www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Western rite Orthodoxy problematic?

I don't think this would be the case. In a reunited Church their would be only one Patriarch in Antioch (and he would preside over a multi-liturgical Patriarchate).

Also, no one would submit to the "fount of unity" as you call the Pope. But we would finally submit to the Lords desire that they all may be one! For the God-man, Jesus Christ is truly the font of unity, along with His Father from All Ages, and the Holy Spirit.

Could you provide examples for this? (and no I am not asking about pre-schism Rome, but about the movement of Western Christians into union with the Eastern Orthodox since)

I believe the idea for this starts with St. Patriarch Tikhon and some Anglo-Catholics in America in the late 19th Century but nothing really happened until the 20th Century but like I said I would like to see examples of it before this?

I don't know what you mean by "the Divine Liturgy of Orthodox Rome".

Let me quote:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05502a.htm

It is interesting that the Vatican claims as "Catholic" the ommission of what it admits was universal-even
in Rome-when it admits that its own, rather pecular (as pecular as the practice of the Nestorian Catholicoi of Seleucia, adopted by the Chaldeans and approved by the Vatican, which has an epiclesis but no words of institution) emphasis has led to the omission.

The Orthodox were not alone in seeing the deficiency in the ommission: the Non-Juror Scottish Episcopal Church began publication of its "Wee Bookies" which emphasized the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist and insering an epiclesis into the liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer. Since the American Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States had to get its orders from Scotland, the Scottish bishops required the epiclesis, so that the Scottish epiclesis


made it through PECUSA into the DL of St. Tikhon. Representatives of PECUSA in Russia were quite full of themselves as having answered the objections of Met. St. Philoret of Moscow (then (the 1860's) Russia's senior hiearch and patriarch in all but title) over the epiclesis.

So the insistence on an epiclesis in not a "Byzantinization" but an insistence on Orthodoxy, which of course contrasts with what the Vatican has done as in the OP: its approval of the present form of the Divine Liturgy of Mari and Addai

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/p...oc_20011025_chiesa-caldea-assira_en.html

which does not have the words of institution, contradicts all its dogmatic pronouncements as to what constitutes the sacrament. Lex orandi, lex credendi is not optional: the Divine Liturgy of the Church must say what she believes, and she must believe what her Divine Liturgy says.

Btw, the Orthodox are nearly unanimous if not unanimous that the remnants of the Old Roman epiclesis, the Supplices Te Rogamus, suffices: the few Greek bishops at Florence so agreed (which of course, has no authority in this matter), based on e.g. St. Nicholas Cabasilas.

So why the epiclesis of St. John on top of the Western epiclesis? Pastoral concerns of the Antiochain Patriarchate (AFAIK, the ROCOR DL does not have it). Since this has become such a shibboleth between the Orthodox and the non-Orthodox West, that the inclusiion solidifies to other Orthodox that the WRO are indeed in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church which confesses the Orthodox Faith, and a secrurity of that (given the many false starts of the WRO). But then Constantipoliitization/Easternisms ("Byzantine" is an invention of Renaissance Ultramontanes) are nothing new: witness the Kyrie Eleison, Trisagion, Litany etc. of the Latin Mass.

As for Orthodox Rome being different from Orthodox New Rome before the schism we know. It was not, however, heterodox.

All of the modern Western Rite Orthodox expressions look back, in some way, to J. J. Overbeck [anglicanhistory.org] (1820-1905) and his failed scheme for the establishment of a "Uniate" (Overbeck's word!) Western Orthodox Church. Overbeck's scheme precedes the (also failed) discussions of the unknown group of High Church Episcopalians with Archbishop Tikhon. In fact, I believe that the sub-committee of the Holy Synod which considered Tikhon's petition was first formed to consider Overbeck's petition.

Oh, yes, I think I've heard of this before. Is it similar to the "Holy Mass of Catholic Constantinople"?

Yes, fact. "The Liturgy of St. Gregory" is not much more than a syncretized construct of adding an explicit Epiclesis from an entirely different liturgical tradition and family (St. John Chrysostom) to a liturgical form that never had such a thing (the "implicit Epliclesis" or "ascending Epiclesis" of the Western forms of the Mass). This syncretic liturgy did not exist before its 20th century publication. It's not much more than the Tridentine Mass (which is not the "Liturgy of St. Gregory") translated into King James English with the above syncretism of adding the Epiclesis of St. John Chrysostom as well as some other oddities.

The root liturgical form for this Liturgy has never been satisfactorially demonstrated by those using it. Piecing together obscure Frankish manuscripts that have been out of use for a millenium with the Tridentine Mass while throwing in a Byzantine Epiclesis is hardly a demonstration of an authentic received tradition. Most credible liturgists consider the authentic "Liturgy of St. Gregory" to be actually closer to the present Presanctified Liturgy.

Regarding the "Liturgy of St. Tikhon" it is even more syncretistic. It can be shown fairly simply that it starts with the Anglican Missal, itself a de-protestantized Book of Common Prayer which was derived by high Anglo-Catholics and did not exist before the early 1920s. It is then mixed with some parts from the Tridentine Missal and some later Antiochian corrections. So, again, this "Liturgy of St. Tikhon" does not exist before its publication in the 20th century since the apparent root text dates from the 20th century.

Eclectic it is (Anglican liturgy's always been that); but it's not radically different from what was being done in American Anglo-Catholic parishes in the "Biretta Belt" circa 1950. The Antiochian editors merely tweaked a few phrases here and there. But again, Anglicans have always been great liturgical tweakers since the beginning.

It's syncretiatastic!

"Biretta Belt"...had not heard that one before. Perhaps the "Liturgy of Ward Cleaver?"

I wish there was one somewhere near me.

The situation in the Kyivan Church is especially complicated due to interjurisdictional divisions within Orthdoxy. If the UGCC were to join the UOC-KP (the sister Patriarchal particular Orthodox Church with whom ecumenical relations are strongest) it would become part of a church already considered "without grace" by most of world Orthodoxy. This doesn't add much incentive to the deal.

(emphasis added)

I had wondered about that.

This sort of thing has been suggested, and may be wondered upon, but what Fr. Alexander actually wrote and said is generally not complimentary to what is currently the "Western Rite", especially in regards to its form in the "Liturgy of St. Tikhon".

His criticism of the WR continued publically at least until 1980, only two or three years before his death. From his last known publicized opinion on the "Western Rite":
(My emphasis).

Schmemann could hardly critique the Novus Ordo (although he was upset with the way in which it was being implemented in the United States), considering the tremendous influence his works on liturgical theology had upon the Latin liturgical reform (ironically, Schmemann was himself strongly influenced by the first generation of the Latin liturgical reform movement). Considering the principles of liturgical worship he was expounding in and for the Orthodox Church, he could not help being critical of the Tridentine rite (and by extensions, all other medieval Western liturgies) and its derivatives, such as those used by the Western Rites of the Orthodox Church/