www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization ByzanTEEN this forum is really, really quiet

hmmmmmm,

someone should really write something interesting.

So whats the deal with........oh i don't know.

Does your local priest use pre-cut bread for communion?
If so you should ask him if he would be willing to switch to real prosphora. If he is not sure, offer to make it for him. Tell him that it causes you great concern that something as beautiful, Theologically correct and liturgically important and the proper preparation of the holy gifts is being overlooked. Hearing this from a young person, your priest should be so overjoyed that he will agree to your suggestion. If he is not, well then i feel sorry for your priest.
Hopefully your priest will still remember what to do with a real loaf of prosphora.
It causes me great grief when i walk into a sanctuary and see a tupperware container filled with these perfectly shaped white squares (or as my father calles them "crispy critters").
While you're at it, go to your local wine store and pick up some MAVRODAPHNE OF PATRAS. This is excellent wine for church use, much better than any white wine.

I know of OCA parishes that rotate "prosphora duty" among families. This is a beatiful custom and can easily be adopted into any young, vibrant and enthusiastic parish. Just make sure you get a good recipe. Lent is also the perfect time to start. GET BAKIN'!!

good lent to all,

ilya

Dear and Revered Ilya,

Who is your avatar? Do we know him?

I could barely calm down the shakiness of my fingers for the excitement over the Prosphora issue you raised here .

But now that I have, five loaves are basically used, but the Old Believers use seven. Does it make a difference?

The parishes who use loaves are those who would take their time in celebrating the Divine Liturgy, observing all the rites etc.

This includes the serving of the Hours, the prayers before and after Communion, the rite of touching the heads of the communicants with the chalice etc.

That is, to me, the real issue - those who take their time and those who are into "Quickies."

Do you agree?

And how would you get the latter parishes to enter fully into the richness of our liturgical celebrations.

Short of coming to them yourself with the Quire and your father . . . We await him at St Vlad's at Thornill!

Alex

greeks use one loaf, slavs use five, old believers seven, whatever tradition you use the important thing is, as alex said, taking your time.

Something as important as the Divine Liturgy should not be rushed but rather taken with dignity. This involves all aspects of the service including the Hours, the Priest's prayers before the iconostas, the Prothesis, and after the liturgy prayers after communion.

"SERVE THE LORD WITH FEAR, AND WITH TREMBLING PAY HOMAGE TO HIM."

and again

"I WILL ENTER INTO THY HOUSE, I WILL WORSHIP TOWARDS THY HOLY TEMPLE IN FEAR OF THEE."

Do you see this in church on Sunday? Is the priest saying the prayers with fear and trembling, or is he saying them so fast you couldn't understand him even if you tried?

People notice this stuff. How many of you have ever heard this prayer:

Sovereign Lord, our God and Father,
you established in heaven ranks and armies
of angels and archangelsfor the liturgy of your glory.
As we your people, gather here, let holy angels join in our assembly that they may offer liturgy with us,
and together we may glorify your goodness.
For all glory...

This is the prayer of the little entrance. Isn't it nice? But most priests mutter it in their head or don't say it at all. What sort of message is that sending the people?

anyway.

i won't get to into it.

ilya

Oh, the picture is Saint Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, one of the Enlighteners of North America.

Dear Ilya Romanovich,

Very good - you are truly steeped in authentic liturgical Orthodoxy!

(where did you learn to sing so beautifully? And you know more about the rubrics than most priests!)

Alex

Dear Aleks'

Of course Ilya Romanovich knows his rubrics, he is a true Djak.

Dear Adam,

Well, I'm "Dyak-ful" for that!

Alex

Dear Friends:

Its a real shame about the use of croutons.

I understand that Patriarch Joseph, of blessed memory, on a visit to a church in America was presented with a plastic container with croutons.

He asked, "what is this" and when it was explained to him what they were for, he said "what is wrong with you people don't you know how to bake bread in this country?"

It may be a slight paraphrase but that's how I heard it.


defreitas

Pre-cut prosphora are like "liturgical TV dinners". This is completely foreign to the tradition.

We discussed prayers for the prosphora bakers some time ago on this forum. If anyone is interested I could dig them up.

I have used several different prosphora recipes over the years. I have to say that Ilya's father's recipe is one of the simplest and produces consistent results. I don't use any other now.

Mavrodaphne is certainly a great altar wine. There are also several other Greek red wines that are also excellent. Any red wine will do in a pinch, but please, no white wine!

Through the prayers of Spyridon and Nikodim, prosphora bakers of the Monastery of the Caves (Pecherska Lavra) O Lord have mercy on us!

We have rotating "prosphora duty" in our parish. Now if I can only get our pastor to let me use my Old Believer prosphora stamps...

Dear Diak,

You are really a "Diak" of all trades . . .

How are Old Believer stamps different from others?

Alex

Hi all,

I petitioned the Eparch about 15 - 16 months ago, to change Rites, and I'm waiting for the Roman Cardinal Archbishop to sign off on it. My eight year old daughter is going to receive her first Penance and Communion this year. She attends both Roman and Ruthenian Sunday Schools. (Our Byzantine Priest comes on Saturday nights from Baltimore, some 80 miles away for us). The Roman Church will have First Eucharist Liturgy on May 3, and our Ruthenian priest will be coming on May 10. Erin, my little girl, said emphatically that she wants to receive her First Eucharist from the Ruthenian priest!
What this has to do with Prosphora is this: our deacon candidate's daughter runs the CCD program for our children. We are going to have a retreat for our two little girls who will be receiving First Eucharist this year. Part of the retreat will be to make the Proshpora for the congregation. Nice, "hands on" experience if you'll please pardon the pun. My children and I feel much more a part of our 30 or so person Byzantine community than the Roman church I've known most of my life. I'm not trying to put the Roman Church down, I've just noticed that our little community is more closely knit. And whenever I've gone to a Byzantine Church out of town, the priest has always sought me out after liturgy. I'm glad I've found my way home. I'm also glad that my children feel that it's their home too.

Happy Lent,

Rick Cooley
Hagerstown, MD

Dear Rick,

The story about your daughter's interest in the Church and being part of the community are the type of thing that make for Happy Lents.

John
Pilgrim and Odd Duck

How excellent to see the canonarch Ilya back on here after too long an absence! I wholly second his encouragement to use real prosphora. As one who has begun to learn this fine art both for my home parish and then for the Sheptytsky Institute chapel, I have found this a great honour and also a spiritual joy and gift to be able to do. And if you start baking prosphora, you can either make them large enough or numerous enough that another tradition has to be started concomitantly, viz., antidoron. This, too, should be recovered for our people, but I have only been in two UGCC parishes (St. Elias and the Institute) where it is done regularly. Why we feel we can jettison these things is a great mystery to me.

Whilst on this topic, what do you do in a situation where (a) you have already gone to your pastor with ideas and he shows himself not only indifferent to them but firmly (contumaciously?) attached to a contrary tradition and (b) your bishop is not exactly providing leadership to encourage the recovery of such traditions, and therefore allows this priest to continue his merry Latin ways?? I can think of numerous examples that spring to mind, pre-cut prosphora being only the least of them....It becomes very disspiriting after a while.

Finally, I am all in favour of beginning to push people to reconsider their relationship to time. I LOATHE this idea that we have to rush in and out of church in an hour, or 75 minutes tops, on a Sunday. We think nothing of spending three hours out for a steak dinner with a friend. Why would we want a shorter time at the greatest meal of all? We have to get people to realize that, as the Archpriest Roman Galadza puts it so well, "If the prayer is long, your love is short."

Adam,

In regards to what to do if your pastor is not interested in anything you have to offer, whatever your priest says-goes. Pray to God to soften the hearts of our priests and enlighten the dim minds our bishops. Take it from one who has been through to much of this for a 20 year old, fighting and holding grudges against your clergy will not solve a thing. What helps me is the thought that everybody dies (or in the case of basilians- retire). I know this might sound harsh, but face the facts, these guys aint gonna change. So just remember, no matter how ignorant your metropolitan is he is bound to be replaced, hopefuly by a wise, just, kind-hearted and most of all fatherly person.
So keep pushing the envelope, slowly, quietly, peacefully, and before you know it everyone will be wearing riassas and kamilavkas and singing the second antiphon. How do you think we came so far with our parish?


And on the topic of antidoron, the antidoron should consist of only the scraps from the proskomidia. It should be recieved with great reverence. This means fasting from midnight (as is always done before liturgy, even if not receiving communion) and being in church from the beginning of the service.

ilya

And the proshphora can also be taken home for consumption after fasting during the week until the next Divine Liturgy. A small table with holy water and the prosphora can be set up near the bright corner for this purpose.

Once you have restablished antidoron you can then work on the priest to allow commemorative prosphora with names of the living and dead being given when the faithful buy a loaf, and the blessed prosphora can be consumed at home during the week. St. John of Kronstadt Press has some nice commemoration sheets that can be left next to the prosphora basket for people to write down the names of those living or dead they wish to commemorate in list form when they contribute the prosphora before the Liturgy begins.

That's also a fringe benefit of being the prosphora baker - you can make sure that plenty of smaller prosphora make it to church for blessing and distribution.

Thess are yet more beautiful traditions that allow the "domestic church" to be that extension of our parish liturgical life that it should be.