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Someone asked me if we had tabernacles in the byzantine church and I was stumped.I know that the presanctified gifts are placed in a "tabernacle" but what is the eastern christian term for it?anyone?Thanks

daochranit'elnitsa, artoforion, kovcheg...

There's quite a choice.

Spasi Khristos -
Mark, monk and sinner.

I missed the r out of daro...

Fr Mark.

There is a general term in Slavonic, "kivot" for the Tabernacle. The Ethiopians call theirs "Tabot" or "ark".

As Father Mark has pointed out, the "artophorion" is used for keeping the Presanctified Mysteries on the Proskomidia table.

In the Ruthenian/Ukrainian Church, is it not the trdition for the tabernacles to be shaped like little churche's?
In Christ,

Robert

In the past, 'Easteners', like their brethren in the West used the Eucharistic dove - a pyx suspended from the baldaquin/ciborion. I wonder whether this is linked with the Greek use of the term 'the golden bird' to mean Holy Communion.

Spasi Khristos - Mark, monk and sinner.

Dear Friends,

There is an episode in the life of St Dmitri of Rostov (Fr. Mark will recognize him, as Dmitri wrote against the Old Believers ).

St Dmitri was visiting a parish in his charge where there was a terribly unlettered priest.

He didn't see the Kivot on the Altar in the Church, so he asked the priest where it was.

The priest never heard of that term before . . .

St Dmitri then used the other terms above, but the priest continued to shake his head.

Then Dmitri's assistant, who knew the ways of the area, turned to the priest and said, "Where do you keep the "Zapas" ("Extras")?

At this the priest's face brightened up and he showed St Dmitri a box in the corner of his home . . .

Alex

Robert saith:

"In the Ruthenian/Ukrainian Church, is it not the trdition for the tabernacles to be shaped like little churche's?
In Christ,"

That is true of most of Slavdom. However, there are a couple of tabernacles in the Pittsburgh Metropolia that are suspended doves: St Cyril and Methodius seminary chapel in Pittsburgh, PA., and St Luke Byz. Cath. Church in Sugar Creek, Mo. Here is a picture of the latter tabernacle: http://www.greekisgreek.net/Gallerypicts/lit5.jpg

A post-Apostolic patristic title for churches was "Domus Columbae" or "House of the Dove" which appears to refer not only to the presence of the Holy and Life-Giving Spirit but also to the physical appearance of the vessel itself.

Wow, I've seen that dove before.

On the Proskomidia table? While the Presanctified Gifts may have been kept in the Prosthesis in the distant past, I didn't think that these days anyone kept them any other place than on the Holy Table. I've seen empty artophoria on the Proskomidia, but never one with a Lamb in it.

Chtec, it was definitely an earlier practice to reserve the Lambs for the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts in an Artophorion on the Proskomidia. Placing them in the tabernacle on the Altar is a more recent practice and was not the practice in the Great Church (Hagia Sophia).

Even in Paragraph 228 (and associated notes) of the Ordo Celebrationis for the Ruthenian Recension acknowledges this earlier practice and offers the rubrics for the priest and deacon if the older practice of reserving the Presanctified Lamb in the artophorion is to be followed.