The Anaphora (), Eucharistic Prayer, or Great Thanksgiving, is a portion of the Christian liturgy of the Eucharist in which, through a prayer of thanksgiving, the elements of bread and wine are consecrated. The prevalent historical Roman Rite form is called the "Canon of the Mass".
"Anaphora" is a Greek word () meaning a "carrying up", thus an "offering"Liddell, Henry George & Scott, Robert. (1940). A Greek-English Lexicon (revised ed.). Retrieved July 9, 2005. (hence its use in reference to the offering of sacrifice to God). (This sense is distinct from the usage of "anaphora" in rhetoric and linguistics to mean a "carrying back".) In the sacrificial language of the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible known as the Septuagint, (prospherein) is used of the offerer's bringing the victim to the altar, and (anapherein) is used of the priest's offering up the selected portion upon the altar (see, for instance, , , , ).
Elements
To describe the structure of the Anaphoras as it became standardized from the 4th century, we can look at the structure of the anaphoras in the Antiochene family of liturgies (West Syriac Rite and Byzantine Rite) which display an order and logic that finds no equal elsewhere. This structure is still valid, with some significant variations typical of each rite, for the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Churches and Oriental Orthodox Church, while it was modified, both in the pattern and in the underlying theology, during the Protestant Reformation. Beginning with the Oxford Movement of the 1840s and after the Liturgical Reform Movement of the 1950s, a systematic examination of historic anaphoras began and this in turn has caused the reform of many Eucharistic prayers within mainline Protestant denominations.
The structure of the standardized 4th century Antiochene anaphora, which is placed after the offertory and the Creed and comes before the Lord's Prayer, the Elevation and the Communion rites, can be summarized as follows: Sursum Corda or Opening Dialogue: it is the introductory dialogue that opens with a liturgical greeting by the priest (for instance, "The Lord be with you" in the Roman Rite, or "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all" in the Byzantine Rite) and the response of the congregation or choir. Classic call and response ties together the response of the priest and congregation to the Glory of God. Then the priest exhorts those participating in the liturgy to lift up their hearts. When they express their agreement ("We lift them up to the Lord"), he then introduces the great theme of thanksgiving, in Greek (eucharistia), saying: "Let us give thanks to the Lord our God."; Preface: is the great prayer of thanksgiving for the work of Salvation or for some special aspect of it; Sanctus: is a hymn of praise adapted from beginning Holy, Holy, Holy immediately followed by the Benedictus taken from . This hymn is usually introduced by the expression of the desire of the community to unite itself with the heavenly Angelic liturgy; it also follows the words of Christ, taken from Mt 23:39: "For I say to you, you shall not see me henceforth till you say: Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord", itself being a quotation of Psalm 118:26. Post-Sanctus: is a prayer that links the Sanctus with the following part. It can be very short or resume the great theme of thanksgiving, giving ground for the following requests. Institution narrative: is an account of the Last Supper, in which are pronounced the Words of Institution spoken by Jesus Christ, changing the bread and wine into his Body and Blood. Anamnesis: is the statement in which the Church refers to the memorial character of the Eucharist itself and/or to the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ. Oblation: is the offering to the Lord of the sacrifice of the Eucharistic bread and wine and of the prayers and thanksgiving of faithfuls. Epiclesis: is the "invocation" or "calling down from on high" by which the priest invokes the Holy Spirit (or the power of His blessing or Christ in some early texts) upon the Eucharistic bread and wine; Intercessions: is the prayer, sometimes long, in which the Church asks God to help all her members, living and dead, and all the humanity because of the grace given by the Eucharist. In this section there is usually the request to God to grant to the believers the same glory given to Mary and to the saints. The list of the living people who are commemorated (diptychs) includes generally the name of the current pope, patriarch, bishop recognized by the community; Doxology: is a solemn hymn of praises to the Trinity.
This structure can have variations in liturgical families different from the Antiochene one: in the East Syriac Rites the Epiclesis is just before the final doxology and in Addai and Mari the Institution narrative is missing; the Intercessions can be found after the Preface in the Alexandrian Rite and even before the Sursum Corda in the Mozarabic Rite. An Epiclesis can be found before the Institution narrative in the Alexandrian Rite, and this place of the Epiclesis is the standard in the Roman Canon and in the Latin rites.
The anaphoras are addressed by the Church to the Father, even if in antiquity there were cases of Eucharistic prayers addressed to Christ, as the anaphora of Gregory Nazianzen or partially the Third Anaphora of St. Peter (Sharar). Also, the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwaḥədo Church unusually has an Anaphora of the Virgin Mary.Glenday, David K. "Mary in the Liturgy: An Ethiopian Anaphora." (1959): 222-226. Most parts of the anaphora, as the Preface, the Institution narrative, the Epiclesis, are always reserved to the celebrant, a bishop or a priest, while the faithfuls usually sung the Sanctus and some acclamations, which can be more or less frequent and length according to the specific rite. Sometime, particularly in the past, in both East and West the main celebrant said a part of his prayers inaudibly or covered by the choir.
The Eastern Rites know many anaphoras, but each of them is almost completely invariable. On the contrary the Western Church had for centuries only one anaphora, the Roman Canon, but it has variable parts according to the liturgical year, mainly the Preface. In other Latin rites, as in the Mozarabic Rite or the Gallican rite also the post-sanctus and the prayer after the Institution narrative till the doxology are completely variable.
Early texts Many ancient texts of anaphorae have survived, and even if no more in use, they are useful to trace the history of the anaphorae, and in general the history of the Eucharist during the centuries. Most of these texts became parts of anaphorae still in use.
The earlier liturgical texts related to the celebration of the Eucharist are the chapters 9 and 10 of the Didache, even though there is no consensus among scholars if these texts are meant to be a Eucharist or not. We have next the Anaphora of the Apostolic Tradition, called also the anaphora of Hippolytus, the Liturgy of the seventh book of the Apostolic Constitutions and the Liturgy of the eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions that developed in the famous Byzantine Anaphora now part of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, through the lost Greek version of the Anaphora of the Twelve Apostles (of which we have a later Syrian version).
The more ancient text of the Basilean family of anaphoras was found in 1960 in a Sahidic Coptic version,J.Doresse and E. Lanne, Un témoin archaique de la liturgie copte de S.Basile, Louvain, 1960 possibly a text written by St. Basil himself, and recent scholars believes that this text, united with the anaphora described in The Catechisms of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, has been the base for the Anaphora of St. James included in the Liturgy of St James. The present Byzantine text of the Anaphora included in the Liturgy of Saint Basil is the final development of this anaphoric family.
In the East the more ancient text is probably the ancient form of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, followed by the East Syriac Rite Churches. The third Anaphora (Anaphora of Nestorius) is also in use. Another important source is the anaphora described in the Mystagogical Cathecheses of Theodore of Mopsuestia.Tonneau and Devréesse, Les homélies catéchétiques de Theodore de Mopsueste, 1949
In Egypt we have the Anaphora of Barcelona (and its related Louvain Coptic Papyrus), the Prayer into the Euchologion of Serapion, the Deir Balyzeh Papyrus, the Strasbourg papyrus and the ancient Anaphora of Saint MarkCodex Vat gr. 1970 in Greek, which developed in the Coptic Liturgy of Saint Cyril. The Egyptian Anaphoras (known as Alexandrian type Anaphoras) seem to have a distinctive structure in the post sanctus section, which is organized as such: Epiclesis I—Institution Narrative—Anamnesis—Epiclesis II.McKenna, The Eucharistic Epiclesis, p. 13. This structure stands out for having two epicleses surrounding the institution narrative, which different from other traditions.McKenna, The Eucharistic Epiclesis, pp. 244–5. Some scholars have argued that the numerous epicleses in the Alexandrian type traditions favors an understanding of consecration as a process, rather than a single moment of consecration.
Scholars find structural similarities in between the Roman and Egyptian anaphoral traditions: for instance the Barcelona Papyrus, as well as Deir Balyzeh Papyrus, include an epiclesis before the Words of Institution as in the Roman Canon. The earliest text similar to the Roman Canon is the quoted in De Sacramentis of Ambrose which include prayers close to the Canon's prayers such as Quam Oblationem, Qui pridie, Unde et Memores, Supra quae - Suplices te. The Roman Canon's prayers Communicantes, Hanc igitur, and the post-consecration Memento etiam and Nobis quoque were added in the 5th century,Josef Andreas Jungmann, S.J., Missarum Sollemnia - Eine genetische Erklärung der römischen Messe (Herder, Vienna 1949), volume I, pages 70-71; cf. Hermannus A. P. Schmidt, Introductio in Liturgiam Occidentalem (Herder, Rome-Freiburg-Barcelona 1960), page 352 and it achieved practically its present form when modified by Gregory the Great (590-604)"Canon of the Mass" in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church 2005 (see History of the Roman Canon).
Eucharistic Prayer in Western Christianity
When referring to the Western Christian uses, the term "Eucharistic Prayer" is more used than "anaphora", and sometime it refers only to the portion of the anaphora starting after the Sanctus because the Preface in the Latin rites is variable and follows the liturgical year.
Roman Rite of the Catholic Church
Between the Council of Trent and the reform of the Catholic liturgy, undertaken in 1969 (see Mass of Paul VI), the only anaphora used in the Roman Rite was the Roman Canon (or Canon of the Mass). For the history of the "Roman Canon" see also the articles Canon of the Mass, Pre-Tridentine Mass and Tridentine Mass.
With introduction in 1969 of the Mass of Paul VI, multiple choices of Eucharistic Prayer were allowed, although the authorization of new Eucharistic Prayers is reserved to the Holy See.EUCHARISTIC PRAYERS I - IVFrom One Eucharistic Prayer to Many: How it Happened and Why All the new Eucharistic Prayers follow the Antiochene structure with the noticeable difference that the Epiclesis is placed, in accordance with the Roman tradition, before the Words of Institution and not after. The first approved Eucharistic Prayers are four: Eucharistic Prayer no. 1: This is the ancient Roman Canon with minimal variations. The ancient text is especially appropriate for Sundays, unless for pastoral reasons Eucharistic Prayer no. 3 is preferred.