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Holy Catechism

Nikolaos Voulgaris, tr. Daniel, 1893

The Triumphal Hymn

The holy Church of Christ has four principal hymns, and employs them all in this unbloody and most awful Sacrifice: the Angelic Hymn, the Trisagion, the Cherubic Hymn, and the Triumphal Hymn. But though all may be called Angelic and Cherubic, Thrice holy and Triumphal, yet each one has received its particular title. And that hymn is properly called Angelic which at the unspeakable Birth of Christ the shepherds heard from the multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, among men good-will. About this hymn I observe that in the holy Liturgy it is said mystically, and not aloud like the rest, since we are told that it was heard in the watches of the night. Luke ii. 13. The Trisagion is the hymn, Holy is God, which the Church received from heaven, as we said before; and for reverence of the language in which it was then heard in the air, in the way in which the Eastern Church sings it, the Western Church too is wont on the day of the Holy and Great Preparation [Good Friday—Ed.] to sing it in our tongue. That hymn is specially called the Cherubic Hymn which is sung at the time of the Great Entrance, viz., We who represent the Cherubim, though we know the name Cherubic Hymn was given also to the words, Let all flesh keep silence, which in old time were sung in the Liturgy. Finally, the Triumphal Hymn is our present subject, which is so called since in it the great God is glorified as the Lord of Sabaoth, that is Commander of the armies; and that is it which with unbroken doxologies, with unceasing mouths Isaiah heard uttered in fear and trembling by the heavenly powers before the throne of the glory of God.

Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Sabaoth; Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory.

The Church has added besides the earthly hymn (though it is triumphal too) which the children of the Hebrews offered with palm branches and boughs to the Incarnate Word. It is as follows,—

Hosanna in the Highest. Blessed be He that cometh in the Name of the Lord.

And this forasmuch as the Church of Angels and men has become one through Christ: whence the Thessalonian also writes, “This hymn too the people cry aloud, showing our giving of praise to be in the future equal with the Angels’, and our union with them.”

The aim moreover of both one and other in such way as the Church has commingled them is as follows: Holy is the Father, Holy is the Son, Holy is the Holy Ghost: one Lord, one God, Master of Sabaoth, the armies: Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory: since all the armies and whatsoever is in Heaven, the very hierarchies of the heavenly ranks, Cherubim, Seraphim, Thrones, Dominations, Principalities, Authorities, Powers, Archangels, Angels; and whatsoever is in earth, Kings and all peoples, rulers and all judges of the earth, young men and maidens, old men with young men, earth and sea and all that is in them; spirits of the righteous and martyrs, Apostles and Prophets, holy men and doctors, confessors and hierarchs; the heavenly Jerusalem and Church of the first-born written in heaven; all, all, both in the world and beyond the world, heavenly and earthly, all that is above the heavens, they celebrate Thee, they bless Thee, they adore Thee, they give thanks to Thee, they glorify Thee, the one Lord and God, Holy, Holy, Holy, that art worshipped indivisibly in Trinity and in Unity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory.

The militant Church also takes up the hymn, and with trembling says Hosanna. Oh, that the God in Trinity Himself would both save us and glorify us in the highest, (Hosanna is composed of two Hebrew words; הושע hosa’ means Save or deliver; נא na means Oh that God would do it,)¹ unto the heights of heaven, unto the heavenly kingdom, with the blessed angels themselves. Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest. And they, hearing our petition, answer us with joy, saying, Welcome in the name of the Lord of Sabaoth, the only Master and King. Blessed, blessed be He that cometh in the name of the Lord.² And we in turn entreat, Hosanna, oh that God would do it, would even save us and glorify us in the highest, unto the very heights of heaven.

Singing, calling, crying, and saying.

These words are multiplied after the fashion of those four-shaped living creatures which Ezekiel saw, viz., of a man, an ox, an eagle, and a lion. Singing refers to the eagle; calling to the ox; crying to the lion; saying to the man. So Germanus in his Ecclesiastical History. On these words I observe that at the moment when the priest utters them, he removes the asterisk, bringing it and the paten together in the form of a cross, that he may show “that no longer through a cloud, as once Moses in the tabernacle of witness, but with unveiled face he beholds the glory of the Lord;” so the same saint interprets. When likewise the celebrant brings all, as S. Dionysius says, to the holy remembrance of that Divine Supper, the chiefest of types, and proceeds to the memorial of the Mysteries, he too utters the holy words which the Saviour Himself spoke when He celebrated the rite.

Aloud and devoutly.

Take, eat: this is My Body, which is broken for you for the remission of sins.

Choir. Amen.

Drink ye all of it: this is My Blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and many for the remission of sins.

Choir. Amen.

Here Theophylact the Bulgarian, in his Commentary, which he wrote on these words of the Lord, puts the question, Why did Christ say, Drink ye all of it, and not Eat ye all? And he answers: “Because Judas took the Bread, but ate it not, but hid it to show to the Jews; because Jesus calls the Bread His own Body: the Cup, on the other hand, even against his will, he drank, because he could not anyhow hide it; and so He said, Drink ye all.”³ And these words of our Lord and God are said not mystically, but aloud, since we have thus received it that He spoke them to his holy Disciples and Apostles at that Supper, the chief of types.

And straightway the Priest says,

Calling to mind, therefore, this precept of salvation, and all that has been done for us, the Cross, the Tomb, the Resurrection on the third day, the Ascent into Heaven, the Sitting on the Right Hand, the Second Coming this time in glory.

Thine own of Thine own we offer Thee in all and for all.

Seeing that, as we said at the beginning, He is the offerer, He is the offered victim, He too is the receiver, He is both sacrificer and sacrifice, He is the beginning and end of the Mystery. And the people reply, “Thee we celebrate, the God and Father: Thee we bless, the Son and Word: to Thee we give thanks, the Holy Ghost. O Trinity in Unity, and Unity in Trinity.” This is the teaching of the most holy Germanus. And the Theologian of Nazianzus says: “I hasten not to contemplate the one, and I am shone upon by the Three: I hasten not to divide the Three, and I am carried aloft into the One.”

And the priest bows his head again, and prays further.

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