www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Eucharistic Adoration

Most people know that our family is sojourning in a Roman parish since there are no Eastern Catholic parishes nearby. I do occasionally visit an OCA mission parish about 20 miles South of here but we are members of a large Roman parish which has some wonderful priests on staff and the Faith faithfully preached. Our teenage kids like the youth group in the parish (a good combination of fun times and some serious preaching/counseling...I listen in to the presentations sometimes )and we make sure they get there! Last night I dropped them off and noticed the new Eucharistic Adoration chapel was open (Monday had been the inaugural day.) There were actually several people who were going into the chapel...I decided to check it out.

Now, there was a time I would not have been caught dead in a Eucharistic Adoration chapel. This may be surprising to some folks but there are some Eastern Catholics who develop an antipathy to anything Roman and I fell into that category a few years ago. While some Eastern Catholic Churches have imported Benediction, for example, it certainly is a latinization and the concept of adoration of the Eucharist outside of Liturgy is foreign to the Byzantine Church. I knew that Bishop Kallistos had written:

Orthodox, however, do not hold services of public devotion before the reserved sacrament, nor do they have any equivalent to the Roman Catholic functions of Exposition and Benediction, although there seems to be no theological (as distinct from liturgical) reason why they should not do so. The priest blesses the people with the sacrament during the course of the Liturgy, but never outside it. (The Orthodox Church, p. 292)

But there was a time in my spiritual journey when I would not have darkened the door of an Adoration Chapel since it "wasn't part of my spirituality" whereas the real reason was because it was a Roman devotion and Roman was something I just didn't do. Yet, I could visit Coptic parishes and really enjoyed that. I even got permission to receive the Eucharist in an Assyrian parish on one occasion. The last couple of years I have come to realize that just because something may have become a symbol of latinization in the Eastern Churches doesn't make it less "catholic" than an Akathist or the Agpeya or the Hudra. Certainly I felt that Romans were most welcome to visit our parishes and experience our spirituality. If so, how could it be wrong for us to occasionally find some benefit in Roman spirituality? I would still say that one should not minimize one's own spiritual patrimony nor do I encourage latinization. But, there are treasures in each ritual Church.

After my experience last night at the Adoration Chapel I would say that Eucharistic Adoration is a treasure of the Roman Church. There were about 8 of us in silent worship of the Lord. Some were in obvious prayer. Some were silently reading Scripture. Others were meditating. And I think some were just experiencing the peace of being in the presence of Christ.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not encouraging our churches to adopt Roman devotions. We have enough to do in restoring our own traditions without adding elements from other Churches. But, individually, I think it is imperative for us to deeply respect the traditions of all the ritual Churches in the Catholic Church. Being open to experiencing treasures from these various Churches may also be of spiritual benefit.

Dave Ignatius DTBrown@aol.com

The last post is an amazing coincidence. On the way to school this morning I was reflecting on the Eucharistic adoration and benediction practised in Byzantine Catholic parishes on East Slovakia (Presov and Kosice), and was wondering if this was common. It seemed a little odd that a rite should used leavened eucharistic bread and then import azymes to allow for a devotion which is outside this rite. Is this common practice?

With love in Christ-
Mark, monk and sinner.

Fr. Mark,

Adoration and Benediction in the Byzantine Catholic Church? All Latinizations. Totally against the Eastern mindset to 'adore' or 'expose' Holy Communion rather than consume it. The last time I witnessed it was thirty years ago in my home parish.

I might add that one of the parishes in question had 'folk-masses' with musical instruments and displayed 'icons' of the Saced Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

As an Orthodox I found this shocking, but should add that there were also exemplary Byzantine Catholic parishes which stuck to Eastern Tradition.

With love in Christ -
Mark, monk and sinner.

Fr. Mark,

The proper way for Byzantine adoration of the Holy Gifts is to have the Holy Gifts placed in a Chalice/Ciborium with a lid. There should be no actual exposition at all, but only Adoration (preferably in the form of a Moleben to Christ), supplication, and benediction. Unfortunately some have picked up the practice of using Latin Hosts and Monstrances as you witnessed. However, I believe this is mostly confined to Slovakia and Ukraine where some want to differentiate themselves from the Orthodox.

I would have to disagrre with Joe. The practice of Supplication of the Holy Gifts, while originally a Latin devotion, has been around in the Rusyn Church for many years and is really a completely Byzantinized service. Our Byzantine Supplication and the Latin Exposition have nothing in common other than the people are blessed with the Holy Gifts, so it really isn't a Latinization anymore.

As well, most of the rhetoric used to justify why we should not continue this practice does not apply to the Greek Catholic Churches of Carpatho-Rus, Slovakia, and Hungary. Most often used is "We didn't have the Reformation or denial of Real Presence so we don't need Adoration like the Latin Church does." Well the Greek Catholic's of the above areas were affected by the Reformation and did have to deal with Lutherans, Reformed, and others who denied the Real Presence as Catholic and Orthodox believe it. And while yes our primary way of honoring the Holy Gifts is partaking of them worthily, most (if not all)of those who practice Adoration do just that. A much worse Latinization in my opinion would be that during Adoration, the Moleben is discarded in favor of Latin novenas or other devotions, something I find totally unacceptable.

In actual practice, very few Ruthenian parishes in the US practice this anymore, but I see no reason to put down those devoted to this service which many grew up with.

In Christ,
Lance

Lance,

Nobody is putting down anybody. The topic was about a particular service, not any particular people.

This is a very interesting thread.

I think that the whole idea of Eucharistic Adoration in the Byzantine Church must be looked at in the light of our Eucharistic theology. For us in the East, Christ is not primarily shown in the Eucharist, He is given. First and foremost, the Eucharist is super-substantial Food and Drink. Can we in the East develop a theology that supports Eucharistic Adoration in a manner other than that which is appropriate with the administration of this Holy Mystery? To date, no one has done this.

I do not in any way condemn our spiritual ancestors for this custom. They were doing what they thought correct and the idea of Eucharistic Adoration is certainly not 100% wrong. It just does not fit with Byzantine theology. At a very crass level it almost seems that it is merely playing with one's food outside of dinnertime. Yet the Roman Catholics do indeed seem to have benefited from this devotion (but even they probably would not have developed it if there had been no Protestant Reformation).

When I was growing up the Byzantine version of Eucharistic Adoration was celebrated on first Fridays (in both my Byzantine Catholic parish and the Johnstown Orthodox parish up the street). For me, it never made much sense. Most of our parishes dropped Eucharistic Adoration in the 1970's and 1980's. Only a few parishes in the Pittsburgh area (which experienced the greatest amount of Latinization) still celebrate it.

Fr. Marked referenced parishes with icons of the Sacred Heat of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Before I could comment on this I'd want to know more details. There are numerous Orthodox parishes here in the United States that had these icons on their icon screens. In the early days of the emigration from Europe the people didn't exactly bring icon painters with them and resorted to simply purchasing the four-color prints (which were, of course, printed by the Roman Catholics). I'll bet that in the first half of the twentieth century there was not a single Byzantine household (Orthodox and Catholic) that did not have a framed icon picture of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart hanging somewhere.

I think we need to follow the example of our hierarchs. They only celebrate this service once a year at Otpust, and only because it has been a custom for over 65 years. Eventually it will be replaced with a more authentic service but for now we must respect the pray needs of those Byzantines who were raised with this spirituality. At the parish level it has fallen into disuse almost everywhere (except for a handful of the hard core Latinized parishes).

When I attened Eucharistic Adoration in Ruthenian parishes, the species wasn't exposed. The priest would use the ciborium, not a monstrance. It was a beautiful service. It was called "Molebin of Jesus, Lover of Mankind"

Joe,

Your correction is noted, but can we say a service is Latinized without saying those who are devoted to it aren't? Yes the service began in the West but I say again: when done properly the service is truly a Byzantine one even if peculiar to Greek Catholics of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Administrator,

I do not find it at odds with our Byzantine spirituality at all, done properly the Holy Gifts aren't exposed so the mystery is maintained. The priest/bishop blesses with the christogram, the hand cross, the Gospel book, the candle, all symbols, icons, types of Christ. The Holy Gifts, are the Symbol, the Icon, the Type par excellence precisely because while they are the Symbol they are at the same time truly the Body and Blood of Christ. Therefore being blessed with the Holy Gifts, even outside of a Liturgy in which one partakes of them does not seem inappropriate, at least to me. As Dave relates, I think sometimes we assume that becasue something did not originate with us it is not compatible with us. I think it hard to argue that Adoration of Christ, be it through an Icon, the Gospel Book or the Holy Gifts can be wrong or incompatible with our theology. I do agree with your conclusion , we should follow the lead of our bishops.

In Christ,
Lance

I would like to add one single think: please do not forget that Eucharist Adoration, although a common practice in the Latin Church from the X or XI century, is also "strange" to the liturgical tradition of the Latin Church. I mean Eucharist Adoration is strange to the liturgical tradition of the Roman Chuch in the same way that, for example, the celebration of Easter Vigil is Saturday morning instead of the evening would be found strange by Saint John Chrysostom or Saint Gregory the Theologian.

Here again we have the question...where do we draw the line in the historical sand? Did the Byzantine "tradition" stop developing and evolving at a certain point in time or does it continue to do so today? As Lance very convincingly pointed out (at least in my opinion) we in the Catholic Byzantine tradion have made this tradition our own and have taken a western devotion and made it over into a Byzantine one. I have never seen this rite performed and have been told I probably never will...but I have read the ritual and except for the blessing with the Sacred Elements, it looks nothing like the the Latin Benediction ceremony (which I have done myself many times). Don

Unless I am very much mistaken, the cathedral in Presov used a monstrance for adoration. I would love to be proved wrong!!!

As for the 'icons', the Immaculate Heart of Mary was a very large painting ensconced in a side altar in the cathedral(?) in Kosice.

With love in Christ -
Mark, monk and sinner.

Perhaps Dave found Eucharistic Adoration so meaningful exactly because he has been attending a Latin parish given the current relative lack of the 'experience of mystery' in some of them. I too found a need to 'prolong the experience' when I was attending Latin services. I don't feel that need in Eastern churches. But I would be inclined to agree most with the 'administrater'. In the Byzantine churches the Gifts are meant to be 'given and received' not gazed at. Icons are for gazing--perhaps in a church without icons this need has been met through an alternative eucharistic practice.

Thank you Lance.

In words and rhetoric, and especially in chant, this service is a masterpiece. However its seed was planted, the fruit is organically us. I think that the idea of discarding it in an effort to more traditional is misguided, IMO. It would be like throwing out prostopinije in favor of Byzantine chant.

Dear Friends,

I grew up with the Supplicatory Service of Adoration of the Eucharist - my grandfather who was an Orthodox priest (involuntary draft of 1946 ) for 20 years continued to practice it in his village. He used to sing "O spasitelnaya Zhertvo!" frequently.

Patriarch Josef Slipyj did one hour of private Eucharistic Adoration daily - he used to attend St Neilos Church in Rome for this.

As a matter of fact, many of our confessors and martyrs under the Soviets were avid Adorers of our Lord in Holy Communion, privately and with the Supplicatory Moleben.

The fact is that when the Orthodox held discussions with the Protestants in the 17th century, I believe it was, the issue of the Eucharist, of course, came up.

While the Orthodox responded, as did the Administrator, in terms that reflected the dynamic worship we give to Christ in Holy Communion (i.e. "given"), the Orthodox ALSO said that we also worship Christ in Holy Communion on the Altar during the Divine Liturgy.

So this is my personal take on how to arrive at an integration of one and the other within the context of our traditional Orthodox-Catholic liturgical piety.

Number one - the Supplicatory Service was developed in our Church not because of Protestantism, since that wasn't an issue with us, but precisely because of the Latinization, not of our idea of Holy Communion, but of our Liturgy way back when.

We know that with the progressive Latinization of our Liturgy, in some areas more than others, and the downplaying of specifically Byzantine rubrics that emphasized the worship of our Lord in Holy Communion during the Liturgy, the path was set for paraliturgical devotions in this regard.

Isidore Dolnytsky admitted as much - as did Myron Fedoriw in his remarkable little work on Byzantine church music.

It is true that Dolnitsky published his Akathist to the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Conception to prevent Eastern Catholics from attending Latin parishes. There was a tremendous interest in these devotions among Eastern Catholics in the 19th century and before and we would have to review possible reasons why - there are many to choose from.

It is also true that East Slavic Orthodoxy was generally impacted by western pietistic devotions as well, as we know. Orthodox saints even practiced them, everything from the Joys and Sorrows of the Mother of God, a form of the Way of the Cross, the Rosary (western version) etc.

Let's leave that for now . . .

The RC Church that led the way in paraliturgical devotions to Christ in Holy Communion is now emphasizing the containment of this within the parameters of the Mass itself.

The structure of their Mass is such that they cannot, as much as they would like to, bring the Supplicatory Service into the body of the Mass.

In fact, one view is that the Supplicatory Service in the West developed as an imitation of the Byzantine Rite of blessing the faithful with the Chalice at the end of Holy Communion!

If that is so, and I don't know (never went to seminary, you know), then we already have the Supplicatsia within our Liturgy and our job is to emphasize it rather than go beyond the Liturgy by way of paraliturgical devotions in the first instance.

We should emphasize the formal offices of preparation before and after Holy Communion - the Old Believer offices are particularly long and beautiful.

As a matter of act, the Old Believer traditions of attending the Divine Liturgy are not only zealous but they really do help one's focus on the Mysteries being celebrated.

For example, when the Priest uses incense, the Old Believers extend their hands, palms upward and recite the Psalmic phrase: "Thy Good Spirit will lead me in the land of righteousness (3 times)." There are many others.

Having truly "lived" the Liturgy, we then approach the Holy Mysteries, kissing the edge of the Chalice and going to the left to wait for the Priest to come and touch our foreheads with it etc.

We experience the exhilaration of being blessed with Christ Himself in the Chalice - the essence of the paraliturgical Supplicatsia Service.

Our preparation for Holy Communion for next time, say next week, should involve reciting a portion of the preparatory prayers each day, prostrations etc.

And the private practice of prayer before the Altar is something that every Christian is entitled to do.

We see this in a section of the Way of the Pilgrim who goes out of his way to pray before the Holy Gifts as they are carried to a sick person.

We see this in the pastoral life of St Dmitri of Rostov who, when he visited the outposts of his charge, always paid attention to the way in which Holy Communion was reserved and honoured in the parish church.

(He once attended a "primitive" parish and asked the priest where he kept the Holy Communion since it was not on the altar. The priest didn't even understand what "Communion" was! The attendant, who understood the ways of the people there said, "Where do you keep the 'Extras'?" At this, the priest smiled and showed the Metropolitan a cardboard box, to his horror . . .).

Again, our martyrs and confessors gained much inner strength and resolve from their private Adoration of Christ in Holy Communion. It should be seen as an extension of that we give our Lord in the Divine Liturgy and as a preparation for the Divine Liturgy and a worthy Holy Communion.

If we can do without monstrances etc., that would be a good thing . . .

But we can't tell our people used to the Latin forms that they are not in keeping with our spirituality unless we emphasize our Byzantine spirituality of Holy Communion so as to draw them to the "better part" at least as far as our own traditions are concerned.

Again, as our lamented former parish priest once said, "We have always had the Supplicatsia in our Divine Liturgy - it is just that everyone is in too great a hurry to notice it . . ."

I know that there are some Byzantine parishes in western Ukraine where 24 hour Adoration is done in Church, including even small children. My godson's uncle is a priest there who promotes it and he told me that even schoolchildren ask to be assigned a daily hour - the entire village takes turns, even throughout the night . . .

Also, I remember the story of a group of Ukrainian Catholic nuns who took turns doing 24 Hour Adoration. A group of them were placed on a freezing mountain peak by the KGB to allow them to freeze slowly . . .

After three days, the police came back to collect the frozen bodies.

Instead, what they found was the nuns, still alive, and singing their Eucharistic hymns . . .

Alex