The Deesis witft “the Savior in Powers”, liturgical reforms and some features of “Typicon of the liturgy” by Patriarcft Pftilotfteus in Greek and Slavic reviews

There is an opinion on the similarity of the order of commemoration of saints during the Prothesis and in the prayers of the Liturgy with the composition of the famous Deesis tier of the Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, which became, according to researchers, a model for other Russian full-lenght Deesis tiers, from which similarities there are some further conclusions extracted. However, the reason for this opinion was the non-authentic texts and it is thus an anachronism. Before the introduction of the «Diataxis» of the Patriarch of Constantinople Philotheus Kokkinos there was no single Rite of Liturgy, neither Greek nor Slavic. By the time of the creation of the Deesis tier from the Annunciation Cathedral a single rank had been created and accepted as a result of the liturgical reforms of Metropolitan Cyprian, which followed the reforms of the Patriarch Philotheus. But archangels and Angelic Forces in general had been excluded from the number of persons commemorated at Prothesis and the Intercession prayer of Anaphora. In addition, from the Russian Worship had been excluded archaic Triagion prayer with a mention of «four-imaged animals» in it. The liturgical texts have thus become more distant than those of the previous period, from Deesis, which contains, among other things, images of the archangels, and from the iconography of the Saviour in Powers, which contains images of four apocalyptic beasts. (Refs 77)