Embolism (liturgy)

The embolism in Christian liturgy (from Greek ἐμβολισμός, an interpolation) is a short prayer said or sung after the Lord's Prayer. It functions "like a marginal gloss" upon the final petition of the Lord's Prayer (". . . deliver us from evil"), amplifying and elaborating on "the many implications" of that prayer. According to the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, "[t]he embolism may date back to the first centuries, since, under various forms, it is found in all the Occidental and in a great many Oriental, particularly Syrian, Liturgies."