Byzantine Liturgies and Offices, and Liturgical Theology

This course includes reading and basic knowledge of the core liturgical rites for the Divine Eucharist in the Byzantine (Orthodox and Eastern Catholic) churches, and also includes the liturgical history of the evolution of those rites. Guest lectures will also cover the Eucharistic liturgies of the Oriental Orthodox churches, specifically the Coptic and Ethiopian rites. The course's aim includes not only archaeological-historical knowledge or simple encounter with these texts and rubrics, but also theological grasp of the significance, the reasons, the deep exegetical meanings, and also the 'poetics', which underlie the present form of Eucharistic rites. In the Orthodox Way, in Liturgy, the Orthodox faithful discover the reality of church as community and the final reality of theosis, the way toward God.