Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States
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I know in the Coptic Church, we say "Liturgy" instead of "Mass" Could you please explain the difference between the two?

Liturgy (leitourgia) is a Greek composite word meaning originally a public duty. Its components are leitos (from leos = laos, people) meaning public, and ergo (obsolete in the present stem, used in future erxo, etc.), to do.

In the Septuagint, it (and the verb leitourgeo) is used for the public service of the temple (e. g., Ex.38:27; 39:12, etc.). Thence it comes to have a religious sense as the function of the priests, the ritual service of the temple (Joel, 1:9; 2:17, etc.). In the New Testament this religious meaning has become definitely established. In Holy Gospel according to St. Luke 1:23, Zacharias goes home when "the days of his liturgy" (ai hemerai tes leitourgias autou) are over.

The word liturgy, now the common one in all Orthodox Churches, restricts it to the chief official service only, the Sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist. This is now practically the only sense in which leitourgia is used in Greek, or in its derived forms (e. g., Arabic al-liturgiah) by any Orthodox Church. In the early church, the word leitourgia was the one commonly used. Later on when Christians in the West used the Latin language the word Mass was introduced. The word "Mass" means dismissal as it is clear from the Catholic Encyclopedia that this word means the dismissal of the people, as in the versicle: "Ite missa est" (Go, the dismissal is made). So, Missa used at first in a vaguer sense, became the technical name for this service in the Latin rites.
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