www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Download the New Liturgy!

John and Jeff,

Imagine the good the commission could do by simply bringing this out into the open. I don't get the insistence upon secrecy at this point.

CDL

The whole liturgy is completely scanned as a pdf. It's a bit big (4.8Meg), but legible.

Download it here:

New Liturgy, Complete. [kschudt.home.comcast.net]

Thank you!

Karl,

You have done us all a great service. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending upon the outcome, I must now go to confession for the envy I sense toward your superior technical skills.

The concluding remarks by Father Serge ought to refocus us all.

"If the criticisms of the 12 ZOctober, 2004 draft lead to a greater consideration of the need for celebration and appreciation of the existing official liturgy, of the need for a serious translation of the Septuagint Psalter, of the need to involve as many people as possible in preparing liturgical translations, of the need to be patient with the scholars who must produce serious works on these matters and the need for education of every level, the Church will profit abundantly. If anyone feels that what I have written has offended him, I ask forgiveness for the sake of Christ." (Father Serge Keleher, Chapter 13)

I wonder if the differing approaches toward this translation has anything in part to do with what we may have learned from Luke 15:11-32? Just a thought.

CDL

Okay, I've read it. There certainly seem to be some things in it that deserve a full discussion, and there are some things that I really don't like (e.g. "us all" for "mankind" or "humankind"; "of the true faith" for "orthodox"; "for us and for our salvation" for "for us men..."). However, I think we can all agree on the following:

(1) There is no heresy or "radical feminism" in this translation.

(2) There is no "new Liturgy". This text is not very different from the text of the Divine Liturgy as actually celebrated
in our parishes at present, at least in the Eparchy of Parma.

(3) This text is incomparably better than the currently-used ICEL translation of the Roman Mass, and it seems to me that it's considerably better than the English translation used in the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the US.

So, now that we've read it, can we all please calm down?

I would like everyone to note that the ACROD Liturgy has no Little Litanies (I wonder if Fr. David will be blamed for this), no Litanies of the Catechumens or Faithful, no Litany of Offering after the Great Entrance. The 1st and 2nd Antiphons are one verse. There are no rubrics concerning opening or closing the Holy Doors.

For all the complaints about the new Liturgy it is awfully close to ACROD's version. I have heard no complaining from ACROD members either.

Since we are to differ as little as possible from our Orthodox counterpart, (which is ACORD not OCA) perhaps we should simply conform our use to theirs? This shouldn't be a problem since it has been common Carpatho-Rusyn usage for both for many years.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Mr."Robusto"!
Your statement that the socalled
new Liturgy is "considerably better than the English translation used in the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the US" is unacceptable.
It is NOT better.
We love our Liturgy just as it is, so lay off! Instead of the Ruthenian Catholic hierarchy working in concert with other Eastern Byzantine Catholic churches, they go off on their own as if they own the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Many Eastern Catholics and Orthodox are truly working together towards unity, but this new translation by the Ruthenian hierarchy just distances their church further from their Eastern Catholic and Orthodox brothers and sisters.
What a shame!
Question: Why are so many Ruthenian Catholics so unhappy with the goings on? Hmmmm!

Pavloosh,

The Ukrainians have produced their own English translations of the Divine Liturgy without consulting anyone else, as have the Melkites, so lets stop the: "Rusyns are going off on their own" accusation.

As to distancing ourselves, the only ones we have to immediately worry about distancing ourselves from are ACROD, which as I have shown above we have not done.

As to whether one English transaltion is better than another, I suppose that is a matter of opinion but it is also conditioned by what chant system one is employing. One English translation may sound better in Prostopinije another in Samoylka, and yet both be acceptable translations.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Deacon Lance,

One thing about ACROD is that they broke from us, and they also retained a lot of Latinizations
which they are in the process of getting rid of. I am told that, for years, the EP has been pushing on them to "Orthodoxize", and they have been very slow to do so. In my area, there is a parish of ACROD that JUST RECENTLY installed an iconstasis, and after a lot of in-parish fighting. A Greek Catholic acquaintance of mine, who hates icon screens, and whose mother's family belongs to that ACROD parish, once told me "the Orthodox are right". I said "about what?" He said: "they don't have those ugly icon screens". His point of reference was that parish. In many ways, we mirror them, and they mirror us. If we strictly use them, and they strictly use us, as liturgical points of reference, who is going to make any progress? Perhaps, when the time is right, we should have consultations with ACROD on how to jointly "fix" liturgical celebrations so as to conform to authentic Carpatho-Rusyn usages. But, consultaions with other jurisdictions would have to be done, IMO, i.e. the UGCC-the Ruthenian Rescencion also applies to them; and GOARCH, since Ruthenian usage is more Greek-rooted than Russian. Just my opinion.

Dn. Robert

Fr. Deacon Robert,

Certainly ACROD had some leftover Latinization, but their Liturgy cited does not have any. Abbreviation does not equal Latinization. When priests from Presov celebrated Liturgy in my parish from the Slavonic book according to what I would call the common use they dropped exactly the same Litanies as is common for ACROD and the Metropolia.

The abbreviations common to us and ACROD have been in use a long time and can be considered authentic Carpatho-Rusyn usage.

Fr. Deacon Lance

I recently discussed these points with an ACROD priest. I asked him about the current ACROD text. He replied:

I asked if parishes have the option of doing fuller psalm verses or other litanies?

I asked if there a move to do that in some areas?

I next asked: do some parishes take the priestly prayers (particularly the Anaphora) outloud? A side point: do any of the ACROD parishes use pre-cut pieces instead of prosphora loaves?

He also noted:

I think the ability in ACROD parishes to do fuller liturgies (with more litanies and antiphons) if desired is something that I think we should retain as well. I think we also should note that there is a possibility that the ACROD diocese will turn more traditional in the future.

Dn. Lance,

It depends upon what you mean by a long time. Someone gave me tapes of both an ACROD parish and a parish of our Church from the 1950's a few years ago. In both cases, some of those litanies which we don't take now were being taken (I don't want to create a distorted picture. Other neighboring parishes, at that time, were already doing the abbreviations). I'm not fanatical on the issue. I can probably "live with" what is to be promulgated shortly (although I don't see any need for the "inclusive" language. "Mankind" is a generic term, and everyone knows that, and there is no great outcry to do away with it- except in the outside world-primarily from enemies of the Church. Some of the other language I find to be grating, such as "whom God loves"-why not say "God-beloved"? But, I have also heard that they've gone back to "God-loving" in the latest edition of the revision), but I'm convinced that the spirit which drove the abbreviations was one of keeping the Liturgy shortened so as to not lose people to the Latin Rite. At least, I've been told this by several of our older priests. My attitude on that is that if someone wants to leave our Church because the Liturgy is now 5 or 10 minutes longer, and that takes too much of a chunk out of their lives, and they are willing to put up with bad church music, poor liturgical translations, bevies of female Eucharistic Ministers and Altar Girls, clapping in Church, etc., maybe it's just as well. Chances are, we will pick up others to replace them who want to be in Church, and for the right reasons. Again, just my humble opinion.

In Christ,
Dn. Robert

BTW,

Good job, Pseudo-Athanasius. I read the whole thing over lunch. At least now we have somewhat of a grasp as to what it is we are talking about.

In Christ,
Dn. Robert

Are you certain of this Father Deacon Lance?

He is absolutely correct on that. Two local UGCC parishes in my area use two different translations, neither of which bear much, if any, resemblance to our translations.

Dn. Robert