Anaphora (Ἀναφορά: Presentation, Offering) (ANÀFORA (ἈΝΑΦΟΡΆ: PRESENTAZIONE, OFFERTA))

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

ANÀFORA (Ἀναφορά: presentation, offering). - It originally designated the bread to be offered in the Mass, and subsequently became a generic name for the Mass itself. In the Eastern liturgies it more properly signifies the principal part of the Sacrifice, corresponding to the Canon of the Latin Mass, together with the Preface and the prayers for Communion. E. Renaudot (Liturgiarum Orientalium Collectio, I, 2nd ed., Frankfurt am Main 1847, pp. 172, 224; II, id., same place and year, pp. 45, 75) provides 38 different formularies, to be used on different days. The oldest and wholly preserved a. is that of s. Serapione, bishop of Thmuis in Egypt (4th cent.). Fragments of other, more ancient ones are those of s. Marco, of the Didaché, of the Der-Balyzeh papyrus, and of s. Giacomo.

Among the Syrians, the name a. also serves to designate

the veil which, after the Consecration, covers the chalice and paten.

BIBL.: F. E. Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western, I, Oxford 1896; P. Cagin, L'Eucharistie, Canon primitif de la Messe, in Scriptorium Solesmense, II, Paris-Rome-Tournai 1912; id., L'anaphore apostolique, Paris 1919; H. Fuchs, Die Anaphora des monophysitischen Patriarchen Johannan, I, Münster in V. 1926; F. J. Moreau, Les anaphores des liturgies de s. Jean Chrysostome et de s. Basile, Paris 1927. Filippo Oppenheim