www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Republishing the 1964/5 Liturgikon

When the 1964/5 Liturgikon we are supposed to be using is republished, what would you add/correct to keep the Metropolia in-line wih our received tradition?

I have a few thoughts in no particular order ...

1.) "For ever and ever" rendered as "to the ages of ages".

2.) In the Creed: "substance" would read "essence".

3.) Use the word "Orthodox" when we're supposed to.

4.) Use "our Holy Father N., Pope of Rome."

5.) No Filioque.

Other thoughts?

In Christ,

John

Dear John,
That list sounds good to me. But I'll have a look at the red book and see what else I can come up with.
Maybe a printing house can be found in Uzhhorod. Wouldn't that be fun?

Fr. Serge

My family decided not to give to the Eparchial Stewardship Fund due to their misguided steps revolving this "new" Liturgy. So, I'd like donate $1,000 to the effot of correcting and reprinting the 1964/5 Liturgicon. Please let me know where to send the check.

Cathy

P.S. This is a serious offer.

P.S.S. John, great list!

Cathy - now that is a message of support worth having! God reward your charity.

John - one more item: use Theotokos where it properly occurs.

This publication has marvelous potential.

Fr. Serge

John, excellent points. There are a few odds and ends, such as spelling mistakes - St. Panteleimon in the Proskomedia, for example, and and it should be St. George, not Gregory, in the commemoration of the holy great martyrs in the Proskomedia.

I spoke with someone at Svichado, the Studite publishers, some time ago who was definitely interested in producing such a thing.
FDD

I would also like to support the publication of the proper Liturgikon and proper pew books.

When you get plans together, please place a notice for how to send money to the appropriate location to offset the costs. I can think of several who would donate.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

I didn't see whatever started this thread going. I would, however, like to ask:

Are you aware that the translation of the Liturgicon which someone is suggesting to have reprinted and revised, is under copyright? Reprinting this translation---or revising it---without the authorization of the Council of Hierarchs, would be a violation of copyright.

Prof. J. Michael Thompson
Byzantine Catholic Seminary
Pittsburgh, PA

Good point and one worth taking into consideration.

Why aren't we using the same thing as one of the Orthodox churches? We'd just need to change that line about the pope with theirs, right?

I'll Donate!

Organizing the publication of a new edition (with corrections) of the 1964/1965 Liturgicon is an excellent idea! I will join with Cathy and pledge $1,000 of my annual tithe towards the effort.

Some ideas:

1. Pray for our Church and for our bishops. Pray especially that they will find the courage to reject the currently proposed reforms and that they will be faithful to the official Liturgy their predecessors asked Rome to prepare for us.

2. A blessing from the Council of Hierarchs would be needed for the project.

This should not be difficult to obtain. All the evidence coming from Rome indicates that Pope Benedict XVI is close to allowing blanket permission to any parish and / or priest who wishes to celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass. Does anyone seriously think that an organized group will have difficulty seeking permission for our parishes and priests to celebrate the official Liturgy of our Church, the one that Rome has directed us to use? (Especially when the proposed one is in violation of the Roman directives to restore to what is official, be identical to the Orthodox standard and that of Liturgiam Authenticam not to use exclusive inclusive language, and may seriously impact the quest for unity?) Hopefully the Council of Hierarchs will do the right thing and finally end this push to revise our official Liturgy so that petitions and pilgrimages to Rome to prevent or recall it will not be necessary. Since the current edition is out of print and our Church will need a Liturgicon to use until a common edition for all Byzantines can be prepared (cf Liturgical Instruction, section 25) it makes sense to publish a new edition with corrections.

3. Funds should be organized in advance to cover the costs of printing about 500 copies for the first run.

4. One copy should be gifted to each parish in the Byzantine Metropolia and the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of Johnstown. The 1964/1965 Liturgicon is the one that Metropolitan Nicholas has directed for use at the seminary in Johnstown. He would welcome a reprint of an edition with corrections. Such a reprint could easily include his blessing on the approval page. It could very well serve as a source of future unity between our Churches.

5. Should the Council of Hierarchs decide to reprint the Liturgicon with corrections and not utilize the funds raised by this organization I recommend that they be held in escrow to pay for another suitable project, like a quality English translation of one of the other official Ruthenian liturgical books.

I encourage everyone to add their specific ideas!

Admin / John

MR. Thompson, I don't know if your comments were directed at anyone specifically, but concern noted. Your post seems rather obvious; in general practice one doing any serious publishing determines and obtains the necessary copyright permission. It was originally copyrighted by the "Byzantine Liturgical Conference", by the way.

With the Catholic Church, things are a bit different; permission to copy and publish an approved version that is no longer in print can sometimes be obtained directly from the Congregation that approved the document(s); in this case it was the Sacred Oriental Congregation by Prot. N 380/62.

John - great points; I don't see why the hierarchs would not bless a good quality reprinting of an officially approved text.
FDD

Why not just join the Orthodox Church and avoid this whole mess?! The books are already printed!! I'm not trying to prosylitize, but alot of potential carpal tunnel could be avoided here!!

Inside every Canadian is an American waiting to come out...

Why not just use their books?

As the Liturgical Instruction has noted favorably, many of of do use Orthodox books, and for that matter many Orthodox use various Greek-Catholic editions of service-books. There's nothing controversial about that.

I don't know enough about the pertinent US legislation to be able to comment on the copyright question which J. Michael Thompson has raised. But it seems to me that this question would not have been raised unless someone is seriously frightened by the possibility of such a reprint. But why should that frighten anyone? Was the original book a money-making venture, and does someone fear that private persons might reap the profits from a new printing? If that's the issue, it can easily be addressed - but I doubt that there is such an issue, since liturgical books in general rarely hit the best-seller lists. It is far more likely that a reprint will need sponsors from individual donors because sales alone would not cover the costs.

Moreover, anyone who does not want the book need not buy it. If private individuals or a private group or an independent publishing house prints this (by the way, independent publishing houses frequently do reprints of liturgical texts - AMS Press in New York did a nice series of them about 40 years ago), such a reprint will have only its own intrinsic authority and value, and no one can be forced to buy it, let alone use it. So again, what is there to be afraid of?

Back to Orthodox publications of service-books: yes, many of us use them in a variety of ways, and appreciate them. But no Orthodox publishing house has yet produced a complete uniform set of the service-books, nor is there geneeral pan-Orthodox agreement on the texts themselves, the style, etc. So the intellectual market-place is still wide open, and likely to remain so for quite a length of time to come. Being a believer in freedom of expression, I don't find that particularly disturbing. Besides, it means that I can find more books to review.

Fr. Serge