Anaphora / liturgyLiving

Anaphora of St Basil

Ὁ ὢν, Δέσποτα

Ho on, Despota

The longer Byzantine eucharistic prayer, used on ten days of the year; traditionally ascribed to St Basil of Caesarea.

Last verified 2026-09-20

In Brief

The Anaphora of St Basil is the longer of the Byzantine rite's two eucharistic prayers: the same Antiochene order as St John Chrysostom's, matched at every step, but far longer in the preface, the salvation-history post-Sanctus, and the intercessions.¹ It is the "exchange anaphora", used on ten days of the year: the five Sundays of Great Lent, the eves of Christmas and Theophany, Holy Thursday, Holy Saturday, and 1 January, the feast of St Basil.^2,3 The Byzantine tradition ascribes it to St Basil of Caesarea (d. 379); scholarship treats the ascription as traditional, with the older Egyptian form the earlier witness and the Byzantine form plausibly bearing Basil's hand.² Before about the year 1000 it was the principal eucharistic text of Constantinople; by the eleventh century Chrysostom's had become the daily anaphora, and Basil's was kept for its ten days.^2,4

At a Glance

Attribution: Traditional (ascribed to St Basil of Caesarea); the Egyptian form is the earlier witness; the Byzantine form a plausible expansion he shaped²
Date: Pre-379 (the Byzantine archetype on Capelle's view); the extant form by the 8th c.²
Original Language: Greek (original)¹
Used By: All Churches of the Byzantine (Constantinopolitan) tradition, Catholic and Orthodox⁴as of 2026-09-20
When Used: Ten days a year: the five Sundays of Great Lent, Holy Thursday, Holy Saturday, the eves of Nativity and Theophany, and 1 January³as of 2026-09-20
Structural Type: Antiochene (West Syrian) anaphoral order, matching Chrysostom at every step but far longer in preface, post-Sanctus and intercessions¹
Earliest Witness: Barberini gr. 336 (Vatican), c. 780: the oldest Byzantine euchologion, where Basil stands before Chrysostom¹
Standard Editions: The Greek Euchologion (ed. Doukas, Rome 1526, the editio princeps); Goar's Euchologion (1647); the modern text printed by Brightman (Venice 1869)¹

The Shape of the Liturgy

1. Opening dialogueshared with Chrysostom (p. 384)
2. Preface / thanksgivinglong and theological
3. Pre-Sanctusthe choirs of angels and the six-winged Seraphim
4. Sanctus
5. Post-Sanctusthe longest recital of salvation history in the Byzantine books
6. Institution narrative
7. Anamnesis
8. Offering'Thine own of thine own': one sentence with the anamnesis
9. Epiclesis (after anamnesis)the Gifts are first called 'antitypes' of the Body and Blood
10. Intercessionsopens with the Theotokos and the saints; far longer than Chrysostom's
11. Commemorations / diptychsthe departed named
12. Intercessionsfor the Church, the living and all in need
13. Commemorations / diptychsthe hierarch and the offerers
14. Intercessionsfor every orthodox episcopate and for an end to schisms
15. Doxology

Shape of the Anaphora of St Basil¹

Part by Part

Part by part
Part	Incipit	Translation
Opening dialogueOur translation. Shared with Chrysostom's Liturgy; Brightman prints the shared parts under Chrysostom.	Ἡ χάρις τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ… · Ἄνω σχῶμεν τὰς καρδίας · Εὐχαριστήσωμεν τῷ Κυρίῳ	The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Let us lift up our hearts. Let us give thanks to the Lord.
PrefaceOur translation. One of the most theological prefaces in the tradition, far longer than Chrysostom's.	Ὁ ὢν, Δέσποτα Κύριε Θεὲ Πάτερ παντοκράτορ προσκυνητέ…	O thou who art, Master, Lord, God, Father Almighty, adorable: it is truly meet and right and worthy of thy majesty to praise thee, to hymn thee, to bless thee.
Pre-SanctusOur translation. The ekphonesis hands the hymn to the people.	Σὲ γὰρ αἰνοῦσιν ἄγγελοι, ἀρχάγγελοι, θρόνοι, κυριότητες… · σοὶ παρίστανται κύκλῳ τὰ Σεραφίμ…	For thee do angels, archangels, thrones, dominions praise… around thee stand the Seraphim, the six-winged, the many-eyed, on high uplifting the song of triumph.
SanctusOur translation. Sung by the people with the Benedictus.	Τὸν ἐπινίκιον ὕμνον… · Ἅγιος, ἅγιος, ἅγιος Κύριος Σαβαώθ… · Εὐλογημένος ὁ ἐρχόμενος	Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabaoth; heaven and earth are full of thy glory. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Post-SanctusOur translation. The longest salvation-history prayer in the Byzantine books: creation, fall, prophets, law, incarnation, cross.	Μετὰ τούτων τῶν μακαρίων δυνάμεων, Δέσποτα φιλάνθρωπε, καὶ ἡμεῖς οἱ ἁμαρτωλοὶ βοῶμεν καὶ λέγομεν· Ἅγιος εἶ ὡς ἀληθῶς…	With these blessed powers we also, we sinners, O Master who lovest mankind, cry and say: truly thou art holy, for from the first thou didst fashion man from the earth, and didst not wholly forsake him.
Institution narrativeOur translation. The Pauline 'as often as' (1 Cor 11:26) closes the narrative; sung aloud.	…λαβὼν ἄρτον ἐπὶ τῶν ἁγίων αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀχράντων χειρῶν… · Τοῦτο ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν…	Taking bread into his holy and all-pure hands, he blessed it, broke it and gave it… Do this in remembrance of me; for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim my death.
AnamnesisOur translation. The participle governs the offering: one sentence.	Μεμνημένοι οὖν, Δέσποτα, καὶ ἡμεῖς τῶν σωτηρίων αὐτοῦ παθημάτων…	Remembering, then, O Master, we also his saving sufferings: the life-giving Cross, the burial of three days, the resurrection from the dead, the ascension into heaven, the session at thy right hand, and the second and glorious coming again.
OfferingOur translation. The people answer 'We hymn thee'.	Τὰ σὰ ἐκ τῶν σῶν σοὶ προσφέρομεν κατὰ πάντα καὶ διὰ πάντα	Thine own of thine own we offer unto thee, in all things and for all things.
EpiclesisOur translation. The Gifts are 'antitypes' until the invocation; the verb is ἀναδεῖξαι, the consecratory idiom here. Brightman's footnote flags the 'changing them' clause copied in from Chrysostom as a bold addition that 'has no place' in Basil.	Διὰ τοῦτο, Δέσποτα πανάγιε, καὶ ἡμεῖς οἱ ἁμαρτωλοί… προθέντες τὰ ἀντίτυπα τοῦ ἁγίου σώματος καὶ αἵματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ σου… ἀναδεῖξαι τὸν μὲν ἄρτον τοῦτον αὐτὸ τὸ τίμιον σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ σου…	O all-holy Master, having set forth the antitypes of the Body and Blood of thy Christ, we pray thee to send thy Holy Spirit upon these Gifts, and to show this bread to be the precious Body of thy Christ.
Intercessions: the saintsOur translation. Basil's own Megalynarion, 'On thee rejoices', replaces Chrysostom's 'It is truly meet'.	ἵνα εὕρωμεν ἔλεον καὶ χάριν μετὰ πάντων τῶν ἁγίων… · Ἐπὶ σοὶ χαίρει, Κεχαριτωμένη, πᾶσα ἡ κτίσις…	…that we may find mercy and grace with all the saints… On thee rejoices, O full of grace, all creation: the assembly of angels and the race of men.
Diptychs of the departedOur translation. The rubric: the deacon names the departed aloud within the intercession.	ἐνταῦθα μνημονεύει ὀνομαστὶ καὶ ὧν βούλεται τεθνεώτων	Here he commemorates by name those of the departed whom he wishes.
Intercessions: the Church and the livingOur translation. The longest intercession in the Byzantine books; the hierarch and the offerers are commemorated within it by name.	Ἔτι σοῦ δεόμεθα· μνήσθητι, Κύριε, τῆς ἁγίας σου καθολικῆς καὶ ἀποστολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας…	We further beseech thee: remember, O Lord, thy holy, catholic and apostolic Church… the bishops, priests, deacons, monastics, marriages, households and all in need.
Intercessions: every episcopate, an end to schismsOur translation. Rulers, cities, travellers, the sick, captives, orphans and widows follow.	Μνήσθητι, Κύριε, πάσης ἐπισκοπῆς ὀρθοδόξων…	Remember, O Lord, every episcopate of the Orthodox, rightly dividing the word of thy truth, and grant the divisions of the churches to be ended.
DoxologyOur translation. Then the blessing 'And the mercies of the great God…'	Καὶ δὸς ἡμῖν ἐν ἑνὶ στόματι καὶ μιᾷ καρδίᾳ δοξάζειν καὶ ἀνυμνεῖν…	And grant that with one mouth and one heart we may glorify and hymn thine all-honourable and magnificent name, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Authorship & Date

The question is a classic. The anaphora survives in four main versions: Egyptian, Armenian, Syriac and Byzantine.² Engberding established in 1931 that the Egyptian form is the oldest, followed by the Armenian.² Then the positions diverged. Hanssens (1932) held that Basil wrote only the Egyptian text and that the Byzantine is by a successor; Raes, Bouyer and Gibson held that Basil wrote both, the Egyptian as a first draft and the Byzantine as a later expansion; Capelle (1960) argued that the Byzantine archetype is Basil's pre-379 revision of an older formulary that survives in the Egyptian text, for which the Sahidic witness published by Doresse and Lanne (1960) became decisive.²

Two pieces of evidence weigh for the tradition. Schulz noted a passage on the Holy Spirit in the Byzantine anaphora that "contain[s] many echoes of other places in Basil", in the Longer Rule, the treatise On the Holy Spirit, and Letter 261.⁵ And Streza's computer-assisted study of the text against Basil's writings found thematic and lexical overlap, particularly in the post-Sanctus christological prayer, and concluded that Basil "left his print" on the anaphora.² The agreement of scholarship stops there: the Egyptian form is the earlier witness; whether the Byzantine is Basil's own expansion or a successor's remains undecided. The entry presents the attribution as traditional, not as settled authorship.

Witnesses & Editions

The earliest witness of the Byzantine form is Barberini gr. 336 in the Vatican (c. 780), the oldest surviving Byzantine euchologion. In it Basil comes before Chrysostom, the order the rite then knew.¹ A caution: Brightman's printing of the Barberini text has a lacuna at pp. 327–336, supplied from Grottaferrata Γ.β.VII, so not every page of the early text is Barberini. The modern text, the basis of the shape strip above, is the Venice Euchologion of 1869.¹ The three Greek liturgies reached print together at Rome in October 1526, in Demetrios Doukas's edition under Clement VII; the great early critical collection is Goar's Euchologion sive Rituale Graecorum (1647, second edition Venice 1730).¹

Theology & Spirit

The preface is the anaphora's theological signature: "O thou who art, Master" opens one of the most densely Trinitarian prayers in the tradition, the Son confessed as the image of the Father's goodness, the Spirit named by the titles of St Paul.¹ The post-Sanctus then recites the whole economy: the fashioning of man, the fall, the prophets, the law, the incarnation, the cross, the descent to the dead, the resurrection, the ascension. It is the longest salvation-history prayer in the Byzantine books.¹

The epiclesis has its own fourth-century idiom. The Gifts are presented as "the antitypes of the holy Body and Blood", and the priest asks the Father to send the Holy Spirit and to "show" (ἀναδεῖξαι) the bread to be the precious Body.¹ Brightman flags, in a footnote, the "changing them by thy Holy Spirit" clause often added here as copied from Chrysostom, a "bold addition" that "has no place" in Basil, citing Nicodemus in the Pedalion on the council of Laodicea's canon 19.¹ Whether the Greek, Slavonic and Byzantine Catholic books still print the interpolated clause is an open question this entry leaves aside: the shape notes Brightman's text only. The epiclesis closes, as in Chrysostom, with the prayer for unity of all who share the one bread and the one cup.¹

The intercessions are far longer than Chrysostom's: the whole Church is remembered in a single great catalogue, bishops, priests, deacons, monastics, marriages, households, all in need, with a prayer "for every episcopate of the Orthodox" and for the divisions of the churches to be ended.¹ The Megalynarion is Basil's own hymn, "On thee rejoices", in place of "It is truly meet".¹ The diptychs of the departed are named aloud within the intercession.¹

Relations

Chrysostom's anaphora is the shorter companion: the two share the Antiochene order at every point, and where Basil expands, Chrysostom compresses. Before c. 1000 Basil's was the principal Constantinopolitan text; since the eleventh century it is the festive ten-day anaphora while Chrysostom's is daily.^2,4 The Presanctified Liturgy depends on both anaphoras: the Gifts it distributes were consecrated at an earlier Divine Liturgy, in Lent for example at a Sunday Liturgy of Basil.⁶

Anaphora of St John ChrysostomcompanionThe shorter companion anaphora; Basil's was the principal Constantinopolitan anaphora before c. 1000.²
Liturgy of the Presanctified GiftssuppliesThe Gifts consumed at the Presanctified are consecrated at an earlier Divine Liturgy — in Lent, e.g. from a Sunday Liturgy of Basil for Wednesday's Presanctified.⁶

Disputed Questions

Is the Byzantine text by St Basil himself or by a later expander? The three positions stand as the scholarship left them: Hanssens's successor, the two-draft view of Raes, Bouyer and Gibson, Capelle's pre-379 revision of an older formulary.² The agreed ground is that the Egyptian form is earlier; the lexical study of Streza and the echoes Schulz noted make Basil's own shaping of the Byzantine form plausible. The entry's position: the attribution is a tradition with a substantial scholarly case, not a settled authorship.

Is the Byzantine text by St Basil himself, or a later expansion?

The Egyptian text is Basil's own; the Byzantine is by a successorArnold Hanssens (1932)²
Basil wrote both: the Egyptian as a first draft, the Byzantine as a later expansionRaes, Bouyer, Gibson²
The Byzantine archetype is Basil's pre-379 revision of an older formulary surviving in the Egyptian (Sahidic) textBernard Capelle (1960)²

The Egyptian form is agreed to be the earlier witness; the Byzantine form plausibly bears Basil's hand, with thematic and lexical overlap with his writings (Streza 2016). The entry presents the attribution as traditional, not settled.

Go Deeper

Two rubrics differ from Chrysostom's ordinary use. On Holy Thursday the Cherubic Hymn is replaced by "Of thy mystical supper", and on Holy Saturday by "Let all mortal flesh keep silence", the two great days carrying their own processional chant.⁷ The Liturgy of Basil is also marked the same way the bilingual books mark both anaphoras: the ekphoneses sung aloud, the rest of the anaphora prayed in a low voice.³

The ten-day calendar itself has one fine point. When the eve of Nativity or of Theophany falls on Sunday or Monday, the Basil Liturgy is kept on the feast day itself and Chrysostom's on the eve, so that the greater Liturgy keeps the greater day.³

On Domus Dei

The Byzantine Rite

Official resources

The Divine Liturgy of St Basil the Great (GOARCH)

Sources

Primary textBrightman, F. E., Liturgies Eastern and Western, vol. 1: Eastern Liturgies, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896, pp. 400–411; pp. lxxxviii–lxxxix, 309–321; p. lxxxiii; p. 402; pp. 403–404; pp. 405–406; p. 406 n.; p. 406; pp. 406–409; pp. 406–407; p. 407. LinkVerified 2026-09-12 · archive.org full text; pp. lxxxiii, lxxxv, lxxxviii–lxxxix checked; order locators spot-checked 13 Sep 2026 (pp. 362, 377–378, 393, 394; glossary s.v. Zeon, Cancelli, Ektene). Checked 19 Sep 2026 for the Ge'ez entry: Preface p. xiii, the Ethiopic translations are the Rev. C. J. Ball's ('the Rev. C. J. Ball for the Ethiopic (including the collation of the British Museum manuscripts)'); p. lxiii, the Egyptian rite; pp. lxxii-lxxiii, the Rome printing of 1548 ('Testamentum novum.. Missale') and the Lord's anaphora there; pp. 194-244, the Ethiopic Liturgy of the Apostles from BM Or. 545 (1670-75); p. 232, 'THIS bread… IS MY BODY' (a rubric between) and 'DRINK… THIS CUP'
ScholarshipStreza, Ciprian, “The Authorship of the Byzantine Anaphora of Saint Basil under Investigation with the TLG Database”, Revista Teologică 98, no. 3, 2016, 133–194, p. 134; pp. 138–139, 194; p. 133; p. 135; pp. 138–139; p. 194; pp. 133–134. LinkVerified 2026-09-12 · full PDF read; pp. 133–139 and conclusions p. 194 checked
Primary textGreek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (Holy Cross Orthodox Press), The Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great, 2026, preface; the Liturgy text, passim. LinkVerified 2026-09-20 · Preface read (the ten days on which Basil is celebrated, with the Sunday/Monday rubric for the two eves); the bilingual Liturgy text skimmed, noting the priest's 'in a low voice' rubrics
ScholarshipOlkinuora, Damaskinos, “Liturgy of the Byzantine Rite”, St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, 2024, §2. LinkVerified 2026-09-12 · signed, peer-reviewed entry read in full (§§2–3)
ScholarshipSchulz, Hans-Joachim, The Byzantine Liturgy: Symbolic Structure and Faith Expression, New York: Pueblo, 1986, p. 7. LinkVerified 2026-09-13 · archive.org search inside, 13 Sep 2026; pp. 8, 25, 35, 38, 67 read in context
Primary textSerbian Orthodox Church, Presanctified Liturgy, structure section. LinkVerified 2026-09-20 · Read in full: days prescribed, structure of the service, the reserved Gifts and the chalice, Gregory the Dialogist as 'first documented' and as traditional author, Trullo can. 52 quoted
ReferenceSlobodskoy, Seraphim, “The Divine Liturgy: The Liturgy of St. Basil the Great”, Orthodox Church of the Mother of God, "The Liturgy of St. Basil the Great". LinkVerified 2026-09-20 · The Basil differences read directly: the longer priestly prayers, 'In Thee rejoiceth', the Holy Thursday and Holy Saturday Cherubic Hymn substitutions, and the ten days

Share on Social Media