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The Festival of Encaenia Ecclesiae in the Ancient Church with special reference to Palestine and Syria1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
Extract
Strictly speaking, there is only one festival of encaenia in the ancient Church reported by our ancient or modern authorities on the subject, the feast of the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, instituted on 13 September 335 to mark the tricennalia of the emperor Constantine, and described for us by Eusebius in his Life of Constantine. The rebuilding of churches after the persecution under Diocletian, and a similar encaenia of the Church of Tyre are even more fully recorded in the tenth Book of the History. Both dedications were accompanied by a long panegyric of the emperor, delivered by Eusebius himself, extolling Constantine as a second Solomon, and were the occasion for similar festive addresses and theological discourses from other visiting ecclesiastical dignitaries: but, apart from the magnificence of the occasion, the public banquets, the vast concourse of delegates from every part of the Christian world (Eusebius seems to be as anxious as Luke in his account of Pentecost in Acts ii. to emphasise the ecumenical character of the occasion), there is nothing unexpected in any of the rites or ceremonies performed at the encaenia; in addition to the celebration of the Eucharist, they consisted for the most part of prayers for the general peace, for the Church of God and for the emperor, Scripture readings, singing of psalms, and the lavish distribution of alms.
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References
page 78 note 2 Cf. Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, s.v. Consecration. Dedications of churches in the West have traditionally been celebrated at any time in the Christian year, generally on the saint's day on which the church was dedicated. The dedication of the great churches in Rome, e.g. the Lateran Basilica, are celebrated on fixed days in November throughout the Roman Church; in the eighteenth century, partly in consequence of abuses of individual celebrations, a single day (10 November) was set aside for all such anniversaries.
page 78 note 3 Chs. xliii-xlvii.
page 78 note 4 He tells us that ‘the whole of Syria and Mesopotamia, Phoenicia and Arabia, Palestine, Egypt and Libya, with the dwellers in the Thebaid, all contributed to swell the mighty concourse of God's ministers.…’ (ibid., ch. xliii).
page 79 note 1 Pilgrimage of Etheria, ed. M. L. McClure and C. L. Feltoe, S.P.C.K., 95 ff. The most recent dating of the Peregrinatio sets it towards the end of the fourth century. Cf. Ethérie: Journal de Voyage, H. Voyage, Paris 1948, 14 ff.
page 80 note 1 Cf., e.g., Herbert Thurston's article in the Catholic Encyclopaedia, iv. 532, s.v. Cross.
page 80 note 2 See Nilles, N., Kalendarium Manuale utriusque ecclesiae orientalis et occidentalis, Oeniponte 1897, i. 18, 274.Google Scholar
page 80 note 3 Catholic Encyclopaedia, l.c.
page 80 note 4 Nilles, op. cit., ii. 563.
page 80 note 5 Ibid., 601. Another title for the festival is festum encaeniorum sancti crucis (l.c.). If this is not just a single scribe's blunder, it preserves an interesting (and quite impossible) attempt at compromise.
page 80 note 6 Nilles, ii. 642. Baumstark, A., Festbrevier und Kirchenjahr der syrischen Jakobiten, Paderborn 1910, 167 ff.Google Scholar
page 81 note 1 Anonymi auctoris Expositio Officiorum Ecclesiae in Corpus Scriptorum Orientalium Christianorum, Scriptores Syri, ser. ii, torn. xli.
page 81 note 2 Op. cit., 3.
page 81 note 3 Geschichte der syrischen Literatur, 239.
page 81 note 4 Op. cit., 17 (foot). Cf. W. G. van Unnik, Nestorian Questions on the Euc harist, Haarlem 1937, 123 ff.
page 81 note 5 Ibid., 18.
page 81 note 6 pp. 23, 106 ff.
page 81 note 7 His argument for Ishojabh's reform is that the beginning of the natural year corresponds to the corrupt natural creation, and precedence should therefore be given to the Christian dispensation beginning with Advent by which the natural world was redeemed.
page 82 note 1 The Nestorian ecclesiastical year is divided into 7 cycles of approximately 7 weeks (shabu'e, hebdomades), of which the 6th is dedicated to Elijah and the 7th to Moses.
page 82 note 2 p. 29. It is no objection to the existence of such a festival so late in December that it would have interfered with Christmas. The Christmas festival does not appear to have been introduced into the East before the end of the fourth century; and Etheria leaves no room for doubt that in Jerusalem in her time the Feast of the Nativity was kept on 6 January.
page 82 note 3 Baumstark, op. cit., 167.
page 82 note 4 East Syrian Daily Offices, London 1894Google Scholar, xxv.
page 83 note 1 One interpretation of the encaenia given is that it refers to the dedication of Gentile churches (ecclesiae) quae sunt inter gentes, and that it was because the Apostles (sic) brought them all to Jerusalem into one congregation, that Ishojabh instituted the festival (p. 31 foot, 32 top).
page 84 note 1 A Palestinian Syriac Lectionary, Stud. Sin. vi. p. cxxxiii. November appears to have been the favourite month for dedications in ancient Christian Jerusalem. Cf. Heinrich Goussen, ‘Über georgische Drucke und Handschriften : die Festordnung und den Heiligenkalendar des altchristlichen Jerusalems betreffend,’ in Liturgie und Kunst, Band iv. (1923).
page 84 note 2 Cf. Augusti, J. C. W., Denkwurdigkeiten aus der christlichen Archäologie, Leipzig 1820, ii. 312 ff.Google Scholar On the English ‘wakes’, see Harington, E. C., Rite of Consecration of Churches, London 1844, 65 ff.Google Scholar