www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy I have never.... (A discussion regarding BCA and Orthodox practice and behavior

Andrew,

To address your questions:

Yes , the Liturgy on the evening before is exactly the same as that served on Sunday/Feastday morning. The Antimension is not changed. Since Vatican II permission has been granted to celebrate Liturgies that anticipate the Sunday/Feastday on the evening before starting at 4PM, as well as individual priests having the permission to binate or, in rarer cases, trinate.

Holy Day of Obligation is a Solemn Feastday to which the obligation to attend has been obliged under pain of sin. The CCEO designates Christmas, Theophany, Ascension, SS. Peter & Paul, and Dormition as such, particular Churches may add to these.

As others mention it is rare to find Matins or Vespers served. In the Eparchies of Van Nuys and Parma some priests are doing Vesperal Liturgies rather than regular Liturgy on Sat, which in my opinion is a step in the right direction.

Fr. Deacon Lance

There is also the question of which services one OUGHT as a practical minimum to attend to fulfill the Divine commandment to keep holy the Sabbath (and by extension, feast days of the Church).

My understanding is that, across the Eastern Catholic churches, attendance at the Divine Liturgy OR the Divine Praises is considered to constitute observance of the Sunday or feast (CCEL Canon 881) - of course, attending all three is best, but I beleve this rule was given (a) to promote the celebration of Vespers and Matins, (b) allow priests to serve more parishes in poorly served areas, and (c) remove the requirement, for example, that one attend a Latin Rite Mass if one has been able to attend an Eastern service of Vespers or Matins, and no nearby Divine Liturgy is offered.

HOWEVER, I have been told (but have seen no documentation) that in the norms for Pittsburgh metropolia, attendence at the Divine Liturgy (aside from impossibility, illness, etc.) is required, and Vespers and Matins don't "count".

This leads to an emphasis on Vesperal liturgies as an attempt by priests who value Vespers and Matins to familiarize the faithful with Vespers, and hear the hymnography of each Sunday and feast (most of which lies OUTSIDE the DL), on the assumption that a Divine Liturgy MUST be celebrated in each parish.

In order to have Vespers and Matins, we need to either convince the faithful to ALL attend a single Divine Liturgy, and ALSO come to Vespers and Matins (which may actually end up packing some parishes, as well as losing some parishioners) - or convince the bishops to change the norms, and have those attending on Saturday come to a proper Vespers, and come back on Sunday morning if they also wish to attend the Divine Liturgy.

Yours in Christ,
Jeff Mierzejewski

Bravo, bravo, hip hip hooray!

Monomakh, the parish I pulled the schedule from is St. Michael's BCC in Flushing, MI.

Just curious, where did this change originate from and who approved it? My understanding in Orthodoxy is the same priest/same anitmension rule is a hard and fast one.

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Holy Day of Obligation is a Solemn Feastday to which the obligation to attend has been obliged under pain of sin. The CCEO designates Christmas, Theophany, Ascension, SS. Peter & Paul, and Dormition as such, particular Churches may add to these.

Okay. I've never heard of this or the division of feast days in to lesser or greater importance (well Pascha is obviously at the top of the heap anyway). The idea of being "obliged" to come to the Eucharist just seems somewhat anachronistic to me.

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In the Eparchies of Van Nuys and Parma some priests are doing Vesperal Liturgies rather than regular Liturgy on Sat, which in my opinion is a step in the right direction.

I agree.

Thanks for answering my questions.

Andrew

"Just curious, where did this change originate from and who approved it?"

Vatican II and the fathers thereof, although bination was inplace for Sundays before VII I believe.

Admittedly Holy Days of Obligation is really a Latin thing but the Slav Typicon always divided the Feast into Greater, Middle, and Lesser Feasts. The Greater are the 12 Great Feasts plus the Nativity and Beheading of St. John the Baptist and SS Peter and Paul. Middle Feasts are those of Vigil or Polyeleos rank. Lesser feasts are those of Great Doxology or Six Stichera.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Are there plans to end this practice?

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Admittedly Holy Days of Obligation is really a Latin thing but the Slav Typicon always divided the Feast into Greater, Middle, and Lesser Feasts. The Greater are the 12 Great Feasts plus the Nativity and Beheading of St. John the Baptist and SS Peter and Paul. Middle Feasts are those of Vigil or Polyeleos rank. Lesser feasts are those of Great Doxology or Six Stichera.

That's true. I was thinking strictly among the twelve feasts. Even then, you could probably say there is a ranking of sorts going by the length of the fast that precedes the feast. What I've usually heard from priests is that we should be at all services, but the feasts themselves are of higher importance and we should definitely be at all liturgies on feast days.

Andrew

"Are there plans to end this practice?"

Not that I am aware.

Fr. Deacon Lance

I believe the Evangelization conference last year actually called for change in the direction of a single Sunday liturgy per parish - but their mission document seems no longer to be online, so I can't be sure.

Yours in Christ,
Jeff Mierzejewski

The eastern Churches are not bound to follow the disciplines of the Latin rite, but in this particular discipline which may be universally applied, I believe there is sufficient need to warrant keeping the practice where it is established.

As with all discipline there will be abuses.

I am not sure that I see the problem with having a Vespers and then an anticipated Divine Liturgy in a parish setting, but I may be missing something.

Eli

I'll tell you what does drive me batty is the 5 or 5:30pm divine liturgy, or mass on Sunday evening. Those are proscribed but in those places where that is observed in the breach, they tend to be by far the liturgies with the greatest attendance in that parish.

In additioon to the Sunday morning Liturgy, would it be possible to offer Liturgy on Sunday evenings (instead of Saturday evenings) ? That would allow people who cannot attend Liturgy on Sunday mornings (due to work, etc.) to attend Liturgy on Sunday (thus preserving the sanctity of the Lord's day).

Just a thought; comments ?

-- John

Eli

Speaking from an Orthodox perspective, as I mentioned there are people who have trouble with this practice because it is not laid out in the typikon. Even the Antiochians (the only ones to do this AFAIK), don�t have a liturgy after the one in anticipation of the feast. Meaning that if a vesperal liturgy is celebrated for instance at 7 p.m., they won�t then have a liturgy the next morning. This is one sense obvious (because they reason they moved it in the first place was because of the fear that attendance would be lighter the next day); but more importantly it is to stay in line with the restriction that in one day (as the church calculates days) a liturgy cannot be celebrated by one priest or on one antimension multiple times.

I asked if this is what occurs in EC churches, and the answer seems to be yes, which I find quit surprising and to be honest a little disturbing. I asked if there are plans to end the practice because it is something that is different from Orthodox practice, which I have read on this board should be minimized. Lately however I have been reading things that would lead me to believe not everybody views things that way.

Andrew

Sunday evening liturgy is the anticipated liturgy for Monday. Which is why that practice drives me batty.

Eli

All right. I was only half paying attention. Your concern is with the holy table and the antimension.

I do not think these things are negligible at all but I do see them as disciplines and just as we have doctrinal hierarchies of truth, there are hierarchial levels of magnitude in terms of ecclisiastical discipline which is essentially what typikon are, documents presenting the discipline of a particular place, be it a particular Church, or monastic house.

So I think, in general, that I would say that one can make room in ecclisiastical discipline for exceptions in the particulars of any typikon, as long as one guards against abuse, and the purpose is to shepherd the flock, making worship possible, not just changing somethng to make things easier.

Eli

Not everybody views things that way is a correct observation. Unfortunately, some of the ones who don't view it that way are in positions of power.

There are all sorts of things that should not happening because they differ from our Tradition and Orthodox practice, but even some of the people who will agree with this will turn around and say you can't change to more Orthodox practices because it would be insensitive to the laity who are used to this. Or they'll pick one wayward Orthodox church that does not follow Traidition and say, 'see, we can do it because that one Orthodox church does it that way.' And if you ask, 'what about the other 95% that don't?' They'll say, 'well, we've done it this way now for a few decades and therefore it has to be this way now because it would be insensitive to change.'

I'm not sure where all of this sensitivity was when the changes were first made.

At minimum, what needs to happen is a strong leader to say, look, Vespers and Matins WILL be restored to every church possible (or within a reasonable distance of other churches where one priest serves multiple parishes). Instruction and education needs to take place because there are people who have never even HEARD of vespers and/or Matins let alone would know what it is. But our church needs to rise to the occassion and do what is necessary to get this done.

Instead of possibly spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on new books for a new liturgy, why not use our resources and time on educating our own people and recruiting more rather than ostracizing and losing people who value Orthodoxy and Tradition.

Monomakh