Anaphora of St John Chrysostom

In Brief

The Anaphora of St John Chrysostom is the eucharistic prayer of the ordinary Byzantine Divine Liturgy: the prayer heard on Sundays, feast days and weekdays, except when Basil's Liturgy or the Presanctified is appointed.¹ In shape it is Antiochene: thanksgiving, the Sanctus, a christological post-Sanctus, the institution narrative, an anamnesis that flows in one sentence into the offering "Thine own of thine own", a single epiclesis after the anamnesis, and the intercessions that open with the Theotokos.² The Byzantine tradition ascribes the anaphora to St John Chrysostom, the fourth-century archbishop of Constantinople; scholarship treats the ascription as traditional, with Robert Taft judging his redaction of its pre-Sanctus "the only probable" conclusion.³ Since the eleventh century it has been the daily anaphora of the Great Church, while the longer anaphora of St Basil is kept for ten days of the year.¹

The Shape of the Liturgy

Part by Part

Authorship & Date

The service books call the Liturgy his, and the Church keeps him as its author. The claim is a tradition, and it is kept distinct from authorship here. What scholarship can say is this. Taft, following Engberding, derived the anaphora from a lost Greek Antiochene "Anaphora of the Apostles", in use at Antioch by the middle of the fourth century, which also lies behind the Syriac Anaphora of the Twelve Apostles: the two are redactions of one prayer.³ The prayer before the Sanctus contains phrases found elsewhere only in Chrysostom's own homilies, his anti-Anomoean discourses on the incomprehensibility of God. Taft argued that Chrysostom, newly bishop of Constantinople, redacted that prayer's expanded text, and called this "the only probable one under the circumstances", proposing as a hypothesis that he did it after 398.³

The name came late. Until the sixth century the Liturgy seems to have been called the Liturgy of the Apostles.⁴ In the oldest manuscript, Barberini gr. 336 (c. 780), Chrysostom's name stands before only three particular prayers; his name heads the whole Liturgy only from the eleventh century.^5,6 Dom Prosper Guéranger wrote in 1840 that Chrysostom "n'est point l'auteur de la Liturgie qui porte son nom".⁴ A late label can still preserve a genuine memory, and Taft's "probable" remains the best-known scholarly verdict. It is not a certainty, and the entry does not present it as one.

Witnesses & Editions

The earliest witness is Barberini gr. 336 in the Vatican, an uncial parchment euchologion of the end of the eighth century, the oldest surviving book of the Byzantine rite. It already contains the anaphora's prayers, printed by Brightman in parallel with Basil's.² The modern text Brightman prints, the basis of the shape strip above, comes from the Venice Euchologion of 1869.² The three Greek liturgies reached print together at Rome in October 1526, in Demetrios Doukas's edition under Clement VII, the editio princeps; the great early critical collection is Goar's Euchologion sive Rituale Graecorum (Paris 1647, second edition Venice 1730).²

Theology & Spirit

The preface is the anaphora's signature: thanksgiving to God as ineffable, incomprehensible, invisible and ungraspable, the apophatic confession Taft traced to Chrysostom's own preaching.^2,3 The post-Sanctus turns on a single line of the Gospel, "God so loved the world" (John 3:16), and moves from it into the words of institution: the whole economy of salvation gathered into one christological sentence.²

The epiclesis asks the Father to send the Holy Spirit "upon us and upon these Gifts set forth", and blesses the bread, the cup and both, "changing them by thy Holy Spirit".² The Orthodox self-description, in Kallistos Ware's account, is that the consecration "is not complete until the end of the Epiclesis", yet is not effected by the epiclesis alone: the whole eucharistic prayer is "a single and indivisible whole".⁷ Alexander Schmemann put it more sharply still: the Liturgy is "entirely, from beginning to end, an epiklesis".⁸ The Catholic teaching is stated separately, from the magisterium: Florence named the words of Christ, spoken by the priest in his person, as the form of the sacrament, and the Catechism quotes Chrysostom himself on those words, "This word transforms the things offered".^9,10

One usage varies by Church. In Russian practice the troparion of the Third Hour ("O Lord, who didst send down thy Holy Spirit upon thine apostles") is inserted within the epiclesis; it is absent from Brightman's Greek text, and the Byzantine Catholic books do not have it.^11,12

The intercessions open where the Byzantine anaphoras always open, with the Theotokos and the saints, and the people answer with the hymn "It is truly meet". The diptychs of the departed and of the living are read inside the intercessions, not after them.²

Relations

Basil's anaphora is this prayer's longer companion. The two follow the same Antiochene order at every point; where Basil expands, Chrysostom compresses. Before about the year 1000 Basil's was the principal eucharistic text of Constantinople; since the eleventh century Chrysostom's has been the daily one, and Basil's is kept for its ten days.^1,14 The Presanctified Liturgy depends on both: the Gifts it distributes were consecrated at an earlier Divine Liturgy of Chrysostom or of Basil.¹³

• Anaphora of St Basil (Byzantine)companionThe two anaphoras share the Antiochene order; Basil's is the longer, used on its ten days, Chrysostom's the ordinary.²
• Liturgy of the Presanctified GiftssuppliesThe Gifts consumed at the Presanctified were consecrated at an earlier Liturgy of Chrysostom (or Basil).¹³

Disputed Questions

Did St John Chrysostom write the anaphora that bears his name? Taft's answer is the one scholarship cites most: his redaction of the expanded pre-Sanctus is "the only probable" conclusion, resting on verbal doublets found nowhere else in Greek literature.³ Against it stand the lateness of the ascription, attached only between the sixth and eighth centuries and heading the whole Liturgy only from the eleventh, and Guéranger's flat denial of 1840.^1,4,5 The entry's position: the attribution is a tradition, Taft's verdict a scholarly probability, neither more.

Go Deeper

In current practice almost the whole anaphora is prayed in a low voice; only the ekphoneses, the concluding doxological phrases, are sung aloud for the people to answer. The service books show this by marking the aloud portions.¹⁵

One rubric has a history of its own. During the institution the deacon points to the diskos and to the chalice at the words of Christ. Brightman records, in a footnote, an 1839 Euchologion rubric objecting to this pointing: a small window onto how even the gestures around the words have been watched and argued over.²

On Domus Dei

• The Byzantine Rite

Official resources

• The Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom (Metropolitan Cantor Institute)

Recommended reading

• Brightman, F. E., Liturgies Eastern and Western, vol. 1: Eastern Liturgies, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896.The public-domain edition of both the 9th-c. and the modern text of the anaphora, with the full Greek at pp. 383–390. Read online
• Taft, Robert F., “The Authenticity of the Chrysostom Anaphora Revisited: Determining the Authorship of Liturgical Texts by Computer”, Orientalia Christiana Periodica 56, 1990, 5–51.The classic study of the anaphora's authorship: the Antiochene Urtext, the Chrysostom doublets, the 'only probable' verdict.
• Olkinuora, Damaskinos, “Liturgy of the Byzantine Rite”, St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, 2024.A current peer-reviewed survey: the late attachment of Chrysostom's name, the 11th-c. rise to the daily Liturgy. Read online
• Schulz, Hans-Joachim, The Byzantine Liturgy: Symbolic Structure and Faith Expression, New York: Pueblo, 1986.The Barberini evidence on the ascription, and the rite's symbolic world from Maximus to Cabasilas. Read online
• Solovey, Meletius Michael, The Byzantine Divine Liturgy: History and Commentary, tr. Demetrius E. Wysochansky, Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1970.A Byzantine Catholic part-by-part history and commentary, strong on the manuscripts and Slavonic usage. Read online
• Cabasilas, Nicholas, A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, tr. J. M. Hussey and P. A. McNulty, London: SPCK, 1960.The classic Byzantine commentary on the Liturgy, including the Greek case on the epiclesis (chs. 27–30). Read online

Sources

1. ScholarshipOlkinuora, Damaskinos, “Liturgy of the Byzantine Rite”, St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, 2024, §3.3.2; §2; §2; Schulz1986: p. 8; Solovey1970: p. 51. LinkVerified 2026-09-12 · signed, peer-reviewed entry read in full (§§2–3)
2. Primary textBrightman, F. E., Liturgies Eastern and Western, vol. 1: Eastern Liturgies, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896, pp. 383–390; pp. lxxxviii–lxxxix, 309, 321ff; pp. 353–399; p. lxxxiii; pp. 384–385; p. 385; pp. 386–387; pp. 387–389; pp. 383–411; p. 386 n.. 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'
3. ScholarshipTaft, Robert F., “The Authenticity of the Chrysostom Anaphora Revisited: Determining the Authorship of Liturgical Texts by Computer”, Orientalia Christiana Periodica 56, 1990, 5–51, pp. 33–36; pp. 20, 32–33; p. 33.Verified 2026-09-12 · read in the Variorum reprint (Taft 1995, no. III); abbreviations and conclusions checked; pp. 20, 32–36 re-read 13 Sep 2026
4. ScholarshipGuéranger, Prosper, Institutions liturgiques, vol. 1, Le Mans: Fleuriot, 1840, p. 228. LinkVerified 2026-09-13 · archive.org full text; p. 228 by running head; the English gloss is ours
5. ScholarshipSchulz, Hans-Joachim, The Byzantine Liturgy: Symbolic Structure and Faith Expression, New York: Pueblo, 1986, p. 8. LinkVerified 2026-09-13 · archive.org search inside, 13 Sep 2026; pp. 8, 25, 35, 38, 67 read in context
6. ScholarshipSolovey, Meletius Michael, The Byzantine Divine Liturgy: History and Commentary, tr. Demetrius E. Wysochansky, Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1970, p. 51. LinkVerified 2026-09-13 · archive.org search inside, 13 Sep 2026; pp. 51, 226 read in context
7. ScholarshipWare, Timothy (Kallistos), The Orthodox Church, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964, p. 290. LinkVerified 2026-09-13 · archive.org search inside, 13 Sep 2026; 1964 printing (later editions paginate differently); pp. 269–270, 276, 289, 290 read in context
8. ScholarshipSchmemann, Alexander, The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom, Crestwood, N.Y.: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1988, p. 222. LinkVerified 2026-09-13 · archive.org search inside, 13 Sep 2026; pp. 30-31, 50, 214, 222 read in context
9. Magisterial / canonicalCouncil of Florence, “Decrees (Laetentur caeli, 1439; Exsultate Deo, 1439)”, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman Tanner, 1990, DS 1321. LinkVerified 2026-09-12 · Exsultate Deo (DS 1321) and Laetentur caeli (DS 1303) read in Tanner's translation; DS numbers and Latin checked in Denzinger
10. Magisterial / canonicalCatholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed., Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997, §§1353, 1375. LinkVerified 2026-09-12 · §§460, 1105–1106, 1353, 1375, 1377 read on vatican.va; §1125 read on vatican.va; §1203 (ENG0015 __P3C) and §1367 (__P41) read on vatican.va 2026-09-15
11. Primary textHapgood, Isabel F., Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic (Greco-Russian) Church, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906, p. 105. LinkVerified 2026-09-12 · archive.org full text; pp. 79–80, 94, 104, 105–106, 116 checked by running heads (public domain); p. 119 (running head) for the Communion of the laity; the zeon rubric on p. 115 (inferred: the page falls between running heads 113 and 116); the troparion of the Third Hour in the epiclesis, p. 105
12. Primary textByzantine Catholic Metropolitan Church sui iuris of Pittsburgh, The Divine Liturgies of Our Holy Fathers John Chrysostom and Basil the Great, Pittsburgh, 2006, rubrics at the Epiklesis. LinkVerified 2026-09-12 · PDF read: foreword, rubrics, glossary, pp. 80–81; the profound bows at the words of institution and the Epiklesis re-read 13 Sep 2026
13. 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
14. 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, pp. 133–134. LinkVerified 2026-09-12 · full PDF read; pp. 133–139 and conclusions p. 194 checked
15. Primary textGreek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (Holy Cross Orthodox Press), The Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great, 2026, 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