I would suggest that your church ask the Orthodox to be that *outside* observer.
I do not think they would be pleased with the Orthodox evaluation of the RDL.
Perhaps you should read this first before you make this "guess" --
http://www.patronagechurch.com/HTML/liturgical_practices.htmYou will see that many (if not most) of Fr Schmemman's suggestions are included in the Ruthenian DL. For example, Schmemann argues that it may be profitable to eliminate the two little litanies after the Great Litany so that the priest can pray the corporate prayer aloud. This the DL does. Etc.
Among the many excellent authorities assembled by Fr Schmemman is the quote from Archbishop Philaret of Chernigov (1864):
For such people the order of worship with which they
are familiar is the original and unchanging order. Why?
Because they wholly ignore the history of Church life
and, obsessed with themselves, cherish only that which
they know. History clearly shows that in liturgical matters
the Church dealt with reasonable freedom: she adopted
new forms when she saw that the old arrangements were
not altogether useful and there was need for a change....
Here, as in other matters, she neither accepted the rule of
those who, according to apostolic institutions, are to be
disciples and not teachers, nor did she allow herself to go
into deep sleeping but paid great attention to the needs of
the time and the demands of souls. ...
I also love these insights:
Not everything that has been done for a hundred years and to which people are accustomed is necessarily correct in the light of the true liturgical tradition of Orthodoxy, and something which seems "new" and even "revolutionary' may very well be a much needed return to genuine tradition.
I would like to add here that in all liturgical discussions the constant and popular reference to uniformity as a decisive argument is both useless and harmful. Perfect liturgical uniformity has never existed in the Church, even as an ideal, for the Church has never considered it to be the condition and expression of her unity. Her liturgical unity was always that of a general structure or ordo, never that of details and applications. Even today the Orthodox Church does not have one single Typikon, and there exits a great variety in practices among Orthodox Churches. Such variety has existed also within the same national Church: thus in Russia, for example, there were differences between Moscow and Kiev, between different monastic traditions, etc. It is simply dangerous- spiritually and pastorally- to make our people believe that uniformity in all practices is the touchstone and essence of Orthodoxy; dangerous because they already seem to have an unhealthy obsession with the externals at the expense of meaning.
