liturgics

Liturgics is the scholarly study of liturgy, the public worship rites of religious communities. It encompasses the analysis of how liturgies are designed, transmitted, translated, and reformed, and how they function in shaping faith, identity, and communal life. The field considers the structure and content of services, the liturgical year and calendar, sacramental rites, lectionaries, rubrics, vestments, sacred music, architecture and interior space, and the use of sacred language and symbols. It also examines the theological meanings embedded in liturgical actions and how doctrine is expressed within worship.

In practice, liturgics is most often associated with Christian contexts, including the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, and other Protestant traditions, but its methods and concerns can be applied to other faiths with central liturgical life. Scholars compare rites across cultures and historical periods, analyze liturgical manuscripts and printed books (for instance missals, breviaries, hymnals), and study the reception and reforms of worship, from patristic regulation to medieval codification and modern liturgical renewal.

Methodologically, liturgics employs historical, textual, and comparative analysis, as well as ethnographic and phenomenological approaches to worship in communities. It interacts with theology, church history, sacramental theology, musicology, and ecumenical studies. The field aims to document practices, interpret their meanings, guide reform, and illuminate how liturgy relates to belief, ethics, and social life.