www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall "Rosaries Are an Economic Lifeline"

Dear John and Charles,

Whether St Seraphim saw rosary beads or not (and wooden chotki are in the Russian tradition as well, I have several sets from Orthodox monasteries over there), has nothing to do with the Rule of the Theotokos being the same in structure to the Rosary.

The Byzantine Hail Mary is different from the Coptic, from the Ethiopian etc.

If you are saying that EC's recite the Latin Hail Mary - that is a problem and it is unacceptable. But I've never come across such an animal yet. If you have them in the States, I'm sorry.
So what? It's a "Hail Mary" or "Rejoice etc."

RC's aren't obligated to say the "Holy Mary . . ." at the end.

At Diveyevo, that Russian Monastery has the nuns going around it singing the Hail Mary's out loud on feast-days as a large group and reciting out loud on other days (as a group). This is not done in church, of course, as a service.

I don't know of any UGCC parish up here that recites the rosary/rule publicly in church.

Do you have such parishes? If so, that is clearly outside the liturgical rules of the Byzantine Church.

St Seraphim, according to some, did know Roman Catholics who came to visit him and his icon was, truth be told, a Western one, one that does not normally occur in Orthodox circles (Joy of all Joys). There is a small group of Western pictures that have become miraculous Orthodox icons.

Again, so what? What's the problem?

Religious poaching has been going on for centuries between East and West.

But this is a grave issue for some ECers', it would seem.

This points to our insecurity and also to our lack of appreciation of these processes that have occurred historically in Orthodoxy and not just in the EC churches.

In Eastern Europe, Latin devotions are not only embraced by EC and some Orthodox parishes, they are keenly promoted such as i.e. the Way of the Cross.

The people over there have no intention of starting a "Let's get Easternized" movement nor do the presence of these devotions, that irk our flesh over here, upset them.

Alex

Sad to say, many churches in the U.S. have had to start a "let's get easternized" movement. Too many of our eastern churches had, not very long ago, no icon screen, people kneeling for communion, first communions, communal rosaries before the Divine Liturgy, stations of the cross, etc. It's been an uphill battle ever since to restore eastern practices. Unfortunately, some of our folks lived with Latin practices for so long, they think that's the norm. It's getting better and I think our hierarchs are making a valiant - and let me add, much appreciated - effort at restoration.

Alex,

We have had publications and prayerbooks that were quite insistent that the Latin forms of the Hail Mary and Our Father and the Apostles Creed were to be used in the recitation of the Rosary. Is there anything objectively wrong about saying the Rosary as the Latins do? No. Subjectively, it is another Latinization, as if our Hail Mary and Our Father and Nicene Creed aren't good enough. It also does not help that many (not all) down here who promote the Rosary are also the ones who complain about restoring Eastern traditions. Find a parish where the Roasry is recited before Liturgy and you will usually find no Icon Screen, lack of infant Communion, and any other number of Latinizations. In many ways the Roasry is unfortunately a symbol of those who oppose retuning to our authentic traditions.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Well said, Deacon Lance.

I am with Alex, who may or may not welcome my company.
There is nothing wrong with borrowing a good valid way of praying and meditating [I am not granting that the Rosary is a Latin innovation, but for the sake of argument let's say it is]. If one is secure in one's identity this is no threat. Latins adopt Eastern customs with ease -icons, the Jesus prayer, etc.- and no one objects. The only problem is when one is so insecure in his or her identity that it is lost in these borrowings.
In my parish the Rosary is recited before the Liturgy, which is pristine, and has been for four generations. If that is not a tradition at this point I don't know what is. And no, we do not have First Communions, we do have an iconostasis, and any Latinizations have long been reformed.
-Daniel

Dear Daniel,

Your company is ALWAYS appreciated . . .

And not a moment too soon either . . .

Alex

Perhaps one of the reasons so many ECs/EOs are uncomfortable with the Rosary is that they've only seen public recitations of it, and never actually prayed it themselves, quietly and in private. Like the Jesus Prayer, the Rosary really isn't intended to be a loud public display - it's intended to quiet the soul and help your mind focus on the life of Christ.

As someone who was railroaded into leading the Rosary before morning Mass for over a year, I can verify that this practice almost killed my love for the Rosary. I didn't like having to keep the rhythm at a certain pace throughout, and having to say the exact same "extra" prayers at the end of each decade, day after day after day. After extricating myself from this situation, it took months before I could stand to pick up a Rosary again!

The Rosary is really not intended to be a communal prayer - it's intended to be a combination of meditation and comtemplation, and you should feel perfectly free to pray it as fast or as slowly as you like. Which means it works BEST as a private prayer. I'd like to see more parishes incorporate some form of Morning Prayer before Mass (Liturgy), and encourage people to pray the Rosary (and the Jesus Prayer) in private, where it will do the most good.

Dear Fr. Deacon Lance,

I appreciate your words and your analysis!

While our "Latinizers" will definitely have the Rosary (private or public, although I've not seen it done publicly before the liturgy in my life), even our very Eastern parishes (St Nicholas, my own, for example) will have people with bead rosaries praying them in private.

Our former pastor there was adamantly opposed to the Rosary - but I later learned that he was opposed to the public recitation of the rosary as a "form of liturgical prayer which the East does not know."

Our Easternizing priests up here have also learned that it is no use trying to ban certain devotion on these grounds.

As one told me recently, "We have to acknowledge the importance of those devotions in the lives of our people - while at the same time introducing them to the great traditions of our Eastern Church."

And I guess I'm speaking out of another context.

I can't imagine myself using the RC form of the Hail Mary!

I was involved with a recording of a Byzantine-style Rosary, but when I found out they were using the Latin ending "Holy Mary . . ." . . . let's say they later used the Byzantine form . . .

And while I will pray the Rosary out loud with my wife and others and also at funeral homes, I would put up a fuss if someone wanted to say it out loud in Church.

I knew you Ruthenians were Latinized, but . . . (kidding!) I've also seen the Latin form of the Hail Mary and the Rosary in an older Melkite prayer book. I knew it was "out to lunch" when I read, in their calendar, a commemoration of Tsar Peter I's victory over the Kozaks at Poltava . (I understand Tsar Peter liked Jesuits!).

Even my Eastern parish of St Nicholas (that was in, once again, the movie, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding") observes the month of May with the weekly evening Paraclesis and the Akathist to the Theotokos on weekends.

It's no use opposing that - it's an ingrained tradition.

But one can expose our people to some of the beauty of Eastern liturgical veneration of the Theotokos, to be sure.

I hope I'm not coming across as being insensitive here. Perhaps I am.

If I am, part of the reason is that I've no idea, until you've all told me, what is involved with the use of Latin prayers etc. in what is known as the "Rosary."

I use a prayer rope with brass beads every ten knots to say my Rule, I say it before Icons and especially before the icon of St Seraphim of Sarov kneeling on a rock before his icon ,"the Joy of all Joys."

I think Charles may be getting all worked up for nothing here . . .

Alex

Dear Dolly,

Excellent, as per your usual!

Alex

I have never objected to the rosary as a private devotion. It's the public use of it in Byzantine Churches that I object to. When it is used in such a context, it usually replaces the prescribed prayers from the Divine Praises that we are supposed to be using. I agree that the rosary is ill-suited to public prayer, as well. It would work best as a private devotion. Of course, Eastern devotions are always good to use.

Like I said in a previous thread, I enjoy the rosary much more since I learned the Byzantine wording, "Rejoice O Virgin Mother of God" vs. "Hail Mary". Sometimes I even say "Ave Maria" rather than "Hail Mary".
In German, the translation would be "Greetings" or, "You are greeted, Maria", not "Heil Maria"!
Does anyone know translations from other languages?

Dear Charles,

Eastern devotions are the best!!

That's why I pray the Rule of the Theotokos . . .

Have a great weekend.

Alex

I know. That's why I pray the Psalter According to the Seventy.

Dear Charles,

The original Rule of the Dominican Rosary Confraternity required, as you know, that not only the 15 decades of the Rosary be prayed each week, but also the entire Psalter.

In other words, two Psalters.

The difference being, of course, that the Psalter is a liturgical prayer and the Rosary is not.

And we should all remember that if we go too far East, we'll wind up, willy-nilly, in the West . . .

To bead or not to bead, for me there really should be no question . . .

Alex

Dear Friends,

Oh, almost forgot!

A Russian Orthodox lady I met in hospital once showed me a wooden fish she had with beads glued into it.

It was on this that she prayed and counted her prayers!

Anyone ever hear of this Orthodox prayer device?

Alex