Trisagion

29. We have mentioned above the miraculous way in which the trisagion entered the liturgies of the Greek Church. Peter the Fuller, surnamed Gnaphaeus, a promoter of the heresy of the Apollinarists who are called Theopaschites, attempted to add to the trisagion the words: "You who were crucified for us" (Theodorus Lector, Collectanear, bk. 1). And some eastern bishops, especially Syrians and Armenians, at the instigation of one James the Syrian, accepted this addition (Nicephorus, bk. 18, chap. 52). When this happened, the Roman popes with their usual watchful concern opposed this error from the start and prohibited the addition. They did not accept the interpretation which claimed that the trisagion referred to the person of the Son alone, not to the three divine persons, and so avoided all suspicion of error. For a danger of associating with heretical teaching still remained, and the human mind for all its rashness could not plausibly refer to Christ alone a hymn sung by the angels in honor of the Holy Trinity, as Lupus rightly observes (Notes ad Trullanum, canon 81). After relating that the addition to the trisagion had been condemned by Pope Felix III and a Roman synod, Lupus continues: "They declare firmly that the hymn eternally sung to the Trinity alone by the holy angels and transmitted to the Church by God Himself and the holy angels by means of the miraculous boy was confirmed by the cessation of the earthquakes which were threatening Constantinople. They were approved in this sense by the whole Council of Chalcedon (he refers both to the bishops who attended the Council and to those others who rejected the addition to the trisagion). Therefore the words of the hymn cannot be daringly twisted to signify Christ alone."

St. Gregory VII, with similar zeal, condemned the addition in his letter to the Archbishop of Patriarch of the Armenians (bk. 8, 1). Gregory XIII acted in like manner in his Brief of February 14, 1577, to the Patriarch of the Maronites. In the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith which met on January 30, 1635, the liturgy of the Armenians was examined.

Among the matters which were carefully discussed was whether the addition to the trisagion could be tolerated on the grounds that it could be understood to refer to the person of the Son alone. The answer given was that it should not be allowed and that the addition should be utterly deleted.

Women Assisting at Mass

Pope Gelasius in his ninth letter (chap. 26) to the bishops of Lucania condemned the evil practice which had been introduced of women serving the priest at the celebration of Mass. Since this abuse had spread to the Greeks, Innocent IV strictly forbade it in his letter to the bishop of Tusculum: "Women should not dare to serve at the altar; they should be altogether refused this ministry." We too have forbidden this practice in the same words in Our oft-repeated constitution Etsi Pastoralis, sect. 6, no. 21.

Eucharist for Viaticum

On Thursday of Holy Week, in memory of the Lord's Supper, there is peformed the ceremony of consecrating the bread which is kept for a full year as viaticum for the mortally ill who request Holy Communion. Sometimes too, a little of the consecrated wine is added to this consecrated bread. Leo Allatius describes this ceremony in his treatise, de Communione Orientalium sub specie unica num, no. 7. Pope Innocent IV in his letter to the bishop of Tusculum forbade the Greeks to perform this ceremony. "They should not reserve for a year the Eucharist which has been consecrated on Holy Thursday on the pretext that the sick may receive communion from this." He added that they should always have the Eucharist ready for the sick, but that they should replace it every fortnight.

Arcudius, de Concordia Ecclesiae Occidentalis, et Orientalis, bk. 5, chap. 55 and 56, points out the extremes to which this ceremony leads and beseeches the popes to abolish it entirely. Clement VIII did this in an Instruction, as did We in Our constitution 57, Etsi Pastoralis, sect. 6, no. 3f. It was decreed at the Synod of Zamoscia, which was studied by the Congregation of the Council as well as by the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, that the ceremony of consecrating the Eucharist on Holy Thursday, pouring on it a drop of the Blood and keeping it for a full year for the sick should for the future be discontinued wherever it was still in practice. Parish priests should keep the Eucharist for the sick but replace it every week or fortnight (sect. 3, de Eucharistia). The fathers of the synod of Lebanon, which We confirmed, acted in the same way (chap. 12, de Sacramento Eucharistiae, no. 24).

These examples show clearly that the Apostolic See has always forbidden ceremonies to the Greeks, even if they already were prevalent among them, whenever it saw that these ceremonies were already or were in danger of becoming evil and destructive.