www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy I like the changes to the Divine Liturgy, anybody else agree?

Fr Deacon Lance,

C'mon! This part of your statement sounds like something a third grader would say! Father David still hasn't given ONE reason why he thinks the FULL Ruthenian recension cannot work for the BCC.

There must be a reason. Our people have the attention span of a housefly, they won't understand it, we just don't want them to have it, It's no good for them.... He must have a valid reason.?

No, what makes it incomplete are the missing parts of our beloved Divine Liturgy -- not just the Litanies. (Though, when you take the people's prayers away, how does that add to the fullness of the Divine Liturgy?) And, adding the Anaphora aloud doesn't make up for all the other missing pieces and parts, poor translations, and silly inclusive language. That's what Fr. David would have us believe -- but the Liturgy is still missing crucial prayers & practices, like:

--- Three verses of the antiphons (realizing this is an abridgment of what a full recension would have, but that we were headed in that direction)

--- Restoration of the litanies, specifically those between the verses of the first and second antiphons, and before the third antiphon.

--- A liturgical translation that cleaned-up the inaccurate text to include the word orthodox, and perhaps unto ages of ages

--- A liturgical translation that didn't fall to politically correct agendas

--- The restoration of Vespers on Saturday, not the current "Vespergy"

--- The restoration of Matins & Hours

--- The restoration of antidoron


Just ask Fr. Serge, he wrote an entire book on the deficiencies of this Liturgy.

How about this - include all of the other elements and pray the anaphora aloud, this way nothing is missing to anyone. If all it takes is an aloud anaphora to restore what is now not practiced in your Church, I don't see that there is anything to lose.

First of all, if simply asking a clarification of one's written statement is "putting words into my mouth" (the exact phrase used by the writer) then one questions if any dialogue can occur objectively and academically with that person. It appears not, sadly, since this Forum is the only place I know of that these kinds of discussions are even undertaken or tolerated regarding the RDL, "rough around the edges" as they may be.

Having spent nearly all of my professional life in natural science (geology and geophysics), these are very light discussions compared to many I have seen regarding scrutiny of one's work, data, and interpretations.

Secondly, and as I responded previously, this second-hand defense is simply wrong with regard to liturgical history. Has any Father ever questioned the "fullness" of the Liturgy with a quiet Anaphora?

Even assuming the previous concerns regarding questions of "efficacy" and clarifications of statements are allayed, this in and of itself is a disturbing question. A civil mandate to celebrate the Anaphora aloud failed miserably, and certainly the Church has never publically questioned any sense of fullness of her Liturgy with a quiet Anaphora. This statement itself is at odds with the developed orthopraxis of the Church.

I say this (which I have said repeatedly) as one not opposed to the audible Anaphora, and who also loves the quiet Anaphora. Both are truly and objectively the celebration of the Anaphora, and each has its own pastoral and catechetical beauty, obviously.

Neither do I believe it necessary to mandate an aloud Anaphora, which failed miserably in the past in a much more Christian culture.

It is simply not necessary to abolish a quiet Anaphora, and I reject blanket statements such as those made above not based on the Church Fathers or the developed liturgical history. Mandates and suppression are hardly the way to positively foster anything, as even a neophyte to history will tell you.

I also believe mandates such as this which are based on personal interpretation, which are not open to formal and objective critique from peers, which do not reflect or respect the corpus of liturgical development and history, nor in the end respect the pastoral economia of the celebrating priest, who may very well have the best interest of his parish in mind, are misguided at best.

I am very pleased that other Churches sui iuris in recent history have taken a very different approach in disseminating proposed texts and methodologies for their respective translations, and in return obtained at least a sampling of the sensus fidelium and a review from the priests who will be tasked to celebrate that Liturgy before their mandated use.

Interesting point, Michael - perhaps a counter proposal to the Hierarchs might be the full 1964 Liturgikon with an aloud Anaphora? I do not believe this will fly, either, unfortunately, with the IELC. That would have been too easy - fix some typos in the original Liturgikon and change a couple of rubrics. No, this was the culmination of a long- standing effort to revise the DL.

Exactly! That was the point of my earlier post -- they can have the Anaphora aloud, but you must restore all the rest of the Liturgy too. That's where the translation falls flat -- we've traded pieces of the Divine Liturgy like a kid trades baseball cards. And it ends up being a situation of personal preference.
What a shame.

Dear Monomakh,

Until the End, NOTHING will be perfect - yet we should still be thankful for each good thing in our lives! I am neither asking for people to be completely satisfied with only a partial restoration of tradition, or ask them to ignore any problem. But our bishops went out on a limb with many of their own flock to restore infant Communion and proper Lenten services - and received very little public support for any of it. And in the 1980's and 90's, our books were still quite lacking in a number of ways; because the bishops seemed to prefer a single form of liturgy, we ended up with books with substantial restorations, but omitted some seldom-used elements which they evidently felt were less important (small litanies, antiphon verses). Short of mandating those small litanies and verses, their decision to not include lots of "optional" elements led to such a decision - and decision that might have been quite different if they HAD the support of vostochniki in the Metropolia when making changes.

So I do feel that the lack of support in fora like this for ACTUALLY ACCOMPLISHING (a) restoration of infant Communion, (b) suppression of Divine Liturgies and their replacement with the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, (c) restoration of several major litanies (such as the one before the Our Father), (d) suppression of Liturgies "for the departed" on Sundays, (e) restoration of iconostases, (f) re-introduction of deacons and their liturgical role in many parishes, (g) removal of the filioque, etc., has led to our having less influence in liturgical change PRECISELY because we are seen to unwilling to provide any approval, support or encouragement until ALL the changes we want are made. While those who have objected to each individual change have certainly made their complaints known to the bishops in person.

And now I'm seeing parishes take the Third Antiphon, restore zeon, leave off the cleansing of the holy vessels till after the dismissal, and MANY more parishes starting to take Vespers - while by including the "Vesperal Liturgy" the bishops have expresses agreement with Father David that a "simple" Divine Liturgy in the evening is even MORE "not in our tradition." While I would certainly have preferred them to simply order that such evening liturgies not be celebrated at all (after suitable catecheses), I know from the experiences of friends in sparsely-populated areas that this would simply that some places would not have a feastday or even Sunday Liturgy at all, until we have more priests.


They could certainly clear it up by fiat, at the cost of what may be a majority objecting (as they have with many other things) that this is not "our" tradition. But (see list above) there HAVE been restorations. How many here have provided vocal support for those changes? And the single BIGGEST complaint I have received from newcomers has been "How can we sing if your services have all these different melodies but your books have no music?" A frequent, related complaint on feast days: "Why do you sing something different from what's in your books, and claim the books are wrong? How are we supposed to sing along?"

(I don't think many non-cantors realize the extent to which MANY cantors have been singing the "old versions" rather than the simplified 1960's settings. Even our administrator had made his own changes to them. Again, I have NEVER seen a funeral celebrated with the music in the funeral book unchanged - while I have been present when fifteen priests and eight cantors were UNABLE to sing together when they had the same book in front of each, because each sang his "local variant" of the chant. The knowledge of a standard, even if one uses something slightly different "at home", is of great value in communal singing - and the new books are a step in that direction.)


As far as I can tell, the reason is that the rector has chosen not to. Given that my own parish priest received LOTS of grief about celebrating Saturday Vespers - and nary any support - I'm not particularly surprised. If each person here could convince five or ten others that is was not just "Father's crazy idea" but a GOOD THING to have Vespers, it would make a huge different on e a parish level - and even the Cathedral IS a parish.

My own opinion on Vespers can perhaps be seen in the fact that almost fifteen years ago I started the CANTOR-L list on the Internet, one of whose primary purposes was to encourage the celebration of Vespers and Matins, prepare materials which (unlike the Basilian books, sadly) allow easy congregational participation, and have episcopal approval. Even our administrator's books assumed that cantors could simply sing stichera "at sight" - no longer the case - and followed errors and omissions in the Sisters' books - omissions which were restored in the Metropolitan Cantor Institute books, which were in turn influenced greatly by the work of lay cantors in the 1990's, myself included.


My point was that simply saying "people have objections" doesn't mean that they would greet further change with approval, even in what is viewed (by us) as being in a traditional direction - many of the objectors have their OWN ideas about what "our traditions" are. Even if one disagrees, there has to be some understanding of what the objections ARE if they are to be addresses properly.

Stephanie,

You've given this list a NUMBER of times - and yet there is NOTHING preventing any parish from taking Vespers and Matins, if the priest and people wish to celebrate it - and even if the priest is simply too busy, they can be celebrated as reader services. Nothing in the new Divine Liturgy books prevents this - in fact, the standardization and publication of the sticheral melodies, and the availability online of Vespers and Matins music for the entire year, as well as Vespers and Matins books that are MUCH more useable than the Basilian books, makes it far easier than when I started singing these services years ago.

Except to the extent that the bishops COULD order that these services always been held, there is no particular connection with the new books, except in favor of Vespers as opposed to it. The "Vesperal Liturgy" is a move TOWARD Vespers for those parishes that simply celebrate an "unadorned" Divine Liturgy on Saturday nights. God grant that it then disappear in favor of actual Vespers!

Yours in Christ,
Jeff

Deacon Lance,

I think that the reason that there is no effective defense for the Revised Divine Liturgy, is that it is indefensible, and inexcusable? This matter has also robbed me of peace, and many others in my Church, and the sooner it is scrapped the better.

You make the point well, those who like it will be in favor of it, and those who don't like won't be in favor of it.

So, how can we unite ourselves again, into one Church, one parish, one community in love and courtesy?

The only way, is by accepting, embracing, and living the books of our tradition, the Ruthenian Recension. These books are in Slavonic, so our Church needs to produce and provide accurate, careful, precise, faithful and exact translations. Without alteration, reorganization, agendas, and errors.

Those who are sad because the Revised Liturgy is criticized claim I am uncharitable and unkind, and that I trample on the feelings of those who have imposed it on us.

Well, I say they are uncharitable and unkind, for making me unwelcome in my own Church, for telling me I cannot sing my songs and pray the prayers I have prayed all my life. They are welcome to their theories about audible prayers and inclusive nonsense if they want them. But they have imposed their pet agendas on MY Sunday morning worship. I am hurt, I have been excluded, and I have been offended. Has anyone apologized to me? You apologized to Fr. David, o.k., but I don't think you have offended him. But no one has apologized to me for this fiasco, and I have been offended by this sad excuse for a Liturgy book. I am waiting for an apology.

I hope and pray that we can restore charity and life to our Church. But until this book is permanently banned, there will be many of us, just like yourself... 'robbed of peace.'

Nicholas

Dear Nicholas,

And yet when certain changes from the official liturgical books WERE introduced (such as the reduction in the singing of "Christ is risen" after Thomas Sunday, or the singing of more psalms at the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts), there was a good deal of turmoil and opposition here! I share your hope in seeing the official books in use - but in many ways they do NOT embody the previous tradition in our church, as celebrated in many many parishes, and they need to be seen as what they are: a particular set of services that DID have an agenda, namely commonality with the Orthodox tradition, even where it means abandoning some of our own traditions. To see them widely accepted, we need to achieve broad concensus IN THE PARISHES that that is desirable.

And we need to also see that some progress HAS been made, and acknowledge the work of those who oversaw it, rather than always finding ways to denigrate them - whether the Oriental Congregation, or our own bishops.

Yours in Christ,
Jeff

My own parish currently has Saturday evening Vespers, but our new priest is considering replacing it with another evening liturgy- in order for folks who work Sundays to meet their Sunday obligation.

Anyone have experience with this argument against Vespers?

I personally find Vespers extreme rewarding worship, but have mostly run into the "If it isn't Mass, it isn't church" mentality within my congregation.

Dear Jeff,

My pastor didn't make any of the changes in the number of 'Christ is Risen's, etc. and we are doing the Presanctified the way we always have.

How do the official books not embody the tradition? What was wrong with them?

Of course there will be local traditions, and local customs of abbreviations and special hymns. I presume every parish had these, mined does (did).

But these new books respect nothing. They don't follow the pattern or genius of the official books, and they also walk all over the cherished and much loved local customs of parishes, who had their own melodies and songs, sometimes saved through the generations but brought from the old country.

I don't see a lot of progress right now, I see a lot of going back. There are parishes that are producing their own sheets and service books, there is chaos and confusion, and there is a lot of sadness, and all of it was not needed.

I would be happy to praise our bishops, and thank them for their leadership and guidance. If they were defenders of our tradition, they would have my loyalty (and financial support) as well as my full praise.

But they have tossed my tradition in the trash, they have imposed their wacky ideas over my prayers, they have deformed the Liturgy they swore to protect and pass on unchanged.

Let the Bishops show some leadership! I will be the first to support them, let them announce that parishes are free to use the old books, until a good, accurate, faithful, complete, unadulterated, unrevised Liturgy is produced.

This should be done together with the Ukrainians and the Orthodox if possible. That would take courage and leadership.

My preferences, your preferences, Archbishop Schott's preferences, ..... no way to run a Church. Our Liturgy has to be taken from the books, or it is not our Liturgy, and never will be.

Nick

Nicholas wrote:
Yes! My sentiments exactly! That's why I will continue to repeat myself over and over again like a broken record -- until the message is heard. Saying the Anaphora aloud does not make up for all the ills of this RDL. For the parishes that were celebrating more, the RDL is a loss. Sadly. We should have been given the option to use the RDL with a supplement -- and remain a model for other parishes on what can be accomplished through prayer.

I'm a Roman Rite Catholic in the process of switching my rite to the Byzantine (more specifically the Ruthenian Rite) am an unsure of what I should do in light of these changes. The more and more I read on this thread the more disturbed I become. I ask this simple question of the Ruthenians here on this thread, in your opinion should anyone be switching into the Ruthenian Rite of the Church right now, given the current state of what appears to me to be disunity and liturgical contention.

...honestly, in the present state, no.


Ungcsertezs

I have just spoken with a priest on the matter and have taken consolation in what assurances have been given to me in those regards. I will continue the process of my switch and pray for a return to the traditions of the Ruthenian Rite. I ask all of you for your prayers that the change may be swift and un-impeded by the Latin Rite bishop whose diocese I am in.

Shalom

Hersch Green