www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy The Audible Anaphora

You may be right. But that doesn't make the RDL right. It is a mistake, full of mistakes, and I don't think we should just 'accept' it and play dead. I think as a Church, we deserve better than this.

I for one, will not simply 'accept it', I can't. I do accept that it may take some time, and some effort to get all the mistakes in it corrected, but there is no time like the present to begin. A defeatist attitude serves nothing.

I think the best way to begin to agitate for the mistakes to be fixed, is education, education, education. We have to learn more about our beautiful Liturgy and our wonderful tradition.

We don't need to settle for this terrible book, it is an amatuer, scissors and paste, clumsy, travesty of what our books should be like. I will not accept it.

I want a complete, accurate, faithful, careful, exact, beautiful translation into English of our Slavonic liturgical books. I don't see why we should tolerate anything less.

Nick

p.s. Unlike my friend Recluse, I will not leave this Church for the Orthodox. Maybe that is what the revisionists would like, but it isn't going to happen.

God bless you Nick. I will pray for you as you fight the good fight. For the record, I had other reasons for going to the Holy Orthodox Church, but the revisionist Liturgy hastened the decision.

Getting back to the topic: Is the Ruthenian Catholic Church the only Eastern Church (Catholic or Orthodox) that has mandated the audible anaphora?

I thank Father David very much for his post.

I didn�t misquote Father Taft and in no way suggested that they people prayed the Anaphora aloud. They were praying their own prayers. I guess I was not clear enough in stating that they were saying their own prayers out loud (that was the culture), so it was clear that while the presbyteral prayers were prayed aloud they were not prayed for educational purposes. I thank Father David for pointing out my lack of clarity and giving me the opportunity to clarify.

Regarding the mandate, Father David again quotes a recommendation by the Greeks which is not a mandate. Their decision to make a recommendation and allow liberty supports my position of liberty.

Maybe it is best for me to simply and concisely restate my position?

1. I support making the official Ruthenian recension normative for the Metropolitan Church of Pittsburgh, and that the bishops make clear that the Divine Liturgy should be celebrated exactly as given in the official books published by Rome (with the English text and rubrics being a version that is as literal as possible while being as elegant as possible). Only the official Ruthenian recension will unite our Church and help us grow, as well as unite us to other Ruthenians (like the Ukrainians who have reaffirmed their support for the official books) and to the Orthodox. [Getting there should not be via mandates but via example, education and encouragement.]

2. I support the Vatican directive (Liturgical Instruction section 21 and elsewhere, which I quoted earlier) that tells us to keep our liturgical books as exact to the respective Orthodox texts as is possible. Changes to rubrics and texts that affect only the Ruthenian Church should be accomplished by common agreement of all the Churches of the Ruthenian recension (Catholic and Orthodox). Changes that affect all the Byzantine Churches should be accomplished by common agreement with all the Byzantine Churches (Catholic and Orthodox). Adding a mandate to take certain prayers out loud increases the existing separation between us and both other Byzantine Catholics and the Orthodox. To mandate any rubric that increases the separation is wrong. If the Greeks (and other Orthodox) get to the point where a new custom is so widespread that they officially change their liturgical books only then will it be appropriate to change our liturgical books.

3. The mandating of the praying of the Anaphora out loud is an imitation of current Roman Catholic custom (and Father David�s argument is almost identical to that given by the Latins 30 years ago). But many well respected Latin theologians now say that there are problems with this custom. Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) noted in his book �The Spirit of the Liturgy� that in 1978 he noted that �in no sense does the whole Cannon always have to be taken aloud� and expressed the hope that twenty years later he thinks that people should now understand what he means. He then went on to say that the German liturgists say the Eucharistic Prayer is in �crisis� and concludes that all the various experimentation with the Eucharistic Prayer �balk, now as in the past, at the possibility that silence, too, silence especially, might constitute communion before God.� What I am saying is that Father David might be correct, that someday it will be the custom. But that because the Latins indicate that the custom has problems we ought not to mandate their problems. In the case of praying the various presbyteral prayers liberty is really the best way to provide fertile soil for the Spirit.

Regarding Father David�s comment that the Liturgical Commission merely recommends and that it is the bishops who mandate he is correct. Sort of. I suggest that he very much understates his influence. He is considered the expert and treated as such. In my personal conversations with both several of the bishops and individual members of the liturgical commission most explanations of the changes away from the Ruthenian recension were prefaced with �Father Petras says�.� It is very clear to most that most of the reforms are based upon ideas advanced by Father David. It is not surprising that even members of the Commission have long referred to the RDL as �the Petras Liturgy�. It is also common to hear �the Petras recension� to refer the way Father David arranges rubrics for other services (one of the priests of Parma started a whole thread with that title awhile back).

I will very much disagree that the changes are based upon solid liturgical principles. The principles used are the very same ones the Latins used and are now rejecting in the �reform of the reform�. The Latin Church has experimented with this type of reform (from anaphora prayers aloud to gender neutral language) and they now say there are problems with what they did. We ought not to mandate in our Church what they have found does not work.

I can only partially agree with Father David on this. Few people will have an intimate knowledge of the rubrics of the Ruthenian recension. But most people will own prayer books with the complete Divine Liturgy. They are not so uneducated that they can�t see what is before them. They know that that we have been a Church of short cuts. Most who remember the �Slavonic High Mass� loved the fuller Liturgy. For them that will always remain the standard they compare to.

I have seen the full and official Ruthenian recension taken from the 1964 �red book� and it works. It grows parishes. How can anyone advocate that we not restore the official Ruthenian Liturgy and use it as the standard? It sanctifies people. It attracts them. With the 1995 Passaic reforms I have seen the exact opposite, and a whole eparchy of spiritually frustrated priests and people who long for a more authentic Ruthenian Liturgy.

Regarding Constantinople and Syria, yes, in antiquity the prayers were prayed aloud. But just how, when and why did they transition to being prayed quietly, especially in Constantinople? This needs to be understood. That was the point I was making. It seems very logical that the pattern of what parts of the Anaphora are taken aloud and what parts are taken quietly comes to us from the earliest times.

I understand and respect that Father David believes that the question of the Anaphora is the most important question for our liturgical life today. I disagree completely. I believe that total liturgical unity with both other Byzantine Catholics and the Orthodox is far more important than a mandate to pray the Anaphora aloud (and the other mandated changes). The Ruthenian recension allows liberty on the question and liberty best serves for the Holy Spirit to act across the entire Byzantine Church � Orthodox and Catholic. There is no reason whatsoever for our bishops to mandate that our liturgical books be different than those of other Byzantine Catholics and / or the Orthodox.

Ruthenians need to be Ruthenians. The official Ruthenian recension must be promulgated, made normative and not restricted in any way. It will form our Church and we will grow as it does. There is no reason whatsoever for our bishops to mandate that our liturgical books be different than those of other Byzantine Catholics and / or the Orthodox. I ask and will keep asking the Bishops and their superiors in Rome to rescind the Revised Divine Liturgy and instead promulgate the Ruthenian Divine Liturgy. I do not think it will take 30 years, but even if it does it is worth working for.

I would like to come to Father David's defense. The Bishops, not Father David, in virtue of their office have the teaching authority within the Church. Although Fr. David has an expertise in liturgy (this does not guarantee infallibility), it is finally the Bishops' duty to ensure that the Liturgy and the faith, in their fullness and without error, are passed on from one generation to the next. They cannot, they must not, hand over their authority to the "experts." If they are hiding behind the experts, they have abdicated the authority of their office.

Dear Administrator:

Glory to Jesus Christ!

You said:


You have made this argument several times, and I'm still not sure I understand your reasoning. We all agree that, in the early Church and certainly in the Greek Church of the fourth and fifth centuries, the practice of praying the Anaphora aloud was the norm (hence Justinian's restorative Novella 137). We further agree that praying the Anaphora aloud is not prohibited by the Ruthenian recension (my English 1965 Liturgikon only makes a distinction between "intoning" and "praying").

So what, exactly, makes the restoration of this practice -- and it's good to remember that it is a restoration not an innovation -- a Latinization? Is it the act of mandating it, and mandates are essentially things that only Roman Catholics do? You seem to make a lot of noise about liberty and allowing the Holy Spirit to do His work -- would you argue for liberty in other areas, liturgical as well as theological, moral, etc.? Is "Thou shalt not murder" a Latinization? Should we simply encourage people not to murder without actually proscribing the behavior -- would that be more Eastern? Has it occurred to you that, perhaps, this mandated restoration is a part of the Holy Spirit's work, that God can and does work through men and laws and mandates as often as He does directly upon individual souls and hearts and minds?

Or is the Latinization Father David's explanations, which have emphasized the prayed-aloud Anaphora's educative and dialogic roles -- roles which, you believe, somehow detract from (rather than augment) our participation in the divine life? Again, I fear that you are making distinctions -- and Scholastic ones at that -- where none truly exists. I have no idea where education ends and deification begins; if you know, please share with the rest of us.

Is it that the other Eastern churches have thus far failed to restore this practice and that our doing so, without input or approval from other Orthodox and EC jurisdictions, is imprudent? How so? Could it be that we are, for once and at least with respect to this specific practice, in the vanguard of making our Byzantine liturgical life more authentic? Are you uncomfortable with doing something that seems to violate the "Vatican directive" about maintaining a faithful correspondence between our own and our Orthodox brethren's liturgical texts and practices? So, directives are good and Eastern and to be obeyed while mandates are Latinizations and anti-Holy Spirit? I don't follow.

In Christ,
Theophilos

Dear lm,

You are absolutely right about this. It is the bishops who have the absolute authority. May I add, that the Church is no democracy!

That being said, it is the bishops, and only the bishops, who must accept responsibility for what has been done, taking credit for everything good, and accepting the blame upon themselves, for everything bad in the Revision of our Liturgy.

Though Father David is the only real defender of the Revision on the Forum, he can't be blamed personally for all its errors and mistakes.

While the bishops have absolute authority to act the way they have, at the same time, since the grave mistakes made by the bishops in this country (who have shamefully abused their authority and made some terrible decisions in the past few years), I would have thought that all the Catholic bishops would have learned that it helps the Church if they consult with their laity, hearing the voices of experts and knowledgable people? They could have done so much better, if they had bothered to ask for help and advice, and then listened to it.

Also, obedience is so much easier, if those making demands on our obedience, are also willing to listen to our concerns, and work 'with' the people as leaders, rather than 'above' the people as autocratic CEO's giving orders that 'must be obeyed' or else.

I have just enough faith to believe, that if our bishops had consulted with their people about this fiasco, these books never would have been issued they way they were. There are lots of us who could have helped, and would have been willing to help. It could have been so much better than this!

Nick

There's the rub. They do not have absolute authority (that is reserved to one Bishop in the Catholic Church and even he is bound by the Truth).

Cardinal Ratzinger on 26 July 2004 wrote:


http://www.adoremus.org/1104OrganicLiturgy.html

Obedience in faith. Therein is the key.

Also see this sermon by Newman on this passage from Paul's letter to Timothy:


http://www.newmanreader.org/works/parochial/volume2/sermon22.html

Dear Theophilus,

Has it occurred to you, that this mandated revision (it is not a 'restoration') is a mistake? The Holy Spirit doesn't make mistakes, and so this revision of the Divine Liturgy cannot be from the Holy Spirit!

Your argument for the Holy Spirit directly inspiring individuals sounds a little protestant to me.

Moral Law ("Don't murder" etc.) is clearly set forth in Scripture. It doesn't need the additional 'discipline' of episcopal mandates.

The Holy Spirit directs the Church (not isolated individuals), and our Church has its official books and our wonderful tradition, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Liturgical order is set out in the official books of our Church. These need to be translated completely, accurately, without gloss or addition, abbreviation or revision, or wacky feminist and experimental agendas.

Our liturgical order doesn't need any additional 'mandates' and the bishops should simply have given instruction about the directions and directives our official books contain.

Revising and changing the directions and directives in our beautiful Ruthenian Recension was a very stupid idea. And the Holy Spirit doesn't do 'stupid ideas'.

Nick

Nick:

Glory to Jesus Christ!

With all due respect, you haven't answered the specific questions I asked (and have misunderstood / misinterpreted several other points I made). It will not do to assert that the RDL as a whole is "stupid" and so it cannot be inspired by the Holy Spirit (says who? certain individuals within the Church?) and then to accuse me, ironically enough, of "protestantism." Please re-read what I wrote before you throw around such foolish accusations.

To restate my question: I want to know what, precisely, makes the practice of praying the Anaphora aloud and/or the mandating of this practice an "imitation of Roman Catholic custom," i.e. a Latinization. Is it the act of praying the prayers aloud? Is it the mandating of this practice? Is it that the Roman Church currently does it and so our doing it now must be an imitation of Latin praxis? Or is it something else? It is not self-evident to me, given that (a) the norm in the early Eastern Church was for the Anaphora to be prayed aloud (hence, making it the norm today is, by definition, a "restoration") and (b) mandates or laws or rules are not inherently Latin or Western (see "the Rudder," which, while certainly different from the Roman codex iuris canonici, is still a collection of canons or standards or rules).

Kindly note that I am not defending the RDL as a whole but would simply like the Administrator to explain and defend this assertion that he has made on several occasions now.

Please tell me, if you can, what makes the practice of praying the Anaphora aloud and/or mandating the practice a Latinization. Thanks.

In Christ,
Theophilos

Much depends here on the specific definition of "Latinization" - a word I seldom use.

This word need not even have any religious significance. In Yugoslavia, when there was such a place, one could notice a process of "creeping Latinization" in publishing - the telephone book in Belgrade changed from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet, and it was a while before people even noticed it.

But you are asking about a religious phenomenon - the reciting of the Anaphora aloud.

It is easy for anyone who has lived to my advanced age (65) and who has been paying attention to these things to have noticed that the Roman Catholics began to read the Canon of the Mass aloud, even before the introduction of the vernacular into that section of the Mass (even then one could notice some strange things happening with this reading aloud, by the way - but I digress). Given the relative size of the Roman Catholic Church and the Pittsburgh Metropolia in the USA, and the pressure, willed or unwilled, to conform to the Roman Catholics - especially in recent innovations, oddly enough - it taxes credulity to think that the mandatory introduction of the Anaphora read aloud in the Byzantine Liturgy in the Ruthenian Metropolia is unrelated to the introduction of the same phenomenon in the Roman Mass four decades earlier.

Hence, many people regard this as a "Latinization". In addition, there is a psychological reaction - reading (rather than singing) such texts aloud is not and never has been a tradition in our Church, yet one has already been hearing the Anaphora read aloud, quite frequently - which causes the hearers often to be reminded of the Roman Mass. This also may be causing the application of the term "Latinization" to the practice.

Hope that helps clarify the matter.

Fr. Serge

Latinization in the last forty years means modernization. The demand to modernize the Ruthenian liturgy is written in the local law. That the changes have been mandated in itself points to the fact that they are inorganic and not something that has grown out of the Liturgy.

I would argue that given the chaos of the last forty years in the Roman Church, only truly and universally recognized restorations should have been "mandated." Anything avaunt gaurd would only be suspect as being a modernization, not truly organic growth or restoration.

Father Serge:

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Thank you for your kind reply, Father.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure it provides the answer I was looking for -- which is to say, it does not provide a very convincing answer.

The Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church has, of course, subjected itself to more than its share of "latinizations" during its time in North America. But that does not mean that the mandating of this particular liturgical practice falls into that category, especially since the prayed-aloud Anaphora is not a purely Roman Catholic phenomenon. Indeed, it was very much the norm in the Greek Church of the fourth and fifth centuries. I understand that, viewed in the context of the BCC's historical willingness to betray her Eastern roots and conform to the modes and orders of the Latin Church, this newly-mandated practice may seem to be yet another latinization. But that does not mean that it categorically is -- particularly since, again, the practice predates anything the Roman Church has been doing since the 1960s.

Aren't you and the Administrator engaging in a little bit of "post hoc, ergo propter hoc"? Just because we are doing X forty years after the Roman Church did X does not mean that the Roman Church's having done X is the (or even "a") cause of our doing X now. In fact, given the BCC's relatively recent restoration of infant communion and baptism by triple immersion, I'm fairly certain that its restoring of a liturgical practice from the first millennium has nothing to do whatsoever with what the Roman Church is or is not doing.

I'm not trying to be a gadfly; I just think that, when we throw around the word "latinization," we should be sure that it is not based purely on personal conjecture or logically fallacious arguments. It's too loaded of a term to be misused (or even casually used).

As for reciting the Anaphora: Yes, reciting it would strike me as a latinization. My parish priest has been chanting the formerly silent prayers aloud for at least the last eight years. I was under the impression that this was the norm. I do see, however, in the preface to the clergy edition of the RDL, that "to pray aloud" means either "recited or chanted aloud." It would have been better had the bishops mandated the latter when they mandated that the Anaphora be prayed aloud.

In Christ,
Theophilos

Father David,

Is the Holy Spirit also guiding 90%+ of BCA parishes to not have Vespers or Matins?


Monomakh

Im:

Glory to Jesus Christ!

If I understand you correctly: latinization = modernization; modernization = mandated change; mandated change = inorganic change; inorganic change =, e.g., restoring as normative an ancient (and authentically Eastern Christian) liturgical practice from the first half of the first millennium.

Therefore: restoring as normative an ancient (and authentically Eastern Christian) liturgical practice from the first half of the first millennium = latinization.

Are you willing to say the same thing about the ordination of married men to the priesthood, the practice of communicating infants, or, even better, the dropping of the Filioque from the Nicene Creed? Or are these "truly and universally recognized restorations" -- even though the Roman Catholic Church does not normally ordain married men, does not give communion to infants, and believes the Filioque to be theologically correct and its introduction into the Nicene Creed ecclesiologically licit?

No Filioque = latinization? Now that's funny. I think I hear Photius laughing from somewhere beyond the grave (perhaps Purgatory?).

In Christ,
Theophilos

That is also unconvincing. The fact that Justinian attempted to absolutely legislate for an audible anaphora is indeed very strong testimony that it was not the widespread norm it is purported to be. And perhaps aping the absolute mandate of the Roman Emperor is a "latinization" after all...