful in special containers, known in Greek as artophoria (lit., “bread-holders”).
As a part of their daily prayer rule, the faithful would consume some of the Holy Gifts (the Body and Blood of Christ) sanctified at the Divine Liturgy the previous Sunday. The term presanctified refers to this reality: the bread and wine sanctified at the previous Sunday Liturgy to become the enduring Body and Blood of Christ. Note that once sanctified, the Body and Blood of Christ does not revert, or turn back, into bread and wine; St. Cyril of Alexandria calls such a belief “insane.” As stated in the Divine Liturgy, the Body and Blood of Christ are “the Holy Things for the holy ones,” that is Jesus Christ’s abiding presence in the faithful. He is Immanuel, God-with-us (Matt. 1:22-23; 28:20).
In Orthodox practice, the Holy Gifts are either consumed entirely by the Priest or Deacon at the conclusion of the Liturgy, or they are reserved to be consumed during the week. Unlike the Roman Catholics, the Orthodox Church does not have the practice of adoring the Holy Gifts but not consuming them, e.g., a Corpus Christi procession, side chapels of the Blessed Sacrament, etc. Similarly, when certain superstitions arose concerning taking the Holy Gifts into one’s home, e.g., the box holding Communion becoming more valued than the Holy Gifts themselves, the Holy Gifts considered as a “good luck” charm, etc., the private use at home was discontinued by receiving the Presanctified Gifts in the Church.
St. Gregory the Great placed this ancient practice of daily home-Communion within the service of Vespers, the evening service, and located it within the joint liturgical prayers of the entire Church. This was done specifically during the season of Lent because of its heightened emphasis on repentance, faith, and hope of the resurrection (Pascha).
DAILY BREAD FOR THE JOURNEY
Our Lord taught us to pray: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Christ literally calls this bread essential (Gk., epiousios; Matt. 6:11; Lk. 11:3). Give us today, or each day, our essential bread. This term was translated into Latin not only as cotidianus (“daily”), but as supersubstantialis, that is, necessary for sustenance.
After feeding the 5,000, Jesus Himself explained His ultimate meaning, attested most often by the Fathers of the Church in their expositions of the Lord’s Prayer. “My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world…I am the bread of life…Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die…the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world…For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed” (Jn. 6:32-33, 35, 49-50, 51, 55; italics mine – please read the whole section yourself).
Two things are applicable in this teaching. First and foremost, when the faithful pray for essential bread, they have in mind to receive Jesus Christ who gives His very Flesh and Blood as that Food. The Divine Liturgy given by Christ and received by the faithful is the essential and defining act of the Church because it is reception of the life-giving Body and Blood of Christ (1 Cor. 10:16-17; 11:17-26). Everything in the Church leads to the Liturgy and results from it because the Liturgy is Christ Jesus who is our Life (see Heb. 8). The Presanctified Liturgy is an extension of Christ the Source of Life, encompassing the entire week within His nourishment.
Second, the true Food of the Flesh and Blood of Christ is the fulfillment of God’s miraculous provision of manna in the wilderness. The manna was given each day by God upon whom the people had to trust and depend for their daily bread (see Ex. 16). God was sustaining the Israelites in their journey from the house of bondage in Egypt to the Promised Land of Canaan, stopping at Mount Sinai to receive the Covenant along the way. A jar of manna was kept in the Ark of the Covenant, with the 2 stone tablets of the Law and the priest Aaron’s rod that budded, as a testimony of God’s enduring Presence in the Holy of Holies (Heb. 9:4). Now Christ feeds us on the daily journey through this earthly life to the final destination of the never-ending day in the Kingdom of heaven (see Rev. 21:25).
Furthermore, the word manna is a question, “What is this?” “So when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, ‘What is this?’ (Heb., man hu). For they did not know what it was. Thus Moses said to them, ‘This is the bread the Lord gives you to eat’” (Ex. 16:15; v. 32-33, Gk., tou man, that is, “the what?” [manna]). Now, rather than bread on the ground given to eat, Jesus Christ in the flesh is the Bread given by God to eat. “What is this?” points to the question “Who is this?” The answer is the confession of Christ: “We have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Jn. 6:69).
In our daily journey of salvation both through the season of Lent and through the wilderness of this temporal life, the Presanctified Liturgy provides the answer to the greatest question of our existence: Who is this who strengthens and sustains me to eventually arrive at the destination of eternal life? Christ Himself strengthens and sustains us each and every day by His very Body and Blood.
LEARNING BY EXPERIENCE
The actual service of the Presanctified Liturgy provides a deliberate, immersive, and methodical framework for experiencing the grace of God in Christ. It is set within the 40-day fast of Lent, imitative of Christ in the wilderness being tempted by the devil (Matt. 4; Lk. 4) and Moses on Mount Sinai when receiving the Covenant (Ex. 24:18; 34:28). Everything else during the week becomes extraneous to having communion with God in order to discover His will and walk in His ways undistracted.
Each Presanctified Liturgy the Psalms of Ascent are prayed (Ps. 119-133), the minds of the faithful ascending by degrees to the Holy of Holies. Historically the Israelites would sing these Psalms in their approach to the Jerusalem temple for the great feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Now in the Church, every day becomes a pilgrimage, not just annually to Holy Week and Pascha, but a life-long journey to the kingdom of God where Christ is in the midst of the Church continually (see Heb. 12:22-24).
Throughout the season of Lent at the Presanctified Liturgy, the books of Genesis and Proverbs are read. The riches of salvation history and wisdom unfold for our learning. God’s dealings with human beings in the past shapes the present and provides guidance into the future as we meditate on our ultimate meaning and purpose in this life given by God. We learn how to worship, how to repent, how to remain virtuous, and how to pursue the righteousness of God.
The Presanctified Liturgy engages the participants in the profound sense of prayer to God. The very heart of the service is the plea of God’s servants for mercy and the cry to be enlightened with the grace and knowledge of God’s goodness. Throughout we pray to be cleansed of passions and sins (e.g., Prayer of St. Ephraim, with prostrations), to be transformed in the keeping of Christ’s commandments, and to be able to perceive the saving effects of the death and resurrection of Christ in our whole being. Such prayer is the true instruction (Gk., catechesis) leading to the full and proper realization of Paschal joy promised those baptized into Christ and sealed with the Holy Spirit.
