www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy One year Anniversary of RDL is approaching...

Further to the previous post - every few years someone or other comes along and attempts to rewrite Shakespeare in modern English. None of these rewrites ever really catches on; people want to read Shakespeare itself in the original late Elizabethan and early Jacobean English. There are several theatres devoted largely or even exclusively to performances of Shakespeare's places; tickets are always in demand.

Fr. Serge

In case I missed it, did the good Father David Petras give a theological explanation of them using *children* of God in place of *sons* of God in the Beatitudes? Please direct me where on the forums he might have given such a theological explanation.

Ed Hashinsky

Along the same lines, about a year ago, my daughter and I attended an "Anglican-Use" Mass in Scranton. They have a married priest, with whom I'm friendly, a former Anglican clergyman, half of whose Episcopal parish followed him into Catholicism in the wake of all the stupidities which are vexing the Anglican communion. He was recently ordained to the Catholic priesthood by the auxiliary Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Scranton (which now has more married priests than the Eparchy of Passaic, which has none). The English language of that Mass was Elizabethan, i.e. ("the Quick and the Dead", thee & thou, etc.). My 17-year old daughter had no problem understanding what was being prayed. She rather liked the whole thing. So did I.

In Christ,
Dn. Robert

In the late seventies of the century just passed, someone took an informal survey on the linguistic accessibility of the Book of Common Prayer (1662). Among other tests, the "surveyor", so to speak, asked a barely literate Verger if he could explain the use of the term "indifferently" in the prayer for magistrates "that they may rightly and indifferently administer justice."

Without hesitating, the Verger said "it means making no difference between one man and another" - which is exactly what the word does mean.

When the "surveyor" asked the Verger what "impartially" meant, the poor man had no idea.

As to the Quick and the Dead: it is said that the Duchess of Devonshire, upon seeing a motor car for the first time, commented that "if those things ever become popular, there will soon be no one left but the quick and the dead", which was at least a pleasant play on words!

Fr. Serge

AMM:

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Ah, yes. Schmemann sought to elucidate and spread Orthodoxy through the dominant idioms and methodological norms of his time and place, rendering his scholarship and other writings categorically un-Patristic and anti-Orthodox. Despite, of course, the fact that the Fathers of the first five Christian centuries themselves did something similar...

And, yes, despite his assertions to the contrary, he was a captive of the West (and the academic West, in particular) and was, for good measure, a Uniate -- at least in spirit, as Archbishop Chrysostomos has said.

Schmemann's corpus is far from error-less and unproblematic. I'm not about to push for his elevation as the fourth holy theologian of Orthodoxy. But, then again, one could make the same observation about most of the Fathers... as well as Florovsky, Azkoul, Kallistos Ware, Romanides, Seraphim Rose, and Yannaras.

But let me understand this -- we criticize Father David (justly, IMHO), for failing to cite or otherwise rely upon the available, accepted scholarship (some of which is in the profane Western languages of French, English, and German) in his justification of the RDL, but we are then going to criticize Schmemann, Meyendorff, et al. for doing exactly that? Am I missing something here?

In Christ,
Theophilos (tragically, a Uniate with a shaved face)

Theophilos, I don't endorse the views in the link I posted, I just posted it as an example of what I believe was being referenced, i.e. the Parish school, etc. I have read a few things by Fr. Schmemann, and I myself enjoyed them.

My understanding of the liturgy and its history is not tremendously deep. The only real liturgical issue I can think of that I have is I wish the Orthodox hierarchs in this country would agree on a common English language translation, because it's confusing when you go to another parish and the words of the creed or the communion prayers are different. Otherwise I'm basically happy with the liturgy as it is used in my diocese including the prayers for the armed forces, the silent anaphora and so forth.

AMM:

Glory to Jesus Christ!

I didn't mean to accuse you of anything, and I'm glad to hear that you have found Father Schmemann's work enjoyable (and profitable, I presume). You are not alone in this.

In Christ,
Theophilos

We are not criticizing Schmemann or Meyendorff & al. for relying on scholarship. But we are criticizing them

1) for misunderstanding the essence of the Liturgy and liturgical theology;

2) for their uncritical misthinking that they understood it better than the Church always has, and that they were in some position to dare to declare how the Church should have understood its proprietary.

Like that a duplicate litany here and there must be superfluous. Considerations like this are the culmination of stupidity, that is based on ignorance toward the Church tradition. According to this logic, why not to insist that having a Liturgy each Sunday is anything less than superfluous?

This is as productive as doing research on the Bible without regard to its very genesis and exegesis as the holy book of the Christian Church. Naturally, the same is applicable to research on the whole liturgical system and its codification in the classical service books.

So far as I know, Father John Meyendorff was never particularly involved in liturgiology. Is the reference then to his son, Paul Meyendorff? His book on the disastrous Nikonian tragedy is well worth reading.

Fr. Serge

Our parish is singing the new settings very well. There are a few bad habits we haven't been able to iron out yet, but by and large it's going quite well. Sundays are as packed as ever, if that means anything.

Kudos on your cantor practices! We should all be doing that once a week.

[quote=John Damascene]The Revised Divine Liturgy is a disaster nearly everywhere.

This strikes me as a highly irresponsible statement. One should be required to back up such a statement, parish by parish. As for the parishes I've been in, I have found the above statement to be completely false.--Tim Woods

Dear Administrator:

Yes, I too hope for a liturgy with a good translation and excellent music. Before the RDL, we good what seemed to be a good translation with settings not faithful to a strong tradition. Now we have much better music, but with a less than desirable translation. Is the third time the charm?

Brothers and Sisters,

I am disappointed to see the context in which the Liturgical translations are being discussed by many. Some are referring to the musical and lyrical translations as if they can be changed and re-changed an innumerable amount of times until those in the "historically educated" community come to an agreement. Do those who are "historically educated" not realize the damage that they have already caused by succumbing to this irresponsible version of the Divine Liturgy?

I may only be 24, and my entire childhood education in a Byzantine Catholic School and weekly church attendance may not be enough to "educate" me on the translations, but even I can see that these new books need to be revoked before we lose our Byzantine Catholic livelihood forever. The congregation see a lack of leadership. They are leaving the church. Those who have stayed do not sing. But instead of fighting for what their hearts tell them is right, their voices are held at bay and discouraged by the hypocrites that would have them believe that a dissenting voice to the newly translated Divine Liturgy would be viewed as appeasement to the devil himself.

To those who say that the youth of the church are accepting these changes, I argue that neither I nor anyone else I know is anything but disgusted with this whole display. I vow to fight for the future of my church until The Divine Liturgy is responsibly and properly restored with familiar words and singable tones.

Respectfully submitted in Christ

I will disagree that the new settings are better then the old.

There are number of problems with the new music that has been promulgated.

Firstly, it is a literal application of Bok�aj as if Bok�aj was somehow a canonical standard. In reality Bok�aj was just a snapshot of how Prostopinije was sung at one parish. Singing in the Church continued to develop since then. In the new recordings from Europe I find that the singing has developed from Bok�aj, and that it is almost identical to the Slavonic Divine Liturgy I grew up with. It would have been far better if the commission had allowed for such growth and respected it.

Secondly, there are numerous problems with accentuation of the English text. The arrangers of the new music surely meant well, and are to be thanked for their work, but they made the mistake of allowing the text to serve the music. In reality it is always the music that should serve the words. Liken it, if you will, to dancing. One partner leads and one follows. The music should always allow the text to lead. If you examine the first settings in English of the fixed texts for the Divine Liturgy (from the late 1950s through the official 1965 version) you can see how the arrangers struggled with this issue, and how they decided to make proper accentuation of the text more important than a literal application of the Prostopinije. I can disagree with some of their work while praising the fact that they allowed the chant to serve the text.

There is more, but I don�t want to get off track. The main problem with the new music is that it does not respect what the people have memorized and taken to heart. Forcing people � especially the elderly � to abandon all that they have accepted and internalized over a lifetime is simply wrong. Too many people have been spiritually hurt throughout this process of Revising the Divine Liturgy. I pray that the bishops will rescind the Revised Divine Liturgy and will instead promulgate the official Ruthenian Divine Liturgy as promulgated by Rome, and that corrected translations and associated music be respectful of both the Liturgical Tradition, of the clergy and the faithful (what they have memorized and keep as their rock), and proper English grammar and accentuation. We need authentic renewal with quality music. It needs to be accomplished gently over time by education, encouragement and example.

If I can adapt a bit of wisdom from Pope John XXIII: See everything. Note what is good and what is not so good. Change only what is absolutely necessary. Above all, do not harm souls.

John