The Anaphora

What you'll notice

The deacon's voice sharpens. "Let us stand aright, let us stand with fear, that we may offer in peace the Holy Oblation." The choir: "A mercy of peace, a sacrifice of praise."¹ The priest turns to face you for a blessing, then turns back: "Lift up your hearts." "We lift them up unto the Lord." "Let us give thanks unto the Lord." The choir answers that it is meet and right.²

Then, for a while, you mostly hear the choir. They sing "Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabaoth…" slowly, and then an "Amen," and then you hear the priest's voice rise for a sentence you'll recognize if you've been in any church: "Take, eat, this is my Body…" Amen. "Drink ye all of this: for this is my Blood…" Amen.³ Then: "Thine own, of thine own, we offer unto thee, in behalf of all, and for all,"⁴ and the choir begins "We praise thee, we bless thee…,"⁵ very slowly, while behind the screen the priest and deacon bow to the floor. Everyone in the nave bows with them. In a Slavic parish, the bells ring outside.

In Greek parishes most of the prayer between those landmarks is said quietly at the altar; in many OCA and Antiochian parishes the priest says it aloud and the quiet minutes aren't quiet. Either way, this is the center of the service and the room knows it.

What it's called

The Anaphora, Greek for "offering up" (Ἀναφορά); also the Eucharistic Prayer, from eucharisteo, "I give thanks," which is what "Let us give thanks unto the Lord" says in Greek. Its parts have names: the opening dialogue; the Sanctus ("Holy, holy, holy"); the words of institution ("Take, eat"); the anamnesis ("remembering"); the epiclesis ("calling down"); and the commemorations, which get the next stop.

What's actually happening

The priest is telling God the whole story, out loud or under his breath, and asking Him to finish it.

The prayer thanks the Father for everything: creation, the fall, the long rescue, the Son, the Supper. It remembers the Supper in Christ's words. Then it remembers everything at once: "the Cross, the Grave, the Resurrection on the third day, the Ascension into Heaven, the Sitting on the right hand, the Second and glorious Coming-again."⁶ Notice the tense. The second coming is "remembered." This kind of remembering, anamnesis, doesn't look back at the past; it makes the thing present. The whole Incarnation is our salvation, not only the death: the life, the words, the miracles, the burial, the rising, the ascending, the praying for us now.

Then the offering: "Thine own, of thine own, we offer unto thee."⁷ King David said it first, when the people brought gifts for the Temple: "all things come from You, and of Your own we have given You" (1 Chronicles 29:14 (1 Paralipomenon 29:14 in the Septuagint)). We bring bread and wine, and we bring them back.

Then the epiclesis. The priest asks the Father to "send thy Holy Spirit upon us, and upon these Gifts here spread forth," and make the bread the Body of Christ and the cup the Blood of Christ, "Transmuting them by thy Holy Spirit." The deacon: "Amen, amen, amen."⁸ In Russian usage the priest first says a short hymn to the Holy Spirit borrowed from the Third Hour;⁹ Greek usage has no such thing. The words, the actions, the sign of the cross, the faith of our Amen: these are what the Holy Spirit honors when He comes upon the gifts.

Why it matters

Because it's real. Saint Ignatius of Antioch, on his way to be executed around the year 107, wrote that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior.¹⁰ Saint Justin Martyr, fifty years later: we don't receive these as common bread and common drink.¹¹ Saint Irenaeus, a generation after that: the bread, receiving the invocation of God, is no longer common bread but Eucharist.¹² Three witnesses within a century of the apostles, and the Church hasn't changed her mind. Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, lecturing in the 350s, walks through these very steps: lift up your hearts, give thanks, sing the Holy, holy, holy, call down the Spirit.¹³

It's also a sacrifice, which is why the deacon warned you to stand well. Malachi foresaw a pure offering made to God "in every place" among the nations (Malachi 1:11), and the Church has read that as the Eucharist since the Didache, which quotes the verse over the Sunday breaking of bread.¹⁴ Saint Cyprian said the sacrifice we offer is the Passion of the Lord.¹⁵ Christ offered Himself once, for all (Hebrews 10:10); the Liturgy doesn't repeat that, it enters it. And it's done on God's terms. Christianity is a revealed faith; it is meet and right to worship the Creator, and to do so the way He asked.

Catholics will notice the Orthodox don't usually point to one instant when the change happens; the words of institution, the remembering, and the calling of the Spirit are one prayer. Most Orthodox writers say the whole prayer does it, though some point to the epiclesis. The West has tended to locate the moment at "This is My Body." It's a real difference, and an old one, and it's not a reason to raise your voice.

Where it came from

Justin, in 150, describes the president giving thanks "at considerable length" over bread and wine and water and the people answering Amen.¹⁶ That's the Anaphora in one sentence. The prayer we use on most Sundays carries Saint John Chrysostom's name and comes from Antioch, where he was a priest in the fourth century; the longer one used about ten times a year carries Saint Basil's and comes from his Cappadocia.¹⁷ Basil's retells salvation history at nearly three times the length, which is why the choir sings slower on the Sundays of Lent and you should pace yourself.

The prayers went quiet sometime in the sixth century, at least in places. Emperor Justinian's Novel 137, issued in 565, ordered bishops and priests to say the prayers of the service and of baptism "not in an undertone" but so the faithful could hear,¹⁸ which tells you some had stopped. Over the centuries the prayers came to be said quietly.

Whether that was a loss is a live argument, and this guide won't referee it. Father Robert Taft, the great historian of the Byzantine Liturgy, argued that the anaphora was once said aloud and that some of it should be heard again; the Church of Greece's Holy Synod said much the same in 2004.¹⁹ Father John Whiteford answers that the low voice "is the undoubted ancient and universal Tradition of the Church," and that picking the early practices you like "is Jurassic Park Liturgics."²⁰ Parishes differ here: some now say the anaphora aloud; most still say it quietly, with only the exclamations heard.

What you do

If you're Orthodox: stand still, which is the one thing the deacon asked. Say the Amens out loud; they're yours, and Cabasilas says the Amen is how the people make the priest's prayer their own. Bow your head at "Take, eat." At the epiclesis, bow deeply from the waist; on a weekday many go to the floor, on Sunday the Church asks you to stay on your feet. Don't move through the nave for any reason between "Let us stand aright" and the end of "We praise thee."

If you're visiting: this is the part Catholics call the Consecration and Protestants call the Lord's Supper, and nothing is asked of you but to stand and let it happen. If the people around you bow to the floor, you can bow your head. And if you wonder what he's saying back there, you're not the first to ask: any Liturgy book prints the quiet prayers in full, so you can read what you can't hear.

Field Note: lift up your hearts. The line is Scripture before it's liturgy: "Let us lift our hearts and hands to God in heaven" (Lamentations 3:41). In Jerusalem around 350, Saint Cyril put it practically: leave the everyday cares at the door, because this is no hour for them.²¹ It's the same request the Cherubic Hymn made ten minutes ago, asked a second time in case you'd picked your worries back up.

Field Note: Sabaoth. The choir sings "Lord of Sabaoth," not "Lord of hosts," because the Church kept the Hebrew word Isaiah heard the seraphim use (Isaiah 6:3). It means armies. You are standing in one. The second half of the hymn, "Blessed is He who comes," is the Palm Sunday crowd (Matthew 21:9).

Go deeper

• 1 Chronicles 29:10–19; Hebrews 9–10.
• Hapgood, Service Book, pp. 100–106, the quiet prayers included.
• Saint Nicholas Cabasilas, A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, the chapters on the anaphora.
• The Liturgy of Saint Basil on a Sunday of Lent.

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