Divine Liturgy represents a communal response to and participation in the sacred through activity reflecting praise, thanksgiving, remembrance, supplication or repentance. The Eastern Orthodox church follows the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom which is the most celebrated divine liturgy in the Byzantine rite.

It is named after its core part, the anaphora attributed to Saint John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople in the 5th century. In Constantinople, it was refined and beautified under John’s guidance as Archbishop (398–404).

As a divine liturgy of the Church of Holy Wisdom, Hagia Sophia, it became over time the usual divine liturgy in the churches within the Byzantine Empire. Just two divine liturgies (aside from the presanctified), those of Saints John and Basil the Great, became the norm in the Byzantine Church by the end of the reign of Justinian I.

After the Quinsext Council and the liturgical reforms of Patriarch Theodore Balasamon, the Byzantine Rite became the only rite in the Eastern Orthodox Church, remaining so until the 19th and 20th Century re-introduction by certain jurisdictions of Western Rites.

The Divine Liturgy is the common action of Orthodox Christians officially gathered to constitute the Orthodox Church. It is the action of the Church assembled by God in order to be together in one community to worship, to pray, to sing, to hear God’s Word, to be instructed in God’s commandments, to offer itself with thanksgiving in Christ to God the Father, and to have the living experience of God’s eternal kingdom through communion with the same Christ Who is present in his people by the Holy Spirit.