MISSALS OF THE ORIENTALS

The Orientals use many more books in the service of the altar than we. The Greeks alone employ as many as eighteen, the principal of which are the following: 1, the Euchology, which contains the three Liturgies used by all who follow the Greek Rite—viz., the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom, that of St. Basil, and the Liturgy of the Presanctified; 2, the Praxapostolos, so called from its containing the Acts of the Apostles and their Epistles; 3, the Anagnoseis, or book containing the lessons read from the Old Testament; 4, the Panegyricon, or collection of sermons for the various festivals of the year (this book is generally in manuscript).

As Dr. Neale very justly remarks in his History of the Holy Eastern Church, vol. ii. p. 819, it is next to impossible to get any clear idea of the books used by the Oriental Church in the service of the altar. Their number is interminable, and there is nothing but confusion in their service, on account of the constant turning backward and forward from one book to another in order to find the particular portion to be read. Add to all this that there is no such thing known with them as a translation of a feast; and hence when an occurrence of feasts happens all are celebrated together, with a jumble of rubrics which it is impossible to describe. The Typicon, or Ordo, for the feast of St. George, for example, fills about ten pages of a quarto volume, and this on account of all the other feasts that occur with it or fall on the same day.