This document provides an overview of the Liturgy of the Catechumens, which was a service in early Christian churches that prepared those who wished to become Christians, known as catechumens, for baptism. The service involved instruction through scripture readings and prayers, as well as singing psalms to teach proper prayer methods. Over time, additional rituals were added to the beginning of the service, such as incensing icons and the congregation, to further set the atmosphere for faith and devotion before the Eucharist celebration. The document focuses in particular on the development of the initial incensing ritual in the Byzantine Liturgy from the 5th century onwards.

1. LITURGY
OF THE CATECHUMENS ·
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER XXX
THE TRANSITIONAL RITUAL
If they wished to become Christians, pagans had to learn the
doctrines of the Church by attending the catechetical synaxis, the
Liturgy of the Catechum.ens. The two essential things to learn
before baptism were : (1) the proper methods of prayer and (2) the
major teachings of Christ-including the duties and dignity of the
baptized. In this " instruction-and-prayer service " he was taught
to pray, by taking part in the congregational singing of the psalms,
etc. He was also given an understanding of the truths of revelation
and the duties resultant therefrom, by hearing the Sacred Scriptures
read and explained.
The origin and early evolution of this service we have examined
in some detail above (pp. 30 ff.), but it is well to stress here its
underlying purpose : instruction and prayer, for the benefit both of
the catechum.ens and the baptized, who had to be reminded of their
duties and of the truths of their religion. Hence, even after whole
populations had become Christian and very few catechumens were
left, the Church kept the Liturgy ofthe Catechumens. The process
of learning about the Incarnation, the Redemption, and the dignity
and duties of a true Christian, does not cease with baptism or with
the rudimentary catechetical instructions preceding it, but continues
throughout one's whole life.
The Liturgy of the Catechumens performed another function :
to create an atmosphere offaith before beginning the great Mysterium

2. fidei, the celebration of the Eucharist. Until the fifth century, the
Liturgy of the Catechumens, or fore-Mass, began rather abruptly
with the reading of the lessons, introduced by a brief " greeting"
of the celebrant to the congregation. 1
Later, other prayers, hymns
and ceremonies were introduced into the service to enhance the
atmosphere of faith before the reading of the lessons, which in turn
prepared those present for a more devout attitude at later stages.
Originally, there was a simple introduction; then, there was added a
pre1iminary to the preliminary, and so forth.
The Oriental preliminary ceremonial far surpasses in extent that
ofthe Western or Roman Liturgy. Among all the Oriental Liturgies,
the Byzantine has the most complicated introductory ritual. It
includes not only the preparatory prayers of the priest before the
inconostas (pp.218-220),his entrance into the sanctuary (pp.220-221),
the vesting, the prothesis, or proskomidia, but also everything up to
the actual reading of the lessons, i.e. the Opening or ~va.p~Lc;, con-
sisting in the ektenia or litany of peace, the three antiphons (each
with their own oration said by the priest and a shorter litany sung
by the deacon), the Little Entrance, followed by different hymns
(tropars, kondaks} and, finally, the lofty trisagion.
The Liturgy of the Catechumens, present in all Rites, varies
according to the " spirit" of the people, Greek or Roman, Gentile
or Jew, Slav or Arab. Hence, there is unity in variety.
Initial Incensing
Immediately after the proskomidia dismissal, the priest goes to the
holy table while the deacon incenses the prothesis three times. Then he
goes to the holy table and incenses it crosswise from all four sides,
1 There is ample evidence of this in the Orient and it must have been no less
true of the West if we are to judge from a rather unusual incident in the life of
St. Augustine. Just before the service began on a certain Easter Sunday, a man
was instantaneously cured. The cure caused much excitement among the people
in church. Augustine, who was about to make his entrance for the service, was
still in the sacristy when this happened. After the excitement died down, the
service finally began-with a greeting by the celebrant and the reading of the
lessons. We have here, therefore, evidence from the West, c. A.D. 426 that
the fore-Mass began with a mere greeting of the bishop, followed immediately
by the lessons. Cf. Ci'll. Dei 22, 8 (CSEL XL, 2, p. 611, 1.7).

3. beginning with the front (west), then proceeding to the south, the east
and the north.
While thus incensing, he silently recites :
While you were in the tomb with your body, in hell with
your soul, and in Paradise with the thief, you were also on
the throne with the Father and Holy Spirit, 0 Christ, per-
meating all things, 0 unlimited One.
Then, while reciting the Psalm of Repentance, Psalm 50, the deacon
incenses the icon behind the altar and other images in the sanctuary.
Leaving the sanctuary through the north door, he bows before the
royal doors, and incenses the images on the south side of the iconostas,
beginning with the icon of the Saviour; then those on the north side,
beginning with that of the Mother of God. Next, he incenses the right
and left choirs and, then the people-either from the solea or, depending
upon local custom, by going through the church to the vestibule. After
returning to the sanctuary through the south door, he again incenses the
holy table three times. Finally, he incenses the celebrant three times.
The interval between the proskomidia and the beginning of the
Divine Liturgy proper is taken up with incensing. The deacon
meditates on what happened during the interval between the first
Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The short prayer "While you
were in the tomb" refers to those dramatic truths. In the darkness
of the tomb, Christ's body of flesh escaped corruption. After Jesus
exhaled his final cry, his soul did not rise up to the Father. Released
from the body, it " descended into hell," or Hades, the gathering
place ofthe souls ofthe just who had died before the gates ofheaven
opened on the day of Christ's Ascension. Christ appeared to them
and announced the good news that the hour oftheir entry into heaven
was at hand. The Good Thief had asked Jesus to remember him
when he came into his Kingdom. In reward for that simple petition
and good will, Jesus had told him : "This day thou shalt be with
me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). "Paradise" (the LXX rendering
of " garden " in Eden) signified an abode or dwelling-place for the
blessed.
While Christ's body was in the tomb and his soul in the Kingdom
of the dead, Christ as true God, the second Person of the Trinity,

4. was also enthroned, and reigned in heaven with the Father and the
Holy Spirit. As God, he was (and is) omnipresent and infinite.
This prayer is attributed to St. John Damascene, although it was
borrowed from the Holy Week services and placed at this point
only in the fourteenth century, 9
that is, after the altar had assumed
the symbolism of the Lord's tomb, and the placing of the holy gifts
upon it was seen as expressing the burial of Christ.
The deacon further prepares himself for the coming sacrifice by
reciting Psalm 50, which is an act of contrition, confession, and
supplication. Rubrics requiring the recitation of either Psalm 50
or Psalm 25 appeared between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries.8
Psalm 25 was also fitting, since it is David's prayer to God that he
be delivered from his distress and that he may come to worship
him in his tabernacle. The pentitential spirit of the East, however,
settled for Psalm 50.
The ancient Eastern custom of greeting every guest and offering
him ablutions and perfumes upon entering the house is enacted at
the beginning of the heavenly banquet, the Divine Liturgy. In-
censing and bowing to all, the rich and the poor alike, the deacon
salutes them as guests of the Lord. Instead of earthly perfumes
and ablutions, he offers them incense, symbolizing the all-powerful
grace of the Mystical Supper.
Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, writing about A.D. 485, seems
to offer the first description of incensing as a preliminary to a litur-
gical function, a practice soon adopted in most of the Greco-Syrian
churches, and finally throughout most of Christendom : "After
ending a sacred prayer before the divine altar, the hierarch begins
by censing there and goes throughout the whole enclosure of the
1 The Constitution of Philotheus seems to be the first document to place it in
this position. In the Slav Church the fourteenth or fifteenth century Liturgikon
of Metropolitan Isidore has it in its Ustav (cf. MS. Vat. Slav., N. 14, fol. 123).
•E.g., Cod Pant. (Krasnoseltsev, Maurialy dlja istorii ch1noposlidovania liturgii
sv. Joanna Zlatoustago [Kazan, 1889), p. 14) and Cod. Esphigm. of year 1306
(Dmitrievsky, Opysanie liturgicheskilm rukopisej khraniaschikhsia v bibliotekah
pravoslavnago vostoka, Vol. II [Kiev, 1901], p. 265). In the Slav Church. Ps. 50 is
prescribed in MS. 523 of the Sophia Library, p. 14, but it is said during the kissing
of the altar by the priest and deacon (Petrovsky, Histoire de la redaction slave de
la liturgie de S. Jean Chrysostome, XPYCOCTOMIKA, Rome, 1908, p. 882);
the Liturgikon of Metropolitan Isidore prescribes Ps. 50 during the actual incensing
as it is done today (cf. MS. Vat. Slav., N. 14, fol. 123).

5. sacred edifice. After returning once again to the holy altar, he
begins the sacred melody of the psalms. " 4
What had begun as a purely Syrian s liturgical practice soon found
its way into Byzantium. Incensing the whole church at the beginning
of some liturgical functions was an established custom at Constant-
inople toward the end of the sixth century 8
• While incensing is
mentioned in other parts of the Byzantine Liturgy prior to the
thirteenth century 1
none of the earlier manuscripts refer to it at the
beginning ofthe Liturgy. From the thirteenth century on, evidence
of this initial incensing abounds, although some documents have it
performed by the priest, 8
others by the deacon. 9
It is a fair infer-
ence, therefore, that this initial incensing became widespread in the
Byzantine Liturgy some time during the thirteenth century or in the
latter part ofthe twelfth. It would then be one ofthe latest additions.
• Ps.-Dionysius, De eccl. hierarch., iii, 2 (Quasten, Mon., 294).
• Curiously enough, the present East Syrian Rite has no preliminary incensing,
though it has retained the psalmody before the lessons which seems to have been
introduced about the same time. Two explanations are generally given for this :
(1) the psalmody had been prefixed to the readings before the use of incense had
been adopted in liturgical functions; (2) the preliminary censing had been discarded
with the adoption of the Byzantine preliminaries, i.e., the formal preparation of the
Gifts, the preparatory prayers of the celebrant, etc.
• Cf. Eustratius of Constantinople, Vita S. Eutychii (PG 86, 2377 C).
7
E.g., S. Germanus of Constantinople (A.D. 715-729) in his Commentarii
liturgici (no. 30, edit. N. Borgia, II commentario liturgico di s. Germano Patriarca
Constantinopolitano e la versione /atina di Anastasio Bibliotecario [Grottaferrata,
1912], p. 25) explains the use of incense only at the Alleluia chant and the ninth-
century Anastasian version of the Commentarii (edit. op. cit., p. 21) tells us of the
incensing done at the end of the proskomidia. The eleventh-century Liturgy of
St. John Chrysostom, translated by Leo Thuscus (Liturgiae sive missae sanctorum
patrum : Jacobi aposto/i et fratrz"s Domini, Basi/ii magni e vetusto codice latinae
trans/ationis, Ioannis Chrysostomi, interprete Leone Thusco, De ritu missae et eucha-
ristia [Paris, 1560), pp. 52-53) has three incensings : at the end of the proskomidia,
at the Great Entrance, and just before the Communion of the faithful. The
Erasmian recension, on the other hand, has two : at the covering of the Gifts in
the proslwmidia and before the Small Elevation at the" Holy Things to holy people"
(I. Goar, Euchologion, pp. 104, rn7), etc.
8 E.g., the thirteenth century Cod. Patm. N. 719 (Dmitricvsky, op. cit., Vol. II,
p. 173); Cod. Esphigm. of year 1306 (ibid., p. 265); the thirteenth century Cod.
Pante/. (Krasnoseltsev, op. cit., p. 14) and the fifteenth century MS. of Patt. of
Jerusalem (ibid., p. 88).
•The Typikon of Vatop. in the fourteenth century Cod. of Moscow Synodal
Library, N. 381 (Krasnoseltsev, op. cit., p. 22); the Constitution of Philotheus
(op. cit., p. 48); the fifteenth century Cod. Sin., N. 986 (Dmitrievsky, op. cit.,
p. 6o6) and the fourteenth or fifteenth century Cod. Vat. gr., N. 573 (Krasno-
seltsev, op. cit., p. 102).