This panel highlights the centrality of liturgy in the lives of Middle Eastern Christians across denominations and time periods. The first reassesses Origen’s role in the Eastern reception of the Epistle of James as the first Orthodox scholar to defend the book's apostolic authority. The second paper examines two Coptic Orthodox rites—the medieval Rite of the Jar and contemporary exorcism sessions—as improvisational extensions of the baptismal liturgy and as responses to the porous boundaries between Christians and Muslims in Egypt. The third presents two contemporary Antiochian Orthodox services based on the Lamentations of Matins of the Great Saturday, both of which reveal the vitality of Arab Christianity despite difficult circumstances. The final paper explores Armenian Apostolic Christian liturgical services that focus on blessings of fields, crops, and cultivated land in order to argue that they connect community and land in a distinctive liturgical vision that is both ecological and indigenous.
Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260–339/340) noted that by the 320s, many orthodox Christian communities in the Roman East had accepted the Catholic Epistles, including James, into their liturgies. This marked a shift, as earlier Church leaders had questioned their authenticity. While modern scholars have debated the factors influencing this Eastern reception, suggesting everyone from Augustine, Jerome, to even Athanasius of Alexandria, this paper, however, argues that Origen (ca. 185–254) played a key role in establishing the Epistle of James as scripture. Origen was the first orthodox scholar to cite James explicitly as scripture and even defended its apostolic authority against opposition. Through his influence on his students, Origen likely contributed to the epistle’s growing acceptance in the Roman East, bridging the gap between its early marginalization and its later recognition by Eusebius’s time. This paper reassesses Origen’s role in the Eastern reception of the Epistle of James.
This paper examines two Coptic Orthodox rites—the medieval Rite of the Jar and contemporary exorcism sessions—as improvisational extensions of the baptismal liturgy. Though separated by centuries, both rites operate as liturgical responses to the porous boundaries between Christians and Muslims in Egypt. The Rite of the Jar, used to reconcile those deemed apostates or those who transgressed intercommunal sexual norms, reflects a medieval ecclesial effort to police communal boundaries while avoiding the redundancy of rebaptism. Contemporary public exorcisms, by contrast, invert the logic of hidden liturgy, projecting the proclamation of Christ’s lordship into contested public space. Both rites reveal how liturgical performance becomes a mode of theological agency and boundary work in minoritized religious settings. Drawing on ritual theory and historical anthropology, this paper argues that these rites improvise upon baptismal grammar to negotiate identity, perform resistance, and mediate the tension between ecclesial self-understanding and interfaith proximity.
The Antiochian Orthodox Church of Eastern Orthodox family, despite being one of the oldest Christian communities, composes new liturgical services, based on older ones and put in the frames of its local liturgical tradition. The services are written in Arabic and music is composed in the Byzantine tones of chanting. The paper aims to present two services based on the Lamentations of Matins of the Great Saturday: Lamentations of st. Jacob of Hamatoura and of the Holy Cross. Both services are contemporary and creat for special ocassions: the first one for the day of st. Jacob i. e. 13th Octobeer and the second one for the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, i. e. 14th September. The presentation would talk about liturgical and linguistical aspects of the services, as also about their practice.
Armenian liturgical services, such as the "Blessing of the Fields," make a link between community and place explicit. The embodied, sensorial experience of liturgy makes a particular Christian community present in a specific place. It also presents the fullest expression of that community's theology. This paper explores a handful of Armenian Apostolic Christian liturgical services that focus on blessings of fields, crops, and cultivated land in order to argue that they connect community and land in a distinctive liturgical vision that is both ecological and indigenous. The paper argues that the liturgical practice of the Armenian Apostolic Church can, in the instances described, function as an indigenous ecotheology. It does so, the paper suggests, in ways that can advance discussions both of ecotheology and global indigeneity.