This eye-witness account of the Holy Places liturgy of the Holy Land describes the experience of a pilgrim who visited Jerusalem fifty years after the reign of Constantine, making hers the earliest surviving account. Her loving attention to detail makes Egeria's work an historical and liturgical source of prime importance today.
Somewhere around the year 400, a devout Spanish nun traveled on a lenten pilgrimage to the Holy Land, keeping a diary of her journey. That diary has become a priceless witness to us of the fourth century Church's liturgical practices during Lent and Holy Week. The churches Constantine had built at the places of our Lord's passion were only two generations old as she wrote, and their availability as destinations of processions and divine services tended to make the Jerusalem church's Holy Week and Easter services normative for the rest of the Church. John Wilkinson's new translation is supplemented by a wealth of historical background (occupying fully two-thirds of the book), including sections on early Christian pilgrimage, historical references to Egeria, schematics of churches she visited in Jerusalem, and of special interest, a detailed outline of the Jerusalem Liturgy that Egeria would have attended. Egeria wrote to the recipient of her journal entries, ''Knowing how pleased you would be to learn what is the ritual observed day by day in the holy places, I considered it my duty to make known to you the details...'' Here there are details aplenty, and we, too, are ''pleased''- and privileged- to learn. 235 pp.
Somewhere around the year 400, a devout Spanish nun traveled on a lenten pilgrimage to the Holy Land, keeping a diary of her journey. That diary has become a priceless witness to us of the fourth century Church's liturgical practices during Lent and Holy Week. The churches Constantine had built at the places of our Lord's passion were only two generations old as she wrote, and their availability as destinations of processions and divine services tended to make the Jerusalem church's Holy Week and Easter services normative for the rest of the Church. John Wilkinson's new translation is supplemented by a wealth of historical background (occupying fully two-thirds of the book), including sections on early Christian pilgrimage, historical references to Egeria, schematics of churches she visited in Jerusalem, and of special interest, a detailed outline of the Jerusalem Liturgy that Egeria would have attended. Egeria wrote to the recipient of her journal entries, ''Knowing how pleased you would be to learn what is the ritual observed day by day in the holy places, I considered it my duty to make known to you the details...'' Here there are details aplenty, and we, too, are ''pleased''- and privileged- to learn. 235 pp.
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