ZEON. — This term designates in the Byzantine liturgy the hot water which, after being blessed by the priest, the deacon pours into the chalice immediately after the immixtio, while the priest says: “Fervor of faith, filled with the Holy Spirit.”
This rite, found only in the Byzantine liturgy, is neither universally used nor strictly imposed, and is still practiced today according to the norm of canon 32, attributed to Patriarch Nicephorus I (806–15). The priest must not celebrate the liturgy without hot water except in a case of necessity or when it is impossible
to find it (F. Pitra, Iuris eccles..., vol. II, Rome 1868, p. 330). At the Council of Florence the Greeks were questioned about the rite of z., but their answer has not come down to us.
At the Ruthenian Synod of Zamoscia (1720) the rite was abolished, but it remained in the Euchologion of Benedict XIV (1754) and was restored, under certain conditions, in the Liturgicum, Ruthenian recension, of Rome (1942).
In its present formula, z. has a subjective meaning, symbolizing the fervor of the faithful’s faith in the Holy Spirit, whereas, according to the formula preceding the fifteenth century, its meaning was objective: the fervor of the Holy Spirit. The blessing formula speaks of the fervor of the saints, and Nicola Cabasilas sees in the rite the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church, an appropriate commemoration because it concludes all the mysteries of the Redemption recalled in this sacrifice (cf. S. Salaville, Cabasilas, Explication de la divine Liturgie, Paris 1943, pp. 206–10). For Symeon of Thessalonica, however, the rite indicates that the dead body of the Lord remained life-giving, because it was not separated either from the divinity or from the energies of the Holy Spirit; and since warmth signifies life, those who receive the Holy Blood seem to place their lips upon the life-giving side of the Lord (PG 155, 741). This latter moralizing interpretation of Holy Communion is maintained by modern Greek authors. While A. Baumstark traces the rite back to ancient table customs (Byzant. - Neugriech. Jahrb., 15 [1939], p. 237) and J. Brinktrine to a simple blessing (Ein auffallender Brauch der byzant. Messliturgie, in Theol. und Glaube, 1937, pp. 637–43), L. H. Grondijs, in a thorough but often unreliable study (L'iconographie byzant. du Crucifié mort sur la Croix, 2nd ed., Brussels 1947), connects it with the doctrine of the incorruptibility of Christ’s Body—a false doctrine briefly accepted by the emperor Justinian, in whose time the rite would have originated—renewed and rendered more orthodox by the mystics of the Studite monastery in the eleventh century (Nicetas Sterathos), perpetuated by Balsamon (PG 137, 619), by Symeon of Thessalonica and others, and illustrated from the twelfth century onward by the image of Jesus crucified, with his side pierced, from which living blood and hot water spurt.
The first historical document proving the rite of z. is the response of the Armenian katholikos Moses (574–604; PG 132, 1248–49; better, G. Garitte, La Narratio de rebus Armeniae, Louvain 1952, pp. 243–44). On the other hand, the account of John of Nikiu (H. Zotenberg, Chronique de Jean de Nikiu, Paris 1883, pp. 413–15) and that of the anonymous Vita di Teodoro Sykecio (Theophilus Ioannou, Μνημεία ἀγιολογικά, Venice 1884, p. 460) are not relevant. Thus, after the sixth century, there is complete silence until the canon of Patriarch Nicephorus, while in liturgical documents the first reference to the rite is found in the twelfth-century version of Leo Thuscus.