Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Rituals

The Anaphora

Also Known As The eucharistic prayer · The canon of the Mass · The great thanksgivingOriginal Term Anaphora
Liturgical Rituals

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Origin Fluid and largely improvised in the earliest sources, settling into fixed texts between the 3rd and 5th centuries

The anaphora is the great prayer said over the bread and cup, and it is the centre of every historic eucharistic rite. The Greek word means the lifting up or the offering. The Roman rite calls the same thing the canon, and Protestant orders call it the prayer of thanksgiving or the great thanksgiving. Its parts are recognisable across languages and centuries: an opening dialogue in which the president tells the people to lift up their hearts, a preface giving thanks for the works of God, the acclamation of the sanctus, the account of the institution, the remembrance that names what is being recalled, an invocation asking God to send the Holy Spirit, prayers for the living and the dead, and a closing doxology to which the people answer amen. The order of those parts is not the same everywhere, and the difference is not cosmetic: the Roman rite asks for the Spirit before the institution narrative and the Byzantine rite asks afterwards, which is why the two traditions locate the moment of consecration in different places.

Facts
Observance
Observance Note
The Roman rite invokes the Spirit before the institution narrative and the eastern rites after it, which is why the two traditions locate the consecration in different moments 4
Disputed
Scholarly Note
The ancestry of the second eucharistic prayer of the 1969 Roman Missal is disputed 5
Many twentieth-century eucharistic prayers were modelled on a prayer preserved in a church order long attributed to Hippolytus of Rome and dated to the early third century, adopted partly on the strength of its claim to be the oldest complete eucharistic prayer known to survive. Paul Bradshaw, Maxwell Johnson and L. Edward Phillips's The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary (2002) argued from close textual and manuscript analysis that the document is in fact a composite, assembled from material of different dates and places rather than a single early third-century Roman work, with no secure link to Hippolytus personally or to Rome, a reading now widely held among liturgical scholars. Other scholars continue to defend an early Roman core beneath the later composite layers. The method is text-critical and comparative, reading the surviving Latin, Ethiopic, Sahidic and other versions of the document against each other and against other early liturgical witnesses. Because the major twentieth-century liturgical revisions built on this text were undertaken before this reassessment, the liturgical decision itself was taken on the older, now largely superseded view.
Origins
Origin Period
Fluid and largely improvised in the earliest sources, settling into fixed texts between the 3rd and 5th centuries 2
Place of Origin
Roman Judaea and Galilee 1
The anaphora descends from the earliest Christian eucharistic prayer over bread and cup; its own text describes the Roman and Byzantine rites placing the invocation of the Spirit at different points, a later liturgical divergence rather than the prayer's origin.
Historical Origin
The developed Byzantine anaphora took shape over the fourth and following centuries, drawing on earlier eucharistic prayer traditions and reaching substantially its present form by the time of the Divine Liturgies attributed to Basil and John Chrysostom. 3
Meaning
Literal Meaning
Greek anaphora, literally the lifting up or the offering, the same prayer other traditions name differently: the canon in the Roman rite, the prayer of thanksgiving or the great thanksgiving in Protestant orders. 1
Text
Source Text
Named families: Basil, John Chrysostom and James in the Byzantine and Antiochene East, Mark in Alexandria, Addai and Mari in the East Syriac tradition, the Canon in Rome 4
Attributions
Tradition
Christianity 1
Purpose
The anaphora exists to consecrate the offered bread and wine and to offer thanksgiving to God the Father over them, fulfilling the command remembered from the Last Supper to do this in remembrance of Christ. Every tradition that prays it treats the prayer as doing something rather than merely describing something, which is why its wording and the exact point at which consecration is held to occur have been argued over for centuries even though its purpose is common ground. 1
Practice
Who Performs It
Clergy or ordained officiants 2
Frequency
Weekly 2
Frequency varies considerably across the many traditions that hold the anaphora: some Roman Catholic and Orthodox practice offers it daily, especially in monastic and clerical life, while for the great majority of lay adherents across nearly every tradition on this list the shared baseline is the weekly Sunday celebration, which is why weekly is recorded rather than daily or occasional.
Liturgical and Scriptural Role
Dialogue, preface, sanctus, institution narrative, anamnesis, invocation of the Spirit, intercessions and doxology, closed by the congregation's amen 2
Learn More
The Shape of the Great Prayer

An anaphora is built out of parts that recur across languages, centuries and churches that have not been in communion for a thousand years. It opens with a dialogue: the president greets the people, tells them to lift up their hearts, and invites them to give thanks. There follows the preface, a thanksgiving for creation and salvation which in the Western rites varies with the season, and it runs into the sanctus, the acclamation of the seraphim from the sixth chapter of Isaiah, sung by everyone. After the sanctus the prayer continues to the account of the institution, then to the anamnesis, the remembrance which states what the church is recalling as it obeys the command to do this. An invocation asks God to send the Holy Spirit on the gifts and on the people. Intercessions name the living, the dead, the local bishop and the church at large. A doxology closes the prayer and the congregation answers amen, which is its consent and its part of the action.

Two structural differences separate the families. The Roman rite places its invocation of the Spirit before the institution narrative, and the Byzantine and other eastern rites place it after, which is why the two traditions have located the consecration in different moments. And the Alexandrian family puts its intercessions early, inside the preface, where the Antiochene family puts them near the end.

The prayer is spoken by one voice and belongs to the whole assembly, which is why the amen at the end is treated in the ancient sources as the essential response and not a formality.

Named Prayers and Their Families

Anaphoras carry the names of the great sees and their bishops, and the names record the tradition that used them rather than a claim about who wrote every line. The Byzantine churches use the anaphora of John Chrysostom on most days and that of Basil ten times a year, in Lent and at the great feasts; the anaphora of James belongs to Jerusalem and Antioch, that of Mark to Alexandria and its Coptic descendant to the Egyptian church, and that of Addai and Mari to the East Syriac tradition. The Ethiopian church keeps more than a dozen in regular use. The Roman rite went the other way and used a single prayer, the Canon, almost alone from late antiquity until 1969, when the reformed Missal added three more beside it.

The second of those new Roman prayers was modelled on a text long printed as the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, a Roman church order of the early third century, and it was adopted partly because it was thought to be the oldest full eucharistic prayer in existence. That attribution has since been taken apart. A detailed commentary published in 2002 argued that the document is a composite assembled over a long period and in more than one place, with no secure connection to Hippolytus or to third century Rome, and that reading is now widely held among liturgical scholars while others continue to defend an early Roman core.

Protestant orders cut the prayer back sharply at the Reformation, chiefly because the Roman Canon speaks of the rite as an offering made by the priest. Full eucharistic prayers were restored across the Protestant West in the twentieth century, many of them drawing on the same ancient families.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Assembled From

The Epiclesis, Rituals

A petition inside the great prayer.

Source The Shape of the LiturgyGregory Dix

The institution narrative sits inside the great prayer in the historic rites.

Source The Shape of the LiturgyGregory Dix

Belongs to Tradition

Kept in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first denomination in the United States founded by Black people. The Great Thanksgiving is a full anaphora, restored to Methodist worship in the twentieth century after two hundred years in which the Supper was celebrated from a much shorter form.

Kept in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. The Great Thanksgiving is a full anaphora, restored to Methodist worship in the twentieth century after two hundred years in which the Supper was celebrated from a much shorter form.

Kept across the provinces of the Anglican Communion. The Prayer of Consecration is the Anglican anaphora, and the arrangement of its parts differs between the English, Scottish and American books.

The Prayer of Consecration is the Anglican anaphora, and the arrangement of its parts differs between the English, Scottish and American books.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings

Kept in the Armenian Apostolic Church. Each of these churches has its own family of anaphoras, and the Ethiopian church uses more of them, fourteen in the received collection, than any other in Christendom.

The Anaphora of Addai and Mari is used, and it is the oldest eucharistic prayer in continuous use anywhere in Christianity. It carries no institution narrative in its received form, which is a difference from every other historic rite and not an omission.

Kept in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. The Great Thanksgiving is a full anaphora, restored to Methodist worship in the twentieth century after two hundred years in which the Supper was celebrated from a much shorter form.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Kept in the Church of Cyprus, autocephalous since the Council of Ephesus in 431. The anaphoras of St John Chrysostom and St Basil the Great are used according to a fixed calendar, the longer Basil on ten days of the year.

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. The Prayer of Consecration is the Anglican anaphora, and the arrangement of its parts differs between the English, Scottish and American books.

Kept in the Church of Greece. The anaphoras of St John Chrysostom and St Basil the Great are used according to a fixed calendar, the longer Basil on ten days of the year.

Kept in the Church of Ireland. The Prayer of Consecration is the Anglican anaphora, and the arrangement of its parts differs between the English, Scottish and American books.

Kept in the Church of the Nazarene, which stands in the Wesleyan holiness line. The Great Thanksgiving is a full anaphora, restored to Methodist worship in the twentieth century after two hundred years in which the Supper was celebrated from a much shorter form.

Kept in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. Each of these churches has its own family of anaphoras, and the Ethiopian church uses more of them, fourteen in the received collection, than any other in Christendom.

The anaphoras of St John Chrysostom and St Basil the Great are used according to a fixed calendar, the longer Basil on ten days of the year.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft

Kept in the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the see of first honour among the Orthodox churches. The anaphoras of St John Chrysostom and St Basil the Great are used according to a fixed calendar, the longer Basil on ten days of the year.

Kept in the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Each of these churches has its own family of anaphoras, and the Ethiopian church uses more of them, fourteen in the received collection, than any other in Christendom.

Kept in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Each of these churches has its own family of anaphoras, and the Ethiopian church uses more of them, fourteen in the received collection, than any other in Christendom.

Kept in the Free Methodist Church. The Great Thanksgiving is a full anaphora, restored to Methodist worship in the twentieth century after two hundred years in which the Supper was celebrated from a much shorter form.

Kept in the Georgian Orthodox Church, which has used its own language and script in worship since the fifth century. The anaphoras of St John Chrysostom and St Basil the Great are used according to a fixed calendar, the longer Basil on ten days of the year.

Kept in the Global Methodist Church, formed in 2022. The Great Thanksgiving is a full anaphora, restored to Methodist worship in the twentieth century after two hundred years in which the Supper was celebrated from a much shorter form.

Kept in the Greek Orthodox churches. The anaphoras of St John Chrysostom and St Basil the Great are used according to a fixed calendar, the longer Basil on ten days of the year.

The Maronite anaphoras are Syriac, and the Anaphora of the Twelve Apostles is the one most used.

The Great Thanksgiving is a full anaphora, restored to Methodist worship in the twentieth century after two hundred years in which the Supper was celebrated from a much shorter form.

Source The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist ChurchUnited Methodist Churchthe holders' own account

Each of these churches has its own family of anaphoras, and the Ethiopian church uses more of them, fourteen in the received collection, than any other in Christendom.

The Roman rite calls its anaphora the canon, and since the Second Vatican Council several eucharistic prayers stand alongside the Roman Canon.

Source General Instruction of the Roman Missal, third typical editionCongregation for Divine Worshipthe holders' own account

Kept in the Romanian Orthodox Church, the one Orthodox church of the Byzantine tradition whose language is Romance. The anaphoras of St John Chrysostom and St Basil the Great are used according to a fixed calendar, the longer Basil on ten days of the year.

Kept in the Russian Orthodox Church, in the Slavonic recension of the Byzantine books. The anaphoras of St John Chrysostom and St Basil the Great are used according to a fixed calendar, the longer Basil on ten days of the year.

Kept in the Serbian Orthodox Church. The anaphoras of St John Chrysostom and St Basil the Great are used according to a fixed calendar, the longer Basil on ten days of the year.

Kept in the Episcopal Church, whose own Prayer Book descends from the Scottish rather than the English line. The Prayer of Consecration is the Anglican anaphora, and the arrangement of its parts differs between the English, Scottish and American books.

Kept in the United Methodist Church. The Great Thanksgiving is a full anaphora, restored to Methodist worship in the twentieth century after two hundred years in which the Supper was celebrated from a much shorter form.

The Byzantine anaphoras are used.

Kept in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The anaphoras of St John Chrysostom and St Basil the Great are used according to a fixed calendar, the longer Basil on ten days of the year.

Kept in the Wesleyan Church. The Great Thanksgiving is a full anaphora, restored to Methodist worship in the twentieth century after two hundred years in which the Supper was celebrated from a much shorter form.

Part Of

The prayer of Basil, used ten times a year in the Byzantine rite.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft

The great prayer of the Byzantine liturgy attributed to Chrysostom.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft

Related To

The Lamb cut from this loaf is what the great prayer is said over.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft

The Protestant orders cut the great prayer back sharply, and the twentieth century restored it.

Source Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, Faith and Order Paper No. 111World Council of Churches, Commission on Faith and Order

The Roman rite calls its own anaphora the Canon and used one alone for well over a thousand years.

Source General Instruction of the Roman Missal, third typical editionCongregation for Divine Worshipthe holders' own account
Sources
1. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005View the Source
2. The Shape of the Liturgy
Gregory Dix, Dacre Press, 1945View the Source
3. Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes
John Meyendorff, Fordham University Press, 1979View the Source
4. The Byzantine Rite: A Short History
Robert F. Taft, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, 1992View the Source
5. The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary
Paul F. Bradshaw, Maxwell E. Johnson and L. Edward Phillips, Fortress Press, Minneapolis (Hermeneia), 2002
General Instruction of the Roman Missal, third typical edition
Congregation for Divine Worship, Congregation for Divine Worship, 2002the holders' own accountView the Source
Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, Faith and Order Paper No. 111
World Council of Churches, Commission on Faith and Order, World Council of Churches, Geneva, 1982
The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church
United Methodist Church, The United Methodist Publishing Housethe holders' own accountView the Source
The Book of Common Prayer
Church of England; ed. Brian Cummings, Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 2011View the Source
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