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Back to article: LITURGY (Low Lat. liturgia; Gr. X€Zros, public, and Epyov, work; )Aetrovpy6s, a public servant)

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LITURGY (Low Lat. liturgia; Gr. X€Zros, public, and Epyov, work; )Aetrovpy6s, a public servant), in the technical language of the Christian Church, the order for the celebration and ad-ministration of the Eucharist. In Eastern Christendom the Greek word Xtirovpyia is used in this sense exclusively. But in English-speaking countries the word " liturgy " has come to be used in a more popular sense to denote any or all of the various services of the Church, whether contained in separate volumes or bound up together in the form of a Book of Common Prayer. In this article the liturgy is treated in the former and stricter sense. (For the ancient Athenian Xeirovpyiai, as forms of taxation,
see FINANCE.)
In order to understand terms and references it will be convenient to give the tabular form the chief component parts of a liturgy, selecting the Liturgy of Rome as characteristic of Western, and that of Constantinople as characteristic of Eastern, Christendom; at the same time appending an explanation of some of the technical words which must be employed in enumerating those parts.