Preface to the Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Obadiah (Theodore of Mopsuestia)

By Theodore of Mopsuestia

“The Ecclesiastical History and Mystical Contemplation” of St. Germanos of Constantinople

By Bishop Auxentios and Father James Thornton

The short commentary on the Divine Liturgy of St. Germanos of Constantinople is one of the most fascinating of Byzantine documents, if simply because it has been so widely used by commentators on the Liturgy. In fact, it was included in the text of the first printed edition of the Divine Liturgy. It enjoys great popularity today because it is thought to represent a synthesis of the Alexandrian interpretation of the Divine Liturgy (represented by St. Dionysios the Areopagite and St. Maximos the Confessor) and the Antiochian school. Next to the mystical texts of the Alexandrians, presumably permeated by hidden Origenistic presuppositions and an obfuscating emphasis on the ascended Christ over and against the Christ of salvation history, some liturgical scholars juxtapose the writings of Patriarch Germanos. In him, they find a fresh “synthesis” of the Alexandrian school with deliberate attempts to portray the Liturgy as it relates to the life and works of Christ, to an historical dimension, drawn from the more literal exegetical school of the Antiochian Fathers. Acknowledging both St. Germanos’ debt to the Alexandrians and his roots in a new Antiochian-inspired view of the Divine Liturgy, Paul Meyendorff comments that: