Anaphora of Addai and Mari

Anaphora of Addai and Mari
Name	Anaphora of Addai and Mari
Type	Eucharistic liturgy
Tradition	East Syriac Rite
Language	Classical Syriac
Attributed to	Addai; Mari
Date	3rd–5th century (traditionally); attested manuscripts from 6th–7th centuries
Manuscripts	Diarbekir codices; Ephesus fragments; Mosul folios

Anaphora of Addai and Mari

The Anaphora of Addai and Mari is the oldest extant Eucharistic prayer in the East Syriac Rite, traditionally attributed to the apostles Addai and Mari. It functions as the central eucharistic anaphora for communities such as the Assyrian Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, and the Syriac Orthodox Church in certain usages, and has played a pivotal role in liturgical history across Mesopotamia, Persia, and the Levant. The anaphora's antiquity and textual variants have generated sustained scholarly debate in the fields represented by institutions like Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, University of Oxford, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas.

History and Origins

Scholars situate the composition of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari within the milieu of late antique Edessa, Nisibis, and Seleucia-Ctesiphon, interacting with liturgical formations in Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople. Proponents of early dating point to parallels with the anaphoral fragments preserved in the Peshitta and citations in the works of Ephrem the Syrian, Jacob of Serugh, and Ibas of Edessa. Alternative hypotheses propose a layered redaction influenced by communities tied to the Sasanian Empire and contact with Byzantine liturgical praxis. The anaphora’s nominal attribution to Addai and Mari echoes the apostolic provenance claims seen in texts linked to Apostolic Constitutions, Didache, and other early Christian liturgical families.

Liturgical Text and Structure

The anaphora is distinctive for its relatively concise euchological body, organized into an opening preface, an extended anamnesis, and intercessory elements, concluding with a doxology and an epiclesis which in some recensions is implicit. Comparative studies contrast its arrangement with the ordines of Ambrose of Milan, the long anaphoras of John Chrysostom, and the euchologies preserved in the Roman Rite sacramentaries. Manuscript witnesses reveal rubrics for celebrant posture, calvary-adjacent liturgical gestures akin to practices in Mount Athos and instructions comparable to those in the Monastery of Saint Catherine. Liturgical scholars from École Pratique des Hautes Études and Gregorian University have cataloged variants that show interpolations from local usages linked to Nuhadra (Dohuk), Amida (Diyarbakır), and Karka d'Beth Slokh (Kirkuk).

Theological Significance and Eucharistic Doctrine

The anaphora’s theology emphasizes thanksgiving, cosmic praise, and the memorial character of the Eucharist with an implicit or explicit invocation of the Holy Spirit depending on recension. Debates involving the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches have focused on whether the text’s lack of an explicit Words of Institution in some manuscripts affects its validity relative to doctrines articulated at the Council of Trent, the Council of Chalcedon, and the Second Vatican Council. The 2001 common agreement between the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Assyrian Church of the East recognized the anaphora’s capacity to convey Eucharistic mystery despite textual differences, engaging theological offices such as Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and theologians affiliated with University of Notre Dame and Pontifical Oriental Institute.

Usage in East Syriac Traditions

Historically and today, the anaphora functions within the liturgical cycles of the East Syriac Rite in rites celebrated by the Assyrian Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church in certain communities, and among diaspora parishes in Chicago, Tehran, Beirut, and Melbourne. Local customs affect insertion of commemorations for figures like Saint Thomas the Apostle, Diodore of Tarsus, and Mar Aba I, and the text interpolates saints from calendars such as those of Mardin and Erbil. Liturgists from Holy Apostles College and seminary programs in Rome and Bangalore train clergy in recensions that differ in rubrics, epiclesis formulae, and frequency of use during the liturgical year.

Manuscripts, Language, and Transmissions

Manuscript evidence appears in corpora held at repositories such as the British Library, the Vatican Library, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France with notable codices originating from Diarbekir, Mosul, and Alqosh. Textual witnesses employ Classical Syriac script with marginalia in Garshuni and, in later copies, Arabic glosses reflecting transmission through the Abbasid Caliphate and contact with Ottoman chancelleries. Philologists from Harvard University and University of Leiden have mapped variant readings, palaeographic features, and colophons mentioning figures like Rabban Hormizd and Ibn al-Muhanna, tracing liturgical diffusion to Kerala via Malabar Syrian Christians and to Central Asia along caravan routes.

Modern Liturgical Revisions and Ecumenical Dialogues

Since the 20th century, liturgical commissions in the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church undertook revisions influenced by scholarship from Patrologia Orientalis and the Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium. Ecumenical dialogues accelerated after bilateral statements involving the Holy See and the Assyrian patriarchate, leading to pastoral provisions and scholarly exchanges with faculties at St. Paul University and Yale Divinity School. Contemporary editions aim to balance fidelity to manuscripts with pastoral intelligibility for communities in Sydney and Detroit, while canonists and liturgists continue to assess implications for intercommunion and sacramental theology in conversations with bodies such as the International Commission on English in the Liturgy.

Category:Eucharistic liturgies Category:East Syriac liturgy Category:Syriac Christianity