www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Question #1 on New Translation of Liturgy

Incognitus,

would you mind answering this query? Outside of different melodies for the congregational responses, how does one of the faithful appreciate the differences and their respective inherent unique majesty of the Divine Liturgies of Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Basil the Great unless one can experience the hearing of their respective anaphoras, which in the case of our parochial experience has always been chanted and not recited.

I will apologize to Photius. The Greek edition (Catholic) that I have does contain the rubric "mysticos." The Slav edition normative for our church, however, has "taino" only for the Prayer of the Cherubicon, and for the small exclamation between the Word of Institution, which is understandable since it is equivalent to saying "ditto" for the wine. I was thinking of what Panioytes Trembelas wrote in his article, "In the modern printed editions we can read the word mysticos at the beginning of prayers of the liturgy. However, it is not seen in the most anceint manuscripts nor in the older printed liturgical books which are no longer in use today." (i.e. around or about the 17th-18th centuries) Likewise, one can be certain that Nicholas of Andidum was speaking of the public recitation of the prayers, any other interpretation is certainly stretching the point and is anachronistic.

The Greek used in the Liturgy at present and the Slavonic is not vernacular, as recent disputes about translating the Liturgy into Russian and Modern Greek reveal.

Thanks to Incognitus for his comments. However, he is wrong that I take this personally - I don't, really, and I do learn from the discussion. At the same time, I am very convinced that we have reached the stage where the prayers must be restored, and my feelings on the issue itself are very deep. The prayers give the true theology of the Liturgy, and we must reveal to the people what they are saying "Amen" to. I agree with him that the prayers should not be "read," and should be chanted. However, in older texts, "read" meant "chanted."
I have not come to this position suddenly nor without consideration. It has grown out of my pastoral experience and my own maturing understanding of the Liturgy. I agree with what Leonid Ouspensky already wrote in 1964, "Certainly the secret reading of prayers hinders the participation of the faithful in the Liturgy. All liturgical worship, and in particular its highest expression, the Eucharistic Canon, is the prayer of the whole Church, the whole congregation, the ecclesia, including both clergy and laity. In the secret reading of the prayers the people are allowed to hear only fragmentary exclamations torn out of context (he gives a series of examples). In this sense worshippers are deprived of the most essential part in the Liturgy, and it then slips beyond their understanding; its structure becomes incomprehensible, and the restoration of vocal prayer seems quite necessary."
Needless to say, there are many others who also agree.

There are many, many more who disagree.

None of the oldest manuscripts have 'rubrics' at all.

Ouspensky was a wonderful iconographer, a genius. He was not a great theologian. His liturgical ideas were born in the same climate in France that gave us the abuses that accompanied the revised latin liturgy. Such liberal ideas are now very dated, out of fashion, even discredited. Note what has happened to the French Church since.

Orthodox Paris has had 40 years to ponder Leonid's views, but still hasn't acted on them. I wonder why?

Nicholas,

no doubt you are correct. Thus the rubric to pray silently was an innovation and not an instruction to correct an abuse.

Some say that "Orthodox Paris" or the "Parisian School" moved to Crestwood, NY.

Dave

Dear Diak, Christ is Risen!

While you houmor is appreciated here, aren't you worried that someone might take that comment lierally?

Photius

At the same time, I am very convinced that we have reached the stage where the prayers must be restored, and my feelings on the issue itself are very deep. The prayers give the true theology of the Liturgy, and we must reveal to the people what they are saying "Amen" to.

Father, bless!

I understand the depth of your feelings on this issue. However, in order to do this and keep the Liturgy down to one hour (as noted by Father Deacon Lance) we must significantly pare down or omit litanies and continue to severely abbreviate Antiphons.

Could not the new translation include the entire Liturgy and then the Bishops could mandate a minimum to be observed allowing those parishes which seek a fuller Liturgy the freedom to celebrate that?

Also, have the Bishops considered mandating an end to pre-cut prosphora and restoring the traditional proskomide service?

Nec

CHRIST IS RISEN!

I very much appreciate Father David's response and shall attempt to respond in turn later today, God willing. Meanwhile, Father Deacon is ahead of Father David in offering me this question:

"Outside of different melodies for the congregational responses, how does one of the faithful appreciate the differences and their respective inherent unique majesty of the Divine Liturgies of Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Basil the Great unless one can experience the hearing of their respective anaphoras, which in the case of our parochial experience has always been chanted and not recited?"

Dear Father John,
To begin at the end of your well-taken question, I'm delighted to learn that in your parish the Anaphora is chanted, not recited.

The appreciation of the Anaphora - especially of Basil - is of great importance to our entry into the Eucharist. We are dealing here with the heart of the Mystery, where the depths are infinite. The further into it we immerse ourselves, the more we realize that there is infinitely more to appreciate (in other words, this goes to the heart of salvation). So how to get at it?

Hmmm. Good catechesis is essential (and since I'm a total flop as a catechist, I can afford to say that!). The aim here is to stimulate people to want to know more, and to pursue the subject themselves. One will never reach the utter End, not even in eternity, but the pursuit itself is a grace-filled encounter with the Living God, marvelous in His Saints.

All that said, here are a few sensible ideas:

STUDY the Anaphora - there are good books on the subject, and there are numerous translations available of the Anaphoras (anaphorae?) of Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Basil the Great. No one English translation could possibly be sufficient, let alone exhaustive.

CHECK the Biblical references in the Anaphora - each of those two anaphoras is replete with Biblical quotes and allusions; tracking each one down and seeing what the Fathers did with each quote and allusion is an education in itself.

CHECK the patristic references - this is harder, because the study of patristic references in such texts is still in its infancy - so we should be encouraging (yea, demanding) the experts to get busy on it. As Father Taft reminds us, with computers this can be done much more effectively.

READ patristic writings on the Eucharist - Saint Cyril of Jerusalem is an essential place to start, and there's much more.

ENJOY! If you're like me, specific passages in the Anaphora - especially the Anaphora of Saint Basil - will become favorites.

P.S. I don't know your linguistic situation, and I couldn't possibly know everyone's linguistic situation - but if you can read fluently either or both liturgical Greek and/or Church-Slavonic, read the Anaphoras and study them in both of those languages - and any other languages you can read and can find the texts in.

There's more, but that should do for this morning! Thanks for an excellent question.

fraternally in the Risen Lord,

Incognitus

How do you know that? A guess?

Maybe it was just reflecting the accepted way of celebrating?

Nicholas,

Not a guess, but given Justinian's legislation of which I noted earlier in my quote from Hugh Wybrew, one can plainly see that the secret anaphora was an innovation.

Holy Justinian, the Innovator! pray for us!

Innovations of Holy Justinian are good enough for me, I say we stick with them.

Nick

Christ is in our midst!

With his permission, I am posting in this discussion the words of Dr. Mark Bailey, professor at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary in NY. He made these comments on the ORTHODOX PSALM e-list, talking about the audibility of the anaphora in the Divine Liturgy of our holy father Basil the Great.

"Liturgical musicians often become the caretakers of worship at a certain level as they continually respond to certain liturgical needs. Incumbent in that is the responsibility to evaluate and try to
determine the actual validity of a perceived need, and to understand it thoroughly on behalf of the choir and congregation. There is a
significant difference, therefore, between received tradition and received practice. Tradition must be axiomatic (representing
principle), whereas practice is merely habitual. And, I offer this respectfully but honestly, I fail to see anything axiomatic about covering the sacred prayers of the Basil Anaphora with elongated singing on texts that were designed as responses, not choral symphonies.

Tradition can only exist as a result of inception. The many early versions of the Basil Anaphora (here G. Winkler's work in the field
is especially notable) form the basis of its liturgical inclusion and evolution. To cut to the chase, there is nothing recognizably exclusive in the content and form of these prayers that would
suggest, by any stretch of the imagination, that some of the faithful may hear them and others may not, such that they should be covered. On the contrary, the very poetic construction of these prayers suggests audible proclamation of the passion and resurrection of Christ, which is certainly conceivable in an early Church that hopes to spread the good news of Christ. These sacred prayers, formulated at a time when published Bibles were unavailable, summarize and
liturgically contextualize the very Christ in whose Body and Blood the faithful are called to partake. The idea of covering these prayers is a later condition that evolved with little or no
sensitivity to the Eucharistic event as a whole. In no way, based on historical and theological evidence, may one construe that this is
Tradition. It is a common practice for some, perhaps, and one that I and many others feel, offered with all due respect, should be
questioned.

Speaking personally, I have heard the Basil Anaphora recited for many years of my life, and each time it never fails that I grasp onto
some "new" aspect or section of the prayer that illuminates my understanding of Christ, his Church, and the Body and Blood he offers
to us. This is impossible if the choir is artificially extending its singing to make these sacred texts unintelligible to the faithful for
whom, arguably, they were ultimately conceived.

The perceived need for music to cover these prayers creates an opportunity: that liturgical musicians would sensitively and respectfully engaged in a dialogue with their pastors to question and understand why this need exists at all � why there is a desire to cover prayers that inherently seem to speak to the faithful gathered. And this way a practice is tested against actual tradition."

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

Nick,

Perhaps you need to read the legislation Wybrew noted. Holy Justinian legislated the anaphora to be prayed audibly to correct the innovation of praying the anaphora in secret. His legislation was not the innovation. Needless to say his legislation was not followed, and the innovation became the received practice.

Incognitus,

thank you for your reply. The points you make are well and good, and IMO are supplementary to the audible praying (read chanting) of the anaphora.