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

Dear Stephanie,

The problem is that the hierarchs waited 20 years to implement it, and when they did, it was with the full expectation that the rubrics would NOT be followed - in fact, that the old mode of celebration would continue.

So for forty years, we've had a profound gap between our "official" way and the "local way" - AND a set of abbreviations (often shared with the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox) which meant that much of the "Red Book" was ignored. PLUS we had no standard set of common texts for the tones, etc.

Some parishes gradually developed a fuller celebration. Most were in for a shock in the 1990's when bishops started ordering long-discarded litanies to be used, daily Liturgies forbidden during the Fast and the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts celebrated, etc. Two eparchies ended up with an interim Liturgikon that ordered more than used to be celebrated (e.g. the Third Antiphon) while not expanding others.

And in the final phase, the bishops have promulgated a text that is longer than many parishes currently celebrate, shorter than some. The question remains of whether the fuller celebration (with the remaining material) has the bishops' blessing. Many parishes, IF they adopt the new books, will be making additions to what they are celebrating today. But the main point seems to be that the bishops did not want to promulgate a book with LOTS of options (like the Roman Mass of today), or one that included texts that LOOKED like they were required but could be omitted by custom, OR in ordering ALL parishes to celebrate a significantly longer Liturgy in one fell swoop.

In terms of content, the proposed books are halfway between the "local way" of thirty years ago, and the "official way", with the apparent expectation that the "local way" is now TOO abbreviated to continue in use. I pray that the intent is to keep moving forward.

Your in Christ,
Jeff

'I pray the intent is to keep moving forward'. Now that is a good sentiment, and I would like to agree.

But, it does accept your thesis that this is a step forward. I think it is a step backward from the Red Book.

But if it is a step forward, then can we realistically hope that the errors and mistranslations of the Revisionist Schott Liturgy would be quickly corrected? I don't think so. If we hope for that, I wonder if we are being realistic?

Some estimates say that this misadventure has cost nearly a million dollars, a significant outlay for a small Church. Between travel costs (flying priests to meetings around the country, putting them up in luxury hotels, meals etc.), and the cost of endless printing, typesetting, reprinting.... Finally, the cost of producing the new books for distribution. I think it highly unlikely that this is a 'step' in a process. I fear, that we will be stuck with these bad translations for the rest of my life time.

A discouraging thought, which I pray will be proved false.

The bad, abbreviated and latinized 'Slovak' liturgy was scrapped. But did they spend a million on it?

Once the priests and the people see these new books, and hear what they are expected to sing, and experience what has been done to their Liturgy, we shall see what happens.

It may yet collapse under the weight of its own arrogance and errors.

Nick

Would it be completely inaccurate to guess the majority of those in the church will not really notice and will adjust, and that a minority will dislike the changes and the perceived shift away from Orthodoxy?

Some have been complaining for months about the shift *toward* Orthodoxy. It will come from both sides.

Jeff

Well, Presanctified Liturgies are suppose to be the norm in the Pittsburgh Ruthenian Metropolia, but there are several parishes still serving the Latin Stations of the Cross lenten service, so I don't think the such promulgations mean anything. It will still be up to the serving priest.

Ungcsertezs

The English-speaking Latin bishops not long ago allegedly spent two million dollars on a translation of the second edition of the Roman Missal and then had Rome reject it because of the feminist language in it. Rome also told them that there were simply too many problems with the translation for it to be approved. So the whole project went into the dust bin of history and all the money was wasted.

Brings up two quick questions. Do bishops understand the value of a buck any better than congressmen?

And why aren't we all in the translation business? Sounds pretty lucrative to me.

BOB

Well, this is where the problem is....as my parish celebrates the Red Book, so in essence the Liturgy at my parish will not expand but contract. If we are to keep moving forward as you speculate, what happens to the parishes who are already experiencing the Red Book...take two steps backwards? That hardly sounds correct. Why not leave those parishes alone, the ones who do the Red Book and who have the Icon Screens, Curtains and do the proper processions. Use those parishes as the example of what we are trying to strive toward. I will not support the "New" Liturgy because there is no provision for the Red Book parishes -- we end up losing the most. That is why Orthodoxy sounds very appealing to my family of four.

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Our "Red Book" parish is as Stephanie describes. The brain drain will come from the pravoslavnych christijans that represent the future of our particular church in this country. What happens to us and our children? This really puts our priests in a tough spot too.

Meanwhile, the Roman Greek Catholic parishes will continue to wither away. The BCC has sure had a rough couple of years. We lost Holy Resurrection Monastery. We are losing our people left and right. And now we are losing our liturgy.

You raise an excellent point. In a hypothetical parish with, for example, a bi-ritual priest who cuts corners, doesn't follow the books, does what he pleases, and is more Latin than Byzantine to begin with, who can possibly know what will happen with the revised liturgy? Will it be an improvement, or no noticeable change? I have no idea! It's one thing to look at a text, and quite another to see how the text is applied.

Did our monastics weigh in on this at all?

You sir, just gave me the biggest laugh of the day (in a postive way). [/quote]

Yassou Orthodox Pyrohy!,

The Funny thing is that I wasn't even kidding. We studied how to tell time tonight. From what I gather so far, the teacher assumes that everyone knows what Anthropos means.

I think it's been well documented on this Forum that that is part of the problem, other than the Liturgical & Music Comissions, no one has seen this Liturgy. A Ruthenian priest told me yesterday he has no clue what version will be delivered to his door at the end of the month, but he does know the books will have ribbons in them!

This post moved to a separate thread in this section

An t-athair,

Only if we can use the Irish liturgy! That should settle any English/Slavonic/Ukrainian/etc debate.

Go Raibh maith agat!

Hmmm, I must be missing something.

Any guess as to my question? It's not clear to me how representative this board is of the general population of the Ruthenian church. Will people really care/notice?