www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Does the RDL reveal a lack of hope?

The idea that the RDL reveals a lack of hope struck me forcefully the other morning. Here's why.

It appears that the authentic liturgy, "the lex orandi," may shock modern men because it so clearly sets forth how much the faith, "the lex credendi," is at odds with modern worl in which we all live and breath. Cardinal Ratzinger spoke forcefully about the kind of "faith" that sought to hide the truth from one's fellow man. There is a bit in the RDL which seeks to hide the faith (for fear of offending) as it excludes certain words from the Liturgy and Creed. The RDL, by its example, tells the faithful who attend it, and that world of nonbelievers whom it seeks to convert, that its OK to tweak certain aspects of the faith if they don't fit into your "schedule." While a certain amount of flexibility may be necessary, such flexibility should never be enshrined as the norm. Thus it would be best, should a parish be capable and willing to do it, that the whole liturgy be able to be taken.

Here is what then Cardinal Ratzinger wrote which gave rise to this idea of a lack of hope in the RDL.


http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/RATZCONS.HTM

Recently, as Pope Benedict, he has spoken of true hope to the youth of Rome. In a Lenten sermon he said,



http://www.zenit.org/article-25556?l=english

Let us pray that the theological virtue of hope be firmly planted in our priests and Bishops.

Could you please elaborate on your second paragraph?

First, as Christians we should never give up hope!

For me, the RDL signifies that our synod of bishops really wants to renew the Church and help it to thrive in today's world. Even if the Liturgy that resulted is seen as imperfect by some, our Byzantine Catholic Church still has life in it. The very fact that our bishops sought liturgical renewal proves the point--in my mind.

We need to recover our proper Constantinopolitan-Kievan patrimony and all that goes with it. We are still in a process of becoming.

Sadly it seems that some see the RDL as the end of our renewal and recovery of our authentic identity as Eastern Christians. I remain full of hope for the future and await the next step in renewal of our Carpatho-Rusyn Churches. The RDL was one step. I believe heavy lifting remains.

Perhaps we will restore minor orders. Perhaps we will return to the Orthodox Paschalion. Perhaps we will have our own TV presence. Perhaps all our parishes will have proper icons screens, one Sunday liturgy and Vespers. Perhaps we will shrink to grow again. Perhaps we will have monasteries and married priests. The possibilities with Christ are endless. There is always hope in Christ!

We need to support the good work of our bishops, priests and deacons and offer to assist them in the Lord's vineyard.

The best is yet to come for the BCC.

A blessed Great Week to all!

Slava Isusu Christu!

Well said!

Slava Isusu Christu! (Glory to Jesus Christ!)
Slava Na Viki! (Glory be forever!)

I hope you are correct, JohnS. I am one of the cradle Rusyns who are hurt by this new RDL. I do see it as an attempt by the Bishops to leave our traditions and roots behind to become something else. I don't know what the something else is. But I know the RDL just doesn't feel correct and I have learned to trust my gut instincts. It just doesn't seem right, feel right, sound right. Minor tweaking of words doesn't concern me. I understand there are mistakes in the translation that is being used now. That's why I love the Church Slavonic liturgies. I also understand that doing a liturgy in only Church Slavonic will only hasten the end of the Byzantine-Ruthenian Church. It won't attract new people since they just can't understand the language. But it just seems as if the Bishops, and I'm not saying anything disrespectful, don't seem to care about the feelings of the people who are currently the members of the Byzantine-Ruthenian Church. If the Bishops are doing this to help attract new members, it had better attract lots of new members and soon. Because it sure is turning off current members. If there were an ACROD (American Carpatho-Rusyn Orthodox Diocease) Church in my area, I probably would switch to that particular brand of Orthodoxy. But there isn't. So I stay and attend and do what I can. But all I have is hope that the Holy Spirit is working through the Bishops and they are correct.

Holy Lazarus Saturday!

Tim

I don't think the RDL reveals a lack of hope. I think it reveals a lack of understanding about Liturgy. It takes us so far away from our own tradition which we share with Orthodoxy. It is a huge step in the wrong direction. It merely imitates the worst of what the Roman Catholics did after Vatican II.

I pray the bishops will come to their senses.I pray they will cancel the revision and allow the full and uncut Byzantine Divine Liturgy. Without all the politically correct words.

Dear JohnS,

I believe the problem is that there is no plan. I spoke to my Bishop directly regarding minor orders. I asked him with the statistics showing men leaving the church in greater numbers than women, is he considering restoring minor orders as a way to stop that trend. His answer, "I hadn't thought about it."

In all honesty, I don't think my Bishop is any different than any other -- I think it comes from the Metropolitan. When you have strong leadership, you know which way the ship is going and how you're going to get there. We're focused on the wrong things, the RDL being one of them.

Stephanie,

I believe that the Divine Liturgy is the right thing to focus on. In the East, it is our theology and it is our primary means of catechesis. Authentic Liturgy resulted in the Baptism of Kyiv. But, Liturgy is not the only area of focus.

John

"The idea that the RDL reveals a lack of hope struck me forcefully the other morning."

Nah, it merely reveals a lack of humility and the true arrogance of the second rate scholar.

"It appears that the authentic liturgy, "the lex orandi," may shock modern men because it so clearly sets forth how much the faith, "the lex credendi," is at odds with modern worl in which we all live and breath. "

Hey! I'm the modern man. They don't get more modern than me.

Furthermore, I and my family are precisely the people the RDL is supposedly designed to attract--the unchurched in search of the true faith. As I have mentioned before, there aren't too many people who are baptized into the Ruthenian Church as adults (unless, of course, they are marrying a Ruthenian), and my family comprise four. So why is it that the RDL literally (I am a stickler for words, and am using the term correctly) makes us physically ill?

Could it be the faulty methodology behind the translation?
The failure to stick to the mandate of rendering a full and accurate translation of the Slavonic original?
Could it be the errors in translation themselves?
The flatness of the prose, the lack of beauty, euphony and grandeur?
The relentless didacticism, the reliance on paraphrase that forces the translator's understanding of the text upon the faithful, rather than allowing us to work it out on our own?
The poor settings of the music?
The reduction of the varied musical traditions of the Ruthenian Church to the usage of one cathedral in the 18th century?
The lack of respect for the faith and integrity of the laity?
The reliance on secret coteries of experts, and the failure to subject the liturgy to any sort of meaningful peer review?
The destruction of a dynamic and vibrant liturgical tradition in favor of an abstract, academic model of what the Ruthenian liturgy ought to be?
The denigration of all criticism of the RDl as mindless carping, rigid traditionalism, nostalgia for the lost past, disobedience and lack of faith?

Or could it be all of the above?

My own opinion is the only people who have lost hope are the authors of the RDL themselves, isolated in their ivory towers, intent more on impressing their academic peers than in serving the Church, behaving like trustees liquidating a bankrupt business rather than as true shepherds of the faithful.

Well, you asked, and that's precisely how I see it.

This one?



I think that the modern world is best described by the phrase Cardinal Ratzinger used in his sermon in the liturgy before the conclave began: "the dictatorship of relativism." In the modern world, nothing is absolute; nothing is wrong; everything can be compromised. If that is an accurate description of the times in which we live, then making the liturgy "accessible to a comtemporary American congregation," the stated goal of the RDL from the forward, is frought with danger--because moderns don't think anything is absolute, but the Liturgy brings us to the threshold of the absolute and indeed brings us in direct contact with Him. The "dictatorship of relativism" made its way into the RDL when words were dropped from the Creed and Liturgy to make them compatible to the modern feminist. Others more knowledgable than I have seen other errors, but that particular error is the one which demonstrates the most serious error, for it is the modern feminist (and one need not be female to fit in this category) more than anyonoe else, seeks to destroy the faith which we have received from the Fathers. The modern feminist wants to get rid of the notion of fatherhood altogether for fatherhood itself is derived from the Fatherhood of God. True fatherhood is fruitful and life giving--and this fatherhood is hated by the modern feminist. Three years in a modern law school showed the depths of the hatred for fatherhood and the Catholic Church--and our leaders have unwittingly adopted what the worst feminists in my own school were advocating relentlessly--change the language to change what people think, to change how they act. "Man" was the ultimate taboo. Christ was the ultimate "Man," and the Church, His bride, the ultimate target of their scorn and hatred.

The lack of hope seems to me to consist in the idea that if we don't change the Liturgy to fit the idealogical presuppositions of the elite (who know what's good for "us" contemporaries, the churches will be empty. My church pre-RDL was full--and filled with lots of children. It didn't need the RDL.

St. Thomas Aquinas maintains that "error has the same intelligible structure as sin." If he is right, then the revised creed within the RDL itself has the "intelligible structure of sin." I am not saying it is sinful, but I am saying it has the same intelligible structure. There is a clear error--a word has been dropped from the Creed. Think of it this way, "Which Father of the Church which sanction such action in order to make the Creed more accessible to his contemporaries?" The Liturgy should ought not be adjusted to make it more accessible to modern man. Instead, modern man should adjust himself through the Liturgy to make himself more suitable to God. As we all know, that is a task that takes a lifetime. There is no quick fix. We have to formed by the Eucharist into the perfect image of Christ--sons in the Son of God for the glory of the Father.

I guess I disagree with John that the RDL is a sign of hope. Mere change is not an indication of true hope. Real hope always binds us to the truth. But I think Stuart hits the nail on the head when he states:



I concur. That's the loss of true hope of which I am speaking.

"Perhaps we will restore minor orders. Perhaps we will return to the Orthodox Paschalion. Perhaps we will have our own TV presence. Perhaps all our parishes will have proper icons screens, one Sunday liturgy and Vespers. Perhaps we will shrink to grow again. Perhaps we will have monasteries and married priests. The possibilities with Christ are endless. There is always hope in Christ!"

Christ is not a Ruthenian, and there is no guarantee that any particular Church will survive. Augustine was a bishop of the great African Church, which rivaled Rome in its wealth, its theological depth, its contributions to the Tradition of the Western Church. Where is it today? Who is bishop of Carthage, or of Hippo Regius? If the Church of Africa can become an obscure footnote in history, who is to say that the Ruthenian Byzantine Metropolitan Church of Pittsburgh will not join it?

Had our God-loving bishops known what they were about, had they really wanted to restore the fullness of the Tradition, then of course, the last thing with which they would have meddled was the Divine Liturgy. And, if they had been serious about removing divisions between us and the Orthodox, they would have done nothing except in consultation with the Carpatho-Rusyn Orthodox Archdiocese.

If they were serious about restoring the Tradition, they would have begun by restoring the fullness of our liturgical observance before diddling with the centerpiece of our worship. We would have churches in which Vespers was celebrated not as part of a "vigil liturgy", but in its own right, at the very least on Saturday evenings. The Divine Liturgy would be prefaced by Orthros, and people would flock to these services because they recognized the necessity of a full liturgical life, instead of on the Eucharistic liturgy as the be-all and end-all.

If our bishops were truly concerned about restoring Tradition, they would have focused on restoring the liturgical consciousness of the people before foisting a new liturgy upon them. But that's hard work.

If our bishops understood how liturgy is the center of the life of the Church, if they had even an iota of historical understanding, they would not now be repeating the very same errors the Latin Church made some forty years ago, and from which it has not recovered to this day. They would have moved with infinitesimally small baby steps, in a process that would require decades, first reforming the rubrics, then making minor adjustments to the text and the music, so that at no time would the familiarity of the Liturgy and the stability of our worship be disrupted.

If they were really concerned about us, they would have realized that one size does not fit all, that what might be a useful reform in one parish would do incalculable harm in another, and it would proceed with caution, charity and oikonomia at every step.

If our bishops loved the Church, they would by now have made an unambiguous statement not only about the restoration of minor orders (who in his right mind ordains a man to the subdiaconate and then fifteen minutes later elevates him to the diaconate? Whatever happened to only one ordination per day?), but also about opening ordination to the presbyterate to married men.

But none of these have happened, because our bishops are weak and seriously confused men, who aren't sure in their own minds precisely what the Ruthenian Church is supposed to be--and therefore they hedge, trim and straddle, neither Latin nor Orthodox, but some unsustainable tertium quid.

I see the RDL as nothing less than Elkoism with a human face. Bishop Nicholas at least had the virtue of straightforwardness--he wanted to gut the Byzantine Tradition. Our new leaders are not so transparent. They pledge fidelity to the outward form of the Byzantine Tradition, and make changes they claim will bring us closer to fidelity with it, but in fact the thinking behind these reforms is just a ghostly reflection of Latin fads of some three decades ago. In place of latinization of form, they impose latinization of the intellect, so that we will become, over time, just what the Orthodox say we are: a ritual adjunct of the Roman Catholic Church.

But why settle for a pale imitation when you can get the real thing? Those among the faithful who are Latin in outlook and disposition (if not canonically Latin themselves), will avail themselves of the Latin Church. Those Latins among us who fled the liturgical chaos of the their own Church, will say, "Oh, not again!", and go back whence they came. And those among us who truly want to be Orthodox Christians in communion with the Church of Rome, will recognize that our objective cannot be fulfilled in the Ruthenian Church, and will look elsewhere, either within the Catholic communion, or with the Orthodox themselves.

And the net result will be the gradual withering away of the Ruthenian Church, died of a theory, and of the indifference of its leaders.

And yet it doesn't attract you. Gosh, you must not be the kind of modern man their looking for! You actually have some form and substance as is clear from your posts!

Oooh...can I make that phrase my own? I like it.

---
Stuart,

If your hypothesis is true, who is making our hierarchs shut down the BCC? Rome? Why would the bishops want to drive the Church into the ground? Why is the UGCC coming back to life and the BCC going the other way? Why invest $$$, time and scholarship in a new liturgy if the end game is no BCC?

There must be a plan, and the RDL is part of it.

"If your hypothesis is true, who is making our hierarchs shut down the BCC? Rome? Why would the bishops want to drive the Church into the ground? "

They are doing it themselves, of their own accord. No one is "making" them do anything. Being falible men, they are prone to short-sightedness, to vanity, to self-interest--everything that the CEO of a hedge fund can do, a bishop can do with regard to his Church. The CEO didn't want to drive his company into the ground, but a combination of bad decisions and self delusion caused it to happen. Same with the Ruthenian bishops. Ruthenians, in fact, have a long history of being badly served by their bishops from the moment Soter Ortynskij got off the boat. This is just continuation of the tradition.

Regarding the role of the bishops in the Church, the remarks of Napoleon's uncle, Cardinal Fesch, are illuminating. Negotiating with the Emperor over ecclesiastical affairs, Fesch infuriated his nephew, who flew into one of his famous imperial rages. "If you do not do what I want, I will destroy the Church!" he thundered. Fesch gave him a rue smile and said, "Sire, we bishops have been trying to do that for 1800 years, and have not succeeded yet".

So why invest the money in the RDL? A combination of vanity, one man's vainglorious attempt to put his permanent mark on the Church, and the inability of unwillingness of the other bishops to stand up to a bully. The Ruthenian bishops do not have anything approaching either the self-confidence or the intellectual horsepower found in the Melkite or Ukrainian synods. In fact, they have a monumental inferiority complex, and really want nothing less than to be left in peace until they reach retirement age. Which is one reason for closing down otherwise profitable parishes and socking the money from sale of the property away in retirement funds. Apres nous, le deluge!