Claudia Rapp: Euchologia as Sources for Daily Life and Social History: a New Approach

Byzantine prayer books (euchologia) contain—in addition to the eucharistic and sacramental liturgies— a vast number of ‘small prayers’ pronounced by the clergy that address the concerns of all levels of society, regardless of social and economic status, at various occasions in a human being’s lifetime. Yet, they have gone largely unexplored as a source for daily life and social history, in large part because of the challenges posed by their transmission.

Euchologia are extant in manuscripts beginning with the late eighth century and well into the post-Byzantine period. Their exact number is unknown. In the early 15^th century, it was estimated to amount to about 2,000. There is considerable variation between the manuscripts in the number, sequence, content and concern of the small prayers, depending on the community where the euchologion was used. While scholars have studied individual prayer book manuscripts, a comprehensive study of the entire tradition of Byzantine euchologia has not yet been attempted.

Unlocking the potential of the small prayers in the euchologia as a source for daily life and social history requires a systematic, step-by-step effort of a research team over an extended period of time.

This paper will introduce the new project at the Division of Byzantine Research, IMAFO, Austrian Academy of Sciences: a systematic study of euchologia, through a combination of individual, thematically focused research projects and the creation of the first-ever database of prayer books in manuscript form, in a fully searcheable, open access format that unlocks the wealth of issues and concerns addressed in the small prayers. The database is designed to facilitate potential future research in other areas as well, such as liturgical studies.

Vitaly Permiakov: "Thine Own of Thine Own": Prayers for Animal Sacrifice in Byzantine and Non-Byzantine Euchologia

While the importance of animal sacrifice in the context of various non- and pre-Christian rituals, including the liturgy of ancient Israel, is without question, the position of animal sacrifice within the Christian liturgical life has often been a precarious one. Thus, for the Byzantine church, canon 99 of the Council in Trullo (692) explicitly forbade what "is done in the land of Armenians": the offering of sacrificial meat and its distribution in the sanctuary.
Nevertheless, the presence of prayers for the sacrificial offerings of animals in Byzantine euchologia (such as Barberini gr. 336, f. 222v-223v), as well as in the Georgian witness to the Jerusalem euchologion (Sinai Georgian O.12) attest to some continuation of sacrificial offerings in Byzantine and non-Byzantine Christian churches. Previous studies of animal offerings in Christianity have focused on the social context for the survival of sacrificial practices in Late Antiquity and Byzantium and scrutinized the reception of this practice by the Armenian Apostolic Church, where it is present as a rite for a "blessing of matał [young (calf)]."
This paper will examine the prayers for the animal sacrifice that are found in the euchologia of the traditions other than that of the Armenian church - primarily, the Byzantine and Jerusalem euchologia. It will focus on the theological content of these prayers and, by comparing different regional traditions of the liturgy, will try to discern the specific liturgical setting of such prayers in the liturgical year and in the cycle of Christian life.

Claudia Rapp: Euchologia as Sources for Daily Life and Social History: a New Approach

Hundreds of euchologia (prayer books for the use of priests) survive in Byzantine manuscripts, beginning with the late eighth century. In addition to the sacramental liturgies, they contain a multitude of ‘small prayers’ that address situations of everyday life. These respresent a rich, but hitherto untapped source for the real-life concerns of women, men, and children across all social strata.
This panel intends to bring prayer books into focus as objects of study on several levels, in order to begin a conversation between specialists in manuscript study, liturgy, and lay piety.
The Workshop will take place in one 2.5 hour session. It will consist of seven paper presentations, of 15 minutes each, with a total of 45 minutes discussion time. Discussion will be scheduled after the fourth paper for 15 minutes, and after the last paper, for 30 minutes.
Euchologia as Sources for Daily Life and Social History: a New Approach Claudia Rapp, Vienna
Studying Byzantine Prayer Books: Taxonomies of Prayers and Manuscripts Daniel Galadza, Vienna
Manuscript Studies as Revealing the History of Use of Euchologia Giulia Rossetto, Vienna
Byzantine Prayers and their Historical Context Elisabeth Schiffer, Vienna
Gendering the Baby in Byzantine Prayers on Child-Bed Eirini Afentoulidou, Vienna
Unknown Twelfth-Century Prayers relating to Educational Affairs Ilias C. Nesseris, Istanbul
“Thine Own of Thine Own”:  Prayers for Animal Sacrifice in Byzantine and Non-Byzantine Euchologia Vitaly Permiakov, Jordanville, NY

Maria Munkholt Christensen: Witnessed by angels: The role of angels in relation to prayer in four ante-Nicene euchological treatises

On the basis of four treatises on prayer from the third century, this paper investigates the role of angels in connection with the act of praying. The sources are: Clement of Alexandria's Stromateis, Book 7, Origen's Peri Euchês, Tertullian's De Oratione and Cyprian's De Oratione Dominica. Despite of the different emphases in these treatises, they all accentuate the social relations connected with the act of praying. Most important are the vertical relations to the triune God and the horizontal relations to the fellow Christians. The authors, however, envisioned that more celestial agents were involved in the act of prayer, e.g. angels, but the authors understood the role of angels differently. For instance, Clement describes the angels as praying by themselves (Stromateis 7.7), whereas Origen points out that the angels pray with the Church (Peri Euchês 31.5); and Cyprian mentions the angel Raphael's role as mediator between humans and God (De Oratione Dominica 33). There are many more examples. The aim of the paper is to investigate these different roles of angels with the purpose of sketching out the "social world" in which the Late Antique Christians shaped their Christian identity.

Giulia Rossetto: Manuscript Studies as Revealing the History of Use of Euchologia

From the perspective of the archaeology of the book, manuscripts are regarded as textual objects, specifically as excellent records of the “material culture”, since they reflect on tangible material grounds the history of the communities which produced and made use of them.
Byzantine prayer books (euchologia) can offer valuable information about the social and regional context of their production and use, based both on their content and traces of usage, especially annotations, in the manuscript itself: of particular relevance in this regard are the “small prayers” of everyday use that are aimed at every believer regardless of their social and economic status.
A detailed and accurate codicological and palaeographical analysis of these handwritten documents represents a major premise in order to identify the textual and regional communities that the euchologia served, helping to understand the place of copying and usage of an euchologion and, consequently, the liturgical tradition it reflects.
This paper will compare euchologia from South Italy and from the Saint Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai in order to demonstrate the methodological potential of this approach.

Daniel Galadza: Studying Byzantine Prayer Books: Taxonomies of Prayers and Manuscripts

This paper presents an historical overview of the study of the Byzantine prayer book—the Euchologion. The modern study of the Euchologion began with Jacques Goar's (1601–1653) edition Euchologion, sive Rituale Graecorum... in 1647 and continued with Alexei Dmitrievskii's (1856–1929) Opisanie liturgicheskikh rukopisei..., vol. 2: Euchologia, published in 1901. Since then, various taxonomies of the Euchologion have been proposed by liturgiologists based on the liturgical environment where the book was used [Miguel Arranz (1930–2008)], the textual recensions of its liturgies and prayers [André Jacob (b. 1933)], and the regional provenance of Euchologion manuscripts [Stefano Parenti (b. 1959)], to name a few. These taxonomies are presented and analyzed in order to understand the current state of research, propose classifications of Euchologia prayers and manuscripts, and indicate questions and desiderata for further research.

Ilias Nesseris: Unkown Prayers on Education in Twelfth-Century Byzantium

Among the various prayers for all kind of daily life activities that can be found in Goar’s edition of the Euchologion are included three which concern children’s education. The first two involve the young child’s sending off to the school of primary education to learn the so-called hiera grammata, while the third is an interesting service regarding mischievous students.
In addition to these prayers, there exist many others that remain unknown because they are not preserved in Byzantine and post-Byzantine prayer books, but in manuscripts containing school material, namely schedographies, i.e. collections consisting of numerous short pieces called schedē composed for the teaching of grammar. These unknown prayers are exceptional both in form/type and content for a variety of reasons: their precise classification would be prayers in the form of schedē; they were composed ad hoc for various specific aspects of school life, such as the annual examinations at the end of the school year; their composers were, in some cases, well-known teachers, such as Constantine Manasses, or others that have remained anonymous; finally, they were composed for individual students rather than the entire student body in general.
The aim of the present paper is to analyze and present all these unknown prayers for the first time, to expand on their significance for the educational affairs of the late Byzantine and post-Byzantine period and place them in their social context, and to explore the methodological challenges they pose in regard to the more conventional prayers found in the Euchologion.

Eirini Afentoulidou: Gendering the Baby in Byzantine Prayers on Child-Bed

The hitherto most authoritative edition of the Byzantine Euchologion made by Jacques Goar includes prayers on child-bed, ranging from prayers for the mother to prayers for the naming and the churching of the child. In these the child is sometimes referred to in the neuter "παιδίον" (little child) or "νήπιον" (infant), and sometimes in the gendered "δοῦλος τοῦ Θεοῦ" (God's male servant) - the universal masculine is used, although the instructions in the rubrics refer to male and female infants. This paper aims to explore the gendering as part of the integration of the child into the Byzantine Christian community.

Elisabeth Schiffer: Byzantine Prayers and their Historical Context

Although Byzantine prayers represent a great variety of concerns that appear to be close to everyday life, their wording is in fact mostly conceived in terms of the idea of timelessness and a semblance of universality. Only in a minority of prayers we may surmise contemporary relevance.
This paper will discuss a group of non-eucharistic, non-sacramental prayers transmitted in Byzantine euchologia by starting from an analysis of the features which are firmly anchored in historical circumstance. Special emphasis will be placed on prayers that may reflect concerns specific to the social, political, and doctrinal upheavals of the 13th century.
The topics to be raised are modifications in the wording, the correspondence of these modifications to historical circumstances or local conditions, and the question whether developments in the text of the prayers reflect concrete living conditions in times of crisis.