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I have heard or read somewhere that there is an ancient Cathedral Rite of the Byzantine Rite. Does anyone know what it entailed, how it differs from the modern, more monastic Byzantine rite?

The Cathedral rite is essentially the ritual performed when a bishop is the principal celebrant. The 'variations' involve vesting, and also the various duties of the priests, and primarily the deacons. (For the Patriarch, the ritual was of necessity more complex.) There are special books for these celebrations and 'proto-deacons' to handle the traffic.

There are both Cathedral and monastic elements in our current parochial celebrations. While the basic text of the Liturgy remains the same, the liturgicon for the episcopal celebration has a lot more in it, i.e., crown on, crown off, dikiri/trikiri blessings, moving the rug, deacon posse heads East, heads West, etc. The Latin church also has special books for episcopal celebrations, but if memory serves, they are nowhere near as complicated as Byzantine rubrics. (Guess that's one other reason why the term "Byzantine" got that other meaning!!)

Christ is Risen!!!

Glory to Jesus Christ!

The Cathedral Rite of Byzantium officially ceased to exist with the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Turks. As Dr. John said, elements of the Rite continue to exist in the Hierarchal and Patriachal services of the Byzantine Churches today.

The Byzantine cathedral Rite was also the rite of the Byzantine Churches that were not under monastic control. The more penitiential rite of the Monastery became the norm after the fall of Byzantium and was the safe haven for preserving Byzantine Orthodox worship against innovation and change.

Byzantine historians note that the Cathedral Rite was more cermemonial, tied more closely to Imperial pomp and ceremony than the monastic rite. The easiest way to describe it was that it was more "Theatrical".

The easiest to see the differences would be during the Holy Week Services--- the readings were done by Clerics (Deacons, Deaconesses, Subdeacons, and Readers)in a manner more akin to the classic Greek Theater than the services as we do them now. The best example would be the "Lamentations Service" in which differing clerics, men and women took the roles sung during the three great hymns of the lamentations.

Historians note that in the Cathedral Rite there were many more hymns that were sung during the services than are done today in the same services---these have been eliminated in an attempt to make the services more "solemn" and less legnthy.

On Pascha, at the Hagia Sophia, the Ressurrection service included the use of a full figured cloth bearing the image of Christ (the shroud of Turin? perhaps) that would arise form a stone sepulchre as the Resurrection story was sung to great aclaimations of Christos Anesti!!! This practice stopped after the Latin Intereggnum following the sack of Constantinople---it was never restarted as the cloth relic that was used was no longer there.

From what I have read , the Cathedral Rite was basically just a non-monastic form of services that were geared to imperial ceremonial needs and the married laity worship needs rather than the celibate repentance of the monastics. The worship seems to have entailed a greater use of relics in the actual performance of the services. The use of hymns to be sung by the "heavenly choirs" of Hagia Sophia and other cathedral churches during the services was more extensive and are alluded to in current Byzantine practice but have been limited or abandoned in the monastic rite we currently use. It is sad that St, Romanos the Melodist is said to have written thousands of hymns yet we no longer use hundreds of them, today---not to mention the loss of numerous other hymnographer's hymns.

Would the restoration of the Cathedral Rite be appropriate for today? I do not know; I fear that attempts at its restoration could lead to confusion, innovationism and schism as did Vatican II.

Your brother in Christ,
Thomas

[ 04-02-2002: Message edited by: Thomas ]

Adam - the Cathedral "Rite" is not really a separate rite but rather a development of liturgical usages which became prominent in "secular" (non-monastic) churches. The distinction between "cathedral" and "monastic" liturgical usages was most prominently described by the renowned German liturgiologist Anton Baumstark who passed away in 1948 and was a founder of the school of comparative liturgy. Juan Mateos, S.J., the great liturgiologist of the Byzantine Liturgy, further divides the liturgical usages into "cathedral", "Egyptian-monstic" and "urban monastic". These are not chronological developments but rather parallel develoments of three distinct types of liturgical usages.

The term "cathedral" of course is used because the bishop's church in the Patristic times was (and still should be) the center of the liturgical life of his eparchy. Actually compared to the monastic usages, the cathedral had limited psalmody instead of the continous psalmody practiced through the monastic usage. The psalms were selected according to their suitability to the hour or office rather than a continous recitation as divided amongst the kathismata. Also there were more hymns, antiphons, and responsories in the cathedral usage. The symbols and ceremonies (use of light, processions, incense, etc.) was more accentuated and elaborate than the monastic usage, and a greater diversity of ministries (bishop, presbyters, deacons, subdeacons, readers, etc.) was present.

If you want a more in-depth study in this area I would highly recommend Archimandrite Robert Taft's works as well as Mateos. Hope to see you at St. Joseph's soon, hope you had a glorious Pascha.
Christos Voskres!
Subdeacon Randolph Brown, a sinner

!Cristo ha resucitado!

akemner,

I would recommend the following for the development of the Liturgy from "cathedral" and "monastic" rites:


The Byzantine Rite: A short history, Robert Taft, Liturgical Press;
Two Ways of Praying, Paul F. Bradshaw, Abingdon Press;
Evening Worship in the Orthodox Church, Nicholas Uspensky, St. Vladimir's Seminary Press;The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West, Robert Taft, Liturgical Press.

Actually, the monastic influence upon the cathedral rite began with the Victory of Orthodoxy after the iconoclast controversy in the 9th century.

Each has an extensive bibliography for further reading. Hope this helps.

[ 04-04-2002: Message edited by: bisantino ]

The madcap "magyar" Diak is of course correct in his post. (I work sorta-kinda with a Magyar named Dyak, based in Hollywood! You made me think of him with your post.)

There is a lot of scholarship that shows that there are a lot of distinct traditions that developed simultaneously in the Byzantine East, whether in metropolitan areas, rural areas and in monasteries/convents. Juan Mateos, SJ gave a whole series of lectures at the Melkite seminary in Methuen, Mass in the late 60s (many of which were translated from the French by a local deacon). He also offered a course (which I attended) at Boston College in the 70s. He oftentimes began his lectures by saying "We Africans...." since he was born in either Morocco or Tunisia. SCARED the daylights out of the local Boston boys!!!

As an erstwhile "victim" of Byzantine scholarship classes, I would heartily recommend ANYTHING by Fr. Taft (a Rhode Island boy, become Jesuit, and one of the nicest men you could ever meet) or by Juan Mateos, also a Jesuit scholar.

Christ is Risen!!!!