The Blessing of Waters and Epiphany

The Eastern Liturgical Tradition

Nicholas E. Denysenko

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317040293
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Religione

This book examines the historical development of the blessing of waters and its theology in the East, with an emphasis on the Byzantine tradition. Exploring how Eastern Christians have sought these waters as a source of healing, purification, and communion with God, Denysenko unpacks their euchology and ritual context. The history and theology of the blessing of waters on Epiphany is informative for contemporary theologians, historians, pastors and students. Offering important insights into how Christians renew Baptism in receiving the blessed waters, this book also proposes new perspectives for theologizing Christian stewardship of ecology in the modern era based on a patristic liturgical synthesis. Denysenko presents an alternative framework for understanding the activity of the Trinity, enabling readers to encounter a vision of how participants encounter God in and after ritual.

Chapter 1
Introduction

For centuries, Christians of the Eastern churches have celebrated a solemn blessing of waters on the Epiphany feast of January 6.¹ Eastern Christians are familiar with the celebration of the blessing of waters on this feast, as people come to the church to drink the blessed water and take it home for use throughout the year.² A Google search of images yields a fascinating picture of the festal celebration. In one photo, a bishop tosses a cross into the ocean. Several photos show a celebration of the blessing of waters on a body of water covered with ice, where the local community has cut the image of a cross into the water. Another photo shows an image of a participant who has retrieved a cross thrown into the water. In some communities, a cross made of ice is carved for the celebration. The Epiphany feast occurs soon after Christmas and the civil New Year, and evokes scintillating images, especially in cold climates. In the Byzantine rite, communities gather to celebrate Vespers with the Liturgy of St Basil on the eve of January 6.

The blessing of waters on Epiphany is profoundly visual, but it also holds significant theological significance for Eastern liturgy. The contents of the ritual of the blessing of waters constitute a sacramental event related to Baptism and the Eucharist. The ritual contains an ancient prayer used by the Armenian, Byzantine, West Syrian, and Coptic churches called “Great are You.” The blessings requested by the epiclesis of the “Great are You” prayer illustrate the theological significance of the blessing of waters for participants:

… Make it a source of incorruption, a gift of sanctification, a remission of sins, a protection against disease, a destruction to demons … that all who draw from it and partake of it may have it for the cleansing of their soul and body, for the healing of their passions, for the sanctification of their dwellings, and for every purpose that is expedient.³

The blessings received through participation in the blessing of the waters capture and express the goal of the Christian life: protection from temptation, bodily and spiritual cleansing, and ultimately, sanctification.

The Armenian, Coptic and West Syrian rites have their own liturgical components particular to their native traditions, but like the Byzantine rite, they use the “Great are You” prayer and also ritually plunge items into the water to connote Jesus’ presence and consecration of the font. Some Coptic churches of antiquity held Epiphany tanks that were used for the ritual, though now a stone basin is usually placed in the middle of the nave for the water blessing.⁴ In the Coptic and West Syrian rites, the celebrant makes the sign of the cross several times over the water, and the Copts call upon Christ himself to enter the waters. Participants drink the water, anoint themselves with it, and take it home to use throughout the year until the next occasion for blessing the waters.

The celebration of the blessing of waters in the Byzantine rite is not limited to the “Great are You” prayer with a list of spiritual blessings. The liturgical celebration also contains hymns, biblical readings, a special synapte or ektene of litanic biddings pertaining to the water accompanied by a silent presbyteral prayer “Lord Jesus Christ,” the “Great are You” prayer, a prayer of inclination, the plunging of a cross into the water, and concluding hymnody. In some sources, a lengthy poetic text called a “Prologue” occurs immediately prior to the “Great are You” prayer.

In contemporary Byzantine practice, the blessing of waters is normally celebrated after the prayer behind the ambo at the end of the Liturgy which follows Vespers on the eve of the Epiphany feast on January 6.⁵ In some places, a second blessing of waters is celebrated outdoors on the day of the feast, occasionally during Matins after the Great Doxology,⁶ or during the Eucharistic liturgy following the prayer behind the ambo.⁷

The contemporary Greek and Russian rituals of the Byzantine liturgical family are similar in structure and content, but also have notable differences. The Russian version does not mention a second blessing of waters, nor does it include a Prologue, though many Russian parishes celebrate two water blessings.⁸ The subtle differences among the Eastern liturgical traditions in the celebration of the blessing of waters raises questions on the history of the water blessing and provides fertile ground for analyzing its theological significance.

This book explores the history and theology of blessed water by presenting the history of the blessing of waters in the Eastern liturgical tradition from the eighth through the sixteenth centuries. The historical analysis focuses on the Byzantine rite due to the large number of extant liturgical sources currently available. In presenting the blessing of waters in the Armenian, West Syrian, Maronite, and Coptic traditions, I employ the method of comparative liturgy to present a broad picture of the historical development of the water blessing, and to observe how the variants of the blessing of waters compare.

The History of the Blessing of Waters

Constructing a liturgical history of a prominent rite celebrated in several liturgical families requires some patience and latitude. My historical study begins in the fourth century, based largely on patristic and historical references to the blessing of waters, since there is no extant euchological source outlining the blessing of waters anterior to the eighth century. Enough evidence is available to warrant a chapter devoted to this prehistorical period, and chapter two begins this historical examination.

I have organized the rest of the liturgical history in three distinct historical periods with the titles: Stages One (eighth to tenth centuries), Two (eleventh to thirteenth centuries), and Three (fourteenth to sixteenth centuries). Stage One provides a look at the earliest euchological evidence from the West Syrian, Armenian, and Byzantine traditions, a good opportunity to employ the comparative liturgical method. My examination of the Byzantine rite begins with the Barberini Euchologion (BAR) of the eighth century, representing the Constantinopolitan cathedral tradition with some Palestinian influence.⁹ Stage Two is largely limited to the West Syrian and Byzantine traditions, and illustrates the emerging monastic hegemony in Byzantine liturgical practice exercised by the Studite-Sabaitic monastic tradition. Stage Three includes evidence from the Maronite tradition, and I have also included the Coptic rite here, even though some of its components are posterior to the sixteenth century.¹⁰ Readers who work through these three historical stages should benefit from two primary benefits. First, they will recognize a sense of liturgical development in context and see how each rite develops its tradition of blessing the Epiphany waters. Second, the reader will understand the distinct development of the rite in the Byzantine tradition, in comparison to other Eastern liturgical traditions. Stage Two is the period in which the rite becomes stable under monastic influence, and Stage Three shows that local communities still retain their own native liturgical particularities in celebrating the blessing of waters, even though the predominant liturgical trend is one of increasing rigidity.

As I mentioned above, my emphasis in analyzing the history and theology of the rite is on the Byzantine tradition, due to the abundance of available sources and my own research skills and limitations. Given the complexities inherent in the Byzantine liturgical sources consulted for this study, it will be constructive to review briefly the key events and historical periods that impact the interpretation of the evidence. Miguel Arranz and Robert Taft have established the important stages of development in Byzantine liturgical history.¹¹ While these are not the only studies that have significantly contributed to interpreting and understanding Byzantine liturgical history, taken together, their summaries suffice for providing an initial hermeneutic.

Arranz concentrates his presentation on the ecclesiastical centers of Palestine and Constantinople, identifying the Persian invasion and devastation of Jerusalem in AD 614 along with the attack of Caliph Hakim in AD 1009 as colossal events impacting hagiopolite liturgical development.¹² For Constantinople, the iconoclast controversy which raged through the eighth and ninth centuries (beginning in AD 726) and the Fourth Crusade (AD 1204) marked the core transformative events.¹³ In both centers, normal worship life was disrupted, and followed by a liturgical restoration which resulted in the emergence of modified liturgies. Arranz identifies the supplanting of the Constantinopolitan asmatikos office with the imported Palestinian office as an example, resulting in the relocation of the sacerdotal prayers in the new office.¹⁴

Taft likewise refers to multiple changes in Constantinopolitan euchology during the Studite era (between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, corresponding to the dates above), though the changes developed only gradually, both in Constantinople and also in Southern Italy.¹⁵ Ironically, the Studite impact was also Palestinian-Sabaitic, as Theodore of Studios adopted the modified offices from Palestinian monks, who had flourished during their own period of creativity following the Persian invasion.¹⁶ Hence, the creativity that molded a new shape for Palestinian worship in the wake of crisis lent itself to the Constantinopolitan situation two hundred years later. This Studite influence held sway up until the Fourth Crusade, after which the so-called neo-Sabaitic synthesis,¹⁷ which was really a further modification of the extant Studite synthesis executed by Palestinian monks, became popular and was adopted in almost every place, including Mount Athos with its burgeoning community.¹⁸

The delineation of these historical stages impacts this study in the following areas: new material imported from a Palestinian provenance begins to fuse with extant Constantinopolitan euchologies in the ninth century; between the ninth and thirteenth centuries Studite sources, especially Constantinopolitan, are increasingly penetrated and shaped by Palestinian Sabaitic material, and exercise considerable influence on worship in the Constantinopolitan milieu; following the Fourth Crusade, a revised, neo-Sabaitic model rises to prominence. As the material is progressively presented, the bearing of these periodical phenomena on the formation of the blessing of waters will be considered, with the qualification that exceptions, additions, and modifications to the accepted model of historical stages are always possible.

In employing the method of comparative liturgy, I will also consider the mutual influence occasionally exchanged between liturgical centers and rites in liturgical history, in this instance, pertaining to West Syrian, Armenian, and Byzantine traditions.¹⁹ Liturgical “byzantinization” of the West Syrian rite occurred in the tenth and eleventh centuries when northwest Syria was conquered and occupied by the Byzantine empire.²⁰ Such byzantinization was temporary and localized, and the West Syrian rite retained its distinctive features, rooted in Antiochene origins and generally celebrated with an austere style, given the difficult political environments in which West Syrian Christians lived.²¹

The Byzantine influence on Armenian liturgy has been the subject of specialized research, particularly in comparing the origins and mutual influence of variants of the anaphora attributed to St Basil of Cappadocia.²² Gabriele Winkler has challenged the longstanding notion that early Armenian anaphora traditions are heavily influenced by Cappadoci...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Early History of the Blessing of Waters
• 3 History of the Blessing of Waters: Stage 1 (8th—10th Centuries)
• 4 History of the Blessing of Waters: Stage 2 (11th—13th Centuries)
• 5 History of the Blessing of Waters: Stage 3 (14th—16th Centuries)
• 6 The Origins of the “Great are You” Prayer
• 7 Memory and Praise of the Lord’s Theophany
• 8 Epiclesis and the Gift of the Holy Spirit
• 9 Pastoral Considerations
• 10 Conclusion
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Appendix C
• Appendix D
• Appendix E
• Appendix F
• Appendix G
• Bibliography
• Index