The Byzantine Synaxarion and the Liturgy of the Presanctified
- Daniel Oltean
- Mar 19
- 6 min read
Updated: Mar 25
Pope Gregory I of Rome (590–604) is known in the Christian East primarily for associating his name with the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. During Lent, this particular liturgy is celebrated on weekdays, from Monday to Friday. Improperly called a liturgy, it actually takes place as an extended ritual of communion with the gifts already consecrated during the liturgy of the previous Sunday.
The attribution of this incomplete liturgy to Pope Gregory is one of the curiosities of Eastern tradition. On the one hand, the liturgical ritual specific to the days of the weeks of Lent certainly predates Gregory’s time. On the other hand, the Pope’s knowledge of Greek was limited. Although he lived for several years in Constantinople as a special envoy (apocrisiarius) of Pope Pelagius II (579–590) to the imperial court, nothing in Gregory’s writings shows his integration into the Greek cultural environment. A Latin pope could not have written the text of a Greek liturgy.
The Synaxarion of Pope Gregory
How, then, can we explain the attribution of the Liturgy of the Presanctified to Pope Gregory? The oldest document establishing a particular connection in this regard is a Greek manuscript from the 10th century, now preserved in the Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai, [1] which includes short biographies of saints, generally called synaxaria. The same synaxarion of Pope Gregory is found in another manuscript from the same period (10th/11th century), the so-called typicon-synaxarion of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. [2] Both documents contain the following information:
It is said that [Gregory] was the one who ordered the Romans to celebrate the complete liturgy on fast days, as they observe it to this day.
The text refers to a Latin tradition that was respected by the Romans in Rome. Indeed, the Latin liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts was little used, being celebrated only on Good Friday. On the other days of Lent, the Latins always used the same (complete) liturgy they celebrated throughout the year. The synaxarion, therefore, does not mention a Byzantine custom. But this brief note is the source of the confusion and reinterpretations that followed.
How did this information appear in the synaxarion? It must be said that the synaxaria were written as summaries of the Lives of the saints, longer and more elaborate texts that already existed. In the case of Gregory’s synaxarion, the biography used as a source was a Life of the Pope written in Greek in Rome before the middle of the 9th century. The text, preserved only in its Georgian version, [3] is one of the two oldest documents that include the mysterious legend of Emperor Trajan (98–117), used in Byzantium to fabricate the legend of Emperor Theophilos (813–842) and the Sunday of Orthodoxy. In relation to this Life, Gregory’s synaxarion adds, at the end of the text, two pieces of information not mentioned in other documents: one concerning the complete liturgy celebrated on fast days in Rome, an unusual custom for the Byzantines and another concerning the annual pilgrimage that the Anglo-Saxons made to Rome to the tomb of Pope Gregory. These additional notes are either the observations of a Greek visiting Rome or information transmitted to Constantinople by someone familiar with Roman customs.
The fact that Gregory’s synaxarion mentions the Latin tradition of celebrating the complete liturgy on fast days does not appear to have interested or scandalized the Byzantines for several centuries. The text was copied unchanged into numerous other manuscripts.
However, after a while, the Byzantines realized that this information lent greater authority to a Latin custom they did not follow. Moreover, Gregory’s association with a criticized Latin custom had become less convenient in the context of the antagonism between West and East, which had become more evident since the 11th century. The complete liturgy used by the Latins during fasting appeared on the lists of numerous errors that the Byzantines reproached Westerners for.
Therefore, copyists and/or sponsors of synaxaria have attempted to alter the authentic text to suit their own purposes. A 12th-century manuscript, for example, contains a synaxarion of Gregory that includes, in addition to the original, a single word, a negation, which completely changes the meaning of the statement: Pope Gregory would be the one who decided that the Romans should not celebrate the complete liturgy on fast days. [4] Another manuscript from the same period eliminates the references to the Romans; it states that Gregory ordered the liturgy to be celebrated during Lent without explaining what type of liturgy it was. [5]
However, the most successful modification, which was followed by all printed editions of the synaxarion, was the elimination of the word “complete” from the original statement. Indeed, the new text no longer presented any danger since, in liturgical language, the word “complete” differentiates between the ordinary liturgy and the incomplete one of the Presanctified Gifts. The synaxarion, still in use, only states that Gregory ordered the Romans to celebrate the liturgy on fast days, which has been interpreted as a reference to the liturgy of the Presanctified, to which the Byzantines were accustomed. Moreover, because the Byzantines considered themselves Romans as descendants and successors of ancient Rome, it was concluded that the new text did not refer to the Latins, but to the Greeks. The confusion deliberately provoked became a rule for later generations, who considered Gregory the author of the Byzantine liturgy of the Presanctified.
A forger in the 13th century
Who and in what context modified the ancient synaxarion in the interest of the Byzantines? The answer is found in a short treatise commonly titled On the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, attested in manuscripts as early as the 14th century. [6] The treatise is addressed to the Byzantine Emperor and artificially attributed to a Patriarch called Michael. The text is a plea for the antiquity of the Byzantine liturgy of the Presanctified, which the author considers to have been written by Patriarch Athanasius of Alexandria (4th century) and popularized by Pope Gregory. Regarding this last point, the author notes:
In many of our books, it is said that Saint Gregory the Dialogue ordered this mystagogy to be celebrated among the Romans during the holy and propitiatory days of the quarantine, as is still done in ancient Rome.
The striking similarity between this treatise and the modified synaxarion leads to the idea that both texts belong to the same Byzantine group interested in promoting local traditions and combating the errors of the Latins.
To a certain extent, the author of the treatise on the liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts can be identified through several internal and external analysis criteria. On the one hand, the text cannot belong to any of the four Patriarch Michael before the 14th century since it would have been cited and used in subsequent synodal decisions. On the other hand, the treatise’s author speaks out against the fast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary (August 1–15), which was not definitively accepted in Constantinople and on Mount Athos until the end of the 14th century. Finally, the treatise on the liturgy of the Presanctified must be linked to a fictional dialogue between Emperor Manuel Komnenos (1143–1180) and Patriarch Michael III Anchialos (1170–1178), disseminated by anti-unionist circles in the context of the Unionist Council of Lyon (1274) and the anti-Latin agitation it provoked. In this imaginary conversation, entitled Dialogue on the Union of Latins and Greeks, the Patriarch convinces the Emperor of the errors of the Westerners. [7] In turn, the dialogue is closely linked to a Letter from the monks of Athos to the Synod of Constantinople [8] dated 1275. The author of the letter mentions the dialogue as a model of the attitude a Patriarch should have towards the Emperor.
The treatise on the Liturgy of the Presanctified and the amended synaxarion belong to this polemical context of the second half of the 13th century. Because the Eastern liturgical books provided the Latins with helpful information on the celebration of the liturgy on fast days, Byzantine theologians and/or anti-unionist monks from Athos decided to give it a new meaning. Gregory thus transformed himself from the legislator of the complete liturgy in Rome into the author of the Liturgy of the Presanctified in Constantinople. Subsequent generations accepted the falsified text of the synaxarion and promoted it as a tradition that was difficult to dispute. [9]
[1] Sinai Gr. 548 (10th c.), f. 142r–143v, https://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/cote/58923/ (no. diktyon 58923), open access: https://www.loc.gov/item/00279380745-ms.
[2] Jerusalem, Timiou Stavrou 40 (10th/11th c.), f. 112r–113r, https://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/cote/35936/ (no. diktyon 35936), open acces: https://www.loc.gov/item/00279395633-jo.
[3] B. Martin-Hisard, L’ange et le pape : le témoin géorgien d’une Vie grecque perdue de Grégoire le Grand, in O. Delouis et al. (ed.), Le saint, le moine et le paysan. Mélanges d’histoire byzantine offerts à Michel Kaplan (Byzantina Sorbonensia, 29), Paris, 2016, p. 457–502, https://books.openedition.org/psorbonne/37705.
[4] Milan, Ambrosiana Q.40.sup. (12th c.), f. 136v–137r, https://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/cote/43150/ (no. diktyon 43150).
[5] Berlin, Phillipps 1622 (219) (12th/13th c., no. diktyon 9524), cf. H. Delehaye (ed.), Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae, Acta Sanctorum Propylaeum Novembris, Bruxelles, 1902, col. 531–532.
[6] The text was published by M. Gedeon, Ἀρχείον Ἐκκλησιαστικής Ἱστορίας, Constantinople, 1911, p. 31–35.
[7] The text was published in V. Laurent – J. Darrouzès, Dossier grec de l’Union de Lyon (1273–1277) (Archives de l’Orient chrétien, 16), Paris, 1976, p. 45–52; 346–375. See also Repertorium Auctorum Polemicorum, no. 4482, https://apps.unive.it/project/rap/visualizza/g4482.
[8] Laurent – Darrouzès, Dossier grec, p. 52–59 ; 404–423.
[9] See also S. Alexopoulos, The Presanctified Liturgy in the Byzantine Rite: A Comparative Analysis of Its Origins, Evolution, and Structural Components, Leuven, 2009, p. 47–55; S. Parenti, A Oriente e Occidente di Constantinopoli, Vatican, 2010, p. 75–87; D. Oltean, Le pape Grégoire Ier, l’absolution de l’empereur Théophile et la liturgie byzantine des présanctifiés, in Ostkirchliche Studien, 72.2 (2023), p. 311–338.