Digitized Manuscripts: Faceted Search

About This Table

This table searches all collections of Syriac and Garshuni manuscripts that are freely available online by key terms. Click any of the categorized menu items to narrow down your search. If you would like to sort the manuscripts by shelf-mark or date, or search by general keyword, see our other table here, which includes all the same manuscript data.

*The Approximate Date column is derived from the best available information for the manuscript. This is not asserted as a scholarly position on the dating of the manuscript. Instead, it is merely used here for the convenience of being able to sort all manuscripts by numerical date. The user should keep in mind that there may be considerable debate over the precise dating of the manuscript and should consult the manuscript repository and relevant scholarly literature for details.

Manuscript Name / Shelf Mark / Project Number Approximate Date Language The main body text Link to Digitized Manuscript
St. Mark's Convent, Jerusalem 2-4 1,300 CE Syriac

See entry at CPART and in Macomber. Baumstark 18.

  • f. 9v-192r Syrian Orthodox Pontifical Ritual
    • f. 9v-15v The Harangue (?) decreed by St. Jacob, Metropolitan of Mayāfāqīn, the city of the martyrs of Mesopotamia
    • f. 17v-22r Exhortation or instructions to priests and deacons, which the Patriarch or Metropolitan delivers before ordaining them
    • f. 22v-49v Rite of ordinations of priests and deacons
    • f. 50r-52v The rite of consecration of the oil with which those being baptized are anointed before their descent into the baptismal font
    • f. 53v-91r The consecration of altars, altar stones and sanctuaries, after the office of matins
    • f. 91v-127r The rite of ordination of high priests, or metropolitans, and bishops
    • f. 127v-169v The rite of consecration of chrism
    • f. 170r-182v Explanation of the consecration of chrism
    • f. 183r-186r Prayers of every sort
      • f. 183r When visiting the sick
      • f. 183r When the priest enters a monastery
      • f. 183v When the priest enters the houses of the faithful
      • f. 183v For youths
      • f. 183v-184r For someone who is baptized by heretics and returns
      • f. 184r For someone who is possessed by demons
      • f. 184rv That a person prays for himself when he is possessed by a demon or by any person
      • f. 184v for someone who is setting out on a journey and asks for prayer
      • f. 184v-185r what the person who is setting forth recites for himself
      • f. 185r For someone who violates his oaths repents
      • f. 185rv For the ordination of an abbot or visitor
      • f. 185v-186r For an altar place that a pagan, or barbarian, or heretic has entered and defiled
    • f. 186v-190r Prayers (of blessing recited) over the people
      • f. 186v-187v In the meter of Mar Ephrem
      • f. 187v-190r In the meter of Mar Jacob of Sarug
    • f. 191v-192r Prayer for someone who returns from captivity and has violated his profession of faith
St. Mark's Convent, Jerusalem 2-10 1,400 CE Garshuni, Syriac

See entry at CPART and In Macomber ([Macomber A]; [Macomber B]; [Macomber C])

  • Part A (14/15th century)
    • f. 1r-23v Fragments of a Syrian Orthodox missal
      • f. 1r-2v, 4rv Anaphora of St. James, with the ordinary of the mass
      • f. 4v-9v Anaphora of John the Evangelist
      • f. 9v-20v Anaphora of St. Philoxenus (of Baghdad, also known as La'zar Bar Shabbta)
      • f. 20v-23v Mar Sa'wira, Rite of the signing of the chalice of holy St. Severus of Antioch. This is a rite for consecrating additional wine for communion when the communion wine that was consecrated during mass runs short
  • ​Part B (17/18th century)
    • f. 3rv A single leaf from a Syrian Orthodox missal containing the anamnesis, epiclesis, and beginnings of the intercessions of the Anaphora of St. John the Evangelist
  • Part C (15th Century)
    • f. 24v-112v Syrian Orthodox Pontifical ritual
      • f. 24v-52v, 60rv, 54rv The book for the consecration of chrism
        • f. 24v-25v Confection of the anointing oil for chrism
        • f. 25v-27v Preparation for the ceremony
        • f. 27v-52v, 60rv, 54rv The rite of the consecration of chrism
      • f. 55r-56v Prayer (recited) Over the anointing oil intended for anointing (those being baptized). Candidates for baptism have their entire bodies anointed with oil just before they are plunged into the font.
      • f. 57r-59v, 53rv, 61r-64v Rite of the ordination of deacons
      • f. 65r-70v Rite of the ordination of priests
      • f. 71r-74r End of the treatise on chrism (Garshuni)
      • f. 74r-79v Rite of the consecration of a church
      • f. 80r-82v End of the bishop's exhortation to those ordained to the priesthood (Garshuni)
      • f. 82v Prayer of the faithful for the priests and deacons who have been ordained (Garshuni)
      • f. 83r-84v Rite of the holy habit of Abba Antonius, which has been translated from the Egyptian language into Syriac
      • f. 84v-85r Rite of the prayer for the consecration of the furniture of the sanctuary and the altar and the vestments that the priest wears at Mass
      • f. 85r-98r Rite of the tonsure of monks according to the tradition of Mount Urhay
      • f. 98r Prayer recited over those who are putting on the garments of the ministry
      • f. 98r-100r Exhortation delivered by one of the saints; it is read to the monks at their clothing (Garshuni)
      • f. 100r-103v Rite of the tonsure of nuns when they are presented for the holy habit of monasticism
      • f. 103v-112v Order, that is, sequence of ceremonies of the consecration of altars, that is, of the tablets on the altar table
Sachau 167; Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin 38 1,496 CE Syriac

See entry for Sachau 167

  • f. 1-34r Prayers of Catholicos Elijah III
  • f. 34r-106v Liturgies for feast days by Elijah of Nisibis
    • f. 34r-76 various feasts
    • f. 77-106r Liturgical text including Anaphora of the apostles
  • f. 106v Order of Baptism, by Isho'yahb III
  • f. 121r Order of absolution, by Isho'yahb III
  • f. 123v Order of the consecration of the waters
  • f. 125r Order of exorcisms
  • f. 126v Order of the renewal of the leaven
  • f. 127v Order of the consecration of the altar without oil
  • f. 133r-138v Prayers at the table
  • f. 139r Colophon
  • f. 139v-140v Blessing
  • f. 140v-150r Ordinal
  • f. 150v Order of consecration of the altar with oil
  • f. 182v Order of the service of Pentecost
Diyarbakir, Turkey Meryem Ana Kilisesi (DIYR 00202) 1,477 CE Syriac
  • Week-day Service
  • Prayers
  • Celebration of Good Friday when the Cross is carried out
  • Evening service of Easter
  • Morning celebration for Easter Monday
  • Celebrations for Our Lady, the Cross, the saints and the deceased
  • Rite of ordination of deacons
  • Eastern Ordination Rite
  • Two Sedrē
  • Sogitha on the church that was built by the Apostle Addai and King Abgar
  • Sogitha on wine drinking and banquet
  • Gregory bar 'Ebrōyō, Selection from a homily
  • Ephrem Syrus, Testimony on moral instruction
Vat. sir. 66 1,545 CE Syriac

Catalog entry in Assemani

Chaldean ordinal translated from Latin into Syriac

  • Ordination of the door-keepers
  • Ordination of the Lectors
  • Ordination of exorcists
  • Ordination of acolytes
  • Ordination of subdeacons
  • Ordination of Deacons
  • Ordination of Presbyters
  • Order of Absolution
  • Prayers
  • On the wood (of the table)
  • Consecration of the altar
  • Consecration when the altar was desecrated
  • Consecration of the altar without chrism
  • Blessing over the chalice
  • Diaconal ordination
  • Ordination of a presbyter
  • Service of the habit of a monk
  • Service of the tonsure of a monk
  • Service of the tonsure of holy women
  • Admonition on temporal ordination
  • 'Onyatha during the tonsure of monks
  • Benediction for when the Bishop departs a city
  • Benediction for when a Bishop enters a monastery
  • Benediction for when a bishop leaves a monastery
  • Prayer for an abbot 
  • Ḥutāmē at the end of a liturgy
  • A form of consecration for the bread and wine (from Latin into Syriac)
  • The Liturgy of the Blessed Apostles
  • The Liturgy of Theodore the commentator of the Divine Books
  • 12-syllable verses for common days during the liturgy
  • Absolution