13 APRIL 1918, Page 17

The Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified of St. Gregory the

Dialogist. The Greek Text with a rendering in English. (Williams and Norgate. 3s. 6d. net.)—This finely printed little book, the latest addition to a series of service-books used in the Orthodox Greek Church in London, will interest students of liturgies. The English version is excellent, and makes accessible some prayers and responses of great beauty. The Liturgy of the Presanctified, which is a communion of the reserved elements in Lent, is now celebrated only in the Greek Church, but it is of great antiquity. The practice existed long before it was sanctioned by the Council of Constan- tinople in 691. The liturgy, attributed to St. Gregory the Dialogist, the Pope who is usually called St. Gregory the Great and who founded the Gregorian school of Church music, was probably written about 710, a century after his death.