The Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, as celebrated with a bishop, according to the tradition of the Russian Orthodox Church
Published with the Blessing of His Eminence Mark, Archbishop of Berlin, Germany and Great Britain
1 October 2011
AAs announced last November, we have been preparing and have now had printed The Episcopal Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, a pocket-sized book containing detailed liturgical instructions for all concerned, including subdeacons and servers. Over the last year it has now been further revised and blessed for publication by His Eminence Archbishop Mark and others. Technical details are as follows:
Format: A6 (105mm x 148mm). 220 pages. Cover 300 gsm, gloss laminated, perfect bind. Cover black and lettering in gold, blank inside cover, text black throughout, 120gsm silk.
Published at £12 or $20 US per copy, post free. Please send your details and requirements to: 12 Garfield Road, Felixstowe, Suffolk IP11 7PU, England. Please either make payments from your Paypal account to clumsy_autumn@yahoo.co.uk, or send a cheque drawn on a British bank for £12, or send the sum in cash (British pounds or US dollars) in a firmly sealed envelope to the same address.
Below we publish the acknowledgements, to be found at the beginning of the book.
Acknowledgements
In recent years we in the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain and Ireland have been blessed to see our bishops outside London. In the more distant past, this was not the case and, as a result, many Russian Orthodox had little idea of what an episcopal liturgy is. Another development in recent years is that we now have many churches where the main liturgical language is English. This is new. We can recall that in the 1970s and 1980s for example, even the English translations of many liturgical terms had not yet been established. An English-language guide to the episcopal liturgy, that is, a liturgy presided over by a bishop, is therefore long overdue.
Although much of the work here comes from experience and observation, we would like to acknowledge the help that we have received. First and foremost, we thank His Eminence Archbishop Mark who personally checked the contents, making invaluable corrections. It is only with his blessing that this little book has been published. We also especially thank Deacon Eugene Kalluar in the USA and Subdeacon Michael Astley locally for their immense work in correcting and revising. In addition, we owe a debt to a Russian typescript, compiled many years ago by an unknown subdeacon of the ROCOR Memorial Church in Brussels. We also acknowledge help from a book called, ‘Hierarchal Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom’, now out of print, but published in 1995 in the USA under ROCOR. This gave us ideas about formatting and was consulted for some of its directions to subdeacons. Finally, we must thank Eadmund Dunstall, who prepared the camera copy.
Without a bishop, there is no Church and when all know their duties, an episcopal liturgy is like a symphony. We hope that this little book will help to create the conditions for that symphony. Although the below has been prepared for use in these Isles, it could be used with a few variations in other dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. With a few adjustments to litanies and rubrics, it could also be used in other Orthodox dioceses, especially in English-language parishes under the Russian Orthodox Church inside Russia.
We beg indulgence of our users for any inadvertent mistakes, for which we are wholly responsible.
Archpriest Andrew Phillips.
St John of Shanghai
19 June/2 July 2011
