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

I stand corrected, hadn't read the legislation. But at least everyone acknowledges that taking the anaphora quietly is a very old "received practice".

Christ is Risen!
Manuscripts were kept as short as possible because the labor involved in copying them. Deacons' service books and priests' service books had absolutely no overlapping of text ... everyone knew what came when. And so, rubrics were not written in the manuscripts ... although I do recall that the "Out loud" parts (Ecphonia) were typically written as a seperate paragraph. And, of course, we know from commenttators that the Anaphora was said silently well before the invention of printing.

But, If you want to consider something that is probably 1400 years old as an innovation, that is your prerogative. But, I think you should allow laity to take the Holy Mysteries into their hands, too ... melt down the Communion Spoons and use the money to help pay for wash basins such as existed when the Anaphora was recited out loud.

Photius

Dear Photius,

Sorry, I have been travelling, and am only now back to respond to the the post you began with a salutation to me. I find the litany of propositions regading what I might want to do rather strange since they are utterly without foundation. Perhaps the "you" was someone else.

More importantly I think the whole ... if you do this then to be consistent you must do that or you will be doing this ... line of thought to be very muddled. It overlooks the salient fact that the liturgy that we celebrate does include practices introduced at various times. The idea that if one element is from a certain year than all must be - or else, is not a logical tour de force and is incompatible with just about all practice, not just those of certain Eastern churches that you might like to go on about.

On the subject of logic:
You certainly did commit and ad hominem fallacy in your words to Father David.

That, however, was not the fallacious remark. Instead of considering the point on its objective merits your introduce a disparage the person making the point. It's classic.

Christ is Risen! My apologies; I made several efforts to keep my promise to respond to Father David yesterday, but my internet provider did not cooperate. The tyranny of technology strikes again.

Meanwhile, to the comment that my suggestions on how to learn more of the anaphora(s) besides listening to the accompany music are "supplementary" to hearing the Anaphora read (chanted) aloud:

well, I managed to fall utterly in love with the Anaphora of Saint Basil the Great when I was still a high-school boy, long, long, long before I ever heard anyone read it aloud, let alone chant it. I could offer a depressing list of abuses of that Anaphora, but it would not be edifying.

Still more: will someone please explain to me, very patiently, why, when I have repeatedly and consistently stated that I am NOT opposed to the chanting of the Anaphora aloud - I simply don't think it is invariably and always the best thing to do - people keep addressing me as though I were an implacable opponent of the practice?

Incognitus

Dear Father David,
CHRIST IS RISEN! Thanks for your response. It is difficult not to take disagreement personally when the disagreement concerns matters in connection with which one has strong convictions and deep feelings, in a field in which one is well qualified. However �life is unfair� � and detaching one�s personality from one�s argument is apt to strengthen one�s scholarly position. To the extent that you succeed in this detachment (and no one succeeds in it perfectly), you have my apology, my appreciation and my envy. I don�t have sufficient personal experience to know why this should be, but I can attest that several people share the perception that I have already expressed. Such is life; I have no solution except � and this is for everyone, myself included � to keep trying.

But back to the matter at hand. The Church-Slavonic edition of the Ruthenian Liturgicon does not indicate that the Anaphora is read silently. Still, the accompanying Ordo Celebrationis (sections 133, 134, 135 and 136) directs the reading of the Anaphora quietly, so it comes to the same thing. It would be interesting to check as many editions as possible and compile a list of which editions mandate the silent or quiet recitation of the Anaphora and which do not.

For that matter, it would be interesting to do a study on the larger issue of the development of the rubrical tradition as expressed in printed liturgical books from the sixteenth century down to the present. Most manuscript versions include few or no rubrics, probably because the expense would have been too great.

My copy of Trembelas�s Three Liturgies went missing several decades ago. I hope that somebody will reprint it. I�m aware that over the past several decades there has been a tendency in the State Church of Greece to offer the Anaphora aloud. Less happily, this goes along with drastic abbreviations and rubrical reductionism, and some dubious theological tendencies � one reason why people often react defensively to anything that smacks of innovation is that in practice there is frequently a �package deal� in the background. [Please note that �frequently� does not mean �always�.] More of this below.

Church-Slavonic and liturgical Greek are certainly not vernacular languages as that term is normally understood. But the whole problematic of languages, let alone liturgical languages, is quite complex and requires much caution and patience. I�m not by nature either cautious or patient, so I don�t find that forcing myself to act that way is pleasant, but there it is.

That �we must reveal to the people what they are saying �Amen� to� is indisputable, and I don�t want to dispute it. The question is how to make this essential information available. Here there is plenty of material for discussion. Until quite recently, very few Greek-Catholic manuals for the use of the faithful gave any texts of the �secret� prayers � as late as 1961 in America � and MUCH more recently in Eastern Europe - I met priests who were honestly shocked at the very idea that anyone not a priest would dare read these texts even privately. I don�t doubt that I could find such an attitude even today if I looked in the appropriate places. But I certainly don�t share that attitude!
Still, when we come to the Anaphora, it is well to remember that we are standing on holy ground � this was in all probability the reason that brought about the quiet recitation of the Anaphora in the first place. A few weeks ago I was watching the Holy Father�s televised Mass and, to my horror, the Vatican TV had some woman reciting in English the Anaphora which Pope Benedict was offering in Latin. Did she think she was �concelebrating�? The same commentator (commentatrix?) was babbling during the rest of the Mass � about the traffic into the square, the beauty of the art work, etc. etc. So is it possible to reconcile the values of the holiness of the Anaphora (and the corresponding concern to avoid profanation) with the need to reveal the content of the Anaphora to the faithful?

As I�ve said before, I believe that it is. And I think that the occasional offering of the Anaphora in an audible and intelligible chanted form is an element in the process. I don�t think this should be done every time we serve the Divine Liturgy.
If we are to reveal the Anaphora and its content to the faithful � which is a serious obligation upon us � we must first know the prayer ourselves, thoroughly and well. Mere memorization does not suffice (and often leads to some startling errors). It is not difficult to find priests whose understanding of the Anaphora (a word which they find amusing) is limited to whatever they consider necessary for �validity� �sometimes we become so preoccupied with the need to do things �validly� that we overlook whatever it is that we are supposed to be doing. Neither Vatican II nor vernacularization solved this problem. So the education of the priests is a good place to start. Otherwise coercing the priests into offering the Anaphora aloud is apt to result in a flat dead-pan and rapid reading which will teach nothing and edify no one � such renditions can be heard only too frequently.

Assuming, though, that Father Whosis knows the Anaphora well and is enthusiastic about it, that�s just the beginning. Enthusiasm is not always contagious. The enthusiast can become boring to those who do not share his enthusiasm. We encounter such people every day, and from time to time no doubt we become such people ourselves. I have no magic recipe for making people enthusiasts for, e.g., the Anaphora of Saint Basil; I simply love it myself and enjoy learning more about it. There are lots of worse things that I might love. But I strongly suspect that if I read (= chant) that Anaphora aloud every time I use it � say every Sunday in Lent � I am apt to develop an idiosyncratic style which at best might lead people to suppress the occasional snicker and is more likely to bore people. Charles Laughton I am not. Certain passages are favorites of mine, and I can easily imagine the regulars in the congregation thinking or even saying �he�s at it again!�
Perhaps it�s better to preach about the Anaphora, to make the text available to everyone in a good translation with at least Scriptural footnotes (it�s appalling how few people realize and verify the deeply Biblical content of our worship) and make the offering of the Anaphora aloud a welcome exception instead of a drag.
Uspensky wrote that comment just before the introduction of the vernacular Anaphora offered aloud in the Roman Liturgy, so I can only wonder what his reaction would have been to the results. He was a man of exquisite good taste. To some slight extent the offering of the Anaphora aloud can be compared to the celebration of Mass �facing the people� � something I don�t favor in the least. [An important difference is that there is beyond question an early tradition of the offering of the Anaphora aloud, while the �Mass facing the people� is sheer novelty.] Many of those in the same circles as Uspensky who favored the �facing the people� option and even played a part in forcing it on the clergy have since repented of their haste and folly. Either option risks concentrating too much attention on the personality of the priest. For some priests, this is an irresistible temptation (�here I am � the one and only ME!�), but many priests probably realize that this is unfortunate. Come to think of it, the invariable offering of the Anaphora aloud also risks encouraging the over-use of the microphone.

It is not difficult to find people who consider that over the past several decades they have been confronted with an avalanche of innovations which, they were assured, were �good for them� and which indeed they �wanted� � unbeknownst to themselves � or at least would find that they wanted once they got used to whatever fad was on the agenda. This is even more pronounced in the Western Church, of course, but it would be easy to produce a list of such points in our own Church. Those who are a bit more sophisticated are aware that Vatican II has mandated us to a program of repristination, not innovation, and wonder what has happened. Many people come to Church in search of peace and stability (the professional ecclesiastics abominate the very idea) in a world which is increasingly out of control and hard to contend with � so when the Church seems to be spinning out of control, there is disorientation, logically enough.

I am not an immobilist; I am not arguing for a complete refusal to accept any change, ever. I�m suggesting that �festina lente� is a program with a good deal to be said for it. A priest I knew was pastor in a Pennsylvania parish at the time when the language transition was causing tension, and his parish had begun in rebellion so the potential for trouble was always there. Wisely, my friend did nothing in particular about the language matter beyond reading the Gospel in both languages and preaching in English. After a while, people began to realize that an exclusive diet of Church-Slavonic wasn�t really what they wanted, and THEY spontaneously asked the priest to begin to introduce English. He still moved slowly, with plenty of opportunity for feed-back from the flock. In the end, the language transition was accomplished with remarkably few bruised feelings and a general recognition that Father had not forced the matter on anyone, nor had visiting hierarchs (whom, of course, Father had prepared so that they would support his approach). Was he over-cautious? Maybe. Did it work? Yes.

My posting is too long; please forgive me. And please appreciate that I am not implacably opposed to the offering of the Anaphora aloud. Christ is Risen!

Incognitus

Dear Incognitus,

I too am not opposed to hearing the anaphora out loud. I think in some pastoral situations, it is even appropriate.

I am entirely open to the idea, that in a hundred years, or maybe two hundred years, this idea may catch on and even become universal in Orthodoxy.

That would be an example of legitimate organic evolution of Liturgy.

I am opposed to the Archbishop unilaterally changing the recension, and mandating this practice. That is not legitimate organic evolution of Liturgy in the Eastern sense, but an example of the kind of reformation that occured in the Western Church after Vatican II, entirely legislated and mandated from above. A very Latin model of reform.

Dear DJS, Christ is Risen!

Maybe, but I still don't see it ... I am not discounting the statement because Fr. David made it; rather I am admitting it may be true, but, because I found a seemingly gratuitous misstatement by him, I am not willing to assume anything he says is necessarily correct. The misstatement has taught me to check his facts and not assume that his statements are true; this is quite different than my saying that something is false because he said it.

Photius, Reader

Incognitus,

I think that it was this

which you posted to Photius in response to a post of his which many, rightly or wrongly, perceived to be an absolute rejection of the audible recitation of the Anaphora.

Many years,

Neil

Photius,

My brother, I think you are speaking past your own self. Father David made a mis-statement, you observed it and called him on it, he acknowledged the mis-statement and apologized, explaining the basis on which he mis-spoke.

You, however, are hung up on the fact that he did so and are, if not outright discounting anything he will say hereafter, making a public announcement of your perceived need to check anything he says for accuracy before accepting it as true. That you elect to do so, is fine, that you feel a need to publicly trumpet that fact is to label him as unreliable. There is no one here, including likely yourself, who has not at some time mis-spoken with regard to a point of fact - even a readily verifiable one. We are all human and even experts are wont to err on that basis.

I strongly suggest that it is a worthwhile endeavor to double-check anything, posted by anyone, that asserts something of which one wasn't previously aware - especially if it's something one would have expected to know or something that seems contrary to one's own experience. On the converse, I highly recommend that posters double-check things before committing themselves to clicking the "Add Reply" button. Opinions posted as such are always and readily subject to challenge but, I suggest that a strong dose of charity, considering that most do not purposely post erroneous information, serves well when pointing out inaccuracies in factual matters.

Many years,

Neil

Dear Incognitus, Christ is Risen!
When I saw your post, quoted below, asking to be associated with my post, I thought you opposed reciting the Anaphora out loud. Subsequent posts by you showed that this is not your position. Therefore, if had had read only your post quoted below, I would still be under that incorrect impression; perhaps others did just that, failing to read you later, and generally longer, posts.

Photius

Dear Neil, Christ is Risen!
Forgive me! I am remiss in having not stated that I acknowledge that Father David acknowledged the mis-statement and apologized. The post to which you are replying was intended to address only the accuracy of calling what I wrote an "ad hominem" fallacy, which I contend it is not. However, I was very wrong to not first state that the original problem was long resolved and that I actually have not had a problem with Father David's veracity since he clarified his mis-statement.

Photius

My dear brethern,

Don't forget to use the preview post button like I do :rolleyes: , Lord knows it saves time & edits.

james

Dear Photius - and dear everyone,

CHRIST IS RISEN! Actually it is wise in discussion of Liturgy in particular to verify every citation if at all possible (sometimes it's not possible, because certain sources are not easy to locate) - it's a matter concerning which many people, including me, tend to have a somewhat selective memory (a good friend recently pointed out to me a footnote in one of my own published writings on the subject where I am guilty of a completely inaccurate statement - and, oddly enough, of an inaccurate statement which, had it been true, would not please me). But it's possible to do this without implying that such-and-such a person is habitually dishonest. Anybody can make an honest mistake.

Incognitus

quote:
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... Unknown in Orthodoxy, we have "simplified" the service using pre-cut pieces of bread.
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If true, that is outrageous and scandalous!

Photios,

Sadly, it is true. I, for one, cannot understand why our Church seems reluctant to stop this practice. If we as a Church are seeking to restore our authentic tradition, how can we continue this practice which only imitates what is supposed to happen at the prothesis service?

Nec

John Damascene,

Thanks for the addresses of people to write to. I talked with some of the people at church on Sunday and five of us agreed to write letters to Rome and the nuncio complaining about all these changes. Can anyone give us the proper format for a letter of complaint to Rome? We figure it needs to be specific and not just complain.

Kapusta