www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Saturday evening Divine Liturgy

SLAVA ISUSU CHRISTU!
SLAVA NA VIKI BOHU!

Hi Gang!

I was talking with my cousin who lives in SW Penna last night. She belongs to a VERY large Greek Catholic church with 3 Divine Liturgies, 1 on Saturday evening and 2 on Sunday.

She told me that they were informed that the Liturgies would be changing to Vespers on Saturday evening, Matins followed by Divine Liturgy on Sunday morning. In essence, having only 1 Divine Liturgy for the LARGE parish.

Many people are already saying that they will go to the one of the other Catholic parishes (there are 4 within 3 miles plus 1 Marionite parish) if this change REALLY does occur.

This "change" is supposedly from Metropolitan Basil.

My questions are, has anyone else heard of this "change"?

How do we address this "change"?

Do we "go along" with this "change" if it threatens the VERY EXISTANCE of our parishes??

Very worried here....

mark

Mark,
If this "change" is true, then it is proper and a return to our authentic traditions.

There should never be a Divine Liturgy on Saturday Evening, this is a Latinization. It should be Vespers on Saturday.

Also, it is our tradition to not have more than one Divine Liturgy per altar. So once again, multiple Divine Liturgies on Sunday is also a Latinization.

What needs to be done to so that "changes" such as these do not "threatens the VERY EXISTANCE of our parishes??" is to educate the parish as to the authentic eastern traditions.

David

Slava Jesu Kristu,

I agree with David. This Church is experiencing the growing pains of true Eastern Christianity. Only time will tell if the people of God are really willing to embrace their heritage. This is what we have begged our hierarchs to do for years - lead us back east. Now that they are doing it, I pray we are willing to embrace that turning back.

Dmitri

GLORY TO JESUS CHRIST!
GLORY TO HIM FOREVER!

David wrote:"...Also, it is our tradition to not have more than one Divine Liturgy per altar. So once again, multiple Divine Liturgies on Sunday is also a Latinization..."

How can this be since St.Nicholas Cathedral in Washington,DC, seat of Metropolitian Herman of the OCA, has 2 Divine Liturgies on Sunday morning and I also believe a "Liturgy of Anticipation" on Saturday evening??

Is it meant for our parishes to "follow our tradition" and die when the parishoners will refuse to follow what "others" want??

I know of people in my own church who do not come to Divine Liturgy because they have to work (they are both nurses on the late evening shift) and would gladly come to Divine Liturgy if we had one on Saturday evening.

Our church must learn to adapt to what the people want or it will very truely die!

mark

I am sorry, but adaptation "to what people want" is what has gotten us into the situation we are in now.

Dmitri

Slava na Vyeki!

Mark,

I don't know about this "Liturgy of Anticipation" but large Orthodox Cathedrals often have things such as Daily Divine Liturgy (same as monasteries) and sometimes the full cycle of the Holy Services.

Peace,
Brian

I was a member at St. Nicholas Cathedral in D.C. and attended for several years. They had an English and a Slavonic Divine Liturgy on Sunday morning. They had two priests, two altars, and two antimensia. Each priest served one Divine Liturgy only! In effect, there were two communities (US born and USSR/Russian born) using one building. This is not an ideal, but permissible under the conditions just described. I sang at both but communed at only one.

Saturday evening we had the All-night Vigil service which is Great vespers followed by a Litya followed by Matins. Don't confuse the bread, wheat, wine, and oil of the Litya with the eucharistic meal.

Evening liturgies, not prescribed by the rubrics, are specifically prohibited by the Synod of the OCA. Those prescribed in the rubrics are preparatory Vesperal Divine Liturgies: Eve of Theofany, Eve of the Nativity of the Lord, Holy Thursday, and Holy Saturday. These are not meant to replace the Divine Liturgies on the morning of Theofany or the Nativity! The Slavs, but not the Byzantines, also usually celebrate Annunciation vesperally, but on the 25th itself, not on the eve prior. This is only because the feast is during the Great Lenten fast. They would not do this on a Saturday or Sunday.

Vesperal Divine Liturgies are to begin after the reading of the 3rd, 6th, and 9th hours (9 AM, 12 Noon, and 3 PM respectively). Thus, one should be fasting from all food and drink from midnight till receiving the eucharist somewhere around 4:00 or 4:30 PM! And they want Vesperal Divine Liturgies all of the time?

Of course, what has sadly happened (in some Orthodox Catholic parishes)is the arrangement of convenience described in previous contributions to this forum. Part of the package is that the people are told to fast from "noon" until a Vesperal Divine Liturgy at 7:00 PM. Then, later, "noon" becomes "nnonday meal" and before you know it, folks are eating at 2:00 PM and communing at 7:00 PM. Does this sound like the practice of minimal fasting that we find in the Latin Rite? Imagine the arrogance of celebrating the feast when and how we want to instead of when and how His holy Church has instructed us through the millenia!

Lord save us from the slippery slope!

Mark,
Andrew answered this well but I would add, it is not just Eastern Catholics that suffer from Latinizations. After all, most Orthodox Churches in the USA have pews do they not?

Yes, if it comes to that, otherwise what will our churches become? That which we have been fighting against, certain people who I won't name will be correct when they call us Roman Catholics of the Byzantine Rite. If we want to be Byzantine Catholics, or as others have said Orthodox in communion with Rome, then we must restore our traditions.

Again, this is a Latinization and a call for education on our eastern traditions. It seems that if one does not get the Eucharist then one does not want to go to the Liturgy. This is wrong, our church has a very beautiful cycle of services that almost no one knows anything about.

To get a bit legalistic for you, for those who attend Divine Liturgy to "satisfy their Sunday Obligation" Saturday night Vespers would count.

That is, if they can not attend Sunday Divine Liturgy attendance at the Saturday night Vespers is enough but everyone should make an attempt to attend both Saturday night Vespers and Sunday Divine Liturgy.

You mean our church must become Roman or die.

I would say that we must teach what it means to be eastern and we will not die, yes there will be growing pains but in the end we will be stonger.

As Dmitri said, "I am sorry, but adaptation "to what people want" is what has gotten us into the situation we are in now."

I couldn't agree with him more on this point.

Your brother in Christ,
David

I hear a little too much "cut the baby in half". I will be sorry if it turns out that ritualistic purity trumps pastoral senstivity in this parish.

Dear Mark,
Metropolitan Basil is only changing the change that occured when latinization was at its' peak.
What the faithful need is only to be instructed before changing the change begins. Most of the Byzantine Catholics need to read more, and I'm no exception. I've learned a lot from reading and also from this Forum. Once the people get to know our traditions more deeply they will for sure want to get back to the traditions that we have inherited from our ancestors, be they Ukrainians, Rusyns, or whatever.
Lauro

Questions:

1) When did the practice of more than a single liturgy on Sunday originate in our BC church?

2) When did the practice of an anticipated liturgy on Saturday evening begin?

I am not sure about the answers, but am pretty sure it was not contemporaneous with peak of Latinization.

To best realize the wisdom of one Liturgy for a parish is to reflect on what a local church is, a group of like belivers who worship together and support each other in the living out of the Gospel. When there are multiple Liturgies and particularly on different days (i.e. Saturdays) what develops is multiple "parishes" within one local church. People from one Liturgy do not know those from another. Social functions have limited attendance and baptism/chrismation/eucharist celbrations as well as funerals have attendance only by those who attend the same Liturgy. Rules that prohibit multiple Liturgies and particularly Saturday anticipatory Liturgies are not simply for the sake of ritualism but for the preservation of the parish as a single, united body of Christ.
Multiple Liturgies are more convenient but a single Liturgy unites the members and in the long run builds the parish.

Dear Joseph,
Your point on the wisdom of the rules against multiple liturgies is of course, well taken. From Mark's post, however, it is difficult to tell whether , in that single, LARGE parish, multiple liturgies represent a convenience or a necessity.

If the goal of the prohibition is to advance parish unity, but in a particular situation, the consequence is the opposite, then what? Perhaps a little economy?

Dear Brother Joseph,

The truth of your wise words rings out for me when I compare the multi-liturgical tradition of my former parish with the "One Sunday, one Liturgy" tradition of my new one.

In the former, it seemed that several groupings of people existed under one roof, arranged around their respective liturgies.

In the latter, everyone is one parish family. Everyone moves together to go to the hall for coffee and fellowship afterwards. Everyone knows one another.

There were people I thought I knew in the other parish - and I didn't really.

Alex

GLORY TO JESUS CHRIST!
GLORY TO HIM FOREVER!

I can understand the "one altar, one Liturgy" when you were in a village in the Carpathians were there were only 200 people in the village.

When you belong to a parish were there are over 200 families...families not people, this is another story...

If "Liturgical tradition" is going to drive our people to another church, I'm all for stopping it in tracks!

the least servant
mark