www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy What have been the fruits of the RDL?

"A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." - Mat 7:18.

It might be difficult to give hard statistics of how many people have left, or still might leave the parishes that make up the Byzantine Archeparchy of Pittsburgh, PA due to the RDL. Yet, it still might be a good time to ask if there have been any 'good,' fruits from the labor of producing and implementing the RDL?

If so what are they? Has the use of inclusive language caused people to come in? Have any of the disputed changes (music, unnecessary abridgement, etc.,) resulted in a deepening of understanding the spiritual treasure of the eastern church?

Is it too soon to ask these questions? I only ask because I would truly like to know if there are some good things happening, or will soon be happening, to, and in, our church, as a result of these changes. Or has it all been bad? If it has been all bad how long will our bishops give it until they do something?

St Nicholas of Myra, and it's Mission of Blessed Theodore, are doing fine by it. Both continuing to grow, slowly, but steadily.

Glad to hear it. Do you attribute that directly to the RDL? I know of a few people who left due directly to the RDL, so I am wondering if there have been any 'good fruits,' that are directly related to the RDL.

What have been the fruits of the RDL?

The fruits of the RDL:

-We have bishops who remain in open disobedience to the liturgical directives from Rome. Example counts. The bishops do not seem to realize that they cannot be disobedient themselves and at the same time have any credibility in demanding obedience to their disobedience.

-Archbishop Basil will not speak with anyone about Liturgy. He still claims that �Bishop Andrew is good with Liturgy� and he is said to be about to mandate Revised Vespers, Revised Matins and Revised Holy Week books that are horrid (I�ve seen some of it and the words and music are awful).

-Bishop John of Parma is all upset that there is chaos in liturgy across the eparchy. Parishes don�t sing the new music anything like it is written (which anyone who knows anything about music knew the first time they saw the new music). Priests are slowly putting back the Liturgy into a more normal form. He really does not seem to understand that he and the bishops are the ones responsible. But he blames the clergy. Bishop John has already made his own changes to the RDL. �Mankind� and litanies are making a comeback whenever and wherever the liturgical police are not present.

-Bishop Skurla of Passaic does not follow the RDL. He does not appear to understand why anyone cares about liturgy. He has actually said that he never expected anyone to be able sing the new music as written but that they had to promulgate the whole thing because of the many years of hard work that was put in on it. He has also said that now that it is promulgated we have to live with it because they can�t unpromulgate it (they�d lose face).

-Some parishes have been devastated. Collections are down as people walk. Our people sometimes drive long distances. They do not continue to do that when the Liturgy is a politically correct with music that is difficult to sing.

-Hard statistics are hard to come by. But ask the pastors. They know their people and their collections. Both are down. But the parishes that never started the RDL are stable.

-As of right now the bishops are unrelenting in allowing the full Liturgy with texts and music people know and love.

The only good thing about this is nobody will ever hear Vespers or Matins. I will miss Paschal Orthros, however.

What all this does show, however, is the bankruptcy of the old paradigm that assumed the priest was the smartest man in the village, and the bishop was the smartest of the priests. Neither assumption holds water any longer.

The mission is growing faster than the parish.

The Mission's been using the new music.
The parish hasn't until recently (Last few months.)

We lost more to Lefebvre's parish (about 1992) than to the 2006 promulgation; those I know who left were looking for reasons to justify abandoning the Catholic Church for Russian or Antiochian Orthodoxy before 2006... the new liturgy was an excuse.

Hard to say. I never thought we had much in the way of reliable figures to do a before/after comparison.

I would say rather that the new liturgy was a symptom of a broader malaise, simply the straw that broke the camel's back. If people seek to leave the Byzantine Catholic Church, could it not be that they sense the sterility of its liturgical life, and the deficiencies in its approach to the Tradition? Some of us want nothing less than to live as Orthodox Christians in communion with the Church of Rome, and to do that, we have to be able to live the fullness of the Orthodox Tradition within that communion. When our Church makes clear that it has no desire to embrace its liturgical, spiritual and theological patrimony, but instead continues to behave as a pale shadow of the Latin Church, what other alternative do we have but to go where we can live out that patrimony more fully? Some of us are fortunate, and can find alternatives in the other Greek Catholic Churches, but for many, it is clear that to grow in Christ they must do so within the Orthodox communion.

Epiphany tried to keep good records of attendance for the past seven or eight years, in order to get permission to contract for their new church. A book is kept in the vestibule, and the ushers keep track of the number of people at each liturgy, and the number receiving communion. When I arrived around 1996, the average for Sunday was somewhere between 250-275. Lately, the numbers are down below 200.

The keeping of numbers at Epiphany goes way back - I remember the book with the numbers in the early 1980s and I know it was a long established custom when I first joined that parish. And I remember complaining about those who used the "clicker" to count everyone. It was so annoying, especially during a quiet moment during Communion when that count was being taken.

The numbers prior to 1996 (the year Bishop Pataki mandated his version of the RDL rubrics) were much higher. I remember the averages being about 425-450 every Sunday with standing room only at the second Divine Liturgy (Archbishop Basil can confirm this as he lived locally at the time and was a frequent celebrant). Feast Day Divine Liturgies often exceeded 100, and Lenten Presanctified Liturgies (with the old Levkulic Book) were about 75-80 on Wednesdays and 150 on Fridays (now usually less then 30 for either since the new books 10 years ago). Somewhere in the middle 1980s we had well over 400 for Paschal Matins and Divine Liturgy (in a temple that seats about 250). Now, since the Holy Week reforms, they get about 50-60.

The fact is that people are not about to make the effort for something they do not particularly like.

John's got numbers going back 20+ years. Every liturgy he's been at, and he's at most all of them; he's head cantor. They get published in the bulletin, too.

The numbers dropped from about 70-80 to about 60-70 when the mission finally started. Now, it's about 60-90... varies by week, usually 70-80; 15-30 for the mission. Major feasts will hit as many as 150 & 50.

I have considered doing much of the same, though at this time I doubt I will, given that it would serve to break communion with the rest of my family who are all RC.

Bob, why we stay is as important as why we leave.

Well I remember having to arrive very early indeed on Nativity and Pascha to find a seat for my wife and my kids (I was usually serving). In the last few years before we left, finding a place to sit was no longer a problem. Most of the blame for that, I think, can be assigned to the change in the order of services for those feasts, as well as the proliferation of liturgies to accommodate just about everybody. Too many liturgies is just as bad as too few.

I'm glad that this topic has taken the course of so many others, harping on the bad. The opening questions asked about Good Fruits and if everything has been just Bad Fruits and when, if at any time, changes will be made.

We all know the resentment many have for the RDL and their reasons, so let's give the people who see good fruits, if they choose to post, a chance to talk about these Good Fruits. There are many other threads already open where one can talk about the negative affects.