Eastern Christian Liturgies Re-Introduced

Liturgical Press just sent me their most recent catalogue, and in it I spy a compendium by two leading liturgical scholars that looks like it will be very valuable to many upon its publication at year's end: Introduction to Eastern Christian Liturgies by Maxwell E. Johnson and Stefanos Alexopoulos (Liturgical Press, December 2021), 480pp. About this book the publisher tells us this:

In Introduction to Eastern Christian Liturgies, renowned liturgical scholars Stefanos Alexopoulos and Maxwell E. Johnson fulfill the need for a new, comprehensive, and straightforward survey of the liturgical life of the Eastern Christian Churches within the seven distinct liturgical Eastern rites still in existence today: Armenian, Byzantine, Coptic, Ethiopic, East Syrian, West Syrian, and Maronite. This topical overview covers baptism, chrismation, Eucharist, reconciliation, anointing, marriage, holy orders, burial, Liturgy of the Hours, the liturgical year, liturgical ethos and spirituality, and offers a brief yet comprehensive bibliography for further study. This book will be of special interest to masters-level students in liturgy and theology, pastoral ministers seeking an introduction to the liturgies of the Christian East, and all who seek to increase their knowledge of the liturgical riches of the Christian East.

Prayer and Belief: What is the Relationship?

My graduate students always struggle with the relationship between doctrine and liturgy in the aftermath of Prosper of Aquitaine's famous adage lex orandi, lex credendi. It is not a straightforward or one-way relationship, but more complicated than that. The liturgical theologian Dr. Daniel Galadza, teaching in Vienna, just alerted me to a book that may help clarify this question. Forthcoming next month from the well-known and respected liturgist at Notre Dame Maxwell Johnson is Praying and Believing in Early Christianity: The Interplay between Christian Worship and Doctrine (Liturgical Press, 2013), 168pp.

About this book we are told:

What was the impact of liturgy on the development of orthodox doctrine in the early Christian church? With renowned liturgical historian Maxwell E. Johnson as a guide, readers of Praying and Believing in Early Christianity will discover the important and sometimes surprising ways that worship helped to shape what was believed, taught, and confessed. In particular, Johnson considers this relationship in terms of

• soteriology: What is the role of grace in the process of salvation?
• Trinity: How did early devotion to Christ and the church's baptismal and eucharistic liturgies help shape the developing doctrine of the Trinity?
• Christ and Mary: What does the devotional and liturgical term theotokos say about them both?
• ethics: How does the liturgy contribute not only to doctrine but also to convictions about morality?
Johnson also explores the ways this relationship worked in the opposite direction: How did doctrinal developments shape liturgical texts in the patristic period? This is an excellent text for beginning students in liturgical studies at the master's level.

Eucharistic Liturgies

Notre Dame is well known for its liturgical scholars, two of whom have recently collaborated to edit a new collection: Paul Bradshaw and Maxwell Johnson, eds., The Eucharistic Liturgies: Their Evolution and Interpretation (Liturgical Press, 2012), 368pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

In graduate theology programs across the United States and elsewhere, Maxwell Johnson’s The Rites of Christian Initiation: Their Evolution and Interpretation has become a standard text. Now Johnson and Paul Bradshaw together offer a companion volume on the historical development of the liturgy and theology of the Eucharist.Like the earlier volume, this study proceeds historically, from the origins of the Eucharist up to our own day. Unlike most studies of this kind, it includes an introduction to and developmental summary of the diverse eucharistic liturgies of the Christian East. It also explores the various Western rites (Ambrosian, Gallican, and Mozarabic) in addition to the Roman.
With regard to theological themes, the authors give special attention to the topics of real presence (including the “consecration” of the bread and wine) and eucharistic sacrifice, the most central and most ecumenically challenging issues since the sixteenth-century Reformations. Making the book especially teacher- and student-friendly are the summary points at the end of each chapter. Each chapter also contains an abundance of liturgical texts for ease of reference.

Chapter 5 in particular is devoted to "The Christian East." 

Honoring Maxwell Johnson

The University of Notre Dame is noteworthy in many respects but it is especially its doctoral program in liturgical studies that enjoys a stellar scholarly reputation, and for good reason. People like Maxwell Johnson, whose previous books I have noted here and here, lead the field today and enjoy wide respect. It is no surprise, then, that his colleagues, friends, and students have collaborated on a new book being released this month, A Living Tradition: On the Intersection of Liturgical History and Pastoral Practice (Liturgical Press, 2012), 192pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

Maxwell Johnson has made a multiple contributions to our understanding of liturgical history and liturgical theology. This volume honors his work by offering a set of important essays by respected scholars that bridge the distance between scholarship and praxis, to be accessible and relevant to both pastoral ministers and academic theologians. It is organized according to three categories: liturgical year, Christian initiation, and Eucharist. Within these categories, the contributors are especially attentive to three important aspects of liturgical history: the role that important figures in liturgical history played as liturgical pastors; how liturgical history has been used in shaping contemporary liturgical rites and prayers; how liturgical history informs contemporary understandings and beliefs. Ultimately, the book pays tribute to Johnson s contributions to the life of the church by exploring ways that the study of liturgical history might help the church remain faithful to God and to the sacramental worldview that continues to define and characterize classic Christianity.

There are numerous Eastern Christian contributors or articles from people with specialization in Eastern Christian liturgics--Byzantine and Armenian especially. These include Stefanos Alexopoulos (whose book on the Byzantine Pre-Sanctified Liturgy is, according to Peter Galadza, the scholarly standard of our time), Nicholas V. Russo, Bryan D. Spinks, Robert F. Taft, and Gabriele Winkler.

The Eucharist East and West

Paul Bradshaw and Maxwell Johnson, of the University of Notre Dame's acclaimed program in liturgical studies, have just published another welcome volume: The Eucharistic Liturgies: Their Evolution and Interpretation (Liturgical Press, 2012), 448pp.

About this book, the publisher tells us:

In graduate theology programs across the United States and elsewhere, Maxwell Johnson’s The Rites of Christian Initiation: Their Evolution and Interpretation has become a standard text. Now Johnson and Paul Bradshaw together offer a companion volume on the historical development of the liturgy and theology of the Eucharist.
Like the earlier volume, this study proceeds historically, from the origins of the Eucharist up to our own day. Unlike most studies of this kind, it includes an introduction to and developmental summary of the diverse eucharistic liturgies of the Christian East. It also explores the various Western rites (Ambrosian, Gallican, and Mozarabic) in addition to the Roman. With regard to theological themes, the authors give special attention to the topics of real presence (including the “consecration” of the bread and wine) and eucharistic sacrifice, the most central and most ecumenically challenging issues since the sixteenth-century Reformations. Making the book especially teacher- and student-friendly are the summary points at the end of each chapter. Each chapter also contains an abundance of liturgical texts for ease of reference.

I look forward to having this book expertly reviewed in Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, to which you will want to subscribe here.