www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy RDL based on Slavonic?

Is the 2007 Revised Divine Liturgy based on the Slavonic, or is just an updating of the 1964 English liturgical books?

It is said to be a fresh translation from the Greek with comparisons to the Slavonic. In reviewing it line by line it appears that, indeed, the Greek and not the Slavonic was used. But there are a number of places where it matches neither, and where the texts and rubrics were simply changed (in what looks like the implementation of the personal ideas of what the reformers wanted out of the Liturgy - but no real explanation has been given).

One can appreciate that the designers of the Revised Divine Liturgy meant well, but the idea of revising the Liturgy apart from the rest of the Byzantine world is wrong.

You're feeling charitable this morning.

Of course, the mandate of the commission was to produce a full, accurate and reverent translation of the Ruthenian Slavonic recension, so relying principally on the Greek was a fatal methodological flaw, particularly as the Greek usage diverges from the Slavic usage, and as the Slavonic texts for a pre-Nikonian liturgy such as that used by the Carpatho-Rusyn antedates any Greek text presently in use. That aside, it's pretty clear that they were having trouble with both the Greek and the Slavonic in a number of places, since they made some very fundamental errors of translation, as well as veering wildly from excessive literalism on the one hand to broad paraphrase on the other. It also appears that, whenever possible, they tried to make all scriptural passages correspond to the wording of the NAB, which, in addition to being a very bad translation in its own right, is based on the Western variant text of the New Testament and the Masoretic Hebrew text of the Old Testament, while the Byzantine liturgy relies on the Textus Receptus for the New Testament and the Septuagint Greek for the Old Testament. And we could mention in passing the inclusive language and the wooden prose utterly devoid of poetry.

Other than that, it's just fine.

Thanks

"Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"

But to get serious - the contraption - er, commission - replicated the Nikonian error of assuming that the present-day Greek texts are definitive. In many instances, the Slavonic texts (and most especially the pre-Nikonian texts) represent a significantly older tradition of the Greek texts.

In 1964, the pre-Nikonian Church-Slavonic texts were almost inaccessible. But by the mid nineteen-nineties, one could purchase copies of the reprint of the Chrysostom Liturgy straight from the Old-Ritualists without much difficulty, or consult copies in the library at Jordanville, and so on. Moreover, this was the time after the publication of Paul Meyendorff's ground-breaking thesis which demolishes the mythological justification of the Nikonian texts. The result is "the very pineapple of imperfection"!

Metropolitan Andrew had gathered quite a number of Old-Rite editions; so far as we can tell, the books are divided between the Rare Book Room of the Stefanyk Library in L'viv and the Ukrainian National Museum in L'viv. In either case, by the middle of the nineteen-nineties it would not have been insuperably difficult to arrange to consult these two collections (I was doing just that at the time in connection with the work on the Mohyla Leitourgiarion).

But this requires the purported scholars to remove the beans from their ears.

Fr. Serge

But the question is: Is the 1950 Greek texts published by Rome simply a contiuation of the incorrect Greek editions or is it based on the oldest Greek manuscripts and codices available at the Vatican like the Codex Barberini? If yes, why wouldn't one use the 1950 Greek text along with the 1942 Slavonic?

Fr. Deacon Lance

One reason might be that the Codex Barberini itself does not represent the Greek usage on which the pre-Nikonian Slavic recension was based. Another reason might be that when one translates, one translates from a specific source document. In this case, the specified source document is the 1942 Slavonic recension and no other.

Now, if you want to concede that the RDL is not, in fact, a translation of the 1942 Slavonic recension, but a new synthesis from multiple sources, I will accept that. But recognize that is not what the Commission was authorized to do, nor has the Metropolia been authorized to depart from the Slavonic recension as its typical edition of the liturgy.

The Greek texts from Rome are indeed a continuation of the Roman-Venetian tradition of texts, upon which Nikon's people relied, probably because Rome these days would prefer that the Greeks themselves do the research and amend their service books accordingly.

Had the "Ruthenian Recension" book been translated accurately, it might have been sensible to check the Greek as well, as a control on the accuracy of the translation. But this is not what happened.

Fr. Serge

Whether one is translating from the Greek or the Slavonic, I am amazed that we got "always and everywhere" at the elevation of the Gifts. I did confirm with one of the monks at New Skete, Brother Stavros, that this was the formulation that had used some years back. But, he said that it was discontinued because it was seen as problematic. So, now we adopt it? Yoy!

"Open to doubt" would be something of an understatement, don't you think? Or perhaps, "puzzling and unsettled" is a better definition?

Or perhaps problematic in this instance means "full of it"? As I said elsewhere, a good translator is modest, and looks at how other people have rendered the text. He also looks at how the text has been used, and the Commission should have noted that "Thine own of thine own, we offer to Thee on behalf of all and for all" has been the subject of commentaries and homilies since the time of the Fathers. It is fundamental to understand one of the key matters of the Liturgy: "Who offers what to whom?"

Going with "always and everywhere" (based, we are told, on "manuscript evidence" which, for some reason, we were never allowed to see and evaluate for ourselves), the Commission effectively negated all of that,and obscured a key mystagogical moment in the Liturgy, in order to . . . what, precisely? Show that they were cool and "with it"? Be controversial and "edgy"? Make names for themselves in the academic community? It always struck me that the RDL was like a thesis written by a particularly callow graduate student, and this was one of the main reasons/

I don't understand. The whole church hates this Revised Divine Liturgy. My priest is just barely holding on counting the days until retirement.

Your saying the scholarship is poor. We know the translations are bad. And anyone who picks up a green book knows how awful the new music book is. Bishop John openly acknowledges problems with it. So why not just burn the books and go back to what works? In business if you adopt a model that drives customers away you get rid of that model and go back to the one that worked. So what's the problem here? Don't the bishops care?

From my experience, in many parishes, there is wide acceptance of the translation. It is only the critics who are vocal, as with most things. My experience has been that it's only about 5% of the faithful that do not like the translation.

I disagree strongly with Erie Byz. The facts do not support his claim. Frustration levels are very high, and especially since the bishops do not appear to respect the faithful enough to respond to those who have complained and sought redress. I regularly speak with numerous clergy and laity (including cantors) who call to encourage me to continue to petition Rome and work towards replacing the Revised Divine Liturgy with the Ruthenian Divine Liturgy, and urge their faithful to continue to write letters. Perhaps he is unaware of a number of parishes in the Archeparchy who simply refuse to celebrate the RDL (good for them!)?

The larger problem here is the Erie Byz seems to be totally unaware of the myriad number of problems with the RDL. The first and foremost are the doctrinal problems in the new text. It is bad theology. If indeed the whole Ruthenian Church had accepted the RDL (which it is has not) one would fight to correct the doctrinal problems. But there are lots of other problems, too, some of which have been discussed here. So I remind Erie Byz that theology is important, and if the whole world rejected good liturgical theology for the likes of that employed in the RDL we as Catholics would still need to stand to work towards replacing the incorrect with the correct.

As I noted earlier and always note, the men who created the RDL were (are) well intentioned and intelligent men, all of whom love the Lord. They just got it wrong. When you make a mistake you fix it. That's all the faithful want from the their bishops.

I agree with the Administrator concerning the doctrinal shortcomings of the revised liturgy, which would remain even if it was satisfactory from a linguistic and aesthetic perspective (which it is not). I suspect that Erie Byz is deceived because the worst effects of the change are reflected in what were the best parishes.

That is to say, those parishes which had the most dynamic liturgical life, in which the people participated fully and actively, have seen the worst fall-off in both attendance and participation. On the other hand, in those parishes in which the people just sat there, while the choir and/or cantor sang the responses not much has changed.

There are some choir directors and cantors who like that just fine.

I think there is an overall passive acceptance: people want to worship and pray and not engage in controversy, and the RDL is all there is in English in the Byzantine Metropolia. And how well informed are the people/clergy about the substance and scope of the issues that have been caused by many of the changes and innovations found in the RDL?