www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Coming to a Location Near You?

As I recall during the October '05 Byzantine Spirtituality Conference, a booklet for evening vespers was passed out to all in attendance. It did contain new musical arrangements. It was quickly collected immediately following the vesper service. I found that to be very odd that attendees who paid to be at the conference were not allowed to keep their copy of the vesper service booklet.

Ungcsertezs

Even if the liturgy sample in question here were used for a specific service within a session of the Cantor's Institute, it does not encompass all that is implied by a new Faithful's book. The book that has so many folks here up tight would have to be many, many pages in length, and include loads of music for all occasions, not just an isolated weekday liturgy.

If speculation is accurate, the book itself will be much more comprehensive in English with music than anything heretofore made available from any other BCC source, and include more music than other currently available BCC sources as well. I hope so for everyone's sake, because using a bijillion leaflets and handouts is less cost effective than having a comprehensive book that holds most everything including musical choices. Every year parishes across the country reprint materials week after week, because no definitive, permanent source is available. Not cheap.

Oh, I know. You don't have to tell me. It's not the way you would personally like to see it translated, arranged, etc. So, we must all pray to God about that, for His guidance, for my and your sake, and that of the whole Church. Do it.

That is correct. It is not what many of the faithful souls in the Ruthenian Metropolia want, a fact that has been expressed often on this Forum over the last few years.

Like the Administrator, I too would rather see the Ruthenian Metopolia wait until a time in the near future to compile a multi-jurisdictional (Catholic and Orthodox) authenic Byzantine-Ruthenian Liturgicon. How can we spend so much time and money on a "work in progrss" Liturgicon when so many of our parishes are dying? Why not put such resources towards salvaging what parishes we can before they are forced to close? I feel this whole Liturgical Commission work is a waste of resources.

Ungcsertezs

Jeff, aka ByzKat, writes:

The fact here is that there is a difference between the Greek text and the Church-Slavonic text. The Greek text just before the Dismissal does indeed read Holy Father, bless! The Church-Slavonic text does not.

But no respectable translation into English renders "Despota" or "Vladyka" as "Father", let alone "Reverend Father". That is pure invention, apparently motivated by a desire to make more differences where the reverse - eliminating differences - is supposed to be our goal.

Fr. Serge

Amen. Amen. Amen.

Dn. Robert

Jeff,

Steve and others have stated that the book linked at the top of this thread was produced by Thompson and his MCI and used as recently as a few weeks ago. You have stated that no one knows where this book came from.

Is this book a text produced by Thompson and his MCI?

Are these arrangements part of the larger revision of liturgical music?

Or are Steve and the others leading us down a false path?

Are they telling us something that is not true?

Java Joe

Dear Father Deacon Robert,

Thank you!

Fr. Serge

Fr. Serge,

You are welcome. After all, Rome is telling the Latin Church to follow the same spirit in Liturgiam authenticam. Why should we be taking liberties? Of course, one of our priests has commented that our particular Church is in a 20-year "time warp" relative to what the Latin Church is doing. An ugly thought.

Dn. Robert

Father Anthony, your blessing!

I did read the previous posts before posting myself, Father; also, I did attend three of the four MCI sessions last academic year, as well as the September 30 session just past. I stand by my statements above.

Etrick's question, I believe, is the proper one: "How close IS it to the Revised Liturgy"? Compared to the materials which Professor Thompson obtained permission for us to use last year, I can say that

a. The TEXT linked at the top of this thread is very close to the proposed Divine Liturgy text; at a few points it uses texts discarded some time back. For example, the CURRENT ending of the Polychronion is "God grant (him / her / them) many _happy_ years", while the PROPOSED text is "... many _blessed_ years." The latter is shown, for example, in the October 2004 text linked to elsewhere in this forum; it is also what we sang from the text in front of us in the Seminary chapel on September 30 of this year.

However, the text linked above omits several litanies which are marked as optional in the proposed text (the Litanies for the Deceased and for the Catechumns; the petitions before the Our Father beginning with "That we be delivered from all affliction", and perhaps others). The texts used at the MCI all last year included these materials.

b. Similarly, the MUSIC in the text linked to above seems identical or very similar to a PORTION of the music in the proposed People's Book. A wide range of alternative melodies from the text used at the MCI last year are omitted.

The text linked to above is VERY similar to the booklet used at Joliet, IL in 2005 for the end of the Year of the Eucharist. It is also similar to the singing text used in the Seminary chapel on September 30, but has puzzling occurences of translations from some years ago.

I cannot vouch for Michael Cerularius' friend who says he saw the linked music on September 30; due to the similarity, confusion is understandable. Certainly, Steve Petach is correct in saying that the MUSIC in the linked text was used at the MCI, even if much of the music from the proposed People's Book is missing from the linked text.

SO - any discussion of the linked text may be useful, as long as it is understood that the text is not entirely current, that some parts (Typika and Beatitudes, litanies, etc.) are missing, and only one musical setting was chosen for each text.

Father Serge, your blessing!

I certainly would prefer to see a literal translation of the deacon's opening words. However, (a) the text "Give the blessing, Father" WAS used in an important liturgical source book for our church (Archbishop Reya's Byzantine Daily Worship), and (b) at least one, possibly two of our eparchies already use "Reverend Father, give the blessing" as the offical text at this point. While I would rather seem a common literal text, I would hope for much stronger evidence than eisegesis before accepting any "common understanding" that the text somehow is INTENDED to refer to the bishop.

Dear fellow Mountaineer, Java Joe,

Steve is correct; the music in the linked text is essentially from the proposed People's Book (though I have not checked every note). While a similar text was used on September 30, the texts are not quite the same (see "God grant him many blessed years"), and I STILL don't know where the linked text came from.

Now, as mentioned earlier in this thread, there are quite a few musical settings of the Divine Liturgy around, and we have no common standard. In light of this, and of your assertion earlier that the music used in the linked text emphasized, e.g., "the" over "Jesus" or somesuch, could you please point out the particular musical phrases to which you object?

Yours in Christ,
Jeff Mierzejewski

P.S. The Metropolitan Cantor Institute has no brief to prepare ANY text or music for the Divine Liturgy; this task is allotted to the Intereparchical Music and Liturgy Commissions. (Professor Thompson was able to obtain permission to use the drafts in the MCI classes.) In some cases, MCI musical settings from Professor Thompson and others (for Vespers and feast-days) were changed by the IEMC when they became incorporated into the proposed People's Book. Please keep this in mind before casting either credit or blame

ByzKat,

Thanks for "volunteering" the information. I'm sure "the powers that be"(opps, the "be" has been dropped from the new text sorry!) are not in favor of leaking any info concerning the new tect and new music.

Ungcsertezs

I work in an office, and the financial statements I produce go through a LOT of drafts before they're officially released - and if any of those working drafts were released there would be panic in the streets (or at least at the client's office) at the outrageousness of some of the numbers being bandied about. That's why we generally don't let the client see the reports till they go final, so we can be sure everything's kosher.

May I suggest we all wait till the Liturgy "goes final", so to speak, before making any judgments? Of course, that would mean we'd have to find something else to argue about, but that shouldn't be too difficult - this is the Internet, after all.

I think people are tired of waiting. We'd like to know before it is promulgated,(but you know that wont happen.) I wonder if Metropolitan Nicholas reads this forum. He's probably told all his priests to be ready for the mass exodus.

Jeff,

You have been the only one of the Revisionists who has responded honestly and openly. I salute you for that.

Do you really want me to start listing the problems with the proposed new settings?

Is this a real invitation?

Are you saying that if everyone on this forum were to send in marked-up copies of the booklet linked at the top of this thread they will be given serious review by you, the MCI and the IELC?

I really doubt it.

It has been my experience at the seminary that anyone who questions anything about the Revised Divine Liturgy is immediately accused of being stupid and disloyal. If you don�t believe it just mention the Administrator�s name or the byzcath forum in any conversation and listen to the hatred that follows.

How about you or Thompson start explaining each change one at a time? Why are changes to the music necessary when we have been singing it one way for 40 years?

Java Joe

PS: True Mountaineers do not live in �Upstate NY.�

"It has been my experience at the seminary that anyone who questions anything about the Revised Divine Liturgy is immediately accused of being stupid and disloyal."


I bet Archbishop Ireland is SPINNING in his grave!!!

Deacon Robert,

Father David Petras (a good man who is quite wrong in almost all his ideas for reform) has written on this Forum that Liturgiam Authenticam is a document of Latin ecclesiology. He has stated that it has no application to the Eastern Catholic Churches because we have our own ecclesiology. I am still waiting form him to explain this idea. It seems unsupportable. I have read Liturgiam Authenticam forward and backwards. It talks mostly about accuracy in translation. Surely the idea of accurate translation is not against Eastern ecclesiology.

JD