An Introductory Lecture on Liturgics

(September of 1945)

Abstract

The Old Russian chronicler says about our country "that the apostles did not teach here" and "in the body" they "were not here". It is not surprising, therefore, if the science in question, or rather the subject to be studied and which gave it its name, for all its ecclesiastical nature, and most likely because of this very fact, found its appropriate name in Greek, which at the time of the emergence and flourishing of Christianity was of international importance. The word "liturgica" is from "liturgy," λειτουργία. This latter word is in turn made up of two Greek words: λεῖτον (= λήϊτον) and ἔργον.