www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Should priests vest as deacons and serve as such?

So you say. The reality over history has been somewhat different.

Alexis,

I would have to agree with you that they are "extracted." Part of the definition of extraction is to use effort or force, which to me would mean there is some sort of resistance.

Long before my journey eastward (long in my lifespan of 25 years), I felt the call to priesthood and to married life, although it was not time yet. My spiritual director and other holy priests told me that basically I had to ignore my calling to the priesthood, because it would be impossible for me to ignore my calling to married life because it is a natural thing.

Peace,
Ed

I would most appreciated if we could keep to the topic: "Should priests vest as deacons and serve as such?"
In Christ,
David, Protodn

While I certainly do not want the east to push anything on the west, and vice versa, I do hope the west will assimilate a little eastern ethos for the good of her health. It will bring about an entire Church that breathes with both lungs, and may lead to a brighter and holier future for both great traditions. It might mean that both will have to give up, or at least, modify, certain long-held and cherished disciplines, such as mandatory clerical celibacy, but I have enough faith to believe that it might usher in an era in which celibacy is appreciated more for the gift that it is. In the meantime, I think it right and fitting for priests to dress and perform only in the roles for which they were ordained. While there is a theatrical element to liturgy, liturgy is not theatre where roles can be easily switched.

I understand, but I would hasten to point out that the whole phenomenon of priests vesting as deacons and serving as such comes directly out of the historical fact of the Latin Church essentially abolishing the diaconate, which in turn relates directly to the celibacy issue.

http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2008/02/permanent-deacons-in-liturgical-roles.html

The following link may be instructive.

It may be linked to celibacy, but it is more closely linked to the emergence of "private Mass" in the 12th-13th centuries, which essentially rendered the deacon redundant. If the priest could assume the roles of both the deacon and the people, then the only "essential" orders were the presbyterate and episcopate, meaning all lower orders were just intermediate steps on the cursus honorum, and not true orders in and of themselves.

Of course, one could make the case that the final imposition of clerical celibacy was influenced by this clericalization of the liturgy, but in fact the arguments put forth for mandatory celibacy at that time had little to do with the issue, or with the vocation of celibacy itself, and quite a lot to do with ritual purity issues--and with alienation of Church property, given the limitations of Germanic customary law that did not recognize "corporate ownership".

Not to be offensive, but doesn't having priests wear deacon's vestments sound like a theatrical performance? However it is not unheard of for bishops to vest as priests in some circumstances.

Each order has its own distinct vestments, and that's what each order should wear.

Are those the martyrs of the holy roman church we have in our calendar?

Shalom,
Memo

Bishops are not supposed to vest as priests, but as bishops. However, in imitation of their Roman counterparts, it was not uncommon to see some EC bishops photographed in phelonion, miter and sewn omophorion; some of them even wore Roman miters, and no omophorion. Properly, they should be wearing the saccos instead of the phelonion.

Some Ruthenian and Ukrainian photos from the early 20th century show the clergy looking VERY roman... except for the adding of an englopion and pectoral cross, one could mistake certain bishops of the Ukrainian church for Roman Bishops.

Most of the miters worn with phelonions, however, are worn by archimandrites and mitered archpriests, who are not bishops.

Note that proper episcopal latin attire for a bishop is alb, cincture, stole, dalmatic, chasuble, zuchetto and miter, plus, if possessed and in own see, the pallium; the dalmatic may be omitted, as may the miter. Roman priests don't have the dalmatic nor miter, and only certain ones may wear a zuchetto during the mass. (Priests are authorized a black zuchetto outside the mass; I don't know any who have one.) For the EF, add the maniple.

The Byantine eparch's is the sticharion, epitrachelion (stole - hidden by the saccos), zone (belt), Epigonaton (lozenge), epimanikia (cuffs), saccos, omophorion (over the saccos stole-like), englopion and pectoral cross, and the miter.
The priest may or may not have an epigonaton, englopion or miter, wears a phelonion instead of saccos, and does not have an omophorion; in some jurisdictions he might not have a pectoral cross, either.

"It may be linked to celibacy, but it is more closely linked to the emergence of "private Mass" in the 12th-13th centuries, which essentially rendered the deacon redundant. If the priest could assume the roles of both the deacon and the people, then the only "essential" orders were the presbyterate and episcopate, meaning all lower orders were just intermediate steps on the cursus honorum, and not true orders in and of themselves."

Stuart has pointed directly to the essential reason why the diaconate as a permanent order declined in the Latin Church. The orders considered "lower" than the presbyterate did not even need to be included in the liturgical texts. The only vestige of the "lower" orders that remained was the altar server, and in practice, at times this function was assumed by the presbyter. The corporate liturgical assembly, that is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, the Body of Christ and Temple of the Holy Spirit was reduced to a one man assembly. The regulation of this type of liturgical minimalism into a normative practice in the liturgical books of the Latin Church made everyone other than the priest unnecessary and has resulted in an ecclesiology that is deformed and deficient. It is the loss of a corporate consiousness of the Church, which denies the very nature of the Church and thus of the necessity of all the orders in the Church.

Sacrosanctum Concilium sought to correct this liturgical and ecclesial distortion: "Liturgical servies are not private functions but are celebrations of the Church which is "the sacrament of unity," namely, "the holy people united and arranged under their bishops." [St. Cyprian , "On the Unity of the Catholic Church," 7; cr. Letter 66,n.8,3.] Therefore, liturgical services pertain to the whole Body of the Church. They manifest it, and have effects upon it. But they also touch individual members of the Church in different ways, depending on their orders, their role in the liturgical services, and their actual participation in them." (section 26)

"It must be emphasized that rites which are meant to be celebrated in common, with the faithful present and actively participating, should as far as possible be celebrated in that way rather than by an individual and quasi-privately. This applies with special forace to the celebration of Mass (even though every Mass has of itself a public and social nature) and to the administration of the sacraments." (section 27)

"In liturgical celebrations each person, minister, or layman who has an office to perform, should carry out all and only those parts which pertain to his office by the nature of the rite and the norms of the liturgy." (section 28)

Unfortuately, these norms are often not realized and this is especially true when presbyters vest and serve as deacons. Given that these norms were promulgated with the 1962 Missale Romanum in mind as there was no Novus Ordo at the time, I find it scandalous that since Summorum Pontificium Roman Catholic hierarchs including the current prefects of the CDW and the CDF by their actions give their tacit approval to ecclesial and liturgical distortions. If liturgical practice does not manifest a real and coherent practice of orders [i.e. all orders from catechumens to the episcopate] then it runs the risk of manifesting an inherent falsehood in regards to the Church.

Dear Aramis,

A Byzantine rite bishop may wear either the phelonion or the sakkos. The sakkos which was orginally the imperial dalmatic began to be worn first by the patriarch and later by metropolitans and bishops only following the fall of Constantinople in the 15th century. After the fall of Constantinople the patriarch also assumed the function of an ethnarch and the sakkos was adopted as vesture. The insignia of the episcopacy in the Byzantine rite is the omophorion, or the presbyterate the epitrachelion, and of the diaconate the orarion. When a Byzantine bishop wears the phelonion with the omophorion this is not a Latinization. The wearing of the phelonion is a more ancient practice.

While the sakkos is a dalmatic type vestment when worn by Byzantine bishops, it is not related to the liturgical dalmatic of the Latin Church but rather to the secular dalmatic of the emperor. It is from an earlier secular dalmatic [likely deriving from Dalmatia] that the Western liturgical dalmatic derives. It was also worn by the emperors in the West. Liturgically, it was first worn by the bishop of Rome who later bestowed it upon his deacons in Rome. Later he bestowed it upon other Latin bishops and archdeacons until it was eventually worn by all Roman rite deacons.

Some people try to propagate the mistaken notion that the Roman rite bishop wears both the chasuble and the dalmatic because he has the fullness of the priesthood. This is utter nonsense in regards to the vesture. [The bishop has the fullness of the priesthood because he has the fullness of the Apostolic mandate not because of his liturgical attire.] This is another example of how the curus honorum has led to both faulty practice and theology. The chasuble was worn by deacons, priests and bishops, and as stated above, the dalmatic was originally worn by the bishop of Rome and only later by his deacons.

Thanks to all who have made contributions by way of your comments.

Are there any other theological comments [not rubrical or canonical] on the phenomena of presbyters vesting and serving as deacons? More theological comments would be helpful.

I expect we will see more and more of this practice, especially as high ranking prelates of the Roman Curia celebrate Pontifical Mass according to the Missale Romanum of 1962. This will be in spite of the fact that Sacrosanctum Concilium which was written with the said missal in mind directly establishes a liturgical norm that applies to all rites [Eastern and Western] of the Catholic Church stating: "In liturgical celebrations each person, minister, or layman who has an office to perform, should carry out all and only those parts which pertain to his office by the nature of the rite and the norms of the liturgy." [Section 28]

The current Caeremoniale Episcoporum refers directly to section 28 of Sacrosanctum Concilium when it states: "Presbyters taking part in a liturgy with the bishop should do only what belongs to the order of presbyter; in the absence of deacons they may perfom some of the ministries proper to the deacon, but should never wear diaconal vestments." Thus, it appears that the Church interprets section 28 of Sacrosanctum Concilium in a manner consistent with the very words of the text.

The practice of presbyters vesting and serving as deacons appears to erode the hierarchical and communal nature of the liturgy. The erosion of the liturgy is always an erosion of the real and true nature of the Church.

Again, if any have further theological comments, I am most interesting in reading them.

In Christ,
David, Protodn

Hello,

I just wanted to add that we had a good discussion last Saturday in our Diaconate Formation classes about the history of Holy Orders in the Catholic Church.

One of the topics we touched, that I think is relevant to this discussion is that there was a process (and this was rather early in the history of the Church, it was well underway before the separation between East and West), to shift from viewing Clergy as those who had a specific, important task in the life of the community (and specifically the sacramental and liturgical life of the community), to the vision of Clergy as those who are in a certain state, different from those in the laity.

I do not think it is within the scope of this thread to elaborate in the pros and cons of this shift, but I believe that a good number of the deviations observed in recent practice with regards to Holy Orders stem from a misunderstanding of what it means to be ordained.

This balancing act between "being" and "doing" is not restricted to those in Holy Orders. Every baptized christian faces it and, in fact, every human being faces it in religious and secular issues.

When people ask us "Who are you?" we have a tendecy to answer with something about what we do.

If we are to move forward in our understanding, as Church, of the meaning of Holy Orders, I propose both the ordained and the non-ordained to ask ourselves "Who am I (in the Body of Christ)?" and ask the Holy Spirit for His divine light in figuring out the answer.

Then, and only then, in the light of that answer, we can honestly ask "What do I do (in the Body of Christ)?"

Of course, as with most of the matters of our spiritual journey, this would be a life-long cycle of enlightment and purification and should never be an excuse to be pasive and negligent of our daily responsibilities proper of our state (or states, if you pardon the not-so-accurate expression, in the case of married clergy).

Shalom,
Memo