www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Contacting the Congregation for the Oriental Churches

That's simple, they want their names published in the Liturgicon...until ages of ages! In simple terminology, pride, one of the seven deadly sins.

And this is simply the judging the motivations of people you have no way of knowing. Which could be Pride, Evny, or even Anger.

But if it isn't one of the seven deadly sins, it sure is very uncharitable.

Cathy and all,

The original post of this thread suggests appealing to the hierarchy. Although anybody who feels moved to appeal to the hierarchy certainly should, I wouldn't hold my breath while/if they come to the rescue. They have left the Latins hanging for 40 years and then persecuted those who stood up to them.

Like you say, Cathy, why don't they learn from the Latins? Below I will give my attempt to answer that question.

I one time heard a definition of insanity to be "to do the same thing and expect different results". I believe it applies in this case. The hierarchy is truly nuts if they think they are going conduct a reform and get different results from those who have tried it before.

But then again, they may not be the idiots we think they are. I am reminded of Dietrich Von Hildebrand saying in his book The Devastated Vineyard about the Novus Ordo "...if one of the devil's in C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters were entrusted with the ruination of the Liturgy, he could not have done a better job." My point is that there may have been inspiration for this new liturgy but the one who sows discontent and division is behind it. This would explain why they don't care.

So there you have it. I think they are either nuts, or inspired by the evil one, or maybe some of both.

Does anybody else have any ideas as to why they have not learned from the Latins?

Cathy,

good post, sometimes the truth hurts.


David B,

I'll give you an example of what uncharitable really is:

Forcing secular feminist inclusive language upon our Church anytime, but especially when we are fighting for survival.

monomakh

Dear Cathy,

The proposed Divine Liturgies book ADDS antiphons and litanies, compared to the 1965 and 1978 people's books, and does not print four optional psalm verses - while including these verses AND the litanies you NEVER saw in these books, in a supplement to come from the Metropolitan Cantor Institute. You will NOT need to experience a shorter liturgy than you do today.

In the 1965 people's book for the Divine Liturgy:

The first antiphon had one verse.
The little litany between the first and second antiphons was MISSING.
The second antiphon had one verse.
The third antiphon was MISSING.
The Typical Psalms and Beatitudes were MISSING.
The Entrance Hymn was OPTIONAL.
(The prokeimenon, Epistle and Alleluia were OPTIONAL.)
The Litany of Supplication was OPTIONAL.
The Litany of the Catechumens and the First and Second Litanies of the Faithful were MISSING.
The Creed contained the Filioque.
The Litany over the Gifts was MISSING.
The Petition for the Pope and bishop after "It is truly proper" was OPTIONAL.
The Litany before the Our Father was OPTIONAL.
The Litany of Thanksgiving was MISSING.
The service ended in the Latin style, with the blessing after the dismissal.


In the 1978 "pew book" that Monsignor Lekvulic prepared, and the Seminary Press published:

The first antiphon had one required verse, and two optional verses.
The little litany between the first and second antiphons was STILL MISSING.
The second antiphon had one required verse, and two optional verses.
The third antiphon was OPTIONAL (and not provided).
The Typical Psalms (abreviated) were present, but the Beatitudes were STILL MISSING.
The Litany of the Catechumens and the First and Second Litanies of the Faithful were STILL MISSING.
The Litany over the Gifts was OPTIONAL (and not provided).
The Creed contained the Filioque.
The Litany before the Our Father was OPTIONAL.
The Litany of Thanksgiving was OPTIONAL, and the "Grant it, O Lord" petitions are MISSING.

In the proposed Divine Liturgies book:

The first antiphon has one required verse.
The little litany between the first and second antiphons is STILL MISSING.
The second antiphon had one required verse.
The third antiphon is REQUIRED (and provided for Sunday and each feast).
The Typical Psalms (abreviated) AND THE BEATITUDES are given; the Beatitudes are required if the Typical Psalms are used.
The Litany of the Catechumens is OPTIONAL, and is followed by the Second Antiphon of the Faithful. (Both were MISSING before.) The First Antiphon of the Faithful is STILL MISSING.
The Litany over the gifts is REQUIRED.
The Creed does NOT contain the Filioque.
The first part of Litany before the Our Father is REQUIRED (with two petitions combined into one). The second part of the Litany before the Our Father is STILL OPTIONAL.
The Litany of Thanksgiving is REQUIRED, and the "Grant it, O Lord" petitions are OPTIONAL (and provided).


So on the upside, compared to the 1978 "pew book" which is still standard in most places:

One antiphon and two litanies, formerly optional, now MUST be said.
The Beatitudes, which were missing, are now required if the Typical Psalms are used.
The Litany of the Catechumens and the Second Litany of the Faithful, which were missing, are now provided and optional.

The downside? Two petitions at the first and second antiphon, formerly optional, are not in the new book. And you know what?

The missing verses, AND the litany between the antiphons, AND the First Litany of the Faithful, will be available in booklet form for the priest and cantor to use when (if) the new Divine Liturgies book is published.

On the other hand, the new book restores the (UNabbreviated!) prostopinije melodies, as well as a host of other traditional melodies, includes nine pages of pre- and post-Communion prayers(with the three preparatory psalms), the services for the days of the week, the common weekday services for saints, and the liturgies for special intentions (general, thanksgiving, for the sick, for the help of the Holy Spirit, for the departed. Oh, and the Panachida and the General Moleben. With music.

I agree - I will miss "who loves mankind", and I don't know why the Oriental Congregation in Rome had a problem with using those words to translate celovikolubce. And I would rather see "us men" in the Creed, but then again, the Greek and Romanian Orthodox omit it to, so we're not breaking new ground there. (Has anyone seen any other "inclusive language", or is that it?)

I would wager money that more than half the parishes in the Pittsburgh eparchy will have to celebrate a LONGER service with the new book than they do now. Will you support them in doing this, or encourage them to disobey, and DEMAND the shorter liturgy they are used to, just as you are prepared to DEMAND a longer liturgy than was congtained in the 1965 and 1978 books - when the new book will require parishioners to memorize precisely four psalm verses in order to have all the same Sunday litanies and antiphons you have today? Will you still help them protest a longer liturgy when you find out that the new liturgy is (if the priest wishes) just as long as you were used to?

If you have questions, send me e-mail (ByzKat@stny.rr.com); I'd be happy to correspond. I'm sorry if this is rough, but you will lose little or no liturgical material with the proposed book, and gain a lot. I wish the translation could be common with the other Eastern Rites, and perhaps slightly more polished - but we HAVE to end this situaton where two pairs of eparchies celebrate with different liturgikons, and the largest one STILL has massively abbreviated services.

Yours in Christ,
Jeff Mierzejewski
ANOTHER set of kneeling prayers today! YAY!

Oh, by the way - the proposed book includes full indications of the deacon's parts, AND has the correct dialog before the Gospel from the 1942 Liturgikon, which was abbreviated in the 1965 and 1978 people's books, and restored incorrectly in the Passaic / Parma changes some years back. So sometimes problems DO get caught and fixed. - Jeff

God Bless You, Jeff.

There will still be parishes in the Pittsburgh Ruthenian Metropolia that will have truncated liturgies just as there will still be churches without icon screens. The idea of pastoral "exemptions" will continue as they have in the past.

Ungcsertezs

Dear ByzKat,

The problem with "for us and for our salvation" is that it isn't a translation. "For us humans and for our salvation" would be acceptable and inclusive. Why not use that?

By dropping "for us _men" we lose the link with Christ becoming _man_ for us _men_. Christ becoming _man_ or _human_ for us _humans_ would keep it.

I asked Fr. Petras for an answer to this question, but he must not have seen my post. There are accurate inclusive translations of the creed, but we choose an inaccurate inclusive translation. Why?

Several points for consideration:

1. The new books containing the Revised Divine Liturgy will make it impossible for parishes to celebrate the fullness of the Ruthenian recension Divine Liturgy. Both the Liturgicon and the people�s edition take away parts of the official Liturgy. In any event, there are books in use in many parishes that do contain every word of the public part of the Divine Liturgy (editions with and without music). This means the three traditional verses to the three antiphons, the options of the typical psalms (longer versions), the beatitudes, and all the little litanies (and, yes, even the litanies between the antiphons and those of the catechumens and the faithful). No one can legitimately claim that the proposed new books for the people contains more than books already in print and are actively being used by many of our parishes (even if � sadly � the priest does not always celebrate everything in these books).

2. A mandate stating that something �MUST� be done does not mean it will happen. Priests who would not celebrate the full Ruthenian recension Divine Liturgy (1942) are not about to celebrate the proposed Revised Liturgy. Anyone who thinks that these clergy will embrace the proposed lower standard simply because it is mandated is fooling himself. [Mandates directing revised rubrics over the last 25 years in various eparchies have never brought about uniformity and have only caused division. Doing the same thing again will not bring about a different result.]

3. The idea that we need to return to unabbreviated Prostopinije melodies is pastorally unwise. We now have a 40 year tradition of singing the fixed parts of the Divine Liturgy a certain way. Like it or not it is a legitimate and accepted tradition in our Church. Changing it now will be like trying to change the texts and melody to �Silent Night�. Think, for another example, that the Roman Catholic Church changed the text of the �Hail Mary� to switch from �blessed art thou amongst women� (and etc.) to �blessed are you among women� in the late 1960s and the new text has still not been embraced by the faithful. Think also how the text of the �Lord�s Prayer� still employs Elizabethan English, all because the Church respects that people are generally unwilling to change something that they know and love. Like it or not most of our texts and fixed musical settings are now memorized. Changing them does violence to the spiritual lives of the faithful. Only those changes that correct actual errors should be attempted.

4. Of course, the changes to the rubrics and the inclusive language are enough to reject the Revised Liturgy. We see Rome being much more traditional in liturgy. We see Rome instructing the Latin Church in Liturgiam Authenticam to be authentic, not innovative, and to refrain from embracing gender inclusive language. Why our bishops seemingly desire to challenge this wisdom is sad. Why we wish to repeat their mistakes and expect a different result is sad.


It is clear that there is no �sense of the faithful� embracing anything about the Revised Liturgy. Surely there will be an appeal to Rome (hopefully by a coalition of clergy and laity). Does anyone really expect an ever more traditionally oriented Vatican to side with liturgical liberals? None of the arguments for change has even come close to justifying embracing the revisions.

If one wants change (either towards tradition or away from it with the proposed revisions) the only way to accomplish it is in the marketplace of ideas. If you present change that is good people will embrace it freely. Mandating something that is not good will not lead to acceptance. It will only lead to chaos.

That is truly presumptions on your part as well. How do you know how well I know these people or don't? You don't, and I won't comment further on that matter.

Thank you for your "rough" post. You see my pew book from my parish is the Liturgy approved by the Sacred Congregation for Oriental Churches, dated Dec. 10, 1964, and no joke, it includes ALL the verses of the three Antiphons, the litanies between each, the Typical Psalms and the Beautitudes. Additionally, it includes the Litany of the Catechumens. ALL the other items you say are missing from that pew book are in mine.

Is this, as they say, the full Ruthenian Recension? Hmm, I guess I'm lucky. Now you know why I'm upset.

You know anything that is marked optional will not take place in most parishes. So, figure those items gone for good, unless you are lucky enough to visit Fr. Elias in Aliquippa.

Have you ever experienced the Liturgy as I have described? It's truly beautiful and holy. Why it has to be monkeyed with is beyond me, other than to correct any mistakes that are present. We do need something common between the Eparchies, and I would never ask anyone to disobey their Bishop. I keep hearing about pastoral sensitivity with regard to the word Orthodox, and wonder who will pull this card when they get their new books. Who will enforce this Liturgy, when others have not been enforced in years past. It sounds great on paper, but really what consequences will there be if a church choses not to obey?

John, the problem with your post is - it makes sense.

Why can't we just go back and make a pew book with everything in it reflective of the 1965 Liturgikon, fixing the typos and the minor errors as need be? No one has yet stated with convincing reasons why the 1965 Liturgikon and the 1942 Ordo are defective. How about actually implementing the Ordo as Rome intended us to?

Sensus fidelium - now there is a novel idea.

Your fan,
FDD

Dear P-A:
What is a translation? One thing it is not is word-for-word substitution, like Babel fish at its worst. I am interested in the grammar, in Greek and Latin, of this phrase. Does it analyze as formal language? I have previously asked anyone to analyze the "us men" sentence in formal English.

It is, of course, "understandable" - and we have been treated to the idea that understandable utterances from the schoolyard, prisonyard, and even from the mouths of babes are somehow the standard for liturgical language, but I think that idea is dead wrong. So I wonder if the word-for-word rendering, which has been termed "accurate" (apart from natum/born), is just bad Babelfish, rather than a good translation.

I am also intrigued by the interesting slipping between "man" and "men" in this discussion. I don't think that "men" is the plural of "man"-as-genus; we don't talk about "mankinds". Because of these two problems, FWIW, I have advocated previously the translation "for man...". "Man" without an article is, I think, unambiguously (not just "understandably") inclusive; it is, moreover, the word that - following the often quoted paragraph from Lit.Auth. - embraces the same interplay between genus and individual as "anthropos".

I like to point out, btw, that "mankind" does not; it is strictly generic. ISTM that "loves mankind" misses the L.A. mark, as does "loves us all". FWIW, I had advocated "is the Lover of man". I am bemused by the fact that "loves mankind" is accepted by those who also like to bring up the the L.A.

A translation is a text that properly relays the precise wording of the original text and grammatical / personal style (including all overtones and idioms) of original text as is best as possible in the new language. It does not just relay the original thought and bring it into the spirit of the new age but it is transparent to the original, including the original context. Translations should be literal while providing clarity.

A translation is not merely a representation of the original thought given anew in contemporary culture and idiom. That is, however, a good definition of a paraphrase.

In translations of the Scriptures we see two distinct approaches � �essentially literal� and �dynamic�. The �dynamic� is very often a paraphrase, which is one of the reasons that the Vatican will not allow the publication (as a whole Bible) of the Revised Amended Revised New American Bible.

So yes, a translation is pretty much a word for word substitution given as literally as is possible while allowing for clarity of expression and grammatical correctness and readability. The Church is on record as favoring this literal style.

I don�t recall that anyone here has made such a suggestion � I certainly haven�t. Those who insist on gender inclusive language claim as one of their reasons that the general public does not (or is incapable of) understanding traditional language. RC Bishop Trautman of Erie uses this reason as justifying his demand for gender inclusive language. The point of my story in the other (Kliros) thread (and which has been discussed before) is not that the child provides the standard for literary language. He doesn�t. The example demonstrates that the reasoning that many do not (or are incapable of) understanding the received text (so they must be changed) is faulty. Clearly even the child in my example was able to use the received language coherently. Even if were true that some do not understand current literary English the answer is not to change the language but to educate those hearing it.

To re-give an older example, during a previous discussion on this topic I mentioned that Howard Dean, the current chairman of the Democrat Party, used the term �mankind� in a Saturday radio address. Everyone knew what he was talking about and there were no protests about his not using gender neutral language. Indeed, the only reason that some want to ban terms like �mankind� from our language is that they have chosen to be offended. This is mostly confined to liberal teaching establishments where secular feminists hold sway.

I don�t know if anyone has issued a serious study of �lover of man� as an alternative. �Lover of mankind� is more inclusive. It includes not just every man from Adam and Eve to the last man conceived before the Second Coming but also the very nature of man (human nature). �Lover of man� does not seem to carry all of this. �Loves us all� and such wording cannot properly be called translations as they lack the quality and clarity of the original meaning. Such wordings are merely paraphrases. At best they introduce confusion were clarity reigned. At worst they introduce theological inaccuracy.

Don�t be intrigued by the introduction of the discussion of forced gender inclusive language into the discussion. It is only one of numerous valid reasons why the Revised Divine Liturgy must be opposed.

As always, I call for a new printing of the current text. One that corrects only those texts which were inaccurate.

It does not matter how well you know these individuals, you still have no right to make such uncharitable remarks. It is gossip. Even if they told you such, it would still be gossip.