www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy A Morning at the RDL (an RDL Review)

A friend called me the other day and told me that on April 29th, St. Gregory's in Lakewood Ohio would be having their first revised divine liturgy.

So I made it a point to attend there this morning. First off, the church is kind of hard to find, it is tucked off of a main street (Madison) and is easily confused with two other Orthodox Churches within 500ft-1000ft (One being a Russian Orthodox Church and another being a Ukrainian Orthodox Church). I managed to figure it out eventually and made my way in.

As I walked in, a woman was handing out the teal colored books that have the RDL. All the talk of the books being hard to follow is true. I managed, but not with ease, to follow in my book. Some might take this as pompous, but I feel that I'm very familiar with the Liturgy and it was not easy for me. It was very obvious to see people in the church paging through and being completely lost. Many put down the books in disgust and just gave up.

The music. It was tough to sit through. I have a good friend who is Ukrainian Catholic and I used to joke with him and say that while they have better x-mas carols, our liturgical music was better. I can't claim that anymore.

The most disheartening part was that you would have thought that I was in a bobble-head store during an earthquake, because the whole place was shaking their heads in disgust. Comments I heard on the way out,

'Are we going to use this book every week?!'

'We've said graves for our whole lives and now all of sudden tombs.'

'This new music is horrible.'

etc.

But the most memorable (and sad) was an older woman saying to another, 'everything I grew up with is gone now. Slavonic's gone, now the english words are different, the music is different. This isn't who we are.'

I must say that if what I heard is truly the new version of "The angel exclaimed to her......" , what a disappointment. This was always one of my favorite hymns and it was dreadful to listen to, and by dreadful I mean the melody not the cantoring.

btw, this is a church where I saw one child, a little girl, and that was all. Average age had to be 70 years old. This isn't the first time I've seen a greying congregation like this either. Anyone with a 6th grade education can figure out the future of this parish in 20 years if something isn't done soon.

So that is the basics of my experience this morning which overall was what I expected but in some ways was even more disappointing now. I wonder if the excuse that the revisionists use here that we haven't even heard the RDL so we can't complain about it is still going to be used, because I've suffered through one now. I'll post more about the infamous experience this morning but I'm pressed for time right now. Furthermore, how many more times can I write about the fact that one verse antiphons have never been our tradition, that the absence of little litanies is a sore point, that the feminization in the RDL make me crazy, etc.

The real question, and I'll soon start a thread on it, is that now that we have this revised liturgy with 'modern language' and 'authentic music', what is the plan going forward to evangelize and grow our churches?

What is the plan to increase vocations?

What is the plan to salvage our declining parishes?

Wads of money and time were spent on the RDL, will the same effort or even a fraction be used on saving this sinking ship?

Where are our leaders with some kind of a plan?

If there is a plan can someone share it with me?

If what I saw this morning is going on or will be going on in other parishes, people are not pleased with it.

I just don't think our churches can sustain an exodus of any kind of scale right now. It blows my mind what is going on in our eparchy.

Monomakh

At my parish the cantor sings "trampled.. and tombs" and the people still sing "conquered.. and graves"!

Ungcseretezs

Was there any reaction to the inclusive language? Did anyone notice?

How about the Anaphora being said aloud? Was it awkward?

What Liturgy did the parish celebrate prior to RDL? Green or Red Book?

How much did they prepare? Are they older or younger cantors?

What was the reaction of the pastor?

Inquiring minds want to know what to expect at their parishes! Ours probably won't be rolled out until the last minute, thank goodness! I figure I have about a month left being Byzantine, then it will probably be the OCA for my family of four. So, so sad! Thank you Monomakh for your post, please post more.

Stephanie

Thanks, Monomakh, for sharing your "view from the pew".

I hope and pray that the Metropolia survives all of this...

Even though I'm Orthodox, I was planning to attend a RDL when it was implemented in my former parish, just to see what it was like. After reading Monomakh's post, I think I'll pass..

Goodness. People are lost with a new book the first time they use it? Of course they are!

Your comments about "The Angel exclaimed to her" show how much we've lost the authentic musical tradition. If people think the melody in the new book is awful, they should listen to it in Slavonic. One of our cantors sang it for us tonight, and the new melody is much, much closer to the Prostopinje melody than the version in current use.

Everyone who reads my posts knows I don't like quite a few things about the new book. But after singing the music with my choir and practicing it with my fellow cantors, I find it in general very good.

We'll be rolling out the books Sunday, with the choir leading the congregation. It will be difficult for everyone, but after a while I am firmly convinced that the singing is going to be much better.

If only we were singing "for us men. . . ."

As for the plan for the future, I think you are right. We need to focus on the future. Parishes with a median age of 70 are not likely to survive, but how would retaining the old music save them?

Sounds like what the Roman Church endured with Vatican II. People always get their feelings hurt when things change--people like what's familiar, and if that familiarity is changed just one little bit, the world comes crashing down--that's pretty sad, but also understandable. Still, we have to be bigger than that.

The Roman Rite had a similar experience post Vatican II--before any of us travel too far in another direction, we should remember that we're not alone in the world of liturgical reform. There's something to be learned from the Post V-II Latin Rite experience and I think it may help some folks get through the transitional bumps the RDL may bring to people. Perhaps inviting Priest's of the Latin Rite to discuss the impact of VII on the Latin Rite may help bring some perspective to our Eparchies regarding the impact of liturgical reform and the experience drawn from it? If the Church was undivided at the time of the Reformation in the West, I believe the influence of the Eastern Church would have mapped a different outcome of the tragedy that followed.

I think in this case, it may be healthy four my fellow Eastern bretheren to look West and see how the Latin Rite endured their changes. That's what I intend to do, and we might just learn something, and survive.

Mark.

Mark,

While I understand your intended point, the irony of your suggestion is precisely the fact that the worship of the Latin Rite has been virtually decimated following the promulgation of the Ordo of Paul VI. While I do not predict anything close to happen with the RDL (since at least many of the core principles of Byzantine worship have been retained and experimentation on the part of individual clergy is not generally accepted), I think these conversations would have been more helpful had they occured BEFORE the promulgation...perhaps even before the effort was begun in the first place?

Personally, I applaud many of the efforts of Professor Thompson to try to restore much of the traditional melodies of Ruthenian plain chant. It is many of the other things (like the so-called "inclusive language" and the truncating of the worship) that are troubling to me.

God bless,

Gordo

I sit here shaking my head and laughing. What an apropos comment on the last 70 years or so, on the chant in this Metropolia.

The whole liturgy, old and, apparently, new, sounds like heaven came down to earth when it is sung in Slavonic. Most of us who have heard the liturgy in Slavonic know that is a simple fact. But many of the current settings now even more arduously than ever grate on the ear, and deafen the spirit.

In English, many of the restorations have been, and continue to be, horrid to ear and thus to the spiritual psyche.

So...one wonders if we don't need a different musical expert with spiritually sensitive ears, who can, and will, finally, build out of the old a new that sounds equally poignant, uplifting and soul stirring in English.

Well...one does not merely wonder, as much as one continues to wonder after all these decades when that will actually happen?

Mary

Sadly, our parish has been using it for three months, and everyone is still confused. Our pastor said it will take somewhere between three and ten years to get use to this. But one wonders how many will remain ten years from now.

It seems kind of odd to me (and this is simply my personal opinion) for someone to try to pacify those who are gravely concerned over the revisions to the Divine Liturgy by point to the West and their own experiments with liturgical revision and renewal. The Liturgy of the Mass of the Roman Catholic Church has become such an mangled hodgepodge of "styles" and "interpretations" that to point to how the West "survived" their on crisis is sadly laughable. Particularly since the crisis is still going on and promises to continue some 40 years after the fact.

I would pray most desperately that my Eastern Catholic brothers and sisters are not subjected to 40 years of continuing and worsening liturgies as have been my Roman Catholic counterparts.

This brings up an interesting point. Proponents of inclusive language always use the justification of "the language of modern English" or the vernacular. They say that people need to understand the Liturgy in the the way English is spoken "today".

Yet words like "Theotokos" and "Anaphora" are used. I have nothing aginst these words, but would it not be more understandable in "today's English" to use "Mother of God" and "Oblation"?

Furthermore, "conquered death" and "in the graves" is more applicable to "today's English". We are buried in "graves", not "tombs".

Again, I have no problem with "trampled" and "tombs" but the "vernacular argument does not seem consistent.

I grew up listening to everything in Slavonic and thankfully CD and tape players were invented so I can still hear Slavonic once in a while. It's pretty simple, some things just sound better in Slavonic than English and vice versa. When I was in Ukraine years ago, they would have on the radio American pop songs with Russian and/or Ukrainian words and it sounded ridiculous. On the flip side listen to Nebo i Zeml'a in Slavonic and you can hear the rolling cadence in it, while in English the rolling cadence is lost.

You wrote that people should listen to it in Slavonic, yeah they should, too bad they'll pretty much never get the chance to hear it. If Slavonic wasn't dead and buried than it sure is now. The new books have zero Slavonic and Archbishop Basil's letter said that these are the only permitted texts.



I wasn't saying that retaining the old music would save a parish, in fact that's why I asked what in the world is the plan here? Furthermore, why didn't we spend time and money on evangelizing rather than revising. Are we spending a sizeable fraction if not the same amount of time and money on evangelizing and saving the sinking ship moving forward?

Monomakh

Monomakh,

But where in the original Church Slavonic Anhel Vopijashe is the Slavonic word for "dance"? "Likuj nyni i veselisja Sione" is rejoice and celebrate, so it's missing "tancuvaty".

I know of only one parish that actually sings the Church Slavonic "Anhel Vopijashe" during Pascha in the Greater Pittsburgh area, and that is sad.

Xpucmoc Bockpece!

Ungcsertezs

Ungsertezs,

Shcho ty skazav duzhe pravdu!

Unless the Greek says dance??

Ya Ne Znayu!

Monomakh