www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Holy Week Books

Chesterton famously said, "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly". He did not mean that to be the standard we should accept. Some of us are simply unwilling to accept a sloppy, ugly, incomplete work that defaces what is a thing of beauty, an icon of the heavenly Liturgy that perdures in the divine kairos. If, as Dostoevsky wrote, "It is beauty that will save the world", the RDL is not advancing the cause.

The Liturgical Commission was given a simple task. They chose to ignore that task and do something different. They need to go back and do it over, the right way. If they can't do that, they should get out of the way and let those who are capable and willing do it for them.

Too often in the past, Ruthenians have been willing to settle for second (or third, or fourth) best, on the assumption--advanced by you, Steve:


--that things will get better (the unspoken corollary being "stop complaining, it could be worse"). Maybe this time, given that the Liturgy is the heart and soul of our faith, the source and touchstone of our theology, the Ruthenians should insist on the best possible, and not settle for something inferior, just because a lot of money was spent on books that should never have been published.


By the way, I claim copyright on Teal Terror (c). I may donate all the royalties I collect to an effort to recall all the hideous green books and pulp them.

To return to the original post in this thread:


Jason, as far as I know, the Metropolitan Cantor Institute publications for Holy Week are the only ones so far that seem to fit what you're referring to as "Revised Holy Week Services."

So I'd be interested to know what sort of objections you have to a parish using the MCI books for Matins for Great and Holy Friday [metropolitancantorinstitute.org], or for Paschal Matins book [metropolitancantorinstitute.org], which is also available in a text-only booklet [metropolitancantorinstitute.org].

The latter, in particular, seems to be pretty much what John (Administrator) says he has been asking for - a more complete and corrected edition, with only fairly minor changes to the hymns specific to this service, while matching those parts common with the Divine Liturgy book.

Christ is risen!

Jeff Mierzejewski

Regarding the MCI Paschal Matins book:

It seems very little had to be amended; not much added either: some helpful additional rubrics and giving the full Psalm text at the Praises. Keeping the Slavonic is the right thing to do, and it is an improvement to have the several instances of the Slavonic with music provided, as congregations still sing, and want to sing these and learn them if need be. In this vein, an addition to consider is to give the Slavonic (already given) and music for the irmos of the Odes. True, the clergy sing these, but it would seem useful for them to have available, and is a relatively small addition that then provides in one book the flexibility of hearing the best of both renderings, the irmos in Slavonic and the katavasia in English (or vice-versa).

For changes in conformity with the RDL, I understand the rationale but the actual translation is itself an issue. Apart from that, one change that really puzzles me is the music for the verse "As smoke vanishes...", p39, in the last phrase which here drops to (an added) C necessitating an altering of the remainder of the phrase. What's the rationale for this change?

BTW, a typo on p38: "Voinstinnu".

When the Revised Presanctified Books were promulgated last year Father Mondik said that the Revised Holy Week books were done and ready to go but that the bishops would not get to approving them until this year. But then Archbishop Schott died and they are on hold until the new archbishop in Pittsburgh can promulgate them. Like the other RDL books, no one is allowed to see them until after they are promulgated.

Any takers on my question? I have to say I'm curious about this change, it doesn't make sense to me.