The Origin of Divine Service.

Divine service made its appearance on earth simultaneously with man. The goodness and almightiness of the Lord impel men to glorify and thank Him; the consciousness of their wants prompts them to address their petitions to Him. And as man consists of both body and soul most closely united, therefore prayer is expressed in words and accompanied by certain motions of the body, and, vice-versa, external objects arouse a prayerful inclination in man. In this way private worship originated and developed, varied as to prayers and rites.

But men came together and formed communities, and this gave rise to uniform prayers for all the members of one community, and for these common prayers there were gradually appointed: place, time, order of services and persons to perform them. In this way, as human society became organized, public worship also developed.

In Old Testament times, previous to Moses, divine service was of the private, domestic type. The paterfamilias — the patriarch — on behalf of his entire family or kin (tribe), selected the place, appointed the time and laid down the order of prayer. Even then certain customs already began to harden into rules which the patriarchs themselves observed, following their fathers’ example. But since Moses’ time, the Israelites had a public worship, instituted by God Himself, with temple, priests and rites. Jesus Christ, the founder and the Head of the Christian Church, while himself complying with all the regulations of Jewish worship, did not give to His disciples any definite ritual. But He instituted the Sacraments, commanded His disciples to preach the Gospel, taught them how to pray, promised to be present in the gatherings of Christians assembled in His name, and thereby laid the foundation of His Church’s public worship. Thus it was that, immediately after Christ’s ascension to Heaven, a certain order of public worship gradually began to develop in the Christian community. In the Apostles’ lifetime already, certain holy persons were consecrated, certain places were appointed for divine service, and a ritual was instituted for those offices during which the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist are administered; furthermore the principal rites were devised to accompany the celebration of the other Sacraments, even to the appointing of the times for common prayer, certain feast-days and fasts. The persecutions which the Christians suffered during the first three centuries hindered them from composing an entire ritual for public worship and making it uniform for all Christians; such a ritual was fully developed and finally established only when Christianity was proclaimed the ruling religion of the Roman Empire.