Synaxis (synaxis from synago)
means gathering, assembly, reunion. It is exactly equivalent to
the Latin collecta (from colligere), and corresponds
to synagogue (synagoge), the place of reunion. In Christian
and liturgical use the Synaxis is the assembly for any religious
function, either in the abstract sense (nomen actionis) or
concretely for the people assembled (cf. German Sammlung
and Versammlung). The verb synago occurs frequently
in the New Testament, for gathering together a religious meeting
(Acts, xi, 26; xiv, 27 etc.), as also for the Jewish services and
councils (e.g. John, xi, 47). So also in the Apostolic Fathers
(Didache, ix, 4; xiv, 1; I Clem., xxxiv, 7; in general for the
union of the church, Ignatius, "Magn.", x, 3). We must
distinguish the liturgical (eucharistic) from the aliturgical
Synaxis, which consisted only of prayers, readings, psalms, out of
which our Divine Office evolved. Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite
uses the word only for the eucharistic service ("De eccles.
hier.", iii, in P.G., III), and Cardinal Bona thinks that so
it may have a mystic meaning, as referring to our union with God
or Communion (Rerum liturg., I, iii, 3). But it occurs frequently
for any religious assembly, and in this sense was adopted in the
West by St. Benedict ("Regula Ben.", 17: "Vespertina
Synaxis" - Vespers) and by John Cassian ("Collat.",
IX, 34: "ad concludendam synaxim"; ed. Hurter,
Innsbruck, 1887, p. 315) etc. In this signification the word is
now archaic in Greek and Latin. It is preserved, however, in the
Byzantine Calendar as the title of certain feasts on which the
people assemble in some particular church for the Holy Liturgy,
and therefore corresponds with the Roman statio. Thus 4
January is the "Synaxis of the Holy Seventy", that is
the feast of the seventy disciples (Luke, x, 1, where the Vulgate
has seventy-two, on which day the assembly was once made in some
church (at Constantinople?) dedicated to them (Nilles,
"Kalendarium manuale," I, 2nd ed., Innsbruck, 1896, p.
52); 26 December is the "Synaxis of the Theotokos and of
Joseph the spouse and guardian of the Virgin", a feast in
memory of the flight into Egypt, on which again the station was at
a special church (ibid., 366).
ADRIAN
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