www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology What is a Pro Liturgy?

I've seen this term used on a few different Orthodox parish websites. What exactly is a Pro Liturgy?

Never heard of one of those. You not possibly making reference to a 'Para Liturgy' by any chance?

It's definitely Pro Liturgy. Here's an example:

http://cliftonorthodoxcathedral.org/home.html

Just a thought. They might have decided to call the second Liturgy that as strictly speaking there should only be one Liturgy on any particular day on the one altar. Or it is a service like a pre-sactified one where the Eucharist was consecrated at the earlier Liturgy. I have now seen (did a Google search) the term used by an OCA parish in PA. I hope some of the other posters can shed some light on this term.

I have seen a number of Orthodox parishes that use the term "pro-liturgy" to refer to the service of Typika (Obednitsa) - either as a second liturgical service, or in place of the Divine Liturgy.

A quick search shows this, from St. Mary's Ukrainian Orthodox Church in New Britain, Connecticut:

SUN MAY 17 5th Sunday of Pascha. Sunday of the Samaritan Woman Tone 4

Pro-Liturgy. Obitnitsa………………………………………………………..9:00 am

Yours in Christ,
Jeff

In our Ukrainian Orthodox parish a pro-liturgy is basically a Typika service with distribution of a pre-consecrated lamb. We most often use it when the priest is away and only the deacon is present. I know some of our parishes use it when they want to have a morning service in English and another in Ukrainian. In that case, of course, only one of the services can be a full Divine Liturgy, so the other is a Pro-Liturgy.

"As a Mission Parish, Ss Peter and Paul is served each week with the Sunday Typica and Wednesday morning Divine Liturgy and Bible Study. It has been the Bible Study that has increased the will of the faithful to survive and prosper. Because the congregation is so small, when the faithful gather, we do so as a family or as a one room school house. Life in rural Pennsylvania does have some charm."
http://www.oca.org/DIRlisting.asp?SID=9&KEY=OCA-WP-VINSPP

Pro Liturgy, as used on the OCA.org directory, is a typica service.

I suspect the meaning is much the same as a pro-cathedral... "in lieu of the"...

Etnick:

Christ is in our midst!!

I've been at this type of service in an Orthodox parish. It's been called the Obednitsa, Pro Liturgy, and Proto Liturgy. The ones I've been to follow the DL and skip portions of the DL after the reading of the Gospel, proceeding to the Our Father and the ending portions. I've never seen one that distributes the Holy Gifts.

The parishes I've been in have had a priest who serves two or more parishes on the same Sunday, serving the DL at one and the Obednitsa at the second. Usually the parishes alternate Sundays with the DL.

BOB

After doing a little more digging, I've found that a Pro Liturgy is fairly common in Pennsylvania OCA churches where there are too many churches, and not enough priests.

Actually what is called the "Pro-Liturgy" is an uncanonical service which purports to resemble the Typica as found in the Horologion. It's a sort of "dry Mass".

Fr. Serge

Let's see.. Pro-Liturgy is done around here in the form of the Divine Liturgy without the Anafora and with communion that came from the previous Sunday before.
So if a priest has two parishes it's usually like this;
8:45 am Pro Liturgy at Church A
11:00 Liturgy at Church B

the following month
8:45 am Liturgy at Church A
11:00 am Pro-Liturgy at Church B

Uncanonical...? The bishops must be allowing it since there aren't enough priests to go around, and also the one liturgy a day rule.

Etnick I don't wish to speak for Fr. Serge. However perhaps what he means by uncanonical is that it isn't found in the liturgicon. Rather it is a more recent service invented for economia to handle parish/mission situations in a current time and place.

Good point. Being new to Orthodoxy, however, when I see the word "Uncanonical", my hair stands up!

The term "Pro-Liturgy" is not new - Uspensky as well as Mateos and Arranz have used this term as an English translation of Typika/Obednitsa/Zobrazhalny (or whatever other term one wants to use for this service). As Uspensky notes, even recent editions of the Russian Typikon mention this service when the Divine Liturgy is not to be celebrated for some reason (there is even a note in the Russian Typikon directing an order for Bright Monday, and thus this practice is not limited to Great Lent).

The coupling of Holy Communion with Typika/Obednitsa is likewise not new - an order appears in the Horologion of St. Sabbas from the ninth century.

In North America with a shortage of clergy (Catholic and Orthodox) it makes sense to extend this to a parochial setting, lest the faithful be long deprived from the Holy Mysteries (as many of the Fathers say should not be done). We find ourselves in a different sort of "desert", not physically that in which St. Sabas was directing his monks to receive Communion outside of the Divine Liturgy, but one culturally and sacramentally from the distance to parishes, lack of clergy, new missions, etc.

Using the term "uncanonical" in a general sense is probably not correct, since multiple Orthodox bishops have blessed the practice of a deacon serving Obednitsa with Holy Communion (including the Antiochians, the OCA, Ukrainian Orthodox, etc.)

What is an aberration is the practice in some Eastern Catholic churches (and not just those of the Byzantine tradition) of a deacon reciting all the parts of the Divine Liturgy sans the Anaphora rather than the Typika service as it exists in the Horologion.

If Holy Communion is to be given without a priest, the deacon of course should be the minister. We know already from the time of St. Justin Martyr that the deacons were responsible for taking the Holy Mysteries to the faithful who were unable to come to the Synaxis or when a presbyter was not available.