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

DJS, I'm not all negative about everything.

All I know is that currently, Michael Thompson is teaching the Cantor Weekend Classes. Our Cantor at Holy Resurrection parish showed me a collection of new hymns composed by Micheal Thompson. He has a hymn for every Sunday of the liturgical year. The melodies our based on the Carpatho-Rusyn Marian hymns. Don't know much about the current state other than that.

Ung-Certez

SLAVA ISUSU CHRISTU!
SLAVA NA VIKI BOHU!

It would be REALLY interesting to know what happened to all the chant material and audio cassettes that JERRY JUMBA put together so many years ago.

mark

Mark, nothing happened because each new Archbishop (Dolinay, Procyk and now Shott) do not care about Prostopinije Chant. So now Professor Jumba was hired by the Orthodox Diocese of Johnstown's Rankin parish. He is their Cantor and teaches Prostopinije to the parishioners once a week.

Ung-Certez

Dear Ung,

While I respect your experience, and the disappointment you may feel, my view is somewhat different. Though I am sympathetic to the discouragement you may feel, I have witnessed the reverse to be true.

The late Metropolitan Judson asked me (not only me, but myself among others), to help to begin the present Cantor School in Pittsburgh, precisely because he was anxious to help and support cantors in this important ministry. He loved our chant tradition, and music in general, and he was very keen to help cantors in their important work.

This commitment has been maintained, at considerable sacrifice, by our new Metropolitan. Even though I am no longer a part of the Cantor Institute, or a participant in the work that is being done for music and Liturgy in the Archeparchy, I witness that considerable work is going on at the seminary, with the support and commitment of the Metropolitan.

So, with great respect, I must disagree with your conclusion, and testify to considerable interest and commitment on the part of our Church and its archpastors.

Elias

I have been in the Russian Church over 40 years and have never before heard of the faithful venerating the Gospel at the Little Entrance during the Divine Liturgy. Is this a custom carried over from the veneration of the Gospel at Matins? Admittedly, I am pretty unfamiliar with parochial practice in the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

David James

It is a common Carpathian village church practice, and also extends into Transylvania as well. It is veneration of the Word which is being processed at the Little Entrance, and has little to do with Matins.

I am new to this forum and I don't know if this is the proper place to post this. If I am in error, please let me know, someone. But what I want to say is, regarding the RDL, I object to the substitution of the word "oblation" with the capitalized word "Anaphora," since it seems to change the meaning from offering the un-bloody sacrifice of Christ to simply offering a group of prayers called the "Anaphora." Am I putting too fine a point on it? or has this been discussed elsewhere? Thank you.

The group of prayers called the Anaphora is the offering of the unbloody sacrifice of Christ. Anaphora means offering and is the word used in Greek. A really literal translation would be: "Let us be attentive to offer the holy Offering in peace." That said many objected to not translating this word. If you do a search of this topic you'll find a thread or two.

True, but is this not a secondary use of the word Anaphora given by liturgical scholarship?

True, but our most immediate standard for the liturgy is the Ruthenian Recension which is in Slavonic not Greek. The Recension text (as do Slavonic texts in general) does not transliterate the Greek but gives a translation that I'd say means oblation.

It should be noted that the "to offer" and "Offering" are two different though somewhat similar words in the Greek. The Slavonic does not preserve this similitude.

The issue with the RDL is why Hellenize the rendering with transliterations when the Slavonic has provided a translation? More significantly, however, does the diaconal admonition direct that we are to offer the holy "group of prayers called the Anaphora [that] is the offering of the unbloody sacrifice of Christ" or, prescinding from the (derivative) meaning of liturgical scholarship, that we are directed to offer that which is tangible and immediate, that which is on the Holy Table, the bread and cup of wine, the Holy Oblation?

Oblation and anaphora are synonyms, and thus "offer the Holy Oblation" was perfectly good--dignified, euphonious, accurate, comprehensible. One could have said "offer the Holy Offering", but that would have been both excessively literal and redundant. "Offer the Holy Anaphora", on the other hand, is awkward, obscurantist and pedantic--all the things I have come to expect from the RDL.

I always thought it the primary use.

Many keep repeating this, and it is true for the rubrics, but it seems to me that Rome sees the Greek edition as the standard for translating to vernacular. Not translating Anaphora seems to be a judgement call like Theotokos.

I would say both rather than one or the other.

How can the Greek be normative for translation into the vernacular when all the extant Greek editions are newer than the Slavonic editions? Are we making the same error that Patriarch Nikon did back in the 1650s?

The Barberini Eucholgion is 8th century, nothing Slavonic older than that. The Roman published Greek Liturgicon of 1950 relied on this and other Greek manuscripts in the Vatican older than the Slavonic editions. The Slavonic manuscripts Patriarch Nikon had available were older than what the Greeks were publishing at Venice, but he didn't use any critical scholarship. He simply adopted what they were publishing. On the otherhand, Rome has been fastidious with its scholarship and publishing of Eastern liturgical texts. In using the Greek as the base for translation to vernacular, we are using the best available to us.

The Revised Divine Liturgy is nowhere near an accurate, complete and graceful translation of either the new or old Slavonic texts or of the 1950 Greek texts. It is nothing more than a group of bishops and their directives to a commission to "bring the Liturgy into the 21st century". That's a quote from Bishop Skurla.

Parishes that have use the Revised Divine Liturgy have lost 25-30% of their faithful since the mandate. The bishops know this, acknowledge this, but say there is no turning back.

If I may reply to my own post to clarify--my ultimate problem with the Anaphora for oblation substitution is that, well, I came to the Eastern Church in the first place to escape the Novus Ordo, as my username implies, and to find orthodox Catholic liturgy that was legitimate and unambiguous. So much of the Novus Ordo attacks belief in the Real Presence, and I feel that the Anaphora/oblation thing is a subtle but unmistakable step in the same direction. It seems to be part of the agendas of the liturgical "experts" who keep coming up with these things. I feel that perhaps, since my city is blessed with several Eastern Rite Churches, it is time to start spending more time with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, who wisely has not "reformed" their liturgy. I have only been aware of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom for about 10 years, and so I am ignorant of changes that may have been made before that, but I am learning a great deal by reading this forum. Thank you and bless you all.