LITURGY, an office at Athens, by which persons of considerable property were bound to perform certain public du ties, or supply the commonwealth with necessaries at their own expense. The persons on whom this office was imposed were usually among the richest inhabit ants; and if any one selected to fill it could find another more wealthy than himself who was exempt from public duty, he could insist on being released from his charge, which then devolved on the party denounced. This obnoxious in stitution was abolished on the proposition of Demosthenes. It is from this term that the English liturgy, in ecclesiastical meaning, has been derived ; the sense having been contracted from public min istry or service in general to the ceremo nies of religious worship.—LITURGY, the ritual according to which the religious services of a church are performed. In the writings of the ancients, the name is restricted to the service of the Eucharist, which afterwards came to be distinguish ed in the Western church by the term of missa, or mass. There still exist in Greek, Latin, and some Oriental lan guages. various rituals by which the Eu charist was celebrated in very early ages. Seine have supposed that all these may be referred to one original liturgy, which may have been universally adopted in the primitive church. Paltaor, the latest English writer on this subject, conceives that the number of original liturgies may be reduced to four, but not lower. These
he entitles the great Oriental liturgy, the Alexandrian, the Roman, and the Galli ...an; each of which was extensively used from the Apostolic age in the quarters from which he assigns them their names, and became the parents of many other rituals, such as were used, with constant ly diverging variations, in the different patriarchates of the empire. The earli est period at which any liturgical forms were consigned to writing is the end of the third or beginning of the fourth cen tury; at least the liturgy called of St. Basil can be traced as high as the latter period. This practice, also, seems fre quently to have been applied only to cer tain parts of the service. We find, there fore, great differences in the MSS. which now exist ; and it becomes very difficult to ascertain what the contents of the primitive rituals were, and trace the pe riods at which many rites and ceremonies have been introduced into the service. The liturgy of the Church of England is a liturgy in the wider and mere usual acceptation of the term. comprehending the whole of the various services used nn ordinary and extraordinary occasd no throughout the year.