LITURGY

(Gr. \tirovpyitt.) An office nt Athens, by which persons of considerable property were bound to perform certain public duties, or supply the commonwealth with nece aries at their own expense. The persons on whom this office was imposed were usually among the richest inhabitants; 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 hi; charge, which then devolved on the party denounced. This obnoxious institution was abolished on the proposition ol Demosthenes. (See Boeckh's Public Economy of Mhens.) It is from this term that the English liturgy (quod vide), in ecclesiastical meaning, has been derived; the sense having been contracted from public ministry or service in general to the ceremonies 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 distinguished in the West-, era Church by the term mi a, or ma . There still exist in Greek, Latin, and some Oriental lan-i guages, various rituals by which the Eucharist was celebrated in very early ages. Some have supposed that all 675 [s. 689]