www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Eparchial & Parish Events Liturgical dance, Byzantine Catholic style

Father, thank you for making a comment on one of those videos on their Facebook. I have "liked" your quote.

I would never go looking to criticize a parish, but given the way the parish seems to be promoting this, they really are open to honest responses. It is telling that there seem to be no "likes" on the pictures and videos.

Disgraceful !

The Royal Doors in that Church are very low and they are the double fold type that is somewhat common in Rusyn Churches. There are a number of churches in ACROD that have those type of doors.

Myopic, superficial western culture rubbing off on the Byzantine Catholics. This makes my heart ache, and does not give me any hope for remaining part of the Catholic Church even through the medium of the Eastern Churches in Communion with Rome.

I pray that good people will stand up and demand answers of the clergy and the parish leaders. Are these sorts of events going to occur in other Eastern Catholic Churches? If so, I hope I am out the door- I am tired of polluted westernisms.

I hope all Orthodox see this video and tremble in fear at the thought of re-joining the **present** Western half of the Church. These sorts of antics await them and their parishes.

I hope Byzantine Christians wil stand up and denounce this. What happened to the spirit of Vatican II in regards to restoring genuine Eastern Catholic traditions and practices?

Considering it is now becoming normal practice in the Roman Church for liturgical dancing to take place during masses, I guess we should be grateful this did not take place during liturgy proper. It's a slippery slope though... Could you imagine something like this occurring during let's say the great incensation or one of the entrances. Roman Catholics seem to have totally lost a sense of the sacred. I say this after attending Sunday mass at a RC parish while on vacation this weekend at an undisclosed location along the Jersey Shore. At the unnamed church I attended... They no longer refer to the church as a sanctuary but rather a "worship space". I can only hope and pray that these "new age" " feel good" about yourself liturgical practices do not make inroads into the Eastern Catholic Churches. I also hope that Metropolitan William and all the Bishops of the BCC have the courage to stand up and discipline any priest who allows such abuses to take place within God' Holy Temple.

I myself have never seen liturgical dancing in the Roman Church. Ironically, I have only seen this 'Latin liturgical dancing' in the online posts that declare its pervasiveness.

As detestable as this is, if I ultimately had to choose, I'd rather be in Communion with these dancing fairies and lunatic puppeteers in the Latin Church, over some of these things, no matter how Liturgically proper the latter is exacted:



Thank God it isn't an either/or choice.

I do not see how a Church service for a dictator (living or dead) can be anything but good. I do not mind at all that Obama, a man that I find detestable because of his views on moral issues, is prayed for in both Orthodox and Catholic Churches.

Come to Northern California and you can see it all you want. You can also see Charismatic masses and all sorts of other things. Heck they even had a Mariachi Mass at the Oakland Cathedral.

Priests of the Moscow Patriarchate served a panikhida (memorial service) in Pyongyang for North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, who died on December 17, 2011, ITAR-TASS reports. Kim Jong-il was never baptized.

Two Korean priests, Frs. Theodore and John, who studied at the Moscow Theological Academy, conducted the memorial service. Present were Valery Sukhinin, Russian Ambassador to North Korea, with Russian colleagues, and Kung Sok-Ung, deputy foreign minister in charge of Russian affairs.

As far as I know, the Russians have for the most part, been as strict as it gets when it comes to the following, why the exception, especially for one such as this:
A pannykhida is a prayer service offered by a priest for the repose of the soul of an Orthodox Christian who has departed this life. Customarily a pannykhida is served on the third, ninth, and fortieth day after the repose of the Orthodox Christian, and every year on the anniversary of the repose. The pannykhida is essentially the same as memorial services offered in Orthodox Churches outside the Russian tradition, known variously as the parastas, pannychis, or in abbreviated form as the “Trisagion for the Dead.” Only departed Orthodox Christians may be commemorated at a pannykhida.

As a fellow Northern Californian, I must say that I have only once seen liturgical dance. It was at my niece's Catholic High School's Baccalaureate Mass last year, and it took place before the Mass, which was held in the gym. I've never seen liturgical dance in a church. There is an annual Jazz Mass at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. While I haven't been in a number of years, I don't remember it being anything egregious.

There was definitely "liturgical dance" at the recent ordination and installation of the new Bishop of Oakland, before the Mass began. We have pictures of Eritrean Catholics of Ge'ez Rite of Berkeley "dancing" their entrance [facebook.com] on our parish Facebook. My Latin parish did have dancers with incense bowls one Easter vigil about 6 years ago. Haven't had any since then. There were hula dancers at the service when we venerated the holy relics of St. Damien of Molokai in the St. Joseph's Basilica in the Oakland Diocese, and the Cathedral of St Mary San Francisco Archdiocese, tho neither of these was a Mass. That's the extent of the "becoming normal practice" I've experienced in my years in the Oakland Diocese, and San Francisco Archdiocese.

For Eritrean Catholics of Ge'ez Rite whose tradition has much movement in the LIturgy, would it not be easier to say " Liturgical Movement?

There is Liturgical movement and then there is dance.

I know that there are many who would argue about each term ad infinitum.

In our Slavic tradition and Greek Tradition, if you watch an older baba and yaya as they pray and as the liturgy unfolds,( they never complain about sore backs or legs etc.... you will see lots of Liturgical movement as they pray..part of the epiphanic function of the body? Then look at some of the not "older" people standing as stiff as boards who complain about sore backs and legs and say the liturgy is too long as they hang on to pews for support! ( if there were now pews and if they moved as the Liturgy is celebrated they would not even notice the time.

But I am getting off topic here and do not want to do that.

Thanks

Kolya

Kolya

All liturgy is an extended, hieratic dance. But what those young ladies did was not liturgy.