Theological Themes in Basil Abd al-Ghani Syriac Anaphora

The Anaphora of Maphrian Basil Abd al-Ghani is considered one of the longest texts in the Corpus of Syriac liturgical Anaphoras. It is important to study it from different perspectives because it transmits a unique piece of Syriac liturgical literature composed during a critical time in the history of the Syriac Orthodox Church. Studying the Theological themes of this text, will contribute to the field of Syriac studies and to historians of this period in addition to Theologians to know how the Syriac prelates could present their faith and theology in a Eucharistic text. Moreover, this will help liturgists to understand Syriac Liturgical theology in 16th Century. The Critical Edition for this Syriac Anaphora, was already prepared in my postdoctoral project, (FWF - reference number: P 27164‐G19, with Uni-Prof Erich Renhart at Graz University). The Critical Apparatus in addition to the English translation will be the basic texts adopted in this research. The main themes of Trinitarian and Christological theology will be the focus here. Prayers addressed to Trinity will be exposed, but while studying the prayers addressed to Christ, then the Christological formulation will be carefully studied. The previous theological analysis will lead to know how the Syriac hierarchies understood Christology, after a theological correspondence with the Roman Catholic Church was already established in late 16th Century. Discover some theological topics of an authentic liturgical text from 16th Century, which is the Syriac Anaphora of Mor Basil Abd Al-Ghani, the West Syriac Maphrian. The goal of this research is to study this Syriac text deeply and to reveal its theological identity.