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Synaxis

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Icon of the Synaxis of the Theotokos ( Pskov, 17th century)

A synaxis (Greek: σύναξις "gathering"; Slavonic: собор, sobor) is a liturgical assembly in Eastern Christianity (the Eastern Orthodox Church and those Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite).

Synaxes of feast days

In Constantinople, the clergy and faithful would often gather together on specific feast days at a church dedicated to the saint of that day for liturgical celebrations. These gatherings were referred to as synaxes. These synaxes came to have services written specifically for them. A Synaxis often occurs on the day following a Major Feast Day and is in honor of saints who participated in the event. For example, services on the Feast of Theophany (the revelation of the Trinity at the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan) would be held at Hagia Sophia; then, the next day, a Synaxis was observed in honor of St. John the Forerunner at the church dedicated to him. Over time, the synaxes came into general use and are now celebrated in every church.

Synaxis can also refer to a common commemoration of a number of saints in a single service, such as the Synaxis of the Seventy Apostles. Each individual saint may have his or her own separate feast day, but they are all commemorated together on their synaxis.

Most synaxes are observed as fixed feasts, being celebrated on the same calendar date year after year, though some occur on the nearest Sunday to a particular date. Other synaxes are celebrated on the Paschal cycle, moving backward or forward in the calendar according to the date of Pascha (Easter) that year.

Rite of Constantinople

The following are Synaxes which are universally observed in the Rite of Constantinople:

Local observance

There are also synaxes which have been composed for local observance:

See also

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Synaxis (synaxis from synago) means gathering, assembly, reunion. It is exactly equivalent to the Latin collecta (from colligere), and corresponds to synagogue (synagoge), the place of reunion. In Christian and liturgical use the Synaxis is the assembly for any religious function, either in the abstract sense (nomen actionis) or concretely for the people assembled (cf. German Sammlung and Versammlung). The verb synago occurs frequently in the New Testament, for gathering together a religious meeting (Acts, xi, 26; xiv, 27 etc.), as also for the Jewish services and councils (e.g. John, xi, 47). So also in the Apostolic Fathers (Didache, ix, 4; xiv, 1; I Clem., xxxiv, 7; in general for the union of the church, Ignatius, "Magn.", x, 3). We must distinguish the liturgical (eucharistic) from the aliturgical Synaxis, which consisted only of prayers, readings, psalms, out of which our Divine Office evolved. Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite uses the word only for the eucharistic service ("De eccles. hier.", iii, in P.G., III), and Cardinal Bona thinks that so it may have a mystic meaning, as referring to our union with God or Communion (Rerum liturg., I, iii, 3). But it occurs frequently for any religious assembly, and in this sense was adopted in the West by St. Benedict ("Regula Ben.", 17: "Vespertina Synaxis" - Vespers) and by John Cassian ("Collat.", IX, 34: "ad concludendam synaxim"; ed. Hurter, Innsbruck, 1887, p. 315) etc. In this signification the word is now archaic in Greek and Latin. It is preserved, however, in the Byzantine Calendar as the title of certain feasts on which the people assemble in some particular church for the Holy Liturgy, and therefore corresponds with the Roman statio. Thus 4 January is the "Synaxis of the Holy Seventy", that is the feast of the seventy disciples (Luke, x, 1, where the Vulgate has seventy-two, on which day the assembly was once made in some church (at Constantinople?) dedicated to them (Nilles, "Kalendarium manuale," I, 2nd ed., Innsbruck, 1896, p. 52); 26 December is the "Synaxis of the Theotokos and of Joseph the spouse and guardian of the Virgin", a feast in memory of the flight into Egypt, on which again the station was at a special church (ibid., 366).

References

  1. Back to citation Synaxis of the Theotokos
  2. Back to citation "Arsenius of Konevits – Ortodoksi.net". www.ortodoksi.net. Retrieved 2025-01-06.
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