By
His
Eminence
Metropolitan
Panteleimon of Antinoes
The Liturgy of the
Presanctified Gifts, informally the Presanctified Liturgy, is a liturgical
service for the distribution of the Holy Gifts on the weekdays of Great Lent.
Communion during Great Lent: Because Great Lent is a
season of repentance, fasting, and intensified prayer, the Orthodox Church
regards more frequent reception of communion as especially desirable at that
time. However, the Divine Liturgy has a festal character not in keeping with
the season. Thus, the Presanctified Liturgy is celebrated instead; the Divine
Liturgy is only performed on Saturdays and Sundays. Although it is possible to
celebrate this service on any weekday of Great Lent, the service is prescribed
to be celebrated only on Wednesdays and Fridays of Lent, Thursday of the fifth
week of Lent (when the Great Canon of St. Andrew is read), and Monday to
Wednesday of Holy Week. Common parish practice is to celebrate it on as many as
possible of these days.
During Lent, many
Orthodox faithful fast sometimes from midnight and sometimes the entire
workday, not eating anything after the morning meal until they break the fast
with Holy Communion at this evening service. They have this anticipation to
help them with this somewhat difficult ascetic discipline.
Presanctified Liturgy: The service consists of Daily Vespers
combined with additional prayers and communion. The communion bread has already
been consecrated and intincted with the precious Blood and reserved at the
previous Sunday's Divine Liturgy. Unconsecrated wine is placed in the chalice.
Local practice also varies as to whether or not this wine must be thought of as
the Blood of Christ. The only practical effect of this variety is that the
celebrant who must consume all the undistributed communion at the end of the
service might or might not partake of the chalice when he communes himself.
The service is preceded
by the reading of the Typical Psalms, and the Divine Liturgy's opening
blessing, Blessed is the Kingdom... is used at the start of the part of the
service that resembles daily vespers. Psalm 103, Bless the Lord, O my soul is
read. The Great Litany is then intoned and then Psalms 119–133 are read. Then
the choir sings Lord, I have cried unto Thee with stichera. The priest makes an
entrance with the censer. If the occasion is a feast, the entrance is with the
Gospel Book and there is then an epistle and gospel reading for the feast day.
The choir sings O
Gladsome Light, and the first reading, from Genesis (or Exodus), is read with a
prokeimenon. Then the priest intones Wisdom, let us attend. The Light of Christ
enlightened all men, and those praying prostrate themselves. The second
reading, from Proverbs (or Job) is read.
In the second part of
the service, the choir chants Let my prayer be directed as incense before Thee,
after which the prayer of St. Ephraim is read. After a litany the choir sings
Now the powers of Heaven with us invisibly do worship, and the presanctified
Gifts are brought into the holy altar in a procession resembling the Great
Entrance at a Divine Liturgy but in silence. There is no anaphora because the
gifts are pre-consecrated.
The prayer of St.
Ephraim the Syrian is repeated, and the Litany of Petition is proclaimed. The
choir sings the Lord's Prayer, after which the priest intones: The
Presanctified Holy Things are for the holy. The Holy Sacraments are brought out
through the Royal Doors, and the faithful receive Holy Communion. After the
Litany of Thanksgiving and the prayer before the Ambo ("Every good and
perfect gift is from above..."), the believers venerate the Holy Cross.
