INTRODUCTION.

Five Groups, or Families, of Liturgies.

It is now thoroughly recognized that there are five main groups, or families, of liturgies. These are distinguished from each other primarily, though not exclusively, by the different arrangements of their various parts. Three of these families are Eastern original: "Oriental". One holds an intermediate position: it is Western in terms of the countries where it was used and in its abundance of Collects short, formal prayers used in the liturgy, Prefaces the introduction to the central prayer of the Eucharist, and other variable elements that characterize it. At the same time, it presents such unmistakably Eastern peculiarities that it points to the East—and likely to Ephesus in particular—as its place of origin. Finally, one group is purely Western.

Naming the Groups.

It is not easy to find a satisfactory naming system original: "nomenclature" for these groups. Sometimes they are connected with the name of the Apostle, or the companion of an Apostle, who first brought the Gospel to the region where each group's primary liturgy is thought to have originated. These names are Saint James, Saint Mark, Saint Thaddaeus original: "S. Adaeus", Saint John, and Saint Peter. Sometimes they are connected with the name of the "Mother Church" to which each primary liturgy is believed to have belonged: namely Jerusalem, Alexandria, Edessa, Ephesus, and Rome.

It involves less guesswork than either of these methods if we name them, as far as possible, after the countries where their primary forms were used. Following this plan, we have:

• Group I: The Liturgies of Western Syria and their derivatives.
• Group II: The Liturgies of Alexandria and their derivatives.
• Group III: The Liturgies of Eastern Syria and their derivatives.
• Group IV: The Hispano-Gallican Liturgies the ancient rites used in Spain (Mozarabic) and France (Gallican) before the Roman rite became standard.
• Group V: The Roman Liturgy and its derivatives.

We must add the word "derivatives" because no single term can cover every member of a group. For instance, from an original¹ Greek—

¹ By this phrase, we mean to imply that at some early point there were liturgies named after Saint James and Saint Mark that contained the characteristic features of the two liturgies currently in existence. However, these current liturgies are actually modifications of those original forms, dating from a time when the influence of the See of Constantinople the office and jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Constantinople had made itself felt in the countries where these liturgies were used.