www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Blessed be the name of the Lord...

From the 1988 UGCC Liturgikon and pew books:

The Ukrainian The Divine Liturgy: An Anthology for Worship (2004) has two settings with three full repetitions; two settings with three repetitions of the ending; and one setting with three full repetitions, EACH of which has FOUR repetitions of the ending As I said, it's a widespread custom.

Jeff

Thanks Jeff for your detailed response.

Jeff wrote: "Well, the simple answer here is that the hymn you mentioned is one sung by the people, not the priest. On this particular point, the "rules" of practice have always been more complicated than reflected in the Liturgikon...."

I draw from this statement that the determining characteristic of this prayer is that the priest does not participate in saying it. It sounds as though if the prayer were said only by the people, they are free to use traditional forms. Is that correct? If so, can we say "An offering of peace, a sacrifice of praise," and "The trinity, one in substance...."

I'm sure the answer is no, but I am unclear where the written Liturgicon takes precedence and where tradition takes precedence.

I might add that our old books (orange, cardboard cover, stapled, no author, publisher or date) provided a setting of both the sentence "Blessed be the name of the Lord, now and forever" repeated three times, and for "Blessed be the name of the Lord, now and forever, now and forever, now and forever."

As a relatively new Byzantine, I don't mind showing off my ignorance. And again, if this field has been plowed over many times already in the forum, my apologies. Still, so much of the revision seems arbitrary and not a little groovy, and the revisers seem to be imposing it with a heavy hand. Given the heavy hand, they might as well let us know where the bright lines are that mark off "must do this" from "can do that" and "must not do the other."


Thanks,

John Murray

Dear John,

No, actually my point was that this is more like the Cherubic Hymn- which in Slavonic or English, might go: "Let us who mystically, mystically, represent the cherubim. Let us who mystically represent the Cheribim and sing and sing and sing the thrice-holy hymn".... The people's hymns have usually had much more musical variety AND were often given only in short form in the Liturgikon, which might just say (as the Slavonic one does), "Blessed be the name 3 times, then Psalm 33." With this particular hymn, the key point seems to be a three-fold repetition of some or all of the hymn.

In other words, it's NOT a matter of "if its traditional, you can do it"; the Filioque, withholding communion from infants and 25 minute Liturgies were traditional in some parishes for quite a while. In this case, the bishops appointed musical settings which contain variations just like those in the old settings, and they differ from the priest's service book as a result. If one were having a recited Liturgy (eek!) one would use the text as in the priest's service book, I suppose, but otherwise one would use the sung settings. If you want to use other settings, talk to your priest or bishop. If you're using other settings in order to "sneak something in", go back and read the Epistles of Saint Ignatius and pray some more for your bishop

Yours in Christ,
Jeff

Differences in settings aside, I believe the initial question had to do with the differences between the given text and rubrics in the Liturgikon (to sing thrice) and the text indicated in the pew books (apparently no indication to sing thrice).


The "base" Divine Liturgy texts given in the UGCC Anthology on page 459 matches what I posted above from the UGCC Liturgikon, i.e. noted to sing thrice. The more commonly distributed pew books from the Basilian Press of the 1988 English translation also mimic the Liturgikon in this regard on page 77.

There are a very few chant settings of "Blessed be the Name of the Lord . . . " which by repeating one or more phrases of this one-liner (originally an antiphon for Psalm 33, incidentally) become so prolonged that doing the whole thing three times would become a bit hard to take. Hence using these elongated settings once instead of three times became unofficially "tolerated". But that sort of thing, bad enough enough in the original language, becomes inexcusable when the Liturgy moves into a new language, since the whole point of introducing the new language is to make the material understandable and what even in Greek or Slavonic approaches the multiple repetition of words which are tenuously (at best) connected becomes ridiculous in English.

To provide a tragicomic example, I know of one parish where - in Church-Slavonic - it was a long-standing custom to sing "Blessed be the Name of the Lord . . . " to the tune of "My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean .. ." - and no, I am NOT making that up! I hope that they have not attempted to "retain this traditional chant" in English!

Fr. Serge

I take it you are saying that "Blessed be the name of the Lord, now and forever, now and forever, now and forever." is actually using the verse only ONCE as a concession to the internal repetition making a three-fold repetition tedious?

If so, would our current practice of chanting "Blessed by the name of the Lord, now and forever, now and forever, now and forever." three times still be acceptable? It almost sounds like some are saying that this is a nine-fold repetition.

I half-expect to wake up some day and find out that the Trisagion Hymn has been replaced with "Holy God! Holy Mighty! Holy Immortal! Have mercy on us us us."

Be careful what you wish for! There are MANY parishes in the Ruthenian Metropolia that sing the Thrice Holy Hymn once, and just keep repeat "and sing the thrice-holy hymn" three or more times instead of repeating the the entire hymn three time! Go figure!

Ungcsertezs